IT’S ALRIGHT, ISN’T IT
Al Spokes’ house was in Bourne End, a well-to-do area on the river about half an hour away from Beaconsfield. Big house, big garden, lovely neck of the woods but, most important, there was a room above the garage. The Cavalry, in the guise of my Dad, drove me over (a trip he generously ended up making dozens of times) with my bass and amplifier. Al brought me upstairs to the room, at the near end of which there was a full drum kit. At the far end Michael “Johnny” Johnston and Dave Houghton were tuning up and running through something. I was very nervous, which increased to very scared when Al took up position behind his drums and said, “OK, let’s do something.” I can’t remember what that something was - it wasn’t Crosby Still and Nash, thank goodness - it might have been Chuck Berry’s Johnny B Goode as that was sometimes in our set list. I think we might also have had a go at BB King’s Rock Me Baby which I could sing and play bass to. It was a bit chaotic, and louder than I’d ever played - a full kit in a smallish room is quite something and the guitars need to be turned up to cope. Later on I used to put cotton wool in my ears to stop them ringing after gigs.
But it was alright.
Alright.
Al was to become a close friend. Apart from this band, he’d also contribute a lot to NTP over the next three years or so. “Alright”, I learnt, was his word for great, even excellent. He had a very dry, understated humour which could leave me helpless with laughter. Once, I asked him what he made of Clapton’s Derek and the Dominoes LP, which I loved, and when he said, “S’alright”, I knew he loved it too and we were on the same page. He had an 8-track cassette player in his car - on the days when he wasn’t in college, which was almost every day, he worked at De Lane Lea recording studios as a trainee, so he had some money - and on one occasion, after a session at the pub, we were driving home listening to the new Allman Brothers album. Hearing a fantastic bluesy guitar solo which I raved about, he simply said, “Yeah….a bit of the old feeling….s’alright….”
My Dad, giving in to the inescapable fact that I was more interested in rock music than Sociology, came up with a brilliant suggestion. If I worked at a local petrol station to earn a bit - two days on, three days off - I could miss a term at college and go back to do my retake later, giving me more time to rehearse and play. The condition being that I really work to get the A-level which he, alone among all sensible adults, believed I was capable of getting.
So now I was playing in another band. Nothing like Crosby Stills and Nash, more a sort of progressive rock, but with some melody, jazz influences, lots of time changes and no screaming. I went to practice one day and the other three announced that our name was to be Cancer, what did I think. We stuck with it for a while, though I expressed a doubt about the terminal disease aspect, not realising that they were thinking star signs.
Eventually, Al came up with another idea, The Ultra Smooth Swagger Band. A big thumbs up. So from then, and for our first gig, that’s who we were. For 18 months or so we played gigs locally, even occasionally in London.
Here’s a poster….
But there was another plan in the others’ heads….
STUDIO DIARY
Oct 18th Worked with Lottie on These Are the Things. Started to get somewhere - a sort of structure to the song and a couple of very good Lottie type suggestions for jazz chord changes in one bit. Want it to be fast and beaty, maybe to open the album. Meeting again next Friday….
Hoping Avvon will come to finish the drum track on You Never Know….
He came! Two takes and it was done. Very pleased with the sound. He also re-recorded my tambourine part so that it would, as he put it, actually sound like someone who could play the tambourine….
Oct 25th Good session with Lottie on These Are the Things. School half term means we won’t work together for two weeks, but we have stuff to think about and work on.