Читать книгу Rocket Norton Lost In Space - Rocket Norton - Страница 6

The G.T.s played an afternoon sock-hop in the school gym one lunchtime in early January. Bob, Frank and I went along to check them out. They did songs by Gary Lewis & the Playboys, Herman’s Hermits and Fever by The McCoys. Truthfully, they sucked. But, even though Steve also sucked as a bass player, our instincts, honed by months of experience in showbiz, told us that he had something. He had that 'it' quality that we knew nothing about but recognized anyway. We agreed that he had to be our new bass player.

As Steve was in several of my classes, I was elected to ask him to join The Statics. I was nervous about doing this because I was still without confidence and at the shallow end of the cool pool. It took me a few weeks to practice my pitch. Whatever I came up with in my mind, I kept hearing Steve’s rejection and rebuke. Ever since I was a young child I had hated rejection. When I had a paper route and one of my customers cancelled their paper I took it personally. I’ve never liked “no” and consequently I’ve been a “yes” guy all my life. The thought of Steve saying no to The Statics would be a no to me and therefore too humiliating to face. I waited, hoping for the right moment.

One day I came face to face with Mr. Flint in the hall.

“Hi,” he said casually without slowing down.

“Uh, heard you play in the gym a while ago,” I began.

“Yeah, that’s a gas,” he replied as he spun around and continued walking backwards.

“I guess you wouldn’t want to quit The G.T.s and join The Statics would ya?” I blurted out, cringing.

“Ah, yeah ... cool,” he answered turning away. “Wanna come to a party?” And off he went. A sovereign so in control of his domain that he could make decisions that would alter the course of the rest of his life, and his subjects, without consultation or even a second thought. It must be great to be King.

There was a pretty girl named Jennifer in my geography class who was dominating all of my fantasy time. My urges towards her were still very innocent. I hadn’t had time to develop any serious perversions yet, or at least didn’t need to embellish the purity of my clean, down-to-earth lust.

Jennifer had long silky brown hair styled like British singer, Cilla Black. She had a cute turned-up nose and big brown eyes. When she locked them on me my heart skipped a beat. She liked to wear tight skirts and low cut blouses. Not that she was any kind of a bad girl. Far from it, she was very sweet.

The party that Steve had invited me to was a make-out session at the home of Hershey in-guy, Dave. Dave's parents were out of town for the weekend.

Fortified by my success with Steve and my invitation to such a hip party, I did the unimaginable; I walked up to Jennifer at her locker after school and said, “I thought maybe you'd like to ... I've been invited to a house party and ...”

She flashed those eyes at me and pretended to be suspicious. “A house party?” she teased, “I know what happens at a house party.”

She turned away but not too far. I took a deep breath. “Would you like to accompany me ... you know, would you go with me?” I asked sounding like a complete moron.

Jennifer smiled at me and said, “Yes.”

Many of the guys were driving now but, as I was still only fifteen, I had no wheels. I was so new to the Hershey Team I didn't feel it was my place to ask one of the guys for a ride. But the promise of nookie overpowered my embarrassment and I picked Jennifer up on foot. She didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she snuggled against me all the way to Dave’s place.

As soon as everyone arrived, all of the couples found a sofa or a chair or a spot on the floor and out went the lights. Jennifer and I flopped into an over-sized armchair. I was panic stricken. I had never really made out with a real-life grown up girl before so I had no idea of how it worked. For a few awkward moments we held each other, frozen in the dark. Suddenly, as if by magic, I understood what it was I must do. There must be a ministry in Heaven that supervises the science of kissing because the second our lips met we were skilled artisans. Our first kiss lasted for two hours. I was bold and she was willing and, while Percy Sledge sang, When a Man Loves a Woman, endlessly on the radio, I expertly explored every curve of her squirmy young body.

My hands, seemingly possessed, knew where to go. One hand examined the treasures under her sweater while the other found its way up her skirt. My trembling fingers touched the forbidden slips, garters, hooks, belts, whistles, straps, wires and frills that until now had only been available to me in my dirty little mind. Jennifer liked it when I fondled her breasts and she got very hot when I stroked her panties. At the height of passion she started moaning and she rammed her tongue down my throat. I figured that must be good. No clothes were removed and there was never even the hint of sex. That secret had not yet been revealed to me. Miraculously, I didn’t go off in my pants.

Afterwards, I floated her home. Our feet never touched the ground. We were enchanted by love. We stood holding each other on her front porch for a long time. She kissed me one last kiss and then she was gone. On my way back to my house late that night I danced in the streets and shouted The Young Rascals’ Good Lovin’ at the top of my lungs.

Churchill announced a February dance which, for some reason, they made a Sadie Hawkin’s Dance (even though the real Sadie Hawkin‘s Day is in November sometime). I was distressed about this because I was the only boy left without a license to drive and knew I would feel like a loser if I had to walk my date to the dance.

Jennifer rushed up to my locker after school. Her wide eyes sparkled like jewels and her radiant smile lit up the hallway. “I just heard about the big dance,” she gushed, “where the girls get to ask the boys!”

She was shaking with excitement. I turned towards my locker and fumbled with my lock. “That's a stupid idea.”

“No! It's a wonderful idea,” she continued undeterred, “has anyone asked you yet?”

The warmth of her luscious body in my arms was so fresh a memory and I could still smell her sweet perfume. “Ah, no; nobody's asked me. You know, I don't think ...”

She tugged on my sleeve and said the words I feared most, “will you go with me?”

I stood there like an idiot with her waiting nervously beside me. The turmoil raging inside me was unbearable. I wanted to be with her, I loved her, but I couldn't even drive her to the dance. My shame was too great to bear.

I muttered, “I ... can’t,” slammed my locker door and hurried away.

Jennifer was the first romance of my life and I fucked it up. She never spoke to me again.

The Statics continued to practice with Mark and Steve. Somehow we had united the two most popular guys in school - both of the coolest international spies of our time, Bond and Flint, together in one band. Neither could play that well but then, neither could I. Mark was proficient but did not have rock & roll in his blood. Steve possessed a little talent but was short on skill. Steve was also hampered by poor equipment; he was playing an Ibanez bass and using a Belltone guitar amp from Sears - pretty low-tech even for 1966.

I was too caught up in the excitement to appreciate just how lousy I really was. I played those drum rolls that had gotten me into the band in the first place very stiffly. They sounded like “I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can”.

Frank and Bob, however, were very good on guitars and vocals and they were both way ahead of everyone in musical style. We dug into a lot of The Pretty Things’ material like, Buzz The Jerk and we did a reasonably fair cover of most of the pop songs on the charts at that time. The Beatles scored a double Number One with both the “A” and “B” sides of their latest, Rain and Paperback Writer. The Stones were in the Top Five with Paint It Black and some of the other hits of the day included; Red Rubber Ball by The Cyrkle, A Groovy Kind of Love by The Mindbenders and Kicks by Paul Revere & the Raiders.

Our last gig as The Statics could have been forgettable but it offered me a lesson in performance that would resonate for years to come. We had been asked to participate in a Battle-of-the-Bands at the school basketball game Friday night. Our rivals, and Steve's old band, the G.T.s and another school band called The Hang Five were the competition. Churchill's team, The Bulldogs, was very popular and the place was jammed to the rafters.

Hang Five went on first and performed two Beach Boys numbers followed by The G.T.s who played Turn! Turn! Turn! byThe Byrds and You Didn‘t Have To Be So Nice by The Lovin‘ Spoonful. The players in both bands were better musicians than us but their attempts at the complex vocal harmonies made them sound like mush in the cavernous gym. They were largely ignored by the audience.

We came on and played The Witch by The Sonics and You Really Got Me by The Kinks. Both of these songs are basically simple two chord riffs that the band more or less played in unison. This created a distinct sound that cut through the mush and filled the hall with a sharp grungy beat. We didn’t know it yet but we had discovered the essence of 'arena rock'. The crowd went nuts. The contest was determined by audience Applause-O-Meter. We won by a landslide. The school annual reported conservatively, “Although no official winner was announced, student opinion seemed to favour The Statics.”

Shortly after our triumph at the Battle-of-the-Bands, Bob came to practice with a book of short science-fiction stories written by John Wyndham. It was titled, The Seeds of Time. We were all disgusted with our name, The Statics. We required a name fitting for a dirty rock band. And so it was in June of 1966, on Bob Kripps' suggestion, we became The Seeds of Time.

Steve’s dad was an engineer and he got us our first gig as The Seeds of Time playing at the annual Engineers’ Club Dance. Once again we were scrambling to perform songs that the folks could dance to. We took a shot at B.J. Thomas’ recent hit, I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry written by the immortal Hank Williams, and the ladies suffered their husbands around the dance floor. I’m sure they hated us but, because of Steve’s dad, they all pretended that we were “really okay”. It must have gone reasonably well because Steve’s parents upgraded him to a Vox 'teardrop' bass and a Fender Bassman amp.

Mark was able to get us in at Zeta Beta Tau, a fraternity house at the University of British Columbia. For a bunch of guys that were soon to be the leaders of our community; doctors, lawyers and financiers, they put on an exhibition of drunken buffoonery that would shame a sailor on shore leave. Our first gig there was an unadulterated, out-of-control toga party complete with semi-naked women, an overflowing gin-laced punchbowl and a repertoire of frat-house standards such as Long Tall Texan, Watermelon Man, Can’t Sit Down and, of course, 'the anthem' (Louie Louie). We were even badgered into playing The Batman Theme by The Marketts from the campy television show that was so popular at that time. When my dad came to pick us up and help haul the gear home in the family auto, it looked like a bomb had gone off.

Harry was always doing stuff like that. One time he drove us way up Seymour Mountain somewhere to play at a party for a riding club. He leaned against the bar and nursed one rye & Ginger Ale for four hours and then drove us home.

Mark Wosk began to question his commitment to show business. He decided to hang ‘em up and retired to have a real life. He would become a successful doctor, travel the world and raise a beautiful family.

The four of us carried on. We were hired to participate in a promotion for a downtown clothier called Murray Goldman Menswear. We played one Saturday afternoon crammed into the display window of his store on Hastings Street and followed up with a series of radio spots that aired on C-FUN Radio. I would say, “I’m Rock of The Seeds of Time and I buy all my Mod gear at Murray Goldman Menswear.” We got paid one shirt each. I picked out a bright yellow shirt with dark purple polka-dots - very boss!

My attempts at fashion were unsatisfactory. Whatever clothing shops such as 'I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet' and the other famous Soho boutiques of Carnaby Street in Swinging London had intended for their collections was lost on me. I didn't know what to do with shirts that were flowered, paisley, purple and pink with enormous pointed collars and trousers that were bell-bottomed, stove-piped and checked. But, as a dedicated follower of fashion, I loved my Beatle boots. These were Cuban heeled and dangerously pointed. It was rumoured that tough-guys fitted razor blades into the toes.

On July 18th, my sixteenth birthday, I received my driver’s license. Finally, this was something I was actually good at. Now I was free. My dad had a 1964 Chevy Impala Super Sport, cream with tan leather interior - truly one of the most beautiful cars ever made - although at that time, it was thought of as simply the family ride. He only allowed me to take it out for short drives but, because the cable to the odometer was so easily disconnected, I could roam far and wide without detection. Mostly, I would cruise over to Bob’s or Steve’s with the windows open and The Troggs’ Wild Thing blasting from the Delco radio. Those old tube car radios were how rock & roll was supposed to be heard.

At the end of July, while I was out of town with my parents, I missed the first significant event of the soon to be upon us Social Revolution in Vancouver. Two bands from San Francisco called The Grateful Dead and Big Brother & the Holding Company along with a few others played The Trips Festival at the Garden Auditorium on the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) grounds. One week later The Grateful Dead played a small hall on Pender Street called the Pender Auditorium. I missed it all.

Later in the summer the PNE had a Teen City and held a Battle-of-the-Bands. The Seeds of Time entered. I was still not really aware of my obvious-to-others-but-obscured-to-me limitations as a drummer and was consumed with the desire to do well at this showcase. I became obsessed with a Ludwig 'Hollywood' drum kit that was on display at Vancouver Drum Company on Granville Street. I would stand on the street staring at it in the window for hours at a time. The drums were an Oyster Marine Pearl finish, similar to Ringo’s Ludwigs, and had two tenor toms. Somehow I talked my mom into advancing the money to buy the kit. My dad picked them up and brought them home in a big cardboard box after work. The kit was a gorgeous instrument that certainly outclassed my ability. I had no understanding of syncopation - I was still playing straight 1/4 notes and 1/8 notes on the bass drum. I hoped that the kit would make me better. In some ways, I believe it did.

We went to a West-End seamstress and had her make us matching jackets out of a flaming orange burlap material with electric blue satin lapels. We prepared a set of Yardbirds, Pretty Things and Who songs and we were ready to do battle.

We played our set one afternoon in late August and were pretty pleased with ourselves. We cut into our very hip repertoire of British covers with the confidence that we had great gear and looked fabulous. We were developing a small fan base especially with Mod females like Bob’s girlfriend Anne and other girls from school. Even some boys were digging the band including a high-schooler from Richmond named Dave Gilbert and his friends. They gathered around to shower us with compliments. It was natural to be smug after that.

While still congratulating ourselves, but before I had packed up my drums into their soft, vinyl cases we were witness to something that had us crashing quickly back to reality. The next band to play was a guitar quartet called The Black Snake Blues Band. They were originally from Edmonton, Alberta but had just returned from a trip to San Francisco. They had hair down to their asses and were stylishly indifferent in scruffy jeans and tee-shirts. They played some great blues and grungy rock. I stood there captivated by their sound; by their presence. It was so authentic, so committed. One of them, Joe Conroy, played a Gibson Flying-Vee guitar. They made our little set seem pretty lame.

However, they did not win the contest either. That night I heard a band called, The Shockers who eventually won the Battle-Of-The-Bands with their slick presentation of mostly top-forty material like Summer in the City by The Lovin’ Spoonful and Don’t Bring Me Down by The Animals. The sound of drummer, Dave Johnson’s, snare sent a shock-wave to my brain. I loved the way he hit the drum, the way it ‘Kracked’ in a crisp sharp sound like a bull-whip. Although I had listened to many great drummers on record such as Ringo and Charlie Watts, this was the first time I was consciously influenced by a live musician.

We talked about driving down to Seattle to see The Beatles at the Coliseum on August 25^th. The top ticket only cost six dollars to see the greatest band in history but we couldn’t get organized. It turned out to be their third last concert ever (the last being at Candlestick Park in San Francisco a few days later on August 30th.)

As I dragged myself back to Winston Churchill and the beginning of Grade Eleven I was acutely aware that something was going to blow wide open. I didn’t have to wait very long.

On September 30, an aspiring entrepreneur named Jerry Kruz, who had been presenting 'happenings' at the Pender Auditorium with bands like The Tom Northcott Trio (featuring Rick Enns on bass), moved into the Russian Community Centre on Fourth Avenue near Arbutus Street in the heart of Kitsilano. He called it The Afterthought. A band that he managed called The United Empire Loyalists, and another group, The Nocturnals, now with two singles; Because You’re Gone and This Ain’t Love, were the featured attractions on opening night.

The Afterthought was nothing more than a small wooden meeting hall with a proscenium stage and a balcony but it became the focus of the emerging avant-garde music scene. More importantly, it was quickly established as the gathering place for young people who were growing restless with rigid society born out of the materialistic post-war fifties and were looking to discover a new freer way of life.

The United Empire Loyalists was a very good band. Guitarist Jeff Ridley and vocalist Mike Trew attended Churchill High so they were our closest serious rivals now. They had evolved out of a group called The Molesters and developed a distinct 'riffy' sound led by lead-guitarist Anton “Tom” Kolstee. They were miles ahead of us in originality and in creating their own musical sound.

Things were coming to a head at school. I was constantly in trouble for my wild Mod clothing and long, unkempt hair. This was not entirely accurate as I spent considerable time washing and grooming. Hair was an important statement and I took care to say it right. Regardless, my battles with the principal and his sadistic henchman, the vice-principal, now escalated into all out war. I was pulled out of class and sent to the vice-principal's office where I was told that I was “a distraction” to other students. I was charged with an after school detention which I refused to attend. I was penalized with three detentions for each one I ignored. Soon, I had hundreds of them. I was hauled into the office again. This time the vice-principal was standing beside his desk holding a cruel, thick leather strap.

“Hold out your hand,” he ordered.

I took one look at the strap and said, “I don‘t think so.”

He was confused by this and I realized that he had no way of forcing me to extend my hand. That was the end of the strap at Sir Winston Churchill High School.

Like a flower blooming from the ashes, a beautiful thing grew out of all this. On one of my frequent visits to the office, while waiting to further the campaign of freedom, I met Liviana. She was a senior and built like an Italian goddess. She was apprehended for violations to the dress-code ... her dress was too small to have a code. The skin-tight, micro-mini outfit she was almost wearing struggled to contain her abundant assets. She was Sophia Loren in the flesh. But her extroverted style concealed a shy and demure nature. We connected in many ways. Under our flamboyant exteriors, we were both naturally reserved. We were both drawn to the mood of social unrest emerging around us. And, we were both very interested in sex.

I was now afforded a more stimulating activity after school which very nicely took the place of drum practice. Liviana and I would hurry to her house in Marpole and fool around until her parents got home. She encouraged me to explore her naked body, to caress every inch of her. But, for all her promising promiscuity, she was very much a good Catholic girl who was saving her virginity for her future husband. We did everything except put it in.

This was a few levels up the Eros scale from my make-out session with Jennifer. Liviana didn't wear a bra or a garter belt or much of anything else. She usually had her clothes off before I shut the door. I had never touched a naked woman before so the first time I stroked her voluptuous warm body on the bed I did go off in my pants. I tried to hide my embarrassment but she knew what had happened. She wasn't offended; she liked it.

I learned very quickly that the erect penis has some kind of a built-in homing device. Once it's up it must penetrate the nearest vagina or it will self-destruct. I possessed only a vague understanding of how this worked. My grasp of the procedure was so rudimentary I did not even suspect that there was more than one portal that could do the job. (This is an advanced theorem – If I had been informed of these radical options at this stage of naivety, I may have been turned off sex forever).

Of course, in my case, I faced the additional dilemma of Liviana's very firm policy on what could be done with the erect penis. Her solution was to monitor the situation at all times so that, just at the instant that I could not hold back any longer, she’d lend a hand and dismantle the device before it could find its way home. She was an adept, and gentle, demolition expert but my primal urges were powerful and this arrangement was leaving us both somewhat unsatisfied.

Around this time one of Vancouver’s truly great bands, The Painted Ship with vocalist Bill Hays, had a hit with a strong “B” side song called, Frustration. It spoke well of my feelings.

The Seeds of Time was playing gigs most weekends now. We played community centre dances, schools and clubs like Gassy Jacks Discothèque in Richmond.

We even had a fan club with a president and members and everything. They put out a newsletter every month, publishing important information such as what colour Bob liked, whether Frank believed in Santa Claus, that Steve liked girls in miniskirts and “small poor boy sweaters” and what I liked to eat.

It was possible for me to earn a hundred dollars on a weekend when we played two good gigs. We had almost no overhead. We used our parents’ cars to move the gear and we rented a small p.a. system from an electronics store on Seymour Street downtown for next to nothing. The system was comprised of three Phillips microphones, a sixty-watt Bogan amplifier and two enormous round horns that we propped up on stands. A hundred bucks was serious cash in 1966 for a sixteen year old living at home. Cigarettes were twenty-three cents a pack, you could buy an LP album for under four dollars and gas was cheaper than water. I probably had more disposable cash then than at any time in my life.

We scored a gig at a new club in New Westminster called, Denny’s Discothèque. We did pretty well there, especially with some of our new material like Psychotic Reaction by The Count Five, and received our first ever review in the local newspaper. It reported:

The Seeds Of Time made with just a hint of that

new Psychedelic sound.

Greg McCoy

Steve and I hooked up with a couple of girls at Denny's. My girl's name was Hazel. This was an odd coincidence because she was the only Hazel I have ever met and Tommy Roe had a big hit at the time titled, Hooray for Hazel.

A few days later I got my dad’s car and Steve and I drove out to New West to meet up with the girls. Steve had only a learner's permit so he could not drive legally yet. When we arrived, Hazel was waiting but her friend couldn’t get out. This was a little awkward so I had a brilliant idea. I would get in the back seat with Hazel as Steve drove around. Things were going as planned, and it was getting steamy in the back, until disaster struck. A police car was right on our tail. I started to get nervous. Then the siren went on and I started to panic. Calmly, Steve pulled the car to the curb. He jumped into the back and I leaped over into the driver’s seat. When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers approached the car; one on each side, I felt confident that we had handled the situation.

“Step out of the car, please,” said one of the officers to Steve.

“What did I do?” Steve asked in mock surprise.

“Do you have a driver’s license?” he asked.

“A license to make-out?” cracked Steve.

“What about you?” the other officer inquired of me.

“Uh, yeah; we were just drivin’ round, you know,” I said fumbling for my license.

“Yeah? Well, for drivin’ round, I don’t think that lipstick is your shade.” Both policemen laughed. I glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw, to my horror, that Hazel's lipstick was smeared all over my face!

Steve and Hazel were hauled into the back of the police car and I was instructed to follow them to the RCMP Station. Our parents were called and our fathers drove all the way out to New Westminster to bail us out. We both received small fines and a lot of grief when the story circulated at school.

Safely back in Vancouver, I realized how great it was to have a girl friend; especially an older woman with a knockout body and a skimpy wardrobe like Liviana. We did get out of her bedroom on occasion. One Friday night, Frank lent me his groovy hounds-tooth double-breasted jacket and Liviana and I drove the Impala to a party with the sounds of Winchester Cathedral by The New Vaudeville Band, Mellow Yellow by Donovan and I’m A Believer by The Monkeesblasting from the Delco.

It should have been clear to me that I was much more frill than substance but I didn't notice. I was already lost in space.