by Tyla Pallas
-Bloody hell he said, It felt like something was on top of me. I didn’t say anything. Had I imagined it? I must have.
-Nah you must have been dreamin’
I got back into bed and turned of the light.
Round two, again still at the station of dreamland I rolled over and fell straight out of my bed onto the wooden floor. Steve’s up like a flash an on with the light shouts to me
As it got ya, as it got ya?
-Lets leave the lights on Tyla. Said Steve in his broad Middlesborough accent.
Although I knew the thought of it sounded ridiculous compared to some of the scrapes we’d been through in our treacherous rise to fortune and fame, I reluctantly agreed.
The next morning after the worst nights sleep I’d had (since we ate some blue cheese melted on toast somewhere in Bavaria a few weeks prior) we checked that were will still in possession of all our limbs, checked our necks for fang marks, lit a couple of Marlboros and vacated our room of the damned. Upon our exit, which meant walking along an outside balcony we noticed from our first floor view, what seemed to be the scattered remains of Several dead chickens, lots of feathers mainly white an splatters of blood, it looked quite frankly like the remains of some voodoo ritual. Very, very eerie. Of course we laughed and joked about it the next day, maybe even longer and then as with most things it was overtaken by something more interesting. Until that was till a few months after, I remember it quite clearly because it was the night a hurricane hit London and southern England. Also Steve had cut his hand open while attempting to jump a washing line in our hosts back garden, whilst under the influence of Mr. Jack Daniels and Mrs. Coke I had just finished scribbling down some rushed lyrics, for ‘Everything I want’ as we were to record it for a B side the very next day. The TV was on and I fell asleep on the floor in front of it, until I was awoken by the feeling of being smothered, I sat up a bit short of breath and looked for some reason towards the door which again led up a corridor to the front door, and again I saw the same bushy tale disappear into the darkness. Now I thought to myself, was I dreaming a dream I had dreamt, what the hell was going on? The strange thing was this was not my flat or Steve’s, and he was asleep in the spare room at the time, I went and bloody woke him up pronto!
-Was that you messing around? I said.
-No! ya fucker, are you messing around? Came his reply, except he was swearing more than me as I had woken him up from a rather better dream.
Only once after that did it happen and that was when I was sleeping in the same spare room and Steve was the other side of London, and again time has erased the spine chilling-ness of the moments, until again about five years later and now we are on tour in Europe and we find ourselves in northern Spain. We pulled over in a vain attempt to get some proper food. I was so fed up with not being able to get a good dish for weeks now, apart from pizza or pasta that I had gone into drool overload requiring my pallet to be seduced by, wait for it. Egg, chips and beans and some slices of buttered white bread. A mug of tea was optional but a good Rioja wouldn’t go a miss, as we were in the region. As I had no hopes of this dream coming true for several moons yet to come I opted to stay in the van and stretch out for a kip. Not five minutes into my slumber and I was awoken by Steve sliding back the vans side door.
-Tyla, Tyla! You’ll never guess what they are gonna cook us in ere! Shouted Steve, his Marlboro balancing on his bottom lip a la Andy Cap.
‘EGGS, CHIPS AND FUCKIN ‘BAKED BEANS! He was over joyed with enthusiasm.
- I’ll be right in, just puttin’ me boots on. I said to the dust trail
he left behind him.
I jumped out of the van and slid the self-locking door shut. It was dusk in the Spanish desert. I turned to walk to the wonderful greasy spoon oasis. Only one thing was blocking my path. We stood eye-to-eye about ten feet apart. A magnificent Wolf and me. For a moment we both froze. I thought back to the van, but knew that it was now locked, and I had no keys, they would be warmly dangling from little Ian’s chain, in the Hacienda. Suddenly a speeding truck came along the highway and sped past us in seconds and I swear the Wolf looked both ways before crossing the asphalt head down, shoulders high and that tail, that bloody bushy tale. He disappeared into the desert night.
And me I walked into the glow of friends, wine and egg, beans and chips.
We drank a toast to the lone Wolf.
Long may he roam.
I’ve never seen him since that day.
Thank Fuck!
In these wondrous days of the World Wide Web you can Google your own kitchen sink and find it has some deep dark secret. I did so for the meaning of Wolves and even wolf dreams, amongst other things it mentioned trust, money and selfdestructive tendencies. It mentioned things that you were afraid of in yourself. All very apt for that moment in time in my mental psych.
I spent a few years on and off around the Soho area of London. We would play the Marquee club in Wardour street, and also Gossips, which was a different club every night, we got to know the managers and the bouncers and the bar staff in most places so we or I would often wander from place to place in search of adventure, not realising I was the adventure walking around waiting to happen. Once passed out up an alley, Leroy a bouncer from Gossips told me he had over heard the following conversation on his way to work, involving myself and the men in blue. Plod inquired with regards to my pointy Chelsea boots.
- Do your feet go all the way to the end of your boots?
To which I replied.
- Nah, does your head go all the way to the top of your helmet? Before they had a chance to slap the bracelets on Pedro Mercedes, the DJ and promoter of the Pipeline club, run at Gossips on a Monday, rescued me. He even managed to get Johnny Thunders to play an acoustic gig one night, I remember, because it was the one night even I had to pay, the nerve.
- Do you know who I’m gonna be?
Other great underground clubs run from Gossips were, Gaz’s Rockin Blues (one of John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers’ sons) Once I met his other son while on tour in Japan when he worked for Smash corp, maybe he still does. Also The Batcave, run by Ollie Wisdom and John Klein from Specimen. Last I heard Ollie was running a rave in Borneo, or Vietnam or some jungle. John joined Siouxsie and the Banshees, played on my Gothic album, and a few gigs with me as the Hot Knives then he vanished and the last I heard he was playing only art galleries dressed entirely in Nazi regalia, as you do. ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was there, run by a guy I was once in a band with called Christian. (Him and a guy called Clive, who vaguely resembled Tim Rice in the Rocky Horror show had a band called the ‘Lollipop Sisters’, they had no songs but lots of ideas. I left in disgust after the 1st gig at the Kensington ‘Ad Lib’, dragging my Marshall stack, with no wheels on halfway across Holland park before a Black cab took pity on me, for £3. Dr and The Medics had a UK number 1 single with a cover of ‘Spirit in the sky’ so that snowballed the ‘A.I.W’ into being an ‘in’ place for quite a few years, Good on ‘em.
Reading Rick Wakeman’s book of tales (which I must say had me in stitches, I’d love to meet him), partly inspired me to write this book, though I have been telling tales for years my Mum said. Anyway while reading Mr. Wakeman’s said book (published by Hodder & Stoughton, I recall him mentioning a few times in Vol 2.) I remembered my dealings with the exmanager of ‘Yes’ - Brian Lane. It was while I was living in Los Angeles in the early 1990’s and at a bit of a loose end. I had moved there with the vague idea of conquering America and its surrounding Islands. All didn’t go to plan as once again we the band, had picked another bloody Turkey, or should I say pair of turkey’s for managers. I should have known though when one of the turkeys gave me a book titled:
Bob Ring - Peace, ‘All I Know About The Music Business’. A thick hardback, impressive, then you open the book and its allblank pages. He laughed, I laughed, we all laughed. Trouble was it was true. God knows how many years in the business and all he had on his office wall was a solitary silver David E
ssex single. For Fucks sake!
So I remember Brian Lane coming over to my gaff in the Hollywood hills, he only came once, as you had to climb over 88 steps to get to our house. The next meeting was in his hotel, The St James club which is on Sunset Strip opposite the world famous Riot house the Hyatt. The St James club looks like a mini Empire State Building. I went up to his suite. When I got there he was in the process of moving rooms because he told me he thought his room was haunted. The funny thing was he wanted the hotel staff to remove and replace everything in the room a few floors up, no mean feat. I went in the loo for a piddle and noticed a bloody great big skid mark down the bog. They’ll have a bit of trouble relocating that I thought.
Anyway he did all this talking - which I must say had it all come to fruition you may be reading a totally different book. He planned to get China records to spend a hell of lot of dosh making and promoting our new single. £90,000 was the figure I remember, as he said that was what was spent on the ‘Levellers’ last single. This would be our first for over 2 years. Our last couple hadn’t faired well and the whole music scene had changed once again in the early 1990’s. I think something went on between Deal- a -Day and the China Boss Derek Green cause I never heard from Brian again and a little thing called Grunge happened led by I guess Nirvana amongst others. I’m sure others will argue. Since then I guess the audiences and bands blended into one, not everyone but enough to make it all seem rather dull. I know that punk blended audience and bands, but they looked far cooler eh?
Few Rock stars, look like rock stars these days is al that I’m saying. In the two years I lived in LA I wrote many a tune, most of them ended up on a Dogs Album, ‘More Unchartered Heights Of Disgrace’ it actually should have read ‘Uncharted’ but I’d had a few when I drew the cover. And if the truth be known had we had good accountants as in Chartered, this would be a different story all together. But it aint, an there aint no use wondering what might have been and dwelling on the rights and wrongs, Its just life. Left, right or wrong turns its all part of the tapestry isn’t it?
Throughout my years I have on many occasions been mistaken or should I say recognised for someone other than who I am. In fact before I was anyone, as it was, we the Dogs used to rehearse and attempt recording in Bam’s basement opposite Hampton Court Palace, next to Mrs. Gingers Sweet shop. Unaware that anyone could hear our antics we would merrily play into the early hours. One night I was making a quick trip upstairs to the loo when I heard a knocking on the shop front door, I went to investigate and was met with a torrent of abuse from this middle class lady.
- My Dear Boy, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a ‘thighsand’ (sic.) times, this infernal racket must stop after eleven o’clock at night, for heaven’s sake it can be heard at the end of the lane. I thought she must be mistaking me for Bam, long hair, dressed in black, wearing makeup, smells of alcohol and cigarettes sort of thing. So I merely asked her out of interest,
- Do you know who I am?
Thinking she would reply of course, you’re young Maurice, David’s son, but to my surprise she simply replied with a look of slight astonishment and said,
- Oh I’m terribly sorry to disturb you.
Turned and disappeared off into the night.
Ok then we used to get the usual thing that most bands get while on tour and having to visit said establishments known as the service station. It’s a worldwide occurrence.
- Are you guys in a band?
- Are you guys famous?
-Anyone we’ve heard of?
Then with a slight look of disappointment they would inevitably answer,
- The Dogs de what?
They always turned out to or claimed they had never heard of us, but had our autographs anyway, mumbling as they shuffled off something about selling it in the future an making a fortune. Good luck missus! After a few years of this you end up having to develop, if you didn’t already have one, a sense of humour. I was born with one and happily retain it to this day. It was with this sense of humour I discovered that these said people had never heard of any band ever, cause once I said ‘The Rolling Stones’ and they still said never heard of you!
And so it went on over the years.
-Are you such and such?
I mean come on missus, do you really think, Wurzel Gummidge, Johnny Depp or Ozzy Osborne shop in Morrison’s on the Holloway road (North London) at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday morning?
Take for instance the time I was in Moscow circa 2004. Whilst walking through my hotel lobby I was set up on by some over eager fans, shouting, wait for it, ‘Elton John! I mean come on, Femme Nikita! I’m 6 foot plus in me platforms and bear little or no resemblance to the Ivory-tickling-multi-millionaire-ex shopaholic. I did however sign their bits of paper as Ben Elton and Ron. It also turned out that they weren’t even Russian fans, they were Italian. So I guess I can forgive them.
Another time whilst wetting my whistle in Edinburgh circa 1999 a young Scottish gentleman came up to me in a pub and said; -You Pal Yun?
- You what? I said
- Ar ye Pal Yun?
Turns out he was asking if I was Paul Young (Last seen cooking on the telly) Bemused by the situation I finished off my Guinness and purchased a Tammy chanter. A few months later whilst dining in Paris and was asked by a waiter if I was in fact Zucchero. I immediately bought a beret and stripy T-shirt that I then found myself in a sports bar in Nottingham watching Paul Young and Zucchero doing a bloody Duet on MTV!
Then the time Chris McCormack (3CR) had to vouch for me being me to get into Dingwalls, Camden town, London. As they had heard I was dead! All the time the only thing I could think was what’s that bloody smell of coconuts? Turned out it was the bloody singer of Bush being whisked past behind me straight in, no messin’, having just come off his holidays in Hawaii judging by his attire and skin complexion. That would account for the smell of coconuts. Bloody sun tan oil weren’t it!
On entering Canada a few years back.
-Are you famous? Asked the customs officer, who resembled Oprah Winfrey. Now I’m doin’ it!
-No. I replied
-Well you look famous. Stamped my passport and I was through. Three days later I was driven across the Canadian/US border by Johnny Bud and a pal and once again questioned by the Detroit Customs Officers.
-You boys ever been in trouble? They asked us.
To my amazement Johnny pipes up
-Yes!
Luckily it was over 20 years ago for stealing a pencil, not even in the US!
- I think we’ll let you off with that misdemeanor son! How about you boy, are you famous, I see you’re from England.
How he came to that assumption is beyond me, but never the less I replied.
- Nope, I’m just visiting to write a book on your wonderful country and its cultures.
- A writer eh? So you are famous! He stamped my passport and I was in. Good afternoon America! Detroit. It was bloody freezing, the sort of cold that gets in your bones.
More on that tour another time, it was an epic six months.
We were introduced to the two Ron’s by the Head of China Records. He has since apologized for a misjudgment of character.
-There are a lot of dodgy people in this business Tyla - and you seem to have had dealings with most of them! He once said. I should have had an inkling that it wasn’t gonna go according to plan upon our first meeting they called me Steve….. And so, The Dogs D’amour came to be managed by a couple of guys, known as the two Ron’s. At the time they used to annoy me, but looking back it would have made good comedy. Now lets see where shall I start. For openers, their management company was called Fone-Us-Back, which they never did, not original or unusual. Their secretary was a good guy, who by day dealt with their Creditors, and by night he became Nick Dagger in a Stones tribute. He told me a good ‘un once about how Ron had accidentally picked up the phone and was on the receiving end of someone he owed a few shillings too. Well not only did he manage to calm the call
er down and ensure him that he would have the cash they owed imminently - but somewhere along the line had cleverly managed to get the caller to advance even more wedge into the pot - ending the call with ‘See you at the boxing then Dave’’ Bosh! It was quite amazing really!
Ron and Ron used to have their desks positioned at each end of a rectangle office, you, the client/visitor/victim sat in the middle it was like watching a game of Tennis talking to them. You came out of the office not knowing who had said what! We parted on bad terms with them dipping into our fan club wedge saying we owed it to them. It was a bout £12,000 but by that time I’d got a solo deal for a fair bit more than that so I dearly let it go, and put it down to once again an error of bad judgment. If they gave out medals for that I would be well decorated.
Ozzy Osbourne once said
-When you’re stupid you do stupid things.
I wouldn’t like to think of myself as stupid but I’ve sure done a lot of silly, and yes dangerous and ok yes stupid things in my life.
Once a week when I lived in Haltwhistle in Northumberland me an maybe Cleggy and sometimes Fat Kevin would hop on the Carlisle to Newcastle train have a few pints of the dark stuff and go and see a blockbuster at the Odeon, afterwards we would catch Happy Hour in a boozer and get the train back to Haltwhistle. On this particular day Kevin opted out so it was just me an Cleggy, who to describe him simply I would say he was like the Honey Monster with a Geordie accent, a good heart but too much of a taste for the ale which would sometimes lead him up the wrong road of life, as it would us all. We hopped on the train and found ourselves in the same carriage as a guy who had obviously had a lunchtime session and was now passed out in the seated position opposite us.
- Gowon Tylamon, get yer pens oot and do a sketch on his fizzog. He dared me.
