Anger is an Energy: My Life Uncensored (11 page)

One of the people I really liked a lot was the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. He’d walk around in the crowd, and I went up and said hello, and it was great. His band
was billed to support Alice Cooper at the Finsbury Astoria, before it became the Rainbow, and for some reason Alice Cooper cancelled that concert. I’d bought tickets for John Gray, Dave Crowe
and a few others, but I was such a fanatic of both bands, I kept the tickets, I never went back and cashed them in. In fact, I’ve still got them.

I even joined the Alice Cooper fan club and had a box of chicken feathers sent to me, and this silly letter of information. The whole thing just struck me as really funny. There were people that
really would take this a bit too seriously.

So I told Arthur, ‘I’ve still got the tickets from that gig that was cancelled,’ and he went, ‘It weren’t me!’ So, that’s how our conversation started.
I was just some awkward kid that was giving teachers a bad time, and he was good enough to talk to me as an equal. I won’t hear a bad word said about him, because there’s all too few of
those kinds of people on this earth. Anyone who talks to me openly is fine by me. It’s the ones that leer down or flare their nostrils that drive me crazy. But that man was bonkers, seriously
out there. Lunatics make good records, oddly enough, and they make good paintings too, and write good novels. They just can’t seem to fit into the shitstem.

Another great band I saw at the Roundhouse was Can. They used this equipment that reached bass tones so low you wouldn’t hear them – you’d
feel
them. Well, so did the
stage, which vibrated and collapsed. All the scaffolding crumbled. Afterwards everyone waited hour after hour for it to be rebuilt, and finally at the end of it all – the most amazing
drumming I’ve ever seen! Thank you, Jaki Liebezeit! Just the sound and the audacity of it, and where it was coming from. It was way beyond the trippy-hippie bongo crowd in the audience. This
was coming with a far harder message, and it wasn’t the dull stupidity of love and peace.

Also from Germany, Faust earned my love by selling their
album,
The Faust Tapes
, for 50p – a bargain, even in 1973. I actually saw them at the Rainbow in
Finsbury Park, and they just basically made their noise, which was made up of very interesting, hypnotic, trancey electronic-box-produced noises, while they were wrapped around a pile of old TVs in
the middle of a huge, empty stage. I must admit, at the time I was really angry because I didn’t have a TV. ‘What are they doing with all those TVs – I could definitely use one of
them!’ Then they kicked them to pieces, and rewired them. It was an appropriate backdrop for what they were doing musically, but at the same time – forever the practicalist, me! –
I tried so hard to get backstage to nick one.

Everything and anything, I was into it. I went to free festivals too. I even went to one of the first Glastonburys. I think Audience played, maybe Atomic Rooster, and possibly
even Melanie. I really don’t know. It was non-stop alcoholic faze, perpetrated by wonderful amphetamines. It was a texture of gloriousness.

I don’t think bands were even introduced. It just seemed to be that one lot would mélange into another. There wasn’t a great turnover of equipment, road crew or DJ activity
going on. It just seemed to be who turned up, turned up, and then things swifted over, and before you knew it, it was a completely different band. It was quite wonderful for that.

And in the middle of that kind of affair, I’d also be off to sit cross-legged listening to Nico waffle on about the ‘janitor of lunacy’. Fantastic, completely Queen Vampire! It
was John Gray who said, ‘Oh, we must go see her!’ Everybody knew she was a smackhead, like that’d be an enjoyable concert experience, but it was. It was the creepiest thing, her
and her harmonium for an hour and a half, groaning away slightly out of tune, which made it even better, because you could feel the angst in her. The tragedy in the voice was just overwhelmingly
powerful for me. I’ve learned a lot from them very early years of going to concerts, that it really isn’t about perfect pitch, it’s about the emotion.

I’m not one to sit cross-legged for more than three minutes, and I’m quite happy to dance to ‘Janitor Of Lunacy’, I don’t care who’s
looking. I loved dancing. Loved it, loved it, loved it. There I was – me long hair, Hawkwind embroidered on the back of my jacket, and Teddy boy shoes, because I found them the most
comfortable to dance in. I wouldn’t wear flares. Any gig, anywhere, any time – get up and dance! But by God, the best guy for that in them days was Jesus.

Jesus was a guy who hung out with the two girls who used to dance for Hawkwind. Sasha and Stacia were their names, I think. He’d strip naked, he had the smallest willy in the world, and he
didn’t give a toss who looked. I loved him for that. I thought, ‘He doesn’t care, and look, he’s completely happy. He’s got bongos which he doesn’t know how to
play, no sense of rhythm – none! – but a total sense of joy!’ He certainly wasn’t what my mum and dad had in mind as Jesus.

But his message was good and, years later, when punk started and the Pistols were gigging – I think it was at the Marquee, when we were supporting Eddie and the Hot Rods – he was
there! He looked completely different, he had a suit on, but he still had the same ludicrous hairdo, which was a very deep fringe and a long mullet at the back, and deathly blond, a natural
blond.

It was very hard to bring Wobble into these kinds of situations. He was hateful of the Roundhouse, straight away. ‘I hate these people!’ He’d think everybody at the Roundhouse
was a love-’n’-peace fool, but that’s his lack of insight. What he didn’t realize was the building was full of really oddball characters and that he was one of those oddball
characters by the fact that he was there – although it was just the once. That’s all it took, I knew not to bring him out any more. Wobble’s angle would’ve been soul clubs
– that would be his thing.

Around that time, though, I’d been going out to Ilford in Essex to soul nights at a club called the Lacy Lady. I wouldn’t be alone; there’d be a mob of us – the Johns.
Sid would be there, John Gray, a couple of others. Proper mob-handed, in fact.

The other clientele out there was very interesting. There was the semi-gangster-ish local toughies. They’d look at you threateningly, there’d be no two ways
about that. But we were a pretty mad bunch ourselves. That’s where pogoing really came from. That’s how we used to dance, jumping up and down. We didn’t know the moves, so we
invented our own, and good times were had by all. As a result, you weren’t then perceived as a threat, because you were up to your own universe and enjoying yourself in your own way and not
there to nick the birds – although, girls love ‘different’. Did they want to mother us? No, but that’s good too! I was young for the age I was, there was never a chance of
‘Come back to my place.’ I tried hard, though. Anyway, you couldn’t do anything; you couldn’t go off on your own, because you had the responsibility of the collective.

What they’d play there was a good root course in where soul music in America was going. It was beginning to split into different angles, after Tamla Motown. There were more interesting and
exciting varieties coming out, it wasn’t all so orchestrated out of Detroit. They played kind of West Coast funk which was really interesting, a lot of Philly and Chicago stuff that later
turned into all kinds of different things.

It was early disco, really, and I loved all that – ‘Hi-jack your love, hi-jack your love!’ etc. The DJs out there were great. Some of them were BBC DJs, but they played the
stuff they liked, outside of their regular broadcasting playlist, like the hardcore stuff. Loved it. And in them days you could go up and ask, ‘What’s that record?’ and
they’d tell you. That’s a lesson modern DJs could well learn from. I’d be ferreting out future purchases, that’s what Ilford was all about – ooh, must get that, and
then I would.

Disco sucks? You never heard that from me. Whoever wrote the punk manifesto wasn’t listening to the actual punks – them what started all this. No one was paying
any
attention,
it was all negative two-steps-backwards Dumbsville. A great pity. I still have a deep love of The Fatback Band. They had a great way of catchy
little dance-y singles about
them. Love ’em. Kool & the Gang, Love ’em. What more can I say?

The only drawback about going there was, there was no way home after, and the only person we knew out that way was called Tony Colletti and he wouldn’t let us stay at his house. Three or
four times of that, freezing to death until four in the morning when the next train came, and the fun was gone from it. We were all under car-driving age, and probably under the influence anyway,
and we definitely didn’t have money for a minicab back. So we had to go elsewhere for our fix of that kind of music.

If you ever went into Soho in the middle of London Town, the gay clubs were the only ones that would welcome your different imagery, and, again, you wouldn’t be pestered by the boot boys
and the yobs. You didn’t have to deal with that whole angle of life, of, ‘Who are you? Arsenal or West Ham?’ Again, there were lots of girls dressed really well, with different
clued-up ideas of fashion. So, it was thrilling to watch and be in amongst, and frankly, there was a better class of drugs.

The music was usually dance-orientated. There was always exciting things coming from odd little bands from up north, and I don’t mean Wigan Casino, because that didn’t entirely sum
up the northern scene at all. There’d be many different angles on things, remixes of Bowie tracks, whatever. Just great fun. Not too much orientated towards sensationally eye-opening music,
it was more like a social gathering where you’d have a bloody good laugh, and if you got out of your nut you wouldn’t be beaten to a pulp for it. People were genuinely helpful. Very
open and friendly, no judgement going on.

The macho stance that progressive rock had adopted for itself was repulsive to me. I loved Status Quo, I always will, but the audience were just the same bunch of long-haired,
waving-it-in-the-breeze dullards. They were just identikit, from the front row all the way up to the back. I had no time for that. I didn’t want to join an army, and I felt that none of these
fools were really listening to
what was going on at all. Whatever they were masquerading as, was fuck all to do with the band.

It was just hairy students in RAF coats, that was the look – kind of a Led Zeppelin cast-off thing. Those Great Coats – very big thick blanket-y things with silver buttons –
were everywhere, thanks to Army Surplus stores. Now, I don’t mind dressing up, I go for a bit of this one day, and a bit of that the next. But as a lifestyle thing? No, never.

It was just really exciting to find like minds who dressed differently. For instance, John Gray and I used to go out to Canvey Island to see Dr Feelgood. Again, Wilko Johnson – what a
guitarist! Man alive, that bloke thrilled me to death. Like, how on earth are you doing this? So fantastic. And the lead singer, Lee Brilleaux – oh my God, the seediest, tackiest,
harmonica-playing sleazeball, stains all over the white dinner jacket. He looked like a vagrant trying to look classy, a great image. The whole thing about them, they were outside of the agenda,
and they were really kind of grubby.

It may’ve taken a bit of courage to dress differently, because I suppose it’s the way society is. It’s always trying to regiment a thing. Give it a uniform and a label and
thereby contain it. Containment doesn’t interest me. I want it all.

At that time I was wearing demob suits. I liked the look on the building sites, the Paddies would come to work, and last month’s Sunday best would now be what they’d be shovelling
shit in a ditch in. I liked the look of it. In a world of flappy flares, which I bitterly resented, that was what was instantly available. I liked gas-man suits too, at the time. They came in this
electric blue, so I’d wear that a lot. It was a short little jacket, a bit like a Harrington, with matching pants, and it looked great with a pair of red steel-toe-capped boots. Then hair
violently cut short, which I decided needed to be taken to the ultimate – from ‘Brussels sprout’ into ‘mad hedgehog’.

Anything that comes from the streets is about ‘short of cash’. There were times when I could afford expensive items and I would,
but it would be just the one
thing, like an astoundingly amazing pair of shoes, which fitted nothing I had, but I liked them shoes, so Johnny Rotten’s happy-go-lucky mismatch style was developing nicely. I even bought
platform boots, but it was the solid wedge ones that had no heels. It was just a huge wooden block. You were seven inches off the ground – very dangerous to be going around London in. But I
loved them, because they were in sky blue and electric blue, a mad brogue-y pattern, like the old skinhead shoes, but taken to outer space and back again. Dangerous too, because hard to walk on,
definitely a nightmare on the escalator on the tube. Also, if a mob of lads spotted you, these were not runaway material. You’d have to stand and take whatever came, and hope that your wit
won the day, which it normally could, but not always.

I don’t know, maybe I was a style pig before my time, but I set to work on those demob suits. I thought, ‘The idea of it’s good, the style is shit. Let’s try and change
that.’ To start, you cut off the lapels. ‘Nah, it was better with them on. Maybe I should take the sleeves off an’ all, but – nah, they look better back on there . . . Cue
safety pins!’

E
ver the fashion victim, it was Sid who’d heard about this outrageous clothes store called SEX, and suggested we go and check it out. There
were a couple of expeditions walking up and down the King’s Road before we actually found it. Someone could have said, it’s at the farthest end, away from anything useful. Us being
young and silly, we didn’t put the dots together. But once we got there . . .

This would’ve been mid-1975, and in those days it was still selling Teddy boy gear. That was the main financial gain – really special Teddy boy outfits, and of course the brothel
creepers. Other elements were creeping in there, though, like bits of rubber clothing for the pervs and Cambridge Rapist masks, and quite quickly they phased out the Teddy boy side of it, which I
thought they should have kept up.