Punk

Avon Calling

by Enormous on May 12, 2008

I have just been invited by Sonny Starr via a late-night telephone conversation (I was actually in bed – early riser me, I need my beauty sleep) to play guitar on the new Dysons album and European tour. I declined the offer.

‘It’s a turgid dirge, Sonny,’ I explained when he asked me why I wouldn’t take the job.

‘No, tell me what you really think, Davy,’ the punk drummer pleaded with me. I believe I detected an element of irony in his voice.

‘You break music,’ I told him. He wasn’t offended. His band are proud of the discordant and thrashy noise they produce for the edification of their admiring fans – deaf students and thirty-something single German men, mostly.

‘We’ve changed our name to Avon,’ he informed me.

‘Sorry, Sonny, I’m not the one you’re looking for.’

‘But we’re called Avon,’ he insisted.

I must be missing something; the significance of the name-change escapes me. It’s something to do with an old sci-fi television show called Blake’s Seven, apparently.

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Our Manual Friend

by Enormous on January 24, 2008

Sonny Starr, drummer with punk band The Dysons, turned up at the studio last night. In his arms was a bundle of technical manuals. ‘Here ya go,’ he said, cheerfully.

‘What are these, Sonny?’ I asked.

‘Reading books.’ Intelligence and literacy are not his defining characteristics.

I was going to ignore them initially, but propelled by some kind of subconscious directive, I suddenly felt obliged to take a closer look.
‘Sonny . . ?’ I began in exasperation, ‘ . . . these all belong to me! These are the missing manuals for three-quarters of the equipment in the control room – what the hell are you doing with them?’

‘No idea,’ he said nonchalantly, and sat down on the leather sofa with a heavy thump.

Over the following few minutes, I found out from him that Staz, the monosyllabic, neanderthal guitarist for The Sic Boy Federation, the band he was in at the time, had stolen them from me when they were recording in the studio I had in Mansfield. ‘Well, thanks for eventually returning them,’ I told him, blankly.

Sonny wanted to book some recording time for The Dysons but I issued a flat refusal due to the fact that Staz was the guitarist in his new band also.

‘Remember the last time I was engineering for you?’ I asked him, ‘when that black man was passing in the street below and Staz took it upon himself to open the studio window and urinate on the poor chap’s head? That incident did not exactly endear you lot to me, neither did the one when your bass player pissed in an empty can of Stella and my assistant drank some of it thinking it was warm beer . . . not to mention the fact that Staz shat on the bloody toilet seat as some kind of ironic gesture or protest against the government.’

‘I’ve changed,’ was his meek reply.

I was getting very angry now: ‘And you stink!’ I told him. ‘What the hell is that smell?’

‘Chickens.’

He held out his hands and I could see that they were red raw; they were covered in welts and scratches, some of which were bleeding. He explained to me that he has been working part-time in a large factory in Leicester, employed as a chicken-catcher. He runs around after the poor creatures all day, grabs them by the neck and tosses them into a large bin, ready for slaughter.

‘My God,’ I told him, ‘I didn’t realise such a job existed.’

‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘it’s very popular amongst drummers.’

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Starr Stories

by Enormous on December 17, 2007

I had a visit from my old pal Sonny Starr yesterday. Sonny is the drummer with punk band The Dysons and lives in a tiny bohemian garret on the Rue St Denis in Paris. I haven’t seen him for about five years.

‘To what do I owe this rather unexpected pleasure, Sonny?’ I inquired, leading him into the sitting room where Audrey was bouncing all over the furniture like Tigger.

‘The Dysons need a guitarist, man – how’re you fixed?’ he enthused.

‘I’m fixed very well, thank you, but I can’t do it, Sonny, I’m afraid.’

‘Don’t be afraid, man – it’s gonna be wild!’ he spat at me. ‘You were the first person I thought of,’ – I’m sure I wasn’t – ‘get your stuff: the magic van’s outside.’

I had to turn him down; His band has garnered something of a rich reputation for themselves recently, especially with regard to professional recording facilities. The band’s erstwhile guitarist Staz is infamous for always leaving a large ‘calling-card’ on the toilet seat in every studio they visit. (More on this later.)

‘I’ll have to say no, Sonny,’ I insisted, ‘I just couldn’t stand the pace.’

‘But, mate, it’s gonna be great! We’ve got a tour booked in Bulgaria and you can have Staz’s old bunk on the bus. . .’ I almost did a little vomit in my mouth at the thought of that but just managed to hold it down safely. ‘. . . and we can get pissed and you can stay with me in Paris and we can do loadsa drugs and get some whores . . . and . . . well, it’ll be just like the old days, man.’

I find it hard sometimes to say no to people, especially old friends, but on this particular occasion, I looked him straight in his good eye and said with all the emphatic resolution I could muster: ‘No, Sonny. No.’

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The Cream Also Rises

by Enormous on July 26, 2007

I have just been scanning some old publicity shots for the Slaughterhouse 5 website and was reminded of another boozy photographic session we did with top rock photographer Ed Sirrs.

We were very in awe of the famous snapper; but although he was so well-respected within the industry and had such a glowing reputation, he wasn;t scary or pretentious at all. We found him to be very friendly, avuncular and down-to-earth. We were so nervous; we were shaking like French soldiers when we met him at the station. But he soon made us feel at ease. We spent all day on the session wandering around Mansfield and visiting several of our favourite watering holes, aiming for an authentic, angry, northern working-class feel to the shots. (I was obsessed with Alan Sillitoe and D.H. Lawrence at the time.)

Our record company had given Ed £100 and had told him that it would be an absolutely marvellous idea to get us drunk. Not because they were concerned that we would feel very self-conscious, uncomfortable and embarrassed wandering around our home town, but because Miles Copeland saw us as a sort of wayward and confrontational art/punk band, and hoped that we would cause some drunken commotion or other that would lead to our eventual arrests and thus develop into some kind of local controversy. A publicity stunt in other words. You may be astonished to hear that nothing like that happened. We simply became very inebriated and relaxed, and ended up with reel upon reel of amazing shots.

I recall that, towards the end of the afternoon, we decided to have a party in the house that we all shared. The young Nelson Galaxy was with us at the time. (We were, and still are, always together, him and me. We are so close, we’re like brothers; in fact, we are brothers.)

In his capacity as band gopher, Nelson was despatched to the local bakery to buy dozens of cream cakes for the evening’s celebrations. We didn’t save them for the party, however. They were hastily scoffed in the pub as Ed snapped away.

The cakes did indeed make a rather predictable reappearance later that evening, though. I remember pleading with Ed not to photograph me, whilst – playing to type – I was filling the kitchen sink with liberal amounts of creamy vomit.

Ed endeared himself to us throughout the day by regaling us with endless tales of the hundreds of colourful sessions he had done with famous musicians and bands. One story in particular really made us laugh: He was photographing an infamous and very serious (You mean sober – Alcohol Ed.) Scandinavian heavy metal band who were very popular at the time. They were renowned for being very dour, dark and doom-laden. (I can’t remember their name, I’m afraid. It was Thor or Thor’s Hammer or something. Maybe Mr. B. can enlighten me.)

Ed asked the po-faced lead guitarist to step forward and kneel on one knee in order that the dreary, all-standing-in-a-line composition be improved for a few shots.

‘I kneel for no man,’ Ed was told in no uncertain terms by the pompous Norwegian rock god in a voice so deep and resonant, it sounded as though it had emanated from the very depths of hell.

We reasoned afterwards that what he was actually saying was: ‘I kneel for Norman.’ And if Norman had been present, perhaps Ed would have got the shot he was looking for.

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Fun On Tour: Garlic and Drugs and Rock'n'Roll

by Enormous on June 6, 2007

Once, when Slaughterhouse 5 were playing in London, I remember telling Miles Copeland III Jnr (our big boss at the time, IRS Records head honcho, former manager of The Police and general all-round music business luminary) that he had bad breath.

I don’t think I really offended him. Thankfully, he took the statement as it was intended – as a light-hearted and playful aside. But afterwards, I did regret saying it.
I felt embarrassed and foolish.

As I look back on it now, my conduct sort of symbolised and perfectly characterised, in a single casual remark, one of the worse gigs we had ever played.

Overall, the Wide Open Tour was a short but bizarre and peculiarly eventful one (more to follow).
We drove up and down the country in the middle of winter in an old and barely-legal Ford Transit. I remember sitting on the 2×15 bass cab, shivering and drinking Thunderbird Wine with roadies Tom and Rick at nine o’clock in the morning as we travelled over the Pennines, cuddling up with them in their frosty compartment that housed all the gear in the rear of the vehicle.
We were booked to appear at all the usual toilets and dives, unattractive and unwelcoming university halls of residence, hostile and elitist student bars, and of course, the back rooms of the usual assortment of sticky-floored pubs and clubs that stank of puke and cheap disinfectant.

It was great fun, though, and as the tour was coming to an end and we arrived for our shows in London, we calculated that over the course of those two months, we must surely have played to several people. We were a very hungry band at the time: we would literally have played for sandwiches – and very often did.

That particular night at The Borderline, Graham Boffey – the band’s brilliantly talented and good-looking young drummer - ensured with all his usual panache that the show really got off to a flying stop when his elderly bass-drum pedal fell to pieces during the opening bars of the first number in the set.
After more songs with various amps failing and guitar strings happily snapping, we reached the end of the show and played a medley of our hit Pathetic Girlfriend after which we stormed off the stage and headed for the dressing room for a good sulk.

It was perhaps because I was in such a foul mood (and acting like your run-of-the-mill, punk rock prima-donna) that I unadvisedly decided to point out to Mr Copeland that the freshness of his mouth odours left a lot to be desired.

I sincerely wish that I had kept my mouth shut, but then again, I wish that he had, too.

On the Fantastic hi-fi today:
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles
Grace – Jeff Buckley
Wide Open – Slaughterhouse 5

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