Surbigloom aka Surbiton © Chris Dreja 2007

Surbiton, the quintessential safe, pleasant, family orientated, and above all respectable suburban development is located a few miles South West of London. Nicknamed recently, by some wag, as Surbigloom. My parents moved there in the early nineteen fifties and by default so did I.

The area of Surbigloom where we resided was called Berrylands; in fact the street where we lived was named Berrylands. This haven within a haven incorporated quiet streets, its own parade of shops, access to a small station on the main line through to Waterloo and even a lawn tennis club which is still used to this day as a warm up venue for the great Wimbledon event. Surbigloom was all round good news for people who wished for conformity, routine, the quiet life and above all, the suffocating comfort of a gentle sort of boredom.

 

 

The bowler hatted men from Surbiton

 

Back in the fifties and early sixties, at seven thirty in the morning on the dot, most doors opened in Berrylands emitting a cloned regiment of identically clad male heads of the household. Dressed in drab black suits, black shoes, and clutching briefcases in one hand and a furled umbrella in the other, and all were topped off with a bowler hat. This robot army of city workers, with a house space between each, marched off down the hill to the station and, precisely at six thirty in the evening marched back up the hill to re-enter their domestic boxes of bliss. Wives were all housewives and dinner, no matter how meagre, would be on the table ready for the robots, whom for a brief few hours became the family heads of the household. The children of the neighbourhood, myself included, briefly halted our after school street game playing, in those days cars were still rare in the area, and observed this weekday ritual with some unexplainable anxiety that we were watching what the future had in store for us.

 

My father had become part of this life; he had exchanged his glamorous uniform of a major in the Polish air force and joined this dreary but essential workforce. Worse still, being Polish, when he de-mobbed he was not only demoted from the hell of helping to defend democracy in the world but had been reduced to the status of a foreign alien. After the war, old prejudices returned, and despite the camouflage of the bowler hat his accent was a giveaway and his mission to become an accepted anglophile was a tough one.

 

In my early years Surbigloom was pretty much the only place I knew, and I was unaware of the miseries that existed outside of this contented but muted bubble.These were still tough times for everyone, stuff like my father cutting the grass with a pair of scissors and my parents being refused an overdraft of five pounds sound ludicrous today, but you could argue that at least we had the luxury of some grass and a bank account. As portrayed in a classic Monty Python sketch, somebody is always worse off, living in a dustbin and having to eat nothing but rat’s dung.

 

As I entered my teens, after a fairly idyllic childhood spent safely within the confines of Surbugloom, the only serious dodgy moments being a couple of sad flashers who would insist on exposing themselves to us on the local common, I graduated from my local school into the Holleyfield art stream and became part of the great British art school experiment. Fantastic! The Holleyfield art stream building was located even closer to my home than the old school and as this was now the early sixties, liberation was in the air and art school types had more freedom than most and plenty of un-supervised time, which, we all abused with unashamed gusto. It was here through my best friend that I discovered a form of music that would change my life forever. The blues from the US of A. To my generation, America was a mystic country and largely unknown but rumoured to be a place of unbelievable delights in terms of, well, just about everything. Little did we know what it was really all about. From the little I had heard and discovered of that great music from their side of the Atlantic the Blues became my Holy Grail.

 

Music from Chicago, Mississippi, Alabama, Philadelphia and many other exotic American places had begun to enter my little world in Surbigloom. For me it was a revelation. For years us Brits had been fed a diet of musical entertainment such as music while you work courtesy of the BBC light programme and British pop songs that were limited and often incredibly kitsch. We’d had some American rock and roll tasters in the form of Elvis Presley but nothing had prepared me for the excitement, depth and emotional expression of hearing musicians like Howling Wolf, Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, BB King, Robert Johnson and many others all wrapped up in this thing called the blues.

 

Hearing and discovering the Blues was one thing but, incarcerated in our Surbigloom enclave, we were crazy enough to think we could participate in this art form. In the front room of my parents house, amongst some grotesque post war utility furniture, stood a slightly battered upright piano and it was on this instrument that I decided to start. Through my friend’s father and his imported record collection I’d been introduced to not only guitar orientated Blues, but also some of the Blues and Boogie Woogie kings of the ivories. Players with improbable names like Pine Top Smith; Jelly Roll Morton became my instant heroes. I spent many hours working out chords, and trying to perfect boogie patterns. I was really dreadful but I loved the rhythms and on rare moments the sound seemed to click. Unfortunately I had taught myself in the key of C sharp so I became a seriously limited piano player! Nonetheless, I was hooked and thanks to the local pawnshop and savings from earnings delivering newspapers I acquired my first guitar. Boy was I robbed; I had purchased an acoustic lemon with a neck that literally warped more every day especially if it was raining. Despite this setback I learnt a few basic chords on this turkey and, because of the neck action, developed a very strong left hand that was to prove invaluable in the years to come.

 

The Yardbirds were partly born in Surbigloom and the town has since become part of the legendary Surrey Delta, as some sage named the area. Home of the birth of the British Blues scene. How extraordinary is that, you could not have made it up. Surbigloom was having none of it; this was not a place that was about to change just because a handful of teenagers were going about with obscure blues records under their arms and attempting, with other like-minded youths from the immediate area, to form a band. The bowler hats continued their daily drudge up and down the hill to and from the station, oblivious to what was going on in their midst. Gradually though, in back rooms hidden away behind pubs, us exponents of the British Blues wave found places where we could play, and best of all an eager audience only too happy to embrace this sensational new musical form. Incredibly my parents allowed me full reign to indulge myself and even gave permission for me to leave full time education at the age of fifteen. By this time the Yardbirds had spread their wings (excuse the pun) and we had expanded our territory and were playing clubs in and around London seven nights a week. Maybe they realised a bowler hat was never going to be for me.

 

Occasionally, during this period, our little semidetached house would have some interesting visitors. Sometimes Eric Clapton, who lived quite some miles away in Ripley, would crash overnight on our living room couch and my father would wake a bleary eyed Eric in the morning, with a plate of bacon and eggs. Another time, along with other members of the band, Tara Browne, an exotic bohemian socialite who was related to the Guinness dynasty, and his beautiful girlfriend turned up one afternoon for some informal get together. Tara parked his Lotus Elan sports car nonchalantly on the pavement outside our house; tragically some weeks later he parked it permanently on another pavement in London after hitting a stationary lorry and killing himself instantly.

 

My parents along with many others of the same generation seemed to be truly happy with all that Surbigloom had to offer. I can understand why, they had not only done the war, but also the dismal few years after when not only the winters were extreme, but also rationing for everything was worse than during the war years. This was a safe haven for them after all that turmoil. Until today, Surbigloom is still a calm place to weigh anchor and live life in suburban aspic. Trouble is young people don’t want safe, and back then I was no exception, as soon as I could I left the cosy world of Berrylands and headed North into inner London and a bed sit in a much more dangerous place called Brixton.

Random writings

Filmore Poster featuring the Yardbirds and the Doors

STRANGE DAYS TOUR. © Chris Dreja 2005

Flashbacks from the DoorsYardbirds 2005 US tour and the swinging sixties.

The Yardbirds were on tour in Germany in the spring of 2005, when news from our US agent, Paradise Artists, came through that the legendary US sixties band the Doors, had made an offer for the Yardbirds to support them on a US tour starting in June. The tour was to be called the Strange Days Tour. I liked this description because, as in the past, it would be pretty certain that there would be some strange days coming up. Although touring the US has always been a difficult affair, the Yardbirds have had some great audiences and this did sound like an interesting proposition. The Doors created some great music and to play with them after a gap of nearly forty years and experience the differences between touring in the sixties and now was very appealing.

The scene, the Scene Club New York City 1967. At the bar on my left Tiny Tim, weird musical bagman, operating from NYC. He appeared as though he always slept rough and carried his ukulele and god knows what else in a plastic carrier bag. Tiny Tim’s big moment was his rendition of the song Tiptoe through the tulips, which was a massive, hit! To the bar on my right clad top to toe in slippery looking black leather, perpetually sliding off a bar stool a seriously inebriated Jim Morrison of the band the Doors. This was my first encounter of both of these larger than life characters. Both made a musical mark, but it was the latter who became a posthumous icon after creating some of the most exciting and original music with his Californian partners Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore. The Doors were in New York to promote their new single, Light my fire, on the famous Ed Sullivan TV show, play some gigs like the Scene club and become involved with the New York art scene via the likes of Andy Warhol. I forget specifically what we were doing there, probably a stop over during another gruelling six week tour coast to coast around America. I could certainly relate to Jim Morrison and his band, as their roots were more similar to ours. The Yardbirds played many of the same venues in the US as the Doors, including the famous Fillmore auditoriums set up by, another giant of Rock and Roll history, Bill Graham.

Well, fast forward nearly forty years with a lot of water under the bridge and the Yardbirds are again on a US major summer tour, the first leg due to start early June. The line up for the shows comprising of Pat Travers, Vanilla Fudge and Steppenwolf with the Doors of the Twenty First Century, as I am told they are now known, headlining. Robbie Krieger and Ray Manzarek are there as originals together with the excellent Ian Astbury from the band the Cult taking over Jim Morrison front man duties. John Densmore, the Doors original drummer, was not part of the band, due to what I understood at this time being that he was unable to tour because of illness. I was not aware that John was in the legal process of trying to prevent Robby and Ray from using the name the Doors. Well, more of that later.

We had some brief negotiations about fees and bill position before committing ourselves to what we thought, would be a tour comprising some forty shows over three legs. It is always a fatal mistake to assume everything will go as planned, in my experience of touring, especially in America with its vast distances, nothing ever turns out quite the way it is presented to you in the first place. It’s a funny business and artists, promoters and agents inhabit a strange world that does not run like a Swiss clock. The Yardbirds, over the years, never made much money from US tours, it always seems to get eaten up by the huge expenses needed to do it. Maybe this time we would come out on top and anyway the bands and music were great. Doing shows in such company and after all this time was going to be an interesting experience combined with the indisputable fact that Rock and Roll reaches parts that nothing else does!

As a young and naive youth back in the sixties travelling to other countries, or indeed just getting away from home and the dismalness of post war Britain, was both mind blowing and a hugely educational experience. Now, most mature musicians’ love doing the show part, most of us hate the endless mindless travelling which really is the main part of our business hours. We also tend to dislike dealing with all the necessary mechanics that need to be achieved to tour successfully. For this run, flights, a tour bus, tour bus driver, tour manager, tour manager assistant, hotel booker, equipment back line, stage plots, riders etc. etc. all has to be in place before heading off to do your thing. Also to work in America a work permit visa is an essential piece of the kit.

To obtain a US work permit in the sixties the American musicians union would only allow a British band to come to the US if an American band could come to the UK to work. This often involved strange and exotic bands like the Coco Cabanas from the Catskills NY swapping landmass with the Yardbirds. I actually remember meeting the US ambassador at the American embassy in London, for him to give us a polite once over before we got our first visas. It was both casual and cordial in those days. Also immigration was a much more laid back affair, these were the days before computers and as you passed through control, an immigration officer would look through a well thumbed yellow page type directory to see if your name was featured for any notorious behaviour, luckily I never turned up in that book. Once, for reasons unknown to me or maybe it seemed cool at the time, my fellow band member, Jim McCarty, had a human skull in his luggage, which was duly opened for a routine inspection. Today I would imagine the whole of JFK airport would have been evacuated and Jim would have had at least six armed police officers sitting on him. Back then it was treated with mild interest and some good humour, I still to this day do not know what explanation he gave the authorities. Now terrorism and illegal immigration has completely changed the travelling landscape and obtaining a visa to work in the US has become a much more torturous business.

Now once again a visit to the embassy in Grosvenor Square, to be seriously scrutinised, is part of the process. Today the embassy building is crawling with armed police and surrounded by huge slabs of concrete to prevent vehicles attempting any form of bomb attack, a sad and far cry from the swinging sixties. Just before I was due for my interview I realised that a form, from a past visa, that should have been taken out when I last left North America from Vancouver had been left stapled in my passport. With this form still attached there was no record that I had officially left the States. Shit, according to immigration I was still in America and probably working illegally! The US embassy in London issued my visa, but stated when I arrived in the US the immigration there would be dealing with the discrepancy. Having checked with the various authorities, it appeared that it was entirely my responsibility to prove that I had left the country and not over stayed my welcome. I had recently heard of quite a few people getting no further than an introduction to Americas Homeland Security, at a port of entry, before being promptly put on the next flight back to where they had originated. Quite frankly at this point I panicked! We were due to fly out and perform our first contracted date in a matter of days. I had long since lost the British Airways boarding card that would have been the proof that I had left North America on the day that I did. I spent hours gathering bank statements, bank paying in slips, credit card receipts, tour itineraries of later European tours, doctors appointments, receipts from Tesco’s in fact anything that would persuade the Homeland Security people that I was actually legit. I also wrote a long and grovelling letter to explain the situation.

Finally, completely stressed out, the travel day arrived. Touring with the Yardbirds I have probably been through at least fifty or so suitcases. Back in the early days they seem to be made predominately of cardboard and would last half a tour if you were lucky. They are better made these days but the principle of stuffing your life into them, snail like, for a period of some weeks remains the same. Having informed my partner that I may be back sooner than planned, and telling the other members of the band that if I was rejected, by the country that us Brits have a special relationship with, they may have to honour the tour as a four piece, I headed off to the Hell that is Heathrow Airport.

Yardbirds with DC3 1960’s tour transport

Back then Heathrow was a quite and civilised affair, it never appeared busy and had that quintessentially Britishness that one associated with bowler hats. The Yardbirds were, early on, well out of place in such an environment until swinging London fashions started to kick in and we were not so weird in such surroundings. We flew many times back in the sixties, on prop planes that nearly shook your teeth out with their vibrations, to early passenger jets such as the ill fated Comet, where the seats faced each other and the passenger door was so small you had to crouch in order to exit the aircraft. Back then it was exciting, glamorous and often pretty scary. In those days lots of pilots were ex air force types and I do not mean just the British air force. It could be pretty gung ho at times and I clearly remember flying on Lufthansa, where the aircrew would seemingly delight in slamming on the airbrakes as they approached London, diving out of the sky as though maybe they thought something was on their tail. I might have been sick a few times back then but, on the other hand, I did survive the rigors and danger of incorporating air transport into our touring schedule. All flights to America were on board the magnificent Boeing 707.

The Boeing 707, as I remember, had three seats either side of the aisle. It was pretty noisy but was often, in those days, quite empty and sometimes both passengers and cabin staff would indulge in a little partying and the atmosphere some thousands of feet above the land could be more than pleasant. Smoking was permissible and often some passengers even smoked pipes. The in house entertainment systems were primitive and if you could hear a soundtrack above the engine noise the plastic headphones hurt your ears so badly you were forced to remove them for most of the time. But this machine did the business, it flew as fast as modern aircraft and because it did not hold hundreds of people, checking in and embarking was a rapid and much more civilised process than the torturous business it is today. Now, on the eve of this new tour and after what seemed like an eternity, standing shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other disorientated fellow travellers, we were near lift off. Eventually after removing my shoes for a security detail, something that seems to be popular at every American airport these days and one that you must prepare for by remembering not to wear socks with holes, the Yardbirds and I found ourselves on board the new trans Atlantic carrier of choice the Boeing 777.

From the sixties Boeing 707 to the present Boeing 777 that’s a difference of seventy numbers, have they made that many models in the intervening forty years? The higher aircraft identity figures are not the only things that have changed; this is a big people mover. They hold hundreds of passengers seated in rows of ten or so across and, damn it, just like nearly every other flight these days, they’re always full. In house entertainment is much improved, the air inside is apparently much cleaner, owing to the absence of all smoking devices, and now the feeling is more of sitting in a high tech lecture room that bumps up and down every now and again than the past psychical involvement one had with every part of the planes back then. One thing’s for sure it’s no fun anymore. Corporate mass movement techniques and stressfully long and impersonal security procedures have drained all the original magic from flying to strange and exotic locations. I just know everyone sitting on that plane, like me, with several hours of uncomfortable boredom left to go, were wishing they were somewhere else. That somewhere else for me in a few hours time was a little hazy, I was already sweating over my possible scenario with the new and improved US immigration.

Tampa Florida, our US port of entry and the location of our first show with the cast of the Strange Days Tour. Weather, incredibly hot, humidity, unfit for humans, thunderstorms with forked lightning and extremely high winds. Yes we had timed our arrival to coincide with hurricane Arlene. Elderly Americans have made Florida a must be place for their retirement. Personally it seems to me to be an uncomfortable and extreme environment where the aged would have to hole up in their air-conditioned properties to avoid frying and at other times praying that the roof is not blown off by yet another passing Hurricane with a deceptive female name. Maybe the shopping’s good, or do they live for the odd couple of weeks when the weather relents and is kind to their fragile bones. I’ve recently been through immigration before in Florida, at Orlando, the home of Mickey Mouse; the immigration people there were not so furry and friendly. In fact that crew appeared to be positively red neck recruited and there were signs posted on the walls telling the exhausted long haul passengers to refrain from any humorous comments towards them, they were having none of it. My big moment of uncertainty about being allowed in had come. I had made it to Tampa, but now would the current shift of immigration personnel that I saw waiting to process our flight let me get any further.

Desperately trying not to look nervous, I reached the front of the queue and stood on a yellow line etched into the floor along with written instructions that tell me not to cross until the next available immigration officer calls me. While slowly shuffling forwards, together with the several hundred passengers from my flight, I had been observing the officers on duty at the six immigration booths, trying to suss out which one would be the most sympathetic to my entry ambitions. There was one candidate who looked quite jovial but the others looked pretty serious and indeed I already witnessed two other passenger being given a hard time and then taken away, probably for a further grilling and maybe worse. The chances of me getting the human looking one were one in six; my fingers were crossed as I was beckoned forward. ‘Hey you’re with the Yardbirds wow, my brother’s going to the Doors concert tomorrow, what a gas, how long do ya want to stay for’ He stamped my passport for one year. In a split second I appreciated my minor celebrity in a rock band and the Americans obsession with anyone remotely known with, well, anything I guess. My immediate thought was surely it can’t be this easy, I had done hours of work to prove my innocence, I felt proud of my dossier, at least take me to the back room for a little interrogation. Unbelievably I felt cheated, I’d spent a long time on that bloody plane rehearsing the lines I would use to prove my innocence of over staying my last visa and it had all been for nothing. By the way, fate had singled me out to pass through the booth of the only jovial officer on duty.

The morning of our first show day, the weather had relented temporarily and the Yardbirds all looked out, from our anonymous hotel rooms, onto a sun soaked hotel car park and the sight of a gleaming tour bus which had been driven overnight from Nashville and was to be our home for the coming few weeks. We were also, for the first time, due to meet our crew for the duration of the tour. As with tour managers, road managers, and drivers from past occasions, we knew they would all be larger than life characters and so it proved to be. Back in the sixties, modes of transport for touring were erratic at best, often the band flew from one gig to the next by commercial airline and we were often insulted on route by the very straight business community of the day who obviously thought we were freaks from out of space. Actually I always thought the band was fairly conservative looking, okay, with maybe slightly longer hair than the Americans were used to at the time. Of course now I think about it, when Jimmy Page, was in the band, his wearing of an American Civil war type of apparel complete with several strange medals probably did not go down to well in a lot of parts of the US. For some reason, I thought he looked pretty normal. On one tour back then there was an airline strike and the band chartered a very dodgy DC3 prop plane to shift us around the country to the shows. It had most likely seen service in World war two. The two pilots, who were moonlighting from their day jobs on proper domestic airlines, got into the spirit of things by both coming to our performances, drinking too much, and also wearing beatle wigs when flying the plane. I only really became concerned when they would drop to almost tree top level trying to read street names for directions to the airfield. They often appeared to get lost, and when we did finally land it was always disconcerting to see bits of trees hooked around the undercarriage. On other tours we sometimes hired cars and drove ourselves around and inevitably we would also often get lost. One memorable occasion when a previous manager, Giorgio Gomelsky who was a dead ringer at the time for a Fidel Castro look alike, was travelling with us, we were due to drive to Los Angeles but completely cocked the route up. We arrived into LA via the Watts district, that at the time was going through a major race riot, the inhabitants were all busy burning and looting properties wholesale. Suddenly in the midst of this black only neighbourhood we appeared. Two station wagons occupied by a strange looking bunch of white weirdoes with the lead vehicle being driven by Fidel Castro. As surreal as it was, we got away with that one. Other times we used crudely converted Greyhound buses with a couple of old bedsteads loose on the floor where passenger seats had been removed, the remaining seats left in place. Sleep, for most of us, was impossible in the horizontal position. It was a complete mishmash of tour transport but now in the twenty first century the fabulously equipped tour bus is the way to go.

Rick at the controls of the Yardbirds tour bus

These buses have names like the Eagle or Prevost, pronounced Prevo and can best be described as being akin to luxury yachts in as much as the interiors are similar in appearance. Our bus was a Prevost and the layout inside started with a lounge area then a small kitchen facility, a toilet, which could only be used for urinating as any inclusion of toilet paper or any other matter would clog the tank and incur massive cleaning costs. Needless to say any women using this facility were bad news. The next section on the bus was a windowless space with twelve compartments for sleeping in. These compartments are coffin like boxes measuring some six foot two inches in length with a thin mattress and a curtain that could be pulled across for privacy. To sleep in one takes a certain amount of getting used to, especially when the bus is rolling. Being six foot in height gave me only two inches of extra space to play with and there were times when I would wake up from cramp in complete darkness to that near death experience so vividly portrayed in Hammer horror movies. However the great thing is that if they are driven overnight while everyone is sleeping you do not have the tedium of living through the distances covered, you go to bed in one place and wake up in the next. At the extreme back of the bus is another small lounge come changing room. The best thing for me was that the bus was equipped with a five hundred-channel satellite TV system. I found three channels that sustained me during this trip; please don’t ask me about the other four hundred and seventy seven! There was full air-conditioning, essential for surviving the aggressive American Summer heat and the interior livery was mainly dark wood illuminated by rather poor lighting. At first sight these customised tour buses seem very large, but believe me, after two days with eight people travelling cheek to jowl with their personal belongings and all the tour equipment they shrink to the claustrophobic size of a mini submarine. Under such confined conditions to be mature and tolerant individuals, or maybe just plain laid back and older, is a real plus. Quite a few testosterone fuelled younger bands have literally disintegrated on the wheel of coping with several weeks of touring the US under such circumstances.

On the way out of the hotel to get my stuff and myself onto the bus ready to get to the first venue, I bumped into our bus driver Rick Hardy, or Rick the Slick as he insisted on calling himself. I instantly knew we had a right winning character here! I had been told by the bus company that Rick had pushed for the job of driving the Yardbirds on this tour, he was about our age and did not relish driving hip hop bands and people like Puff Daddy around. They were bad news, according to him, and that work involved lots of driving around looking for drugs or trying to avoid the police who were intent on stop and search techniques, convinced that on board was a hoard of guns and illegal substances. Well who knows? Rick’s big claim to fame was that for many years he had been the driver for Robbie Robinson’s the Band, another legend. Over the coming weeks he told us many stories about them and how well they loved and treated him. One story was that during a break in touring, Rick Danko the Band’s bass player and brilliant singer, gave him his credit card for a week and carte blanche to spend on anything he wished. The mind boggles, or was it the drugs that made people do some foolish things. Later it also came out in conversation that Rick, in his teenage years, had had a spell in the Klu Klux Clan. The next crewmember I met was, Keith Danforth, our tour manager. Keith was half my age and resembled a slightly porky Johnny Depp; he came complete with colourful wardrobe and double earrings in both ears, his day job when not touring was to help run the infamous Viper Club in Los Angeles which, funnily enough, was for some time owned by the real Johnny Depp. Busily loading up the bus with equipment was a very cool looking black dude and he also was attired in a very hip fashion with the obligatory headphones stuck on his ears. He was our stage technician for the tour and was known as Polo Posey, his real name was Rodney. Keith and Rodney looked more like a famous band than we did, but despite their penchant for changing their look and clothes every half hour they proved to be a top class and supportive road crew. I’ve noticed over the years that a large part of the American population has had the need to project, to extreme limits, some part of their personality and this can come out in many strange ways and often is way over the top. In a country of some three hundred million inhabitants the need to stand out, as an individual, has become quite an obsession, or could you just blame Hollywood. So this was our crew for the tour, Johnny Depp in a dark light, a hip hop black dude and an ex clansman. Including us, this was definitely going to be an eclectic mix. In the decade of love and flower power the Yardbirds went through quite a few roadies, some more colourful than others. In my memory the most outstanding would have to be Richard Cole who later was the tour manager for Led Zeppelin. Richard was extremely adept at making things happen, most notably the appearance of lots of young women at both the bands shows and hotels.

Polo the Yardbirds tour tech

 

The venues for this tour, our agent informed us, were to be mainly sheds! What the hell was a shed? To us, back here in Britain, a shed is where the spiders live and where we keep gardening tools, it didn’t seem quite right that the Doors would be playing a load of garden sheds. A shed, in American showbiz agents’ terms, is a large amphitheatre with a partially covered seating area for several thousand people surrounded by a grass border where many more of the audience can be accommodated. They have large stages, massive sound systems, huge car parks and best of all brilliant backstage facilities that include dressing rooms with showers, full catering, communications centre, and very accessible load in bays. Each amphitheatre comes fully staffed with eager beavers from the best school of ‘have a nice day’ type of American. Needless to say they were great places to play.

 

The Yardbirds, in the old days, had only done one package type concert tour in the US. It was called the Caravan of Stars, put together by Dick Clark who had created the famous American TV rock show American Bandstand. Believe me it was like travelling in a caravan, but under the stars. It was a real sweatshop, most days we did two shows often at different theatres, these were called doubles. I think Dick Clark, probably, had a deal going with the Greyhound bus company who supplied him with clapped out vehicles of no further use to the road going public but were ideal for transporting his stars around to fulfil his gruelling tour itineraries. Before that tour started, Dick Clark decided he wanted to meet us, obviously to check us out, as after all, his tours were always good clean fun, strictly no riff raff or freaks. It was a strange meeting. We were given a street address in Hollywood and told to look out for a large Lincoln Continental car, that’s where we would find him. When we arrived the street was deserted apart from the Lincoln with its blacked out windows, it looked kind of suspicious but being British we opened up the back doors and piled in. In the front seat facing forward motionless, was the silhouette of a solitary male. The silhouette mumbled ‘hi’ without looking around ‘hi Dick’ we all chorused back and that was it, no further dialogue. We exited the car, which pulled away immediately, it was a sort of Howard Hughes type of encounter but we passed the test to join his tour, unfortunately. Along with the Yardbirds, and crammed into the upright seats of this tour bus instrument of torture, were our fellow stars. These included Brian Hyland of Little yellow polka dot bikini fame, Sam the Sham who recorded the song Woolly bully and to this day is responsible for the gyrations of several sad generations and Bobby Hebb who had a huge hit with his song Sunny. Bobby was the live wire of the cast and bored the pants off everybody by taking all the acts current recordings and changing the melody into his own song. The Yardbirds latest song was Shapes of things; I personally don’t think he improved it. We crawled to the end of this tour in a semi comatose state; it felt like a prison sentence. Along the way Jeff Beck, our genius of a guitar player, disappeared claiming a nervous breakdown never to return and we instantly became a four-piece band. Luckily the newly joined and fresh-faced Jimmy Page was eager to continue the adventure with us.

 

Carmine Appice at a soundcheck

 

On this first show day in Tampa in 2005 we were about to meet up with our new fellow acts who we would be sharing the stage with for the next few weeks. Pat Travers is a Canadian guitar-playing singer who was performing as a trio and opening the show. Not a good spot as most of the audience were still attempting to park their cars. Throughout the tour Pat gave it his best shot, coming off stage soaked with his efforts, which although valiant, sounded to me like a lot of continuous but unmeaning guitar notes played so incredibly loud that if you were to close your chances of getting tinnitus would be increased by one hundred percent. Vince Martell, Mark Stein, Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice of Vanilla Fudge were pure gold. They were all original members and had recently settled their differences to play together again. Carmine Appice, although carrying some extra flesh, is still a powerhouse drummer and with his partner in the rhythm section, the bass playing Tim Bogert, make an awesome pair. The Yardbirds had first met the Fudge back in the sixties when their song, You keep me holding on, was high in the charts. Back then, Vanilla Fudge appeared to be managed by the New York Mafia. Showbiz people, over the early years, probably owe a lot to these syndicates of organised crime, who had a real soft spot for entertainers and were often their patrons as they certainly needed artists to perform at the many venues and clubs they ran. The Fudge often played a large club in Long Island called the Factory and the Yardbirds had been booked to play a show there. When we arrived we were courteously introduced to the men who owned and ran the club, they had names like Luigi, Vito, Sal and seemed to have strange job descriptions such as Lieutenant and soldier, the last gentleman I was to shake hands with was called the Brute. He was a massive specimen with great chunks of bodily parts missing and his job description was that he had killed several people. I was a bit uptight when I played that night.

 

John Kay struts his stuff with Steppenwolf

 

Joining the Strange days tour on most of the shows was John Kay and his band Steppenwolf. John Kay was in great shape but when the band played, it sounded if some edge had gone from the music. I was listening to them one night from the side of the stage when Robby Krieger, who was standing next to me, pointed out with some indignation that Steppenwolf were playing live to a click track. Apparently John Kay, known as the Wolf to his fans, had had, some time in the past, a nasty argument with his bass player which resulted in his dismissal and the Wolf declaring that he no longer needed a bass player’s services. Steppenwolf were currently playing along to pre recorded bass parts that boxed them in to a strict time code, allowing no movement of the beat. Something that both Robby and myself felt was essential to the excitement of playing live music to an enthusiastic audience. Steppenwolf was the band that brought to the world the song Born to be wild, an anthem of un- inhibition to countless human beings. They now sounded more like the metronomes playing Born to be bored. The Wolf comes from a Teutonic background, I wondered if there was a clue there.

 

Robby Krieger on stage with Count Ray Manzarek

 

From the word go, the Doors of the twenty first century blew me away. Their music is timeless, incredibly exciting, dark and emotive. They played it with power and passion and never quite the same two nights in a row. The bluesy and psychedelic interplay between Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger and their respective instruments was totally mind blowing, a key ingredient that now seems so obvious to the success of the original Doors line up. Robby has been suffering from skin cancer, and either the illness, or the treatment, made him look both diminutive and fragile but not once did I ever notice a loss of energy or a deviation in his gentle personality. Ray is gregarious and seriously tall, maybe six foot four inches, still smokes and his dressing room rider always included a bottle or two of red wine. Not too Californian in his approach to health issues for a guy of his age, obviously comes from a great gene pool. Rays main wardrobe was a black three quarter length coat, and watching him and Robby Krieger interacting on stage was at times like observing Count Dracula on keyboards with a magic elf on guitar. Both the Yardbirds and the Doors have lost their original lead singers to the great mystery, we are fortunate to have found John Idan, a front man of great integrity, to work with us and Robby and Ray have no slouch in Ian Astbury for their interpreter of the late and great Lizard. Behind them the rhythm section of Ty Dennis on drums and the truly extraordinary bass playing Phil Chen, who is the strangest mix of Jamaican and Asian that I have ever come across. We’ve known Phil since the sixties and to be greeted daily, on this tour, by a Chinese guy with the words “Hey maan itsah a little hot tooday” in a thick Jamaican accent was profoundly weird. I definitely became a fan of theirs and hung out, most nights, on the side of the stage digging the music alongside a huge and loyally appreciative audience. The other act on the tour, who didn’t actually perform to the crowd, was their manager Tom Vitorino, who incidentally I found out, also managed Pat Travers and Vanilla Fudge. When I found out the fees his acts were getting compared to ours, I realised he had this tour sown up. Tom was mid thirties, with the current obligatory rock and roll fashion accessory of hair growth under his bottom lip. He was always everywhere gesticulating and manipulating as I suppose some managers are prone to do. When he looked at you, it was as if he was doing instant calculations on how much money he could extract from your life if he was managing it. Whenever a camera was pointed at Tom he instantly grinned and waved as though he was your charming and lifetime friend. At least Tom was a hands on sort of manager which reminded me of when, the larger than life and hugely proportioned, Peter Grant handled the Yardbirds. As an act you could always rely on Peter to be with you, on the spot, to sort any bother out. One memorable occasion back in the late sixties, during a Yardbirds tour of north America in the winter, we were due to play over the border at a Canadian State fair type of festival and the weather conditions were atrocious. Heavy snowfall made the going almost impossible, the highways were strewn with jack knifed trucks with trailers, adding to the already treacherous conditions. We made slow progress aboard our freezing bus but eventually arrived, if a little late. Well, a whole day late actually. As we pulled in behind the stage area two very irate gangster looking types leaped aboard, pulled a gun out, and started threatening all of us with instant death for putting their show in financial jeopardy. Peter Grant nonchalantly heaved his huge bulk from the back of the bus and with the barrel of a gun stuck into his chest, proceeded to stomach butt the two intruders towards the bus exit while at the same time saying ‘you’re going to kill us for a measly one thousand dollars you cheap bastards’. By the time Peter had got them to the door they started to fall about laughing at the complete absurdity of what was happening, a tense moment had been diffused. Thanks Peter, another on the spot problem handled.

 

Peter Grant the Yardbirds last 60’s manager

 

The Strange Days Tour Florida concerts were okay, but were lacking in both audience attendance and a decent vibe. Not surprising, considering the rain remained horizontal from the effects of hurricane Arlene passing through. Maybe also, the fact that the Doors, back in the sixties, were not hugely popular in Florida in what was in those days referred to as redneck country. Back then they had had a few concerts tampered with by the law enforcers of the Sunshine State. In the sixties, with the exception perhaps of The Beatles, not all bands were lovingly received across the entirety of the US. The more progressive or different you were meant that, early on, only the hipper places such as New York, LA, Chicago etc. would welcome you with open arms. That left an awful lot of space where you could still get your head bashed in or be dismissed as subversive freaks. As the Strange Days Tour moved north, up the east side of America, things improved immensely.

 

As primarily we travelled at night, we would wake up the following day already in position and parked near to the back stage facilities of the Amphitheatres. Rick the Slick was certainly an experienced tour bus driver and prided himself on parking his bus and occupants as close to the stage as it was possible to do. We slept as the bus travelled overnight, but Rick was on a completely different clock and he had to be checked into a hotel to sleep during the day. In the morning, as we groggily tried to join the human race, Rick, prior to retiring, would be on hyper bullshit mode and this, was a time to avoid him. I had, on several occasions after just waking up, been on the receiving end of his tales about his four ex wives, the house with wall-to-wall plasma television, his own tour bus, which could expand to double its size, and the shape of his wang dang. He was a safe and reliable driver but had probably been around too many artists with huge egos and expensive habits, which had left him insecure about the worth of his own life. Consequently what came out of Rick’s mouth you took with a pinch of salt. Rick’s latest on board gadget was a talking satellite navigation system, which we had christened Doris. Doris worked fine until the one amusing moment that she decided to direct Rick, the bus, and us through an area that was totally unsuitable for a vehicle of our size. After pruning most of the trees, as we travelled down the narrow roads, we got stuck under a low level bridge, blocking traffic in both directions. The Slick pulled out all the stops, lowering the suspension, taking air out of the tyres and getting everybody on board to sit in the back. He eventually squeezed us through with just one inch to spare between the bridge and the satellite system housed on the bus roof. After several days of touring, tension had been building up with Rick and our road crew and especially with Rodney, this tension was to boil over in spectacular fashion, in New Haven CT, later on in the tour.

 

Loveable Rick shoots the breeze

 

Watching all the bands techs’ spilling out of their respective buses in the morning was like witnessing a swarm of worker ants, eager to set up their respective acts equipment. Road crews, unlike back in the sixties, now have their own corporate uniform. Black shirts, usually with crew printed on them, short black pants in the summer, heavy-duty rock climbing boots and belts containing tools, torches, cutters, condoms and whatever else they need to do the job. These backroom boys, ably directed by Marco Moir, the production manager on this tour, never once screwed up. They got every band and their equipment on stage every night and on time, despite five drum kits, each on their own rostrums, lined up like cars in a traffic jam. A lot of roadies, back in the sixties, were a lot looser in their approach and didn’t just use dope for recreational purposes but as more a way of life. Consequently there were often cock-ups. Henry, one of our former roadies, was typical of the era, amiable but usually as high as a kite. On one occasion he had to be carried from a dope induced feeding frenzy at an all you can eat for a dollar hamburger joint and laid out for two days before his nine month pregnant looking stomach subsided and he was able to walk again. Henry achieved another brilliant piece of road managing while in enlightenment mode. After flying into New York, the flight case to the Yardbirds beloved Epiphone Bass was damaged beyond repair and he was instructed to visit Mannys, a well-known music store that still exists, to pick up a new case. Later that day, Henry with a triumphant look in his addled eyes, beckoned me to his hotel room to view his acquisition. The new flight case looked okay but was suspiciously narrow at one end. With a magicians flourish, Henry opened the case to reveal the bass inside with its large and beautiful machine heads cut in half in order for it to fit. I don’t think that for one minute Henry saw the folly of desecrating this valuable instrument as a major screw up. Hey man, stay cool, this is the sixties. Some years later I happened to be in the Orange music store in London’s Charing Cross road and came across this same Epiphone bass, with its sawn off machine heads, hanging forlornly by a piece of string in the second hand department. This bass guitar, which had been used on nearly, every Yardbird track and played by all the musicians of the band, was still covered in the sweated grime and congealed blood from numerous rave-ups. I walked away from it, trying still, to convince myself that I was over that whole era. One of my great regrets in life, for only one hundred pounds I could have kept it in the family.

 

The Strange Days tour continued north through states like Ohio, Connecticut and New Jersey, the weather was more bearable, the audiences more enthusiastic and crew and fellow musicians bonded. In one interesting conversation with Ray Manzarek, of the Doors, we began to learn much more of their legal issue with John Densmore and Jim Morrisons estate. The case had been going on for some time but was due for a final decision sometime fairly soon, the feeling I got from the Doors of the Twenty First Century camp was that, most likely, the outcome would be in their favour, allowing them to continue as they were. Ray came up with two interesting theories on the situation, according to him, John Densmore thought that he, Ray, was his father and the judge presiding over the case appeared to fancy John. It was all a bit deep for me. In these disputes there are always issues that, as an outsider, you are not aware of and, during this light hearted banter, we did not bother to take into account how the courts decision over the Doors name would impact on the Yardbirds immediate future. Barely any legal or contractual paperwork seemed to surface our way in the sixties and it’s probably why so many artists, including the Yardbirds, got well and truly stuffed! These days, legal is all and on contracts, responsibility, down to a paper cup, is itemised and the finger of blame for any misdemeanour will be pointed at the offending culprit. On one recent contract, with a shed promoter, I noticed a clause relating to sod throwing during the concert and the stipulation that artists were not to encourage this sort of behaviour or they would be held to account for damages. Sod throwing? All Yardbird future press releases will have to state, will patrons kindly leave all earth digging equipment at home before attending any of our outdoor engagements! Luckily, our past and present audiences were not of the sod throwing kind. One other great change from America and the American people back then and now, is size. On my very first trip to the US what struck me most was the incredible amount of people who were wearing teeth braces. Everyone, below a certain age, would open their mouths and greet you with a face full of metal, now the teeth are perfect but the bodies are wobbling. Interestingly, the more time spent in the US the more normal to the eye this extra body weight becomes. The majority of the population are overweight by European standards. But in this massive enclosed society human beings are just attractive or ugly or whatever, actual body size it seems, has become almost an irrelevance. It’s easy to see how quickly weight gain can be achieved if the food in our dressing rooms was anything to go by. The catering was always extremely generous to the point of craziness, salads, rolls, piles of cold meats, crisps, cakes, biscuits, fruits, sweets and always a fridge crammed full of drinks, plus a canteen serving full hot meals throughout the day. As nice as all this was, you could not possibly devour more than a quarter of the dressing room supplies, and there would always be enough leftover to stock an entire Deli. I’m old enough to remember rationing and I always suffered guilt over this sheer excess, knowing full well that all the leftovers would be trashed. Mind you, now, and back in the sixties touring Britain, you were lucky if you got a cup of tea and a stale sandwich at some venues!

 

The Yardbirds strange day arrived. Even before the tour, trouble between our agent and the Doors management, over details and arrangements, had still not been fully settled. As I understood it, in the scheme of things, it was the artist who was supposedly egocentric, moody, a pain in the arse and neurotic, not managers and agents. Even before the Yardbirds had agreed to take part, our booking agent had veered between strongly recommending that this tour was a must for us and whingeing about the Doors management being a complete shambles who couldn’t even organise a picnic in the park. During a pre tour phone call with him he threw a complete wobbler and I had to spend the next ten minutes as his temporary psychiatrist. The day after, he disappeared from view and the principal of the agency took over our case. He was a complete different kettle of fish, charming and efficient. He had endeared himself to the Yardbirds on an earlier tour when backstage, he had pulled an immaculate handkerchief from the top pocket of his designer suit, placed it on the floor, got down on his knees and pleaded with us to push the sales of some tacky merchandise that had been produced. It was an eccentric gesture from someone from the land of the suits that appealed to us. My partner, Jim McCarty, and I arranged to meet with management supreme Tom Vitorino to discuss the remaining leg of the tour. It transpired that not one of the twenty shows on the schedule had been booked; the Doors would in any case not be on a good few of them, owing to Robby Kriegers cancer condition, and supposedly, they were going to be replaced by another well known sixties legend to headline the show. All this information, according to Tom, was well known by our agent. We, of course, had heard nothing of all this. What followed was a virtuoso performance from Tom on the phone with our agent with both claiming that the other was the worst lying and incompetent person in the history of show business. No change there then. Jim and I, having seen it all before, retired to our bus shaken, but still with that misplaced optimism, that so many musicians possess, that it will work out alright in the end.

 

Tom Vitorino the Doors manager

 

Rodney, that same day, decided to have his freak out! Rick the slick was from the old southern states of America white school, and in his early days the black man was still a segregation issue. We had all been together in the confines of our tour bus for two weeks now and the bad vibe between Rodney and the slick had become very thick. I’m not sure what exactly triggered Rodney’s magnificent thirty-minute outburst, in the artists parking area behind one of the amphitheatres, but I’m glad I was there to witness it. Unfortunately I had no hardware with me that could have recorded his tour de force, it was something I would have liked to have kept for posterity. I entered this scene as Rodney was in full-blown nigger mode. Rodney, aka Polo, was an intelligent, courteous and urban black guy from LA but he had got to the end of his tether over Rick’s white man supremacy act. He decided in front of Rick, to enact, with brilliant exaggeration, the role of the stupid black man that is so fondly in the minds of all racist bigots. “ Masser give me a dime masser, I got ten chillun to feed, I gotta feed me family with chicken legs masser” It was a non stop Oscar winning performance of every cliché that has ever been attributed, by ignorant white people, to the notion of what they think the black man is really all about. I was gob smacked. When the tirade was over I prepared myself to intervene to prevent the ensuring blood bath, which surely these two men were about to enter into after Rodney’s taunting portrayal. Amazingly, quite the opposite happened, it broke the ice and the ex clansman and Mr Cool bonded. After that Rodney often sat up front of the bus with Rick in the driver’s section and they would have humorous conversations with each other, slagging off other people in the business that they both knew. Communication, between human beings it seems, sometime can work! Racial tension in America in the sixties has been well documented; I was twice, back then, an eyewitness to the effects of serious rioting in the Watts district of Los Angeles and also the city of Detroit. Events that were profoundly disturbing and many believe, could well happen again on a similar scale. One thing that I always noticed about our and other contemporary bands audiences, especially in the US, was that despite the fact that most of us were influenced and very into black blues music, it was only on rare occasions that I’ve seen many black patrons. Could this be just taste, or another sign that ethnic populations still just don’t mix?

 

Jones Beach Amphitheatre

 

The best day for the Strange Days tour was at the Jones Beach Amphitheatre in the state of New York. Ten thousand enthusiastic New Yorkers turned out to enjoy themselves and to raucously support every act on the show. This Amphitheatre is perched right on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean; all the road crews had been dreading this concert because if the weather was inclement their work would be made that much tougher and the show atmosphere ruined. The venue would also occasionally flood, making access almost impossible. Sometimes, one way or another, this amphitheatre could be a bitch of a place to present a concert. On the day we all arrived, the sky was ominous and the outlook was not looking good for the evening. Jones Beach had been constructed some years back; it was a big space with a gigantic stage and backstage facilities that over time had become slightly eroded from the relentless onslaught from the Atlantic weather, the dressing rooms and adjoining areas, for both artists and crew, reminded me of a rundown venue on a pier in the south coast of England. As the day progressed the weather started to improve and the crew and technicians, from the tour and the house, moved into high energy, preparing for the evenings entertainment. The buzz was on. In some places that put on these events, the vibe and excitement never seem to climb to any great and dizzy heights, but Jones Beach has that special ingredient, the high octane patronage of the native New Yorker, and if the weathers half decent and they dig the acts, they turn up and make the place jump and crackle. Just every now and again, when some concert or show has a brilliant setting and a sensational audience, I would love to beam in family and friends to share in the electricity of it all. This turned out to be one of those special evenings. Although all the acts on the tour had a great reception, this was the Doors night, and on this perfect Summer evening, as dusk turned to darkness and the shows lights and huge spectacular psychedelic stage lighting effects took over from the ebbing daylight, the Doors of the Twenty First Century rose to the occasion. So did the audience, on their feet, shouting and singing themselves hoarse all night to the sounds of some incredible live music.

 

The Doors of the Twenty First Century

 

Touring is a strange and intensely contained universe, where all efforts are centred on the show for the day, after some weeks of this ritual it’s easy to lose touch with your real world and quite a few of my friends in the sixties did lose it, either mentally or psychically. The Yardbirds finished this stint abruptly, but intact, at Detroit Michigan. After fond farewells to our crew and Rick the slick, who despite his often boring behaviour, had become unbelievably, quite a loveable character, although I think he was sadder to see us go than we were to miss his company, we headed for the airport for our flight back to London assuming we would see them later in the year for the continuation of the Strange Days tour. As luck would have it, the airline upgraded the band to club class, a bonus that did not happen often, and we all spent the nine-hour flight home operating the many buttons that control the positions of these weird seats come beds that are the latest gimmick in the airline industry.

 

Post touring is an anti climax condition and, as we were all attempting to overcome jetlag and briefly settle back to normality, news came through from the US that Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek had lost the court case against them. It was a severe decision, for perpetuity they would not be able to use the name the Doors for any of their activities. For me, this appeared particularly harsh, they had been a major part in creating the music, which they presented with energy and integrity, but now any old tribute band around the world could incorporate the name the Doors into some pastiche ensemble while two important original members had been barred forever from using the name of the band that they had created. I’ve since heard, on the grapevine, that they plan to continue and will call themselves Riders on the storm, the title to one of their most famous songs and the bands last collaboration with the late Jim Morrison. Good luck, their music and presentation is far too strong to be strangled by the lawyers.

 

Unfortunately for the Yardbirds, it left us legless. There would now certainly, be no last leg to the tour and as our schedule for this period had been set aside to accommodate the Strange Days shows we would be left with a huge empty gap, later in the Summer, that would be impossible to fill. There’s no business like show business, you can say that again! On the bright side, this tour lived up to all expectations and stands alongside the many previous Yardbirds treks through the US. It came complete with larger than life characters, weird weather, drama, interesting places, wonderful support from other musicians, great music and American audiences that made the whole thing worthwhile. Incidentally, in keeping with past tradition, the Yardbirds still made no money but we are already optimistically in discussion about another future US adventure.

 

The Yardbirds on the Strange Days Tour were, Jim McCarty, John Idan, Billy Boy Miskimmin, Jerry Donahue and Chris Dreja.

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