Читать книгу Chas and Dave - Chas Hodges - Страница 15
ОглавлениеThe first job I got was at Turners, the jeweller’s shop on Edmonton Green, as a watch and clockmaker’s apprentice. My Mum knew the guv’nor, who used to go in the Exhibition pub where she played piano. My brother worked there when he left school a couple of years earlier, but he didn’t get on with the job and moved on.
The idea of messing about with old clocks, takin’ ’em apart and puttin’ ’em back together appealed to me. I asked Mum if she could get me a job there. I went up to be interviewed and I started in January 1959. 1 liked that job. At the time I had never dreamed of earnin’ a livin’ playin’ music. I never knew anyone who was a professional musician, I had a job and as far as ‘proper’ jobs go, it wasn’t bad. It was a little old nineteenth-century shop. I was on my own most of the time. I became quite good at mendin’ old clocks quite quickly, though I wasn’t mad on watch mending. All you did with watches was find out what was wrong and send away for a new part. But clocks; some of the old ones you’d get in, you’d have to use your initiative, and make new parts to get them going. The feelin’ of bringin’ them old clocks back to life was nice.
I worked hard when I was there but I was constantly late for work. I couldn’t get up in the mornings, and I still can’t. I hated mornings and still do. I’m a different person in the morning and always have been, regardless of what time I go to bed. I’m not proud of the fact, I’m just being honest about myself. It’s nothing to do with hangovers or anything like that. I was the same when I was at school. I am not very good tempered in the mornings and don’t want to speak to anybody. I get annoyed at stupid things that I’m ashamed of later in the day. When me and my brother had to get up together to go to school, we wouldn’t speak. But the sound of him crunching his toast used to make me want to punch him. Now ain’t that terrible?
I become a different person after midday and when I think of my instinctive feelings earlier that morning I am ashamed. I mean, ‘Stop crunchin’ that fuckin’ toast!’ WALLOP! What a little bastard! Thank Christ it wears off. I make a point of avoiding mornings at all costs, though sometimes I can’t. I feel I’m being victimised when I’m woke up in the morning to go and do something. I do it – but grudgingly. And them bright and breezy morning people! I feel they’re bein’ like they are just to annoy me. It can’t be natural. It can’t be natural to be laughin’ and jokin’ while it’s still mornin’. They’re doin’ it just ’cos they know it annoys me! Once again in the afternoon I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself. I’m thinkin’, I really had the hump with him this morning, laughin’ and jokin’ like that. I can tolerate him now and he’s still laughin’ and jokin’. But now it’s afternoon.
The best thing I’ve learned to do in the morning is to keep my mouth shut and don’t say nothing. As I said, I’m not proud of it and if the two of me ever met, the morning me and the afternoon or evening me, well, I don’t think they’d get on too well together. The evening me would not tolerate such a short-tempered little git as the morning me, and the morning me would not tolerate such a cheerful genial chap as the evening me.
When I started that job at Turners, the guv’nor was off sick and his son Charley took over ’til he got better. Charley was a good bloke. He’d moan at me for being late but he knew I worked well when I did get in so it never got to the sack. But when the boss got back he couldn’t accept my tardiness and I was soon given an ultimatum: ‘Get in early or get out.’ I couldn’t see the sense. All the work got done on time even if I had to take work home to finish it. I didn’t mind, I enjoyed it. But I didn’t like mornings and I couldn’t get up in them. I turned up late again to be greeted by the guv’nor with me cards. ‘Oh fuck him,’ I thought, ‘if he can’t see I’m a good worker then bollocks.’ I was earning more money playing local gigs than I was working there anyway.
The Horseshoes by this time had drifted apart and I began playing with new musicians. I met up with Tony Ollard, a great guitar player. We began swapping ideas. We started playin’ gigs at the King’s Head, Edmonton – a good Rock ’n’ Roll gig. The King’s Head was a great meeting place (I also met my wife there!). There really were some good musicians in and around North London at that time and the King’s Head was a good place to find ’em on a Friday night. For a while I was in no regular band. Whoever was available just got together and away we went. Invaluable experience. The musicians got to know each other, swapped ideas, talked about guitars and Rock ’n’ Roll. I had found a crowd I could identify with. The bass guitar began to be talked about. Not many had seen one, let alone heard one, apart from on Rock ’n’ Roll records. I had seen one. Jerry Lee’s bass player had one. I fancied playin’ bass. I fancied playin’ double bass at one time, but it wasn’t practical. It wouldn’t fit in the luggage compartment on the bus like the old tea chest used to! On some Friday night gigs, four or five guitar players would turn up. We made a bit of a row sometimes. We were still young and our tunin’ quite often was not spot on. One night I tuned my bass strings down a couple of tones and played sort of bass lines. Were the boys impressed! So was I. A new sound! I had discovered a frequency range uncluttered by anybody else’s, and it sounded good. That was it, I was going to become an electric bass player. I saw an advert for a Hofner Bass Guitar that you could buy on the knock from Bell Accordions in Surbiton, Surrey. My Grandad signed as guarantor, the deposit was sent off and the bass guitar arrived.
I tried it out indoors in my little amp, playing along to records. It sounded absolutely fantastic! I couldn’t wait to get together with the boys at the King’s Head. Up Town Road I went early on Friday evening, amp in one hand, bass guitar in the other. I arrived, proud, at the gig.
As I was plugging in my amp, the rest of the boys were admiring my guitar. ‘Blimey, ain’t the strings thick. It’s fantastic.’ ‘You wait ’til you hear it,’ I said. I tuned it up sittin’ close to me amp and away we went. Did that bass sound good? It sounded fuckin’ terrible! ‘Fart, Rasp, Rattle.’ I couldn’t believe it. In my front room it sounded great but my poor little amp couldn’t cope with the rest of the band in that big hall. I never knew that a bass needed a bigger speaker and cabinets, etc.
‘I don’t think you realise what you let yourself in for, Chas,’ said Billy Kuy the guitar player. ‘You’re gonna have to fork out for a bigger amp and you won’t be able to carry it up and down Town Road like you can that one.’ I didn’t want to believe him but I knew he was right. It was an obstacle that had to be overcome. I was hooked on the bass guitar.
Now although I didn’t have a bass amp, I suddenly found myself in demand by all the bands that played down the King’s Head. Bands were willing to provide a bass amp if I would sit in with ’em. No one else in Edmonton had a bass guitar. It made their band sound professional and I weren’t complaining. I was earning money playing with all these bands. Playing the bass gave me the chance to work with nearly all the musicians around North London and eventually a band was formed which I was pleased to become a part of: Billy Gray and The Stormers. Me on bass, Reg Hawkins rhythm guitar, Billy Kuy lead guitar, Billy (Gray) Halsey singer, and Bobby Neate on drums. This was the band for me and I thought it was time I got a bass amp of my own. Bobby Neate had an open-backed van. He had to carry his drums but there was enough room for a proper bass amp. He agreed to lug it about if I got one. So I set to work.
Billy Kuy told me that the bass player with Dave Sampson and the Hunters, Johnny Rogers, had a bass amp for sale. He’d bought it from Jet Harris, the Shadows’ bass player. I’d seen Cliff and the Shadows when Jet Harris was using the amp. I thought it was fantastic. Johnny Rogers wanted £20 for the lot. I was round there like a shot and got it.
Now this bass amp was built like a little house and was about as heavy as one. It was about four foot high, three foot wide and three foot deep. A solid wooden box (two inch thick wood) within a box and the cavity was filled with sand. You can imagine the weight. It was made by Wallace in Soho Street. I think it was the first British bass amp ever made. Bobby Neate, who had promised to lug it about, looked a bit dismayed when he found out what he’d agreed to. But he didn’t back out and it came with us on the road. It had a sound and a half! (Some years later I gave that cabinet to some geezer I’d just met named Dave Peacock. He sawed a fuckin’ great hole in it, all the sand fell out and it ended up in his back garden. It’s probably still there now!)
Billy Gray and The Stormers began to get a name as the best band round North London. Through someone or other we heard that there were auditions going for Butlins Holiday Camps. We brushed up the act and went for the audition at the Majestic in Finsbury Park. There were some good bands there from all over London. We had competition. But a few days later we got a letter through saying that we had passed. We were to go to Filey Holiday Camp in Yorkshire for the 1960 summer season at £20 each a week. An absolute fortune for a sixteen-year-old and all we had to do was play music! I couldn’t wait to get there and it was to turn out even better than I had expected.
