by Mick Norman
Throwing his radio on the floor, Dolan walked across and stood by Gerry. The Angel’s President wasn’t much above average height, yet the singer was several inches shorter.
‘I don’t give a flying monkey about that. All I tell you is that Rick and his boys would eat you alive.’
Rupert saw a chance to pour some of his unguent on the warming waters, and slipped in between the two men. He put an arm round a shoulder of each, and grinned confidently.
Well, treble money!
‘Now, fellows. Come on. Freddie, I just ask you to believe that these boys are the very best I can get. It’s them or the whole tour’s off. Right? So, we can’t get your friends over here in time for a tour that starts in just two days. Now, can we?’
Dolan shook his head angrily, and pulled away from Rupert’s hold. ‘For Christ’s sake! This isn’t the fucking Stone Age. Maybe they can’t be here for the start, but the London gigs are going to be the tough ones. Right? So, I cable Rick now to come over here and get the lead out of his ass. He can be here with, say, fifteen brothers and their hogs by about the third.’
Behind Freddie’s back, Gerry saw Donegan make a hand signal to Rupert, and the two men edged over to the far side of the room. Gerry was left grinning into space, three inches from the top of the head of one of the greatest rock stars in the world. The conversation, whatever it was about, took only a minute. Then, Albert came back, all beaming bonhomie and pep pills.
‘Freddie, my little jean-creamer, Rupert and I have discussed your suggestion, and we think it may be workable. Gerry will run the security on the first shows on his own – well, with his boys. Then, when your amigos show up, they can split the job with Gerry. Say, fifteen of each chapter. Chapter? Is that the right word? How does that sound?’
Gerry grinned at the promoter. ‘Fine. But it’s going to cost you double.’
There was a muffled grunting, as though a pig had choked on a turnip top. Donegan turned red in the face, and Rupert had to bang him on the back to try and clear his breath.
‘Double! Double!! Double!!! You little schmuck! You cock-sucking limey bastard! Nobody screws me around like that. We’re talking about taking work away from you and splitting the risk.’
Helping himself to another cup of coffee, Gerry waved a finger at the raging man. ‘Temper, temper. That won’t help anything. You’re talking about halving the job. Fine. But, we’ve also been talking about how you have no chance on this earth of finding anyone else to smile and run your show. Not till these American Angels arrive. So, what do you do? You pay the price. All of us have paid our dues, love. Now it’s your turn. Supply and demand. How far do you think this pimply streak of shit would get with nobody to save him from the little girls’ knives? Eh? And, Rupert; I’m ashamed of you. You’ve forgotten what it’s like dealing with me. Tell you what. You agree – in writing – there’ll be no mention of two gangs of rival Angels trying to prove who’s top, and we’ll do it for the flat fee. Otherwise, double, What’s it to be?’
Donegan laughed flatly. ‘I tell you right out, sir, I’m a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk.’
Gerry looked puzzled. ‘I’m sure I’ve heard those lines before. Funny. Never mind. Go on.’
‘Very well. Double. We’ll see you in Birmingham at nine-thirty sharp on the morning of the first March. Rupert will give you all the details of who’s appearing. Oh, it includes Warsun, but they can’t make it.’
Gerry nodded. ‘Two groups, is plenty to look after. Specially with superstar here,’ pointing to Freddie Dolan who was back with his radio pressed to his ear, ‘camping all over the place like a tart in a tantrum.’
Rupert took his arm and showed him to the door of the suite. ‘Cool it, will you, sweetheart? Just for me. I’ll see you’re all right for the money. You do trust me, don’t you? I mean there’s no money problems. The tickets go on sale in about half an hour and they’ll sell in minutes.’
Gerry turned in the corridor. ‘Yeah, of course I trust you, Rupert. If you rat on us, I’ll personally nail both your knees to the floor. See you in Brum.’
The tickets for all the concerts went as Rupert had predicted. The Sundance, despite the last disaster, had been chosen as the venue for the last show of the new tour – on the seventh.
In a pub nearby, a group of Skulls were drinking happily, flashing the tickets they’d just obtained by waving knives at some young girls who’d been queuing for three days and nights. The leader of them strolled to the bar and ordered another round of vodkas. While he waited he unconsciously fingered his ear.
And his earring.
Eight – About Some Useless Information
Publicity Notes for the Projected Rock Tour.
Dates and further information available from Rupert Colt at the address and number below.
NOTE: We regret that Warsun will not now be available for this package. No replacement will be used. The two other groups will play longer gigs.
We acknowledge the source material used here from ‘Rockary’ by Harvey Barton, published by Ortyx Press, 198-.
WARSUN/Ben Sidla (lead vocal and tambourine); Kes Murel (clarinet); Crisp Reece (organ); Jon Rennur (drums); Henrietta Slib (moog). Previous members: Nical Peters (bass); Jim Colvin (vocal and guitar); Ed Bradbury (drums).
WARSUN were one of the English groups who succeeded in cashing in on the mystic-rock revival in the late seventies. Their musical style was not unlike the earlier combo, ‘Hawkwind’. They had a big Transatlantic smash with the title track of their first album – ‘Flowers of Madnof’ – which reached second place in British charts and third in the ‘Billboard’ hundred. The science fiction writer, Mike Dempsey, produced some of their best material in the earlier months, but his involvement in the film world and tragically premature death from cancer has affected their songs. They have also been plagued by personnel changes. Once they can settle down, they should produce some better tracks and make a more consistent impact.
NOTE: Page three gave details of WARSUN’s albums and single releases. This has been removed.
FOOLSGOLD/Jak Whiteson (vocal and guitar); Pete Greane (vocal and guitar); Thom Wilder (vocal and guitar); Chris Kenyon (organ); Little Tommy Bowdesire (vocal and drums); Al Durer (vocal).
FOOLSGOLD are one of the newest and very, very biggest sensations around the pop/rock scene. Almost singlehanded they have built up the phenomenon known as the ‘‘middies’. Middle-aged women go into orgasmic ecstasies at the sight of this extremely young group of boys performing. Underwear is often thrown on the stage by these women; psychiatrists suspect that there is often a strong mother-fixation involved. Mob scenes at the concerts of Foolsgold are believed to be worse than any with other contemporary group.
The boys, none of them older than fifteen, met at the Chester Goldsmith Seminary in Des Moines, Iowa, where their music teacher introduced them to the music of the legendary Blind Boy Grant. Black blues inspired them to learn their instruments and start playing at junior proms. Record producer, Albert Donegan, happened to be visiting the College and signed them on the spot.
Each of their singles has scaled the topmost peaks of the charts, and they currently have all three of their albums in the top ten on both sides of the Atlantic. As long as the cult of the middies lasts, Foolsgold will also last.
ALBUMS/ ‘Foolsgold Now’ – Love Is Strange; Fools In Love; Good-bye To Love; True Love Is Forever; Poor Little Love; You’re So Loving; Love Is Sweeter Than Gandy; Mother Love; No Baby Love For Me; Teach Me About Love.
‘Foolsgold Country’ – I Walk The Line; Don’t Take Your Love To Town; Long Black Veil: Nothing Was Delivered; The Night They Drove My Lover Down; Jackson: Dutchman’s Gold; Two Little Boys; Lightning Express; Put My Little Shoes Away; Barbara Allen; It Doesn’t Matter Anymore.
‘Foolsgold Glitters’ – Walk On The Wild Side; Big Man; Diana; Bom Too Late; Bridge Over Troubled Water; Leave, Love, Live; Rave On; Every Day; In Praise Of Older Lovers; Go Now; So Long, Mama; We�
�ve Gotta Get Out Of This Place.
SINGLES/ Fools In Love; Poor Little Love; Mother Love; Put My Little Shoes Away; Diana; Every Day; In Praise Of Older Lovers.
CENTRAL HEATING/Freddie Dolan (guitar and vocal); Hal Marx (guitar and vocal); Jim Lawrence (guitar and vocal); Matt David (Drums, moog and vocal).
This foursome from wind-washed Wisconsin erupted, or maybe vomited would be a better word, on to the stage about the same time the lovable ‘Foolsgold’ came into prominence. It just wouldn’t be possible to imagine two more disparate groups. Where the young boys wear clean white – admittedly rather tight trousered – suits and sing light little ditties about love lost and love found, this four-some of old men (their average age is over thirty) sing songs about how screwing can give you the clap.
Mick Houghton described them as ‘musical excrement’, and he’s not wrong. They have a devastating stage act that sends the young girls who make up most of their fans, screaming into hysteric frenzies. They are as big and dirty as anything around, and their lyrics go with the looks. The name ‘Central Heating’ has a certain erotic ambiguity that is no accident.
Noel Coward had a nice song filled with advice for Mrs, Worthington. I would say: Don’t even let your daughter anywhere near the stage, Mrs. Worthington. Not when Central Heating is anywhere around.
They have roots back to Frank Zappa, and the Fugs, but the sound is way ahead of anything else. So are the lyrics, which are all written by the same man. Tall, thin, young, Adrian Moore. I wake up screaming in the night when I think about what he must have inside his head.
With long songs, full of sexual depravity, half-whispered and half-sung, Central Heating may go on for a long time. I hope not.
ALBUMS/ ‘Central Heating’ – Little Liz Is The Biggest Turn-on I Know; Take It Out And Use It; My Tongue Can Creep In Anywhere; I’ll Untie You If You Let Me. ‘Central Heating – Meat Injection’: Sixty-nine Ways; Did You Ever Meet A More Cunning Linguist Than Me; Meat Injection; Wild Thing; Fumble And Squeeze; Let Me Press Your Button, Baby.
‘Central Heating – Rape Is Inevitable’: Down On Me; Let Me; He’ll Be Along Later; Your Mother’s Not Going To Get It; I’m Not Superstitious.
SINGLES/ Little Liz Is The Biggest Turn-on; Meat Injection; Wild Thing; Down On Me.
A separate hand-out is available on the security angles for this most dangerous of rock tours.
Nine – On A Tour Of One-Night Stands
Birmingham. The second city. In the fifties it was a true stronghold of all that was best about Victorian commercialism. Then the developers came along and ripped out the heart and the guts of the city. All the old sturdy red mansions of insurance and banking were torn down. Old roads vanished and familiar shopping areas disappeared from the face of the planet.
What came in their place? Roads. Just roads? Well, there were some shopping centres designed for the cave-dweller or the intrepid hermit. And some concrete blocks that were dirty before they were even a year old.
But, mainly there were roads. Cars ran everywhere, like mindless lemmings, speeding across and through and over and under. Gradually, people stopped coming into the very centre even for shopping. Shame, really.
Nice Pre-Raphaelite Art Gallery and one or two interesting shops. But, not at the centre. Mainly little places, for the specialist. The best record shop in Britain – the Diskery. And a combined head books and health food shop right at the top end of Corporation Street. The end that has still resisted planners’ blight.
And a big new concert hall. Out to the north, near Perry Barr. A place that visiting orchestras came to; where poets read their works, and important political speeches were given. And rock groups came and did their own particular thing.
The Angels rode north from London in the early morning, when the sun crept unwillingly over the tops of the eastern trees, and morning seemed a long time a’coming. The hogs thundered through the misty stillness, mamas and old ladies clinging sleepily to denimed backs.
As they went past the Watford Gap, over the smoke stains and rubber burns, and patches of sand still on the hard shoulder where blood had been soaked up, Forty – Cochise’s generously endowed old lady – let drop three single, long-stemmed, crimson roses.
Round the M6 into Birmingham as the rush-hour traffic was building to its shrill crescendo, and up on to the Walsall Road into the city. They reached the concert hall, angular and brooding, just before nine o’clock. Two police cars had picked them up – one at Spaghetti Junction and one at the Scott Arms junction – and followed them at a cautious distance to the hall.
Gradually, one by one, the brothers switched off the powerful engines, letting the distant sound of arterial traffic slowly filter through. Ignoring the fuzz, several of the Angels strolled across to a wall, right by the cars, and unzipped themselves. The urine steamed in the cool air as it splashed on the bricks, and ran in an amber stream across the car park.
Riddler, one of the old Last Heroes, seized the chance to show a bit of class by walking to the side of the nearer car. Grinning amiably in at the two policemen, and urinating all over their front wheel.
The driver of the car was out in a flash (to coin a phrase) and started round with his hand hanging over the holster of the revolver that all motorway police now carried. Riddler stepped back a pace and one hand groped at the back of his belt, where he carried a short-handled axe tucked down his jeans.
At his side, Hanger John let his favourite weapon slide down into his hand, from up the sleeve of his jacket. A coat hanger, made of wire, twisted and sharpened until it formed a lethal weapon.
The potentially explosive tableau froze when another police car – a big White Jaguar – sprayed gravel as it dug on to the car park. Riddler, Hanger John, and the rest of the Angels froze. The policeman stopped half-way round his squad car and suddenly leaped to attention.
A tall man in a smart burgundy velvet suit got out of the Jaguar and strode up to where Gerry stood. He put out his hand and shook vigorously with the inner circle of Angels, acknowledging them all by name.
It was the same officer who had nearly succeeded in taming two chapters of Angels in the affair of the ‘Daily Leader’. The failure had not been his, but had resulted from crass stupidity on the part of the paper’s owners. They had paid with their lives, and he had been cleared at the official inquiry. Then he had been Chief Superintendent Israel Pitman Penn.
Now he was Assistant Chief Constable Israel Pitman Penn.
‘Hello, lads. Nice to see you all again. I bet you’re a bit surprised to see me here again, eh?’
Gerry replied: ‘Glad to hear you’re moving up in the world. Like the suit, too. Very sharp. Don’t let it all go to your head, though, will you?’
The policeman smiled. With his mouth. ‘I’ll try not to, son. With you lot around, it won’t be easy.’
Sidling round the fringes of the group, as usual, Rat added his contribution to the conversation. ‘Shouldn’t talk to us like that, now. Like, now we’re members of a legally-appointed security organisation.’
The smile wavered, but Penn managed to keep it pegged in place. ‘Not for the want of my trying to get it stopped, lad. This is my patch, and because the first of these happenings takes place here, I get lumbered with security liaison for the whole damned tour! So, we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other for the next seven days. Gerry, I think you and I might get together for a cup of coffee after we’ve both had a chance to look out all the angles for this particular show. Right?’
‘Right, Chief Superintendent.’
‘Wrong, lad. Assistant Chief Constable now.’
Penn marched towards the theatre with a squad of his men. Dick the Hat began to whistle the theme music from “Bridge On The River Kwai”. Sometimes known more familiarly as “Hitler Had Only Got One Ball”. The rest of the chapter took it up, fitting the metre to the marching of the police. One of the sergeants tried to break out of step, but tripped inelegantly over his own feet. There was laughter.
Inside, the theatre had all the warmth and charm of a deserted public lavatory. Together, the, police and Angels toured the entire building, sussing out likely trouble spots, and planning where danger was most likely to come. Under the Public Order Acts, Penn was unable to have men stationed within the theatre, but it was something of a relief to Gerry to know that there would be an unprecedented number of police outside, ringing the place.
‘Nobody gets in without a ticket, and nobody gets in without, at least, a flash search by police men and women. And, we’ll keep things cool outside. All you’ve got to do, my old son, is look after the valuable superstars inside. Got any ideas about that?’
Gerry grinned at the Assistant Chief Constable. ‘Now, now, Israel. If I had and I told you, then you might not like them, and you might feel that you should do something to try and stop it. So, let’s say I’ve got an idea or two, but I want to talk them over with the brothers first. Right?’
While the talks and the planning went on, one or two of the Angels had slipped away to get on with their own thing. Or things.
One of the results the city had achieved with its superb concert hall, was to cater for the class system. It was possible for the rich to rent boxes for a whole year, for an exorbitant price. The nearer to the Royal Box, and the centre of the action, the dearer it was. But, the Royal Box suite was sacred. It wasn’t for Lord Mayors, or Dukes, or even for visiting Heads of State. By an overwhelming vote, the Council had agreed that it should be retained solely for the use of members of the Royal Family. That meant if you weren’t a Prince or a Princess, then forget it!
Mick Moore had eased away from the main tour of inspection, taking with him his old lady, Modesty. Together, they had followed the discreet arrows that pointed the way to the Royal Box, until they came to a narrow corridor, guarded by a vast constable.
