My Music Trek - 3 The 1970s
Break for a Career: After some carefree teenage years and the immense joy of making music with a band of pals, reality had crashed in with a vengeance. I’m really not sure if the following half-century contained any happier times. I’d lost two of my best friends, another had banished himself to Cornwall picking potatoes, and now I had to ‘choose a career’. Parents in those days, because of their own tough experiences - spending their youth living through, and recovering from, WW2, and obliged to abandon any aspirations and ambitions, were anxious their offspring got a ‘proper’ job and a career in pop music was a simply ludicrous notion.
Whilst taking my ease in that warm summer of ’67 I fall to talking to a neighbour over the fence at the bottom of the garden. He's a partner in a Coventry firm of Chartered Accountants and wondered if I’d considered it as a career. Was he mad?! The image of a Chartered Accountant in those days was, well, the image of a Chartered Accountant. Monty Python’s Flying Circus had only recently featured a sketch in which an inadequate Chartered Accountant wanted to become a lion tamer. Hilarious. But our neighbour explains I could go straight to college for nine months first and, as playing in a band is the most important thing to me at present, that seems a way of postponing the start of real life for at least a little while. So I sign four-year articles and go to college, Lanchester Polytechnic in Coventry, now Coventry University.
Laurie (drummer) and I are the only members of The Trane left, and in 1968 he changes career to train as a teacher, whilst I pass my college exams with distinction. I seem to have a flair for this accountancy stuff, but it’s more likely the fear of failure I’ve had all my life that makes me work hard to succeed at it. I start work in the office, or rather clients’ offices, resplendent in the first suit I’d ever worn. The next four years sees me ploughing on with ‘real life’ and I don’t remember playing the guitar much. Looking back now I think I must have been ‘comfortably numb’. In 1971 I marry my wife Jane and we’re making a home. Laurie is married to Angela, a friend of Jane's, and his first teaching post takes him away to live in Halifax.
Do It Again: It's 1973, I'm 25 and a qualified Chartered Accountant. I own a nice Les Paul Deluxe gold top and it’s the best guitar I’ve ever had, although one day I drop it and it suffers catastrophic damage of the headstock. But I send it off to Rosetti, the Gibson importers, and thanks to an insurance claim, I get it back faultlessly repaired and re-sprayed in a beautiful sunburst. I then wish I'd kept the gold top finish...
I desperately need to make music again so I place an ad in the local paper to find players, and Tony Lloyd responds. He has a similar guitar playing style to mine, is keen to get a band together and we get on well. We find a bass player, Bob Sharp, and a great drummer, Brian Meredith, and we start practicing and gigging. The band, at first called "Flat Stanley" after a character in a children's book, and then "Sugarcane" plays on and off for the next thirteen years during which time we endure at least five different drummers, until Laurie returns from his Halifax exile in 1977; five bass players and three different second guitarists.
Bob Sharp plays bass with us between 1973 and the beginning of 1975 before getting married to a girl from the US he'd met whilst deputising for another band at a US airbase gig, and emigrating to America with her. It was a whirlwind romance! I've had no contact with him since.
Bob was an easy going chap, his parents were very tolerant: we had rehearsals in the back room of his house, whilst his Dad sat in the next room with his pipe and newspaper!
I remember graphically an occasion when Bob had been taken poorly with a boil and two of us (myself and Ian?) called at his house to see how he was. His Mum had no hesitation in ushering us upstairs to see him and when she flung his bedroom door open there he was, lying on his bed, sheets back, legs akimbo up over his head, gonads out, using a hot poultice dipped in a bowl, bathing an enormous boil in the cleft of his ass! We were mentally reeling at the sight and anxious to back out of the room but Bob just carried on the conversation as if nothing were amiss.
Bob's successor on bass is John Rushton who stays for four years or so before moving to Middlesex with his girfriend. John was a typical bass player in many ways, quiet but industrious. It was difficult to get to know him closely but he fitted in well and contributed a lot to the band in his time with us. On 25th March 1978 John was electrocuted on stage at the Green Lane Club but recovered in hospital later, thank goodness. To my ever-lasting shame, as John fell backwards from touching his mic stand and receiving the electric shock, I lunged forward towards him in order to grab his Fender Precision bass so that it didn't get damaged as he fell!
It transpired a few weeks later that the club’s electrics were at fault. However, on the night, with the rest of the band and girlfriends standing around after the ambulance had left, nonplussed by events and not knowing if John was seriously injured or worse, the social secretary asked if we were “going on or what”! We attempted to play some taped music for the audience but packed away shortly after and left. They paid us £5 in place of the agreed fee £35. That’s the music business for you!
Fast forward to 2001 and John responded to one of our ads in Sound On Sound magazine. I was astounded to hear from him after 23 years. I asked him to come up from Northampton where he'd moved to and Laurie and I had a happy reunion with him at my place. He was also into home recording and brought some examples of his pleasing instrumentals. But from what he was saying it sounded like he needed to supplement a his regular income and was already playing in other bands, whereas our aims were to just gig occasionally for the fun of it. The distance between us, i.e. Leamington and Northampton, would also present problems with rehearsals as well as gigs. So it wasn't to be the second time around. John, a very quiet chap but with the frequent flash of dry humour, quipped as we said goodbye, "See you in another 20 years then." !
Brian Meredith (photo opposite, bottom right) was with us a year. A very competent, metronomic, natural drummer from the less is more school. I loved playing with him. Brian joined when I put Sugarcane together in late 1973. Although a superb natural player, I don't think he was as addicted to the whole band thing as the rest of us. He left abruptly in Spring 1974 when he met a girl at a gig, fell in love, and got married, all in a very short space of time! We made email contact in 2006 after Brian stumbled upon the earlier version of this web site. He said he took twenty years off drumming to become a father etc, but in that time the piano became his first love. I’m glad to say he later resumed his drumming whilst also keeping up his piano skills.
In 1974 we recruit Ian Boycott to take on lead vocals and he also invests in a percussion setup comprising congas, bongos and timbales. Ian stays for a about eight years and also becomes a close friend. Unfortunately Tony Lloyd leaves after nearly two years to join another local band "Vehicle" that has a more attractive line-up for him that includes brass and keyboards, and we then have an unsettled few months with different guitarists and drummers, none of whom are right for us.
Dave Brooks joins on drums in 1975. Only seventeen at the time, he had a precocious drumming talent. We said he could join on the condition he got a full drum kit: he did his audition with just a kick drum, snare and hi-hat, and no stool, so sat on a chair! For a few months we have one of the best rhythm sections we ever manage to assemble. When Dave first joined us, he was stopped by the Police as he arrived at a gig in Warwick. They didn't like the state of his jalopy - a Robin Reliant, all fibre glass bodied, van. He promised to get things fixed to make it properly road-worthy, and they let him go. He was a bit put out that the Police referred to his three-wheeler as a 'Tupperware GT'!
Dave's kit soon became much bigger...he was outgrowing us. His talents attract the attention of another local band we know, The Incas, and they steal him from us. (See photo opposite, bottom left). After a short interlude with Don Atkins (‘Mouse’), on drums who leaves in August, Laurie returns to sticks duties with the band as he has returned from Halifax and living locally again.
Photos:
Top Left, L to R: Bob Sharpe, Tony Lloyd, Brian Meredith, yours truly
Top Right, L to R: Dave Brooks, Dave Faulkner, John Rushton, Ian Boycott, yours truly
A Recording Contract!: In October 1975 the lineup pictured left records 'Pickup Queen' at Bird Sound Studios in Snitterfield, Warwickshire. Written by Ian and myself, we had only an evening to set up and record it, including some rushed overdubs. Dave plays some great drums, which on reflection should have been higher in the mix, and John's bass guitar lines are magnificent; driving the whole thing along nicely. Ian performs the lead vocal, but being a heavy smoker and asthmatic he runs out of breath a couple of times in the song! I wanted the guitar harmonies to sound like Thin Lizzy's but there wasn't time to get the right tones organised. In 1976 we dispense with having a second guitarist, adopting a guitar, bass, drums and lead vocals line-up for some time that proves far more effective. John Rushton is still our steady, quiet but very musical bass player, Ian is still with us and the line-up enters a period of stability, our sound tightens up and we start having some fun.
Ian is an ebullient and affable character on and off stage, good with audiences and keeps the strain off me allowing me to concentrate on guitar duties and backing vocals. He carries a little bit of excess weight and one evening he's sporting a new ‘Demis Roussos’-style kaftan that I think someone made for him. The only trouble is, being centre stage in strong footlights, the audience can clearly see through his garb and the fact he isn’t wearing anything else underneath. We can't understand what the joke is until we come off stage and our companions explain. See the bottom of this page to read more about Ian and his sad demise in 2020.
In 1978 I buy a really beautiful new white Fender Stratocaster with a maple neck but I'd also fallen in love with a new wine red Les Paul Custom and can't put it out of my mind, so after only a few days I sell the Strat, and with the part exchange of my precious Les Paul Deluxe, acquire the Custom, which I still own today. I wish I could have also kept that lovely white Strat, but my wife disapproved of the relative extravagance, given we were homemaking.
In July 1978 we fulfill a long-cherished dream and go into a local recording studio to record a four-track demo. Monty Bird, the son of a wealthy Stratford On Avon scrap metal dealer, could afford to indulge his recording hobby and first set up a draughty studio in some old outbuildings in a field in Snitterfield where he recorded local bands for small fees. We in fact recorded there in October 1975, laying down a rocking track called "Pick Up Queen"; lyrics by Ian and music by me. By 1978 Monte Bird has a small industrial unit in Warwick where he runs a recording studio and a small independent record label, Tank Records. Sugarcane sign a two-year record deal with Tank on 3rd September 1978.
I re-recorded "Pick Up Queen" in 2018 in my home studio. You can hear it in this page: My Songs - 2
Tragedy Strikes Again: The two days we spend recording in July 1978 are wonderful. We gel as a band, make good music and simply have fantastic creative fun: one of those red-letter days that you look back on the rest of your life. What is it about making music with others that sometimes brings about magic moments? We used to discuss this in the band and since there's no word to describe it we decide to call it ‘carrot’ ! A ‘carrot’ is defined as the epiphany you experience when all the elements are at their sweet spot: the sounds of the instruments and voices, the ‘vibe’ of both the band and the audience, and the empathy with other band members, at a particular point in time and space that enables you to play and sing beyond your usual limits creating music that's greater than the sum of its parts.
We record four of own songs including "Say You Want To See Me Again" and "747". I still have an acetate of the final mixes. The studio does a great job and we're all very pleased about what lies ahead. We even have the record cover designed. But in August Monty Bird is suddenly diagnosed with a virulent form of leukaemia and in September he dies. He was just 30.
Monty’s family wind up the studio and record label, and our recording career is over. John Rushton leaves the band in 1979 and although we find a replacement (name lost in the mists of time) Sugarcane peters out in 1980.
An Unsettling Gig: On 23rd April 1977 we are booked to play at the Central Hospital at Hatton, outside of Warwick. Fee: £50 (about £400 today). Before giving an account of the event, I need to set the scene.
The hospital was originally called Warwick County Lunatic Asylum when it opened in 1852, building having commenced in 1846. It was built in response to Government decree that asylums should be built locally across the country, in the communities they served. It was renamed Warwick County Mental Hospital in 1930, and finally the Central Hospital in 1948, at the inception of the NHS. The site was enormous, eventually covering 377 acres, and almost self-sufficient with its own farm, kitchens, laundry, fire service, carpenter, coffin maker, sports pitches, chapel, and nurses’ home. Huge boilers provided heating and hot water for the site, and the man who ran the boiler house was called ‘The Admiral’! It eventually held well over 1,000 patients. Some of the treatments used might raise a few eyebrows nowadays. Malaria therapy for GPI (General Paresis of the Insane), produced a raised fever that disabled the organism causing the illness. This treatment had been abandoned by the 1960s because antibiotics proved more effective. LSD therapy was used for a short while. Narcosis Therapy caused a patient to sleep for several hours, which helped their mood (and no doubt helped the mood of staff and other patients by having some peace and quiet...) Insulin Therapy was used to treat depression, as well as ECT (Electro-Convulsive Therapy) for a variety of conditions. ECT has been widely used in Western medicine since the 1960s for treating severe mental problems, even though those administering it don't know precisely why induced brain seizures seems to help some severe conditions. It's rarely used today; some healthcare professionals see ECT as a helpful treatment whilst others feel it shouldn't be used at all. The guitarist Peter Green, who became mentally unwell from the late 1960s due to the effects of LSD, and never fully recovered, was given ECT in the mid-seventies, not long before our gig at Hatton...
When we arrived at the hospital, it was dark and raining heavily. We drove around the enormous, looming, dark, Gothic buildings, trying to find a way in. As we passed the back of one building, our attention was drawn to one of those giant, cylindrical, catering waste bins on wheels. On the top edge, six feet from the ground, a man was bent double at the waist, his legs hanging down the outside of the bin, the top of his body inside the bin. And in the driving rain... Was he scavenging for food scraps? Discretion being the better part of valour, we carried on driving until we eventually found an entrance. We were to play in a large hall, complete with stage, but no formal seating, and staff and patients were the audience for the evening. There were only fifty or so, wandering about. The patients were easy to spot: they had a shambling gait, and some were in their white bed gowns. There was a support act - a standup comedian! We set up, and on goes the comedian. He dies the death. His gags were a bit dated: "Take my mother-in-law", etc., but his act was lost on most of those in the cavernous hall. "Good luck, lads!" he says as he leaves the stage. We play our set, and we also get little response. I can only think the hospital held these events in order to provide the hapless inmates with some different sensory stimulation to that in their usual day-to-day existence. Laurie recalls that during our break he braved the elements and went out to his car to get a spare pair of drumsticks and was bombarded with all manner of obscenities and crude language from female patients looking out of the barred windows from their locked wards.
After we pack up the gear, someone invites us to have a drink afterwards at the staff social club. We do so, more out of politeness. We were tired and had yet to drive home in the driving rain. I remember some of the staff, in their cups, were more than a little candid about how badly they treated their charges, and it was appalling to listen to. They struck me as oafish and rough, and not the sort of people who should be working at such an institution. I hoped they were the 'rotten apples' and not representative of all the nurses and staff. But I had a suspicion that there was something wrong with the culture of the place. We made our excuses and left the dismal premises.
The swathe of mid-19th century asylums, built with the best of Victorian motives, had become outdated, poorly maintained and not conducive to healing. Their death knell was sounded by the movement towards 'care in the community'. (Some wonder if this sentiment was bolstered by central government's awareness of the treasure trove of prime property the Victorian piles represented). Sharing its fate with others, Central Hospital closed in 1995, and the site sold to developers. Many of the buildings were demolished, but the finest were converted into flats; new houses were built and the whole site is now residential as Tredington Park.
Ian in 2014, his dissolute life apparent
In Memorium - Ian Boycott (Congas, bongos, timbales, tambourine, vocals, 1974-1982. Died 2020)
Ian used to play congas and other percussion and sing a little, but he was a great live wire to have in any group. I remember the evening he told us excitedly about some song lyrics he'd just penned and he read out his favourite line: "Her eyes were black as jade.." We all burst out laughing at the malapropism.
We had a lot of fun times with Ian around, and my wife and I also socialised a lot with Ian and his wife Alison. Their relationship faltered however and and they divorced shortly after. Despite always having been the life and soul of the party he had his own inner demons, perhaps work-related as well, and began to drink heavily. He did a similar disappearing act to Nigel Maltby’s 1968 episode, but instead of going to Cornwall it seems Ian went to Auckland, New Zealand in 1983 returning to Staffordshire in 1991. I seem to remember receiving a letter from him in which he claimed to have joined a headlining pro band whilst in New Zealand (!), although he told me recently he worked for a steel stockholding company there.
I said recently because out of the blue Ian emailed me in January 2014, after a silence of over thirty years. He says he went pro in 2003, toured the USA solo singing country music, appeared on the Grand Ole Opry, met and drank with Johnny Cash and a lot of other country stars, but was now back living in The Forest of Dean with a lady he’d met at his local Methodist church (he got religion ten years ago), and they were marrying in April 2014! Despite his church leanings he confesses he still ‘drinks, smokes and cusses’. Sadly, he told me that his health is not good at all and he was hospitalised in 2013 on six occasions with minor strokes and stomach ulcers. He was looking to put a local band together and had a photo feature in a local paper recently (see bottom photo, left), in his C&W garb, where he says he toured in the USA as Tommy Fallon. The paper didn't check their story...
A little bit of Googling told me that Ian's USA tales were total fantasies. He'd never appeared on the Grand Ole Opry or met all the stars he claimed to have met. In 2014 he'd been charged with drink driving. It was a repeat offence and he narrowly excaped jail, as reported here. He committed perjury at his appearance in Cheltenham Magistrates Court, as obviously the prosecution hadn't bothered to check the tall tales he was telling and his defence counsel retelling. He wrote to me from time to time, the letters mostly rambling thoughts. His marriage didn't last, his wife becoming fed up with his dissolute ways, and she must have become wise to all his tall tales of fame that had initially intigued her. He'd moved into her modest mobile home in the Forset of Dean, and had no money of his own, so was a burden. Later, I heard he was living in a small flat in sheltered accommodation. He'd got another female companion.
I tried to contact him a few years ago with a mobile number I had from a few years back, but there was no response. I Googled and discovered an article in a Gloucester newspaper with his name in a list of people buried at the expense of the Council (they used to be referred to us 'paupers' burials') so he had no assets and no one willing/able to pay for his funeral. He did have one asset: a fairly expensive Martin guitar (pictured left), but I don't know what happened to that. I sent for a death certificate and found that he died on 31st March 2020 of "Chronic alcohol abuse and alcoholic liver disease". He was probably 67 years old. I wrote to his companion at the last address I had but received no response. A sad ending for an old friend, whose outer bonhomie concealed a very troubled man.