The absolute very first time I played in a punk band was a single audition in the early 80s when punk had begun to disappear elsewhere in the UK but was just filtering through to my middle-England hometown because our local record stores were run by long-haired hippies who still loved prog rock and would stubbornly refuse to stock anything which had the word ‘bollocks’ on the cover (it was "uncool man"). The Sex Pistols were right to warn us: never trust a hippy.
At school, we had a couple of decent student bands and I tried to get into both of them. At that time, my instrument was my voice and it was good enough to make me Deputy Head Chorister at All Saints Church. Let’s be clear, you don’t get to be Deputy Head Chorister at All Saints Church without being able to sing like an angel…..unless, that is, you are a personal favourite of the local vicar and agree to additional Sunday School lessons on a 1-2-1 basis.
For some bizarre reason, my potential bandmates failed to recognise how my choral experience could bring a fresh dimension to their screeching punk lyrics. I tried explaining the exciting commercial potential of an Aled Jones/Johnny Rotten mash-up but it fell on deaf ears (or it may have been that they’d never heard of Aled Jones because he didn’t sing about child-snatching flying snowmen until a few years later).
Fortunately, there was a 3rd band called Plutonium Babies which my mate, Stumpy, had put together. It had one song, Cinq Minutes, and a drummer whose teachers were so sure he'd fail his English O-Level that they gave him UB40 forms to fill in instead of revision so he could sign on the dole as soon as his results came in. James W had somehow sneaked into the line-up because they wanted a synthesiser and, being a budding electrical engineer, he had made one in his Dad’s workshop at home. James would not go on to make a living in electrical engineering because the synth blew up one evening when he was practicing the tricky chords to an early Depeche Mode cover (surely that can't be right?) and took most of his right arm off.
[I should add, in all transparency, that I contacted James before publishing this and he told me that I had got the band members wrong, the electrical accident had actually involved dodgy disco lighting and he didn't even own a synth let alone build one. Most importantly of all, it was HIS band not Stumpy’s – the capitals were in his email – and so I decided to leave my version as it was just to piss him off].
Anyway, Stumpy asked me to (ok, eventually agreed to let me) audition and got me to sing their signature song. It started with a dystopian view of impending catastrophe (“you don’t seem to realise just how long you’ve got to live”) before an entirely unnecessary synth solo by James ‘I was the lead guitarist, honest’ W - more Vinnie Jones than Howard Jones - took us into the song. The chorus consisted mainly of repeating the phrase “cinq minutes” at regular intervals but French wasn’t my best subject at school and so it took some time to master. I thought a cheeky descant would elevate the song to musical gold but the rest of the band, neanderthals, couldn’t recognise a new musical genre if it smashed its mini into a tree in South West London (or choked on a ham sandwich or asphyxiated with an orange in its mouth - bonus points for identifying the rock stars concerned) and they out-voted Stumpy, as he made a big point of confirming to me on the phone later, and turned me down.
I knew, to break into the big time, I needed to add a musical instrument to my voice. The only one I’d ever learned at school though was the recorder. Nowadays, school kids have taken Grade 8 in the saxophone, bassoon and double bass before they’ve even entered primary school but, in the old days, we were offered the recorder or the triangle and I was crap at both of them. When I played 'Morning Has Broken', I gather my music teacher told the staff room afterwards that it wasn't just broken, it was completely fucked. Harsh.
With hopes of musical success fading, I would sit in front of Opportunity Knocks and cling onto the dream that, one day, Hughie Green would do his slightly weird eye-rolling thing in my direction and announce, most sincerely, that the clap-o-meter had rated me top ahead of Bonnie Langford, Lena Zavaroni and Paul Daniels (whom I liked....not a lot). I would obviously then have to wait for the postal vote ("in your own handwriting" Hughie would warn us - how on earth was he going to police that one?) before my victory could be confirmed.
At that stage, we didn't know that this Canadian serial womaniser and Nazi sympathiser (I'm not suggesting a connection between any of the 3) had fathered most of the younger TV presenters around at the time (we eventually found out about Paula Yates but there were definitely a couple of the Blue Peter contingent who looked a bit like him too) and, worst of all, had unwittingly provided the show format which would make Simon Cowell millions with Britain's Got Talent. For that, if nothing else, he should never be forgiven.
I’ve tried to rectify my musical failure in later years. My own kids are guitar maestros so I thought I’d take some lessons myself when I got past 40 so that I could jam with them and make their day. If the jam session was with their mates as well, then they were bound to love it even more. Apparently, they tell their friends that I'm 'sick' and, although this normally means 'brilliant', they assure me that I can take it more literally when they say it about me.
I had some lessons with a name-dropping ageing hippy who had allegedly played with Jimi Hendrix/Eric Clapton/Jimmy Page (delete as appropriate). I was crap at it as well. He would light a couple of joss sticks and spend most of the lesson playing his own guitar and ignoring me. I paid £30 for the privilege.
I graciously admitted defeat after 2 excruciating lessons although I vaguely remember him refusing to teach me any longer once I’d told him that Johnny Marr was a far better guitarist than all the old dinosaurs he loved. It was a bit insensitive of me I know – they were personal friends of his after all.
And now my life has come full circle and I’m being denied a second shot at stardom by my own kids who routinely turn down my requests to sing BVs (that’s backing vocals for those of you not in the industry) with their own bands. I’ve got a feeling my choice of choral hymns didn’t help my cause in the audition process. When will I ever learn? You can take the man out of the choirboy but not the choirboy out of the man….apologies, that didn’t quite come out as intended.
Next: ABSOLUTE VERY FIRST TIME......SPORTING CLASSICS
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