The Man Who Lived by Night (6 page)

Hoag:
Was anyone else listening to R and B here?

Scarr:
Mate, nobody here had ever
heard
of it. Except for a handful of us. There were a few other blokes at school playing skiffle, forming groups. It was when Rory and me were fourteen that we decided it was time to start a group of our own.
(end tape)

(Tape #3 with Tristam Scarr. Recorded in his chamber Nov. 21. Wears flannel shirt and faded denim overalls. Seems especially anxious to talk.)

Scarr:
There’s something I neglected to mention before. About myself. You should know about it.

Hoag:
Yes?

Scarr:
I can raise one of m’eyebrows.
(silence)
See?

Hoag:
How about the other eyebrow?

Scarr:
Other eyebrow?

Hoag:
Can you raise it, too? On its own, I mean.

Scarr:
No, that one doesn’t move.
(pause)
Are you saying you can raise
either
eyebrow?
(silence)
Bloody hell!

Hoag:
You decided to form a rock ’n’ roll band. How come?

Scarr:
To meet dolly birds.

Hoag:
That was the only reason?

Scarr:
That was plenty. First thing we did, right off, was work on a name. Had to have a name, didn’t we?

Hoag:
You know, I keep finding myself surprised when you and Rory sound like a couple of kids. But you
were
kids.

Scarr:
That we were. We talked it over real serious like. Came up with a number of possibilities—The Desperados, The Rebels, The Rattlers, The Rock Men, The Rough Boys. That’s what we settled on—The Rough Boys. Sounded, I don’t know …

Hoag:
Rough?

Scarr:
That’s it. Now that we had a name we had to have some proper electric guitars. Our acoustics just wouldn’t do, not for rock ’n’ rolling. We begged our mums and dads for the money to buy ’em, but they said no—Rory was about to get thrown out of Hampton, and I wasn’t doing much better. To them, rock ’n’ roll music was partly to blame. It
was
all we did.

Hoag:
So where did you get the money?

Scarr: (pause)
From the cash drawer of a fish-and-chips shop.

Hoag:
You’re kidding.

Scarr:
This old geezer, Murray, ran this little neighborhood shop near my flat. A trusting sort, he was—used to turn his back to the money drawer when he was working the fryer. The
open
money drawer. It wasn’t as if we planned it. We were just in there ordering chips one day, talking things over, and we saw this money sitting right there, and bam, that electricity I told you of passed between us. The geezer never knew what hit him.

Hoag:
I don’t suppose you paid him back when you hit it big?

Scarr:
Make a nice story, wouldn’t it? With interest, and perhaps a blanket to keep him snug in his old age? Fact is, it wasn’t so much as a consideration. Fuck the bugger. Never claimed I was an angel. Don’t try to make me out one. We took the money straight to Bell Music in Ewell Road, Surrey. They had gorgeous equipment there. It was a trip just to hold it. Made me feel like Chuck Berry. We had just enough for a pair of hollow-body Hoffman Senators and two old secondhand Vox fifteen-watt amps. Took ’em home, plugged ’em in, ran our fingers over the strings, and it was incredible. The sound reverberated. It was
alive.

Hoag:
Did you and Rory have any sense of your individual talents this early on?

Scarr:
Hmm … good question.

Hoag:
I try.

Scarr:
Rory had a knack. He would toy with a progression of chords, and have it come out sounding like something. He could
invent.
Me, I was the one ready to stick m’bleedin’ neck out. Comes time for the vocalizing, for showing some personality, a lot of the blokes faded to the back of the stage with their guitars. Not me. I wanted the mike. I wanted people paying attention to me, thinking I was special.

Hoag:
You still say you were doing all of this just to meet girls?

Scarr:
Don’t get deep on me, Hogarth … Of course, I also had poetry inside me, though I didn’t know that yet. There were plenty of unknown R and B songs around for us to play. Didn’t need to write our own for years.

Hoag:
You mentioned there were other guys at school forming groups.

Scarr:
Scruffs and misfits, all of ’em. Jim McCarty and Paul Samwell-Smith were at Hampton. They ended up forming the Yardbirds with Chris Dreja, Keith Relf, and Top Topham. Then Top left and Eric Clapton took his place. I got to know Eric and Keith a couple of years later when we were at Kingston Art College together.

Hoag:
I never knew you went to college.

Scarr:
Not college—
art
college. Every bleedin’ rocker in the U.K. went to art college, Hogarth, except for Michael Jagger, who went to the London bleedin’ School of Economics. Lennon went to one. Keith Richard, Townshend, Ray Davies of the Kinks, Eric, Pagey, Ron Wood, John Mayall … Know the old saying about how whores turn to religion when they get old? Rockers turn to painting. Art college is why. Art college and acid.
(laughs)
It was where they stuck us if we were dim and contrary and weren’t in prison yet. I reckon they thought we’d be pacified by playin’ with the finger paints. It was all a goof. Plenty of free time. Plenty of dollies in black stockings going through their artistic phase, if you know what that means. The only one who actually took it serious was Townshend, who to this day thinks he’s not so much a rocker as a bleedin’ concept artist, whatever the fuck that is … Where were we? … Yes, there were a few other blokes at Hampton playing. And we needed one to play bass—Derek. Rory and I both knew him, though not well. He sang in the choir. Was very popular. Good-looking. Nice clothes and manners. The sort that even the loveliest dolly birds wanted to stroke on the head. Christ, the
teachers
loved him. He had a few bob—dad was a dentist. Underneath, though, Derek was really a scruff, very into the Everly Brothers and Duane Eddy. Got a girl preggers when he was fourteen.

Hoag:
Is that so? What happened?

Scarr:
She had the baby, I believe. Of course, it was all hushed up good and proper when we hit it big. You’ll have to ask Derek about it. I’m sure he’ll recall—it isn’t as if he’s come in through the front door much since then, has he?

Hoag:
He had a guitar?

Scarr:
A Watkins Rapier. When we told him we wanted to have him in the Rough Boys to play bass and sing harmony with me, he said, “No problem.” That’s what he said to just about everything through the years—“No problem.” An agreeable bloke. Any group that stays together has to have one or two like him, with all the madness around … We took his Rapier to Bell Music and had it restrung as a bass. Derek kicked in for a microphone for us to sing into.
(laughs)
You know how on stage he always came over and sang his harmony into my mike, standing there face to face with me?

Hoag:
One of your trademarks. Sure.

Scarr:
That came about because one mike was all we could afford that day at Bell Music.

Hoag:
How did you three sound?

Scarr:
Awful. Derek didn’t know how to play the bass. But he picked it up soon enough. And he had that sweet, high-pitched voice that sounded good against mine, especially as mine got rougher. What we needed then, of course, was a drummer, and that got to be something of a hassle—very few blokes knew how to play the drums, and those who did didn’t know how to play rock ’n’ roll. Derek found us our first one, Andy Clarke, who played them in the school band. The four of us sounded bloody awful together. After a while, we finally figured out it was Andy, so out he went. And we were back to having no drummer. Then Rory got the boot from Hampton, which meant he had to work for Mr. Law in the roofing business.

Hoag:
He didn’t get along with his dad.

Scarr:
Or with heights. Also meant we had to practice nights now, only that’s when everybody’s mums and dads were home. So we had no place to play. That was the first time we broke up. First of many.

Hoag:
What you needed was a drummer whose parents both worked nights.

Scarr:
Did better than that, actually. One day on the job Rory met this bricklayer called Jackie Horner who said he’d played drums in a trad jazz band and had a hankering to try rock ’n’ roll. Couple of years older than us, he was. Had an uncle who ran a lorry repair garage, and he said we could use the garage to practice in at night. A fucking dream, this was. Could play as loud as we wanted, as late as we wanted. Even nick a tow van for gigs, once we started getting ’em … Christ, haven’t thought about those nights in the garage in a long time. It was so wonderfully scruff there. Freezing cold, smelling of oil. We’d play half the night, eating chips, drinking beer, smoking Woodies. Whatever dolly Derek was seeing would come by for a listen and bring her dolly friends. Was a big thing for ’em, hanging around late at night in this unheated garage with greasy rock ’n’ rollers. Naughty, y’know? They were our first groupies. Wonder where they are now … What was that one’s name … Molly? Yes. She and I’d get it on in the back of a lorry with a blanket around us. She wanted to be a beautician, as I remember. Can’t remember her face.

Hoag:
How did you guys sound?

Scarr:
Like a band now. Jackie’s drumming pulled the different pieces together, gave Derek’s bass a proper beat to hold onto. This was terrific progress for us. Meant they could dance to us now.

Hoag:
What was your repertoire?

Scarr:
Our “repertoire”?
(laughs)
The basics—“Blue Suede Shoes,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “That’ll Be the Day,” “Maybelline” …

Hong:
Tell me about your first gig.

Scarr:
This dolly who was hot for Derek convinced her rich dad to have the Rough Boys play at her graduation party. Rory and me, we didn’t even know how much to charge. Jackie thought ten pounds was fair, so that was our price—in advance, so we could buy our outfits. We all wore black trousers, white shirts and red ties. It wasn’t until we pulled up in our town van at this posh house, and saw all of these posh kids going in, that it hit us that we’d never played in front of an audience before. At least not an audience of more than four appreciative dollies. Must have been fifty laddies and dollies, and some mums and dads as well. Staring right at us.

Hoag:
At Woodstock you played in front of half a million.

Scarr:
We froze—all of us except for Jackie. Hands shook so bad we couldn’t set up our gear. Jackie had to calm us down, light us a Woodie. A solid soul he was. On our first number, “Maybelline,” m’voice cracked. But after I worked up a proper sweat I was fine. We were fine. They danced. They clapped. Had a grand old time. So did we. Christ, it was a gas up there, being the life of the party.
The life—
that was the best part of it for me, I think … From there we started playing youth club dances, church halls, picnics, here and there.

Hoag:
Looking back, did you have any idea where this was going to lead you?

Scarr:
None, other than to get us laid—and in punch-ups.

Hoag:
Punch-ups?

Scarr:
The dollies would give us the eye. I’d have ’em up on stage. Give ’em a big kiss, tell ’em their boyfriends were ugly. The boyfriends didn’t much fancy that. More often than not they’d be waiting for us out in the parking lot. A rocker had to be able to give it back in the early days. Rory and me and Jackie gave it back good. Derek always hid in the van—afraid for his face he was. It actually didn’t occur to us then that the Rough Boys might be a ticket for us, Hogarth. We thought about today. Having a laugh. Having it off. We didn’t think much about tomorrow. Didn’t seem to be any point in that. Wasn’t as if any of our lot were going anywhere, were we?

Hoag:
When did your thinking change?

Scarr:
Not long after that. I remember the date distinctly—October of ’62. That’s when the Beatles released “Love Me Do.” Things just exploded here after that. If you happened to be in a group like ours, you started thinking maybe it’ll happen to us, too. Maybe we’ll be the next ones. Why not, y’know? Within two years we were big. Very big. A bloody shame that Jackie couldn’t be part of it. He was the one who had to go when Puppy joined the group. Marco’s doing. Bloody shame, what with Jackie being so important to us early on.

Hoag:
I suppose every famous band has its Pete Best, the poor slob who missed the boat. Whatever happened to him?

Scarr:
He’s Jack, mate. M’chauffeur.

(end tape)

I
’D BEEN LIVING AT
Gadpole a week before I realized someone else was living there, too. Like I said, the place wasn’t small. I had dressed early for Merilee’s opening and was shooting pool in the panelled billiard room and snatching occasional glances at myself in the bevelled mirror behind the bar. Hard not to peek. There’s only a very select handful who can appear totally at home in a tux: Fred Astaire. Cary Grant. Marlene Dietrich. Me.

“So you’ll be the writer then?” asked a female voice, most English;

I turned to find a willowy black-haired girl there in the doorway. She was unusually tall and wore a sullen expression and no makeup. She didn’t need makeup. Her hair was lustrous and abundant, her eyes an arresting cornflower blue, her lips fat and pouty. Her arms and legs were very long, her hands and feet man-sized. She wore a wool buffalo plaid shirt untucked over black tights and pink ballet slippers. She was very sexy, if you like them tall and sullen and certainly not yet twenty.

“That’s right,” I replied, going back to work on the table. I had a nice light touch that evening. “It’s Hoagy.”

“I’m called Violet. Pammy told me you were here. Don’t you just love her?”

She seemed particularly young with her mouth open and words coming out, or maybe I was just getting to be particularly old. “Yes, I do. You’re a friend of T. S.?”