Читать книгу Behind the Rock and Beyond - Leon Isackson - Страница 7

Even at this age, I felt totally committed to rock’n’roll. It belonged to me. It was the music of my generation.

“I take thee rock’n’roll to be my lawless wedded wife.

To have and to hold, from this day forth,

for richer or for poorer, in time or out.

To live happily together from this day forth,

till death do us part.”

— I TAKE THEE by Jon Hayton.

While I was learning all this sinful rock’n’roll, I was still at school — Trinity Grammar primary school at Strathfield and secondary school at Summer Hill. Most of them were stuffed shirts and snobs. The happiest day of my life at school was when I jumped up on the desk during Tech Drawing class, holding a T-square for a guitar. The kids in the class loved it but the teacher decided that the T-square would be better used on my backside.

When I left school, my father, Noel Hayton, found me a job at Gowings (“Walk thru’, no one asked to buy”) and I spent my lunch-hours at the aforementioned J. Stanley Johnston’s and also at Nicholson’s, Palings and the Nock & Kirby’s record bar. It was one lunch-hour at Nock & Kirby’s that I met BARRY LEWIS who was busy shoving records under his coat. Barry told me he was a drummer and he had a band of sorts called the RED JEANS. He asked me would I like to come and have a “jam” with them as they wanted to get rid of the guy they already had, ‘cause he “loved himself too much”!

Well, the band consisted of lots of people holding guitars, a guy playing tea-chest bass (tea-chest, stick and rope), a guy on saxophone and clarinet and Barry on drums. After much rehearsal we got rid of some “guitar holders” and played our very first gig at Castle Hill Golf Club. The band consisted of Kenny Konyard and Gary Eyre on guitar, Roger Paulfreeman on tea-chest bass, Barry Lewis on drums, Peter Marris on sax and clarinet and yours truly on guitar! I don’t remember too much about this job like if we were paid and, if so, how much but the next performance was much more memorable.

It was Desmond Tester’s Channel 9 Pins on which Gary sang the Johnny O’Keefe song Wild One. I played rhythm guitar and we were paid the princely sum of ten shillings and a bottle of coke. Not quite award rates for TV but we were very happy to be doing our second gig on the box so money was our last concern. Desmond was very patronising and smarmy. “Here’s a little combo who tell me they play this new rock’n’roll, I really don’t know what it’s all about but take it away, the Red jeans.”

So endeth the only gigs ever done by the Red jeans.

I continued to hang around the Castlecrag area with Barry and the other guys although I was still a “westie” from Strathfield. I eventually got the sack from Gowings (“Walk thru’, no one asked to work”) and started a new job at Nicholson’s’ record bar. I thought that would be great but I was very wrong. They stuck me out the back in the record packing department and I never sold a record the whole time I was there, which wasn’t very long! Barry was still at the CBC bank and we spent our lunch-hours at J. Stanley Johnston’s trying out new guitars and drums.

It was during one of these lunchtimes that we met the guy who would change our lives forever.