I wanna be your Dog(house)
Chapter 21.
After the two dates at The Hackney Empire, there was some time off, before the final show in Coventry and then the start of a different stage of the tour, with a different supporting line-up as Peter then went over to Europe. The gig in Coventry was to be my last and to be honest, I’d spent more time away from Tabitha and my girlfriend over the previous few months than I’d ever done before, so I was more than happy to bow out by this point. Whether it was a combination of making rash decisions when feeling a bit ‘tired’ coupled with my tendencies to enjoy showing off, I had also agreed to perform a few more nights of my show, so it would be good to chill out a bit before getting into all that lunacy again.
Over the preceding weeks, I’d shared the stage, not only with Mr Doherty, but also Libertines Bassist John Hassall with his April Rainers band, Peters sisters’ band, Amy jo and the Spangles, Jack Jones (Trampolene) and former Senseless Things front man, Mark Keds’, current outfit Deadcuts. I heard the sad news just a few weeks ago (Jan 2021) that Mark had passed away, he will be missed by many, a true man of the people, a prodigious and talented songwriter, and the previous owner of one of the most cherubic faces in rocknroll since a young Keith Moon. Whenever I’d seen Mark walk onstage and ask his audience, ‘Hey how ya doing?’ I always got the impression he genuinely cared.
One of the songs I’d been playing each night, was an acoustic version of an old Monkeyman song of mine, Just For Today. I had been very much still in the mire of my own addiction when I wrote it and although as I said a couple of chapters ago, I’d kinda ‘missed’ The Libertines as they beguiled the scenesters of Whitechapel in the early part of the 00’s, their trials and tribulations didn’t go completely unnoticed.
I don’t know about other people with addictive tendencies, ok I know a bit about them, but I always had and can still have, my head turned by any kind of news involving drugs and the people who indulge in them. By which I mean, if say, there is a headline in a newspaper (remember them?) reporting something hugely significant to society, something that might affect world peace, an impending nuclear holocaust, or news of Liverpool buying a decent centre back (we’re still in 2016 folks). No matter how terrifying or foreboding that headline might be, my eyes will ALWAYS be drawn to the story about a couple of smackheads convicted of stealing razorblades from the local supermarket. There was a time in my life, when on occasional forays back to Weston-Super-Mare to see my mum, I could usually find out what some of my old associates were up to, by simply reading the ‘In the Dock’ section of the local rag. While that particular section of the paper was really, just an updated version of clapping low-level ‘crims in the stocks so people could throw rotten fruit at them,
“Oh, have you seen what so and so’s boy is up to? Been arrested for stealing a potato from Tesco’s, national service that’s what he needs.” Etc.
It did sometimes come in useful before everyone had a mobile phone or social media had given us the ability to judge the fuck out of people from the comfort of our sofas.
Where was I?
Oh yeah, Just For Today.
So, the opening lyrics to the song are,
“The new Rockstar struggles, with those old Rockstar troubles, his new friends think he’s ok.
Ends up in the *‘Ville,
**DFs for his chills, ain’t a parcel on the way, not today.
All the hacks think he’s cool, he’s their rocknroll fool, me? I saw it all yesterday, walked right in, I crawled away.”
*Pentonville Prison for the criminal non-cognoscenti.
** DF-118’s. “Dihydrocodeine, is a semi-synthetic opioid analgesic prescribed for pain or severe dyspnoeas, or as an antitussive, either alone or compounded with paracetamol or aspirin.”
‘They’ used to give it to people in Prison trying to come off heroin, whether voluntarily or not. You can keep the fucking paracetamol and aspirin though mate yeah?
Me and Matty also used to neck them when drinking cider in the back-bar (freaks bar) in Weston-drug-supermarket-Mare, back in the day.
*point of interest*
I’m not actually as smart as my use of the phrase non-cognoscenti in the previous paragraph might suggest. I remember some clever person using it in something they’d written, years ago and thought I’d better look it up, cos it sounded good. So, I did and guess what, you can too! The internet’s not just for sending dickpics, joining online far-right hate groups, denying Covid and propagating Donald Trump’s bullshit. You can also get a bit of an education too if you so wish.
Back to the song, so yeah, I must have been a bit awake around the time my mate Peter had been remanded at her Majesty’s whatever, ‘cos I wrote those lyrics about him, and there I was, all those years later, driving him around Europe, being taught some minor chords I was too lazy to learn for myself, then being asked to actually sing that song in my capacity, as the **fluffer on his most recent tour.
** Fluffer. You can look that up too if unlike me, you’ve not spent too long on the internet avoiding doing something meaningful, in which case, you’ll probably know what it means.
You still here?
OK good, so, it’s all a now a bit, so far so, ‘wow’ that’s a bit surreal eh?’
Not in comparison to what happened next when I went to collect Peter and his ‘I’m too sexy for my shirt’ girlfriend and fellow bandmember, Katia, from the Doghouse.
Ps. When I say ‘I’m too sexy for my shirt’ I don’t mean to conjure-up the image of two slightly camp, bald popstars from the early 90’s. I bet you didn’t know (I didn’t) that prior to shifting 30,000,000 copies of their most famous song and accompanying album, they’d been playing together since the mid-70’s and had supported Joy Division and Suicide, in Manchester, which is obviously very fucking cool indeed and so is Katia.
And so is Barry, the owner of the Doghouse, which you may or may not have guessed, is a recording studio.
Back in the day, when the person whose job, as my mate Cass puts it, was/is “To play loudly over the other instruments.” could earn enough money to buy something slightly grander than a modest pile, by the banks of the Thames, Barrie, ‘Barrimore’ Barlow did.
Who?
He was called "the greatest rock drummer England ever produced" by John Bonham.
Ps. If you don’t know who John Bonham was, I have no idea why you’re reading this book.
PPs. My mate Cass is also a drummer and he’s very good too, but more about him, later.
Now, while the music of Jethro Tull, might not often be my go-to aural pick me up (never if I’m honest) there was a period of time, back in the olden days, when their take on ‘rock’ of the ‘folky/prog and dancing about on one leg like an acid casualty, playing the flute at a free-festival in the 70’s’ variety, could tempt enough people to fill a stadium! Crazy huh? That most of those people were also of the, dancing about on one leg acid casualty variety, is probably no coincidence.
60,000,000 album sales can’t be wrong can they, just ask Right Said Fred or Oasis. 75,000,000 and counting, which therefore almost makes them ‘better’ than Right Said Fred and the ‘Tull combined, but they’ve also never supported Joy Division, and Oasis were not the first band to get to Number one with their debut single, since The Beatles either.
Anyway, being the drummer with Jethro Tull did allow Barrie to move into a sort of Rocknroll DMZ, also occupied over the years by such luminaries as Ian Paice (Deep Purple) Gary Moore (Thin Lizzy) and a little further along the River, one of the blokes from Iron Maiden. It’s a bit of a heavy rock version of Trumpton if you like. Georges of both the Harrison and Orwell variety have also spent time in the vicinity too apparently. Anyway, Shiplake, is where the studio was/is and Shiplake was where I therefore found myself on what could only be described as a bucolic late spring morning as I drove to collect Peter and Katia to drive the three of us to Coventry for my final gig on that tour.
*Point of interest*
I Looked up the word Bucolic too.
I arrive to be greeted by the notable tub-thumping local Squire who is in the middle of a phone conversation with someone who may or may not be coming to fix his swimming pool, which I’m gutted to discover is not of the guitar shaped or indeed drum shaped variety and to be honest, doesn’t look like it’s had any Rolls Royce’s driven into it recently either. Frogspawn and fox shit, yes, but definitely no cars. I introduce myself without managing to add ‘and I’m an addict onto the, “ Hello, my names Simon” bit, which is something that has changed over the years of recovery, and dare I say, is an improvement, particularly when after a while I found that I didn’t have to spend all my time in the company of other people in recovery at NA meetings.
Barrie then enquires as to my occupation, am I in Peters band?
No.
“Crew?”
“Umm yeah sort of.”
He seems to be a bit ‘miffed all of a sudden, not in any kind of angry, but more a disappointed way.
He nods at an outhouse not far from where we’re standing.
“They’re over there mate, help yourself. “
It suddenly occurs to me, that the reason for his slightly resigned and disappointed tone of voice, is that he thinks I’m there to do the sort of thing I was doing when Right Said Fred were being too sexy for their shirts.
If you own a recording studio for over 20 years, particularly if during that time, you’ve had the likes of Amy Winehouse, Echo and the Bunnymen, and ‘er N-Dubs as your clients, there will be every likelihood, that people masquerading as ‘crew’ will also turn up on a regular basis to ‘visit’ and they’re not just bringing new guitar strings with them.
Obviously, depending on what, exactly the resident artist has a disposition for, some of these visitors might be bringing light, ‘recreational’ guitar strings and others, an altogether heavier gauge.
Barrie nods at the studio again,
“In their mate, not staying for long, are you?”
It didn’t seem like a question, more a hint.
Where once, I would have simply scurried off to do my ‘job’ probably muttering ‘stupid prick’ under my breath, these days, I very much feel the need to explain myself, so to speak.
As I’m on my way to a gig, just as soon as we’ve got everyone ready to leave, I have copies of my book in my ‘merch’ bag in the car, I trot over and pull out a copy, then hand it to John Bonhams favourite drummer.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover mate, unless it’s this book, in which case, please do, have a quick read of the back page and you’ll know why I’m here, I’m the sober guy, the driver, that’s it.”
Ok I didn’t say that, I’m not that clever when it comes to witty retorts, I do wish I’d said that and, in the unlikely event a similar opportunity presents itself in the future, I will say it.
Peter and his band have been at Doghouse for a few days recording demos, there is some packing-up required before we drive onto Coventry and, as ever when it comes shifting guitar amps and other assorted heavy things, in true singer/front-man style, I scarper at the first sight of any lifting, or otherwise, manually exhausting work. I go for a quick mooch around the ‘hood.
The garden/football pitch runs from the studio to the banks of the Thames, people are ‘messing about on boats’, or whatever it’s called. One such vessel cruises past, its passengers resembling a mashup of Downton Abbey and a Hitler Youth parade. The sun is shining, hardly a breeze, all we need now is for a young Elizabeth Taylor to cycle past on her way to open a church fete as she passes a game of cricket played entirely by middle class white people called Roger with Enoch Powell as umpire, and we’d pretty much have every Tory’s version of what England should be like and would be like if it weren’t for all those bloody foreigner’s, coming over here blah blah blah.
It’s like a postcard, a postcard from a museum, a reminder of a time, when people thought listening to Cliff Richard was an act of rebellion, were all doing national service, being racists and dressing like our grandparents. Ok, maybe that description is a bit harsh, and perhaps I’ve been living in Hackney for so long, that I can’t get over the notion, that a village where they look at you a bit funny if you ask them for a copy of the Guardian and not the Daily Mail, must be entirely populated by Nazis. My intrusion into Jacob Reece Moggs’s wet dream, is suddenly interrupted by my phone, which incidentally does have the popular ‘old phone’ ringtone, so it actually seems quite apt.
I’m still not sure what percentage of the pie chart of my life changed as a result of the phone call, the truly important stuff, family, friends, sobriety, following Liverpool etc. None of that stuff is about to change much at all, but much of the other stuff, is, at the very least, about to tilt on its axis. For better or worse, (it’s been a bit of both) what follows next will light a touchpaper that in reality had no right to even exist. A taper, which leads to a potent combination of teenage dreams (so hard to beat) and an implausible and unwritable, as in, ‘you really couldn’t make this up’ narrative within which there lies every ingredient required for heartbreak and joy. I’ve often heard far wiser people than me, talk about managing our expectations in recovery, or certainly trying to. It’s prudent advice for sure, not just for idiots like me, we’d all be much less liable to rage and the thirst for outrage if we were better at it.
‘True’ art, of any variety, only really retains its integrity if its creation is purely for the sake of its own creation. Art for Art’s sake, and all that jazz.
Of course, the concept of attempting to earn a living from the need to express ourselves, is a slightly flawed ideal, because the reality is that most people will never achieve that, that’s not how, or indeed why, it works.
We ‘should’ do it because our very being needs to do it, however cringy that might sound to some people. Our work ‘should’ be important to those of us who make it because it is an imperative aspect of who we are, a demonstration of being alive, of trying to make sense of being alive. A song should be its own boss, not owned by some cunt looking to make money from it. We do our thing because to not do so, would leave us miserable, even if often, the doing of our ‘thing’ can also leave us feeling that way too, particularly if we’ve forgotten why we’re doing it.
*Note to self. *
Do you actually ever listen to your own advice?