{"id":33,"date":"2010-11-01T15:25:05","date_gmt":"2010-11-01T15:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johnpidgeon.com\/words\/?p=33"},"modified":"2010-11-01T15:25:05","modified_gmt":"2010-11-01T15:25:05","slug":"i-was-a-faces-roadie-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnpidgeon.com\/words\/?p=33","title":{"rendered":"I Was A Faces Roadie (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong>It\u2019s Thursday, 6th July 1972. <em>The Guardian<\/em> lies on the doormat, its front page torn, as usual. I\u2019ve questioned the paperboy. He says the slot\u2019s too narrow, but the flap has a fierce spring, and I reckon he\u2019s frightened of getting his fingers caught. Whatever the reason, I leave the paper where it is, and walk to JJ\u2019s, the newsagent\u2019s next to the Greek shop on North   Street. Guarding against an unusual demand for this week\u2019s <em>New Musical Express<\/em>, he\u2019s kept a copy for me under the counter.<\/p>\n<p>My fingers are ink-stained by the time I get home. Walking along Lillieshall Road with the sun warming my back, I\u2019ve been reading the <em>NME<\/em> or, rather, thumbing through to the centre pages, where the weekly Gig Guide was printed. Today\u2019s edition contains a new section, which fills a third of the double-page spread. It\u2019s a film guide. It says so in red capitals under photos of Mick Jagger in <em>Gimme Shelter<\/em> and Country Joe McDonald, Graham Nash and Santana from the <em>Woodstock<\/em> documentary. Under FILM GUIDE, I\u2019ve read the words I was looking for: <strong>Compiled by John Pidgeon<\/strong>. I catch myself smiling. I\u2019m in the <em>NME<\/em>, the UK\u2019s leading pop paper, read weekly by a quarter of a million music fans and by me since the age of ten, when I first encountered rock\u2019n\u2019roll.<\/p>\n<p>I pick up <em>The Guardian<\/em>, lay it on the kitchen table, and attempt to smooth the creases from the front page without worsening the tear. Momentarily I regret not having taken it with me to show the newsagent the daily damage. Another time, I tell myself, and open the <em>NME<\/em> again.<\/p>\n<p>Half the space in my film guide was taken up with rudimentary listings like:<\/p>\n<p>Darlington Odeon: <em>From Nashville With Music<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Wednesday only. Performances by Marty Robbins,      Merle Haggard, Charley Pride and others prop up a lame narrative. Strictly      for country fans.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But there are longer analyses of other films, my name was in 16pt and bold; what\u2019s more, <em>Concert For Bangla Desh<\/em>, <em>The Harder They Come<\/em> and <em>Keep On Rockin\u2019<\/em> are all due for imminent release and a Film Guide review; and, I remind myself, it\u2019s a start.<\/p>\n<p>I fillet the middle pages from the rest of the paper, checking there\u2019s nothing else I should read. I scan reviews of Pink Floyd at the Brighton Dome, Deep Purple at the Rainbow, the J Geils Band at the Lyceum &#8211; in which Charles Shaar Murray relates a scurrilous exchange between Muddy Waters and the band\u2019s Peter Wolf &#8211; and Led Zeppelin in Los Angeles, which are sandwiched between ads for the Crystal Palace Garden Party with Arlo Guthrie headlining and newcomers Roxy Music footing the bill, and the Goose Fair Festival in Nottingham, where the Faces, Atomic Rooster, Status Quo and Marmalade are listed to appear. I fold the pages precisely, slip them into a hanging folder in my new, red two-drawer filing cabinet, and wonder what to write on the label.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Open a music paper in 1972, and the odds were that someone was on the road in the States with the Rolling Stones or the Moody Blues or, yes, Led Zeppelin. For bands and their record companies it was an opportunity to tell fans, you think we\u2019re big in the UK, you should see the audiences we play to over there. For most music journalists it was an irresistible jaunt, a free holiday, give or take the 2,000 words that would have to be written in exchange.<\/p>\n<p>This was five years before Freddie Laker\u2019s Skytrain pioneered cheap transatlantic flights, so only the privileged few visited the States for pleasure, and it seemed to me that these lucky writers just couldn\u2019t resist rubbing in &#8211; as if their enviable intimacy with the band wasn\u2019t enough &#8211; just what their readers were missing.<\/p>\n<p>Air-conditioning was unknown in the UK, so the Siberian temperature of cars and hotel lobbies was always mentioned, as were swimming pools (especially on rooftops), pancakes eaten for breakfast, any drink more exotic than beer (and beer too, as long as the bottle bore an exotic name and was drunk from the neck), cities and streets referenced in songs, radio station call signs, room service, 24-hour television, lawn sprinklers, Muhammad Ali, LA\u2019s smog, and sunshine. Articles stuck to a similar template.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe cruise out of Los Angeles airport and head for Hollywood\u2026 The limo was cool, the California sun kept at bay behind tinted windows\u2026 We register at the Continental Hyatt House \u2013 in universal band parlance, the Riot House &#8211; overlooking Sunset Boulevard\u2026 By the roof-top pool I catch a knowing wink as the band mug patiently for a local photographer\u2026 I watch the show from the side of the stage, close enough to count the beads of sweat which form on his oh-so-handsome face\u2026 After a third, tumultuous encore, I wait for the crowds to disperse before slipping backstage\u2026 The door opens and I am beckoned into the sanctum of their dressing room, where the air was scented with exotic smoke\u2026 We move on to a reception at the Roxy, the newest, hottest night-spot on the Strip\u2026 The band, a hand-picked posse of groupies, and the by now inevitable hangers-on head back to the hotel, where a party was promised in a penthouse suite&#8230;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We? When I started reading <em>New Musical Express<\/em> in the 1950s, its journalists were all but invisible, their sole function to introduce the reader to the latest chart contender, any expression of their own personality generally restricted to word play: \u201cBobby Darin was all set to make a splash\u2026\u201d or \u201cBrenda Lee was a little girl with a big, big voice\u2026\u201d If the star\u2019s name didn\u2019t form the opening words, you could be sure it would appear before the first full stop: \u201c\u2018I\u2019m no Elvis imitator,\u2019 Cliff Richard was quick to point out&#8230;\u201d or \u201cIf anyone can be consigned to the \u2018controversial\u2019 category, it\u2019s Jerry Lee Lewis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now journalists brazenly positioned themselves at the centre of their story, flaunting their insider status as if their main aim was to rouse the reader\u2019s envy. And yet I remained suspicious as to how close most of them actually came to the artists with whom they claimed to be on first name terms. It might have been to mitigate my own undeniable envy that I summoned an image into my head of the writer propped up in bed, portable typewriter cradled in his lap, tapping out his half-truths while he did his best to ignore the distant, distracting hubbub of the penthouse party to which, unlike those other hangers-on, he hadn\u2019t been invited.<\/p>\n<p>Having talked my way onto the <em>NME<\/em>\u2019s freelance staff, I was keen to do more than compile my weekly film guide, wait for the next new movie with sufficient music on its soundtrack to justify a review &#8211; those three July releases amounting to beginner\u2019s luck rather than a trend &#8211; and pick over the unwanted left-overs in the record cupboard, while the eyes of the full-time writers, their familiar by-lines made flesh and blood, drilled into my back and I imagined them muttering, \u201cWho the fuck does he think he is?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If I could get a more substantial article commissioned, I figured I might feel less of an outsider. I knew that meant finding a story with a unique angle, a hook that was mine alone. It came to me, as many ideas did and still do, in the night. I would go on the road with a band, but not as yet another hanger-on, which had to be how those other writers were viewed by the musicians they were shadowing, distinguishable only by their notebook, ballpoint and cassette recorder. Me &#8211; 6\u2019 3\u201d, 175lb, twenty-five, and fit &#8211; I would earn my keep, and the band\u2019s respect, as a member of the road crew.<\/p>\n<p>I scoured the <em>NME<\/em> for news of upcoming tours and noted that Ten Years After were due to hit the road. Although their status had been elevated to a level of eternally unrealisable expectation by a fortuitous appearance in the <em>Woodstock<\/em> movie, they were somehow still riding their luck and what was left of their reputation. A couple of phone calls connected me to the band\u2019s tour manager. The job title had an impressive ring: after all, managing a band\u2019s tour, with all that must entail, surely took some doing. But the man I met looked little different from the roadies I\u2019d seen scurrying across the stage of the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park in that hunched stoop they seemingly believed rendered them invisible to the audience. I explained my proposal, appended with a list of credentials relating to my age, fitness, strength and intelligence, tactfully refraining from pointing out that I was younger, taller, keener-eyed and fitter-looking than he was. But he weighed my offer of unpaid help for a dismissively scant few seconds, shook his head, and said it would take a minimum of a month for me to learn to pull my weight. Excuse me? I\u2019d seen roadies at work. What was there to learn that could possibly take a single morning and afternoon, let alone four weeks?<\/p>\n<p>He concluded earnestly, \u201cI just couldn\u2019t take dead wood on the road.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And there was I thinking that\u2019s precisely what he <em>would<\/em> be doing. Other spiteful, yet sweetly consoling thoughts crowded into my head. Could Alvin Lee have been aware as he slouched, sweating, from the most famous of festival stages, his pulverised guitar held high in triumph and acknowledgement of the crowd\u2019s applause, that Ten Years After\u2019s career path was peaking at that very instant? That this was it &#8211; the pinnacle &#8211; a few minutes after 8pm on Sunday 17<sup>th<\/sup> August 1969 atop a muddy field in upstate New York? And that it would be all downhill from then on? Hang on, why the hell did I need consoling? It wasn\u2019t me who was going to have to sit through those eleven interminably noodling minutes of \u2018I\u2019m Going Home\u2019 every night for three long weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Although Ten Years After had not been my pick of the blues bands which had emerged in the John Mayall-led blues renaissance of the late sixties, I had been prepared to go on the road with them in the cause of professional advancement. Now that they had turned me down, I relegated this trio of hopeless has-beens to a section of my record shelves that existed nowhere other than in my vindictive imagination: never-liked-the-bastards-in-the-first-place.<\/p>\n<p>My next try was Cat Stevens. A university acquaintance was working for his management company, so I had a head start. The winsome teen popster turned earnestly bearded singer-songwriter might not have been one of my all-time favourites, but, unlike Ten Years After, at least his career was bouyant and I even owned one of his records. David was optimistic. He would put in a word for me. He called back a few days later.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSorry to be the bearer of bad news, John, but I\u2019m afraid it\u2019s not going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I asked why on earth not, and had to bite my tongue while David explained that, being a sensitive artist, Steve could easily be unsettled by the presence of a stranger within his aura. Give me a break. If his tour was to make money, he\u2019d have several thousand different strangers in or around his aura every single night. Again, I wasn\u2019t heartbroken. It didn\u2019t sound as if touring with Steve \u2013 a name I would now never get to call him &#8211; would be a lot of laughs.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps I wasn\u2019t aiming high enough? Certainly, going for the second division was getting me nowhere. Two upcoming UK tours had already caught my eye: Led Zeppelin and the Faces. Although I was a fan of both bands, each tour posed a problem. Led Zeppelin\u2019s ran from late November until Christmas, but then resumed in January for a further four weeks. For the money I\u2019d make from the article, I couldn\u2019t afford to be out of circulation for two months, but I couldn\u2019t imagine that dropping out halfway through would suit anyone but me.<\/p>\n<p>The problem with the Faces was Rod Stewart, or so I anticipated, since repeated requests to interview him for my as yet unpublished history of British blues had got me nowhere. True, over the previous twelve months, ever since \u2018Maggie May\u2019 and <em>Every Picture Tells A Story<\/em>, the album \u2018Maggie\u2019 was from, had achieved the unprecedented feat of simultaneously topping British and American charts, the popularity of the singer who had fronted Long John Baldry\u2019s Hoochie Coochie Men whenever the band\u2019s lanky leader took a break at the bar had sky-rocketed, but all I\u2019d been after was half-an-hour of his time to speak on a subject which I was certain must still be close to his heart, and he hadn\u2019t been prepared to grant me that. However, the man who had fielded my calls, publicist Mike Gill, had always said no with such faultless charm, that I knew if I got turned down again, at least it would be politely and painlessly. As it was, Mike laughed down the telephone at my proposal and promised to put it in the appropriate hands.<\/p>\n<p>Days passed, and I had begun to think this was not one of my finest ideas and that I\u2019d have to come up another one, when Mike rang to say he\u2019d had provisional approval from the group, so I should arrange to meet their tour manager, Pete Buckland, at the Gaff Management offices at 90 Wardour Street in Soho, an address I knew as the home of the Marquee.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m here to see Mr Buckland,\u201d I told the receptionist, whose guarded smile widened to a grin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre you John Pidgeon?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I nodded. A second girl glanced up from the photocopier, then turned away, too late to hide another grin. What was so funny? I scanned the reception area; I was the only one there, it had to be me. Relax, stop being paranoid, I told myself. But no, look, now they were sharing an unmistakably conspiratorial smirk. Was someone about to play a trick on me? If so, who? And why? Maybe Mr Buckland was having a laugh at my expense? Was I going to be put in my place for presuming the Faces would want a <em>New Musical Express<\/em> journalist as part of their crew? Would I be hearing the dead wood argument again? I hadn\u2019t yet met the man, but I was already concluding that this visit would be a waste of my time. I almost found myself wishing Cat Stevens hadn\u2019t been so picky. But the receptionist came out from behind her desk and led me through a splintered door into the tour manager\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJohn Pidgeon,\u201d she told Mr Buckland, who was, I would soon realise, one of the most <em>un<\/em>-mister of men, then she apologized for interrupting his phone call, and left. The tour manager cupped a hand over the receiver.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust changing the hotel reservations in Dundee,\u201d he explained. \u201cI usually wait till we get thrown out to do that.\u201d He laughed and turned back to his desk, so I wasn\u2019t certain whether he was joking. I echoed his laugh, in case he was.<\/p>\n<p>When he came off the phone, we shook hands. He was a few inches shorter than me and, I guessed, a couple of years older. There was a twinkle behind his steady gaze.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank fuck you\u2019re not a midget.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSorry?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve just booked three weeks of hotels for you. You might not have been up to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I\u2019m-\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My response was interrupted by a compact, wirily muscular man with a beard and an expansive afro somersaulting into the room.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMeet Chuch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The gymnast sprang to his feet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChuch?\u201d I repeated uncertainly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOtherwise known as Royden Walter Magee the third,\u201d Pete added helpfully. I settled for Chuch.<\/p>\n<p>I finished what I\u2019d started to say before. \u201cSo I\u2019m definitely on the tour?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs the Pope a Jew?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Struggling to suppress a satisfied grin, I exchanged cheerful goodbyes in reception and was ready to take the stairs two at a time, when one of the girls called after me, \u201cHave fun!\u201d and the other laughed explosively through her nose. I started a slower descent, the back of my neck hot with embarrassment, while the pair of them cackled like witches round a cauldron.<\/p>\n<p>When I got home, I phoned Mike Gill to thank him for helping my project happen. He seemed embarrassed that I should have taken the trouble. When I thought we\u2019d said all there was to say, his voice took on a serious tone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhatever you do, don\u2019t ever leave your room unlocked, and tell the desk clerk at every hotel you stay at that no one \u2013 but <em>no<\/em> one \u2013 has your permission to borrow a pass key.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mike\u2019s ominous warning pushed second thoughts into my head, but even if Chuch, an American from Michigan, had acted a little oddly, Pete Buckland\u2019s positive attitude to my involvement instantly dispelled any doubts. Besides, this was going to be my first big story.<\/p>\n<p>Now that it was definitely going to happen, I needed to find an outlet for my article. Although it was only a matter of months since editor Nick Logan had found room and a fee for my film guide in the <em>NME<\/em>, I\u2019d recently met <em>Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2019s London editor Andrew Bailey. I knew the Faces were big in the States. How much cooler would it be to appear in America\u2019s premier music publication? I rang Bailey, who sounded keen. That was enough for me. The next time I was in the <em>NME<\/em>\u2019s offices in Long Acre, I looked for Logan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWould you be interested in a first night review of the Faces\u2019 UK tour? It starts in Dundee. I\u2019m going to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought you were writing a tour diary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When did I mention my plan to him? How could I have forgotten?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAh, that\u2019s for <em>Rolling Stone<\/em>,\u201d I mumbled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSorry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI could take 200 words.\u201d Which would cover a week\u2019s rent. I wondered what <em>Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2019s rates were.<\/p>\n<p>So, on Monday 4<sup>th<\/sup> December, one of those overcast, depressing winter days, when the damp clings to your skin and it never gets properly light, I set off for rehearsal, as nervous as a new boy on the first day of school. The Faces hadn\u2019t gigged for two months, so Pete Buckland had booked two days in the back room of The Fishmonger\u2019s Arms in Wood Green, one of those legendary London music pubs where countless bands had played the blues before they became famous. Ten Years After \u2013 bless them for not hiring me &#8211; would have played there; Eric Clapton certainly did as a member of John Mayall\u2019s Blues Breakers; Rod Stewart too, no doubt, with the Hoochie Coochie Men, Steam Packet or Shotgun Express.<\/p>\n<p>Calculating that an hour would allow me more than enough time to drive from Clapham to N22, I left home at one, but traffic was thick and sluggish as treacle, making me ten minutes late for the scheduled two o\u2019clock start. I parked behind a yellow truck in an alley at the back of the building, and hurried to the door, which was locked. I tried it again, looked for another way in, then went round to the front, to the part of the building that was a pub. I pushed through the door.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat kind of time d\u2019you call this?\u201d Pete Buckland demanded, tapping his watch. I was ready to explain about the traffic, when he grinned and said, \u201cDrink?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other voices chorused, \u201cAnother little drink wouldn\u2019t do us any harm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While Pete went to the bar, I sat down, and Chuch introduced Russ, another American, and Andy. Then, as we drank, I listened to their banter, answered questions I was asked, and eventually wondered aloud what time the Faces\u2019 two o\u2019clock rehearsal might start.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, the first gig\u2019s on Thursday, so hopefully some time before then.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We stayed in the bar until closing time, then unlocked the rehearsal room, where the Faces\u2019 equipment had been set up. The draughty hall was in need of refurbishment, its d\u00e9cor untouched for at least a decade, judging from the scraps of posters here and there advertising bands that once must have packed the place. Wall-to-wall bodies would be the only way to have warmed this tatty venue, I speculated, because the stingy radiators weren\u2019t up to it.<\/p>\n<p>It was past four by the time the band were all there, not that their late arrival was a spur to work. They fooled around with bits and pieces of songs, cracking each other up with a shambolic chorus of the Osmonds\u2019 current hit, \u2018Crazy Horses\u2019, Rod pulling faces that I recognised from photographs. There was more laughter when Pete spotted a notice on the wall &#8211; \u2018In the interests of local residents you are requested to keep <strong>NOISE<\/strong> to a minimum\u2019 \u2013 which he declaimed as if the size of the letters was a guide to voice level.<\/p>\n<p>I spent the scant hour the Faces were there with my head down, busying myself with nothing in particular, simply anxious to avoid eye contact that might prompt a request I wouldn\u2019t be able to carry out. There was talk of gaffers and crowns, neither of which meant anything to me, until Pete ripped the sign he\u2019d read from the wall and asked where the gaffers was. He was handed a roll of broad silver-grey adhesive tape, which he used to stick the sign to the side of the console on which he balanced the band\u2019s instruments and Rod\u2019s voice. I\u2019d already learned that was the mixing desk, and made a mental note to ask him about the crowns, some time when no one else was in earshot.<\/p>\n<p>The next afternoon, the final rehearsal, the band made at least a half-hearted effort to run through their set. With no Faces album since 1971\u2019s <em>A Nod\u2019s As Good As A Wink<\/em>, the new material the band would be playing was from Stewart\u2019s follow-up to his breakthrough <em>Every Picture Tells A Story<\/em> album, <em>Never A Dull Moment<\/em>, released in August and already the source of two big singles, the chart-topping \u2018You Wear It Well\u2019 and a cover of Jimi Hendrix\u2019s \u2018Angel\u2019, which had taken up residence in the top ten in time for the tour.<\/p>\n<p>As the seventies progressed, Stewart would appear hell-bent on making it hard for his apologists, of which I was one, to stick up for him. Turning tax exile in Beverley Hills didn\u2019t help; nor did a deliberate repositioning of press priority from the music weeklies to the red tops, on whose front pages he was happy to pose in outfits the fabled Emperor would have left in the wardrobe, even if loyalists were able to divert the blame for his worst sartorial excesses \u2013 a boater, for Bertie\u2019s sake! \u2013 on to his \u2018Bond girl\u2019 partner Britt Ekland. And he had recorded \u2018Da Ya Think I\u2019m Sexy\u2019 in 1978, it was pointless trying to convince anyone that Rod wasn\u2019t a tosser.<\/p>\n<p>But you didn\u2019t become as successful as Rod did by being a tosser, and he wasn\u2019t one. Having served his apprenticeship in the tall shadow of Long John Baldry, then scrapped for his share of attention amid the rumbustious cut and thrust of the Jeff Beck Group, in 1968 he was advanced \u00a31000 by Mercury Records\u2019 London chief Lou Reizner to record a solo album. Although it wasn\u2019t until his third record, 1971\u2019s breakthrough <em>Every Picture Tells A Story<\/em>, that Stewart was named as producer, Reizner had done little to earn his production credit on the first two, according to his signing. \u201cHe sat there and made sure we were all in tune,\u201d Rod told me, \u201cbut he didn\u2019t need to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What <em>Every Picture<\/em> did was to fine tune a process Stewart had pursued since the start of his solo career, when he had assembled a group of musicians (including Ron Wood and Ian McLagan) with whom he would continue to record until his move to the US in 1975, and hit upon a loose, but abiding formula for his albums\u2019 musical content: a handful of originals, a couple of folksy tunes, and several reworkings of old or recent favourites of his, always imaginative, sometimes surprising. And if his early attempts at lyrical themes could be dismissed as clumsy, even mawkish, they were nonetheless identifiable stepping stones towards \u2018Maggie May\u2019\u2019s consummate distillation of adolescent sexuality. How many solo singers have been able to realistically regard themselves as producer, arranger, songwriter, and a skilful interpreter of others\u2019 songs? I\u2019m not counting, but I know Rod Stewart was one.<\/p>\n<p>Since every new hit as Rod Stewart, rather than the Faces, eroded not only their fans\u2019 notion of the group as musical equals, but the musicians\u2019 own sense of their individual worth, it was a paradox that Rod\u2019s fourth \u2013 and, so far, most successful &#8211; solo album should be the closest of all his recordings, in sound and spirit, to a Faces record. By the end of the afternoon the set list included no less than five numbers from <em>Never A Dull Moment<\/em> : \u2018True Blue\u2019, which I found out a few days later would have been a Faces track if sessions for their fourth album hadn\u2019t slipped so far behind schedule; Sam Cooke\u2019s \u2018Twisting The Night Away\u2019; Etta James\u2019 \u2018I\u2019d Rather Go Blind\u2019; and the two hit singles, which, thanks to Chuch\u2019s imperfect spelling, appeared as \u2018You Were It Well\u2019 and \u2018Angle\u2019, not that I pointed out the errors. I wouldn\u2019t have felt right scoring points off him, having let him down earlier.<\/p>\n<p>It was Chuch who had told me that crowns were the PA amps, but it was also Chuch who had sent me out to change a $100 bill Ian McLagan had handed him. He assured me he\u2019d got one changed only that week in Marks &amp; Spencer, but it surely couldn\u2019t have been the Wood Green branch, where the cashier looked at me as if I\u2019d asked for paisley Y-fronts. There was a Barclays Bank further along the High Road, so I tried there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCertainly, sir. If I could just see your passport?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cue actorly patting of pockets, impatient tutting, unmistakable signs of self-reproach.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI must\u2019ve left it at home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When I handed the note back to Chuch, he shared a look with the keyboard player which left me in no doubt that I\u2019d failed my first test. Otherwise, thankfully, the band acted as if I wasn\u2019t there. They showed little interest in Andy either, their indifference explained when Pete told me he was hired help, taken on for the duration of the tour. Only Pete and the two Americans were on the Faces payroll, their favoured status confirmed when they were presented with monogrammed uniforms to wear on stage, black satin waistcoat and trousers, a more appropriate outfit for a cocktail barman than a roadie, it struck me, though I kept the thought to myself.<\/p>\n<p>The Fishmonger\u2019s Arms backed onto a school, and when Rod, the band\u2019s lone non-smoker, stepped outside to suck in some fresh air, the windows beyond the playground filled with waving teenagers, and, come four o\u2019clock, the alley behind the pub filled with laxly uniformed boys chanting \u2018Rod-nee\u2019 in the cadence familiar to QPR fans and girls with heavy make-up and their skirts hitched up, who drew initialled hearts in the dirty paintwork of the singer\u2019s yellow Lamborghini.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s Thursday, 6th July 1972. The Guardian lies on the doormat, its front page torn, as usual. I\u2019ve questioned the paperboy. He says the slot\u2019s too narrow, but the flap has a fierce spring, and I reckon he\u2019s frightened of getting his fingers caught. Whatever the reason, I leave the paper where it is, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faces"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpidgeon.com\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpidgeon.com\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpidgeon.com\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpidgeon.com\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpidgeon.com\/words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpidgeon.com\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpidgeon.com\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpidgeon.com\/words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpidgeon.com\/words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpidgeon.com\/words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}