Author: Johnny Bottleneck

When a lad becomes a God of Rock, as I have, he can’t avoid three types of gigs: the awards show, the charity bash and the tribute gig.  Try as you may to wriggle out of them, some pawky lawyer type has tied thee up in contractual obligations.  Oh there’s been many tributes to yours truly but you don’t really have to attend those.  In fact, in many ways, it’s frowned upon if you do.

No, the tribute night cannot be avoided and my story is about one such night and the lessons I learned from Fat Tim Seemly.

Flamin’ Norah, Tim were a fat lad! In fact, much as I liked the lardy fucker, he didn’t bloody half have nothing to really recommend him. He were an odd shape too, for a fat lad.  He just looked all wrong, that lad. He once told me that NASA had approached him to experiment with singing in zero gravity.

There weren’t a lot to recommend Tim.  He were an odd-shaped, fat, lying, ugly as sin, annoying fucker but I liked him. Don’t know why. Maybe it were sympathy.  Couldn’t spend too much time with him because of the stench, but I liked him any road.

Tim were blessed with a great voice but nowt much else. He were fronting his own band, Fat Tim Seemly and the Nipple Magnets, when I met him. They were a progressive, crossover, death metal folk band.  Some say Fat Tim were ahead of his time. Others said he were daft as a brush. Either way, he only had moderate success with The Nipple Magnets.

He were a big Blind Willie McTell fan, were  Tim.  As I were  one of the four people who could actually stomach talking to the lad, he asked if I’d take part in a Death Metal Blind Willie McTell  tribute night and I agreed. Before I knew it, he had his legal brief stick a contract in me face and I signed the fucker, before chinning the git.

Well the night inevitably arrived and I sitting down, waiting for the soundcheck with  Archie Nunchuck, the man the man who invented coolness.  He were also the other guitar player in The Nipple Magnets.

What ails thee, Archie?, I said as he sat down.

It’s Tim, he replied, exhaling a plume of smoke from a  giant doobie.

Ah look, I said, Tim might be a foul smelling, oddly shaped, lying, fat, annoying fucker with no fashion sense, but he’s alright.

You don’t have to play with him, Johnny, he moaned. It’s a bloody nightmare. Oh yeah, he sings like an angel, but he smells like a camel and he’s also the laziest fucker you ever met.

Lazy? I asked.

Yep, replied Archie. He fucks off every ten minutes  because of his… you know… problem. We end up covering for him and the gigs are becoming hard work.

So give him a good chinning and tell him to buck up his ways then Archie. You can’t be going around, looking so miserable. We rely on your coolness, I said.

We’re chinning him every other night, Archie replied.  Nothing gets past his stupidity.

Yeah, I agreed, he’s thick as bottled shit alright.  Weren’t blessed with much upstairs but a voice like an angel, that lad.

That’s when Tim shows up, and pisses everyone off with a long, long, long speech about Blind Willie. I were close to chinning the lad myself, I can tell you but I assumed that, once he got it out of his system, he’d give it a rest.

So Perky Donaldson-Smythe kicks that double bass pedal into gear and after a killer drum roll and roaring feedback from Archie and me, we launch into The Wabash Cannonball.  It’s great.  Archie is standing on the keyboards, playing power chords in open D, while I’m setting fire to the bass player’s spare guitar. The moshpit is a heaving being. We crash into a raucous crescendo to finish the song and the crowd goes wild. I’m looking at the next song, Runnin’ Me Crazy, and Tim starts making another speech about Blindfookin Willie!  Then he invites the fookin Nolan Sisters up to sing their version of Waterloo. The night’s falling apart. The band is falling apart.   Had Archie any hair left, he would’ve pulled it all out.  Perky were jumping on his kit and, Tim were shagging an inflatable Dana.  Fookin crowd went fookin mental and tore Perky limb from limb but I managed to get Archie and me out of there before it descended into a full scale riot.

Next day, me and Archie met up to mourn the inevitable loss of everyone in The Nipple Magnets, bar him.  Him and me was playing an acoustic set in their memory, but then we look upu and there’s fookin Tim at bar.

I thought you were fookin dead, says Archie.

Not a fookin chance says Tim.  Where’s me fookin brass?

What fooking money? Says Archie

For the  gig, says Tim.

But you caused a foooking riot, says Archie.  And Perky’s fookin dead.

A deal’s a deal says Tim and then Archie’s on top of him like a fookin Dervish.  Here’s a deal, you fat fookin toerag, an he chins him right there on the fookin spot.

I admired Archie for not killing the fooker and I admired him even more when he strapped on his axe and said, Come on.  Let’s play a selection of Nipple-Magnets greatest hits, in memory of Perky. And so we did, working our way through the Magnets’ best tunes; Exterminate The Cloven Whores was so uplifting on acoustic guitar and Serve Me Your Rancid Filth, Whore almost brought a tear to my eye and made me wonder if they had ever written a song without “whore” in the title.

Half way through Satanic Whore Mass, Tim Seemly began to twitch, and Archie unhooked his axe.  Excuse me, he apologised.

I never thought that the man who invented cool could ever lose his cool but, as fat fookin Tim went headfirst through the window, I realised he could.

Maybe we all have our limits.

 

_________________________

Everything by Johnny Bottleneck

 

One of t’great things bout being God of Rock is that people pay you to exploit your talents. Now, I’ve done me fair share of beer and toe nail clipper commercials, which is all well and good but, if you really want to make some serious change without leaving t’bloody comfort of your own home, film soundtracks are the way to go.

I’d always wanted to put me own music in films. I remember watching The Mission, turning the sound down and lashing out a few bloody power chords. It turned it into t’action movie. It was, while talking to the famous director, Wes Broomstein, bout this very topic that I got me first job as a soundtrack composer.

T’movie were an action vehicle for Danish bodybuilder, Dirk Hagstrom, called Kill Me. He were a bloody lumpy lad, wereDirk. He worshipped me. The daft apeth would leave buckets of chicken and beer for me, when I visited the set. I’d watch some action sequences and I’d just play along to them.  I brought along me band, Franz Monkfish on bass, Heidi Queef on keyboard and  Zane Rothschild on drums. We’d been rehearsing for a new band called The Pit of Death at the time but we took a break to do the movie.

The first movie made $280m on its opening weekend and, as happens, a formula was born. When it come time for Kill Me 2 – Won’t Get Killed Again, we were front and bloody centre. That bloody movie did better than the first one, despite the fact that there was no plot and we were in talks to do the third in the series, two days after the premier. Bloody brilliant! I were poking Dirk’s co-star, Vivienne Broadbox at the time and I got the feeling Dirk weren’t all that chuffed about it.

So there we were, all ready to begin shooting Kill Me 3 – The Final Straw and Dirk’s getting a bit big for his boots. He wanted to do less violent movies and had agreed to do the Christmas film, Jingle My Bells. I were really put out about this and, after some gentle persuasion and a good honest chinning, he changed his mind. The bloody third movie were massive.  Dirk were acting with a real bee in his bonnet.

He came to me after we finished the film and told me that, if I didn’t finish it with Vivienne, there would be no more Kill Me movies to milk. Fair enough. I bloody dropped her like a hot snot over the phone and she made it clear that we were to kill her character off.  Wes were none too pleased with this news, as she were a box office smash. He reckoned her tits were worth $80m per movie.  As normally happens throughout me illustrious career, things were beginning to fall apart.

Wes’s lawyers advised Miss Broadbox that she were under contract for five Kill Me movies but that Wes would be happy to kill her off in the fourth one. When we came to shoot what would be the final instalment, Kill Me 4 – Kill Me Again and I’ll Kill You, no one were really talking to each other on set. Turns out Wes had been sleeping with Dirk, Dirk were in love with Vivienne, Vivienne were in love with me and Heidi were sleeping with everyone except her husband Franz and her secret lover, Zane. It all bloody came out in the course of the fourth movie. The tabloids had t’bloody field day with it. Heidi was the only one who came out of the ensuing scandal unscathed and later pursued a successful career in porn under the name, Fanny McHooters.

Hollywood said to itself, Bugger this for a lark, and wouldn’t bloody touch me with a fifty-foot barge pole as, somehow, I got blamed for causing all the friction. Yeah, I did soundtracks to a couple of Heidi’s movies but, all in all, a bloody handy little earner went down the pan.

My advice for any of you thinking of getting into movie soundtracks is this.  Do it from bloody home.

Torn I were.  Torn between relating this sorry tale or no.  I’m no bloody British patriot when it comes to Royal family but due to me blithering daft former manager, Alphons Dupree, I only ended up embarrassing meself in front of Queen.

Takes a lot t’embarrass me. I’ve been caught pleasuring a groupie with a mackerel, for fuck’s sake, but there were one time when I were bloody-well terminal fookin embarrassed. Bloody awful it were.  Now, normally I’m doing something weird when I’m caught, like the fish incident and the time I took bloody cocktail of ecstasy and Viagra, laced with laxative and ended up running around the set of Wogan, hooting at the top of me voice and tossing meself off. I weren’t  embarrassed when the headlines were all about me the following day. I weren’t even that embarrassed when they told everyone about me shart finale. It’s t’lifestyle, y’see. When you become a God of Rock, you subscribe to a lifestyle that inevitably leads to over-indulgence and ruin. But you get over it.

I realise I’m dithering here to avoid the actual topic of this tale.

It were 1982. British forces had flown thousands of miles from home to fight for British soil just off the coast of Argentina. Bloody Argies claiming it as their own.  Twisted Sister had just released Ruff Cuts, Doobie Brothers split up, Italy won the World Cup and I were plying me trade – briefly – with a soft rock outfit called The Broad Gee Project. In fact, it’s embarrassing enough that I played with that lot at all.   Fookin power ballads and songs about fookin cars.

Our manager, Alphons, said we were booked to play a twenty minute set in Royal Albert fookin Hall.  He were a pawky lad and he knew I wouldn’t play for Queen so he never told me it were Royal fookin Variety jobbie.  Bloody handy gig, I says and agreed. It were around this time I were experimenting with solvents. Me local shop thought I were a fookin Airfix model enthusiast. Before the gig, I bought meself some glue and went about rehearsing our new song, “I love your lovely face” – fookin bastard band. Here I were, a year after success of last Satan’s Clitoris single, “Slide Down My Pole” from the album, Creamy Surprise, and I’m playing a bloody song called I Love Your Lovely fookin Face with smiling men in glittery pants and perms. By ‘eck, how the mighty had fallen. So, it were an hour before the show and the singer, Warren Broad and the drummer, Fallon Gee, wanted to have this song just right. To this day, I’m convinced I only went on solvents to kill the pain of playing with them bastards.

As usual, our practice session ended with a pep talk from Warren and Fallon and it sent me over the fookin top. Kneel in prayer with them?  By cringe, I weren’t going to kneel in prayer with two soft southern bastards. I fair blew me top and stormed out to the toilets to load up on me Airfix glue. Imagine me surprise when I sat down to have a shit, looked for me glue and found it gone. Bloody ripped jeans! I must’ve ripped one of me pockets too. I were ready to explode and it were only five minutes before we were due to go on. Ever the professional, I went back to the band and Warren said, ‘Hey man, we’re all pretty down that you wouldn’t join us in prayer’.

Ayup Warren, why don’t you kiss me rosy ones, eh? I replied.

What did you say? he asked in a bloody condescending voice that just drove me over the edge. So I dropped me pants and said Kiss me arse, ya scrawny cunt.

He weren’t half agog at the sight of me pert pants baps staring at him. Pull your pants up now, mister, he demanded.

Not until thou kiss my arse I replied.

Bruce Forsythe were beginning his announcement that would end with the curtain raising, so I went and dragged Warren’s face and pushed it right into me left arse cheek. As you may have guessed, this solved the mystery of where the glue went because it were smeared all over me arse and, while Warren could have forced his face away, he would have left behind some of his face. Fallon raced over to help but could get proper purchase on Warren’s head from behind him so he came around and knelt in front of me, oblivious to me todger waving around free. He only got his hands stuck to one of my cheeks and one of Warren’s. They were pulling back and forth trying to get away and that’s when the curtain went up. The assembled guests and the Royal Family all stood to applaud us on but that applause quickly turned to gasps of horror as they saw Warren with his face in me arse and Fallon with me todger squashed against his nose.

I decided that the show must go on and so I started the opening riff to I Love Your Lovely Face only to discover that, in me race to get loaded up on t’bloody solvent, I’d forgotten to tune me guitar. This is something I never neglected to do before and should serve as a lesson to all budding Rock Gods out there. Always tune your guitar. If you don’t, you’ll suffer the same ignominy that I did.

I’ve never in me life been so embarrassed.

 

 

I did me first radio interview back in ’64, when I was briefly involved with the Alan Pants Project and I were a fookin nervous wreck. I remember me old fella gave me advice down t’pub, ‘night before. He said, “lad, don’t thee let them tie you up with words”. Fookin useless cunt when he were bladdered, was me old fella.

At the time, I thought that he might actually have a point. What kind of bloody patter fookin snot, Edmond Farquhar. Bloody blue blood git.

As it happened, I were a bloody natural at the radio interview. He asked me if my guitar intro for Leather and Lace for the Queen of Blood part 2, was based on Ravel’s Bolero.

‘Loosely but not entirely. That is to say that, yes but not really’, I replied.

He tented his fingers under his chin and just nodded and the bullshit just flowed from me like a bloody tap. After a few of these, I didn’t even bother preparing for them. I’d turn up, they’d ask me some bloody stupid questions and I’d make shit up. The problems started after I did ‘bloody radio interview during my time as front man of The Bastards. I were bloody tanked going into that interview. Bloody threw up on Smiley Hogan before he even asked me a question.

T’interview didn’t last long, mind, because I chinned the git for suggesting that I grew my mole to look like Lemmy.

Radio and T.V are vital in the life of a rock God like meself and I they weren’t knocking me door in looking for interviews for a while. In my brief holiday from the life of an interviewee, I honed me skills. If I was going to do one more interview drunk, I was gonna do it right.

What follows is me top ten tips for doing a radio interview drunk.

1. Don’t knob the research assistant. They’ll bloody want to but don’t do it. To be fair, if you do, it won’t really affect the interview but you won’t know what questions the daft git of an interviewer might throw at thee cos he’s probably knobbing the assistant too.

2. If you’re going to throw a rope, do it before you knob the research assistant and definitely before you do the interview. It’s hard to come back from blowing chunks over the interviewer.

3. If you’ve woken up drunk and you have an interview in an hour, don’t bother trying to sober up. Have a swift half – and by half, I mean half a bottle of whiskey. If you try to be sober, you’ll just make things worse.

4. If the interviewer asks thee if you’re drunk, neither confirm nor deny. Just say something like, ‘my dad fought in Korea, mate!’. Makes sod all sense but it’ll take the average interviewer a while to recover.

5. Avoid using words like obviously, intrinsic, liquidity or somnambulate. Bloody orrible words to use when drunk.

6. Remember to avoid your usual sound bites, like, “It were a bloody seminal album for the rock era”. Sounds bloody easy but try and say that with a gallon of whiskey and 27 wife beaters. Keep it simple at all times.

7. Make the interviewer do the work. Answer as many questions as possible with, “yeah” or “cool”. If you’re feeling particularly brave, you can string them together and say, “yeah, cool” or “cool, yeah”. Do not omit the space between the words or thee’ll just sound like a fookin idiot.

8. If you’re asked about upcoming projects, stick to the facts. Do not, under any circumstances, tell them about your fantasy concept album about the naked dressmaker.

9. If they ask thee about any recent scandal, just use the following stock reply. Practice it. Let it come automatically: ‘don’t come the alfpence with me, ya git! I’m on bloody tour’. Again, it’s vague, dismissive and insulting without requiring you to speak too much.

10. This is a bloody vital tip. I almost fell foul of this once meself. If the interviewer is a bird, do not point to yer crotch and wink while she’s talking. She may be a bloody lesbian.

Right then, there ye have it. I’m off to barbeque Lady Gaga’s latest outfit. Y’know I preferred her when she were plain ol’ Darren Lightbody.

If you want to be a guitar Adonis like meself and you don’t want to be a flash in t’pan, let me give one word of advice that will stand thee in good stead. Don’t get involved with a woman in the business. It’s t’bloody death knell

I almost fell into that trap back in ’81, when I were at the height of me career. I’d just come off tour with Black Arachnid and I were kicking back in The Burnt Spoon in Sheffield with me mate, Spikey Slocombe, from Death Slippers. The Spoon were always me local but they had to give me special room because me fans used to camp outside t’gaff.

Spikey went out to get us t’bevvies as usual when we needed them but come back in gasping for breath and trying t’bloody tell me summat. I had to chin the bugger to calm him down.

He said there was a tasty bird asking about me out in the bar. I’d just divorced me second wife and I hadn’t had a sniff of flange since I come off t’fookin tour, so I went out to see who it were. I looked around the bar and I couldn’t see any sign of a bird in there. I were about to go back in t’room and chin Spikey again when I heard a bit of argie coming from the snug.

I walked into the snug and there she was. Bloody vision. Wild, raven hair, seemed to bloody shimmer before me. Her elegant neck, the swell of her puppies against her fookin gown. Heidi Fuckface, bass player and Goddess from Satan’s Whores. I never seen her lookin so well. I bloody well had the bone for the lass immediately. She were arm-wrestling steel workers for free drink.

‘Miss Fuckface’, I said when I got me breath back, ‘I believe thee were looking for me.

‘Indeed I am,’ she replied, ‘Suzie Puke has left the band and we’ve got a gig in the Hammersmith Odeon tomorrow night. Fancy joining us?’

We went back to mine and, within minutes, were bloody consummating arrangement. After that, we were bloody joined at hip. Two months later we were married in Vegas.

Satan’s Whores broke up so Heidi started hanging out at the studio when the Arachnids were recording Drain Me Vein. I’d finally found a band that spoke me language and a bird that whacked me monkey just the way I like it.

Perfect, right?

Wrong.

Our bass player, Humper Hughes – bloody giant of a man – was considered to be the best in bloody business but Heidi didn’t like his groove on Tales of The Crimson Knob Warrior. I fookin loved that groove. Well, I told her to shut her yap. Hated to do it, but I had me reputation with the lads to think of. She chinned me but good and, when I got out of t’hospital, I asked the lads to let her play bass on the song. After a few days, Humper was relegated to playing t’triangle on Whip The Weak.

A meeting were held. I weren’t invited and next thing I know, I’m sacked and
she’s fronting t’band.

Me? Sacked? Bloody notion of it. Heidi got me collection of lump hammers in the divorce settlement n’all.

I didn’t bloody play for two years after that. Bloody women. Should have listened to me brother Eddie. He never got involved with women. Livin with his mate, Rex in San Francisco for the last twenty two years, is Eddie.

Don’t bloody get involved with women in the business.

Fookin never understood Death Metal, me.  I hadn’t heard of the bugger until me ol mate from Sheffield, Dario Sanchez, asked me to join his band, Murder Kill Death Kill. I went along to t’rehearsals alright but, when I asked what key the first number was in and they said it didn’t matter, I had it away on me toes.

Dario was a curious lad. He was an altar boy when I met him and he later became an accountant, before starting Murder Kill Death Kill. They didn’t go very far but they play weddings now as Dario and The Boatmen. Nice little earner and a bloody nice fella, Dario.

So why am I telling thee all this? Well, I’ve always been edgy but you can be too bloody edgy. I remember listening to Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma album, thinking, what the bloody ‘ell are they on, the buggers? Look, if your idea of being edgy means making an album with nothing but the sounds of rusty door hinges with incoherent lyrics behind it, become a bloody hinge salesman but don’t ask me to be in t’band.

This is a lesson for any aspiring musicians and, before you start creating all kinds of palaver, I don’t care if you want to “express your inner child” or any such muck. Thou can do that once thou’s got leg in t’door.

Back in 60’s and while I were still Les Metcalfe, I joined a band called Tomahawk Slipstream. It was a bloody awful psychedelic band, which was t’brainchild of a daft apeth called Baz Buchanan. You’d think that’d be a good enough stage name for the bugger but he changed it to Cornelius Sage. I was t’only good thing about the band but they wouldn’t let me get a bloody word in artistically. He was a bloody pawke prate, was Baz. He wanted me to change my name to Charisma. Just bloody Charisma. “You don’t need a surname, man” he would prattle, “No one owns you, man”. “Fuck off, you daft cunt”, I’d reply. How on earth did he expect a man called Charisma to become the God of Rawk that I became?

Well, after the other lads in the band put pressure on me, I agreed to change me name to Karizma, but only if I could spell it like that and only if I could wear a mask in all public appearances. Take a look at t’bloody make-up they made me wear:

I couldn’t bloody breathe in the thing.

Baz sold his house and funded our first album, Choo Choo Raindrop Fancy, which was bloody concept album about the inside of Baz’s eyelid. Bloody infuriating bastard, was Baz. On track two, Hazy Disraeli, he made me play a bloody kettle. I had to pick up the kettle and let it drop, then pick it up again and let it drop in time to his mantra. Hazy Disraeli (CLANG!) Hazy Disraeli (CLANG). That was all that was bloody to it and it lasted eleven bastardin minutes. I asked him to let t’bloody drummer use a gong instead but he said, “the kettle noise speaks to my chi”. I bloody felt like lacing the bloody chi off the bugger.

I had written a light-hearted love song called, Lick Me Knackers but it was thrown out without ceremony. I thought it would be a nice break from the bloody turgid shit, he was peddlin.

“You wanna make me love ya, maybe.

You wanna make me know ya, baby.

You wanna make me hold ya tight

You wanna make me treat ya right

But you won’t…

Chorus

Lick me knackers baby.

Lick me knackers baby.

Lick me till I love ya baby.

Lick me knackers baby.”

“There’s no place in the modern musical lexicon for such nonsense”, was what Baz said.

He pumped ten thousand pounds into Choo Choo Raindrop Fancy and, when we went to RCA, they bloody laughed us out of the office. Before, we left, I gave them a copy of Lick Me Knackers and they loved it. They asked me to get a band together to record it. Baz had t’bloody blue fit when he heard. He was spouting shite about corporate idiots and music is dead and such. He writes radio jingles now. That’s where bein edgy got him.

So what’s the lesson? Keep it simple folks. Keep it simple.

I’d be willing to bet me wellies that this post is being opened by some irate Christy Moore fans. Well, rest easy. I don’t know Christy Moore and I haven’t listened to him since the first time I heard him and decided he were bloody pants. I have no reason to believe that he’s a prick but you’d have to admit that you are reading this post because of t’ title.

So why have I called this post as I did? It’s a lesson in marketing that was taught to me by the manager of a band I played in for a short time called The Black Scorpions. He were a pawky lad by the name of Scott Lieberman – (real name: Stanley Bardsley). He worked in the steel mills with me dad but, by eck, did he have a good head for marketing.

It was March ’74 and we were asked to play at Brammal Lane, the home of me beloved Blades.

The Black Scorpions had just scored a hit with Ride Me Like Your Mamma Did, Sister and we were all looking forward to playing in our home town again. Stanley had changed his name because he felt his real name was shit and he asked if he could become band’s manager. I laughed and then I saw a press photographer so I headbutted Scott. The lad understood why I did it and that convinced me that this lad could be up to the job.

The first thing he did was sit us down and ask us what we intended to call our second album. I told him it was to be called Spank Me Til I Like It. He shook his head in a dismissive manner so I bloody chinned him again.

When he recovered, he explained that, in order to create a buzz about the album without laying out money, we should call it something controversial and accompany it with an album cover that would be sure to be banned.

Bloody genius, that lad. So it was that our second album, Ghandi’s Love Child was born. There was a skinny, bald lad – ironically called Len Kingsley – living nearby so we sprayed him with fake tan, gave him a swastika tattoo and pictured him doing a fit bird doggy style on a four poster bed. That was the cover of our second album. We leaked the picture of the cover to the press and then shit really hit bloody fan.

Every bloody hippy in the world when buck ape about it. They were calling for us to be sued. One group called for us to be jailed and our album release was postponed. I was thinking about giving Scott a bloody good chinning because the record company refused to release the thing. Scott stood firm and pre sales of the album were putting it at bloody platinum. The record company eventually released it with a black cover and simply called it The Black Scorpions II. It sold by the bloody bucket load. If t’ bloody internet had been around at the time, everyone would’ve seen the original album cover but only a few people ever saw it.

Unfortunately, later that year our bass player, Ziggy Foreskin, died of a chicken goujon overdose. We couldn’t carry on without him so we broke up t’ band. Shame really. Scott went on to manage several other high profile bands but we never worked together again. He was bloody trailblazer though. He started off that style of promotion, did Scott.

He come to see me a few years back, after he heard about my freakish transformation at the hand of bloody magnetic field. He wanted to manage me again. He said that we could positively charge me and get me to “accidentally” electrocute a fan. He even said, little Len Kingsley was up for the job. I declined through contractual obligations to Ry Cooder. Might work with him again someday so stay tuned.

Parties are an integral part of any Rock God’s career and I was no different. During my brief stint as lead guitarist for The Unholy Bastards, I once partied for seven weeks solid with the cast of The Dame Busters. I’m almost as famous for my partying as I am for being a God of Rock.

I was enjoying a break from touring in the summer of ‘78, when Yanuck Fluffer of Rocky Houser and the Nihilist Rednecks broke his hand in a freak pottering accident. They were on tour and they badly needed a guitar player so I offered my services. Of course, they thought they’d won the lotto, having the like of me playing the last leg of their tour with them. It started well but the Rednecks were one of those bands pretending to be hewn from the river of rawk when they were just, a bunch of middle class Oxford graduates. Fuckin copying the real thing. Folk like me. Great bunch of lads but I felt I should teach them in the true ways of rawk. If they hadn’t broken up after the tour, I think the world would have seen some very positive results.

Yanuck, a daft apeth for the most part, had one of the finest collections of custom-built guitars I had ever seen, including one with a body shaped like a skull and a neck fashioned by inserting a maple fretboard into a mannequin’s very shapely leg. Yanuck said I could use any of these that I wanted, while I was touring insteadof him but the one that I came to call, The Gammy Skull, was the one I liked best. It also became complicit in the break up of the Rednecks.

The drummer, Lance Triplecock – (real name: Herbert Langford) – was the only one of the Rednecks who wanted to know what a real party was like. Who was I to refuse? Lance were seeing, Emmanuel Farnsworth, daughter of Lady Victoria Farnsworth, at the time and, while she were a bloody snob, she were a top bird. Set of bloody gams on her that would almost bring a tear to the eye of fruitiest trouser snake. She wanted nothing to do with a rock ‘n roll party and was insistent that Lance wasn’t either. As luck would have it, she was running a local film festival and who the fuck were coming only Sophia bloody Loren as hr guest of honour. I’ve had the bone for Sophia for a long long time. Bloody fit bird if I ever saw one. As Knebworth was our final show, I convinced the lads to have a party at the film festival.

As luck would jhave it, I got chatting to the lad who were p;icking up Sophia from airport and, for small brass, he let me drive limo instead. Fuckin cap on me head an all. I still had me sleeveless Gestapo coat and leather kilt on as I dashed from the stage to drive to the airport. Sophia breezed through arrivals like a bloody cloud of sex and I got an instant semi right there and then. I held up the sign and she came over and looked at me over the top of her enormous sunglasses. “You’re my driver?” she almost sighed at me and I could tell she had a bloody great wet-on for me. “I’m the answer to yer dreams, luv,” I replied. “Get in me motor and I’ll drive thee to heaven”. I knew I’d blown it. It happens all the time. When I tell a bird how lucky she has it, she always gets bloody flustered and buggers off. No different with Sophia Loren. She had it away on her toes, muttering something about needing to catch a connecting flight.

I arrived at film festival, pretending to know bugger-all and got stuck in to training the Rednecks in how to drink too much and snort substances from various parts of the female anatomy. Rocky got really into it. “I don’t mean to be frightfully naïve”, he said, “but isn’t it customary for us to wreck something at this point in proceedings”.

“Yer bloody right”, I replied.

I had taken it upon meself to donate a centrepiece for the festival, y’know, to make good with Lady High Muff, Emmanuel. Lance’s bird. I decided that no one could deny the strange beauty of the Gammy Skull guitar, so I set it up on its stand in the middle of the foyer. Bloody typical that Miss Snotty Long Pins had taken care of the centrepiece herself. A bloody great pile of bricks with an inflatable Sophia Loren on the top. I got a full on, looking at it. I wanted to climb up there and grab her but those bricks didn’t look like they’d stay upright under anyone’s weight.

When Rocky decided that we should wreck something, I suggested that we wreck that bloody centrepiece. I just wanted that blow up Sophia. Being a toff affair, they had the odd cannon lying here and there. Meself and Rocky immediately tried to point one at the centre piece but it soon became clear that they were decommissioned. Never mind. When you’re lost, rock will always provide. The cannon was on four small wheels but I was so bloody mashed I didn’t cop that we could have rolled it into t’centrepiece. Rocky and I straddled the fuckin gun, a bloody great joint in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other, singing my famous hit, Gates of the Dead. Suddenly Lady Emmanuel Farnsworth strode into view on those bloody great pins. She was gathering pace and accusing me of paying off the driver so I could kidnap Sophia Loren and of running her film festival. Her legs were long enough without the bloody stiletto heels. Jesus Christ. But as she got fuckin faster, she bloody tripped and ran head long into the cannon. Me and Rockyjumped in the chocolate fountain, but the fuckin cannon smashed into the centrepiece.

Lance’s bird were not best pleased. Her hair was askew and her face streaked with mascara so she looked kinda like a really pretty Alice Cooper. All of her airs and graces forgotten she bellowed, “You Bastard, Himmler,” I was still known as Dirk Himmler back then, “you’ve fucking ruined my film festival. And where the fuck is Sophia Loren?”

I was kind of lost for words, not something that normally happens to us. I looked around at the rubble and my heart sank. I’d left Yanuck’s Gammy Skull guitar beside the bloody centre piece. All that was left was the neck in the shape of a leg sticking out. I turned to Lady Lofty Minge, pointed to the stricken guitar and replied, “You’ve only gone and killed her, haven’t you?”

Itwent bad after that. Rocky started a fight with the string quartet, Lance was trying to revive his toffee bird, who thought she had murdered a screen Goddess, so I dodged out the side door.

That’s the key to a good party. Always leave someone else to deal with the mess you caused and use the confusion to escape.