by Zoe Howe
‘Lee was always the first one up, last one to bed,’ remembers Geoff Shaw. ‘I’d be in the corner thinking, God, it’s five a.m., I want to go to bed and never wake up, and Lee’s turning the records up. His stamina was amazing. Sometimes we’d come back after a gig really late, but he just wanted to play music. It was a ritual: he’d make you smoke something and then he’d play you something you’d never heard, like Django Reinhardt. Back then, to even read about someone like Django, you’d have to go to a special shop or read a jazz magazine. He’d put it on really loud and just sit and snap his fingers, listening. He didn’t want the night to end, he just didn’t want it to end.’
Once Sparko had built the now notorious ‘Cluedo Club’ bar in Feelgood House, the partying really was 24/7, so when it came to hosting a bash for the great and the good in honour of Down By The Jetty, it was practically just another day at the Feelgoods’. They were single-minded when it came to what they felt would suit them best, and, again, UA had the guts to trust them. There’d certainly be no way they’d be poncing up to town for a civilised listening party; Down By The Jetty was a tangible statement of who they were, where they were from and what they were about. The Feelgoods might have had a handsome singer in his early twenties, but he was an unusual kind of ‘star’, being more excited by Thames barges and beer than limousines and cocktail olives. Forget the glitter of the contemporary glam movement, Lee Brilleaux was all sheepskin coats, scruffy hair, hard work and bad language. The launch would simply be an extension of the earthy, real Feelgood schtick. Which wasn’t even really a schtick.
All UA had to do was provide endless crates of tequila; whether this was a cheeky reference to the inclusion of ‘Tequila’ on the album, or simply because it had become a preferred tipple of Lee Brilleaux’s is uncertain, but either way they were soon ‘gargling the stuff by the pint’ according to Chris Fenwick. ‘There’s a Van Morrison song in which he sings, “The record company has paid out for the wine” [‘Saint Dominic’s Preview’]. That became the catchphrase.’ And so, under a grey January sky, Canvey Island played host to the Feelgoods’ first record launch, taxing many a liver and destroying more than a few brain cells in the process.
Hopped up on R&B (and the rest) and dropping the odd aitch in an attempt to fit in with their formidable yet convivial hosts, the music biz illuminati observed the Feelgoods in their lair as if on safari before finally staggering back to the city to file their reviews. The only criticism would be that, in the opinion of those who had experienced the sheer force of their live shows, the blood-and-guts excitement of a Feelgood performance could not be conveyed on vinyl – or at least it hadn’t been captured as yet. But, as NME’s Nick Kent put it, it still had the ability to ‘grab you by the lapels [screaming] out, “this is rock’n’roll.”’
‘[And] people who want a live Feelgood album will get one when the time is right,’ promised Brilleaux.
In an era of increasing aimlessness, the Feelgoods seemed to have the focus of a laser beam and a robust disregard for the zeitgeist. Even the Stones, who had originally hooked Lee into the blues, would be rejected by Lee (he wasn’t a fan of their latter predilection for producing ‘mawkish ballads’ such as ‘Angie’). Part of Brilleaux’s appeal was that there was something old-fashioned about him. He seemed to personify a return to the kinds of things his dad might have done, the kinds of things that 1960s kids would have actively avoided doing. He was in his own world, from the books he read to the movies he watched (Richard Attenborough’s 10 Rillington Place was a Feelgood favourite). While everyone else was looking at the stars, Lee, and the Feelgoods, were earthed, gruff and unpolished, and looking straight ahead. They knew what they wanted, and no trend was going to change that.
Lee would view the vagaries of the music industry with a keen sense of irony, but close friends noticed the temporary conflict he was going through as the Feelgoods stood on the brink of real fame. Lee would brood upon his new position and where it put him in the scheme of things, at least in the scheme of things on Canvey Island. The Feelgoods had sweated in a bid to achieve the dream of ‘giving up the day job’. Now, as with many working-class people made good, Lee was uneasy, not least because the better the Feelgoods did financially, the more they wanted to be generous, and, while the Feelgoods were undoubtedly Canvey’s golden boys, the mood was just starting to turn. The more rounds the Feelgoods bought at the Jellicoe, the more they’d be accused of being ‘flash bastards’. If they stopped, of course, they’d be ‘tight bastards’. These were problems they’d never had to consider before.
‘Early on, he was struggling with an identity problem,’ remembers Pete Zear, who had become close friends with Lee by this stage. ‘You know, “At night, I go out onstage and I’m Lee Brilleaux. In the day I’m feeling guilty thinking, I’m sitting here not going to work.”
‘I remember there was this one weekend Lee had been struggling with his demons and then he announced, “Right! From now on, I’m not going to snap back, I’m going to be like this all the time!” Good on you, mate, because that’s what you are. There’s the NME, you’re on the front page – that is who you are. You’re not a solicitor’s clerk.’
Joan Collinson on Lee ‘Angry Young Man’ Brilleaux
He wasn’t really an angry person. It was all an act. Seemed to go over all right, didn’t it? I really don’t understand any of it.
Jools Holland on the Physiognomy of Brilleaux
Lee had this great face, this amazing, very well-lived-in face. It was like a person from English history, but he could have been from all sorts of times; he could be an eighteenth-century highwayman, or a medieval baron, or he could have been a Dickensian villain.
Lee Brilleaux looking very much the lord of the manor at home on Canvey, watch-chain in place, bow-tie and waistcoat … Long live the Utterly Club.
‘Milk And Alcohol’ backstage pass, boasting Wilko’s infamous Dr Feelgood logo (which now graces many a Feelgood fan’s flesh in tattoo form.)
THE ROCK ’N’ ROLL GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO HUMAN INTERACTION
Find the humour in everything (where appropriate).
Embrace solitude. Even in places where other people are socialising, there is nothing wrong with taking time to observe the ‘human carnival’.
Be polite and generous: when people come in their droves to see you, it is natural to feel a little embarrassed. However, if you shy away from them, they’ll feel rejected. Instead, slip into another character if you have to (this is a useful technique in all sorts of situations), buy them a drink and have a chat.
If the above droves have indeed come to see you, but they are waving some sort of weaponry, have a homicidal glint in their eye or are just plain rude, it is perfectly acceptable to do one or both of the following:
1) Out-mad them in a bid to distract your potential assailants; or
2) use appropriate expletives to make your feelings known.
A rock’n’roll gentleman may certainly lead an unusual life, but he does not boast or monopolise the conversation. He is more interested in asking the people around him about their lives.
Retain a healthy sense of the absurd. Most people are pretty absurd so this will stand you in good stead.
Question the rules and, in particular, authority. There’s no need for people to be rude just because they’re wearing a uniform, a stupid hat or are holding a gun.
Parties are important. Have lots of them.
Know when to keep your trap shut.
Tourmates Dr Feelgood and Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers stop off for yet another roadside breakfast during the Naughty Rhythms Tour of 1975.
7.THE MAN IN THE DIRTY WHITE SUIT
Well, I ain’t never heard nothing like us before. Stop and think about it – neither have you.
Lee Brilleaux to Neil Spencer, NME
The year 1975 would be a hugely significant one for Dr Feelgood. They would release two albums, both of which would be held up as touchstones for the coming punk ge
neration,20 and an invasion of the continent beckoned (‘most every country outside the totalitarian state jobs’, as Lee reported). They would also make their first TV appearances, which would include waspish performances of ‘Roxette’, ‘Keep It Out Of Sight’ and ‘She Does It Right’ on The Old Grey Whistle Test and The Geordie Scene. What also helped to seal their fate was their inclusion on the evocatively titled Naughty Rhythms tour, which strode into the New Year, turned up the heat and promptly catapulted the Feelgoods out of the pubs and straight into the next league.
The tour featured mellow rock’n’rollers Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers21 and British soul band Kokomo. The three groups rotated the bill every night.
‘That was about a year after we signed [with] UA,’ Lee said in later years. ‘The record company did a very good job in the way they promoted us, and the wonderful thing was that there was already a street buzz going, so all they had to do was to point us in the right direction to maximise our effect. It wasn’t pure hype. In our case it was at least fifty per cent genuine, something I was quite proud of.’
This era was sadly not especially well documented in terms of live shows. The band’s hometown show that November at Southend’s Kursaal would be properly shot, and later released (Going Back Home), but further live footage is hard to find. All the same, anyone you speak to who was either involved directly or in the audience will tell you that this period, and the run-up to it, represented the group at their most electrifying.
‘I don’t think there are any really good films showing what it was like,’ says Sparko. ‘In those days, if you knew you were being filmed, the lighting would be a lot brighter, so you don’t get the benefit of the light show. It’d be white lights on almost all the time. And everyone’s thinking, God, they’re filming, I’d better not make a mistake. You don’t let yourself go so much.
‘Most of the live footage I’ve got, it’s all so fast. We couldn’t believe it when we used to listen to the tapes, it just sounded like someone had taken the speed control and turned it up. There were nights when we’d be there to play for an hour and we’d come off stage and they’d say, “You’ve only done forty-five minutes.” We’d be looking at the set list – we’d played them all, just too fast. Adrenaline. And substances.’
In the middle of the tour, the Feelgoods would break off to film their first TV appearances, and they would find that the resulting exposure instantly ‘doubled, trebled our door at gigs – stupid,’ remarked Lee to Neil Spencer, adding, ‘I thought [Whistle Test] had a touch of class, meself.’ And whether he was spoofing Bob Harris and the all-round middle-class air of the programme or not, well, one couldn’t possibly confirm, but when Brilleaux announces ‘She Does It Right’ he does it in a noticeably plummy accent (look up ‘Dr Feelgood Complete OGWT’ on YouTube).
The experience of playing their music in a television studio was, of course, unnatural, especially as there was no response after their performances on the Whistle Test – there was no one there to respond apart from the camera crew, and they were a little busy themselves. But when the Feelgoods appeared on The Geordie Scene, Brilleaux was disconcerted that, while there at least was a studio audience this time, it was largely made up of ‘nine-year-old girls!’ he exclaimed. ‘I thought, I can’t do this act in front of these girls, it’s evil, there ought to be a law against it … I mean, I’m not that much of a pervert.’
Former Feelgood roadie Neil Biscoe first came across the band while working on the Naughty Rhythms London show at the Rainbow, Finsbury Park, on 15 February 1975. Contrary to the Feelgoods’ usual bare bones show, some special effects, including pyrotechnics, had been hired in. It quickly became apparent that potentially dangerous lighting effects and the Feelgoods did not mix well.
‘They’d sub-contracted people from Britannia Row,’ Biscoe remembers. ‘Pink Floyd’s warehouse was there, they’d started renting out equipment. My job was on the side of the stage setting off the pyrotechnics – it was just about connecting a battery.
‘Nobody knew about Wilko’s [erratic movements] … we’d set up flash-pots at the front of the stage and I kept getting cues on the headphones to get ready to set off the pyrotechnics, but then Wilko would start moving. We nearly blew him up – we never used them in the end. It was just too unpredictable and he moved so quickly. It was like, “Ready, set, NO!” He was completely oblivious to how close he was to having his testicles blown off.’
The tour was an opportunity to introduce the Feelgoods on a national level, and no matter who was headlining on any one night, the Feelgoods stole every show. By the end of that heady month-long run, Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers were on the verge of splitting, Kokomo were heading out to the States and Dr Feelgood were, as Joe Strummer admiringly put it, ‘the kings’.22 From this point forth, the Feelgoods would headline their own tours.
Thanks to ‘Naughty Rhythms’ and the white-hot, pared-back might of Down By The Jetty, the Feelgood schedule was now rather lighter on pub gigs, with bookings at universities, civic halls, pavilions and Winter Gardens taking their place. Future Stiff Records boss and promoter Dave Robinson had wanted to book them for more shows at the Hope and Anchor in Islington, but it was clear that a move back to the pubs would be a move in the wrong direction. But apart from anything else, as Nick Kent observed, the pub rock groups who had been working themselves into the ground and ‘paying their dues’ throughout 1974 were now suffering health-wise (not that he was particularly a paragon of bonnie wellbeing himself). Chilli Willi guitarist Martin Stone was suffering from pleurisy, the drummer had malnutrition, and the Feelgoods were almost always down with the flu. For the Feelgoods’ part, this new era would not only feed and shelter them a little better, but release them from the ‘London stranglehold’.
Dr Feelgood would have about a month’s grace until their own tour – appropriately titled Speeding Through Europe – which would take them through to the summer with hardly any time off, traversing the UK, charging into France, shaking Scandinavia by the scruff of its neck and providing the entertainment at Led Zeppelin’s aftershow party at Earl’s Court at the request of Robert Plant himself (‘would have been bad manners to refuse,’ said Lee).23 They would also be spending a little more time in Amsterdam, just a few short years after their first visit, and they could fly straight from Southend and thus over Canvey. Sounds magazine accompanied them, recording the Feelgoods’ excited banter as they tried to pick out their houses: ‘Look, Wilko, there’s some bloke climbing out of your back window!’ ‘There’s Lee’s Jag!’ ‘What’s your old lady doing with all those geezers in the back garden?’
But before that, it was time to get back in the studio. They had some punchy new Wilko Johnson compositions honed by the road and ready to record (such as the moody shuffle ‘Back In The Night’ and ‘Going Back Home’, co-penned with Pirates guitarist Mick Green) as well as a mean selection of covers (including ‘Rolling And Tumbling’, which would feature Lee on characteristically forceful slide guitar, ‘I Can Tell’ and ‘Riot In Cell Block Number 9’). It’s symbolic of the Feelgoods’ focused, rapid-fire trajectory that they would release two seminal albums within ten months of each other, both records clocking in at no more than forty minutes long.
Rather than return to Rockfield, the band would split the recording of their second album between sessions at London’s historic Olympic Studios and Pye Studios, basically grabbing any time they could to lay down the tracks they’d selected. The record would be called Malpractice, and, in Lee’s words, it would be a ‘perfect continuation’ from Down By The Jetty. ‘I chose the title, a word used to describe an action contrary to the ethics of the medical profession.’
Malpractice suited Dr Feelgood’s demeanour, and they were now playing more on the ‘doctor’ metaphor. In addition to the inclusion of the Wilko Johnson song ‘You Shouldn’t Call The Doctor (If You Can’t Afford The Bills)’, the imagery on Malpractice put the group over as a sleazy gang of blacklisted medical practitioners who
’d inject you with something addictive as soon as look at you. Vic Maile was brought in to produce, with Doug Bennett engineering, although by now the group had some studio know-how, and were able to take more control.
As always, time in the studio would be kept to a minimum, Lee, in particular, becoming bored extremely quickly.24 The lifelessness of the studio literally gave him nothing back when he sang; without the response of the crowd to complete the crackling electrical circuit of performing live, it just didn’t make sense. So it was not for him the obsessive listening back of each song, the recording of take after take. ‘The problem isn’t composing, it’s just that there is no audience in the studio,’ Lee would explain. ‘We don’t want to create for the sake of creating, we want to produce energy and emotion.’
The Leiber and Stoller classic ‘Riot In Cell Block Number 9’ was a must for Malpractice. It had long been a key feature of the live Feelgood show, the intro of Figure’s menacing, swinging drum pattern punctuated by the classic five-note blues lick as Lee, standing at the foot of the drum riser between Sparko and Wilko, looking every inch the hard-case convict, stares ahead, lights a cigarette and waits an audaciously long time before commencing to sing.
During one performance of this song, the poet Hugo Williams noted Brilleaux performing ‘unchaste push-ups’ on stage, and later hurling his Guinness bottle with all of his might into the crowd during the ‘dynamite’ line. ‘In fact,’ reports Williams, ‘he let it slip out the back of his hand, but the effect was not lost upon his benumbed followers.’ Pure confidence and rock’n’roll theatre.
