Lee Brilleaux

by Zoe Howe

  The festival bill also featured Procol Harum, Tangerine Dream and John Martyn among others, but, as the ever adoring NME surmised, the ‘best local group in the world’ was about to sweep in.

  Anticipation for the Feelgoods was building and, shortly before Lee, clad in trademark sullied white, prepared to walk up to the stage, a fracas broke out. The Hell’s Angels had come down to the festival in force, having ‘taken the festival over as “security”,’ remembers Geoff. ‘Very scary. They had bats and stuff, as if it was going to be some kind of war. We were a bit worried, it felt like there could be violence.’

  The horrific scenes at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival in 1969 were still fresh in people’s minds, and at one point, it was not out of the question that something disastrous might occur at Orange. Twenty drunken, overheated Angels suddenly crashed the backstage area armed with cudgels. ‘Brilleaux and Fenwick watch from their caravan door with narrowed eyes, Oil City natural reactions hovering on the brink. No need. The clowns are ejected. On goes the Doctor. The Doctor crunches the crowd,’ writes Tyler.

  Their natural cool was underlined by the fact that they apparently refused to come back for an encore after a set that had everyone on their feet, dancing. They’d had their wicked way with the crowd like a gang of rapacious highwaymen, torn and thrust their way through the Wilko compositions du jour and covers such as ‘Riot’, ‘Route 66’ and an obscene ‘I’m A Hog For You Baby’, with its brazenly long two-note, back-and-forth guitar solo (a kind of musical metaphor for the Feelgoods’ staying power in the sack), Brilleaux molesting the drums, the floor, the mic, his beer and any other inanimate object that happened to be in his sightline. And then they disappeared into the fading light – and no amount of begging would bring them back. In actual fact, the Feelgoods were more than happy to perform an encore but, as Lee remembered, ‘the organisers prevented us. They claimed there were sound problems. I think they were afraid of what we could do.’

  Shortly after Orange, the Feelgoods would play the Reading Festival – another defining moment. The bill included everyone from Hawkwind, Southend pals the Kursaal Flyers and their Naughty Rhythms comrades Kokomo to Caravan, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Yes, but, again, it would be the Feelgoods’ set that would prove one of the most memorable moments for many; their so-called simple, good-time music reaching further than ever before thanks to the diverse nature of the festival audience. This was the sound of the past being grabbed by a swift fist and flung forcefully into the future. Cognitive dissonance at its most exhilarating. Melody Maker declared Dr Feelgood ‘the success of the day’. NME’s Charles Shaar Murray, meanwhile, was now mentioning the band in the same breath as The Who and Led Zeppelin in terms of their live prowess.

  One could be forgiven for thinking that, after these rapturous performances, the come-down might be a bit of a kicker, but for the Feelgoods, coming home from tour meant that another kind of party was about to start. The band, always organised, had ‘quite heavy riders’, Dean Kennedy remembers, and anything left over would be brought home and used to restock the Cluedo Club bar in the new Feelgood House (aka Feelgood House 2), a large 1930s building with a croquet lawn, plenty of rooms and a recording studio, built by Sparko, for the group to lay down demos.

  Lee now lived in his own little Canvey ‘shack’ on Rainbow Road, a house originally owned by his grandparents, and therefore filled with the nostalgia of boyhood visits to Canvey. Lee’s bachelor pad was a good place to be – there was always a warm welcome, some blues or the latest Derek and Clive album on the turntable, and ‘always a line of something “afore ye go”,’ remembers Pete Zear fondly. ‘All the things of the day, basically. You’d go round and if you had a problem you’d run it past him. He was always a bloke about whom you’d think, Yeah, I’m glad I know him.’ ‘He had a plastic 1960s bar there,’ adds Lew Lewis. ‘It was “Lee’s Club”.’

  However, Lee still spent considerable time at the new band HQ, particularly after inviting Mickey Jupp, temporarily without digs, to move in with him for a while. According to Zear, Jupp’s enthusiasm for fry-ups nearly drove Lee spare. ‘Talk about the odd couple,’ laughs Zear. ‘Jupp had loads of frying pans and Lee was, “Bloody hell, he’s got that frying pan on again.”’ There would be respite, of sorts, at Feelgood House, a place where drinks would be served in bounteous Feelgood measures, and, just like at Lee’s Club, the music never stopped.

  ‘Feelgood House was brilliant,’ continues Dean. ‘The bar was always full. If anyone came to town, like when Elvis Costello played locally, we’d invite him over. George Melly, Alison Moyet, Ed Hollis [Eddie and the Hot Rods] and his brother Mark [later of Talk Talk], Madness would come … although I don’t think they got in, because no one knew who they were. Higgsy from the Hot Rods. We’d get very drunk and play croquet at four in the morning with all the floodlights on. The neighbours thought we were mental.’

  The band would have reason to celebrate – by November 1975 Malpractice would be in the Top 20, their first release to chart. The promotional tour would start in October, and this run of dates would feature an appearance at Southend’s Kursaal which would be recorded, later turning up on the acclaimed live Stupidity LP in 1976 alongside tracks taped during appearances in Sheffield and at Aylesbury Friars earlier in 1975.

  The atmosphere of a Feelgood show was hard to capture, but a live album would come close and also ease the pressure on Wilko when it came to churning out new songs in an ever more hardcore climate of touring and gleeful – or not so gleeful – sleep deprivation. The Feelgoods were packing out houses during the Malpractice tour, one of which was London’s Hammersmith Odeon – ‘House Full And Raising The Roof For Dr Feelgood’ shouted the sign over the door as fans, friends and equally fervent members of the music press filed in.

  However, tonight would be ‘a weird one’, Charles Shaar Murray would report. He’d attended the opening night of the tour in Hemel Hempstead a few weeks earlier where the Feelgoods, dogged by technical issues, ‘struggled through on raging energy alone’. He’d also been present at the Guildford Civic Centre show – ‘not so much a killer set as downright genocidal’. But when it came to what should have been the crowning moment at Hammersmith, there was a problem – a big one – which led those present to speculate as to whether Lee and Wilko had had a fight before the show.

  It wouldn’t have been the first time. Fred Barker remembers discreetly standing outside the dressing room many a time, waiting for the pair to stop screaming at each other, but in this case, Wilko, already in a ‘bad state of health’, had got wasted beforehand, descended into full-blown panic and became faint when he suddenly became convinced that his ‘brain had vanished’.

  The show began with a noticeably hesitant performance from Wilko, and it soon became clear that the rest of the band were getting distracted. Once they’d reached the middle of the set, Wilko took off his guitar and fled.

  ‘Wilko just went absent for ten minutes. Just three of us left on stage,’ says Figure, adding, with his customary understatement: ‘What was it like? Well, it wasn’t very good! Suddenly there was this big hole in the sound and we turned around and Wilko has gone. He was all right after a little while and came back onstage, but the NME the following week came up with the line: “Doctor – heal thyself.”’

  Wilko explains: ‘I flipped. Everybody’s going, “What’s he … where’s he going?!” I was backstage thinking, what is this? This is a gig … it’s quite big. Who am I working with? I’d forgotten who I was. The sound was like it was echoing quite loudly and all the time, this confusion, I just didn’t know who I was, and I was wondering how on earth I’m getting through all these numbers. There’s a recording of it, and in fact, I’m not playing too bad at all!’

  As soon as Lee noticed they were a man down, he growled into the mic, ‘Our guitarist is taking a quick break. OK. “Train Blues”,’ and the remaining trio instantly went into a frantic, chugging 12-bar to cover the situation before Wilko reappeared, ‘gri
pping Brilleaux by the arm as if to reassure him’, writes Charles Shaar Murray, before continuing the show. The gig concluded with Wilko exiting stage right, the rest of the group stage left. The audience became hostile, prompting Lee to re-emerge and apologise to the crowd. ‘It was entirely my fault for being out of it,’ said Wilko.

  This case may have been particularly dramatic, but, as Chris Salewicz remembers, ‘Wilko was always walking off. He appears to storm off stage – in most cases he’s just forgotten something – but people loved it, regardless of what the band felt. The crowd think he’s throwing a wobbler. People get these reputations and it becomes part of the legend. It’s like Keith Richards turning up late in the 1970s, gigs starting three hours late because no one could find Keith. People would stand and wait because they thought it was part of Keith’s cool – it’s absolutely egregious dysfunctionalism, actually! But people liked it.’

  Fred Barker would be backstage to witness the fall-out. ‘Well, Lee was angry like anyone would be. He punched a speaker cabinet once, gave himself a bad hand. “Fuck it!” Bang. Better than hitting a person.’ Audience and music critics alike got off on the volatile nature of the Feelgoods, but the reality for the band could be exhausting.

  There’d be little opportunity for a break from each other, however; 1975 might have been about to call it a night but the Feelgoods were more in demand than ever. Even Lee’s white jacket could have done with a bit of time off, although this may have been wishful thinking on the part of the NME: ‘This jacket will not be appearing at Liverpool Stadium and Hammersmith Odeon’ announced the magazine, a huge picture of Lee’s slush-white jacket,25 the item recently and wittily proclaimed the NME’s ‘Sleeve of the Year’, emblazoned on the back page. There it hangs, defiant and crooked, thin of lapel, battle-worn and blackened, bearing the marks and scuffs of a hundred shows and never once having burdened a dry-cleaner. ‘On the other hand,’ continued the caption beneath the image, ‘Dr Feelgood and the Roogalator will.’ But no one had to read to the foot of the page to work out the connection. ‘Everybody knew whose suit it was,’ said Feelgood associate Larry Wallis. ‘Now that’s fame.’

  All the same, it was probably time to spruce up the wardrobe a little. Being, as they were, at the peak of their powers, the band had signed an American deal with the major label CBS, and the Feelgoods would travel to San Diego at the end of January 1976 to perform at the record company’s convention (trans. ‘jolly-up’), bringing their English take on American blues right back to the States.

  The Feelgoods would take their most trusted friends (including Nick Lowe, booked in under the name of ‘Dale Liberator, Equipment Handler’) with them on this potentially life-changing learning curve – and this would be the point at which they (with the exception of Wilko) really started drinking. America was lifting up its skirt to the Feelgoods and revealing, among other things, a free bar. It would have been rude to say no, and if there was one thing Brilleaux couldn’t stand, it was rudeness.

  Committed boozing would also galvanise these Brits abroad who would, by most, be treated as freaks, as Nick Lowe merrily recalled. In comparison to their slick US cousins, the Feelgoods and co. looked like ‘a bunch of terribly dressed losers – they were horrified by us, which made us feel great’. Lee was regarded as quite terrifying by some of the delegates. He, on the other hand, was just bemused by the cultural gulf. ‘I thought because Americans speak English they are English, except they live in another part of the world,’ Lee said. ‘[This] I found to be a mistake. We might as well have landed on Mars.’

  From Keith Morris’s Malpractice shoot, 1975. The band posed outside various Canvey establishments for the cover art, Canvey Island itself very much being part of the now irresistible Dr Feelgood appeal.Lee Brilleaux holds up a copy of Malpractice during a stop-off in Paris. The photograph is believed to have been taken by Jean-Yves Legras; this copy is kindly provided by Patrick Bataille.

  THE ROCK’N’ROLL GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO OPTIMUM ADVENTURING

  Any opportunity for adventuring must be taken. Always have a bag packed for when the mood (or obligation) takes you. Pack the essentials – toothbrush, maps, a good book or two, a flask of brandy, a radio on which you can pick up BBC World Service, a harmonica.

  Learn about the place you’re going to in advance so you have an idea of what you’d like to do and to avoid aimless wandering. (Although aimless wandering does have its place.)

  Take the train where possible; more time to stare out of the window, read and, lest we forget, there is generally a bar.

  No man or woman is a (Canvey) island. Talk to the locals. They’ll take you off the beaten track and introduce you to the best eateries. Maybe they’ll even cook for you themselves. Maybe they’ll even teach you how to make the local cuisine. Watch and learn.

  You can’t always go four-star when it comes to accommodation. Don’t be afraid of roughing it where necessary and, should your digs be unsatisfactory, remain dignified and polite until an alternative is found if possible. If an alternative is not possible, locate flask of brandy and escape into book.

  Keep abreast of what’s going on in the homeland while you’re away. Lee Brilleaux would spend ‘up to two or three pounds’ (adjust this according to rate of inflation) on an English newspaper while abroad. This, and his trusty ‘super radio’, kept him informed.

  9.SEALED WITH A KISS

  I’m a bit disappointed [with the luxurious Rivermont Hotel]. It’s too much like The Prisoner – it’s got sinister overtones. I wanted to spend my first nights in America in one of those places with a big neon Indian waggling a tomahawk over the roof of a teepee-styled motel. Now that would have impressed me.

  Lee Brilleaux to Cal Worthington, who documented the group’s US debut for ZigZag

  ‘We [had] a superb deal with CBS,’ said Lee. ‘We were on their A-list for promotion with an unlimited budget. They flew us to the West Coast for the convention. Roadies, mates, you name it, we could have it. Nothing was too much trouble.’

  The hedonistic and, for some, almost fatal, CBS convention would see a diverse roll-call of eminent artists performing to a collection of drunken sales reps brought down to San Diego on the label’s buck. Aware of the opportunity they’d been gifted, the Feelgoods at least tried to sit through the other artists’ sets during the convention, although some were easier to endure than others: Boz Scaggs performed, the Charlie Daniels Band and, of particular interest to the Feelgoods, the mighty Muddy Waters. (Wilko recalls himself and Lee completely forgetting their studied nonchalance and heartily applauding Muddy’s appearance.) Chick Corea, appearing with the jazz rock supergroup Return to Forever, on the other hand, were not their thing at all. Return to Forever played on the first night of the convention, and while the rest of the Feelgoods slunk off to do something more profitable with their time, Lee felt guilty and stuck it out as long as he could. Eventually making his excuses to the CBS executive nearby, he insisted it was nothing personal, and that he ‘wouldn’t be offended if Chick walked out’ during their set.

  Whether Chick witnessed them or not, Dr Feelgood would impress many and confuse most of those sufficiently compos mentis to take them in. Andrew Lauder remembers it was ‘a dry crowd, basically hard-bitten sales guys going, “What the hell’s this?” I think one bloke had a heart attack [not necessarily because of the Feelgoods], somebody fell off a balcony, somebody almost drowned in the hotel fountain. Usual things.’

  There would also be a bevy of hookers and enough booze and drugs to keep any hardcore sybarite feeling suitably sybaritic. It’s no wonder a majority of the guests found it hard to keep their attention on the music, even though that was, ostensibly, the reason everyone was there. Despite the distractions, Cal Worthington, who wrote about the Feelgoods’ trip for ZigZag, described people dancing on their chairs during the group’s appearance, and there was also speculation about Wilko’s psychotic demeanour; Feelgood comrade Martyn Smith could be heard ‘explaining’ to gawping record executives
that it was all down to ‘centuries of inbreeding on Canvey Island’.

  The twenty-five-minute set, featuring songs from Malpractice, was never going to be a typical Feelgood show, but after the group strode onstage, with thirty super-efficient Showco attendants at their beck and call, they had to then wait patiently for nearly a quarter of an hour as ‘the cat from CBS was making a speech about major breakout areas/ demographic sales surveys/promo campaigns …’

  As they waited, Lee noticed that his microphone lead had been taped down at the back of the stage – he preferred it to be taped down in front to ensure it didn’t become tangled during his frenzied performance. ‘I dispatch a Showco guy to fetch some tape,’ reported Worthington. ‘And as he rushes off, he knocks Lee’s slide guitar off its stand, breaking the neck clean off.’ Everyone froze, but Lee took his set list out of his pocket and with a pencil coolly scored through a handful of songs, muttering, ‘We’ll knock those ones on the ’ead, then.’

  John McEuen, guesting at the convention with the Michael Murphy band, saw the incident and offered to lend Lee his Stratocaster, but Lee politely declined for fear of destroying the guitar with his own frenetic playing. So there would be no ‘Back In The Night’ among others for the execs and reps present, but that didn’t seem to matter. The Feelgoods ‘tore the place apart’, said Worthington, and the mood would only become more celebratory as the night wore on. ‘To our great delight, we discovered a thing called Total Unlimited Credit,’ said Lee. ‘You could just go to the bar and order what you wanted.’