You wanted
historical, don’t say I don’t give you lot what you want, are you all sitting ……ah
who gives a fuck, here goes anyway!
Back in 1983
I was a raging ball of hormones and dreams, I wanted to be a singer and nobody
had the heart to tell me otherwise (pfft call yourselves friends) actually I wasn’t
too bad to start with, I just didn’t really
know what I was doing, breathing all over the place and it would appear that I could
be as pitchy as hell, but I tried and I tried and if you hadn’t guessed it yet I
kept on trying.
At the same
time I was getting into writing in a big way and I could pull lyrics quite simply
out of the hat or thin air if you wanted them from there, I wrote on a regular
basis with the same group of friends, people who were excellent, who could
write music as easy as falling off a log, but words they struggled, some of it
was comical some of it was……..erm lets just move on, I soon became the go to
guy, I could turn it out like the flip of the coin, and even if I say so myself
I was pretty damn good, I got a publishing deal really quick, and I was making
some good money, it was in the music business, so I was happy, but I kept
plugging away, what I really wanted was to be a singer!
One of the
bands I wrote with was a band called Satellite from the Durham area who soon
got a fantastic gig playing support to major US stars who were contracted to
play US Forces sites , if I had to say what were they like I would say that
they were probably a cross between Wild Horses and UFO, I liked them, they had
a great singer called Steve Newton who was awesome, never over reached himself and
never missed a gig……well nearly never missed a gig , he always knew how to get
your throat back on form and he did genuinely try to help me, now the guys had
a showcase coming up and Steve went down with Tonsillitis, a severe case of it
blue flashing lights and all that Jazz.
The guys
had 9 days and they tried out a couple of guys who were good but they just
went through the motions, simply because
they knew it was Steve’s gig, at the second set of auditions for a stand in guy
they wanted to do a song called “I don’t want to be here” (how apt) but it’s a rocker
with a tricky lyric and this guy simply couldn’t get it so I ran through the
song with the guys and it wasn’t bad, I was just trying to prove that it wasn’t
as hard as he was making it. Anyway, a break was called and a “thanks but no
thanks” was delivered, and then I was asked if I wanted to give it a go …………….
erm do bears shit in the woods? Now the issue that I had was that I didn’t have
a big range, so some of the songs had to be dropped, instead of the hour they
planned we dropped the set to around 40 minutes and then we got down to
rehearse, we did four days around ten hours a day, some of it at peoples house
and then about four of those in Witton Gilbert Club, with lights and a couple
of ramps the showcase was going to be done on a Sunday morning and the people
were coming to us.
The first
couple of days were me simply stood trying to remember the bloody words , which
in reality should have been easy as I wrote all of the words to every song they
ever wrote, go figure, but I have to admit it’s a habit I have had since I started
writing something that I haven’t been able to shake, I purposely forget so I don’t
repeat lines when writing lyrics, there was me thinking I was being clever, it has lead to a
couple of embarrassing moments, the worst when Candice Night shoved a
microphone into my face when Blackmore’s Night were playing York Opera house me
and my brother front row shouting for obscure songs , bugger me they only go
and do Temple of the fox and well Candice thinks that I want to sing, hahaha I don’t
know the words, thankfully my brother came to the rescue, any way as usual I digress,
back to the story in hand! so I was
really frustrated but I was managing to do an alright job, by Friday night I was
about 60% there and I was enjoying myself, that was the breakthrough, we had
one last run through on the Friday night and then decided to do a full dress rehearsal
on the Saturday afternoon, we would have the club to ourselves due the fact
that there was a local grudge football match on, so we could do what we wanted
, Saturday Morning arrived and we all sat and decided what we were going to do,
where we would stand, What lights were going to be used, you know all the
things a band does it would seem, after the club had cleared, we got sorted,
lights out, intro tape running and away we went, I fluffed the second song (I sang
the verses the wrong way around the band didn’t notice ……I did though) but we
all had fun, we all ran around as though it was Wembley Stadium not a working men’s
club in the north of England, then just like that it was over before it had
begun and the lights went up, and my bottom dropped out because sat at the back
of the room were 25 of my nearest and dearest who had come to offer support
(OMG) I was deeply shocked, however I got some positive remarks, but behind
everybody was Steve looking the picture of health and he claimed that he was
better (bastard).
The guys
asked me if I minded if he had a blow (erm fuck yes/no) and although he wasn’t
100% he was 100% better than me, I tried my best to be the good loser that I patently
wasn’t, it was at that point I noticed the fuck off big video camera set up by
the mixing desk, “did you record me” “erm ………. No”, I have yet to see a copy of
the set that we ran through, but it is out there, hopefully it will disappear like
all the other bits and pieces that disappear into the great ether, how did it
go for the guys? Well great they got the deal that they wanted, signed to a big-time
agency and a proper management team …………. And then died a death, too many
people involved, it worked so much better when they looked after themselves,
the band limped on right up until about 1990, it all fell apart with the death
of John Case and Steve Ridley, we all fell apart then, people took sides and we
all went our separate ways (another blog when I can do it justice)the band broke up, members died,
got religion, sex, drugs and sausage rolls!
As for me I
continued on my writing and made a living for a few more years with some really
diverse artists, everything from pop to dance and ballads, basically anything
that paid the bills, I kept trying, with friends far and wide then in 1986 the
world turned to poop and I went down with exactly the same thing that Steve did
with the exception they wouldn’t take my bloody tonsils out and my throat was
shredded on a regular basis (to this day I suffer virtually every other week
and they still won’t take them out) and I really struggled to hold a note, once
again friends were too kind to say (STOP) I struggled on rehearsing with
various people, but never completing line ups, the last attempt was when one of
my good friends asked me if I would like to “Jam” with a Guitarist and a Bass
player who were up and coming, so we did and I went off on one, improvising
lyrics repeating lines and being incredibly self-indulgent, I have no idea what
any of them thought, however I just knew that it was the end of the road for me,
I hung my head in shame and vowed never to attempt to sing again, late 1987 I went
down with a severe ear infection that rendered me more tone deaf than I had
been before, my singing career was well and truly over, I don’t care that I wear
glasses, I’m bald and not exactly Tom Cruise in the body department, I used to
love wandering around the house singing to what I was playing, the one thing I wish
I could do was sing, its something that gives me enjoyment, now I don’t mean a
world class stadium filling crooner, just so that I can carry a tune for my own
enjoyment, I still own a bootleg from Newcastle Riverside and my brother was
ripping the piss at some individual who was singing along with Ian Gillan with
a little known (at the time ) Deep Purple B side with the riposte “Fuck Gillan
sings better than the guy in the crowd” I never had the heart to say “erm that’s
your little brother” I would never have lived it down, ah well I’m sure I will
find something that I can do…………..Toodles!
