There's talk of a school reunion in October 2009. I will try and put a band together, any one interested in a one night stand?
Been up to the lake district for a few days
Thursday 14 August 2008
Thursday 24 April 2008
Back from LA
Just back from a trip to Los Angeles, took Caitlyn (my Granddaughter to Disneyland).
had a really great time, went on some rides that I really think I was going on!
had a really great time, went on some rides that I really think I was going on!
Saturday 22 March 2008
Monday 18 February 2008
More Pics from the PAST!!!
@ a club in London with Frank Torpey (right) on guitar and me on bass (left) Singer is Kenny Simon (now doing Errol Brown-tribute)for everyone who has read my blog, I thank you. More pics and stories will follow shortly!!!!
Flies Biography fron DECCA records (1967)
on stage with Dragonmilk (1970's).JPG)
on stage with Dave Phimister (very early 1964)
Thursday 10 January 2008
Dragonmilk
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ENTER THE DRAGON
I had not been doing very much; in fact I had gone back on the ‘milk’ to earn some money and also worked part-time at the local swimming baths, in King Edwards Park in Harlesden, as a lifeguard.
Before getting the job of lifeguard I had to take a few tests, mainly could I swim under water and retrieve a rubber brick from the deep end of the pool in one breath and also basic life saving techniques.
I had actually won a gold medal whilst at school for life saving back in 1963, my one and only gold medal. I did ‘save’ two people in my time as lifeguard, a boy that got into trouble in the diving pool and another young boy whose mother had let him get into the pool on his own only to go straight under the water and start to panic. I pulled him out and took him back to his mother who wasn’t that bothered about it only to say to her little boy ‘don’t do that again’.
This took up most of my time and for a few months this seemed to be the way things would go until one day I got a ‘phone call from Keith Mears.
I had known Keith for a long time although we never had actually worked together our paths crossed occasionally. Keith wanted to know if I would be interested in joining him in a comedy band with a guy called Paul Jay. I said I would think about but only do it on a part time basis. I phoned Keith back and said I would give it a go.
Paul Jay, as it turned out, was quite a genius in writing comedy and came up with some really funny songs but he couldn’t write music. We needed some body else in the band so we advertised for a guitarist (with a van if possible). We got one reply from a Welshman called Clive Richards had just been made redundant from Eglebert Humperdinck’s backing band.
Clive was living in North London, which was handy for me, and he had a van, an old blue Ford Transit. Clive and I ‘hit it off’ straight away and we used to practice Everley Brothers songs. Our voices, although not that marvellous, used to blend well. Keith Mears was living in Essex and Paul Jay was living on the Isle of Dogs, East London. We used to all meet up at Paul’s house and start to put together some songs. Paul’s songs were quite funny but Clive and I thought we could do better than this, so after only a handful of gigs we decided to leave, Keith also left. What happened to Paul Jay I don’t know but we never heard from him again?
Clive and I started going to ‘night-school’ to learn to read and write music. We were half way through the first term when we got a call from Pete Moss, another friend, asking us if we would like to join a working duo called ‘Dragonmilk’.
Clive and I went along one night to the Redcliffe Arms, a pub in Chelsea, which just happened to be opposite the ‘café des Artistes’ club that when I played in the ‘Flies’ we had gigged at so many times.
When we got to the pub the duo was in full swing and after they had finished we were introduced to John Carrington and his brother Alan. John played keyboards and Alan was the drummer and they had a very good sound. They wanted to enlarge the band with a bass player and a guitarist. We arranged to meet again the next day at a pub that they used to rehearse in and after setting up our ‘gear’ we played through a few numbers and everyone agreed that the enlarged sound was just what they wanted, so we became full-time members of ‘Dragonmilk’ this was to be a beginning of a long and fruitful working relationship with what was to be the best ‘live’ band that I had played in.
Dragonmilk continued playing as a duo whilst Clive and I learnt their repertoire and after a month of hard work we were ready for our first night as a four piece.
The date was Saturday 17th February 1973 and the place was Southfield’s College in Wimbledon. After an edgy start we soon got in to the swing of things and by the end of the night we thought we had done a good job, the audience thought so as well.
The next night we played at ‘Crystal Palace’ football club and that night really went well, after that the gigs came in thick and fast.
Before joining Dragonmilk, Clive occasionally went ‘home’ to Swansea on a weekend and one weekend I went with him. His Bother owned a nightclub and this particular weekend was the club’s first birthday and a big celebration was planned. It was at this ‘party’ that I met my future wife, although it would be some years before I made ‘an honest woman’ of her. She spent the evening trying to chat me up and we seemed to hit it off. Her name was Joan and she was Clive’s cousin, we soon became very good friends and talked a lot on the phone and met up when ever we could. She would come up to London about once a month and come to all the bands gigs. Dragonmilk used to play down in Swansea as well.
I had always been interested in recording and for a long time had an old ‘Peter Scott’ reel to reel tape recorder which I spent a lot of time trying out different recording techniques. This machine was very limited and in time I would buy myself a ‘Revox’ A77, a professional tape machine complete with a remote control! I started making recordings in my ‘front room’, putting down one track and then ‘overdubbing’ with another track on top. Using this technique you could put down about six tracks before you started to lose quality.
Whilst in the band Dragonmilk I started making ‘live’ recordings, using about four microphones and a direct feed from the PA system. I would set up the Revox on one side of the stage and operate it remotely. Having to play bass and sing the recorded results were a bit hit and miss but some good ‘gigs’ are preserved for prosperity. It was difficult getting the balance right and with only limited post-recording edits possible the results were not as good as I’d have liked.
I was relaxing one day on a rare day off when the phone rang; it was Chris Hedger, a friend of mine who played in a band called ‘Legend’.
‘Hi mate’ he said ‘are you doing anything tonight?’ ‘Not really’ I said ‘we’ve got a night off why?’
‘Do you fancy playing bass for us tonight only our bass player is ill’. ‘Okay’ I said, ‘right we’ll pick you up at 5pm’.
I phoned our guitarist, Clive, and asked him if he wanted to come along for laugh. Clive came to my house and we were picked up as arranged, so off we went to an unknown gig.
The gig turned out to be a pub in Harrow. It was only a pub gig but it was still going to be challenge. On the way to the gig we all went over some of the songs we were going to do.
After setting up the equipment on a small stage we all adjourned to the bar for a couple of pints before ‘show-time’.
It was getting nearer to going on but there was one person missing, the drummer. It was now time to go on and still no drummer. I had a thought and said ‘how about if I play drums and Clive plays bass?’ ‘Can you?’
‘I’ll give it a go’ I said. I’ve always had a secret ambition to be a drummer and tonight was, for one night only, a dream come true.
The make shift band took to the stage and we ran over a few numbers. The time had now come to perform for real. The night went as well as can be expected considering the right hand didn’t really know what the left hand was doing and that was just me on drums.
After the gig I was knackered, never again would I criticise a drummer for ‘slowing down’
The next night it was business as usual with ‘Dragonmilk’ and wasn’t I relieved, back in the safe hands of playing bass along side a real drummer!
I never did play drums again, except for ‘knocking around’ in recording studios .
Dragonmilk started to write and record more original songs, most of our recordings were done in West Hampstead at Ivan Berg’s studio. This was a small 4 track-recording studio made out of a converted garage. Although small we managed to get down some fairly good stuff. The band had been working on a themed album of ‘mythological beasts’ songs such as The Dragon, The Gorgon, Salamander, Chiron, Phoenix and the Sphinx were among the short-listed titles for the album.
We weren’t under contract to any record company but quite by chance Ivan Berg was contracted to produce a number of children’s cassettes tapes for sale via ‘The Times’ newspaper and it didn’t him long to ask us if we wanted to have our album released in this way. We jumped at the chance and for the next few weeks, whenever we had time, we went down to the studio to work on the album.
We weren’t under contract to any record company but quite by chance Ivan Berg was contracted to produce a number of children’s cassettes tapes for sale via ‘The Times’ newspaper and it didn’t him long to ask us if we wanted to have our album released in this way. We jumped at the chance and for the next few weeks, whenever we had time, we went down to the studio to work on the album.
It was eventually released in 1973 under the title of ‘LION AND THE UNICORN’ only on cassette but some years later I managed to get it released on CD by ‘Kissingspell’ records under the same title.
Nigel soon decided to leave the band just as we had signed to play a month long residency in Lubeck in Germany. By this time I had bought a VW van from Adrian Gunn, a friend of the bands, and had it kitted out with 3 aircraft seats as well as the 2 at the front so 5 people could travel in relative comfort.
I also fitted the van with a full-length roof rack so all our equipment fitted in one vehicle.
I made a phone call to Keith Mears, a friend I had known for a long time.
Keith was a drummer whom I had worked with in the Paul Jay Band together with Clive Richards, and before that Keith used to play in a harmony band called ‘Playground’.
‘Playground’ were involved in a Road traffic accident in Scotland where Keith was badly injured and sadly their bass-player was killed. I had driven up to Gretna Green to pick up their equipment from the local police station and bought it back to Essex for them after which Keith and I became good friends.
I asked Keith if he was doing anything and how did he fancy a month in Germany? He jumped at the chance and it wasn’t long before we were off on the road to Germany.
Nigel soon decided to leave the band just as we had signed to play a month long residency in Lubeck in Germany. By this time I had bought a VW van from Adrian Gunn, a friend of the bands, and had it kitted out with 3 aircraft seats as well as the 2 at the front so 5 people could travel in relative comfort.
I also fitted the van with a full-length roof rack so all our equipment fitted in one vehicle.
I made a phone call to Keith Mears, a friend I had known for a long time.
Keith was a drummer whom I had worked with in the Paul Jay Band together with Clive Richards, and before that Keith used to play in a harmony band called ‘Playground’.
‘Playground’ were involved in a Road traffic accident in Scotland where Keith was badly injured and sadly their bass-player was killed. I had driven up to Gretna Green to pick up their equipment from the local police station and bought it back to Essex for them after which Keith and I became good friends.
I asked Keith if he was doing anything and how did he fancy a month in Germany? He jumped at the chance and it wasn’t long before we were off on the road to Germany.
After a few preperations for the long trip to Germany , fitting a large roof rack to the van etc. it wasn't long before we were on the ferry to Belgium.
To be continued!! shortly I hope
Infinity on Jersey
This is infinity performing on Jersey, the rest of the story will follow shortly!Out Of The Ashes
It was a bright sunny morning and I was driving along a twisty country road in the South of France. I had just got off a private jet from Heathrow after flying by Concorde from New York. I was driving my new red Ferrari heading for Nice where I had just bought a luxury apartment in a building that resembled a pyramid overlooking the Côte d’Azure.
The Flies were now riding high in the charts with release on their greatest hits L.P. (that had gone straight in a number one) things could not have been better. We had just returned from sell-out tour of the States finishing at Madison Square Gardens, supported by The Who (whom we had supported on three occasions in the UK).
All of a sudden an alarm on the dash of the Ferrari began to sound quite loudly. I was trying to find out what the alarm was and was just about to pull over to the side of the road when some where in the distance a voice was calling to me. Slowly the voice became nearer and clearer, it was my Mum! “ Are you getting up today, your alarm’s been going off for ages”
Slowly it dawned on me it had all had been a dream.
I was now wide-awake and in Kilburn, North-west London. I didn’t even own a car let alone a Ferrari.
I lay there for while wondering what kind of day this would be. I really didn’t want to give up the music business but what should be my next course of action. I believe in fate and ‘what will be will be’.
It was around 11 am and I was just about to get up when my mother, again, called up the stairs “ there’s someone on the phone for you”. After the break-up of the Flies I had moved back to Kilburn and lived, for a short while, with my parents whilst I sorted my future out. I ran down the stairs picked up the phone and heard a familiar voice it was John DaCosta. “ Hi Ian how you doing?” “Okay I said”, John, continued, “ are you playing at the moment? Only if you’re not, how do fancy joining me, Brain Gill, Phil Chesterton and Stu Calver in a new group?
Stu Calver had been a member of the Flies as had Brain Gill but not at the same time.
Phil Chesterton had deputised for Robin Hunt on the now legendary ‘IN-SECT LP’and was good friend so I said YES right away.
I was ‘between jobs’ and really didn’t know what I was going to do. This seemed like an answer to my prayers, and for someone that doesn’t believe in God not a bad result!
Infinity is born
A meeting was arranged and as we all new each other it didn’t take long before rehearsals were in progress and a repertoire put together. The name Infinity was chosen and so back on the road again we went. This was now early 1969.
With the break-up of the Flies Robin Hunt and Peter Dunton went on to form a band called Bulldog Breed which had moderate success and I was, in a few years time, to work with Robin again.
John and myself had always been in the Flies, Stu Calver had been in the Flies and also ‘Johnny Tempest and the Nomads’ (later to change their name to ‘Cymbeline’) Brian Gill was also in ‘Johnny Tempest and the Nomads’ and had left to join ‘The Flies’ when Stu had left to join Johnny Tempest. Phil was the drummer for ‘Johnny Tempest and the Nomads’ as all of us had been in these two popular groups in London it didn’t take long to get some bookings and after a short while we were signed up to NEMS agency. A booking agency originally set up by Brian Epstein (the Beatles Manager). There were quite a few big names on their books Pink Floyd, T-Rex, Deep Purple, Pretty Things, Fairport Convention, Harmony Grass and Episode Six with Sheila Carter to name but a few. We were being ‘handled’ by John Lyons (Lon to his friends); he had played rhythm guitar with Tony Rivers in ‘Tony Rivers and the Castaways’, a fantastic harmony group from Essex, they had recently changed their name to Harmony Grass and now ‘Lon’ was their booking agent!
With the signing to ‘Nems’ we were getting bigger and better gigs. Our first gig as ‘Infinity’ was Seale School in Hertford on the 13th March 1969. On the 4th January I had bought myself a rare Fender six bass from Sound City Music shop, 124 Shaftsbury Ave. in London’s West End for the sum of £145 including a genuine Fender case, No. 95670 made in the USA on 06/03/63a (the date can be confirmed by removing the neck and the date is stamped on the end of the neck where it meets the body). The sound on this guitar was really great the only thing was I couldn’t get used to six strings so in the end I decided to just use four strings and spread them evenly across the neck. This worked fine.
We had four further gigs in March ’69 followed by ten in April and 13 in May. In April we had got back to playing at the ‘Café-des-Artistes’ in Chelsea, which had been a regular haunt of the ‘Flies’.
It was on the 2nd June 1969 we ventured west down to Devon to perform for a week at the Narracott Grand Hotel in Woolacombe.
The weather was really hot and we only had to play 2 x 45 mins a night so we spent the rest of the time polishing up our act and sunbathing. In our new act it was decided to include a couple of ‘comedy numbers’. The first one was Bernard Cribbins’ ‘Hole in the Road’ and also ‘The Monster Mash’ by Bobby “Boris” Pickett And the Crypt Kickers. I took lead vocals on ‘Hole in the road’ and John the lead on ‘Monster Mash’ dressed up as a professor with white coat and a rubber ‘bald head’, whilst I dressed up as the Monster, complete with a rubber mask, which was very hot and uncomfortable under the stage lights for ‘Monster’ and as a workman for ‘Hole in the road’, with shovel, road sign and a flashing warning light. These two songs went down really well with the audience and after a few nervous attempts became well established in our repertoire. We had also been working on a song by the ‘Jim Webb’ called ‘McArthur Park’ this was a very complicated song with intricate harmonies and a very difficult musical arrangement but thanks to Brian Gill’s magical arrangement we managed a very fine performance and performed the entire song including the very final note (as sung by Stu) which is a bout 2 octaves above middle “C”. Stu managed this note night after night.
We left Woolacombe on the 8th June; performed in Frome, Somerset on the 11th, back to Essex on the 13th to play at the Ivy Lodge, Woodford, and Guys Hospital on the 14th (playing not as patients!) and then up to Sheffield on the 15th to play at the Arbourthorne Hotel.
After travelling back down to London we had a couple of days off and it was during this break that we had a ‘phone call from ‘Lon’ about playing for a week in Jersey. Apparently a band called ‘Chris Lamb and The Universals’ were due to play at Les Arches Hotel on Jersey for the summer but had had an accident on the way to the airport and wouldn’t be able to make it for a week. We had a bit of a lull in bookings so we agreed to leave as soon as possible. We got all our equipment loaded on the van, had flights booked with BEA (now British Airways) from Southampton and off we set.
The Fun begins.
We drove down to Southampton airport and checked in all our equipment (including all the comedy stuff) and luggage with Air Freight. We had too much weighty equipment for all of it to go on the plane in one go so some of it went on a later flight.
We had a couple of hours waiting for the flight and during this wait was the first time in my life I was to have ‘a migraine’, I didn’t know at the time what it was all I knew was that my eyes had gone funny, making it hard to see with flashing lights and blind spots. Once on board the aircraft I remained quite and the headache started, but seemed to lift shortly after arrival on Jersey.
The hotel’s entertainments manager, in his TR6 sports car, met us at the airport. All five of us somehow managed to clime aboard and off we set for Les Arches Hotel at Archirondel Bay not far from St. Helier. The equipment was being collected by the hotel’s own van and followed later. The hotel was to be our home for the next three weeks. We were only supposed to play for a week but we went down so well that Renzo Martin, the hotel’s manager, asked us if we wanted to continue playing all season (16 weeks!).
We had to find a place on our own to stay as the hotel was fully booked and after looking around some estate agents in St. Helier (the islands Capital) we eventually rented a bungalow in the middle of the island, very peaceful and at the rear of the bungalow was a field that we used to spend some time in playing ‘American Baseball’.
We also had to have some ‘wheels’ so we bought an old 1960 ‘Wartburg’ estate car for £60. It served our purpose well. It got us around the island, to the hotel, and to some of the more popular beaches, where we spent lots of time soaking up the sunshine. When we eventually came back to the mainland we had the most amazing tans.
It was while we were living in the bungalow that the first ever ‘Moon’ landing was took place.
We had an old television so we stayed up most of the night watching Neil Armstrong take his now infamous ‘first step’ on the moon. What an amazing experience!
Since arriving on the island we, as a band, were getting quite a reputation and it wasn’t long before the local paper ran an article on us entitled ‘Best Band On The Island?’
It was a very good article and after it’s appearance the hotel was packed every night.
The old ‘Wartburg’ car had to be abandoned at the airport when we left; we had tried to sell it but with no luck so after unloading the car at the freight terminal it was driven to the nearest car park and just left.
Although we had flown out from Southampton airport we could only get a flight back to London Heathrow, again with B.E.A. The cost of shipping all our equipment back to the mainland was £39 16s 6d for 606 Kgs. We had 32 pieces of equipment. Dave Taylor, an old friend of the group, met us at the airport with our transit van and after clearing customs we headed for home. The date we flew home was 6th September 1969.
I was still staying at my parents house, in fact all the band were staying at their parents houses
Back on the mainland
We weren’t back on the mainland for long when we started gigging again, in fact ‘Nems’ had booked us to play at the Ilford Jewish Youth Club on the 7th September then we had ten days off, for a break, before we started again. Our first ‘gig’ on the 19th September was on the River Thames for Lloyds Bank, (their annual dance) it was on one of the big riverboats, complete with restaurant and dance floor, and we had some fun with electrics as the power was DC converted to AC and the Hammond organ that John was using was a full tone flat so we had retune our guitars to compensate which made our harmonies a bit strange to say the least! On the 20th we were off to Southampton to play at a college dance. After that it was a number off gigs in and around London until on the 13th October we had a recording audition for Decca, which we failed. On the 15th October we had a BBC audition which we again failed. Not put off by the recent failures we continued gigging locally until on the 25th October we started our first of many trips ‘up north’ to play at The Scunthorpe Baths. We were supporting the famous ‘Searchers’, a Liverpool group having had a number of hit records in the sixties. In those days we didn’t stay overnight very often but drove back through the night, it made it a long day but we enjoyed it, it was all part of the experience of being in the music industry.
We had a number of gigs, all over the place, during November and the early part of December but it was on the 13th we played a ‘one night stand’ at the University of Caen in Normandy, France and what a night it was. We went down really well, I think we were a better ‘live act’ than a studio band.
It was on the 18th that we decided to try our hand at recording again so we spent the whole day in a recording studio in Denmark Street putting down demos of ‘Pattern People’ by the ‘Fifth Dimension’ and an original song called ‘Strange Girl’ with Stu taking the lead vocal. These didn’t do much for us so we then booked a day in Essex-Music studios to record ‘Taxman’ by the Beatles and ‘I’ve got you under my skin’ by Cole Porter. Our only other recordings were to be in Tangerine Studios on the 6th May 1970 in Holloway, London to put down two original tracks for a possible album, they were ‘Time Keeper’ and ‘Space Shanty’ and at E.M.I. Studios on the 3rd March 1970 at Abbey Road, London using the famous No.1 studio that ‘The Beatles’ had used on many of their famous tracks. This session was to be for one day and was organised by some rich American who wanted to record an album using a pop group (us), a jazz group (Kenny Clare Jazz band) and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The event was called ‘If Music Be The Food of Love’ and Stu Calver was chosen to sing the lead vocal. It was an amazing day and we actually got paid for doing it!
Sadly it was shortly after the recording at Tangerine studios that the band decided to break-up but in-between the E.M.I. recording and the Tangerine session we did got back to Denmark one last time for two weeks at ‘The Revolution Club’ in Copenhagen (formally known as ‘The Star Club’).
I was now at a loss again as to what to do.
Some year later I did manage to get a CD and vinyl LP released of all the Infinity tracks that had been recorded:
It was a bright sunny morning and I was driving along a twisty country road in the South of France. I had just got off a private jet from Heathrow after flying by Concorde from New York. I was driving my new red Ferrari heading for Nice where I had just bought a luxury apartment in a building that resembled a pyramid overlooking the Côte d’Azure.
The Flies were now riding high in the charts with release on their greatest hits L.P. (that had gone straight in a number one) things could not have been better. We had just returned from sell-out tour of the States finishing at Madison Square Gardens, supported by The Who (whom we had supported on three occasions in the UK).
All of a sudden an alarm on the dash of the Ferrari began to sound quite loudly. I was trying to find out what the alarm was and was just about to pull over to the side of the road when some where in the distance a voice was calling to me. Slowly the voice became nearer and clearer, it was my Mum! “ Are you getting up today, your alarm’s been going off for ages”
Slowly it dawned on me it had all had been a dream.
I was now wide-awake and in Kilburn, North-west London. I didn’t even own a car let alone a Ferrari.
I lay there for while wondering what kind of day this would be. I really didn’t want to give up the music business but what should be my next course of action. I believe in fate and ‘what will be will be’.
It was around 11 am and I was just about to get up when my mother, again, called up the stairs “ there’s someone on the phone for you”. After the break-up of the Flies I had moved back to Kilburn and lived, for a short while, with my parents whilst I sorted my future out. I ran down the stairs picked up the phone and heard a familiar voice it was John DaCosta. “ Hi Ian how you doing?” “Okay I said”, John, continued, “ are you playing at the moment? Only if you’re not, how do fancy joining me, Brain Gill, Phil Chesterton and Stu Calver in a new group?
Stu Calver had been a member of the Flies as had Brain Gill but not at the same time.
Phil Chesterton had deputised for Robin Hunt on the now legendary ‘IN-SECT LP’and was good friend so I said YES right away.
I was ‘between jobs’ and really didn’t know what I was going to do. This seemed like an answer to my prayers, and for someone that doesn’t believe in God not a bad result!
Infinity is born
A meeting was arranged and as we all new each other it didn’t take long before rehearsals were in progress and a repertoire put together. The name Infinity was chosen and so back on the road again we went. This was now early 1969.
With the break-up of the Flies Robin Hunt and Peter Dunton went on to form a band called Bulldog Breed which had moderate success and I was, in a few years time, to work with Robin again.
John and myself had always been in the Flies, Stu Calver had been in the Flies and also ‘Johnny Tempest and the Nomads’ (later to change their name to ‘Cymbeline’) Brian Gill was also in ‘Johnny Tempest and the Nomads’ and had left to join ‘The Flies’ when Stu had left to join Johnny Tempest. Phil was the drummer for ‘Johnny Tempest and the Nomads’ as all of us had been in these two popular groups in London it didn’t take long to get some bookings and after a short while we were signed up to NEMS agency. A booking agency originally set up by Brian Epstein (the Beatles Manager). There were quite a few big names on their books Pink Floyd, T-Rex, Deep Purple, Pretty Things, Fairport Convention, Harmony Grass and Episode Six with Sheila Carter to name but a few. We were being ‘handled’ by John Lyons (Lon to his friends); he had played rhythm guitar with Tony Rivers in ‘Tony Rivers and the Castaways’, a fantastic harmony group from Essex, they had recently changed their name to Harmony Grass and now ‘Lon’ was their booking agent!
With the signing to ‘Nems’ we were getting bigger and better gigs. Our first gig as ‘Infinity’ was Seale School in Hertford on the 13th March 1969. On the 4th January I had bought myself a rare Fender six bass from Sound City Music shop, 124 Shaftsbury Ave. in London’s West End for the sum of £145 including a genuine Fender case, No. 95670 made in the USA on 06/03/63a (the date can be confirmed by removing the neck and the date is stamped on the end of the neck where it meets the body). The sound on this guitar was really great the only thing was I couldn’t get used to six strings so in the end I decided to just use four strings and spread them evenly across the neck. This worked fine.
We had four further gigs in March ’69 followed by ten in April and 13 in May. In April we had got back to playing at the ‘Café-des-Artistes’ in Chelsea, which had been a regular haunt of the ‘Flies’.
It was on the 2nd June 1969 we ventured west down to Devon to perform for a week at the Narracott Grand Hotel in Woolacombe.
The weather was really hot and we only had to play 2 x 45 mins a night so we spent the rest of the time polishing up our act and sunbathing. In our new act it was decided to include a couple of ‘comedy numbers’. The first one was Bernard Cribbins’ ‘Hole in the Road’ and also ‘The Monster Mash’ by Bobby “Boris” Pickett And the Crypt Kickers. I took lead vocals on ‘Hole in the road’ and John the lead on ‘Monster Mash’ dressed up as a professor with white coat and a rubber ‘bald head’, whilst I dressed up as the Monster, complete with a rubber mask, which was very hot and uncomfortable under the stage lights for ‘Monster’ and as a workman for ‘Hole in the road’, with shovel, road sign and a flashing warning light. These two songs went down really well with the audience and after a few nervous attempts became well established in our repertoire. We had also been working on a song by the ‘Jim Webb’ called ‘McArthur Park’ this was a very complicated song with intricate harmonies and a very difficult musical arrangement but thanks to Brian Gill’s magical arrangement we managed a very fine performance and performed the entire song including the very final note (as sung by Stu) which is a bout 2 octaves above middle “C”. Stu managed this note night after night.
We left Woolacombe on the 8th June; performed in Frome, Somerset on the 11th, back to Essex on the 13th to play at the Ivy Lodge, Woodford, and Guys Hospital on the 14th (playing not as patients!) and then up to Sheffield on the 15th to play at the Arbourthorne Hotel.
After travelling back down to London we had a couple of days off and it was during this break that we had a ‘phone call from ‘Lon’ about playing for a week in Jersey. Apparently a band called ‘Chris Lamb and The Universals’ were due to play at Les Arches Hotel on Jersey for the summer but had had an accident on the way to the airport and wouldn’t be able to make it for a week. We had a bit of a lull in bookings so we agreed to leave as soon as possible. We got all our equipment loaded on the van, had flights booked with BEA (now British Airways) from Southampton and off we set.
The Fun begins.
We drove down to Southampton airport and checked in all our equipment (including all the comedy stuff) and luggage with Air Freight. We had too much weighty equipment for all of it to go on the plane in one go so some of it went on a later flight.
We had a couple of hours waiting for the flight and during this wait was the first time in my life I was to have ‘a migraine’, I didn’t know at the time what it was all I knew was that my eyes had gone funny, making it hard to see with flashing lights and blind spots. Once on board the aircraft I remained quite and the headache started, but seemed to lift shortly after arrival on Jersey.
The hotel’s entertainments manager, in his TR6 sports car, met us at the airport. All five of us somehow managed to clime aboard and off we set for Les Arches Hotel at Archirondel Bay not far from St. Helier. The equipment was being collected by the hotel’s own van and followed later. The hotel was to be our home for the next three weeks. We were only supposed to play for a week but we went down so well that Renzo Martin, the hotel’s manager, asked us if we wanted to continue playing all season (16 weeks!).
We had to find a place on our own to stay as the hotel was fully booked and after looking around some estate agents in St. Helier (the islands Capital) we eventually rented a bungalow in the middle of the island, very peaceful and at the rear of the bungalow was a field that we used to spend some time in playing ‘American Baseball’.
We also had to have some ‘wheels’ so we bought an old 1960 ‘Wartburg’ estate car for £60. It served our purpose well. It got us around the island, to the hotel, and to some of the more popular beaches, where we spent lots of time soaking up the sunshine. When we eventually came back to the mainland we had the most amazing tans.
It was while we were living in the bungalow that the first ever ‘Moon’ landing was took place.
We had an old television so we stayed up most of the night watching Neil Armstrong take his now infamous ‘first step’ on the moon. What an amazing experience!
Since arriving on the island we, as a band, were getting quite a reputation and it wasn’t long before the local paper ran an article on us entitled ‘Best Band On The Island?’
It was a very good article and after it’s appearance the hotel was packed every night.
The old ‘Wartburg’ car had to be abandoned at the airport when we left; we had tried to sell it but with no luck so after unloading the car at the freight terminal it was driven to the nearest car park and just left.
Although we had flown out from Southampton airport we could only get a flight back to London Heathrow, again with B.E.A. The cost of shipping all our equipment back to the mainland was £39 16s 6d for 606 Kgs. We had 32 pieces of equipment. Dave Taylor, an old friend of the group, met us at the airport with our transit van and after clearing customs we headed for home. The date we flew home was 6th September 1969.
I was still staying at my parents house, in fact all the band were staying at their parents houses
Back on the mainland
We weren’t back on the mainland for long when we started gigging again, in fact ‘Nems’ had booked us to play at the Ilford Jewish Youth Club on the 7th September then we had ten days off, for a break, before we started again. Our first ‘gig’ on the 19th September was on the River Thames for Lloyds Bank, (their annual dance) it was on one of the big riverboats, complete with restaurant and dance floor, and we had some fun with electrics as the power was DC converted to AC and the Hammond organ that John was using was a full tone flat so we had retune our guitars to compensate which made our harmonies a bit strange to say the least! On the 20th we were off to Southampton to play at a college dance. After that it was a number off gigs in and around London until on the 13th October we had a recording audition for Decca, which we failed. On the 15th October we had a BBC audition which we again failed. Not put off by the recent failures we continued gigging locally until on the 25th October we started our first of many trips ‘up north’ to play at The Scunthorpe Baths. We were supporting the famous ‘Searchers’, a Liverpool group having had a number of hit records in the sixties. In those days we didn’t stay overnight very often but drove back through the night, it made it a long day but we enjoyed it, it was all part of the experience of being in the music industry.
We had a number of gigs, all over the place, during November and the early part of December but it was on the 13th we played a ‘one night stand’ at the University of Caen in Normandy, France and what a night it was. We went down really well, I think we were a better ‘live act’ than a studio band.
It was on the 18th that we decided to try our hand at recording again so we spent the whole day in a recording studio in Denmark Street putting down demos of ‘Pattern People’ by the ‘Fifth Dimension’ and an original song called ‘Strange Girl’ with Stu taking the lead vocal. These didn’t do much for us so we then booked a day in Essex-Music studios to record ‘Taxman’ by the Beatles and ‘I’ve got you under my skin’ by Cole Porter. Our only other recordings were to be in Tangerine Studios on the 6th May 1970 in Holloway, London to put down two original tracks for a possible album, they were ‘Time Keeper’ and ‘Space Shanty’ and at E.M.I. Studios on the 3rd March 1970 at Abbey Road, London using the famous No.1 studio that ‘The Beatles’ had used on many of their famous tracks. This session was to be for one day and was organised by some rich American who wanted to record an album using a pop group (us), a jazz group (Kenny Clare Jazz band) and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The event was called ‘If Music Be The Food of Love’ and Stu Calver was chosen to sing the lead vocal. It was an amazing day and we actually got paid for doing it!
Sadly it was shortly after the recording at Tangerine studios that the band decided to break-up but in-between the E.M.I. recording and the Tangerine session we did got back to Denmark one last time for two weeks at ‘The Revolution Club’ in Copenhagen (formally known as ‘The Star Club’).
I was now at a loss again as to what to do.
Some year later I did manage to get a CD and vinyl LP released of all the Infinity tracks that had been recorded:
Thursday 3 January 2008
Ian, Chris, George, Robin and JohnChapter 8 Willkommen in Hamburg
We assembled on a Monday late in April to drive the 500 miles or so to Hamburg, this took about 36 hours as the van only had a top speed of 40 mph. We had to arrive by the 1st May. We eventually arrived at the Top Ten Club on the infamous Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s equivalent to London’s Soho only worse or better depending on your point of view and I can tell you there were some views, late on the 30th April. We parked outside the club, and I volunteered to stay with van because of all the equipment onboard and the fact we couldn’t lock the doors, while the other went inside the club to suss things out and have a couple of beers.
Hamburg turned out to be a really wild city!
After a couple of hours the four lads came back for me and together with a little Scottish fella called Riky Barnes, who was the assistant manager of the club, went into a café-cum-restaurant next door the club for a meal and a chat. This café and a little Chinese restaurant in the back streets became frequent watering holes for the band over the next four weeks.
The next day, in the morning, the ‘Decadent Streak’ and another group, Rudy Jay and the Jaymen, a black West Indian R&B band from London, moved into the Top Ten Club. Both bands shared a flat above the club, if you can call two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom sufficient space for 11 fully grown men. Apart from the space we all got on very well.
The club’s policy was that two bands played for the whole month, seven days a week, one hour on and one hour off from 7pm until 3 or 4 in the morning Sunday to Thursday and from 6pm until 6am Friday and Saturday. A very punishing schedule indeed. We also alternated which band started the night
The club was quite expensive so we didn’t eat there much but one concession was ‘house beer’, a rather foul brew but after a few you couldn’t tell the difference and the fact it only cost 1 Mark a bottle made it taste all the better. Added to this it seemed to be the done thing for customers of the club to buy the band a drink or two, so on many occasions the ‘hour off’ was taken up by drinking with the German fans. Everyone wanted the band to be seen at their table, so both bands did quite well for drinks throughout the night, in fact so well some nights they just about made the last set or two. The last set (commonly known as the dawn chorus) normally consisted of the band playing long blues numbers and about a dozen or so people dancing. The set ended when the manager had had enough and he flashed a small white light on the side of the stage. This was the sign for us to stop playing at the end of the current number. After a while we used to stop as soon as the white light went on.
1966 had a very hot May so on weekends after we had finished playing for the night we all jumped into the van along with some ‘girlfriends’ and headed for Timmendorf, near Travemunde, a coastal town some two-hour drive from Hamburg. On arriving at Timmendorf everyone had some breakfast and then it was down to sleeping on the beach before it got too hot. After some sun bathing and swimming, at around 3pm, it was back up the autobahn to Hamburg just in time the night’s performance. Back to the club, a quick shower and it was time to go on. Both bands had vast repertoires of about 100 songs and many more were made up as you went along but in the course of a night’s playing we used to repeat some numbers especially if requested.
After a few days of this intense performing both bands started to suffer from the dreaded ‘Hamburg Throat’, in other words the old voice box started to go. Once we got through this period the voice seemed to get even stronger and you could sing all night, added to the fact that in Germany, at the time, you could buy from the apothecary (chemist) a pill called ‘preludin’ (known as prellies) that had the effect of keeping you awake for long periods. All the bands used to use these including the Beatles whom had played at the Top Ten Club, a couple of years before, as well as the Star Club that was just around the corner.
We hardly ever saw nighttime during the month of May, it was always light when we went into the club and always light when we came out again in the morning. During the week when we tried to catch up on some much needed sleep before going to bed we used to give one of Rudy Jay’s band a list of breakfast requirements (the Jay men used to do a lot on their own cooking and had agreed to make ‘breakfast’ for us for a small fee) and about 5pm we were woken up with egg sandwiches, bacon rolls and coffee and boy did it taste good. This was a great arrangement. After ‘breakfast’ it was time for a quick shower, get changed it our stage clothes, downstairs to the club, a quick tune up and then it was time for another night’s performance.
Once the van had been unloaded and the equipment taken into the club the van had been parked-up on some waste ground at the back of the club and access gained to it by way of a small alley way next to the club. The only time the van was used now was on weekends to go to the beach.
During our ‘hour off’, if not taken up by drinking in the club, it was not uncommon for one of us in the group to show a lady fan the delights of the inside of the old Commer van and the young lady showing the bands ‘member’ the delights of her! Nobody actually kept score (excuse the pun) but the old van certainly clocked up a good few miles I can tell you!
Down at the lower end on the Reeperbahn on the right was a small street that was full of strip-joints, little bars and, by now, the infamous ‘Star Club. The REMO FOUR, a band managed by Brian Epstein and every bit as good as the Beatles, often used to play at the Star Club. Sometimes in-between our sets at the Top Ten we would pop round to the Star Club and have a beer and a chat. We became friendly with the Remo Four, whom later became ‘Ashton, Gardener and Dyke’ and had a couple of hit records. On one occasion the ‘Spencer Davis Group’ made an appearance at the Star Club and really brought the house down. From what Robin remembers, Chris, myself and Robin spent most of that night in a bar opposite the Star Club, called the ‘Block Hut’ having a splendid drinking session with Steve Winwood and Spencer Davis.
Further up the road from the Star Club was a little known jazz club. One night, the owner of the jazz club was in the Top Ten and after chatting to us invited us all back to his club after we had finished our last set (5am). On completing our last set we set off for the jazz club where we spent the next four hours drinking whiskey. After this heavy drinking session we all went back to the ‘flat’ above the Top Ten for some much needed sleep.
At the top end of the Reeperbahn, on the left, was a newly built ‘Wimpy Bar’. The ‘Decadent Streak’ was invited to open the restaurant. This was done in one of our ‘hours off’. The opening ceremony consisted of a giant hamburger and I mean GIANT plus plenty to drink and we actually got our photo in the paper the next day stuffing our faces full of this giant hamburger.
The month of May finally drew to a close and the next gig loomed, a two-week stint at the ‘Crazy Horse’, still in Hamburg but across the other side of town. A flat when with the gig but this time a short drive from the club. We made plenty of noise and action on stage at the Crazy Horse and the flat saw plenty of action too!
The third and final gig on that tour of Germany was another two-week stint at ‘Rabes Hotel’, Eutersen, about 50 miles south of Hamburg. It was the scene for many a good drinking session and to our surprise and pleasure we actually got one day of a week. ‘What’s a day off’ we cried in unison. This one-day off was spent in driving up to Hamburg, in the faithful Commer and visiting the Reeperbahn going to the Top Ten and chatting to the group that had taken over from our month there. This band was from Wales and called ‘The Smoke-less Zone’, who later was to change their name to ‘MAN’. On this night in Hamburg one of our group got left behind and spent the evening with friends in a night club before spending the night with a stripper and having to catch the bus back to Eutersen the next day just in time to play at the evening session. Totally shattered he missed the after show drinking session and went to bed. His identity shall remain nameless to spare his embarrassment! Fully refreshed in the morning he promptly got off with hotel owner’s daughter and never did visit Hamburg again.
During our stay in Germany we did quite a few photo shoots for various newspapers and magazines. One of these shoots was ‘on location’ on a deserted beach with a couple of the girls we had befriended. The photo’s looked more like an advert for Fender guitars, I having now swapped by Rickenbacker for a Fender Precision bass at the local music shop on the Reeperbahn, Chris with his Fender Stratocaster, George sporting a Fender Telecaster and John with a Fender Jazz Master (serial no. 78184) that he bought from Selmer Musical Instruments ltd for £108 on the 25th November 1966. Robin was left holding a drumstick. We were all wearing hats of various descriptions and standing up to our knees in the sea.
Ian, Chris, George, Robin & John (advert for Fender guitars?)
We left for home on 1st July 1966 after an amazing time in Hamburg and arrived back on the 3rd.
Our next gig was an audition at ‘Oscars Grotto’, a new club in Ilford, Essex, on the 6th July. We then actually played there for real on the 9th and having only to do 2x45 mins. Sets we played like never before. So hyped up by playing such long sets in Germany two 45’s were a breeze. Friends were amazed by our slickness and we went down a storm. The gigs seem to flow in and in no tome at all we were playing nearly every night and sometimes two gigs a night. On one occasion we were due on stage at 11pm at the ‘Café des Artistes’ in Chelsea but first we had to open a show in Southend, Essex, which also featured ‘The Tremeloes’ and ‘The Moody Blues’. We had borrowed the Tremeloes equipment, as ours was already set up in the ‘café’, and after the second house had driven straight back to London for our third gig of the night.
The ‘Café des Artistes’ in Redcliffe Gardens, Chelsea, became another regular gig for us. It was one of the ‘in ‘clubs in London and all the groups that were in town at the time seem to use it as a meeting place. It was a most unusual club in the fact that it didn’t serve alcohol, so whenever we played there we used to frequent the ‘Redcliffe Arms’ opposite for a few ‘bevvies’ before taking to the stage at around 10pm until 2am. The ‘Café’, a basement club, was a hot and sweaty club with low ceilings and lots of little alcoves, a very intimate club (in more ways than one!). Other bands that used to play at the ‘Café’ included ‘The Lovers’, after Lulu had dumped them; they later changed their name to George Bean and the bass player went on to play with ‘Manfred Mann’, and Jeff Beck with his brother on drums. It really was a swinging place.
John’s girlfriend, at the time, shared a flat in Redcliffe Gardens with three other girls; it was just down the road from the ‘Café’. One of the girls was a hairdresser and one Saturday afternoon both John and myself were at the flat having our ‘locks’ trimmed before going to a gig. The other girls were out at the van adding to the already impressive amount of lipstick that adored the vehicle. When they had finished they came back into the flat and one of the girls passes a strange remark ‘I’ve shut the window that was open!’ John looked at me; I looked at John we both knew that we hadn’t left a window open on the van. Everyone rushed outside to the van only to find that someone had broken into the Commer and had made off with two guitars, my Fender Precision bass and John’s Fender Jazz Master guitar.
Terror struck us both, what would we do now we had a gig to go to. After some frantic phone calls, Stu Calver (a former member of the band) lent me a Fender bass, which I would eventually buy for £50 and John borrowed a guitar from ‘Freedman’s’ musical instruments, a music shop in Leytonstone.
Sunday 17th July 1966 Chris Manders decided to leave the band and went back to Germany with a band called ‘Summer Set’. A guitarist named Eddie replaced him but he didn’t stay long. We were down to four again and this was going to be the line-up for the foreseeable future and most probably the best line-up of all. We four carried on gigging and again changed our name to ‘No Flies on Us, But!’ and on the 25th August went into Dick James’s recording studio in London to record a demo record that was eventually to become our first single; ‘I’M NOT YOUR STEPPING STONE’ and on the ‘b’ side we recorded ‘Something new’ but that would never become the ‘b’ side, it was going to be ‘Talk to me’ a song written by Ivor Raymonde our producer.
We assembled on a Monday late in April to drive the 500 miles or so to Hamburg, this took about 36 hours as the van only had a top speed of 40 mph. We had to arrive by the 1st May. We eventually arrived at the Top Ten Club on the infamous Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s equivalent to London’s Soho only worse or better depending on your point of view and I can tell you there were some views, late on the 30th April. We parked outside the club, and I volunteered to stay with van because of all the equipment onboard and the fact we couldn’t lock the doors, while the other went inside the club to suss things out and have a couple of beers.
Hamburg turned out to be a really wild city!
After a couple of hours the four lads came back for me and together with a little Scottish fella called Riky Barnes, who was the assistant manager of the club, went into a café-cum-restaurant next door the club for a meal and a chat. This café and a little Chinese restaurant in the back streets became frequent watering holes for the band over the next four weeks.
The next day, in the morning, the ‘Decadent Streak’ and another group, Rudy Jay and the Jaymen, a black West Indian R&B band from London, moved into the Top Ten Club. Both bands shared a flat above the club, if you can call two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom sufficient space for 11 fully grown men. Apart from the space we all got on very well.
The club’s policy was that two bands played for the whole month, seven days a week, one hour on and one hour off from 7pm until 3 or 4 in the morning Sunday to Thursday and from 6pm until 6am Friday and Saturday. A very punishing schedule indeed. We also alternated which band started the night
The club was quite expensive so we didn’t eat there much but one concession was ‘house beer’, a rather foul brew but after a few you couldn’t tell the difference and the fact it only cost 1 Mark a bottle made it taste all the better. Added to this it seemed to be the done thing for customers of the club to buy the band a drink or two, so on many occasions the ‘hour off’ was taken up by drinking with the German fans. Everyone wanted the band to be seen at their table, so both bands did quite well for drinks throughout the night, in fact so well some nights they just about made the last set or two. The last set (commonly known as the dawn chorus) normally consisted of the band playing long blues numbers and about a dozen or so people dancing. The set ended when the manager had had enough and he flashed a small white light on the side of the stage. This was the sign for us to stop playing at the end of the current number. After a while we used to stop as soon as the white light went on.
1966 had a very hot May so on weekends after we had finished playing for the night we all jumped into the van along with some ‘girlfriends’ and headed for Timmendorf, near Travemunde, a coastal town some two-hour drive from Hamburg. On arriving at Timmendorf everyone had some breakfast and then it was down to sleeping on the beach before it got too hot. After some sun bathing and swimming, at around 3pm, it was back up the autobahn to Hamburg just in time the night’s performance. Back to the club, a quick shower and it was time to go on. Both bands had vast repertoires of about 100 songs and many more were made up as you went along but in the course of a night’s playing we used to repeat some numbers especially if requested.
After a few days of this intense performing both bands started to suffer from the dreaded ‘Hamburg Throat’, in other words the old voice box started to go. Once we got through this period the voice seemed to get even stronger and you could sing all night, added to the fact that in Germany, at the time, you could buy from the apothecary (chemist) a pill called ‘preludin’ (known as prellies) that had the effect of keeping you awake for long periods. All the bands used to use these including the Beatles whom had played at the Top Ten Club, a couple of years before, as well as the Star Club that was just around the corner.
We hardly ever saw nighttime during the month of May, it was always light when we went into the club and always light when we came out again in the morning. During the week when we tried to catch up on some much needed sleep before going to bed we used to give one of Rudy Jay’s band a list of breakfast requirements (the Jay men used to do a lot on their own cooking and had agreed to make ‘breakfast’ for us for a small fee) and about 5pm we were woken up with egg sandwiches, bacon rolls and coffee and boy did it taste good. This was a great arrangement. After ‘breakfast’ it was time for a quick shower, get changed it our stage clothes, downstairs to the club, a quick tune up and then it was time for another night’s performance.
Once the van had been unloaded and the equipment taken into the club the van had been parked-up on some waste ground at the back of the club and access gained to it by way of a small alley way next to the club. The only time the van was used now was on weekends to go to the beach.
During our ‘hour off’, if not taken up by drinking in the club, it was not uncommon for one of us in the group to show a lady fan the delights of the inside of the old Commer van and the young lady showing the bands ‘member’ the delights of her! Nobody actually kept score (excuse the pun) but the old van certainly clocked up a good few miles I can tell you!
Down at the lower end on the Reeperbahn on the right was a small street that was full of strip-joints, little bars and, by now, the infamous ‘Star Club. The REMO FOUR, a band managed by Brian Epstein and every bit as good as the Beatles, often used to play at the Star Club. Sometimes in-between our sets at the Top Ten we would pop round to the Star Club and have a beer and a chat. We became friendly with the Remo Four, whom later became ‘Ashton, Gardener and Dyke’ and had a couple of hit records. On one occasion the ‘Spencer Davis Group’ made an appearance at the Star Club and really brought the house down. From what Robin remembers, Chris, myself and Robin spent most of that night in a bar opposite the Star Club, called the ‘Block Hut’ having a splendid drinking session with Steve Winwood and Spencer Davis.
Further up the road from the Star Club was a little known jazz club. One night, the owner of the jazz club was in the Top Ten and after chatting to us invited us all back to his club after we had finished our last set (5am). On completing our last set we set off for the jazz club where we spent the next four hours drinking whiskey. After this heavy drinking session we all went back to the ‘flat’ above the Top Ten for some much needed sleep.
At the top end of the Reeperbahn, on the left, was a newly built ‘Wimpy Bar’. The ‘Decadent Streak’ was invited to open the restaurant. This was done in one of our ‘hours off’. The opening ceremony consisted of a giant hamburger and I mean GIANT plus plenty to drink and we actually got our photo in the paper the next day stuffing our faces full of this giant hamburger.
The month of May finally drew to a close and the next gig loomed, a two-week stint at the ‘Crazy Horse’, still in Hamburg but across the other side of town. A flat when with the gig but this time a short drive from the club. We made plenty of noise and action on stage at the Crazy Horse and the flat saw plenty of action too!
The third and final gig on that tour of Germany was another two-week stint at ‘Rabes Hotel’, Eutersen, about 50 miles south of Hamburg. It was the scene for many a good drinking session and to our surprise and pleasure we actually got one day of a week. ‘What’s a day off’ we cried in unison. This one-day off was spent in driving up to Hamburg, in the faithful Commer and visiting the Reeperbahn going to the Top Ten and chatting to the group that had taken over from our month there. This band was from Wales and called ‘The Smoke-less Zone’, who later was to change their name to ‘MAN’. On this night in Hamburg one of our group got left behind and spent the evening with friends in a night club before spending the night with a stripper and having to catch the bus back to Eutersen the next day just in time to play at the evening session. Totally shattered he missed the after show drinking session and went to bed. His identity shall remain nameless to spare his embarrassment! Fully refreshed in the morning he promptly got off with hotel owner’s daughter and never did visit Hamburg again.
During our stay in Germany we did quite a few photo shoots for various newspapers and magazines. One of these shoots was ‘on location’ on a deserted beach with a couple of the girls we had befriended. The photo’s looked more like an advert for Fender guitars, I having now swapped by Rickenbacker for a Fender Precision bass at the local music shop on the Reeperbahn, Chris with his Fender Stratocaster, George sporting a Fender Telecaster and John with a Fender Jazz Master (serial no. 78184) that he bought from Selmer Musical Instruments ltd for £108 on the 25th November 1966. Robin was left holding a drumstick. We were all wearing hats of various descriptions and standing up to our knees in the sea.
Ian, Chris, George, Robin & John (advert for Fender guitars?)
We left for home on 1st July 1966 after an amazing time in Hamburg and arrived back on the 3rd.
Our next gig was an audition at ‘Oscars Grotto’, a new club in Ilford, Essex, on the 6th July. We then actually played there for real on the 9th and having only to do 2x45 mins. Sets we played like never before. So hyped up by playing such long sets in Germany two 45’s were a breeze. Friends were amazed by our slickness and we went down a storm. The gigs seem to flow in and in no tome at all we were playing nearly every night and sometimes two gigs a night. On one occasion we were due on stage at 11pm at the ‘Café des Artistes’ in Chelsea but first we had to open a show in Southend, Essex, which also featured ‘The Tremeloes’ and ‘The Moody Blues’. We had borrowed the Tremeloes equipment, as ours was already set up in the ‘café’, and after the second house had driven straight back to London for our third gig of the night.
The ‘Café des Artistes’ in Redcliffe Gardens, Chelsea, became another regular gig for us. It was one of the ‘in ‘clubs in London and all the groups that were in town at the time seem to use it as a meeting place. It was a most unusual club in the fact that it didn’t serve alcohol, so whenever we played there we used to frequent the ‘Redcliffe Arms’ opposite for a few ‘bevvies’ before taking to the stage at around 10pm until 2am. The ‘Café’, a basement club, was a hot and sweaty club with low ceilings and lots of little alcoves, a very intimate club (in more ways than one!). Other bands that used to play at the ‘Café’ included ‘The Lovers’, after Lulu had dumped them; they later changed their name to George Bean and the bass player went on to play with ‘Manfred Mann’, and Jeff Beck with his brother on drums. It really was a swinging place.
John’s girlfriend, at the time, shared a flat in Redcliffe Gardens with three other girls; it was just down the road from the ‘Café’. One of the girls was a hairdresser and one Saturday afternoon both John and myself were at the flat having our ‘locks’ trimmed before going to a gig. The other girls were out at the van adding to the already impressive amount of lipstick that adored the vehicle. When they had finished they came back into the flat and one of the girls passes a strange remark ‘I’ve shut the window that was open!’ John looked at me; I looked at John we both knew that we hadn’t left a window open on the van. Everyone rushed outside to the van only to find that someone had broken into the Commer and had made off with two guitars, my Fender Precision bass and John’s Fender Jazz Master guitar.
Terror struck us both, what would we do now we had a gig to go to. After some frantic phone calls, Stu Calver (a former member of the band) lent me a Fender bass, which I would eventually buy for £50 and John borrowed a guitar from ‘Freedman’s’ musical instruments, a music shop in Leytonstone.
Sunday 17th July 1966 Chris Manders decided to leave the band and went back to Germany with a band called ‘Summer Set’. A guitarist named Eddie replaced him but he didn’t stay long. We were down to four again and this was going to be the line-up for the foreseeable future and most probably the best line-up of all. We four carried on gigging and again changed our name to ‘No Flies on Us, But!’ and on the 25th August went into Dick James’s recording studio in London to record a demo record that was eventually to become our first single; ‘I’M NOT YOUR STEPPING STONE’ and on the ‘b’ side we recorded ‘Something new’ but that would never become the ‘b’ side, it was going to be ‘Talk to me’ a song written by Ivor Raymonde our producer.
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