Going Off Alarming: The Autobiography: Vol 2

by Danny Baker

  Let us now return to me, all those months later, slowly making my way, step by step, step by step, bent double and blind across the pitch-dark cellar landscape. When I had previously stated that nothing of interest was stored at the far end of the space I meant it. A tea chest full of classic 45s came under that heading in the brief lunatic period when I thought I had put vinyl collecting to one side with all other childish fascinations. Indeed, I had already thrown away one bulging suitcase of singles a year previously, and when I come to tell you what eventually happened to them I promise you will consider it a flight of fancy worthy of Jules Verne.

  Anyway, determined to reinstate my remaining legion of seven-inchers to their rightful throne, I crept toward them in the darkness. As the enforced crouch grew ever more uncomfortable, I almost called out, ‘Patience, my beauties, I am coming, I am coming! Daddy swears you will never be forgotten like this again!’

  The very last thought on my mind was those seventeen unseen rubber landmines that, far from becoming baggy with age, were as taut and fulsome as the moment Spud had tied off their straining ends. I suppose through sheer dumb luck I must have managed to avoid treading on the first four or five of them, but such oblivious good fortune was never going to last.

  I’m not sure how long I lay unconscious on the cold stone floor, but Wend says that even though she was upstairs with the telly on she definitely remembers hearing a loud thud and a moan at about five minutes to eight. She came downstairs again just after eight and gave a short scream as she encountered me emerging from the cellar, dazed, covered in coal dust, bleeding from the forehead and with the bedraggled remnants of some party streamers and a burst balloon hanging limply around my shoulders. Assisting me to a kitchen chair she anxiously kept asking me what had happened. This concern melted into a poorly muffled hysteria when I, still reeling, tried to piece things together.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said, my head starting to throb. ‘I was making my way across the cellar and I think I trod on a balloon from Christmas. I must have shot upright and hit me head on a beam. I’ve been spark out.’

  To her credit, Wendy did make a pretty good job of not laughing the house down. Instead she cleaned the angry graze on my noggin and got me a cold flannel to help the swelling go down. It was only later, as I lay on the settee wondering if my concussion was going to clear sufficiently for my debut show the next morning that I heard her on the phone upstairs, ringing each of her six sisters in turn and relating what had happened to me between huge whoops of helpless laughter.

  In nine years of television I hadn’t so much as broken a fingernail by way of industrial injury and here, even before I’d said a single word as a DJ, I had twice faced a premature death.

  Maybe someone or something was trying to tell me I wasn’t cut out for this.

  Black Sheep

  In the early seventies an obscure American record label called Increase released a short series of LPs called Cruisin’. Each record took a particular year from the early days of rock’n’roll and featured a single radio show by a well-known disc jockey from the period, complete with station jingles and nostalgic commercials. There had been a steady sale of these evocative time-capsules when I worked in One Stop Records, mainly because they were not available from the usual music outlets and had to be imported from the USA. I loved these LPs and one in particular, Cruisin’ 1963, that featured a hyper-manic DJ called B. Mitchell Read. From the moment his performance started he spoke at breakneck speed, yet wittily and entirely in character, featuring a lunatic array of bells, hooters and table thumps to punctuate his tumbling monologues. It was exactly the kind of crazed bravura I always believed radio ought to sound like, a full-tilt audio whirlwind where the host strains every nerve to match the pounding sounds slapped on to turntables seemingly at random. This was my only guide and desire as my debut approached and, thanks to my utter ignorance at how radio shows really do get put together, I genuinely believed it was simply a matter of hauling in a box of your favourite records and making up the hoopla, in the moment, as you went along. It was just you and the audience, and once that red light went on you had better have something to say to surprise them or why the hell were you there getting paid instead of one of their number? From the snatches I had heard of the current radio scene, it seemed that too many of the show anchors were content to appear rather than work. Thus, as I sat at 6.27 a.m. watching the minutes tick down to my very first appearance as a ‘jock’, though I had no idea what I was going to say I had a very good idea of how I was going to say it. I saw no point easing listeners into their day – which seemed to be the accepted norm – so, taking in the deathly quiet of the GLR building, I thought I may as well swim against the tide. Or better yet, ride a powerboat against it. I think even Chris Evans, himself then still full of untapped anarchy, was shocked at the firework display I leapt into once he gave me the nod to indicate we were now on the air. Picking up one of the various hand bells I had brought with me, I began ringing it for all I was worth. Then, over the intro to the opening record, Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Don’t Stop’, I began shouting:

  ‘Get up! Get up, you deadbeats! You weasels! Get up! New sheriff in town! Stop slumbering, crumbs! None but hollow-eyed creep VAMPIRES should sleep now. Hark! Hark! The dogs do bark! I’ll come to your house and rattle your beds! I’ll chase you up trees! Nothing matters any more! Everything you know is wrong! Throw away your lives and follow the noise! Bell-ringer radio! It’s Campanology FM!’

  I closed the mic again, the song began its vocals, and both Chris and I crumbled in fits of laughter.

  ‘What the FUCK was that?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I managed to splutter, ‘but I’m having a go.’

  I suddenly felt more alive at work than I had in years. Quite where I was summoning up all this poppycock from I chose not to examine, but it felt wonderful.

  As the Fleetwood Mac track faded – that had been Chris’ choice and one that fit right in with the station’s signature mature-rock sound – I challenged what audience there was even further by whacking into Donna Summer’s ‘This Time I Know It’s for Real’, a chart hit by the disco producers Stock Aitken Waterman and just about the antithesis of GLR’s music policy. It was, however, in my view, a terrific radio song full stop, and ought not go unheard just because it might unsettle the weak-minded. As it detonated on to the air, I rang two bells at once.

  ‘Are you listening, Capital Radio?’ I bellowed, taking the unusual step of taunting by name the giant market leader in London radio at the time. ‘You worms, Capital! The game’s up, blood suckers! New sheriff in town! You have sores on your faces and I will hunt you to the ends of the earth! You Nazis! You fascists! The abyss yawns before you! Make way! Make way!’

  We were six minutes into the show and the phone lines, usually a moribund parade that occasionally flickered into life when someone wished to comment on the new cycle lanes in Enfield, were suddenly jammed, lights blinking like epileptic semaphore lamps. Without exception, everyone hated it. They wished to complain and make me go away, and Chris was completely tied up doing his best to placate and soothe one caller after another. I, meanwhile, careered on, honking hooters while banging that recently unearthed hotel reception bell, going from the Mothers of Invention to Cajun two-steps to Barbra Streisand’s ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’, during which I left the microphone open and sang along lustily, urging the audience to do the same. It was not even seven o’clock yet.

  The programme sounded absolutely out of control, and though I was totally aware this cacophony would alienate most of the tiny market share the station traditionally played to, I hoped that at least a rump of the listeners would find this explosion bold and funny and fresh. Whatever the harvest, I was determined the show was not going to be ignored.

  A few days later Trevor and Matthew took me out to a coffee shop to sack me. Chris was asked along too and what he witnessed there he says influenced his outlook in dealing with authority for the next twenty ye
ars. That may not necessarily have been a good thing.

  I knew exactly why the two bosses had asked me for a chat and because we otherwise all seemed to get along well, I wasn’t going to let it spoil our friendship or sour the cappuccinos before us.

  Matthew began the formalities. ‘Danny. I think you need to learn how our station is structured and what we’re trying to achieve with our audience—’

  Interrupting, I cut to the chase:

  ‘Matthew, I totally understand and this must be awkward for everyone. But what you heard really is the only show I have in me. I know it’s nuts and I know I called Capital Radio Nazis and said Radio 2 was full of long-dead mummies, but I thought it was funny, I really did. Now I am completely happy to walk away from this. You have no option but to chuck it out, I’m sure, but that’s the show and I just don’t have the machinery to tone it down. So fire me now and let’s talk about old bands we all like.’

  This rather took the wind out of whatever Matthew and Trevor had prepared by way of advice or discipline. There was a pause. Chris’ eyes went around everyone at the table about five times. Then Trevor took it up.

  ‘Well, hang on a minute. There’s got to be a way of, you know, making that show work, you know, for our station.’

  I told them that I had absolutely no concept of how that could possibly happen and, to be fair, they both laughed at this obvious impasse.

  ‘Look,’ continued Matthew, ‘perhaps we could just ease up on bollocking the audience and calling other stations vampires.’ And he chuckled at even having to say such a ridiculous sentence.

  ‘And the Donna Summer records,’ chimed in Trevor. After a moment he did concede, ‘You know, the more we talked about it, the more we actually rather liked it. It was just a bit . . .’

  ‘Unexpected,’ finished his colleague.

  I asked them outright: ‘Had you decided to give me the sack?’

  ‘Oh, completely,’ said Trev. ‘I was ready to pull the plug after about five minutes.’

  So we finished our coffees and our toasted sandwiches and they said they would be listening with keen interest again at the weekend. About ten weeks later, some sort of interim listening figures were released and there, as the station’s usual level of audience flatline came out from the stagnant overnight programming, a tiny peak of interest appeared at 6.30 a.m. Nothing that signified anything sensational – but something nonetheless. And it hadn’t been there before.

  One Sunday during those initial weeks of Sturm und Drang, Chris and I had, as usual, repaired to the pub across the road after the show. As we nursed the cold drinks, talking about anything other than work, a woman came across to our table and very politely asked me to confirm who I was.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ she said nervously. ‘We used to watch you every Friday in our house. Are they ever going to bring that show back?’

  I suggested that the possibility was a remote one.

  ‘Sorry to be a pain,’ our pleasant interloper continued, ‘but could I have your autograph?’

  I was of course happy to do this. I had signed hundreds of bits of paper during the Six O’Clock Show run, but since its termination the requests had somewhat dwindled. And when I say ‘somewhat dwindled’ I mean I now got asked at about the same frequency as long-dead members of the shadow cabinet.

  I scrawled upon the back of the woman’s proffered envelope and she withdrew, seemingly satisfied. When I looked back at Chris he was wearing an expression as if I had just caused the table we were sitting at to levitate up to the ceiling.

  ‘Fuck-ing hell!’ he gasped. ‘What the fuck happened there?’

  His eyes were wide behind his Buddy Holly glasses and his mouth literally open in astonishment. Chris hadn’t been in London when I was the capital’s favourite child star, and though he knew I had been on some regional show, he had never considered until that point that I might have any kind of public profile. He looked thoroughly, mightily impressed.

  ‘What the fuck does THAT feel like?’ he said, lifting his bottle of beer to clink with mine. A sort of heavenly choir looked to have started playing trombones inside his head. His mouth flooded with the ambrosia of ambition. I could see there and then that he wanted some of that. He howled a long laugh of excitement and, pushing his baseball cap further back on his head, he sat and stared at me.

  ‘You’re famous, buddy!’ he chirped, as if our fun had somehow just ratcheted up a few notches. I made no effort to adjust his statement into the proper tense.

  Jump forward a decade from this otherwise unremarkable encounter and you would be hard pressed to avoid images of Chris Evans, now Britain’s number one TV talent, splashed over tabloid front pages as he exits some of the smartest venues in the capital as well as many of its murkiest dives. Look a little closer at these pictures and there, lagging in the gloom behind him, is what at first glance appears to be a fat old tramp looking for a handout. That’ll be me. In the captions and articles that accompanied these shots documenting Chris’ daily adventures, this unfortunate itinerant is rarely given a name but often contemptuously dismissed as ‘One of Chris Evan’s growing entourage of new “friends” hanging on to his famous shirt-tail . . .’

  And that, my friends, is as good a guide to the giddy roulette wheel of show business as I can offer you.

  Back home in Scawen Road life continued to bounce along beautifully despite me earning slightly less than the postman who continued to bring Mervyn’s charming if increasingly puzzled letters from the bank. We had completed our family picture by buying a mongrel from Battersea Dog’s Home. We called him Twizzle. Bonnie and Sonny loved Twizzle and Twizzle loved them. But that was about as far as Twizzle was ever going to open his heart; aside from those two, plus Wendy, he disliked every other human being in the world and at every opportunity tried to expel them from his orbit. A lithe, chocolate-brown sort of greyhound/Labrador/Staffordshire compendium – we never did discover what had gone into his construction – Twiz was not so much a dog as a missile. As soon as he was fully grown he developed a remarkable habit of launching himself at the front door whenever anyone came within two yards of it – and when I say launched, I mean not only snarling and barking with front paws outstretched but often flying through the air, broadside-on, at the letter box as if he had been fired from a cannon. When he made contact with the door a noise like a sonic boom would rattle through the whole house. We soon got used to this but visitors – who always had to be entertained shut inside rooms lest Twizzle wandered in – would drop their teacups and pieces of cake as the sudden racket startled them. Observing the terrified flight of some hawker who had opted to leg it rather than shove another pizza menu into our home, they would say, ‘Are you sure it’s all right to have that dog in your house? I mean, it is a dog, isn’t it? Sounds more like you’ve got Mike Tyson locked in the passage.’

  I hadn’t set out to buy an intimidating canine; there were no outward signs as to his temperament and throughout his life everyone who saw him – mainly through windows or in photographs – could not believe that the medium-sized, ordinary-looking animal they saw sleeping in his wicker basket was the terror from number 46.

  Twizzle and I eventually got along famously, but only after he had staged a failed putsch to gain control of the household. I was stretched out on the sofa one Thursday night watching Top of the Pops, a bowl of popcorn balanced on my chest, when into the room came Twiz. He was walking ominously slower than usual and after completing a couple of strange circuits of the carpet he came and sat about two feet away from where I was sprawled. I knew he was staring hard at me but I wouldn’t look round at him because I sensed something was up and knew that anything I did to acknowledge this would signal the next step in whatever he was planning. So for quite a few moments there was something of a stand-off; Twiz defying me to look at him and me taking an artificially keen interest in the gentle funk and hopeless miming of Level 42. Twizzle then started to growl very low. This growl said, ‘You know I’m here, yo
u bastard. Let’s do this.’ I continued to let this go on even through a filmed contribution from the group Poison, whose strangulated stadium rock I would normally have given the juiciest of raspberries. While this horrible power ballad droned on, I surreptitiously grasped the edge of one of the sofa’s cushions with the aim of springing a counter-offensive before he had a chance to launch the main thrust of his attack.

  Cushion in position, I decided to give Twiz the benefit of the doubt and snapped my head around to confront his gaze. His eyes were cold, dead and narrowed. Ignoring this, I confronted his mood outright.

  ‘What exactly do you want, you moody old git?’

  This was what he’d been waiting for. Leaping toward the sofa he thudded his two front legs down hard on my chest and, thinking I was now pinned, bared his teeth, snarling, from about six inches away. I knew this was a coup and, like any ruling authority faced with the same threat, recognized I had to crush it immediately. Letting go of the cushion, I balled up my fist and let him have it right in the ear.

  Instead of going full-on with the knuckles I had landed the blow with my thumb wrapped across my curled fingers. This lessened the impact while letting him know I still had plenty in reserve. Twizzle jumped down and ran over to the fireplace, where he shook his head several times. When he turned again I saw his eyes were back to normal and his demeanour the usual loose-limbed playful mutt he was 95 per cent of the time.