Inside Out (2 page)

For those interested in tenuous connections, my interest in the mix of the technical and visual probably came from my father,
Bill, a director of documentary films. When I was two, he accepted a job with the Shell film unit, and so we moved from the
Birmingham suburb of Edgbaston, where I’d been born, to North London, where I spent my formative years.

Although my father was not particularly musical, he was definitely interested in music, especially when it related directly
to one of his films. In those instances, he could become quite
passionate about music ranging from Jamaican steel bands to string sections, jazz or the wilder electric ramblings of Ron
Geesin. He was also fascinated by recording equipment, stereo test records, sound effects and racing cars, in various combinations,
all interests which I inherited.

However, there was some hint of a musical heritage within the family: my maternal grandfather, Walter Kershaw, played in a
banjo band with his four brothers and had had a piece of music published, called ‘The Grand State March’. My mother Sally
was a competent pianist, whose repertoire included Debussy’s now extremely politically incorrect ‘Golliwog’s Cakewalk’. The
selection of 78s at home was even more eclectic, including classical pieces, Communist workers’ songs performed by the Red
Army Choir, ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ and ‘The Laughing Policeman’. Doubtless traces of these influences can be found somewhere
in our music – I shall leave it to others more energetic to winkle them out. I did take some lessons on the piano, as well
as the violin, but they failed to uncover a musical prodigy and both instruments were abandoned.

I will also confess to a mysterious attraction for Fess Parker singing ‘The Ballad Of Davy Crockett’, a single released in
the UK in 1956. Even in those days the unholy relationship between music and merchandising clearly existed, since I was soon
sporting a natty nylon coonskin cap exquisitely set off by its rakish tail.

I must have been about twelve when rock music first impinged on my consciousness. I can remember struggling to stay awake
through Horace Batchelor’s exhortations for his unlikely pools system on Radio Luxembourg, hoping to catch ‘Rocking To Dreamland’.
I helped Bill Haley’s ‘See You Later Alligator’ reach the UK Top Ten in March 1956 by buying it on a 78 from the local electrical
store, and later that year I splashed out on Elvis Presley’s ‘Don’t Be Cruel’. Both of these were played on the family’s new
state-of-the-art gramophone that was electric and connected to a device resembling a cross between the cabinets made in the
days of Louis XIV and a Rolls-Royce dashboard. At thirteen I had my first long-playing album – Elvis’s
Rock ’N Roll.
This seminal album was bought as a first LP by at least two other members of the Floyd, and almost all of our generation
of rock musicians. Not only was this fantastic new music, but for a teenage rebel it also had the additional frisson of receiving
the kind of parental welcome usually reserved for a pet spider.

It was about this time that I set off with my satchel, and in short flannel trousers and school blazer – the latter pink with
a black trim and an iron cross badge – to see Tommy Steele performing at a variety show in East London. I was on my own. Apparently
none of my school friends was as enthused. Tommy was top of the bill, and the rest of the bill was dire. Comics, jugglers
and other refugees from the English music halls vied to clear the hall before Tommy came on, but I stuck it out. I have to
say he was terrific. He sang ‘Singing The Blues’ and ‘Rock With The Caveman’ and looked exactly like he did on
The Six-Five Special,
the original pop show on UK television. He wasn’t Elvis, but he was certainly the next best thing.

Within a couple of years, I had gravitated towards a group of friends from the neighbourhood who had also discovered rock
’n’ roll, and it seemed an excellent idea to put a band together. The fact that none of us knew how to play was only a minor
setback, since we didn’t have any instruments. Consequently allocating who played what was something of a lottery. My only
link with drumming was that Wayne Minnow, a journalist friend of my parents, had once brought me a pair of wire brushes. After
the failure of my early piano and violin lessons, this seemed a perfectly legitimate reason to become a drummer. My first
kit, acquired from Chas. E. Foote of Denman Street in Soho, included a Gigster
bass drum, a snare drum of indeterminate age and parentage, hi-hat, cymbals, and an instruction book on the mysteries of flam
paradiddles and ratamacues (which I am still attempting to unravel). Equipped with this devastating armoury I joined my friends
to form the Hotrods.

The group included Tim Mack on lead guitar, William Gammell playing rhythm, and Michael Kriesky on bass. We also boasted a
sax player, John Gregory, though his sax, which predated the standardisation of concert A at 440 cycles, was half a tone higher
than a new model, and consequently unplayable with an ensemble. Michael, with help from the rest of us, had built his bass
from scratch. Frankly, the Saxons building a space probe would have had more success, but we did achieve the vague outward
appearance of an instrument. Although we had access to some amps, these were so shameful that when we posed for a group photo,
we felt obliged to mock up a Vox cabinet using a cardboard box and a biro.

Thanks to my father’s film work we had access to a brand new stereo Grundig tape recorder. Rather than waste time rehearsing
we immediately launched into our first recording session. The studio technique involved a trial and error positioning of two
microphones somewhere between the drums and amplifier. Regrettably these tapes still exist.

The Hotrods never really developed beyond endless versions of the theme from the TV show
Peter Gunn,
and my career in music seemed destined to falter. But now I had gone from prep school to Frensham Heights, an independent
co-ed school in Surrey. Here there were girls (I met my first wife Lindy there), a jazz club, and you could wear long trousers
after the third form. Yes, this was the sophisticated life I had been looking for.

Compared to being at prep school, I really enjoyed my time at Frensham – the school was in a large country house with extensive
grounds, near Hindhead in Surrey. Although it was fairly traditional – in terms of blazers and exams – it had a far more liberal
approach to education, and I have fond memories of both art and English teachers there. I also began to learn the skills of
negotiation. Since the school was close to Frensham Ponds, I had managed to acquire a canoe, and in return for lending it
to the games master, I was able to avoid ever having to play cricket. As proof of this the clothing inventory included an
expensive cricket sweater; mine never emerged from its original cellophane wrapping…

The school used the ballroom in the country house for assemblies and other functions, but on a regular basis it was used for
its original purpose, when we would dance waltzes, foxtrots and veletas. However, during my time at Frensham, the ballroom
dances evolved into hops, although I am sure that we had to get special clearance to play the latest singles, an attempt by
the school to limit the invasion of pop music. We did have a jazz club, though. This was not something created by the masters,
but an informal gathering of pupils: Peter Adler, the son of the great harmonica player Larry, was at the school. I remember
him playing piano, and we may have tried playing jazz together at some point. It was difficult even to listen to our own jazz
records, since the school only had one LP player, and we would only have had our own players towards the end of my time there.
The club was probably more of an opportunity to get out of doing something more arduous and less agreeable, but it did at
least represent a nascent interest in jazz. Later on I would spend time in London going to places like the 100 Club to hear
the leaders of the trad jazz movement in England, players like Cy Laurie and Ken Colyer. However, I never liked the paraphernalia
of a lot of trad jazz – all the bowler hats and waistcoats – and I moved on to bebop. I still have a great enthusiasm for
modern jazz, but as a teenager, the advanced playing techniques required were an
insurmountable barrier. I went back to perfecting the drum part to ‘Peter Gunn’.

After leaving Frensham Heights, and following a year in London spent improving my studies, I arrived at the Regent Street
Poly in September 1962. I studied a bit, produced various pieces of work for my portfolio, and attended numerous lectures.
I did, however, show serious application in attempting to cultivate the correct look, with a penchant for corduroy jackets
and duffle coats. I also tried smoking a pipe. It was some time during my second term at college that I fell in with what
the older generation used to call a ‘bad lot’, namely Roger.

Our first abortive conversation about the Austin ‘Chummy’ had perhaps surprisingly led to a growing friendship, based on shared
musical tastes. Another bond in the friendship that developed between us was a common liking for anything that took us outside
the school building, whether trawling up and down the Charing Cross Road looking at drums and guitars, going to matinée shows
at West End cinemas, or heading off to Anello and Davide’s, the ballet-shoe makers in Covent Garden who were then also making
Cuban-heeled cowboy boots to order. The prospect of a weekend break at Roger’s house in Cambridge also occasionally encouraged
an early Friday departure from the rigours of class work.

Politically we came from fairly similar backgrounds. Roger’s mother was an ex-Communist Party member and a staunch Labour
supporter, as were my parents: my father had joined the Communist Party to oppose fascism, and then on the outbreak of war
left the CP and became a shop steward in the ACT, the Association of Cinematographic Technicians. This kind of background
was also shared by our respective girlfriends, and later wives, Lindy and Judy. Roger had been the chairman of the youth section
of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Cambridge, and he and Judy took part in a number of CND marches from
Aldermaston to London. Lindy and I did join at least one CND march on the outskirts of London on the last day, and she later
was part of the Grosvenor Square demonstration which the police broke up with a rather heavy hand. I would now tend to say
that probably reflects quite accurately my own general commitment to politics – slightly to the left of half-hearted with
only the occasional outburst of good behaviour.

Some of Roger’s strength of conviction had probably been picked up from his mother Mary, a teacher who’d shown her personal
toughness by bringing up Roger and his elder brother John single-handed after her husband Eric Waters (who was also a teacher)
had been killed in Italy during the Second World War. Roger had attended Cambridgeshire High School for Boys at the same time
as Syd Barrett – among their fellow pupils was Storm Thorgerson, who later on would play a major role in the band’s history
as our graphic designer for over three decades. The school also provided Roger with the raw material for a particular kind
of bullying teacher who would later appear as a caricature in
The Wall.

Roger’s musical activities were not particularly different from any other teenager’s at the time: a bit of guitar strumming,
picking up riffs and ideas from old blues records. Like me he was an avid listener to Radio Luxembourg, as well as the American
Forces Network. When he came down to college in London his guitar travelled with him. An early indication of putting our training
to good use was the way he had used Letraset, then a specialist design tool, to print ‘I believe to my soul’ on the body of
the guitar. To our eyes, it looked pretty smart.

Along with his guitar, Roger packed a particular attitude. Like a few of the others in the class, he had already had a few
months’ experience working in an architectural office before arriving at college. This had given him a slightly more sophisticated
view of where all this training might lead, and he sported an expression of
scorn for most of the rest of us, which I think even the staff found off-putting.

A fellow student, Jon Corpe, has a vivid memory of Roger’s impact at the Poly: ‘Tall, gaunt, with poor skin, he projected
an image of the High Plains Drifter. He carried his guitar, which he played softly in the studio or firmly in the Student
Players office [this was the office of the Poly drama club, one of our rehearsal rooms]. To me Roger will always be at a distance,
singing songs of morbid loss.’

We were occasionally called upon to form teams to complete a work assignment and so sometime during our first year Roger and
I joined forces with Jon Corpe to design a small house. Our building design was received rather well, despite the fact that
it was totally impractical, but this was mainly because Jon was an excellent student who seemed happy to concentrate on the
architecture while Roger and I unloaded his grant on curry and musical instruments.

Working with Roger was not easy. Typically I would travel from Hampstead in North London, where I was still living at home,
across town, only to find a note from Roger pinned to the door – ‘Gone to the Café des Artistes’. His living arrangements
were usually unsettled; for a while he lived in a particularly rough squat just off the King’s Road in Chelsea. With no hot
water – baths were taken at the Chelsea bathhouse just up the road – no phone and some wildly unstable co-squatters, this
experience probably gave him a head start in coping with life on tour, but on a practical level it was extremely difficult
to set up a drawing board.

Although the sight, sounds and aromas of Roger’s lodgings have stayed with me, I have few clear memories of Rick at this juncture,
and he could never do much better. I think he realised as soon as he arrived at college that architecture was not for him
– according to Rick this was a totally arbitrary choice suggested by a
careers master – but it took the Poly a full year to arrive at the same conclusion. Once both parties reached this mutual
understanding, Rick left to seek an alternative route, ending up at the London College of Music.