FAIRFIELD PARLOUR Part 2

...And these were the Tambourine Days.

The dog days of summer: sultry purple days, long humid breathless nights observed by a weary moon. Twilight was dusty red, crows calling from the aching limbs of ancient trees. Lethargic clouds, flesh-coloured and vague, meandering homewards across bloody skies. The wheeling birds describing decreasing circles, signing the universe with ebony ease. Evenings of decay. The flushed and fleshy face of the moon looked over the land and sighed in silence. It climbed the sorrowful arc, the swimming sky stilled awaiting the reluctant stars. The nights of slow demise, the day`s heat diminishing, escaping through the cracks in the sky. Everywhere you looked something was dying...

Five days after returning from the island we drove for a thousand hours to Cleethorps for a gig that had, we were told upon arrival, been cancelled two days earlier. We bought some chips, turned the old Transit around, and drove home. We saw shooting stars and Sputniks and listened to Monty Python on the cassette player. We downed cans of warm beer and fell asleep dreaming of home.

Ten days later, on our way to a fab gig at the Civic Hall in Warrington, we crashed into the back of a tipper truck as the driver stopped to pick up a hitch-hiker on the exit road from an M1 service station. Steve fared worst, with cuts and bruises. And our ice lollies flew out the windscreen as it shattered into a million pieces a millisecond before our heads made contact. "The brake`s the one in the middle, Steve."

In October we got roped in to provide backing for a female singer on her first single, `Who`s gonna rescue Jesus.` Who indeed. We supported Alan Bown and Cat Stevens in Cardiff and jammed with Chicken Shack and Robert Plant back at Mother`s.

We flew to Bremen in Germany for a memorable appearance on a TV show, miming to a couple of tracks, our images filmed against a backdrop of household items, washing powder, jam and bleach. Later, in a cosy restaurant, the elderly waiter openly abused us, clearly disliking long-haired louts. Dave christened him Adolf and we were ejected, protesting our innocence with Nazi salutes. Later we soothed our wounds. I tried to open a window and smashed my head against the glass. Below, the slick cobbled square reflected the rainy neon, a lone taxi prowled. I turned back to the room with its powder-blue dream.



We now embarked on the major recording project of our entire career.

As prolific writers Ed and I always had a backlog of songs, always had plenty to choose from when it came to recording. The system worked well because it meant that when a choice had to be made the weaker songs could be rejected without concern; the better material could be sifted out, distilling the best, maintaining quality control.

Over the spring and summer Ed and I had begun this process. When we`d get together to look at new songs we would enjoy playing those songs from our unrecorded stock that pleased us most. This way they came to the surface naturally and the songs with less appeal gradually got over-looked, not forgotten, but certainly shelved. I remember a few of these orphans with some fondness, amusement and regret: `The Purple Spider still speaks`, another with quite a good rousing chorus about a girl called Maddy-something; one about a school for delinquent boys. Umm, perhaps it`s for the best that those particular gems failed to glint as we panned for gold.

During this period of repeatedly playing our favourite songs late at night in Ed`s blue room, I noticed a vague, most obscure link emerging. A line or two in a song, the changing moods of melodies complimenting that of the following song. I began to feel that I was singing these songs to someone in particular or about that person. Driving home to Rayners Lane, just west of Harrow, in the early hours of the morning, I would ruminate on who this person might be. Soon I was jotting down my ideas on the subject, trying to work out for myself the tenuous threads that linked these songs. When I was ready I put the idea to Ed. How about arranging these songs in an order that could then be interpreted as a continuous story? I would write the story in the form of a novel that could be included with the album or sold separately. Ed gulped and pointed out two immediate problems that came to mind: the story that I had outlined didn`t exactly leap out at him from the existing lyrics; and we had too many songs for one album. OK. We could easily adjust some of the lyrics to suggest more of the story, although I was against spelling out the story too obviously; the listener wouldn`t want that. Too many songs for a single album? Let`s make a double!

We put our ideas to Dave and he loved it from the start, no hesitation. His enthusiasm, always infectious, boosted our confidence and we began serious work on the fine tuning of the material. I began writing the novel. I`d written a novel the previous year, all purple prose and juvenile ideas, a Sci-fi pot of nonsense. After repeated rejections it was confined to a desk drawer to die quietly. I knew that this one had to be better.

Dan and Steve were now involved as we rehearsed and arranged the songs. This continued while we were on the Isle of Wight. We had our gear set up in the bar of Herbie`s Clarendon Hotel. We would practise during the day and those evenings that we weren`t at the festival we played for free to Herbie`s customers. It was here that we were said to have recorded a live album. Tosh. OK, someone might have been surreptitiously taping us, but if they did they`ve been sitting on the tape for almost three decades. Some steamy afternoons we would drive out to a cliff top and discuss the project. It was gaining momentum. Planning was at an advanced stage. Arrangements had been finalised and now Dave was planning track allocations for the various instruments. He waved his clipboard expansively as he described the stereo spread of the final production. Gulls swooped by, eyeing these madmen suspiciously. The dark blue sea churned lazily, unaffected as always by the dreams of men. We floated above the rocky shore seeing and hearing nothing, suspended on the fine threads of our collective ambition.



The album drew its name from a pivotal track: White-Faced Lady. As with the first Fairfield Parlour album and singles, Dave would negotiate a tape lease deal with Vertigo. He outlined our project to Olaf Wyper and received his blessing. Windscreen told Dave to proceed and let him know when the album was finished. Monetary matters could then be discussed, bills and advances paid, leasing contracts signed.

Dave found a new studio called Sound Techniques, situated in a village street in Chelsea, just off the busy Kings Road. It was a haven of tranquillity. A narrow street bordered by quaint Victorian terraced cottages. A bakers shop sold its aromatic produce just across the road from the studio. Inside the studio the live room was small but adequate for a group. The control room was suspended above, reached by a flight of wooden stairs, a wide window looking down over the studio floor. Our first session for the new album was on the 2nd November 1970, a year after our `From home to home` sessions. On this first phase we spent five nights at the new studio, recording well into the next morning. I have fond memories of emerging from the studio at five or six AM, blinking in the dawn, blackbirds heralding the new day, the smell of delicious bread wafting from the bakers, the hum of traffic in the distance. Wonderful times.

Later in the month we enjoyed the diversion of cutting a demo of a song Ed and I had written for the Eurovision Song Contest. The improbably-titled, `Baby, I`m a woman` -- I think it was Clodagh Rogers` year -- was quite rightly rejected, after the first two bars I expect. Odd that I can still remember it though; perhaps it wasn`t that bad!

At a gig at Queens University in Belfast we played a couple of tracks from `White-Faced Lady` for the first time. After the gig we were driven through the drab streets by our student hosts. It was back to their digs for the night. Red, white and blue painted kerb stones. Soldiers cruising by in armoured vehicles bristling with guns. Tension in the air. Shadows everywhere. The speeding car stopped and we dashed to a terraced house. Up three flights of stairs to our attic room. Trash, rubbish, discarded papers and tins, the pungent smell of urine and dead cigarettes, the drone of a muted TV announcing dark and terrible days. We slept in wet beds with damp sheets and woke with every bone in our bodies aching. We declined breakfast and were driven at death-defying speed out to the airport. Irish coffees, fags and buns. Everyone was having such fun.

The gig list shows that in fact we weren`t playing many. Noticeable by their absence are the sessions for BBC radio programmes. They`d gone for good. We`d played our last back in August for the Tom Edwards show.



This merry shot of Steve and Ed lugging a speaker cabinet out of the Bond Street studios was taken by Knut Skyberg, a fan from Norway who, with his friend Eric, had come over to see us.

What should have been the pinnacle of our performing career, a concert at London`s prestigious Royal Albert Hall, fell well short of expectations. With our gear in less than perfect condition, Dave got Park Amplification, the company who sponsored us, to supply some brand new equipment for this VIP gig. When we arrived at the venue -- stunningly ornate, womb-like, plush velvet and gilt, quite unique -- we were immediately impressed with the amount of equipment on the stage below the towering throaty funnels of the legendary organ. We were supporting Pentangle so automatically assumed it was theirs. It was ours! A veritable Stonehenge of speaker cabinets, supporting state-of-the-art amplifiers, the whole set up controlled from a mighty mixing desk, something we`d not had the luxury of before. Our stage balance was arrived at by our own control of our own amps, with a cursory listen out front during the run through. But not here. We even had a representative from Park to advise Dave and ourselves on just how to use this monstrous set-up.

We spent some hours during the afternoon playing and getting a good balance. Amazingly it all sounded fine. Better than ever. No problems. Dave got all his faders lined up as he wanted, all our amps were turned off with all their settings in place. We wandered down to Kensington, content in the knowledge that it was going to sound great. We were nervous, of course, we always were before important gigs, but over a meal we discussed the set and our confidence grew by some degrees. It was planned that I would start our set by reading a short poem and then Ed would come on and we`d play an acoustic song. Dan and Steve would then join us for another ten or so songs. We had purposefully chosen a lighter set, aware that an audience of Pentangle fans -- for that they would surely be -- wouldn`t want to sit through `Music` or `Face.` The venue itself also suggested a more refined performance.

Back at the hall we were not allowed up on stage as Pentangle we having their sound check. From the vault-like dressing room below stage we could eventually hear the hum of the audience as they arrived. The dressing room was filling up with friends and family, publishers and record company faces, all drawn to this important performance. Sweat made its first appearance of the evening. Hearts, always ticking away quietly in the background, now made their presence felt by thumping out a persistent, urgent beat that made your ribs ache.

We got the call. We were on. We approached the stairs. I went over the top, typed poem clutched in quivering hand. I stepped across the stage towards the microphone. My God! Everything looked so different: the multitude of boxes were hung like strings of jewels around the glowing hall, their lights twinkling, the occupants just visible as silhouettes. I was very aware of my own parents, sister and brother in a box high up to the right of the stage. The gentle, welcoming applause washed away. I began... Nothing! The microphone was dead. I tapped it, tried a couple of tentative words. Nothing. Jesus Christ! I`m standing in the middle of the Royal Albert Hall stage with a few thousand people looking at me, awaiting a performance and the bloody microphone`s gone to heaven. I could just glimpse Dave wrestling with his mixing desk, his face ashen, spaghetti hair in disarray. He waved. Ed came on with his acoustic and sat on the stool where his mic had been set up. He began to play. Nothing! Why was I ever born? Perhaps Fate had conspired with the devil to dump me here at the Royal Albert Hall to die of embarrassment. All sins are punished here! Melt, young man, dissolve in a pool of sweat! Be gone!



Soon, Dave and the Park rep were on their hands and knees actually crawling about on stage. Leads were not plugged in, settings had been changed! We`d been sabotaged! Whilst we`d been out filling our faces some bastard had pulled out leads, altered amp settings and fiddled with Dave`s new faders. Dave shoved in any lead he found without a home into any vacant socket. We suddenly had sound. Dan and Steve dashed on and we quickly launched into some songs, quieting the slow hand-clapping that had accompanied our anguish. Within minutes our allocated time had elapsed and we were leaving the stage to a ripple of polite applause.

Back in the dressing room we cursed and swore and threatened revenge. The band `Room` who were third on the bill had disappeared after their short, sound-perfect performance. From above we could hear that Pentangle were also enjoying perfect sound amplification. Our supporters looked in and offered their condolences, but quickly left when they saw that we could not be comforted. It was a disaster. But we were used to those. It hurt like hell. And still makes me angry almost thirty years after the event. But then I`m a passionate sort of chap when it comes to the band. We had some luck, both good and bad; one out-weighed the other. I know, spilt milk and all that... But forgive an old man his obsessions.

But life quickly picked up from this disaster. Of all the Moodies it was Mike Pinder who was closest to Dave -- and therefore closest to us. Mike loved the idea of `White-Faced Lady.` He was in the process of putting together a studio at his impressive home. In his entrance hall he had a fountain. The ceiling of one room, my favourite, had the universe painted in great detail on the ceiling. Mike was a very intense man. It was amusing to see him and Dave head to head in some deep philosophical discussion. Mike wasn`t an easy man to get to know because ordinary, everyday trivia didn`t interest him; indeed, I think he existed in a temporal world of his own. But he always showed us great kindness and understanding and advised us on several matters. A genuine nice guy.

Mike offered us the use of his home studio and Dave jumped at the chance as the Sound Techniques bills were adding up alarmingly. And so we spent a couple of pleasant evenings in January of 1971 at Mike`s house attempting to record some album tracks. I say attempting because it soon became clear that Mike did not yet have the expertise required to operate his array of new recording equipment and then a mysterious hum developed, the origin of which we spent hours trying to trace. Having failed, the sessions were abandoned. Shame.

So it was back to Sound Techniques for more expensive sessions in February and March. There then followed a series of no less than fourteen mixing sessions at Sound Techniques and Morgan Studios taking us to the end of April. By this time tempers were frayed; too many hours locked up together in windowless rooms...

A few days later our Transit was stolen together with almost all our equipment. The following evening we got blown off-stage at the Top Rank ballroom in Liverpool by a stunningly tight Slade. The following week `Bordeaux Rosé` was released in America and never heard of again. Our label bosses hadn`t even told us it was being released. Utter contempt for the band. Bastards.

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At the end of May we had a religious experience when we went to mecca. We played at The Cavern in Liverpool. What can I say? It was just as we`d expected: grubby, cramped, dirty, dreadful changing room, tiny rickety stage, smelly, poor lighting, sweaty -- we were in heaven. To say their ghosts were there would be an under statement: the place was alive with their spirits. You couldn`t sit in a chair or touch a wall without wondering: `Did they sit here? Did one of them slouch against this wall?` After a brief run-through in the afternoon we spent hours simply sitting in there soaking up the atmosphere, in silence, in awe of history. The gig was OK, but that was hardly the point. We`d played the cavern.

Dave should now have been trotting off to Vertigo with the tapes of `White-Faced Lady.` But towards the end of the sessions Olaf had informed us that he was leaving Vertigo. He was off to RCA. "Where does that leave us?" Dave asked, "and our deal?" Olaf assured him everything would be fine. It would work in our favour as RCA was a better company than Vertigo. And besides, with Olaf gone there was no-one at Vertigo prepared to take on an unauthorised double-album. Not to worry. The deal was sweet: we`d simply decamp to RCA where Olaf was waiting.

So Dave went to see our friend Olaf. Dave told him how much we wanted for the album, a figure that had already been verbally agreed months before. Olaf shrugged. "I`ll have to pass on this one," he told our astonished manager. "I don`t have that sort of budget here. You`ll find someone else." Dave stood his ground, but there was no shifting the blonde, Scandinavian with the sparkling, friendly eyes.

One comment that had been made was that there wasn`t a single on the album and we would need one to interest another label. So we made a demo of a song called, `Down in the city,` a harmless song that was also charmless and would have actually been harmful to our career had it been released; this was `Jenny Artichoke` territory again. We knew this road; it lead nowhere. Our judgement was waning.

It was suggested that we play USAF bases in Germany while matters were sorted out at home. We`d been there, done that. We rejected the idea. We reached the nadir in July when booked into the Temple Club in the West End. When we got there we were told we would play at 3AM for a mighty twelve quid. We walked out. Dave called us unprofessional.

Two weeks later, actually penniless, I returned to work. The following week the other three guys played as a trio at the Weeley Pop Festival.



Our last appearance was on 27th May 1972 at what was to be an open-air concert in Bremen, Germany. But it rained and the gig was hastily moved inside to a school gymnasium. The smell of sweaty socks permeated the stark building. I couldn`t remember the words to the songs. I was drunk with nostalgia, my emotions making me deaf, dumb and blind. Perhaps I was dreaming.

Our last recording sessions were in July and August of that year at the Nova Studios, Marble Arch. We recorded the frenetic, `Baby, Stay for Tonight,` and, bizarrely, the Beatles`, `All together now.` What prat thought that one up!?

On the 19th March 1976 a speeded up version of `Bordeaux Rosè` was released on the Prism label. The owner -- we know who he is -- is rumoured to have done a deal with Decca on our behalf, disappearing with the advance. We didn`t see one penny from the sales of our trusty old friend, Rosè.

We`d come a long way from the school hall in Acton. Four teenagers who found that they enjoyed making music together. Four friends who tacitly agreed that they would like to spend their formative years together. Who were determined to succeed. Who fought for that success for many years in the face of adversity, record company bunglings and sheer bad luck. Who enjoyed the special bond that making music brings. Who found that creativity was rewarding spiritually if not monetarily. In all the years we were together we never had a serious row. Never fell out over anything. We always presented a unified front. Mrs.P used to call us `the boys.` Perhaps that`s what we were. In many ways that`s what we are today.

But, of course, we can never be the same. When Steve died something of us died with him. A brother greatly missed.



No regrets, then. Many good memories. And we`ve each moved on, making much of this brief stay on this blue planet of bliss. On those very rare occasions when we do meet up, if we find ourselves sat around a table nursing a glass or two, at some point I will blink and imagine we`re back there in the pub opposite the old school hall, literally starry-eyed, our whole lives before us... Good memories. Halcyon days...


"Memory and love and hope are the things that will endure..."
Peter Daltrey



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