Читать книгу Strange Things Happen: A life with The Police, polo and pygmies - Stewart Copeland - Страница 12

My first pro rock band.

Dear Sirs,

I recently had the exquisite joy of experiencing a Curved Air concert and was most impressed by the exceptional talent of their new drummer…

Dear Sounds,

Curved Air are BRILLYANT!

What’s the drummer’s name?

To whom it may concern,

Wow! Me and some mates went to see Curved Air at the…Incredible…especially the drummer…

I’m writing all of these letters to music magazines myself, using different handwriting, styles, spellings, and stationery. After playing a show we usually pull over on the edge of town to gas up for the drive back home to London, so while Darryl pumps gas into

our Ford Zodiac, I find a letterbox and slip another piece of skulduggery into the system.

I have no faith that the crown of fame and fortune will be justly placed upon my deserving brow. For some reason I’m desperate, even though I’m only twenty-three. I’m in too much of a hurry to wait for the apples to drop, so I must shake the tree. In a strange kind of way I’m more proud of plunder grabbed than honor bestowed.

We’re having a great time in Curved Air. I’m in a big pro band now—as a member of the band. I’ve had many other jobs in show business—roadie, tour manager, journalist, promoter, radio disc jockey—but now I’m back on this side of the line. I’m the product, not the producer.

When big brother Miles got to London and started building bands, I latched on to any of his projects that had a free seat in the van. I carried amps for Wishbone Ash. I drove for Renaissance, did lights for Cat Iron, and tour managed Joan Armatrading.

In college my drumming had actually lapsed in favor of composing and publishing. I started a little magazine in Berkeley called College Event. Actually it was more of a tip sheet than a magazine. I published letters by college concert promoters, who were students like me. I pooled their experiences with the industry professionals and artists—and then sold advertising to the same industry people. It was kind of a journalistic protection racket—a concept that Miles had dreamed up and perfected in England.

But those drums just came back and got me. I was about to finish up college in California when Miles called from London with an opportunity to get in a band with Darryl Way, the virtuoso violinist of the long disbanded Curved Air. Even though my drum fervor had faded a bit, I jumped on the next flight to London and immediately sparked a connection with Darryl. He was looking for players with passion at a time when everyone else was looking for plush. He had kept enough of a reputation going that we could form a group called Stark Naked & the Car Thieves (a name borrowed from Ian’s Vietnam tour) and start playing shows.

Just as we were about to get serious, maybe three or four shows into our push, Darryl and each of the other members of Curved Air got tax bills that had been bequeathed them by previous insect people. Since all of the Curvians were in the same predicament, they were able to patch up their differences and reunite for a tour to pay the bill. It did put our new band on hold for about a month, but at least I was able to cross back over the line and weasel my way into the Curved Air tour as tour manager. I’m the only guy I know (OK, except Henry Padovani) who could ever work both sides of the camera.

THE FIRST SHOW OF the tour is a college gig in Reading. After dropping the band off in their dressing room I go up to the stage to check the crew. They are in the usual first show panic. For its day, this is a high-tech band, with banked synthesizers and special effects gadgets. The stage is a tangle of gear and wires. I let each of the roadies unload his tale of woe and then let them get on with it. Classic roadies—they bitch…and then just do it. I’m just a kid, but I’ve done the job of every man on this crew.

At least the promoter is happy. Massed college kids are straining at the doors, and the show is going to be packed.

Back onstage the crew is finally ready for a few minutes of sound check before the doors must open. I bring the band up for a panicked run-through of one song. There are still uncontrolled buzzes from the amps and unintended screeches from the PA, so everyone is tense. Sonja Kristina, the singer, is absolutely calm, smoking a cigarette as she surveys the crew’s raging spaghetti fight.

We can’t hold the doors any longer, so I hustle the band off the stage. I have to pry Francis Monkman’s fingers from the keyboards. Some musicians are never finished with their sound check.

It’s much easier to manage a band than to be in a band. There isn’t any of the nervous sweat. I can leave them in the dressing room to stew until showtime while I go see what fires I can put out onstage. The crew are a little calmer now, and the griping is down to a grump. They’re much happier now that the support act crew are setting up and can be lorded over. The room is filling up fast. Whatever noise comes out of the amplifiers, this show is going to start with some momentum.

When I take this news down to the band, their mood brightens and they start to puff up with the mojo. While the other band thumps away over our heads, laconic drummer Florian rat-tat-tats his hand exercises, Phil rattles his bass, and Darryl arpeggiates furiously on his violin while Francis frets mysteriously. Sonja is in another room doing chick singer stuff with her wardrobe and makeup posse.

It’s showtime. The other band has cleared off, our stage is set, and the crew is ready. I go down and give Darryl the nod, and he’s raring to go. He leads the guys up to the wings, rapping on Sonja’s door as he goes by. I head up to shake some payment out of the promoter before the band plays a note. Gigs these days can be shifty.

I was supposed to meet Darryl in the wings before the band went onstage, but before I make it back to the hall he has already started up. He opens the show with some heavy rhythmic scrubbing on his electric violin as an attention grabber, and then the band kicks in for an instrumental romp through some slightly classical, vaguely Verdi riffs.

They do have something here, this band. They immediately have the crowd moving. There are a lot of groups out there these days that are sophisto-classical, but these guys actually rock. And that’s not all.

After blizzards of virtuosity from Francis and Darryl the band cuts down to a low throb. They hold the groove for a minute, and the kids are yelling. I can see why. My own hackles are on end. Sonja Kristina has arrived on the stage. Suddenly there is no band, no stage, no college kids. Just Sonja glinting in the green light. She moves like smoke across the stage, hardly seeming to move at all, but undulating in slow motion. Who cares what the band is doing? As a muso I’ve never bothered with singers, considering them to be musical passengers. How wrong I’ve been! She’s not even singing yet, and she owns everything.

SIX MONTHS LATER SONJA is squeezed into the backseat of the Zodiac between myself and Mick Jacques, and we are chuckling off down the motorway back to London after a show. We’re a happy band and we have just killed another crowd. After the Curved Air tour wrapped up, Francis and Florian went back to their lives, leaving Sonja and Darryl to consider the value of their band brand. It seemed like a no-brainer for Darryl to bring in the Car Thieves and continue as Curved Air with Sonja, Phil, Mick on guitar, and me on drums.

Who could ever expect that Sonja will one day become my first wife and mother of three of my four sons?

Melody Maker reprint: After a rather sudden and mysterious avalanche of readers’ letters, this one was printed in the “Any Questions?” section. My First Ink, and I scammed it myself.