ROCKERS
AND
ROLLERS
A FULL-THROTTLE MEMOIR
BRIAN JOHNSON
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Chapter 1 - The Last Chapter: Reflecting on the end of the beginning
Chapter 2 - Kids in Dunston: Exploring dangerous places
Chapter 3 - The Driving Test: The harrowing adventures of the road test
Chapter 4 - Tour Bus: Not your father’s tour bus story
Chapter 5 - Rovers and Rollers: Dead or alive, you will be driven in style
Chapter 6 - Cliff Williams: Occupation: World’s Best Rock 'n' Roll Bass Player
Chapter 7 - Beauty and the Beast: If Hell were a vacation, this would be it
Chapter 8 - The Hummer and The Schwarzenegger: AC/DC, an Austrian, a music video, and a rather large vehicle
Chapter 9 - Lotus Cortina Mk1: How to crash your first race car
Chapter 10 - From Bedfords to Bedknobs: Building a car with a headboard
Chapter 11 - The Wolseley: My first love
Chapter 12 - Grand National: The race that stopped a country
Chapter 13 - The Bulldog and the Chick: When an old Brit shags a beautiful Italian
Chapter 14 - The BSA Bantam: The opposite of a chick magnet
Chapter 15 - A Lovely Story: How not to order room service
Chapter 16 - The E-Type Penis Extension: Too hot to run
Chapter 17 - The Pilbeam: A lot more tit for your bang
Chapter 18 - TVR: Two seats and a shelf
Chapter 19 - The Mini: The Beatles of cars
Chapter 20 - Phil Rudd: Occupation: World’s Best Drummer
Chapter 21 - Sebring: “Does Rose Kennedy have a black dress?”
Chapter 22 - My Dad and Mam: Trying to repay a debt
Chapter 23 - Popular: King of the road
Chapter 24 - The Isle of Man: Escaping the tax man
Chapter 25 - Reckless on the Airbus 320: “What the fuck are you doing?”
Chapter 26 - Land Rover LR3: Cheering up Cliff
Chapter 27 - Road Trip: Drive this
Chapter 28 - Brendan Healey: Drinking fractionally
Chapter 29 - Crackerjack: It all starts with the toys
Chapter 30 - Take a Backseat: “Don’t be shy, your mother wasn’t.”
Chapter 31 - The Phantom: The black velvet humpback whale
Chapter 32 - My First Race Meet: Finding the Autodrome
Chapter 33 - Austin A35: A smiling pregnant snail
Chapter 34 - Malcolm Young: Occupation: World’s Greatest Riffmeister
Chapter 35 - Günther: If a marine were on steroids and driving
Chapter 36 - My Brother, Maurice: Car rats in arms
Chapter 37 - Angus Young: Occupation: Devilish Imp Schoolboy Guitarist
Chapter 38 - Cars and Music: You can’t have one without the other
Chapter 39 - Tour Bus Tippy-Toe: Taking on the mentally challenged moral minority
Chapter 40 - Marital Blues 1968: Riding shotgun
Chapter 41 - Jerry Wexler (Rock in Peace): Rhythm and blues and Saabs
Chapter 42 - Tour Bus II: “No shitting allowed. Shagging expected.”
Chapter 43 - The Things You Do for Vans: Parachute jumping ain’t fun
Chapter 44 - Car Porn: Make sure the door’s locked
Chapter 45 - Lots of Trouble, Usually Serious: What L-O-T-U-S really stands for
Chapter 46 - Paul Newman: Gentleman of the track
Chapter 47 - Pimp My Ride Rant: Making beautiful cars awful
Chapter 48 - Awesome Bill from Dawsonville: How moonshine made race cars
Chapter 49 - The Greats: Are they drivers or gods?
Chapter 50 - The Bounder Unleashed: Too huge to drive
Chapter 51 - Moscow 1991: Playing the sound of freedom for a million people
Chapter 52 - Alligator Alley: Home is where the alligators are
Chapter 53 - Teacake: Handicapped cars are dangerous
Chapter 54 - The Italian Job: Death and destruction
Chapter 55 - La Dolce Vita: How Italy changes you
Chapter 56 - Aston Martin Zagato: When a Renzo marries a Zagato
Chapter 57 - Citroën DS: “Right, I’m up and I’m staying up until I get a shag.”
Chapter 58 - Hurley Haywood: Keeping your head horizontal
Chapter 59 - The Memphis Belle: The noise that will live with me forever
Chapter 60 - Concorde: Sitting on top of Mount Vesuvius
Chapter 61 - The Anal Intruder: The terrorizing of AC/DC
Chapter 62 - Accident-prone: Unsafe driving
Chapter 63 - James Dean: Were directors shagging him?
Chapter 64 - Cars on Film: The movies that get it right
Chapter 65 - Donald “Duck” Dunn: The Blues Brother
Chapter 66 - Notes from the Front Line: Wilkes-Barre
Chapter 67 - The Godfather of Music Transportation: The kind of car royalties get you
Chapter 68 - Geordie Defty: Stilletoed shagger
Chapter 69 - The Tyne Tunnel: She crosses her legs so you can’t get out
Chapter 70 - Brands Hatch: Supergluing your ass to the wall
Chapter 71 - Haggis: What happens when you microwave it
Chapter 72 - The Biggest Winning Margin Ever: From Peking to Paris
Chapter 73 - Notes from the Front Line: Minneapolis
Chapter 74 - Scientologist Dave: A spooky fuck
Chapter 75 - Harley-Davidson: What you find in Australia
Chapter 76 - Notes from the Front Line: Toronto
Chapter 77 - Derek “Deke” Rootham: Peeing in a pint glass
Chapter 78 - David Whittaker: Tighter than a fish’s arse
Chapter 79 - The Unreality of The Race: Why reality television sucks
Chapter 80 - Geordie: Starting a band in a lousy year
Chapter 81 - Fiat 500: A cautionary tale
Chapter 82 - Jaguar 2.8 Mk2: Owning a car you can’t afford
Chapter 83 - Windshields: A career born
Chapter 84 - The Dog’s Dangly Bits: How to pass time on the road
Chapter 85 - Lincoln Continental: Safe operating speed: 0
Chapter 86 - The Benefits of Driving in France: Siamese twins walk into a pub
Chapter 87 - Sexy French Cars: I’m-French-and-fuck-you attitude
Chapter 88 - Porsche Twin Turbo: Smoking is dangerous for your car
Chapter 89 - Historic Racing Machines: When it’s magic time
Chapter 90 - Notes from the Front Line: Atlanta
Chapter 91 - North-East Vinyls and AC/DC: The two career choices and what I chose
Chapter 92 - The End: The end
Photographic Insert
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
The Last Chapter
REFLECTING ON THE END OF THE BEGINNING
As I finish writing this exercise in fun and self-indulgence, I can only think that we, the generations of people from the 1920s till now and probably the next thirty years, we are the ones who drove cars, real cars. We are the ones who rode in the steam and diesel trains; some of us were lucky enough to fly in Concorde, to listen to the growl of a V8 Chevy engine, the purr of a Ferrari. We are the ones who could watch cars and motorcycles racing against each other and not feel like criminals. We are the ones who could still get speeding tickets, impress girls with our cars first and penis engineering afterwards.
Someone picking this up in 2050 might be being transported in God knows what, some grass-powered hybrid. We have be
en the lucky generations. And that’s why every new car, every turn of the ignition key, is a new baby to me. It’s what man’s made out of nature. It’s rock ’n’ roll.
Do I like cars?!
Chapter 2
Kids in Dunston
EXPLORING DANGEROUS PLACES
When we were kids in Dunston, a former mining village just outside Newcastle on the banks of the River Tyne, there were places we were told not to go. And, of course, that’s where we went—basically, anywhere dangerous. The power station was definitely off-limits, because of the slag heaps, which held water and also created a form of quicksand. But in between the dangerous bits there were old army trucks and old railway carriages. The carriages, they were red and cream with wood linings inside and beautiful lamps over the tables. The seats were a red-patterned cloth with high backs and headrests. I was completely and utterly in love with both the trains and the trucks.
I would ride my bike down there and climb into the cab of one of those old army three-tonners. Oh, the smell, I could never figure out what that smell was. But I ignored it and, just like at home, with my bed steering wheel, I’d drive, but this was real—this had pedals I couldn’t reach and a gearstick. My God, I was at Normandy, then North Africa, Anzio—a fearless driver getting the ammunition through to the front line. Then I’d run to the railway carriages and sit in them, yeah, just sit in them, because they were posh with a capital P. And there was that smell again: what the hell was that smell?
Years and years later, I still remember that smell, and I think I’ve figured it out. It was the smell of sadness, of things that weren’t broken but had been left to rot, surplus to requirements. Ah, shit . . .
* * *
P.S.: It was also at this place, one Sunday afternoon, that about nine of us gathered, and one particular lad—who shall remain nameless—said his older brother had just shown him a new trick called wanking. He got out his tadger (for that is what we called our tadgers), and proceeded with two fingers to jerk it up and down. Oh, how we laughed. Then he said, “C’mon, everybody do it, or I’ll bash you up!” He was a tough guy. We all did it, none of us had an orgasm or anything near one—how can you, when you’re thinking of a three-ton Bedford army truck?
Chapter 3
The Driving Test
THE HARROWING ADVENTURES OF THE ROAD TEST
The driving test: the final frontier, the High Noon of exams. I was eighteen years old, and I enrolled at the British School of Motoring to prepare for it. I was to drive in a Morris 1100, the Alec Issigonis–designed car with a sideways mounted engine with an 1100-cc (or 1.1-liter) power plant. It was powder blue, unlike my instructor’s nose, which was end-of-cock purple. He had what I thought was a tiny mustache, but on closer inspection turned out to be nose hairs that looked like two hairy pussies side by side. His eyebrows were like a relief map of the Himalayas. They just went everywhere. He wore a three-quarter-length coat and a five-and-three-quarter-size trilby hat on his head. He was constantly blowing his nose and checking the contents of his handkerchief. He was as friendly as a male gorilla with nothing to shag! And lucky me had him all to myself for one whole hour.
“Get in the vehicle.”
Christ, “the vehicle”—what the hell?
“You will address me as Mr. Mephistopheles at all times. You will follow my instructions and you will not deviate from them. You will not turn to face me when you are driving. You vill obey my orders at all times, and YOU VILL BE SHOT IF YOU GO OVER THIRTY MILES AN HOUR!”
Now, he didn’t look German (well, not with those nose hairs). The lesson itself was a blur. All I remember is that he shouted a lot and said “No! No! No!” all the time. Basically, he was as bad at instructing as I was at driving. And I still had five more lessons.
In between lessons, I read the driver’s bible—The Highway Code. You had to memorize every bloody thing in it, for the theory part of the test.
After my sixth lesson, “Hair Face” turned to me and said, “You’ve no chance of passing your test.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you’re shite.”
Ah, nothing like a gentle letdown! Of course, he was right. I sat the test and failed. And yup, it was the questions that I screwed up.
Examiner: “Right, when should you never overtake?”
Me: “Erm . . . on the brow of a hill.”
Examiner: “I need two more.”
Me: “Erm . . . on the brow of another hill?”
He was not a humorous man and it all went downhill from there. Dejected and hurt, I sloped off home. I applied for another shot at it the next day. I suddenly realized what I had been doing wrong, twit that I was. At home, I had been practicing with a Ford Popular with its three gears and then spending only one hour a week in the more modern Morris 1100 with its four gears, so I never really got used to it. At that time, I was in my first band (The Gobi Desert Canoe Club). Our guitarist, Trevor Chance, had a four-gear Mini Minor, so I asked him if I could drive his car when we were having band practice and sit my test in it. He said yes, no problem, Brian—after I’d handed him some money.
The upshot was that I sat my test six weeks later. The examiner was a nice guy. He told me we were going to Dunston to do the test—that was my own backyard. At the end, he said, “You’ve passed, Mr. Johnson. Well done!” I drove straight to the pub to celebrate.
It was one of those days that your youth gobbles up, an achievement that youth deserves, and being young you drink it in like fine wine—a bit like losing your virginity. I know I’m waxing lyrical, but shit! You’d overcome machinery. You were “the man.” You were flying solo. You could go anywhere you wanted, on your own—all the things I’d dreamt of as a kid (though I was still a kid, really, at eighteen). I’ll bet there’s not one of you out there reading this who doesn’t remember that day, that feeling of freedom.
Chapter 4
Tour Bus
NOT YOUR FATHER’S TOUR BUS STORY
A tour bus is something every groupie wants to see the roof of and every male rock fan wants to see the inside of. They are amazing vehicles; the Americans make the best ones, and they’re called Prevost and are fabulously rock ’n’ roll. The British and European ones are crrrap! The English build the coachwork, so it’s, “Let’s make really small seats and make everyone feel as uncomfortable as possible.” The chassis are usually made by Volvo, Swedish by name, Swedish by nature. Dull. One big safety bollocks after another, with tremendous discomfort on top. It’s one of the few times in life you wanna drive American.
The adventures on American buses are legend. Take, for instance, the time when one of our drivers was a devout born-again Christian, and we got ten gorgeous groupies to get down on all fours eating and sucking each other’s thingies all the way down the bus to the driving seat, and when the front girl unzipped his pants and gave him his first blow job, his first words were “Oh, my Lord!” Other truckers passing were honking horns and calling him on his CB. All ten girls gave oral communion to our Christian friend. He never called on the Lord again, but he did maintain a steady 70 mph. What a driver!
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