This is another cracking
interview by Jon Romney from Fanzine Negative Reaction #1 that came out around
1977. After this there will be nothing else you need to know about the
Kilburns!!
Did Nick Cash aka Keith Lucas really have a shirt from Peter
Blake from and then sold it to Bill Wyman!!
Why didn't Frankie
Howerd or Ronnie Barker pick up the option to take the song 'England's
Glory?'
Its all here.....
Street journalism reached panic point the day we went along to
Blackhill Enterprises of Alexander Street, London W2, all ready to
produce an extensive, in depth, hot scoop interview with Ian Dury,
late of the fair and fine Kilburn and the High Roads.
The Kilburns strange career began in 1972 when six odd
individuals used to get up at art school gigs and play Alma Cogan
numbers like "Davy Crockett" and "The Naughty Lady Of Shady
Lane" - early members included guitarist Ted Speight, Saxist George
Kahn, bassman Charlie Hart, (later to join Ronnie Lane's Slim
Chance) and drummer Terry Dane. The band's rise to notoriety begun
when Mr Dury then an art teacher, ran into pub-rock mastermind David
Robinson, now co-supremo of Stiff records and Robinson started
securing gigs. The Dury Theory of gig-securing: "It's quite easy,
really you just go round advertising yourself. It's like if you go
up to a young woman in the street asking them to go to bed with you
- 90% will refuse, but the other 10% agree" (or was it the other way
around?).
'The band, by now featuring , integral members Keith Lucas (Guitar),
an old pupil of Ian's from Canterbury, and
pianist Russell Hardy, started the London circuit at places such as
the Speakeasy (If you play there, you either get ignored or
mince-pied. We actually got clapped!!), and pubs like the Tally-Ho
and the Kensington "It horrible. Yon couldn't breathe for marijarny
fumes! (cross-eyed asphyxiated grimace) and you'd get people coming
up and puking up over yer boots." At this time, the band were
rehearsing and practically living, at the Vicarage in Aylesbury,
where the Dury household lived - all were on the dole, except Ian,
who was still teaching - "until I got the sack for non-attendance."
Then, enter Charlie Gillett, who was struggling to get Oval Records
together, with little success - the idea of a label based on
Louisiana cajun was too esoteric for most distributors (even Blue
Horizon turned it down) and so Charlie who reckoned the High Roads
were a fair 'n' fine band took over their affairs. On drums in came
David Newton-Rohomon, who had been in something called the Rock Band
and supported _Heinz. 'E 'ad this amazing hit, all sorts of drums
mixed up, Ludwig, Premier and they were painted white, with
palm trees all over them. Amazing." Fortunes started looking
up - rehearsals got going in Brixton, songs started appearing by the
immortal team of Dury/Hardy, a new bassist turned up, the towering
Humphrey Ocean, and gigs got under way - this was
mid '73, and the Charisma agency was giving
the band a good push - a van, proper equipment and were even paying National
Insurance. But the band were getting more serious about the music, and
boredom was setting in "Originally, we were really mad, on stage, and
in the street, really peculiar. We all
knew each other really well ... like we'd walk: down the street, and
one of us'd just have to go like that (grimace) and we'd all crack
up. We were mad - the sax player (Davey Payne) used to be a flasher
on the Clacton train."
In late '73, the KIlburn's got their first exposure to real vicious
wheel in' and dealin'. "Pete Townsend saw us and gave us a support
gig on the Who tour. We played 8 gigs with them, and 7 of our own,
and then they said come and support us on our American tour - 14
gigs." So the band hung around: for days, waiting for the visas to
come through by Telex at the American Embassy - and meanwhile, tour
manager Fete Rudge had taken out adverts saying "Lynyrd Skynyrd are
the only support band on the Who's American tour." The Southern
shooters were Rudge's private concern, and this manipulation set the
Kilburns back a bit. Humphrey Ocean left to take a holiday, and
didn't come back - he became a painter, against the advice of
high-power painting; celebrity Peter Blake, who said: "What d'you
wanna be a painter for? Play bass!" But
Ocean didn't listen and now is artist elect to bands such as 10cc
and Wings. The crunch came at a gig on New Years Eve '73,at the Zero
6, Southend, when the band decided to start all over again, with a
new rhythm section. 1974, here we go...In came bassist Charlie
Sinclair, formerly of Phoenix (not the Argent offshoot, but a soul
combo featuring Roy St John, among others), and umpteen drummers. A
CBS contract was in the works, and recording started under the aegis
of Geoff Haslam (that's right, the guy who messed up "Loaded"). Ian
on Haslam's direction of drums: "'E said - No, 'e's going uuuhghgh,
when he should be going, ker-uhn!""
CBS fell through, eventually, but. meanwhile, the rehearsals went
on in the Brixton church - "We were playing in the church, and the
Brixton prisoners were working, in the crypt - the vicar told us to
watch out, ' cause they kept tryin~ to rip off our equipment. Then
we had to stop playing while they had the service. At
the end of the day they used to throw all the tramps out. There
was a pyromaniac who burnt all the hymn book"
'What honest God fearing folk must've made of a bunch of leering
degenerates like the Kilburns. I can't guess! Millions of drummers
answered the band ads, and eventually Louis le Rose got job. Then,
along came a contract from Warners' shiny new Raft label - the
band got a minibus, PA, the lot. During the 3-days, the band were
ensconced with producer Tony Ashton at Apple 5tudios, consuming
salami sandwiches and lots of lager - but the album just didn't
work. Anyway,
one night, there was a Raft do at Dingwalls, and the next day, the
label folded - Ian was interrogated by a WB bossman, who said "So...you're gonna
be a superstar, are you... hmm?", leaving the poor guy bemused. The
next day, no label. Warner Bros then promised them a big party at
the Swiss Cottage Holiday Inn "with 20 hookers in the swimming pool.
The week before they had 10 in the pool for some other band: We were
saying, c'mon, what
do we
need 20 hookers in the pool for, I mean, we've all got our own things
going, you know. But in the end,
the president of Warners, Joe Smith,
flew over - not specially, I mean---and gave it the thumbs down, so that
was Warners." On top of this, the
agency situation was in a bad way -
the band had been overshadowed in
Charisma by the Feelgoods and the Naughty Rhythms tour of '75. (Hang
on - if it's '75, it doesn't really
work out with the time scheme of this
story. "No, I've got my times right")
"Anyway, we were good mates with the
Feelgoods, we had more aggro with
Chilli Willi - it was nice aggro,
though." So Gillett hawked the tapes
around, to all companies except EMI,
Decca and Pye, three they wouldn't
touch with a bargepole; the only
trouble was that no companies'd touch
them with a bargepole, and in the end,
lye got the band ...but that's jumping
the gun - back to the story...
The band hit the road again, with
no pianist, Hardy having left to become
a carpenter at the Ritz or somewhere,
and David Rohomon back on the tub-thumping. The gigs were getting better,
and certainly more colourful,
because the band had a new manager,
in the short, round form of King's road
entrepreneur Tommy Roberts' alias "Mr.
Freedom" - Tommy knew nil about business,
but a hell of a lot about showmanship. "He's
like a second-hand cur salesman - would you
trust this man with your wallet? I did," says
Ian, grinning, "I lost my wallet." Tommy vibed up
the visuals by dragging in the services of Malcolm McClaren (oh my God; anarchy in Upminster '74) who
designed the band all manner of odd suits, out of
pale blue Shantung silk (and never got paid, it seems). Sinclair was lumbered with a Harrods grey schoolboy suit; he was only about three
foot high, anyway. A point of controversy was the Dury get-up, a boxer's gown with
"Billy Bentley" emblazoned on the back - "It wasn't
like a Hollywood star thing, it was just meant to
be a boxer's gown. But it ended up looking poofy,
and Pete Erskine wrote about us in the NME, and
said it was contrived." In fact, Erskine's article fairly ripped the
band
apart, saying what a waste of talent
it was, that the band had lost their
vital spontaneity and immediacy etc,
etc. But the lunacy was still there
and it was helped along by the band's
new keyboards player, Rod Melvin, who
was once in a drag-rock act called'
the Moodies. "We used to do this
Alma Cogan number called "10 Tiny
Fingers", and it had a line that
went - "He had a big bald spot on his
nod, nod, nod." And Rod used to
show the back of his head - he had
this bald spot shaved on it specially..
Then, at the end, he and Keith used
to come on in drag." Visually, the
Kilburns were amazing; they once blew
Sha Na Na offstage with their clothes
alone. Tommy used to wear gold lurex
suits, and his introductions of the
band have become legendary: "Ladeez
'n' gentlemen - lift up your skirts
and pin back yer ears, for... Kilburn and the High Roads!!"
Peter Blake once gave Keith a shirt
covered in motorbikes; and then there was the story of his liquorice
allsorts getup. "Keith had this shirt with pictures of liquorice
allsorts
all over it, that his girlfriend made
for him - he got the material for next
to nothing. Then one night we were
sitting in a hotel room with Bill Wyman. and Charlie Watts, and Bill
says "I'll give you 50 quid for that shirt", and Keith says,
"What??" So I was saying, "Come on, sell it, for
Chrissake, 50 quid!!" So he did,
and then there was a picture in one
of the papers of Bill Wyman wearing Keith's shirt."
About this time, the band recorded
the disastrous "Handsome", which was
a tragic story from start to finish.
Contracted to Dawn, part of the Pye empire, they'd put out "Rough Kids"
as a single, produced by Chris
Thomas - it made the NME Single of
the week, if that means anything; at any rate, 'it delivered the sort of
knock, out you don't often hear, the right mixture of sleaze 'n'
grizzle. For the album, it vas remixed, and came out considerably
weaker. "Handsome" was produced by
Hugh Murphy, who was singled out for
attention for having messed up the
production of the Kursaals' first.
The production was limp and finicky, containing all sorts of irrelevancies
- countless session men, and worst
of all, the flattest backing vocals
I've ever heard, donated by, among
others, Tina Charles. The backing
vocals were just flat. If you listen to Stevie Wonders' records,
his backing vocals are amazing - he's
got people like Minnie Ripperton and Phoebe Snow. Well, they've jot timbre,
they've perfected it to an art ...
they're more than backing vocals"
One of the problems was that the band
themselves were somewhat pissed off
with the material - they'd decided
to record the same songs as on the
Raft album, so all in all, the album's
pretty lacklustre, and doesn't have,
anything like as much character as
the band on stage - "The Rodette Song"
suffers especially. Still, the songs
themselves are nearly all winners, so grab a copy and check out
"Pam's Moods" or "The Call-Up" - in addition,
the Dury larynx is on top form, and
there are plenty of good sax and
guitar breaks. But there were hassles
with Pye, as well, especially over
artwork - the band only got one full-page ad, and Ian had to get it cobbled
up himself for £9. Then there was
the sleeve, for which Ian pulled out
the stops - he commissioned the front
portrait from his ex-wife Betty, and
had to get babysitters for the kids
so that she could finish it in time.
Then he hired ace typographer Gordon
House, who did the White Album, and
who is the only one Paul McCartney
will use - House got up a tasteful
logo, and the sleeve was put together.
- to little effect: "I scuffled like
a maniac to get a good cover...it
ended up like a Woolworth's thing...
they used cheap cardboard, it wasn't
properly laminated - I nearly cried."
The album sunk without trace; Ian
is still trying to extricate himself
from Dawn's grip - he's almost
packed up'; the contract, but Pye now get 2% of every thing he does
-
"The Pistols don't know what they're
in for with EMI. I tell you one
thing - I'll never work for Lew
Grade again." The band morale was
low; one night, Davey got fed up and
smashed his saxes up on stage; Tommy Roberts slung his hook; and after
their last gig, supporting Dr. Hook,
the band split.
At this point in the interview,
in walks a guy called Steve, who
wrote the first ever Kilburns
article in "Let It Rock". He sits down and takes off his jumper to reveal
a purple smock. "Wossat?" gapes Ian.
"It's Brazilian", Steve replies,
cycled here in it." "You cycled in that* It looks like something
Tommy Roberts threw away", replies "I here ry, before continuing the story.
After the split, he continued writing with Rod Melvinco: - more
recently he's written with keyboards man Chaz Jankel, so I asked him why he
always writes with keyboard players.
"Well, I've got to write with someone
who knows about music, so they can get the notes down, 'cause I can't
play anything myself. Russell's main influence was "Workers
Playtime", that sort of thing,
'cause he used to work in a
factory; Rod's influenced by hymns.
But Chaz is more into rock 'r.' roll, and that's what we're writing, now."
After the four months, encouraged by
some hefty nudging by Dave Robinson, Ian and
Rod accompanied by Malcolm Mortimore, who has drummed in the last band got the Kilburns going, and the new line up was revealed at the tail end
of '75, at the Hope & Anchor pub-rock festival. And what a
band that was together with the three aforementioned
geezers, it featured saxist John Earle, who embodied the
horrendous visuals of all the original Mothers rolled into one,
guitarist Ted Speight from the first line-up, and bassist Giorgi
Dynysuik alias George Dinnersuit. I saw this band three times, and
they were consistently ace, playing real fusion music; none of
your Chick Coreas - but jazz, rock as it was meant to be, a cross
between Gene Vincent and Dan leno. More about this in a minute but
first wrapping up of the story - rod dropped out to become a
Scientologist and the band went ion search of a new pianist.
Among the hopefuls were Geoff Castle
a jazzer who can be heard on the
brilliant "Kaleidoscope of Rainbows"
by Neil Audley, and a reggae guy
called Tesley, who was great, but who
brought his brother, which caused
complications; it seems the kid
kept singing all the way through,
leaving Ian dumbfounded. Finally,
a guy from Placett's hire firm recommended young hopeful Chaz Jankel, and the guy was so good
he got the job pronto. All was
going well until one day...
Summer 1976-shock announcement. Kilburns split. Part of the
reason was money - Ian's management
just couldn't afford to keep him
and the band on the road. In
addition, says Ian, "I had my
contentions to contend with".
These contentions took the form
of a duff heart, which put him
out of action, by doctor's orders,
for a fair time. He certainly put himself out on stage, jumping around,
leering, sneering, pretending to piss
into his pork pie hat, and, of course,
bawling his guts out. "I used to
twitch about for hours after a gig...
they wouldn't let anyone in to see
me. Like, Charlie Gillett...have
you heard his show on Radio London?
He goes hurdling on Clapham Common,
and gets so fucked out he has to do the show on his back..."
"That's bullshit", says Steve,
"It's not bullshit, it's not!!"
"Of course it is. You can't do
that at Radio London,"
"0f course you can, they got
boom microphones."
What happened to the rest of
the band? "Ted was playing with
Marian Montgomery again, at the White Elephant. He's also playing
support to Emu at the Shaftesbury
Theatre." Yeah, he looks like Emu,
doesn't he? "that's right, he does.
He phoned me up the other day - he
slipped his disc the other day,
getting out of a car, then he went
round to some friends, who've got a
dog, and he's got his face all swollen
'cause he's allergic to dog powder." Dinnersuit joined a band called the
Kitts, and got to play the Cafe Royal. John Earle has done sessions for
Graham Parker, and is currently in
a band with Dave Rowberry, who
replaced Alan Price in the original
Animals, and drummer Roy Dyke - "I
sent them a list of about 140 names.
I think they're gonna call themselves
British Road Services, which is good.
Originally, they were called Telemache
which is a bit of a non starter."
As for Mortimore, he's since joined
Strider MkII and left them; he
might play with Ian again some time - what a pedigree. He was in Gentle
Giant at 16!
"I was really happy with that
band. I was always learning-I like
learning every day; I started singing
at 29, and I'm still learning-I was
gonna take singing lessons. But I
don't wanna be Flora Purim:" So
what's happened since the split -
Ian's only stamped the boards once
since then, doing "England's Glory"
and "Tallahassee Lassie" with Dave
Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Sean Tyla and
co. for a Hope and Anchor Benefit
(even Nick Kent was there, bopping
discreetly in the corner). Mainly,
he's been writing and recording
demos with Chaz; guesting on some of the sessions have been assorted
Grease Band/Kokomo alumni and bassist Kuma Harada, of Gonzales and Cuckoo.
Some of the sessions feature Ian on
rudimentary drums-taping each side of the drum kit separately, like Stevie Wonder:
He just wacks the drums-ker-thumpl As long as you
put the boot in..." - and Chaz on about everything else. Ian played
us tapes of tracks recorded live with
Kuma and the last line-up, at the Hope and Anchor studios, under Dave Robin-son's auspices. "You're More Than
Fair". with its leering horns and reggae beat, is pure filth-the most
lecherous lyrics ever, as Ian enthuses
about his lady's "titties-they're nice
and small", and even clitoris-do you think he could do it on Top of the
Pope? The other is "I Made Mary Cry", about a nasty stabbing in a lonely
bus-shelter - "I severed her hamstring the villain wails to a
pure '50s soda schmaltz backing, underlaid with a sinister Gothic organ and the most
unbelievable sax I've ever heard, from "Irish" Earle-sounds like the
Clangers throwing an epileptic fit.
These, or some others, might appear as a one-off
on Stiff, which would be incredible-Dave Robinson was urging him to
put out "England's Glory", his roll-call of great people that made
the Empire what it was-"Frankie Howard, Noel Coward, Kenneth
Home/Mortimer Wheeler, Christine Keeler, Frankie Vaughan." The song
was offered to Ronnie Barker and Warren Mitchell, who didn't like
it, and to Max Wall, who did, but who can't get onto Top of the Pops
because he took a young lady to Jersey. As for further recording,
Ian 'and Chaz intend to get 30 or so
dynamite songs going, then get a band together and land a nice juicy
contract.
Inevitably, the conversation
turned to violence and punkdom, and
Ian told us the story of his roadies.
First, there's Fred Rowe, who, he says
"is the best roadie in England-the
best in the world, when he learns."
Fred, being a hardened man, had the
job of putting in a firm but (moderately) gentle hand when necessary;
he used to stop Ian falling offstage,
and also catch mike stands. When Ian
took it into his head to kick one
over (he used to catch them at the
last second, sometimes, and have Fred
rushing in a panic to save it, all
for nothing). The other roadie was
known as the Strangler- six foot six
of beer and sulphate 'e used to strangle
people at arm's length so they
couldn't grab im". At the Marquee
once, Captain Sensible and Rat of the
Damned, started getting heavy, until
they took one look at these hefty guys
and backed away very politely. Once in Southampton, a Hell's Angel
burst
into tears; so Fred just said, "I don't ever want to see you at a
Kilburns
gig again", and escorted him gently
to the door-needless to say, he
didn't turn up again. Violence on stage is one thing - ,If you can't
hate everybody, you can't generate
energy. I used to insult the band
on stage - later on, I just took it
out on the microphone." - but violence
off-stage is something different,
"If you go and see the "Marat-Sade",
how de Sade was murdered at harenton,
well, that's about loonies and violence
and sadism, but you don't mind gangsters having a go at each other, the
hard men, that's like dinosaurs, that's
just King Kong," But In the audience? How about a girl losing an
eye at the
Pistols gig? `When Nick Lowe arid,
what's his name Michael des Barres
wrote that song about the girl who
got filled at the David Cassidy gig, Bernadette Whelan, I wanted to slap
them round the head, As for the
Pistols gig - I think Malcolm's (McClaren) a bright bloke, but he
doesn't know what's gonna happen-
then he's got a weak answer,"
How about the punks musically?
The Stranglers, for instance? "I thought they were country and
western," (Whaaat?) "You should
never have to knock anyone-
George Khan never knocked anyone, Charlie Parker never knocked anyone.
Louis Armstrong knocked Charlie Parker once-but then he apologised,
Chaz is open-minded, he's a musician.
He went up to the Pistols at the bar
once, friendly like, and he asked
them, "What's all this business with
Bill Grundy, then?" And they started giving him stroppy answers. I said,
"I Ere, what's this? You can't talk
to him like that, he's a musician.
I met the New York Dolls, they were
really nice blokes, Johnny Thunder's
nice guy. Danny Adler of Roogalator,
he's a musician; he's been working solidly for four years. I saw the
Ramones - I couldn't tell one number
from the other. But I like all that
1--2-3-4:: that's real West Side!, the conversation came to its end,
I'm proudly passed round his alpenstock for general inspection. On top, there's a Swiss banker in
tweed cap and lederhosen, parping away merrily on flugelhorn. "Are
you
going to be playing that on stage, then?" I ask, "have a
herd of mountain goats as backing band?" "Ian Dury and the
Eidelweiss" suggests Steve.
