The ladies love a uniform and I was in the wrong one.
Earlier that evening at the Van der Graaf gig, I had been in the Manchester Uni bar and been struck by how everybody – absolutely everybody – was dressed identically. Long hair, flared denim, Afghan coats and a reek of patchouli. These were not exclusively fans of Van der Graaf, but run-of-the-mill student types. No one had anything remotely original about their appearance.
Now, owing to my being an underachiever in the education department, the bars of universities were foreign to me, so this nonconformist conformity was a bit of a surprise. Mind you so was the price of the drinks. If I had known that study was the route to cheap booze for a few years, I would have tried harder.
It was no surprise that my visit to this haven of cheap booze and patchouli was short-lived. I was kicked out for not being studenty enough. I had that effect on places of learning. Maybe my face just didn’t fit in this identikit crowd.
My fellow late-night smoky train travellers, on the other hand, were at least making an effort at sophistication and that was beguiling. Why hadn’t I noticed that before?
I was very proud of the 6661 membership number. What were the rules again?
Back at home around 1973 there was a bit of an upheaval brewing. Clifford’s tap peddling had been going great guns and it was decided that we were moving to somewhere closer to his office. No. 52 Ivy Lane, a large detached Georgian house with a big back garden complete with an ornamental pond full of fish and frogs, was a mansion compared to Gawsworth Road. Although it didn’t have the same proximity to the countryside and wayward cattle, it did have a good number of bedrooms. A room of my own!
Well, it was more like a large cupboard than a room, and was stuck under the eaves of the house. I installed the hi-fi and my record collection, and set to decorating what wall space there was with a couple of Da lí prints and a Peter Hammill poster.
Privacy at last. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, maybe the acid. Oh yeah. That.
Unsurprisingly, Adam’s mate Charlie was a dead loss in the supplying of drugs, his wheels let him down, he was waiting for a shipment from St Ives, there’d been a big bust in Manchester . . . I wondered if this Charlie wasn’t Adam’s imaginary friend.
The coffee shops of Soho were notoriously lively places for young people to hang out, everyone knew that, and Macclesfield had a few similar establishments. Well, they sold coffee. There was the Cavendish Café on Queen Victoria Street, the Chicken Spit in the Market Place and the Wimpy Bar in the Grosvenor Centre. The Wimpy had the advantage of large windows on two sides that gave a good view of any approaching prefects, teachers or parents, giving the illicit smoker ample time to stub out their fag, hide the ashtray, waft away any lingering smoke and start furiously sucking a Polo mint.
We would sit there, despondent and bored, pouring sugar into our frothy coffee (don’t think they were called cappuccinos then, not in Macc), seeing whose would sink the fastest. We’d not seen hide nor hair of Hobbo for weeks and were beginning to fear the worst. To keep ourselves chemically entertained, we’d been indulging in the drinking of cough medicine in a big way: you had to drink a lot of it and it wasn’t that much fun really. But you’ve got to make an effort, haven’t you? We spent our time trying to figure out the optimum dose of Phensedyl and settled on two bottles of the stuff as a minimum for any sort of buzz. This would mean going in to Boots and asking for four bottles at a time.
‘It’s for me gran, she suffers terribly with a cough, especially in this weather.’
This implausible yarn unsurprisingly worked only once. After that we had to branch out to other chemists to score our linctus.
One day the clouds parted, the sun came out and an unmistakable rancid-fur-coat wearing, lank-greasy-haired individual was sighted by the Post Office and heading our way. Hobbo was back in business with some fresh stuff.
We got two microdots off Hobbo. Unlike Adam’s illusive ‘Charlie’, Hobbo was the man. So at last we had the stuff, but it was a bit like owning a very tiny bomb. What if we had it and turned into raving lunatics and tried peeling our faces off with a cheese grater? This could happen, apparently, so we decided to wait until we were presented with a nice calm, relaxed environment, with no possibility of bad vibes of any kind.
We gave it a week, then thought, Fuck it, let’s go to the rugby club disco and have it there.
It was the best Saturday night I’d ever had. The DJ’s three flashing lights were as spectacularly vivid as anything I’d ever seen (how did he get those colours?). And some of those present did occasionally appear to have heads like dogs’ (I’d been looking at the cover of Genesis’s Foxtrot before I came out, so that may have had something to do with it). I found this extremely interesting, as was the inevitable brawl when it started up. It was like a piece of performance art. I stood mesmerised by the fighting, grinning like a fool, skipping out of the way of the bits of glass that came flying in my direction leaving vibrant vapour trails in their wake.
When the police arrived, their blue light gave an extra stroboscopic dimension to the light show, but as most of the other punters were being dragged off in the direction of their van, I felt it best to make an exit. I spent the rest of the night trying to light a cig off a Belisha beacon. Brilliant, and I’d only had half a tab. When I finally made it to my new bedroom, glad that Dad’s nightly display of snoring prowess now took place elsewhere, I still found sleep elusive so I let myself be entertained by the flashing colours that were now being projected on the inside of my eyelids. The only downside to the trippy experience seemed to be that it did go on for a very long time, and by the time sleep and I renewed our acquaintance, I was getting a bit bored of it all.
Still, excellent value for money (25p). I would be getting some more of this. You needed plenty of time for tripping so weekends were best, but it didn’t stop me having a quarter of a tab at school to see if it livened up English and Geography classes. It didn’t. Nothing would.
I think my problem was, and probably still is, that I don’t like being told what to do. Even if I know that what I’m being told is right, I will take against it instinctively because it has come as an instruction. Christ Church had been fun because it had been education through play most of the time. Things were different at King’s. I did my best to try and learn their way but it was not for me. I’m not trying to say I was a great rebel or anything – perish the thought. I just hated the authority that said, ‘This is the way it is and you will obey or be classed a fool.’ I didn’t mind being a fool in their eyes. To me, their days were numbered anyway.
Finally the great day arrived in our new house and I became the proud owner of a brand new Olympic drum kit. I set it up in the front room and set to bashing it. I didn’t know if it sounded any good or not, but it was really good fun hitting it. Well, it was for me. The rest of the Morris household were less amused.
‘Stop that racket will you’ and ‘If you think you’re leaving it there you’ve got another think coming’ was my mother’s initial reaction. ‘Put it in your bedroom and out of the way.’
The bedroom was already a bit claustrophobic, and once the drum kit got shoehorned in, there was no room to swing a cat. Eventually a compromise was reached: during the day the drums could be installed in Dad’s room. He wasn’t there most of the time so couldn’t grumble. What was there was the physical embodiment of one of my father’s eccentricities. He had long been interested in keeping fit but now the extra space in the new house had given him the opportunity to acquire various gizmos: a jogging machine, an exercise bike and a chin-up bar. He performed his morning exercise routine to the sound of Ellingtonia or big band stuff blasting out of his own music system and rousing the rest of us.
He also developed an odd obsession with time. His bedroom was home to at least three alarm clocks and he took to wearing two watches – maybe he found the ticking restful or reassuring in some way.
As soon as the Duke’s dawn chorus
was over, I would carefully squeeze out of my bed and begin to clear clatteringly the forest of cymbals and drums that blocked my way to the bathroom. It was a fire hazard, a health-and-safety nightmare. The process would be reversed every night, with a crash-bang-wallop as I moved the kit back into my tiny room. I would then climb over it to get to sleep. If nothing else, it was good practice for roadie-ing, but I got the feeling that I was still sharing too much of my life with my dad.
The drum lessons I had (there’s always a catch) were actually fun. A lovely bloke called David Greenwood came round once a week. For his day job, he played with the Hall é Orchestra and did percussion teaching on the side. He spent half the time trying to teach me stuff called rudiments and, for the other half, things would just degenerate into a rambling drum jam session. The pair of us bashing away would sometimes attract an audience of passing dog walkers who would shout up at the window such praise as, ‘For God’s sake, give it a rest!’ or ‘Where’s the Indians?’
These were my sort of lessons – not much learning and a lot of messing about. I think Mr Greenwood enjoyed them as much as I did, but he did tend to leave a trail of fag ash on the carpet, which didn’t go down too well with my mother.
Still, I felt I was getting the hang of the drumming lark. I could hold down a pretty steady beat and chuck a few rolls in here and there. That seemed about as much as most drummers did, so I felt quite pleased with myself. By now, I was paying very close attention to Jaki Liebezeit’s drumming. It seemed really simple but complicated at the same time, and I would try to work out the riff to Can’s ‘Yoo Do Rite’ or ‘Oh Yeah’ whenever I got a chance. I was also taken by the drums on Captain Beefheart’s stuff, especially Trout Mask Replica. This was essential listening for the serious teenage male music fan. On first listen, most people dismiss this album as unlistenable shit, but to the Beefheart scholar/true believer it is a work of primitive genius. I had no idea at the time who the drummer on this record was as there was no credit on the album sleeve. At the time I supposed this was just one of Beefheart’s wackyisms – perhaps the drumming was done by a passing child? Years later, I found out that the drummer was John French aka Drumbo, and his name had been removed from the sleeve due to some disagreement with the Captain – how showbiz, how trite. Anyway, I thought whoever he or she was doing the drumming was bonkers, and I did my best to play something that sounded a bit like ‘Moonlight on Vermont’ or ‘The Blimp’. (In fact, Sunshine Valley Dance Band rehearsals sounded chaotically similar to Trout Mask.)
I decided that I liked German drummers best and, as well as Jaki, I listened to Klaus Dinger from Neu! for bits I could copy. The more repetitive and insistent the better. Bands from Germany – Can, Neu!, Amon Düül II, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk – were the most interesting. I liked their politics, their approach to the business of music, and that most of them were trying to create something entirely new that didn’t rely on England or America for its inspiration. The bands seemed very enigmatic and their line-ups seemed to change frequently. There was very little chance I would ever get to see one play live. What interviews and articles that made it into the music papers I found confusing. Maybe it was the language? The music seemed very active and experimental, very direct; anti-marketing and anti-virtuoso in much the same way that punk would be a few years later.
* * *
At school I was getting a bit of reputation. Phil had ‘accidentally’ let slip that I was still seeing a psychologist and, before I knew it, I acquired a new nickname: ‘Psycho’.
I enjoyed my visits to the head doctor. It was a half-day off school and all I had to do was talk about stuff. I was good at that. I hadn’t keeled over for a bit, but I kept seeing the doc every couple of months or so.
One of the questions I got asked was, ‘What do you see yourself doing in the future?’
I could have gone for the facetious answer like ‘undertaker’ but for once I took the question seriously and thought about it.
‘Probably join a band, play the drums and mess around with synthesisers’ was my oddly prophetic reply. I was listening to Roxy Music a lot and Brian Eno had become another role model. (No Pussyfooting) by Eno and Robert Fripp was a perfect soundtrack after a bottle or two of Phensedyl – it captured the sleepy syrupy cough-linctus vibe perfectly.
‘You’d probably be good at that . . .’ was the doc’s reply. I think this was the first time that anyone had said I might be good at anything. I took it as encouragement. I ignored her punchline, ‘. . . messing around.’
I had never advertised the purpose of these visits to the teachers or anybody else at school. I just said, ‘Got a doctor’s appointment, sir,’ and that was it. No questions asked. My mistake had been telling Phil, who in turn told everyone, and now I had to put up with the mocking.
‘Hey you, Morris! You mad or what?’
Or ‘Oi you, nutter!’
I tried to laugh it off but didn’t do a very good job. I got a bit paranoid. Parents and teachers began giving me funny looks.
‘Weirdo!’ became a popular nickname. I quite liked that one, better than ‘Psycho’. I liked the weird and unwanted in life.
A badge of honour then.
* * *
I took solace from the thought that being a drummer in a band was a good idea. The rest of the Sunshine Valley Dance Band, though, weren’t feeling quite so optimistic about having a potentially deranged drummer. One slightly less shambolic practice ended abruptly. Just as the drum pounding and screaming, wailing feedback were reaching a crescendo that almost sounded like a tune, the police arrived, we were busted. And that was that.
‘It was never going to get anywhere anyway,’ were the attempted words of commiseration from the parents, which just riled me.
‘HOW DO YOU FUCKING KNOW THAT THEN? YOU FUCKING PSYCHIC OR SOMETHING?’ That didn’t go down well.
I ranted, and the thing about ranting is that most of the time it gets you nowhere and doesn’t really make you feel any better, unless you really want a badge with the word ‘Twat!’ on it.
So, I was once again not very popular at home but at least nothing got broken, well, apart from the band. I consoled myself with the thought that I was better off solo. I mean, the world was crying out for the solo drummer wasn’t it? Only a matter of time.
While I stuck to drumming on my own, my parents reassured themselves with thoughts of ‘He’ll grow out of it,’ ‘It’s just a phase, they all go through it,’ and ‘Well, it keeps him out of trouble.’ And the less likely ‘He’ll meet a nice girl and settle down.’
Which was fine except . . .
One day in the new year, I was back at school, happily avoiding learning anything in a Physics lesson that might one day be useful, when who should make an unexpected visit? None other than Mr A. H. Cooper, the headmaster himself. A man rarely seen apart from his daily motivational speech that the timetable called ‘Assembly’.
‘Morris,’ he barked, ‘come with me.’
The class fell silent and everyone seemed to be looking at me, as if to say ‘He’s over there, sir. Now he’s for it.’
‘Yes sir,’ I said meekly and followed him out. Perhaps this is about me coming top in classical studies and he wants to congratulate me or give me a prize or something, I thought, but something about his manner seemed to suggest that the giving of prizes was the last thing on his mind. He ushered me into the headmaster’s study, pointed at a chair and said, ‘Wait here.’ So I sat and waited.
He reappeared about fifteen minutes later and led me into an office where two short-haired chaps in blue blazers with brass buttons sat.
‘Morris, these two gentlemen are from Macclesfield Police and they would like to have a word with you.’
Oh shit.
‘Stephen – it is Stephen, isn’t it? – we’ve had a report that you’ve been taking drugs,’ said the nice cop.
Oh big shit.
‘Where are you getting them from?’ shouted the nasty cop.
‘Now,
I’m sure you don’t want to get into any trouble, do you?’ said Constable Nice.
‘Are you taking horse?’ shouted Officer Nasty.
‘And we don’t want you to get in any trouble, really. It’s the dealers we’re after, not casual users like yourself.’
‘Are you on opium? Why is your desk full of empty cough medicine bottles?’
I had to hold my hand up to that one because it was full of Phensedyl bottles and Boots the Chemist bags. No books at all.
I felt tiny and scared and I wanted to go home, but the nice/nasty copper business went on for an eternity. If they just wanted to frighten me, they succeeded.
Eventually Mr Cooper interrupted them and began a bit of a long-winded explanation as to why we were there.
It transpired that what had happened was that Adam, who had been buying the odd tab off Phil, had for some reason felt the need to unburden his guilt and tell his oh-so-cool parents what he had been up to. I didn’t have a problem with that, but why had he felt the need to tell them about what Philip and myself were getting up to? I felt a bit, well, grassed up – there is no other word for it. Grassed up and angry.
Adam’s parents, it turned out, were not quite as cool and right-on as he believed, and they had phoned the Law and the school in that order. The three of us were busted.
I was kicked out of King’s (well, actually I was only suspended but they’ve never asked me back – perhaps they will one day), and I was told to expect further visits from the drugs squad. Mind you, Phil and Adam got the boot as well so at least I wasn’t on my own.
My parents were, naturally and quite rightly, not pleased by this turn of events.
I’d fucked up. Yet I didn’t think it was any fault of my own and I wasn’t remorseful in the slightest. It’s amazing how our own misfortune is always the work of others, isn’t it? That’s exactly how I felt: it was them, it was everybody else. I sunk into depression. An ominous big black cloud began to descend on my life.
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