Pete Solo
In his own words
London was a great place for music in the rock and roll era of the 1950’s, so when my dad decided to move us out to the countryside, I can’t recall being exactly pleased. Even so, the things you love in life tend to have a knack of seeking you out, and even in the quiet Hertfordshire backwater in which we found ourselves, music somehow seemed destined to follow.
Bishop’s Stortford back then was just an ordinary market town. And I was just an ordinary kid, playing football, going to the pictures, getting into scrapes and getting lost in the fantasy of my own imagination – the usual means of escape for any kid born into that grey working class world of post war Britain, rural or otherwise. The only other respite I can recall
was a couple of weeks to the seaside – to the shanty wooden huts and bungalows of places like Canvey Island and Jaywick. Strangely, it was at the latter, at around the age of eight, where I cut my first disc. Anyone could for a couple of bob – go into one of the amusement halls and into a novelty recording booth the size of a telephone box – make a crude and scratchy vinyl – croon whatever took your fancy. My choice was Lonnie Donigan’s ‘Rock Island Line,’ skiffle being all the rage at the time – coffee bars, dance halls and teddy boys ripping up the cinema seats on a Saturday night too. You had to make your own entertainment back then. But making that record was a joy. I guess that’s where I got the love.
If I got the love in Jaywick, then it was knocked right out of me at school. The Secondary Modern I attended was brutal by nature and brutalist by design. On my first day I was greeted by twin towers of ugly brick and the granite hard faces of unsympathetic teachers. I don’t know which was more soulless, but between them they sucked the life out of learning. By then it was the 1960’s and probably the greatest decade known to music, but to these men it meant little. So while the likes of The Beatles, Dylan and The Rolling Stones ruled the charts, our music teachers ruled us with a rod of iron, opting only to play classical. It was only later when we got home, under the cover of darkness or the covers of our bedclothes, that we’d tune into something more our style, turning to our transistors and Radio London or Caroline – the pirate ships, all before the Postmaster General killed them off, giving the corpse to the BBC.
Nearing the end of that decade I was done with school. And around the time Neil Armstrong was stepping onto the moon, I was stepping into a factory. In fact, to coin a phrase, that step felt more like a giant leap – to suddenly be in the company of men – real men – people who had fought in wars, who had seen conflict and perhaps had killed with their own bare hands – hands that were now occupied by more mundane tasks, while they whistled along to the bubblegum tunes that came over the factory’s Tannoy, happy enough to have the horrors of their unsafe pasts replaced by the treadmill certainty of their futures. But clearly it was not for me.
Not that college had suited me either – that brief half way house for the idle and the unsure. And my college being in London, well, there had been too many distractions anyway – the pubs, the bars, the strip clubs, the wonders of the Old Kent Road, the dangers of the streets: playing “chase me” with the skinheads who you’d meet at every turn. It was the early 70’s now and the love and peace generation had all but petered out as flower power was replaced by union power, strikes and the economic measures of the three day week. And as it moved at a pace, getting no better, it came as no surprise that by midway through the decade, while being in work, I suddenly found myself out of it – redundant, superfluous to requirements, angry at my exit and at odds with the world. All grist to the mill for what was to come.
No one starts a band with zero experience. Even if a guitar has never been held, strummed or learnt, the learning process has already begun, a long way back in fact, as it did with me, with the sounds of that 1950’s skiffle coming from that Jaywick shanty. Or a 1960’s pop tune from a pirate ship, far out to sea, or perhaps a land locked factory with an echoing Tannoy playing a top ten hit – that whole back catalogue that starts from day one, rocking you in your cradle – that’s where it all begins – where it forms. Then you go start a band. You give it a voice.
For me it was the best thing I ever did. But probably it would never have happened if I’d not run into drummer Mike Raphone and his brother Chris. I’d been out the loop for some time back then, working away, though with my newly enforced freedom from losing my job, I was right back in. Oh yeah. If timing is everything, then we were right on the money. And if that previous long hot summer of 1976 had put us all to sleep, then 1977 rattled in like an early alarm clock call to snap us all awake again. And we weren’t wasting time – too much of that had gone already.
Our home town of Bishop’s Stortford wasn’t exactly the ideal place to start our venture, being a million miles from anywhere, or at least so it seemed. But the vibe of what was going on some 40 miles down the road in London – the whole punk/new wave explosion had begun to filter down – new and exciting recordings were appearing in local record shops, playing on pub juke boxes. And the flags and bunting of that Jubilee year which flew all over the town were like a red rag to a bull. Sod it all. And sod the Jubilee. Let’s just do it.
And so we acted upon it, evangelically, almost like an instinct; this was our time and no one was going to take it away. We were going to give it our best shot, and in doing so we poured all our hard earned over the counter of the town’s only music emporium: Muzart, the owner of which was a guy called Paddy, an amiable enough folk/hippie type who played in a band himself, though for all his hippie ethos, one who drove a notoriously hard bargain. I guess that was his prerogative, though many was the time, or so I heard, that Paddy would be sent to his stock room on a fool’s errand, leaving those free to plunder his shop’s wares in his absence, just to even up the score. Not us, you understand. Besides, we were musicians in the making, not thieves.
But things were expensive and money was scarce; I had already sold my car, most of the profits from which had gone over the counter back at Paddy’s, then most of what was left disappeared over the bar at a newly opened hostelry in the town: The Bakers Dozen, a beer cellar of sorts which was to become something of a hangout for friends and other bands. And it was to be in those dark subterranean corners were ideas and strategy would be hatched, and where of course, many a good time was had as well. But it was always the band which remained at the core. It was always the prospect of rehearsals and gigs that filled our minds.
Luckily, for a one horse town, and especially one in the grip of a recession, both those subjects were well catered for, the town’s old maltings having been converted into a centre for the arts. Whether that term was applicable to us, well, God only knows. I suppose that was all down to subjectivity, though “Triad” as the centre became known, was an absolute Godsend. And none more so than the owner of one of the studios, Jenni Patrick, who allowed us all the rehearsal time we needed, which back then was considerable. Jenni herself was a dancer. A good one at that. She taught ballet in a dance studio in the same building, after which she would sometimes throw some pretty cool parties, sometimes at the studio itself, or on an old converted Dutch grain barge that she owned down on the River Orwell. Invited more than once I would often find myself in the company of some very impressive people – celebrity friends of hers from stage and screen. And more than once I’d find myself in some very funny situations too, one time being when I happened to meet actor and Mr Universe trainer, Ruben Martin, muscleman from the film Oliver, who I unknowingly and drunkenly challenged to an arm wrestling contest. Oh yeah. Sometimes that boat rocked.
Back in Bishop’s Stortford, the band were getting things rocking too. And putting behind us the disappointment of a disastrous first gig, dogged by, of all things, a power cut in the middle of our set, we were right back on form. Organised, well rehearsed and playing to three hundred people, that second gig was a great success. With Pete Smith’s thumping bass lines thudding through twin Triumph speakers, Raphone hitting hard as ever as on drums, and aided and abetted by the sharp firepower of my own Shaftesbury Thinline Fender, played through a King Fuzz effects pedal, complete with great acoustics and stage lighting laid on by soundman Roy Kelly, it could not have gone better, three encores proving it so. Thus we all went home happy, in the mood for more.
With that second gig under our belts, we certainly felt as if we’d made some progress, though, quite incredibly also, a fair sum of money, close to a thousand pounds by today’s standards, though back then, when bands such as ours were almost expected to be a “Not for Profit” organisation, our newly accrued funds were proving to be something of an embarrassment, to say nothing of a knock to our credibility! This “unfortunate” state of affairs was almost certainly due to our manager at the time, Tim Pyle, a shrewd and intelligent operator without equal, though business aside, like Jenni, an individual who was also capable of throwing many a wicked party himself.
These gatherings were mainly held at a large country residence or an attractive east coast beach house at which the fortunate guests would be more than amply catered for, being supplied with fine wines and a particularly lethal home made lager, which owing to its potency was always served by the half, but due to the gracious host’s inimitable style, was unfailingly done so in silver tankards. He was a classy guy.
It was also Tim’s inclination to keep tabs on other bands, to take us to their gigs in order to see how they would operate, much the same today as a Premiership football manager might visit the opposition just to check them out. One such visit to see another band was to the much underestimated yet highly original Doctors of Madness, a band that, to their credit, were not surfing the crest of the new wave style, but rather cutting a path with their own unique sound.
Another gig we attended was The Clash on the infamous White Riot Tour, though due to an unfortunate mix up, “riot”, was very nearly the operative word, when upon turning up at the gig and walking through the doors, we found we had mixed up the dates and had arrived a week early, confronted instead by hundreds of teddy boys who had come to see top ted band, Graham Fenton’s Matchbox. And for a while it seemed inevitable that trouble was about to ensue, as a tight circle of angry be-quiffed rockers closed in around us, before one of them spotted the blue suede shoes on our drummer, Mike Raphone, thus producing bemused smiles and good humour everywhere.
Other bands who we also checked out around that time included Oil City Confidential and Canvey Island pub rockers, Dr. Feelgood at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, with the great Wilco Johnson on guitar and Lee Brilleaux on growling vocals. Then back at Triad, the overrated to some, though popular to others, Siouxsie and the Banshees, before catching the ever brilliant Doctors of Madness once again, who sometime beforehand had made Bishop’s Stortford their home, albeit temporarily so, after hiring the local hall at Rhodes Centre for three weeks in order to rehearse prior to hitting the road. It was only later that this great band would partially implode with the departure of their multi-instrumentalist, Urban Blitz, whose electric violin, or rather the absence of it, would rob the band of much of what it was, taking away its eerie, haunting, trademark sound, to say nothing of reducing the line up to a sparse three piece.
Also in the local spotlight around then were Kev Hunter’s relentless buzz saw Darlex, whose first gig we caught at Saffron Walden, with our own Mike Raphone borrowed for the night on drums. Back in Bishop’s Stortford, there was of course top college band Escort Agency, with the talented singer/ guitarist Rachael Watts. Oh yeah, for a small town you didn’t have to look far to find new and exciting music; there was plenty going on. Plenty in neighbouring Harlow too with The New Town Neurotics who by then had amassed a big following.
In a nutshell, the competition was fierce. And you were always looking over your shoulder, flying high one minute, then blown away the next by some hot shot performance. As such I began thinking about ourselves. The Drop had been a three piece almost since day one, and we were a pretty tight unit by then, but hearing that guitarist Mick Galvin had quit the Darlex and was keen to join us instead, I was quick to get him onboard. Mick was a strong and solid player whose guitar of choice was a white Fender Telecaster, the sound of which I knew would fit right in, plus he possessed a whole array of guitar effects which I knew he was keen to use, being unable to do so before with The Darlex and their more ridged buzz saw style.
It was a shame therefore that our next gig with Mick onboard came up a little too soon, as we were the support band to top ten rockers, The Saints, who at that time were riding high at number seven in the charts. Though given little time to prepare and rehearse, unsurprisingly our performance that night fell below par. Nevertheless, we thought we’d nail it next time, little knowing, at least in that format, next time would never happen.
Bassman Pete Smith’s decision to leave for America, did not come as a great surprise. Almost from the word go he’d made no secret of his intention to do so one day, but I suppose I thought or was hoping that he might change his mind. The fact that he did not, and being one of the original members of the band, it made the job of looking for his replacement difficult, if not impossible. As such I could see where we were all heading. And I think the rest of the band could see it too – the end. And perhaps rather than try and find a replacement for Pete, I decided to bow to the inevitable and I threw in the towel myself, quitting the band – better to draw a line under what we had achieved, than to draw things out.
Luckily, the split did not divide any of us as friends. Far from. In fact sometime later, over a lunchtime drink or two, Mick Galvin and myself, perhaps in the absence of a band to occupy ourselves, or for want of something to do, dreamed up the madcap idea of going to play in Paris, a crazy notion that would end up getting both of us into a whole lot of trouble.
Back in the U.K., Mike Raphone was not letting the grass grow under his feet either, having formed the band Exposure with talented new find, Graham Duthie on bass, and girlfriend Debbie on vocals. I too joined later, bringing to the party a newly acquired black Fender Musicmaster and a handful of new songs, but the band made little impression, save for a highly amusing one, namely a publicity stunt performance on the back of a carnival float in Stansted, whereby upon taking a corner too fast, the driver managed to shoot Raphone’s entire drum kit off the back of the lorry and into the crowd.
Big on fun, yet low on success, the band was quick to fold, though myself and Duthie remained, teaming up with new percussion man, Nick Patrick, then adding bass player Johan Cloos to the combo, and in doing so freeing up Duthie to switch to lead and rhythm guitar on his much favoured Hofner Galaxie 176.
With the line up complete and with the new name of Venice, the band stepped into the brand new decade with a brand new sound, one that kept up with the more demanding musical tastes of the 1980’s. In short, punk was not exactly dead by then, but you could sense that the pallbearers were on stand by. After all, punk music had been around for half a decade at that stage; a lifetime in music terms. But now things were becoming more diverse, the bands more accomplished, and the record buying public more than slightly weary of the same old thing. To some this change was hard to take, especially to the hardcore; it was tantamount to a “sell-out”, its values and message lost in the face of its re-commercialisation and its surrender to the money men: the record companies. In truth there was much to be said for this argument, though better music came as a result, leaving those bands who refused to change to lapse into pastiche or parody.
As for ourselves we were too busy making music to figure out its politics. And after a period of rehearsal we booked into a London studio to lay down some tracks before setting out on a succession of gigs, mainly on the pub rock circuit. It was a rough and ready existence, though one diversion from the pub rock scene, and a memorable one at that, (for all the wrong reasons) was a small open air concert we performed that summer at Ware College, “summer” being anything but, as the heavens opened up half way through our set, the rain getting into our equipment, the result of which caused Graham Duthie to receive a jolting electric shock as his guitar came in contact with
one the mic stands. No harm was done, but it was a close call. And a “live” performance in every respect!
Electrocution aside, later that following summer, in the September of 1981, we were fated once more to experience the perils of the rock and roll life on the road, the road in question being the Railton Road, Brixton – the so called “front line”, the time being that of the infamous Brixton riots, the venue of our gig the equally infamous, Windsor Castle pub, later to be firebombed to the ground.
Oh yeah, there was plenty of surprises at that gig, one positive being that we were support to Keith Richards’ best friends band, The Dirty Strangers, featuring the brilliant Alan Clayton. In fact by that time the old pub had played host to many well known bands – Joe Strummers 101ers and later The Clash. But that night of our gig, inside the pub at least, there was no indication of the unrest to come, the atmosphere of what was a pretty mixed crowd a friendly one at that. Of course later, that was all to change, though not before we had finished what was to become one of our best performances, only upstaged, though far from out played by Clayton’s Strangers, who besides ourselves had the place rocking like you’d not believe.
Meanwhile, outside in the dark and dimly sodium lit streets, things had started rocking too, kicking off as we began to load our equipment into our van. I started to think it would be best to get the hell out of there, but the van thought otherwise: it wouldn’t start at all. Not that it would have mattered as, quite incredibly, Graham Duthie, our acting manager at the time, suddenly announced that he was going back inside the pub because he thought the band had not received their correct fees. More incredibly still, while he was about it, he said he wanted to check on his beloved Hofner guitar as he was concerned he had left it behind. My only concern was that he wasn’t coming back! Or at least in one piece! But what seemed like an eternity later, he suddenly appeared, seemingly unaware of the dangers, yet miraculously unscathed.
We all laughed about that right the way home down the A10. Laughing too at the fact the police had given our van a push start just to move us out of their way, thus aiding and abetting our getaway. We never did go back and thank them.
Come to think of it, looking back, neither did I properly thank all those great people involved one way or other with the band, those who made good times greater still, those like Mike Raphone and Chris. Pete, Tim, Mick, Graham, Johan, Nick, Jenni, Dru, Sandra. And of course the lovely Rachael
Thanks to all of you for joining me on the road less travelled, a road down which I’ve travelled ever since. An ordinary life never interested me. It still doesn’t today.
PARIS
The Innocents Abroad Tour
The Baker’s Dozen, that great drinking den, beer cellar and general meeting place for just about everybody in Bishop’s Stortford at that time, was unusually quiet that day as myself and fellow guitarist, Mick Galvin sat enjoying a lunchtime lager at the bar. Had it been an evening perhaps, say a Friday night, or maybe the weekend, it would have been a different matter – the place would have been rocking, packed wall to wall and floor to low vaulted ceiling with people, everyone talking and drinking and no doubt telling a joke or two.
In fact most probably it would have been Mick himself telling those jokes, being possibly the most incredibly gifted comedian one could ever hope to meet, with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of tales, all of which would be guaranteed to have you aching with laughter and sputtering into your beer. So that same lunchtime, when he began talking about Paris, and the fact that we should buy a couple of acoustic guitars and just take off there on an unplanned busking tour, I thought it was going to be just another one of his gags. It was only when the punch line failed to materialise, that I realised he wasn’t kidding.
At that stage of what I could loosely describe as my music “career” , I was not entirely without experience in that profession. I’d been gigging for a few years by then, playing mostly to small crowds but to large ones too, having performed in front of some 300 people without even so much as a twinge of nerves. But there was something about the thought of standing pavement-side, busking, which gave me the jitters. Oh, it was ok for Mick. He wasn’t afraid of much. An adventurer at heart, he’d been a British soldier, though posted to a unit in Germany instead of where the real action was in Northern Ireland, he’d bought himself out, then he’d bought himself a guitar, learning how to play it and play it well. He was just that sort of guy, one who was independent and could go anywhere in the world and do almost anything, a talented bass player too and surprisingly a good amateur boxer. I, on the other hand didn’t even have a passport, and couldn’t box kippers!
The boxing of kippers aside, the inability of which, to be fair, wasn’t much of an excuse to knock back Mick’s madcap idea, the passport thing was a sticking point. There was no getting around that. Without a passport, Paris wasn’t going to happen. Paris was off.
So it came as no surprise, that after we’d finished our lagers, all talk of Paris ceased, though I was a little confused at the subject which took its place: Woolworths – the local store of which I was hurriedly being steered. For it was there I was unceremoniously bundled into the store’s photo booth, the curtain pulled behind me, the money going in the slot, the lights flashing in front of my startled eyes. (Just take a look at the resulting photo – you’ll see what I mean!) Then it was straight down to the local post office to do the paperwork, then voila! – a 12 month visitors passport. Excuses gone. Paris was back on!
Having arranged the essentials and ready to leave town, we could hardly do so without the prerequisite for our trip – the guitars. And as our usual electric ones would be pretty useless, we swung by Paddy’s shop in search of a couple of acoustics, Mick’s choice of weapon being a nice looking Yamaha, my own being a slightly less flashy Kimbara but sweet sounding all the same. Over by the counter Paddy stood watching. And as the accepted custom in most music shops was a free set of strings with every new guitar purchased, Paddy’s faced drained – the guitars we had chosen were both 12 strings!
Duly we left with two plastic plectrums and a cheerful wave. “Bon voyage lads!”
With the slight delay of our visit to Paddy’s shop, we decided to postpone leaving for France until the next day, agreeing to meet on Liverpool Street station, before making our way across London via the underground to St Pancras and the boat train down to Dover, before crossing the channel and the long train journey down through northern France to the capital. But arriving at Liverpool Street station that next morning, I couldn’t see Mick anywhere. The only person I could see carrying a guitar was a young American guy, dressed in full cowboy regalia – hat, jeans, cowboy boots, wide brimmed hat – the lot. Going over, the young man saw me and pulled off his ray ban aviator sunglasses, then I saw his face. It was Mick of course. And I wasn’t surprised, as perhaps I should have mentioned that among his many other talents, he was something of an aspiring actor, one who liked to get “into the part”, this case being a western singer perhaps, in the style of Roy Rogers maybe, I wasn’t quite sure. What I did know however, that it was a great improvement on the last role he’d played, when I had seen him dressed as a German Gestapo Officer in a long black leather trench coat. I’m sure that would have gone down like a lead balloon once we had reached France, especially with those who might remember the war. So the midnight cowboy thing was fine by me.
Arriving early at St. Pancras for the boat train to Dover, we checked in our guitars at left luggage and killed a few hours in London, amusing ourselves as young men do, before passing a barber’s shop, where Mick surprised me by expressing a sudden desire to get his hair cut. Going inside, he suddenly surprised me again by saying he wanted the lot cut off! This request seemed to surprise the barber too, as Mick’s hair was quite long and something of a drastic measure. In fact the barber tried to talk him out of it, but Mick was adamant. And before long the electric clippers were buzzing and the next minute his hair was on the floor. All I could say was that it was a good thing Mick had that hat.
But there was method in his madness. I’d soon find that out.
The trip down to Dover was short, the channel crossing smooth, our progress uneventful as midnight fell and we began to rattle through the darkness of the French countryside, non stop but for an unexplained three hour wait just outside Lille, which at least provided us with a much needed rehearsal before the capital. Then, upon reaching the outskirts of the city, the sun was well up, having risen into a cloudless blue sky with the promise of a fine summer’s day ahead – better than that in fact; it was to be the start of a heat wave. And at the Gare de Nord, we stepped off the train blinking at the light, drinking in the sights and drinking down a cup of coffee at a pavement café upon the Rue de Dunkerque, feeling the searing heat upon us. But it was not just the warmth of that day that had caused a sweat to appear upon my forehead, but a close call back at the station.
It involved a Foreign Legionnaire, who had been collecting a ticket to the Gare de Lyon and down to Marseille and then to the Legion’s barracks. He looked smart in his sand coloured uniform, I thought, complete with trademark kepi blanc hat, and I could see that Mick had spotted him too. But the next thing Mick suggested had me thinking it was another one of his famous gags, as he said we should go and ask him about joining up! I was staggered. Mick was serious. It seemed that being in the British army had not fully removed soldiering from Mick’s blood, but I was adamant I didn’t want it in mine! Nor did I want it spilt all over some flyblown desert battleground either! And a debate ensued in which I suddenly realised that this was no “spur of the moment” idea, but rather an intention of Mick’s since leaving London, hence the cropped hair, in order to get into “character”. And as we stood discussing the matter, with Mick telling me what an adventure it would be, and myself replying that, ‘Yes, the sort I could do without.’ I then turned the tide of the argument by reminding him exactly why we had come to Paris in the first place – to play music, not soldiers. And thankfully we agreed to leave it at that.
Yes, we had come to play music all right. And it was fair to say that during that first day, our reception was mostly positive. And a great way of seeing the city too. In fact you could say we had the distinction of being thrown out and moved on from some of the most delightful street corners and bars that Paris had to offer. But that would be to stretch the truth, and unfairly so. But one nasty situation did arise when having set up to entertain a crowd on the hallowed grass beneath the Eiffel Tower, I was chased away by a baton waving “Flic”, the poor man little knowing that only a few hours earlier, the Englishman he was pursuing, had very nearly signed up to defend the man’s country. Talk about ungrateful!
By this time we had walked, (or in my case, ran) a fair few miles. But on the sun drenched cobbled quayside of the Seine, Mick was feeling the pinch – the pinch from his tough leather cowboy boots. Yes, he was still rocking the cowboy look and walking the walk, but now with a decided limp. I really felt for him as he was all but crippled. Then incredibly, and almost like some kind of miracle, a strange but welcome sight hove into view. There on the quayside were a pair of trainers, neatly placed as if someone had just stepped out of them. But there was no one to be seen. I looked at Mick. Mick looked at me. Surely they were not his size? Duly he slipped them on – voila! With happy feet and contented smiles we walked away, both wondering as we did so what the owner of the trainers would think on his return, finding in exchange a wonderful pair of cowboy boots.
With Mick’s footwear sorted we did some more walking, then some more playing, firstly at the Jardin des Tuileries near the Place De la Concorde, then at the Square de Viviani, moving onto the Jardin Tino Rossi gardens on the quayside just across the Seine from Notre Dame. By then, even in the shadow of the massive cathedral and the shade of the trees in the park, it was still viciously hot, and all the food and drink vendors along the Left Bank were making the most of it. Never had I been so thirsty, yet never had I been confronted with such a cost to quench it. Soft drinks like Coke and Pepsi were astronomically expensive, and so too were simple things like bottled water. Then Mick and I made another wonderful discovery: Bottles of wine were cheaper than anything.
Yes, ridiculous as it seemed, it was true. And so like the two legionnaires that earlier we had very nearly become, perhaps stranded in a far off desert somewhere, but in reality in a suburban park on the banks of the Seine in the middle of Paris, we guzzled. We played and we guzzled, singing as we did so, until after so many bottles had been consumed and so much guzzling had gone on that we could do neither sing nor play or nor even guzzle either. It was our own stupid fault, to say nothing of being badly timed, as by then night was beginning to fall and we’d not even thought about our accommodation. Yes, we’d had a vague and maybe fanciful idea to find some cheap garret somewhere, a place where we could act out our inner artistic fantasies and paint and go and hang around the coffee shops all day and talk about art and music. But by then all we could talk was gibberish. Yes, it was extremely bad timing all right, but perhaps more so as a few moments later a group of about half a dozen French girls entered the park and came over, striking up a conversation.
Not that we were in any fit state to reply, except to inquire in a barely coherent franglais that if they knew of any accommodation nearby we’d be very grateful. Or failing that, we would be more grateful still if they would be willing to offer any accommodation themselves. Their response to the former was no, and although the latter did elicit a knowing smile or two, the answer to that was just the same. But what they did come up with before leaving, was some sage advice: Don’t stay in the park after dark. It wasn’t safe. Bad men roamed the place, doing people harm.
Then, as if illustrate the point, one of the girls drew my attention to a nearby bridge across the Seine. And through my drunken haze, silhouetted black against the huge fireball setting sun, was the biggest guy I’d ever seen, sitting on the bridge’s parapet, his legs dangling over the side. The girls did not need to say more, but I assured them that we’d be ok, pointing out that Mick was in fact ex-British army and an accomplished boxer. They in turn pointed out that Mick had passed out. Then, with night setting in, they left us to it.
After that, alone, though wondering for how long it would remain so, I began to think that things were not looking good. And to be honest, I was neither looking nor feeling too good myself. But even so, some kind of damage limitation must have kicked in as picking up Mick and slinging him over my shoulder, I carried him across the grass, dumping him for his own safety amongst some bushes. I found a similar spot and crashed out myself.
And so to bed – a flower bed in the middle of a park in the middle of Paris on that first night we were there. Yes,
perhaps it was not as I’d planned, but despite all that had happened, or all that might happen, as I lay there beneath a blanket of stars with my guitar across my chest, I couldn’t help but feel pretty lucky too. Then again, any day you just take off on a busking tour of Paris and narrowly avoid joining the Foreign Legion, well, then lucky is pretty much what you are.
You be lucky too. And thanks for checking out the website.
Viva la Rock
Pete Solo
