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"The first time
I met Dagenham Dave was in the summer of 1976. At that time I was
working in the Stranglers road crew. We were playing a pub
called the golden Lion in Fulham and after the gig this guy came up
to me while I was putting the gear away. "Fucking great gig man" he
said. He was very drunk so I just smiled and said yeah. I later saw
him outside talking to the band. After that brief meeting I came to
know Dagenham Dave very well.
That wasn't the
first time he's seen the band Dave saw them first at a pub called
the Pig & Whistle. After these two gigs Dave made a point of going
to every gig wherever they were. Dave interested the band
immediately because he was a character, and The Stranglers loved
Characters. Hugh named him Dagenham Dave because Dave had once
worked at Ford's Dagenham plant.
Dave in fact
came from Manchester. The son of a coal miner, he had a tough
working class upbringing which left him with a passionate dislike
for all authority. He was an ardent socialist who did all kinds of
jobs (mainly labouring ands scaffolding). He was a pretty big guy
who definitely had 2 sides to his character (he confessed to
have once been diagnosed by a doctor as a paranoid schizophrenic).
He was normally a very happy, easy going guy but sometimes when he
drank he became very heavy and obnoxious. He didn't care how many
people he took on as along as there was a chair or a bottle handy!
He would never remember the next morning what he had done the night
before. He was a very intelligent person with an interest in books,
politics and art, though music was his real love. He had a great
knowledge of jazz and classical music, Charlie Parker being his
hero.
He and his lady Brenda (nicknamed Bren Gun by Hugh) lived in a hotel
in Sussex Gardens near Bayswater W1. Because they lived in a hotel
they would go out every night to the theatre, cinema or to see a
band. It was known for them to be at The Nashville watching The
Stranglers one night and at the Festival Hall watching the London
Philharmonic Orchestra the next.
At the time Dave
met The Stranglers they were playing pub venues like The Nashville,
the Red Cow and The Hope & Anchor and building up a large following
of 2-3 regulars.
Dave saw their
potential. He knew they were going to make it and always kept
telling then so, But they were hard times for the band. they often
had no money and often played for as little as £25. Dave would
always be at the gig buying the band and road crew drinks, and often
food as well. It was not unknown for Dave to spend as much as £50 in
an evening and he never thought twice about putting up one of the
band of they had nowhere to crash. As far as Dave was concerned,
nothing was too much trouble for the band. He loved them dearly.
Dave was also an
entertainer, telling us anecdotes of his past, always laughing and
joking. His favourite trick was to take his teeth out! His two front
teeth were false and he was always taking them out for a laugh. In
fact it became obvious after a time that Dave felt obliged to do
these things, to play the fool and entertain everybody because it
was expected. The Stranglers started calling him their number one
fan but Dave didn't like being put on a pedestal. He would spend
hours worrying about them; whether they were going to get a record
deal or not, where the next gig was going to come from - let alone
the next penny! All their problems became his.
It was about
this time in late 1976 that something new was happening on the music
scene. Other bands like The Sex Pistols, Clash and the Damned were
helping to change the sound of London music and a whole new audience
started coming to see the Stranglers.
Dave liked New
Wave (Punk) music but he couldn't really identify with the punters.
It was about this time that The Stranglers befriended a group of
punks in a Finchley pub called the Torrington, and they started to
come regularly to gigs. Hugh named the the Finchley Freds, later to
be known simply as the Finchley Boys.
This was the
first time anyone had challenged Dave's position within the
framework of the band. Suddenly, someone else was telling the jokes
and playing the fool. Dave reacted immediately by picking a fight
with them during the gig a gig a6 the 100 Club while the Stranglers
performed onstage. Dave took on about seven Finchley Boys in a fight
which nobody won, he broke two ribs and chipped a bone in the corner
of his right eye, It was the beginning of the end.
It was now 1977
and the Stranglers had finally got their record deal with United
Artists which was a great triumph for them and everyone who believed
in them from the start. Dave was present during the recording of
Rattus Norvegicus and didn't think twice about telling producer
Martin Rushent the way he thought the Stranglers should sound.
Brenda, his long suffering lady, could no longer take any more and
she left Dave to live with her mother in Sussex. Dave begged
her to come back but to avail. |
