"the Jeff Thomson of guitar ....speed, violence and a good straight line."
Max Bell - NME
BOOKS
In the mid-80's, in Greece, I began writing. Stories recalled at random from The Only Ones screwed-up passage thru the latter half of the 1970's. There was no theme, no order, no chronology. Nothing much linked the stories beyond the fact that they made me howl with laughter. The few people to whom I read out extracts laughed too. It wasn't so much the impressive number as the breadth and extraordinary range of Disasters the band managed to pack into just four years.
Disasters are fun. Even as they're happening they're quite funny and in retrospect they're hysterical. It's just as well I did enjoy them because from quite early on I came to realise that no matter how good our records, or how exciting our live shows, we were never going to enjoy mainstream success. Any detail that our record company overlooked, failed to screw up, misjudge or mistime we were more than capable of fucking up for ourselves.
Without ever being able to define them exactly, I began to feel the elements that made the band special were precisely the things that made the record companies so deeply mistrustful. We were never cartoon rock'n'roll 'rowdies'. The company men could smell something volatile in the air around us; they weren't sure what it was but they were certain they didn't like it.
After 18 months jotting down notes & writing passages along those lines I put the MS aside and returned to London where Johnny Thunders and Patti were having trouble getting the COPYCATS album started.
When I returned to writing it was with a more definite aim, and with a commission from Schirmer to write a book about The Who. Like anyone who saw The Who live between 64-67 I wasn't short of subject matter.
In those years, before 'Tommy' and the invention of Stadium Rock, they were a melodic, violent, pop group issuing a string of the greatest singles ever recorded.
Schirmer commissioned a second book on Hendrix. In all I've written 3 books, all on different subjects but all pretetxts to write about the impact I felt on seeing the best live rock'n'roll bands, close-up, between the ages of 14 and 17.
Played my first shows at 15. At that time the live music scene was jumping and I had enough work by 16 to chuck in school. Played US bases, village halls, rugby clubs, town halls, club circuits and Endless Ballrooms. The Underground was just what I'd been lookin for so when the the festival circuit got into gear (c. '71 Glastonbury) I was out of those ballrooms like a phantom jet. Met a lotta v. funny people & spent several years vagabonding round with the Pink Fairies /Lemmy /Frendz crowd. Played a lot of shows and made a few recordings - most of which, I'm delighted to say, are lost.
That scene melted into the London pubrock circuit which in turn hosted punk. Same venues different haircut. In late 1975 I started work with Peter Perrett on what became The Only Ones. We had about as much fun as its possible to have in a band without getting arrested too often and we made some good records - but by 1981 it was getting stale. Amid acrimonious hassles with CBS, we split.
I formed a band to do Glastonbury one more time then drifted off round the Greek islands for a while. Found a typewriter and began writing up loosely recalled bits and pieces of the Only Ones story. [ See BOOKS ]
When i got back, London was enjoying the Synth era. Hard to recall now but guitars were supposed to be 'old hat'. Got that? Guitar bad; Synth Good. Bands with Manifestos (notoriously hard to dance to) and kids with dodgy haircuts playing ironing boards. I had a suspicion Guitar might outlast Ironing Board tho & kept on playing live. Sessions too, working mostly with friends, Robert Palmer, Sisters of Mercy, Marianne Faithfull, Robert Hunter, Patti Palladin and Anita Pallenberg. Michael Nyman, Screaming Lord Sutch, Evan Dando, Freddie Stevenson and Johnny Thunders.
Hey John, Sounds like you had a ball in Japan. We just missed each other. I flew into Kansai 21:00hrs 13th Nov. Would have been great to have seen you and the boys play over here...Maybe next time. In Kyoto now for a couple of weeks. You ever been? If not push for it on the next tour it really is a world apart from Tokyo/ Osaka etc. Back to the pub via Seoul at the end of Nov and will hopefully make The Garage in Dec. All the best Paul
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