On Friday the 13th I drove up to Manchester
and followed the route my family had driven many times through the 50’s and
60's. Back then, there were no motorways in the west, so the A49 was the way to
go. This journey was made in various cars through the years, but the first car
I remember well was an Austin 7 Ruby.
It must have been quite old but could still manage to travel at 47mph downhill
with the wind behind it. The journey would take five or six hours or so, which translated
to about a week and a half for an eight year old boy! It smelled bad and the
constant cigarette smoke from the front of the car would often result in me
throwing up over my brother!
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| The Austin 7 Ruby |
It
was interesting to see the names as I passed familiar spots along the journey
like, Prees Heath and the swing bridge at Warrington that allowed the smaller
ships or barges full of goods to haul inland onto Manchester and probably
Birmingham. This was part of the Manchester ship Canal. Today the journey was
done amongst a lot more traffic in barely three hours.
I drove back that night negotiating my way on
the A49 to south of the M6 road works and arrived home in two hours fifty
minutes.
The following day was Portsmouth on the South
Coast. In the early 70's my band Karakorum had played the Tricorn Club, which
was run by the legendary radio DJ John Peel. In the afternoon, he arrived at
the top of the tall car park block where the Tricorn Club was in his short
wheel base Land Rover. We played football with him - a bit of a kick about
before load in.
During our show at around 10pm that night, Marc
Bolan and Mickey Finn had walked past us to come and see John. They had
finished the screaming teeny bop show with
T.
Rex at around 9pm and were now going out to enjoy the evening with Peel.
The next day was a gig in Birmingham, and in
the late afternoon across the canal from the back of our gig was a band playing
in a pub. They were knocking out Zeppelin and Sabbath songs, and were great.
Chrissie was diggin' it and it was a nice distraction that killed the time very
well. Just by the sound of it you knew you were in Birmingham!
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| Photo by Alan Bayley |
The 17th took me to Liverpool and then the
final show on the 18th to the Oxford New Theatre. This is where I had seen the
very first Bad Company show in 1974. I had been staying at guitarist Mick
Ralph's house in London whilst his flat mate (keyboard player Morgan Fisher)
was off touring with Mott the Hoople in the States. It was a welcomed relief
from sleeping rough in a van at the time.
On
the 18th, my old friend and photographer Alan Bayley had come to
take some pictures of me. It was high time I had some promo shots for my drum
manufacturer DW, and other general shots. Alan takes care of the preparation of
my old pictures for the PRETENDERMC.COM photo archive site. We had a photo
session at sound check and then he took some live shots of me.
These
are the sort of memories that remain with me during the closing dates on the
British tour.
Now
off to Dubai and on to the Antipodean Tour. We had played well and consistently
in the UK but little did I know of what was to follow.
M.D.C.
thanks for sharing ..its always great to read your stuff
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