48. a single's band
Our day of days.
In every way, a culmination. Two of our biggest gigs, including the biggest ever - both on the same night. Who's writing our script?
*
Just before christmas, after we finished playing for the patients at Borocourt hospital, the organiser told us he wanted us back for the staff party. I've already mentioned what an honour that would've been.
So on Saturday 4 June 1977, the Milkins convoy rolled through Oxfordshire again.
We arrived at the hospital hours before we were due to go on. So we could unload and set up at our leisure, and for me to show the guys round a place where I used to play since I was four.
One of the patients came up to us. From the psychiatric ward above the ballroom, different from the rest of the hospital, which was for people born brain-damaged. I met some interesting kids up there.
This one said he had a band of his own, name of Illegal Eagle. We chatted about that for a bit - until Bill came over. Then we were glad we'd turned up so early: he couldn't find his bass pedal.
I'm not really listening. It's only one piece of equipment and a drumkit's got several others. Surely he can do without it?
He's patient with me as always. Your bass drum is what you keep time with, like a singer stamping his left foot but more important. You can't really play without a bass pedal.
There's nothing for it. Patrick drives back to Oxford to fetch the wretched thing.
It wasn't the end of the world. Just over twenty miles. But a right pain, of course - and turned out to be an omen.
*
Borocourt had been only our second ever gig. Instead of a one-off band, we kept going throughout the scholastic year. But the show tonight was a complete and utter disaster. Mainly for the hospital itself.
It was in aid of the hospital's scouts. The Wyfold Scout Troup was the name on the ticket, which called this the Baden Powell Ball. We were backed by Electric Mole disco.
Matthew, the organiser, went overboard with our name. On the ticket, it's THE ATROCIOUS ALL LIVING MILKIN PLUS BAND. Oh dear. I was the Milkin, it seems. And he must've thought my name might be some sort of attraction, because on the poster it's in the biggest letters - as if he thought it would attract a staff audience because my dad worked there.
I was spelled wrong, 'n all. Chris Freddy, with his 'Milkin', Livin' band. Ouch.
The poster did say we were the winners of a song contest in Oxford, but that and my name didn't cut it with the paying customers. There weren't many of them.
The main problem was the cost of a ticket. Later that night, you got four bands for 90p. Here at Borocourt, it was two quid for just the one. Doesn't sound much now, of course, but I keep harping on about 50p sit-down pizzas, and two pounds was a lot at the time -
Especially as the golden era of Borocourt staff parties was over. Same in Reading. In the early Seventies, there was a full student scene at the Queen's Head near the university and the Rising Sun by the station. That was gone by now - and I doubt Matthew would've pulled in a crowd for us even if he'd halved the admission fee. There just wasn't the interest.
I knew that for sure when I made a phone call. With less than an hour to go and the disco full on, the famous ballroom was empty - so I rang the hospital social club to drum up support. All I got was a colleague of my dad's, who was in her fifties. We'll be there soon, she said. We really were in trouble.
Let me make that graphically clear. For most of our gig, we had an audience of one! Yes, a single guy on his own - and he was there only because he was pissed. I can still see him now, tall and slim, jacket and scrubby beard, glass in hand - and dancing. Doesn't always take two to tango
What do you do in that situation? Same thing you do for a thousand people. You perform for the audience you have. Harry said exactly that afterwards: I played to that guy.
Someone saw Joe Strummer in a pub once, performing with the 101ers. The crowd must've numbered half a dozen - but Strummer was full-on, hammering that guitar, singing his throat out. Here's a star, they said.
First night of the Stranglers' residency at the Hope and Anchor, they played their set to a guy who'd wandered down the stairs.
We did the same. We'd have preferred a couple of hundred people, but we still gave it everything. Whoever that hero was, sometimes he'd pop out for another drink, leaving us performing to an empty ballroom. We played our best for that too.
*
It gave us a chance to try out a new number without much risk of an audience backlash.
When I was still at school, there was an album called Fill your head with rock. A compilation of various acts. The front cover was a long-haired violin player in full flow - from the band Flock, I think - while the illustration on the back was a fucking disgrace, really vile. A little girl, maybe as young as nine, with a stick of rock in her mouth, pieces of it splintering round her face like droplets. Where did they get that idea from? Gary fucking Glitter? Shame on you, someone.
The album was mostly the usual prog rock or something like. But there was one track we thought we could use.
Harry once told me there's a difference between a train song and a road song. And there is, though neither of us could explain why. Years later, we covered Let it rock, yet another Rolling Stones version of a Chuck Berry song, about railroad workers in the American South.
In contrast, the number from Fill your head was definitely a road song, musically as well as lyrically. It's by a blues singer-guitarist who called himself Taj Mahal, and it's about a truck driver who's keen to get home after Six Days on the Road.
A few years later, four of us went to see Taj Mahal at the Commonwealth Institute in Kensington. Pat, Harry, and Bernie. We listen dutifully to his set, but of course we're here for just one number, and it wasn't She caught the Katy. I'm supposed to be the extrovert frontman, but it's Patrick who shouts out 'Six Days! We're in the gallery, and Taj looks up and calls out 'Coming up!'
One verse gets a bit childish:
My air horns are running clear
You wanna see the way I shift my gear
I sang what I heard: air holes, which makes it even lewder. But usually the lyrics keep the pace going:
I got ten forward gears and a sweet Georgia overdive
I'm taking little white pills and my eyes are open wide
Bernie heard 'ten forward gears' as 'tearful wookie', whatever that is. You had to guess some lyics in those days.
With only one person watching us at Borocourt, we couldn't get a reaction to the song. But it rocks along, there are no notes to trip me up, and we though it sounded alright. So we played it again later that night...
*
While the others were packing up their gear, I had an uncomfortable duty to perform.
Now to collect our money.
Matthew had offered us £35, way more than we'd ever earned before - but a figure in keeping with what I thought would be a great occasion. Now I found him in a room off the ballroom - and he didn't look happy.
He was being given a hard time by a black guy in a pale suit, reminded me of the boxer Joe Frazier when he performed with his band The Knockouts, who pulled audiences almost as small as ours.
This guy has his family or friends around, and he's telling Matthew that he miss-sold the gig as something it wasn't, he should be ashamed of himself. Matthew stands and takes it and I feel for him. Which doesn't stop me asking for our cash!
Sorry, Matt...
It's alright, he goes, and pays up cheerfully enough.
Looking back, you'd think maybe we should've let him keep the money. It's not why we ever played a gig, and it would've been our contribution to a good cause. Instead our fee added to the event making a loss.
But it's not that simple.
I couldn't have made the decision unilaterally. The band would've had to talk about it - and when you ask people to give up money they're owed, you put them on the spot. There were five opinions involved, so it could've got a bit uncomfortable. Seven pounds each wasn't much, but it would be worth several times that today.
I told myself we'd done our job and it wasn't our fault people didn't turn up. Plus we'd played the first Borocourt gig for free and couldn't be expected to do that twice. But maybe we'd do things differently today.
Quite fun to say we played for an audience of one, but a sad contrast with the night when I'd seen other bands there. The hospital had a heaving social scene at the time, less so by now, and I was nostalgic for it. Sorry that we cost them money.
*
That thirty-five quid. We were about to double that.
Driving through the countryside back to Oxford, we knew we wouldn't have an audience of one again. There would be people waiting. But not just for us. We weren't the only band this time. Not even top of the bill.