The Scarlet Jungle

AN UNEXPECTED knock at the front door one Saturday morning was to be another milestone moment and would set the scene for a large part of my life for the next thirty-three years to be exact. My mother answered the door at 3 Briar Close and there stood Barrie Mayes, John Taylor and Ray Minto, three young men who to all intent and purpose had no right to be calling on her sixteen-year-old son. They asked if I was in and I came to the door. It was most likely Ray Minto who asked “Do you play the bass guitar” to which I answered “Yes”. 

I was asked if I wanted to audition for their group which at that time had no name, no gear and no bookings. Things sound like they’re getting off to a bit of a bad start here. A time and place was arranged and I went down to Barrie’s house at John Street in Blaydon the following Saturday morning for the audition. I was later to find out that I was the only one auditioning, my luck appearing to have changed for the better.

As I recall none of the guys had been in any kind of band before, which although strange at the time meant that I was the most experienced one in the band. Mutually agreeing some songs we set off learning how to play them in such a way as to give the impression that we all knew them. It was relatively easy for me as the songs chosen were by enlarge from my last three years playing in other bands.

After the initial rehearsal it was apparent that the huge cacophony of noise we were making was not sustainable in a terraced house in Blaydon. The band changed the practice room to a garden hut on the allotments on the left hand side of Blaydon Bank going up, at the very top of Monarch Terrace. We practiced there for a little while in the early days. We paid the Gardening Association a small amount of money for the electricity I believe, each chipping in a few shillings for the privilege. I remember the electricity supply was not too clever in the hut. Most of the country had moved over to the new three pin plug system, live, neutral and earth, no such luxury existed in the hut. You took your life in your hands every time you plugged in. I had at this time a Futurama bass in a pinkie red which seemed to fit perfect with Barrie’s guitar which was also a Futurama lead guitar in ice blue. John Taylor had a Burns Sonic which was at the time a top instrument and Ray had a small set of drums, which he had bought out of a catalogue. We were so keen in those halcyon days that we practiced two or three times a week. We had no other interests, no other distractions or steady girlfriends. Barrie at the age of twenty-one was the only one who had a driving licence and a car.

He had a Hillman Minx Estate and in those early days most of the gear and most of us were able to travel in it. This was to local gigs only and then sometimes with the need to make more than one journey. About now we moved from the hut to start practising at Blaydon Club. This looked to be a big step forward as the club often had groups on and it was always possible we might get a booking. Our time would come only too soon and we would have to do it on the cheap for the privilege of using the club’s electricity and heating once a week, confirming once again you get now’t for now’t.

At this time you usually got to play at a gig by going and asking someone for a job but before any of this was to happen we needed to have a name. The DC comics’ connection was with us all as the guys had been readers of these hallowed magazines but maybe not to the same degree as me.

Anyway scraping around for names one just presented itself from the pages of a Superman comic, “The Scarlet Jungle.” At this time the weirder the name the better was the name of the game and if your name was to involve a colour then so much the better.
We were set, business cards needed to be printed to offer out at clubs but no telephone number though as the telephone was yet to be in the hands of the general public. This we did and played in the first instance at youth clubs, wedding functions and the occasional small club.

The gear was small; the amps were only about 30 watts at most and we had no PA system the result of which was that we were not a proper group. We sang though Barrie’s amp which as I recall was a Bird and had several inputs but putting two mikes and his guitar through one amp was never going to help us be a world beating pop group.

I recall one gig at the Throckley Bank Top Club when we had to troop out with this spartan gear the week after The Originals who were the best local band at the time and had just been on the week before. Abit of an anti-climax for the locals you would think but we seemed to go down well. The most significant thing I remember was that I had for a while thought my hair was getting a little too thick and I was keen to thin it out, not the best either short term or long term move I must say.

I had seen an advertisement in a comic for a special comb which would do just such a job but you had to send for it mail order to America. This was not going to happen as by now I thought time to be of the essence, there must be another way. My Dad used to shave with a wet razor a Wilkinson Sword Blue shadow blade as I recall. This was the answer so I fitted a new blade. I was an Apprentice Motor Mechanic after all no task too complicated for me and made a start at the thinning.

I had come out of the bath just prior to getting ready to go to the gig and was set for the final touching up. Everything was going well. Anice heap of long hair was beginning to fall into the wash basin in front of me, then a momentary lapse of concentration and a sudden slip of the razor and low and behold I had scalped myself. I had carved out a square of hair as wide as the blade and just about as long out of the side of my head, I had always been fond of Cowboys and Indians but in no way had imagined myself being an Indian, rather a cool Cowboy.

Too late for all that, the dye would appear to have been cast. What the hell was I to do with only a few short hours until Show Time? I should mention at this point that this gig was in the July of a certain year and it was warm to say the least. I collected the already cut hair and a bit of my scalp out of the wash basin and
flushed it down the bog getting rid of the incriminating evidence of my stupidity but what was I going to do with my pop star persona.

The Monkeys, the so called “American Answer To The Beatles” had come to prominence and were doing well in the music charts and we had indeed just learned a couple of their tunes (Daydream Believer and Last Train to Clarkesville) the previous week, so I would adopt or appropriate depending on your preference the style of Mike Nesmith the guitar player who wore a knitted pom pom hat all of the time.

My Mam was always in the habit of knitting and I had just such a chaperon of my own albeit in a white creamy colour and knit in the Arran style. Bearing in mind that this was the middle of the summer and we also had the red corduroy shirts as the band’s uniform this gig was to be one of the hottest I have ever done and not in a good way. We had arranged to practice once again at Barrie’s home one Saturday morning. Barry had come to pick me and my gear up and off we went down to Blaydon.

The gear was set up in the living room and then Barrie produced out of nowhere a Fender Stratocaster guitar. I was stunned! I had never seen a Strat at such close range and first hand before. The closest I had ever been was looking through windows in one of the shops in the Toon and as to be able to touch it, and then wow! ‘‘How good was that?’’

This showed a real mark of commitment and sparked off the purchase of a full kit of brand new Selmer gear that is a 100 watt PA system with three microphones, two guitar amps and my Treble and Bass 50 amp with my Goliath cabinet. Ray Minto bought a new set of Premier drums out of Kay’s catalogue on the drip at this time and the scene was now all set, well just about.

To enable all this new found musical amplification to be moved around Barrie had to trade in his precious estate car for a Ford Thames Trader Van, not at all the babe magnet he had been used to but for the sake of the group all things were possible in those days. As I have said previously if you wanted to get jobs you had to go and ask so off we went to find work.

At first we only had a few regular jobs; we were at The Vulcan’s Rugby Club in Winlaton once every four weeks and at Lobley Hill Social Club for the same period each month. Getting paid £10 a night for two one hour sets, 120 minutes, plus an encore, which would be something in the order of about forty songs, plus the odd other booking in between, however this was never going to be enough.

Just a little a word here; I was a bit of a local hero at the Rugby Club as I had been briefly in the squad of the Colts (the Junior) team. Because we were playing all the songs from the charts each week and learning new ones all the time we were able to take requests, which inevitably meant that we played some songs more than once each night. Playing just a few gigs over and over was never going to give us the volume of work we desired so we had to find ourselves an agent.

As the others had little or no idea of the process of finding an agent and I must confess neither did I the task was by enlarge left to me, as it was to be in every band in which I played till I would retire in 1999, a time so far way at this time as to be totally unimaginable. I asked around among other lads I knew who played in bands as to who would be good at finding us work. The name that came back with the least amount of bad publicity was that of Colin Danby.

You need to appreciate that in 1966 it was not as easy to communicate with people as it is nowadays. Most normal communication was done by post and you would only use the telephone for some special purpose or in an emergency. Few people had the phone in their homes so direct contact was near enough impossible. I was told the way to contact Colin Danby was to ring a certain number between 12 noon and 1 o’clock on a Saturday. This I did and after a number of weeks talking to this man I finally secured our first proper job at a Working Men’s Club, it was to be The Union Jack Club at Throckley, fee £12 less10% commission to the agent and three 45 minute spots. More money for playing less time, things were surely looking up.

Now we had to get some kind of uniform such was the convention when playing in a club in the mid-sixties. My greatest recollection of this the first of the bands bookings for the agent was the events happening at the bar in the concert room at the Union Jack. Barrie was a full five years older than me and when he went to the bar to get served the woman behind the bar said he wasn’t old enough. This came as a great surprise to him and I think he was taken aback to the point of not being able to argue for the pint with her. The result was I got the money and went back to the bar to get the drinks. I on the other hand was only sixteen but must have looked older and more than enough confidence to carry this unabashed act off.

We got some strange gigs from Colin Danby. Among the strangest of them was at RAF Acklington in Northumberland. It’s now H.M. Prison Acklington although in retrospect there could have been signs of it turning into a prison even then. I clearly remember the first time we went there. These gigs for some strange reason were always on a Thursday night and as such required a degree of planning and logistics to get off work and get home in enough time to get there in our Thames van.

This was to be the very first time I would see a colour television, I remember it well. The show I watched with amazement was a music programme called Colour Me Pop, which was the forerunner of the Old Grey Whistle Test. I cannot think right now as to who was on it but I have vivid memories of the psychedelic colours on the screen. The first time we did this gig we were by ourselves and we had a great time but it was to turn out to be a long night, dare I say it AHard Day’s Night.

We were treated like kings and got more food and drink than we needed or knew what to do with and as I have said were able to watch the newest of all inventions at the time the coloured tele but all would fade as nothing in the cold light of dawn. We finished the show, packed all the gear away into the van and set off home. It had been a long night and we had played all the songs we knew and then repeated some of them again, such was our great enthusiasm for the music. It would be fair to say we were all knackered.

We must have been travelling for about half an hour when the fan belt on the engine broke. This sent the temperature gauge sky-high and warranted an immediate stop of the engine. I was the motor mechanic and as such it as up to me to find the solution to the problem. Abit of rope, a tie and some stockings were all tried as substitute fan belts. Nothing was going to work other than a genuine Ford replacement fan belt, stuck! We had some water in a bottle in the van and a ready supply in various bladders secreted amongst us although this was not to be a finite supply.

The plan was to push the van for a while to give it time to cool down, put some liquid into the radiator and continue to push. We had broken down quite a few miles north of Morpeth, it was black dark and freezing cold. Some of us were full of beer and all of us were absolutely worn out but we had to get home by whatever means. We must have pushed the van over fifteen miles that night. Indeed the night soon gave way to the dawn and as we pushed ever onwards the bleating of sheep could be clearly heard in the fields on each side of the road, although there was no sign of any sheep as they were totally covered by the early morning mist. It was Friday at about six in the morning when the van was being pushed over what was then the New Scotswood Bridge by four was very worn out young pop stars.

The final part of the Thursday night was now about to manifest itself in one last cruel act. As we came over the bridge and the van started on is journey downward under its own steam a loud cry was heard from the rear, next to me. It was Ray “Ringo” Minto who had caught his signet ring in the rain channel on the roof of the van and was being dragged at the van’s increasing speed ever faster down the slope. It must have been the thought of losing his finger that caused him to summon from somewhere some super human energy to pick up speed and unhook himself from his predicament.

I got in the house around seven o’clock, just enough time for me to close my eyes and then open them again as I was abruptly woken up by my mother to go to work. How cruel must this have been? I was to all intents and purposes nearly dead. I had walked most of the way from the middle of Northumberland and had just closed my eyes; work was the last thing on my mind at this time. Slowly, well very slowly I started to come around and started to warm to the idea of going to work, not, but as my mother was not going to ring in sick for me I would have to go.

I felt at the time as if I had slipped between two universes and while I was not in one I felt as if I was not quite in the other one either, being nothing more than an observer in both. When I got to work I explained to Ray Brown that I thought I was about to die through severe lack of sleep and asked him to cover for me while I grabbed a little shut eye, A strange request at eight thirty in the morning I know but you have to take a mates request seriously at all times.

As we had both progressed our apprenticeship as motor mechanics to the elevated status of grease monkeys doing the oil and filter changes and greasing the cars we had as a consequence our own little domain underground in the oil store which was to be my chosen place for a quick nap. I would surface now and again just to show my face so that those around and about would think I was working. Ray of course was doing all the graft while I slipped in and out of consciousness, what are best mates for? This whole escapade was to end badly as that cunning fox Bruce Gunn (the Workshop Manager) was not so easy to fool. He would catch me just coming out of one of my slumbers and give me the ever popular stern warning, leaving me in no doubt I would not be able to pull this trick again and get away with it. He also gave Ray a good bollocking for helping me such was the vindictive nature of this soulless man. Foot note: I don’t know anyone who has had a bad bollocking do you?

The events of the previous night, a Thursday was to be the prelude tonight’s, (Friday’s) wonderful performance, which was to be at the Rowlands Gill Social Club. As I recall this was a private booking which we got because someone had seen us and recommended us to the Club and as such there was some pressure on us to do a good job. This was not to be the case as we all felt like s**t, a severe lack of sleep, general exhaustion and all that.

I remember almost falling asleep while playing guitar on stage which was not a good state at all. The result of which was to be a bad performance. We never got booked back at this club in this band or indeed any other. It would be many years before Barrie and I would play in this establishment again as Radio Two and even then only because I was the agent and I think I was keen to repair a previous wrong.

On the second occasion we went to RAF Acklington we were to be in a much bigger show. This time it was a Saturday night. I guess we must have been the stars as it was a two band event and we were the band which would go on second and therefore close the show, in other words “Top of the Bill”.

I vaguely remember the other group who like us had made the trip up from Newcastle to entertain those wonderful airmen of Her Majesty’s Air Force in the far flung outpost of North East England. This band was not as good as us. This was to be my contention and seemed to be borne out by the spot placements. However things are not always as they seem.

I fancy these guys had been to this gig many more times than us and were wise to the general meleé which could ensue and wanted to be as far away as possible before war broke out. They had got there early to claim the stage which was only just a stage mind you as it didn’t raise any more the couple of feet above the dance floor. We on the other hand had built for us a brilliant stage structure but on the floor and draped it in a colourful silk parachute which made it look really hip, yet afforded no protection to the band whatsoever.

The local girls would come to the dance in the hope of meeting up with some young handsome airman and as not to appear in anyway to be discriminating the young men from the surrounding area were allowed to come too. This for them was as much to keep an eye on their girlfriends and prevent such machinations happening. Things were going well, well maybe too well then it happens as local war broke out as was almost inevitable.

I have a vivid memory of two Air Force Policemen entering the dance hall to apprehend a large possibly giant local guy who had been systematically dispatching flyboys with comparative ease to the infirmary. Given the circumstances this was never going to be that easy. The assailant dressed only in a white tee shirt and jeans had no comprehension of the idea of going quietly having made very short shrift of quite a number of previous contenders. Advancing on him at pace the policemen grabbed him by his flimsy tee shirt which came away easily in their hands rendering him naked from the waist upward. After much pushing and shoving they were able to remove him from the premises.

While all this had been going on we had been cowering behind the speakers and amps while the organiser was urging us to keep on playing at all cost. The song during the heroic battle scene was “Don’t fight it” by Wilson Pickett. Now how’s that for irony, you couldn’t make it up.