Bright Lights Shining - Chapter 1
___________________________
Extract from ROCK GUIDE TO THE GALAXY -
NO 3 Page 375
Re-printed by kind permission of Kerr and Stein, Inc.,N.Y., and Rock Life Magazine, London.
NIGHT MISSION
Mike Adams (bass); Aaron Craig (drums, clarinet, guitar); David Hampton (vocals, lead guitar); Steve Morris (vocals, rhythm guitar)
London-based band formed by Hampton (ex-U.S. group Blues Bread Line) and Craig, when fellow students at the Royal College of Music, with the addition of school-friend Adams, who had previously played with Craig in school group, Safety Rule. They brought in Steve Morris, from failing band Scram to sing vocals. At first self-managing, with the assistance of Adams' sister, Janey (see separate entry, JANEY ADAMS) the band played the pubs and clubs of London and the South East, building a fanatical fan following and acquiring a largely undeserved reputation for promoting violence. They rapidly became a cult band on the University and College circuit, where they attracted the attention of legendary, producer-manager, Gerry Woods (see separate entry, GERRY WOODS) who later became their manager. Neither Hampton nor Craig, with professional music careers already mapped out, were anxious to jump on the rock/pop bandwagon, but their first single, Wild, Wild Cat, went into the Top Twenty, followed by their splendid rock classic, Drum Beat, which made Number Four in the U.K., Number One in the States, six weeks later.
A series of fine concerts, including one at the prestigious Rock Top, where thousands of fans packed the streets afterwards, appearances at the Hastings Open Air Festival, and Wembley Arena, quickly established them as the finest and most exciting of the new bands to emerge in recent years. In the vanguard of the R & B/Rock revival, but with influences from many sources, notably early black music, rock and roll, the Stones, Led Zeppelin and electronic music, and with an interest in the classical avant guarde composer, Stockhausen, Hampton and Craig have managed to blend these influences into their unique and distinctive style. Writing together and separately, and with the contribution of electronics man, Adams, they have proved the most electrifying song-writing combination since Lennon and McCartney.
____________________________________________
Chapter 1
'Get a job - or get out!' Her father's sweating face was dark red, thrust forward into hers.
'I can't leave school,' Janey Adams said, wildly. 'I've got to get my A-levels. I'm going to be a singer and you're not going to stop me!'
'Then you can get out of this house, you little whore.You've had all you're going of get out of me. Get out! Go on then - get out of this house now! What are you waiting for?'
'Tony, you don't mean it.' Her mother got up quickly, white. 'She's only sixteen...You can't...'
'Yes I can. She can get out. I've had enough! GET HER OUT OF MY HOUSE. I don't want her here when I come back!' He went, slamming the door, so that the whole house shook.
There was a queer silence. Janey was stunned, disbelieving. It had all happened so quickly. She had been trying to screw up her courage for months to ask him if she could stay on at school, and then, suddenly, this terrible row had blown up about the photograph. It had all come out in the worse possible way.
She looked at her mother, understanding fully, for the first time, why she had left when Mike and Janey were children, and the sacrifice she had made in coming back. It had been her father's fault. He had driven her away. Nothing to do with Janey or Mike, as they had always thought. All his fault.
For a moment there was a brief warmth in the ice field, which seemed to be surrounding her. She put out her hand, tried to explain, but already her mother was speaking. Her voice was over-loud. She was frightened, but she sounded contemptuous.
'You bloody little fool, why didn't you tell me about that club? I could have done something.'
The pack-ice crunched together again.Wordlessly, carefully, Janey placed the heavy greenstone lighter on the coffee table. She had been holding it as a weapon, in case her father tried to use his belt on her again. It was wet with perspiration from her hand. Then she turned and walked out into the hall.
She picked up her shoulder bag from the hallstand, and stared in the mirror. Her father had said she had a snivelling white face. Now it looked odd and twisted. The face of a stranger.
The Saturday shopping bags were still in the hall, and there was a damp patch where the frozen foods were melting into the carpet. Well, she didn't have to worry about that any more.
She opened the heavy front door, and closed it behind her softly. 'Go on - get out!' Her father's vicious shout echoed in her head. 'Go on - get out. Get OUT!'
She walked down the chipped steps, her legs feeling weak.
The afternoon was warm and sunny but she felt icy old. She was on her own now. She had wanted to leave - but not like this.
On her own.
She began to walk down the road uncertainly.
Where did people go when they were thrown out?
For three weeks she had waited for the explosion, waited for somebody to show her parents that ghastly picture of her in the influential New Musical Express, singing jazz at the famous Blues Room, in a too low-cut clinging dress, with its caption: 'Momma wants some loving nooooow!' The sexiest jazz in London, the report said.
She should not have been at the Blues Room at all. It had all happened by chance. Neither of her parents had known she was singing jazz, or even that she was out so late. It had all seemed so easy, with her mother working until the early hours as a waitress in a casino in London's West End, and her father working in Scotland on a construction site. There was no reason they should find out. Her brother Mike had picked her up each evening after his own gig with his rock band, Night Mission, had ended. Night Mission had a residency at Azras, a student cafe down the road, so it had fitted in very conveniently. Everything had gone without a hitch.
Except that she had been a big success. Too big.
To her horror, there had been write-ups in the national press, and then the NME had come out with the photograph.
It was all her own fault. She couldn't blame anyone else. She ought to have been concentrating on the course work for her GCSE exams, not running around the West End. If it hadn't been for Dave's mother...but what was the point of going all over that again? It wasn't as if she wanted to sing jazz, anyway. It was only a hobby. Opera was what she wanted. She had this crazy, overwhelming ambition to sing opera at Covent Garden. Jazz wouldn't help her ambitions at all. It was all so pointless.
And disaster had finally struck. Her father had seen the photograph - not in the music paper, but reprinted in a cheap porno men's magazine, opposite a nude in a black suspender belt!
And now it was all over. They wouldn't let her stay on at school to get the A-levels she needed to get into the Royal College of Music. She would have to go to work to support herself now. Goodbye, Covent Garden.
She walked on and on through the late afternoon.
For weeks now, it seemed, everything had been going wrong. Everything she did turned out badly, building up into this great row. This is where all her efforts to work hard, stay straight and out of trouble had led. She had been thrown out anyway - just for a photograph. She might as well have been running around like Kerry, enjoying herself, she thought bitterly, instead of working like a dog for Night Mission.
That was where everything had started to go wrong. Right at the beginning, a year ago, when Mike had come home and said they were forming a rock band, and somehow or other she had found herself caught up in it. Even at the beginning she had known, deep down, that it was a mistake, but Ronnie had been so persuasive. He was Mike's best friend and she had known him all her life.
She thought of Ronnie, with his silky smooth blonde hair, and strange golden eyes, laughing at her from behind his drums. Ronnie was a musical genius. He played a lot of instruments brilliantly, including guitar and clarinet, which he was studying at the Royal College of Music. He and Dave wrote most of the music the band played. She had trusted Ronnie, thought of him as a brother - until she had found out recently from Kerry who ran their fan club, that Ronnie did not think of her like that at all.
And there was Steve, who played rhythm guitar and sang the romantic vocals so beautifully, with his fair curly hair and his television-ad good looks. She had been stuck on Steve for a long time, since she had met him for the first time in fact. They had giggled together and had good times, held hands, but that had begun to go wrong too. She had been upset at the way he had gone on about the reports in the paper. He had been unhelpful and unsympathetic. Although he was supposed to be her boy friend, she had always known that she was much too young and unsophisticated for him. He liked rich, fast girls and made no secret of it. She wanted to keep their friendship cool and light, but lately Steve had got restive, wanting to change things.
And there was Dave, the virtuoso lead guitarist, the star of the band, with his smouldering dark good looks, and magnetic personality. Dave, who liked girls a lot, and who scared her silly by the effect he had on her physically. There had been reports in the papers that they were together, which had upset Steve. It wasn't true, but Janey could not deny that there was something between herself and Dave, a disturbing awareness and tension, which she could not understand or control. She had tried to stay out of his way as much as possible.
But trouble had come anyway. Beginning with his birthday party. If only she hadn't said she would sing at the Blues Room to spite Dave's mother, her parents might at least have been persuaded to talk to Mrs. Sachs, the Head of Music at her school.
Too late now. What on earth was she going to do? Where was she to go? How could she live?
Madame Vasari, her distinguished singing teacher, had offered to send her to Italy to study, all expenses paid, but that would take time to arrange. In the meantime she had just begun her exams. In fact there was a German paper on Monday, and she had left all her books at home.
She must find somewhere to stay tonight. That was the first thing. She must do something. Perhaps Kerry would put her up...no, of course, Kerry was at Hastings with the Band. Somehow she couldn't seem to think straight.
Her brain kept re-running the terrible row. What her father had said. What she had said. What she could have said, if only she had thought clearly.
She felt sick, light-headed, and although the late summer afternoon was very warm, she was chilled and shivery. She was in her thin summer shirt and jeans. She wished she had remembered to bring her jacket when she walked out. She had left everything behind. If only she had explained better...Told them...
The sun was beginning to go down. Suddenly she realised it must be seven or eight o'clock, and she still had no idea where to go or what to do. She had wandered for hours, trying to think, but her brain seemed numb and frozen. She remembered that she had not eaten that day - not even breakfast, because the morning had been hot and sticky, but even now, the idea of food made her feel ill. Somewhere to sleep, that's what she needed. She felt she could sleep forever. Somewhere to sit, even. She had never felt so tired and exhausted.
It was then she noticed she was in a familiar street. How many times had she passed Maria's flat without noticing it? Maria Conzetti, was an older friend, who taught her Italian.
Maria would certainly help her. She could sleep on the sofa maybe. Why hadn't she thought of Maria before?
Almost crying with relief, she turned into the gateway. But the third knock only brought old Mrs. Wicks from the downstairs flat. She opened the door on the chain a cautious five inches.
'Why, it's Janey! What a fright you gave me. I wondered who it could be. You hear such funny stories.'
'Is Maria in, Mrs. Wicks?' But the glad relief had drained away and she knew the answer before Mrs. Wicks spoke.
'They've gone to Welwyn to stay with her sister-in-law for the weekend. There's a new baby. Didn't she tell you?'
'Yes,' said Janey, dully. 'I forgot.'
Suddenly the world began to spin and tip alarmingly. She closed her eyes and clutched the door frame. 'I'm...I feel a bit faint, Mrs. Wicks. Could I come in and sit down for a few minutes?'
'I thought you looked funny!' Mrs. Wicks hastily unbolted the chain and helped her inside. 'It's this heat. No air at all. I'll make you a cup of tea...No, I won't! I've got something better. You can have a glass of my Christmas port. That'll do you good. It's got iron in it. It's the real thing, you know, vintage. None of that nasty supermarket stuff. My son buys it every Christmas for me, and I have a little glass when I can't sleep.'
She rattled on about the port and her son and the weather and the noisy panel game on the television screen, and Janey sat quietly, not listening, sipping the port, which was spreading its warmth gently through her veins, thawing the ice in her brain.
'That's better, I can see your colour coming back. Have another drop.' The glass was refilled generously.
'You'd better have a bit of cake with it. We don't want you tiddly, do we?'
She giggled, and Janey found herself smiling back. She was a very nice old lady.
The port was nice too. Very strong, but nice. Very nice. She felt much better, able to think coherently at last. Somehow things didn't seem so impossible any more.
First she would have to find somewhere to stay tonight. Then she'd get a permanent room somewhere. A bedsit. But how could she pay for it? She hadn't any money banked, after buying that beautiful new guitar. She felt a pang. That had been left behind too. Perhaps when her father had gone back to Scotland she would be able to sneak in and get her things.
'Is anything the matter, dear?' asked Mrs. Wicks, her eyes suddenly shrewdly focussed.
Janey started. 'No, it's all right. As you said, just the heat.'
She couldn't tell Mrs. Wicks the truth. She would be too shocked and alarmed and not know what to do. She would say Janey must go home. She was too old and frail and it wouldn't be fair to worry her so.
'And how's that brother of yours?' Mrs. Wicks refilled Janey's glass. 'I hear the band is doing very well. I read in the Mirror that they are in a big concert at Wembley soon. The fans voted for them.'
'That's right,' said Janey. 'They're down in Hastings now. There's an Open Air Festival tonight and tomorrow...'
Suddenly, as she gulped down the third glass of the port, the answer to her problems arrived with all the force of a revelation. There was Mike! She would go down to Hastings, and find Mike. He would give her some money to get a room. He would look after her. He had always looked after her.
An unaccustomed surge of affection overcame her. Dear old Mike! And if Mike wasn't there, Dave - no, Ronnie - would lend her some money. If she had enough money to get to Hastings in the first place, of course.
Some rational part of her brain was trying to tell her that it was not a good idea... That Mike wouldn't be pleased to see her... That it was an important concert, with some famous bands, and they might not let her see Mike...But she squashed all these ideas with the warm optimism that had arrived with the port and emptied her purse on the table.
'Checking my change,' she said solemnly, catching sight of Mrs.Wick's surprised expression. 'See I haven't lost any.'
She still had the remains of the shopping money, plus some money of her own. It might be enough. She had been trying to buy new jeans, but only succeeded in getting a new scarlet silk top, which was still crammed into her shoulder bag.
Underground fare to Charing Cross...A single ticket to Hastings...Of course it would be enough.
On the wings of this new surge of confidence, she got to her feet. She felt great now, she assured Mrs. Wicks, and thanked her in a very affectionate manner. Port certainly worked wonders for you.
Mrs. Wicks went with her to the front door, laughing.'You be careful how you cross the road, dear! I'm afraid you're a little bit on the go already. That's what we used to say in the old days - a little bit on the go. It's very strong port. You ought to have had that cake.'
Janey, warm and glowing now, waved with expansive confidence, and turned her face to the Underground. Her feet seemed to float a few inches off the pavement.
Copyright Liz Berry 2002. All rights reserved.
____________________________________