by Tyla Pallas
Now this was the last days of the year 2006 so it was New Years Eve, when the clock struck 12 all hell broke loose when what seemed like a massive box of fireworks as big as yer average back garden had a match thrown into it. How no one was injured or killed is a bloody miracle, rockets in all bloody directions, bangers, catherine wheels, jumpin jacks, all with the sound of the local Indian show band playing ‘Wonderful tonight’ by Eric Clapton. Surreal was an understatement.
Undertaker! Happy New Year! I think I ended up falling asleep on the beach surrounded by wild dogs, which after that guided me back to the ‘holiday camp’ most mornings.
All was going well, I went on some educational trips to the spice plantation where I learnt a lot about everything from bananas to cashew nuts, and then got off my tits drinking alcohol made from coconuts. Absinth has nothing on fenny I can tell you. I had guys at the side of the road chopping coconuts for me and I ate freshly harvested pineapple on the roadside and ate prawns the size of frankfurters. I helped pull fishing boats in at 5am for no bloody reward! And generally larked about riding elephants and having my picture took with a snake charmer with one snake wrapped around my neck while he played his flute charming the other out of the basket, it is actually illegal to charm snakes these days I might add. Until one day I didn’t feel so good, that one day turned into three days, and nights, sickness, the trots, until eventually I had nothing left to offer the big telephone to God and just lay there wishing the people below me would stop playing Brian Adams so bloody loud, and where the hell did they get the sound system from. Eventually I gained enough energy to make it down stairs and pool side, where I was at first greeted with applause and shouts of..‘Here he is! Which quickly turned to ‘fuckin hell Tyla, you look rough, do you want to see a doctor? Within minutes I was sitting in the waiting room thinking of ‘ A Nuns Story’ starring Audrey Hepburn. I was in a hospital run by nuns. Nuns in white. The doctor did a few tests and said, you’d better stay here for a bit and bunged me on a drip in I might add my own room. All I was allowed to drink was water, and all I was allowed to eat was tea biscuits. All the nuns singing and one playing acoustic guitar greeted me in the morning! Could this trip get any more surreal? I read a good little book while I was there for the few days on a freedom fighter that killed women and children and then found God and became a Bishop eventually. I was given the all clear and told that my bug that had got into my blood system via my belly could have maybe been caused from eating a roadside pineapple that had cobra venom in it. Apparently Cobra’s love pineapple and often chomp into one for a drink. Then someone comes along and eats it, and they don’t feel too good for a week, simple as that. Good job they don’t have rattlesnakes eh? With still another two weeks left I decided to give the alcohol a rest for the duration, I managed to keep it up for a few months but eventually got sick of drinking pop and cranberry juice whilst on tour in the US and missing out on the free beers n shots at gigs. I fell off the wagon and I wrote a song called ‘Rails’ to celebrate the fact.
If I’ve told him once, I’ve told him a thousand times. Write a bloody book! I keep telling him. So I thought if I write a few of his stories even if I’m not involved it might prompt him to do likewise when he see’s the size of my yacht what I’ve gone an bought with my publishing advance.
Let me see where to start, I guess when I first met him would be as good place as any. Back in 1984 The Dogs D’amour had been in business for about a year. We weren’t having any luck getting a record deal until we heard that Karl’s girlfriends brother Miettinen was going to set up a record label in Finland (of all places). We did some demo’s and sent them over a cassette tape. They said they liked what they heard and they had a plan of action. We were to go to Finland record and album and do a tour and video to promote it. We had already got a Johnny Thunders support gig in Helsinki booked so things were looking up. I called Ned, who was the singer of the Dogs to tell him the news. He told me great, but he would not be able to come to Finland as he had secured himself a solo deal with EMI. Ok no problem I said and hung up. The fucker! He had also suggested I phone Maurice the drummer or Bam as I called him. I did and he also told me he wouldn’t be coming to Finland either, due mainly to the fact that his wife was having their first Child and he wanted to be there, he had also joined Ned as drummer on his solo project. Ok cool. I hung up. The fucker. The Fuckers! This left me with one remaining member, Karl. So I presumed he was in, unless he’d split up with his missus and it had all gone pear shaped. I called him to break the news. Ok he said lets just find a drummer and a singer, it shouldn’t be that hard. Well if you’ve seen the film ‘The Commitments’ the part where they are auditioning, well it was like that, plus a year before we had auditioned singers for what seem like ever and ever until Ned came along. So the thought of going through that process again wasn’t very appealing. Plus we only had one month to get our shit together as the studio and flights were already being booked for us. At first we didn’t say anything to Miettinen, we just interviewed a load of nutters. Karl said to me, why don’t you just sing Tyla? you write all the songs, and you sing one song on the demo. We spoke with Miettinen, thinking he may know a drummer or singer anyway and he said that the record company really liked the 4th song on the demo. 4th song I thought, we only sent them 3 songs, what 4th song? It turned out that when I sent them the cassette what with money being a foreign object in my pocket at that moment in time. (I was skint.) I had recorded over an old tape of me messing around with ideas on a 3-string guitar. The song turned out to be ‘The State I’m In’ and the other song I had actually sang on, on the demo was ‘How Do You Fall In Love Again?’. I wouldn’t call myself a singer but apparently the record company preferred my voice over Ned’s. So it gave my ego and confidence a boost, but I wasn’t sure if I could play guitar and sing at the same time, so now we would need to look for a lead guitarist. I always write two guitar parts on most of my songs anyway being a fan of Thin Lizzy and The Stones. It gave me a sudden energy. I had never thought about being a front man but I must admit the prospect of it became quite a cool move, and the fact that others had suggested it made me feel even more confident. I think confidence is something you must have in abundance being the front guy. As if by fate with in a few days I met a bloke who happened to be from Birmingham, and a very likeable rogue by the name a Dave Kusworth. He was introduced to me by Nikki Sudden, the latter who I had met a few weeks earlier when he had asked me to busk outside Rough trade records with him to promote his new single ‘Big Store’ Nikki had also come by my place to rehearse, it was acoustic and so he brought along with him some records, one of which I remember was called the Last Bandit. It was a Keith Richards bootleg. I liked the title and wrote a song honouring him and Oliver Reed amongst others. We busked and got stoned and drunk lots – a great time. Even better me and Dave became instant friends so I asked him if he’d like to come to Finland with me. I remember him being up for it but he didn’t want to fuck up his signing on. I said you could get a holiday form and sort it. So he was in. Now all we needed was a drummer. Again as chance would have it another of my haunts was the Clarendon in Hammersmith, sadly no more, but if you stand by Hammersmith Piccadilly entrance I hear you can sense the pure rock n roll that once engulfed that site. Now only ghosts of cults haunt the void that remains. So it was on a wet an rainy Thursday that I wandered in with Karl to find a bunch of reprobates known as the Gunslingers hanging out in there. We interrupted them mid round, and heard the familiar mating call of the lesser known rocker…
-Jack and Coke please Barman and don’t spare the horses.
-Are you the drummer mate? I asked a Ronnie Wood look-alike.
-No he’s the drummer over there with the spurs on, have you come to steal him away dear boy? answered the one and only John Halls (one time fag to Eddie Tenpole Tudor no less) I just might, I just might.
I went over and introduced myself.
-Awrite mate, I’m Tyla this is Karl, we are The Dogs D’amour and we
have a record deal in Finland and we are going there next month to record an album and do a tour, are you as good as you look, if so do you wanna come along?
The reply in a broad scouse accent went along these lines,
-‘You what mate? You’ll have to say that again I’m deaf in me left ear, I ‘ad meningitis as a kid.’
Good start.
I didn’t repeat all of it, I just basically said
-Wanna go to Finland? He later told me he thought I was winding him up, right until I gave him the ticket the day before we were due to leave. He being Paul Hornby, or simply Hornby had already had a colourful past hailing from Liverpool and had already served time in bands such as Pink Military and Dead or Alive. He was a cocksure scouser with a fine sense of humour and good dress sense, I liked him straight off. I’ll be able to borrow some of his clobber was my initial thought. We arranged for Dave, who shall be known as Kusworth from herein to come down, at our expense to London and we booked a rehearsal room in Waterloo, again at mine an Karl’s expense. I also arranged for my friend Paul who was a Photographer and purveyor of all substances white to come and take some pics of our mugs. How organised eh? Well the thought was there, we met in the pub, piled over to the rehearsal room, did some photos (cover of the original State We’re in Album) Paul had some uptown biked over and we launched into ‘How Do You Fall In Love Again?’. No sooner had we finished than the studio bloke came in and said
-Ok lads your times up! Can you pack up sharpish we’ve got another band booked in. Well that was it, back to the pub. It’ll be all right in the mix, we’ll be ok, and it’ll be all right, yeah peace of piss. Ok see you next week at the airport then, 12 noon on the dot Kusworth. Yeah ok, I’ve gorra sign on at 9 o’clock them I’m getting the coach down. Karl and myself had arranged to go to Hornby’s the night before and get a cab from there to Heathrow, at least 3 of us will make it, see we were a bit organised. The fact that we stayed up all night taking a mixture of speed, coke and heroin on top of beer, whiskey and wine was only natural in the circumstances when you come to think of it. We were young, well apart from Hornby, he should have known better. Still on saying all that we did get the taxi and were at the airport well on time. All we needed now as for Kusworth to get here. These were in the days before the mobile phone culture, most of us didn’t even have landlines. How on earth did anyone manage? Well to tell you the truth just fine. But times move on, an I guess we could have done with a mobile this day and the next month. The time to go through the gate is upon us, and then suddenly I spot Dave,
-‘where the hell have you been? But it’s not him, its Sam Yaffa from Hanoi Rocks, and then Andy McCoy.
-Hey do you guys want some speed? I said
-we’ve over ordered and we can’t risk taking it to Finland of all places.
-Nah man, got any smack?
-what do I look like a market stall? it free speed! but they weren’t interested, me an Hornby went into the toilet to dispose of as much as we could up our brackets and then we gave the rest to the cleaner. There was no still sign of Dave so we dropped his passport an ticket off at the desk and made a dash for it. We were so late they had to bung us in a van with the steps to the plane attached and we went after the plane to the end of the runway, where they opened the doors and up we went, on to the plane and up, up an away, without Kusworth. I was sick all the way there. We arrived not looking too good, and one man short. Kusworth had missed the train by 5 minutes, and then unbelievably missed another plane the next day. Finally 3rd time lucky and via Frankfurt, where he managed to get a telling off by the German Police for walking around the airport bare footed drinking his Bells duty free. He finally arrived in Turku, 4 days late. We got to work immediately on his Litre bottle of Whisky and soon we got well into recording. Me an Hornby shared a room, Karl drew the short straw and was in with Kusworth. I was quite surprised to see Dave (I’ll call him Dave from now on its easier to type) at breakfast one morning, as it was quite early for him, though he was asleep on one of the tables and had apparently been there all night! Hornby had actually brought an alarm clock with him. Why I have no idea, but every time it went off it shook off the shelf and fell on his head! Some alarm clock - wakes you up then knocks you out! For breakfast I had a boiled egg every morning, I was a strict vegetarian back then. These days I have no rules about what I eat but mainly its vegetarian, maybe with the odd bit of Fish now and again. But then again who doesn’t?
Anyway that was a excerpt from the Finnish Saga which will be in a collectors edition carved in ice. But more of that later. So where was I? Oh yes if I’ve told him (Hornby) once I’ve told him a thousand times. Now the reason I’m saying this is whenever I speak to Hornby something bloody surreal has either happened, is happening or is about to happen. I don’t want to tell all the stories, in fact I’ll even try not to tell the whole story, hopefully he will get wind of it and go, no, no , no that’s not how it goes and eh viola he’ll write it, or what would be funnier talk it himself.
Lets start off with the SAS.
Whilst living in Earls Court in a spacious basement flat, the same one we kick started the Finnish Saga from on one of those nights that eventually meets dawn and then without doubt becomes night again and so on until the booze, chemicals, cigarettes, jokes, stories all wear out, or basically one calls it a day. Or night or whatever. So picture the scene. Empty bottles of various alcoholic beverages lets say Valpolicella, Chianti, the odd Chardonnay, numerous cans of cheap lager, the ashtrays are all overflowing and the candle sticks have been reloaded over and over on top of the volcanic laver flow left from the one before, the Egyptian Carpets have wine and other stains on the Indian throws have slipped off the various chairs and sofa’s revealing ungodly coloured furniture. A Jacobean commode with a broken wicker seat, it may have been a Queen Anne, or even a 20th Century replica. The walls were adorned with various game trophies having suffered once they are now ridiculed with various articles of clothing and hats. A cloud of cigarette smoke, a mixture of Gitanes, Dunhill, Marlboro and spliff evoke an almost Cumulus nimbus cloud that hangs constantly above the oak carved coffee table on which there is a dodgy cracked mirror with the remnants of about a couple of hundreds quid’s worth of best Bolivian marching powder and Billy Whiz. The dew on the daffs in the overgrown garden is glistening in the early morning sun and the haunting intro of Gimme Shelter dances eloquently on the turntable for the fifth time in a row. The TV is on but with the sound muted is showing ‘Carry On Up The Jungle’. Hornby is holding court, his girlfriend is hovering about, and a quartet of out of it mates, including myself for artistic license are scattered about strumming the occasional tune on an un tunable Kay acoustic. The bloody G-string keeps slipping Hornhead! All of a sudden we are aware of figures in the back garden and on top of the shed. Then just think the London Iranian Embassy siege early ‘80s because next comes two stereo abseiling life size action men land each side of the French Windows in perfect timing. There is approximately ten to fifteen SAS soldiers all head to foot in black, balaclavas, machine guns, hand grenades at the ready all standing in various positions in the garden, on the walls, on the shed, in the fish pond! There is a moment when everyone froze. Then one of the Soldiers pipes up.
- Is this number 289b?
- No mate, that’s two along, that way (gestures left) replies Hornby Droll as anything.
- Righteo. Sorry to trouble you. Recoils the Soldier.
And off they went, left, upwards, and onwards I guess!
What other Hornby gems have I got? Well let me think, there was the time he was relieving himself of several Sherry’s in some dark and dingy sideshow bar off Hollywood and Vine and was mistaken for me. Unfortunately the gentlemen in waiting were not amongst my most ardent of supporters and gave Hornby a good thrashing.
Upon hearing the news from a passing acquaintance I took it upon myself to reward Hornby with a handsome carriage. Not a Cadillac exactly - but think Chevrolet station wagon as used in those Chevy Chase fami
ly holiday movies. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth Hornby accepted the gift graciously. I think at this point he was employed by the famous Bleeker Bob, of Bleeker Bobs records in New York, and LA. Hornby’s rendition of the events of this day goes along the lines of.
-I heard this strange knocking sound coming from under the hood (bonnet) I pulled into the car park space out back of BB’s parking under a slight hangover supporting the building above. I lifted the hood and had a look inside trying to locate the knocking; all this time the engine was left running. I went inside to get some water thinking maybe the radiator needed a top up, it was after all 90 degrees in the shade. While inside running the cold tap there was an almighty bang crash wallop followed by an eerie silence. Upon inspection it seemed that the fan had ripped lose of its mount and shot upwards and lodged itself in a 1920’s concrete ceiling. Had Hornby been leaning over, as he had been, he would have now been minus one noggin complete with Navajo jewelry. Undeterred he had it fixed in the garage and the fan removed from BB’s car lot. Not 2 moons later and feeling worse for wear after a Jack n Coke extravaganza he managed to right the Chevy off with the help of a £50,000 brand new parked and alarmed Mercedes…In Bel-air of all places. A hefty fine, License removed, 30,000 hours of community service later including anger management and drum lessons in Guitar Centre, not over looking the fact that he arrived in LA back in 1987 on a tourist visa and never returned to Blighty. I might point out he actually a tax paying resident of the good old US of A these days. But to say he was in deep shit back then would be an understatement.
