COLOURFUL LIFE OF JOHN WILLOUGHBY

 

COLOURFUL LIFE  OF JOHN WILLOUGHBY

 

 

 

Its always so great to hear stories from early days of rockin’scene. And its even more interesting when we can hear em from persons like John Willoughby who had played almost with everyone. And before me no one haven’t written their stories. Its like Wild West days on dark evenings at campfires. When those cowboys told their tails for other people.

 

Im feeling so humble and greatful because I can be little part of these nowdays tails and share more new stories bout that lovely scene that has given so much to me.

Big thankx to John bout his time stories and photos that he sent me and spent much time for doing all this. Big hand goes to Boz Boorer too as he made possible all this.

 

 

 

 

Backgrounds:

 

-I grew up in Harrow a town in north west London.It had a vey big Teddy Boy presence, which centered around a rockin' club called the 6-5 club.

I began going to the 6-5 in my schooldays with a few friends that were

my age. The older Teddy Boys didn't care for us younger Ted's and beat us up on a regular basis, but because we loved the music and enjoyed dancing we kept going back. 

 

New winds blowing:

 

Many years later during the late 70's early 80's the music startedto change. A record store in Harrow called The Bop Shop startedto introduce the younger folks to a ton of rockabilly tunes that had never been of heard before.

Like Charie Feathers, Mac Curtis,Johnny Carroll and thousands of other rare tracks, the older Ted's did not want to accept this stuff and only wanted to listen to the

more commercial 50's recordings of Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent,Elvis and Jerry Lee etc. We of course really loved these stars but were also open minded to the new raw sound of the rockabilly that we were now being exposed to. Of course many bands started to spring up trying to capitalise on the new hot sounds they were hearing and I greatly needed to get involved.

 

No money, no slap bass:

 

No bands back then had an upright double bass , a few bands eventually started to have one in their band line up but nobody had a "slap-bassist" a few bands tried to look the part but they just sounded like everybody else.

 

I desperately wanted to change that. Not having any money to buy such anexpensive instrument I decided the only way to obtain one was by breaking into my old school and stealing one from the band music room.

This turned into a very lucrative business for me as many guys in rockabilly outfits needed an upright bass, I became the go to guy for good plywood basses in the London area. Anders Janes from the Rhythm Cats and later The Stargazers and Phil from The Polecats were just a couple of fantastic bass players that acquired basses from me in the early days as well as many others.

 

Learning to play:

 

I had no musical training whatsoever but  felt the need to contribute to this new neo scene that was emerging. I started to try to play along to records that had great slap bass in them, like Bill Haley and the Elvis Sun sessions. I eventuallygot the slap down but was terrible at finding the right notes.

Finally I was able to make a decent attempt at Love Me an early Buddy Holly track on the Decca label. That really was my beginning as a rockabilly slap bass player in those early days, probably the late 70's I would say. Just prior to this time in 1976 the owner of The Bop Shop which I mentioned earlier had started a little record label called "Mr. C" and as I was a regular customer he asked me to sing a couple of songs for him (not very good by the way).

 

            John & Peter Davenport8

The interesting fact on these tracks is that they may be the first neo-billy songs with a slap bass on them, I cannot think of any other tracks that came before these. If you listen to the song "Hey Little Honey" by Johnny Boy and The Bobs the bass is definitely slapping. As a point of interest the musicians on most of the "Mr. C" recordings is Peter Davenport on bass, later of the Rhythm Cats and The Stargazers and the guitarist is the late Bob Solly who was a member of  David Bowie's band The Mannish Boys. All this in 1976 when everybody else in the world was listening to Fleetwood Mac and ABBA.

 

 

The Frantix & birth of  Neo/Psychobilly style

Even though I had jammed with Peter Davenport and Anders Janes prior to them even forming The Rhythm Cats mainly in church halls as Peter is a devout Christian and had access to these rooms to rehearse. 

 

          John with Anders Janes & Peter Davenport

My first real outing was when a few cats on the rockin’ scene decided to form a rockabilly band. We named ourselves The Frantix. The line up was Andy Martin on rhythm guitar and lead vocals, myself on the slap bass, Steve Diver on lead guitar and Ray Heath on stand up drums. We started to pick up steam while playing pubs and rockabilly clubs in and around the London area.

                   Tim Polecat, Ray Heath & John

Our look started to become more flamboyant as we were finding crazy clothing imported from the USA, mainly from the Kings road or Kensington market. Exaggerated pink peg pants and two tone shirts, we would normally wear chukka shoes as they were very English, looked great and were comfy on stage. We all greased our hair into big quiffs but as Andy’s hair was wavy and kept puffing out at the sides he decided to shave off the sides but leave the big quiff.

He also dyed his hair blonde and we followed suit. This for me was the very beginning of the Neo/Psychobilly style. 

 

          John & Dave Phillips

                   Model JOHN

Gaz’s Rockin’Blues:

We started to garner a good reputation on the rockin’ scene in London. There were some other wonderful bands happening also.

The Polecats, Levi Dexter, The Jets, The Shakin Pyramids and a few others. John Buck later of The Polecats had now joined us on drums as Andy Martin wanted a full kit in the band. One night we were packing up our gear after playing Gaz’s Rockin Blues Club in Soho in London. Gaz Mayall was this sweet and lovely fellow who adored great music and was very helpful to many rockin bands. When all of a sudden on the way out of Gaz’s club a big man with a red beard approached us in the stairwell and asked us if we were going to play some more. 

We said no. He told us he had heard we were a cooking band and he was devastated he’d missed us. He told us his name was Ted Carroll and that he was the owner of Chiswick and Ace records and that he was the ex manager of the Irish band Thin Lizzy.

Andy said don’t worry we are going to play for you right now, so we took out our instruments and began to play Long Blonde Hair right there on Dean Street in the middle of Soho late at night. He said we were really impressive and would we like to make an EP on his record label. The following weekend we headed into his office above the Rock On record shop in Camden Town and signed a contract. 

It was around this time we changed the band name from The Frantix to The Poorboys at the urging of Ted Carroll. He booked us in at the legendary Pathway Studios in North London for a total of 6 hours I believe. It took the studio engineer over 2 hours just to run all the cables and get the studio ready. We blasted through 4 tracks basically live with the odd overdub, and had just one or two tries at each tune. The result is the Move Baby Move EP on Ace records.

          JOHN,ROBIN SCOTT,BRIAN SETZER ...

The Poorboys:

As a footnote Robin Scott who later became Scotty Robinsjoined us on the ACE EP session on added vocals and percussion. Robin went on to record with The Polecats and became the manager of both Restless and The Deltas. As to the Psychobilly scene, this really started to emerge after we had left London and headed for New York, although The Poorboys did have a show booked as a double bill with Restless at The Clarendon/Klub Foot but our guitarist showed up late for the gig and we never played.

As to my thoughts on Psychobilly, as with most music genres some good and some bad, overall it is a very exciting type of music. Recently, many Psychobillies and folks that were in neo-rockabilly bands have told me how much The Poorboys influenced their early rockin' lives. This gives me great satisfaction as well as being very humbling as I was just a kid from a London council estate that wanted to get involved in the new burgeoning Rockabilly scene that was up and coming at the time.

As to The Poorboys playing around live in London at that time, we were doing maybe one gig a month sometimes two. We all had regular day jobs, Andy Martin oddly enough was an exterminator and I worked for the London underground as a

trackman, I cannot remember what the other guys did but I thinkJohn Buck worked fitting window blinds.

          1981 DISNEYLAND CA LEVI DEXTER &

           JOHN

 

Celts & Cobras

 

How my time with The Shakin' Pyramids came about. I had seen them playing around the London area and was introduced to them by Robin Scott (Scotty Robins). They were a super exciting band to watch, full of energy, they almost looked angry. The times that I had seen them play they had no bass player. They had an album scheduled to record  for the Virgin label and needed a slap bass player on some of the tracks. Robin had suggested to them that I might be a good fit for their upcoming Celts and Cobras album. 

They got in touch and a session was booked at Am-Pro recording studios in Shepherds Bush in west London. I was excited as this was a major label Virgin records, and some heavy hitters were involved as guest musicians like Geraint Watkins and Kirsty Maccoll. I knew Kirsty was married to the famous producer Steve Lillywhite and this would be a great project to get involved in. 

Truthfully, I was a less than average bass player in those days and really had no right to be playing with cats of this caliber. I did however come up with a pretty decent bass line for the track Sugar Bee, but as usual at this time in the early 80's the engineers and producers were completely clueless on how to record a slap bass, so of course they rolled all the slap off the track (might as well have just used a bass guitar).

I believe I only played on one other track but cannot remember which one. The album tanked as they went to far away from their original sound, and they broke up shortly after during a tour of Canada.

By now they had also acquired a permanent bass player, an American fellow that called himself Preston Lancs.  One funny anecdote I must share about The Shakin' Pyramids. One night Andy Martin the Poorboys lead singer and I were at the club Dingwalls in Camden Town in London.

The Pyramid's had just finished playing and we had run out of money to buy any more drinks. Now the Scottish people, which the Pyramids were, have a reputation in England of being extremely tight with money, and the band were still hanging around somewhere in the club. 

Andy went for a piss in the toilets and I went in with him to tidy up my hair. I asked Andy if we should try to tap up one of The Pyramids for some money for a drink. Then Andy went on a roll about the Scots being a load of tight bastards that wouldn't give you a penny. Just then we see a five pound note being waved over the top of the toilet door. It was James Creighton either smoking weed or having a shit. He must have heard every word we said. Lol! Andy took the fiver!!

USA calling:

The English press at the time had a few weekly music papers, one popular publication was Sounds. They had an independent Rock n Roll/Rockabilly chart and upon The Poorboys EP release it went straight in at number one and stayed there for six weeks. As usual, we made the wrong decision and decided to head for the USA to seek our fame and fortune,probably the worse call in our musical history.

 

 When we arrived in New York there was little to nothing of a rockin' scene at all, and sadly most of the so called rockin' bands were pathetic, with the exception of Robert Gordon and The Rockats , but they lacked a real slappin' bass sound in my opinion. Smutty the bassist in The Rockats did play an upright bass but was only picking it at the time.

I don't mean that to be derogatory in any way as Smutty Smiff single handedly brought the upright bass player to the forefront of rockin' music at that time and his antics on stage with the instrument were unequalled. I've know Smutty for many, many years now and he is a dear and valued friend. The rockin' audience was just as appalling, you would be lucky to see 3 quiffs in the whole crowd.

 

          

            JOHN & BRIAN SETZER

What the American audiences were doing at the time was to dress up in different outfits to see various types of bands. If it was a punk band they were going to see they would wear a slashed tee shirt, if it was a rockabilly band they would wear a Hawaiian shirt or a zipper jacket, unlike Europe where the fans lived and breathed their musical tastes 24 hours a day.

The guys who were booking the live venues were just as clueless. They did not know where to place The Poorboys on a multiple band night. We played a show at The Ritz probably New Yorks premier club at the time, and the promoter put us on with a Goth band from the UK called Specimen, he decided to put us both on the bill together as we were all from the UK. Specimen were a big and up and coming Goth band at the time, so they drew a large audience of those type of fans. There we were playing neo-rockabilly to a crowd that looked like Robert Smith from The Cure. 

ONE SPECIAL GIG ONLY WITH THAT COOL LINE-UP : LEVI DEXTER, JERRY PREFONTAINE (ROCKIN REBELS), JIMMY (JIMMY & THE MUSTANGS), TIM SCOTT (wrote SWEAR song for SHEENA EASTON) & JOHN.

1981 or 1982 CATHAY DE GRANDE HOLLYWOOD.

Oddly enough they were quite receptive toward us. At this time Steve Diver had joined us in New York and we had recruited Robert Gordons drum tech Mick Oakleaf toplay the drums. We had been in touch with John Buck to possibly come over at some point but The Polecats had approached him in our absence and he rightfully joined them. The Polecats still like to remind us that they "poached" John. Ha!Ha!

It was a no brainer for John to hook up with The Polecats as they were far more successful than we were.  The Polecats have always been one of my most favorite bands and we've all been pals for longer than I care to remember, and are still in touch with one another, we all did our band in van apprenticeships in London on the rockin' scene when we were in our teens.

 

Leee Black Childers:

 

          JOHN,LEE BLACK CHILDERS & TOM FERRIE

                                      2010 

On arrival to the USA we used the famous late Leee Black Childers as our manager, Leee formally managed the New York Dolls and also Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, he was also part of the Andy Warhol factory crowd and was the stage manager of an Andy Warhol play called Pork which was at the Roundhouse venue in Chalk Farm London. We had previously met Leee in London when he had attended a few Poorboys shows. He had come to a show at The Plough in Alperton with some members of Siouxsie and the Banshees and we had a nice discussion about helping us out if we ever came to the USA.  Leee helped us out greatly in New York and had even found us a few places to stay, he also got us some great gigs, but he was extremely busy and seemed to be travelling continuously.

So we took on a manager from Detroit named Tom Barrett, he had a few contacts in the music industry and was friends with a local producer  Michael Young.  Michael was also well connected musically and secured us a recording session in upstate New York at Todd Rundgrens Utopia studios. This was a session that lasted a few days and we all stayed at the studio overnight as they had beds that pulled out of the walls.

 

The Poorboys at that time were: Andy Martin (lead vocal) Steve Diver (lead guitar) myself (upright bass) Carl Lanfrit (rhythm guitar) and Mick Oakleaf (drums). Tracks recorded were Catman, Mama Rock and Dancin' With The Rebels.

The Poorboys had a quite regular gig at The Pyramid Club on Avenue B on New Yorks lower east side. Leee had originally got us the venue and we always seemed to get a date when we needed one. Robert Plant was playing in the city at Madison Sq garden during his Principal Of Moments tour and his daughter was a fan of The Stray Cats.

His tour people wanted to have an after party after the Garden show somewhere in NY cityand try and have the Stray Cats play. They had been in contact with  the Pyramid Club about hosting the show but decided the venue was just too small. The folks at The Pyramid suggested The Be Bop Cafe on eighth street and had put our name forward as the band for the night. To our surprise they went for it. So we rock and rolled for a celebrity filled club until the early morning. Robert Plant and some others sat and watched us for a while but they were so busy hob nobbing with all the other stars in attendance they had little time for anything else.

 

 

Andy Martin & Prison Walls:

 

Now we must come to the sordid subject of whether Andy Martin was difficult to work with. I would venture to say most folks would give a resounding YES! Andy had his demons and did not suffer fools lightly. Like most incredibly talented vocalists he was a mercurial character. Often resorting to outbursts of threatening behavior or actual violence.

At the recording session of the AceEP Steve Diver had annoyed him in some way and Andy threw his beloved Hoffner hollow body guitar against the wall. Miraculously no serious damage was done and Steve was able to play his parts. The outcome of the EP might have been very different had Steve’s guitar been smashed.

Another memorable time was following the Michael Young sessions in Utopia, we were all at the drummer Mick Oakleaf’s apartment  on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. We had called a band meeting to try to collaborate  on some songwriting together. One song in particular had come out quite well. Michael Young had added in a couple of chords and wanted co writer credit. Andy told him his contribution on the song was little to nothing and refused to put his name as a co author.

 

They began to get in a heated argument. Andy finally threatened to punch Michael in the face, and with that Michael got up, said that he was insulted and that no musician he had ever worked with had ever spoken to him like that. He then stormed out of Micks apartment and refused to work with us again. He also refused to let us have the Utopia recordings. Mick was finally able to coax them out of him some 20 years later.

 

Just to fast forward while we are on the subject of Andy’s outbursts. Steve Divers 6 months visa to the USA had run out and one day he just got on a plane and went back to the UK. The first we knew about this was when he called us and said he was home. The band unraveled and Mick and Carl went their separate ways. We had a quick tour of  the UK lined up in a few months and decided to call ourselves Jet Black Machine (more on that later). We picked up two guys from ads  in the local music papers. On guitar was Greg Bury later of the Psychobilly band Speed Crazy and Larry Mulqueen from NY on drums. Andy thought they were both sub par musicians and told me to get someone else to fill their shoes. 

As we were only a week or two away from going to the UK and  had committed to playing certain venues Andy agreed to take them on board although letting me know on many occasions he was way to good to front a band like this. All in all the tour went well. Shortly after our return the guitarist Greg hosted a fancy dress party  at his home down the Jersey shore and Larry the drummer came dressed up as a soldier. 

 

Andy’s animosity towards him had not wavered and he started to take the piss out of Larry calling him a little GI Joe and other insults. As the night wore on they became drunker and swapped insults continuously. Larry finally had enough and asked Andy to step outside, to which Andy obliged. Larry hauled off and punched Andy, he wobbled a bit but didn’t go down. The two swapped a few more blows before Andy overpowered him then sat on top of him and began to pummel his face until he was unrecognizable

 

I’m sure he had to be hospitalized. Greg was in such shock that he refused to have anything to do with Andy ever again. Andy was overjoyed the next day at getting rid of them even to the point of saying if he ever saw Larry the drummer again he’d give him another kicking. This gives you some idea of  how Andy could be. Having said that though and in his defense he was a one of a kind vocalist that blew most others off their microphones. He could be incredibly funny until you had tears running down your face (Normally at the expense of others) and was very intelligent., and strangely was a big lover of animals. It’s a shame he was the way he was sometimes as he had cost us some amazing things in the music business. 

 

Unfortunately, his wicked ways finally caught up with him and he was sentenced to 10 years in an American prison on serious drug charges. He done his time in the notorious ASPC Lewis in Buckeye Arizona, one of the most vicious and dangerous prisons in the USA. 

The beginning of Jet Black Machine.

After Steve Diver went home to the UK, and The Poorboys folded Andy wanted to take the band in a more modern and commercial direction. So we formed JBM.

Cafe Bar Ausbury Park , NJ.

JET BLACK MACHINE GIG WITH SUN SESSION. SONNY BURGESS told after gig: "One if the greatest bands that I ever have seen."

Back: 

GARY GARRENDER (guitar), BOB JAMES (drums) & MARTY CASTROGIAVANNI (guitar).

Front:

ANDY MARTIN. DJ FONTANA (drums) & JOHN (slap bass).

We recruited a few local guys from musical publications and started to audition drummers and guitar players, finally settling on Bob James on drums and an incredibly fantastic guitarist Gary Garrander. Gary was a bit of an older guy but could play anything.

We done a few rehearsals and began to play out live. I had recently been in touch with Boz again after some years, and found out he was now playing with Morrissey. They were out on Morrissey’s Your Arsenal tour and were heading to the east coast of the USA. Boz had called and asked if we could put a band together to finish a few dates of  the tour. Of course we were grateful for the opportunity to do it. The shows went really well, with the exception of Andy causing his usual Prima Donna troubles and almost getting us booted of the gigs.

 

Vince Taylor:

Just to go back a bit, we had decided on the name Jet Black Machine obviously in tribute to the late great Vince Taylor. Whom I was lucky enough to have met on many occasions. He had been brought over to the UK by Roy Williams of Nervous Records and formally  The Wild Wax show and had attended a few rockin’ clubs. On one particular morning some rockin’ friends and I were heading to the Kings Road in London to go fighting in the Ted/ Punk wars, on the side of the Teds I might add. We were on the tube train somewhere around the Sloan Square station when my friend Phil Whyte says isn’t that Vince Taylor. To my surprise it was Vince, but something must have happened to him since our last meeting as he had a scar down his face with fresh stitches in it. 

He also completely remembered who I was saying he remembered out chatting at The Tithe Farm rockin club in South Harrow. He was pretty disheveled looking, unshaven with and old woolen trench coat on. He asked where we were all going, we told him down the Kings Rd to bash punks. His eyes lit up and he insisted on joining us. We had the hardest time trying to convince him not to come. Every time we calmed him down and he sat back in his seat he would jump up again saying he wanted to join us for a punch up.

You don’t get more rockin’ and true to the cause that that! RIP Vince baby!

Record deal:

As to the Phantom Power label of JBM.

After the Morrissey Your Arsenal tourthings started to go cold for the band and yet again Andy got restless for a more successful form of music. He moved to Arizona with his then girlfriend and formed a band called My House Your House. I never  found out what happened to this band or how long they lasted. I heard that Andy had moved backed to London and his father had set him up running a footwear store in a town called Potters Bar where he and John Buck both originally came from. Yet again I decided to reform a version of JBM with some local guys. Billy war(vocals) Walt Riback (lead guitar) George Andrew (drums) and myself on bass guitar and upright bass.

We cut one CD with Phantom Power records in New York. George was a phenomenal drummer, a child protege who practiced at least 6 hours a day. George was always unhappy with Billy’s vocals and pushed to replace him as the front man, Walt refused to change Billy with another lead singer so the band split up with Walt and Billy going one way and George and I going the other. 

I don’t know whatever happened to Walt and Billy musically but I believe Billy became a teacher and Walt worked for a pharmaceutical company. George and I became the rhythm section for rockabilly legend Robert Gordon for many years until the untimely death of George. Unfortunately he took his own life at the all too young age of 36. Depression is a terrible thing!

Morrissey & rockabilly guys:

To address one of your questions on why I think Morrissey used Boz, Alain Whyte and Gary Day in his band. I think he really went  for the rockabilly look, I mean he had a sort of neo rockabilly look himself at the time. Plus they are all great musicians and can add greatly to any lead vocalist. I know all of them personally and can attest to the fact they are all real lovely guys without bad attitudes and they’re a real pleasure to know in any capacity. 

Mr. Lucky One:

Periodically throughout the years I’ve been fortunate to be able to play with some of my friends and heroes. One such time was at a Psychobilly festival in NJ, USA. Steve Chapman who runs the UK record label Fury was the organizer for this event. Steve and I were old mates and just happened to sharethe same apartment in the UK in the late 70’s. He had asked Tim the lead singer of The Polecats to play at the show. Tim then called me and asked if I could put a band together to back him up. 

Of course as I love Tim, and him being a true pioneer of the neo Rockabilly movement I made a few calls and had a quick rehearsal to do some tracks that Tim wanted to play. Dave Van Epp was on lead guitar, George Andrew on drums and myself on bass. It was a frantic show and we were well received. As Tim was in town we had put another show together at the legendary CBGB club on New York City’slower east side.

 For this show Tim wanted  two drummers. I cannot remember the other drummers name only that he came from Staten Island NY. The show kicked off and we were rocking along, Tim in his normal stage fashion started going wild, running up the walls on some framework they had. Then he started swinging on the clubs piping. 

The next thing I know I felt some water spraying on me, then I started to get little electric shocks to where it was to difficult to play from the pain. I turned around and Tim had started a waterfall in the club. The sound man switched off the power but the water was flooding the club. We decided to make a run for it. We packed up at lightning speed and were heading up the stairs to get out, but the firemen were coming down in full gear with masks and axes. 

We managed to get by but the bouncers tried to stop us. We forced our way out and I ran to get my Chevy Suburban truck to load up and beat it. We loaded up and got ready to fly, but David Van Epp was so anxious to go he grabbed at the front seats and broke the bolts. Then the owner of CBGB’s Hilly Crystal came running by the truck.

 

We were all in the truck except the drummer from Staten Island. I started to take off but because Dave Van Epp had broken the seat bolts I was laying down in the front seat like a bed and couldn’t see over the dashboard. Tim propped my head up and we started racing up the Bowery in Manhattan trying to escape. We left the other drummer behind and to this day know one knows what ever happened to him. CBGB’s closed forever not long after this gig!

Sharp pen:

On the subject on my song writing or collaborating on writing a song

I really haven't been influenced by anybody, well not that I can think of, maybe subliminally. 

Recording sessions & motorbikes:

The JBM Fortune Teller was recorded at Presciption Studios in Clifton, NJ.With the great engineering and co-production work of the legendaryMike Somoracki working the board. Mike has been with all of Andy and my musical endeavors since coming to the USA, he knows by now what our requirements are and is one of the only studio guys who knows how to record and produce the upright slapping rockabilly bass. 

Mike is also an avid motorcyclist and we have ridden our motorcycles together through the hills and farmlands of NJ together, Mike on his vintage 72' Harley Sprint and me on a Triumph Bonneville American bobber. We were fortunate to have Tetsuya from the Japanese label On The Hill records release some ourmaterial, this album being some of therecordings. We are quite proud of it, and think it has stood the test of time.

 

Rockin’scene today:

As to the rockin' scene nowadays, where I live on Americas east coast there isn't one. There used to be a bar in Manhattan called The Rodeo bar.

It really was the only beacon for any rockabilly in the city, any touring rockin' band played there on the way through, there really was nowhere else, but even that has gone.  There doesn't seem to be many new young bands taking up the torch for the rockabilly movement these days, there are a few semi-rockabilly outfits, most of them have long beards like confederate soldiers, as hard as I try I cannot wrap my head around that being a rockin' look on or off stage. Europe obviously has a more vibrant rockabilly/psychobilly scene and always has. Thank God!

Stanhope House  NJ

STEVE CONTE (NY DOLLS/BILLY SQUIRE), ALBERT BOUCHARD (BLUE OYSTER CULT),ROBERT GORDON RIP❤ & JOHN

Smile on face:

The final funny story for you is one John "The Bomb" Buck likes to tell.

On the 1996 tour of Japan The Polecats and The Rockats were sharing the double billing on shows. As the night wore on all band members were becoming more and more inebriated. Some members of both bands were in the dressing room, but other band members had gone outside to check

         POLECATS 1996 JAPAN

out the club. Boz decided to hang his arse over the top of the dressing room door, it was positioned in such a way that anybody trying to come inside would crash into Boz's arse. We all sat patiently drinking beers and giggling waiting to see who the unfortunate person would be. 

We didn't have to wait long before Barry the Rockats lead guitarist pushed on the door and his nose went up Boz's arse. We all fell on the floor rolling around laughing! There were always mental things happening on band tours.

The Polecats were particular bastards..they called me out of my hotel room one night like there was a fire, I jumped out of bed naked and ran in the hall.

Then they locked me out of my room so I couldn't get back in. They all ran back to their rooms and locked the doors. I had to go down to the lobby covering my bollocks with my hands to get a spare key. This was in Japan and you can imagine what that was like. They bow to each other politely for everything.

There was me with my arse hanging out waiting on line to speak to the concierge.

Hilarious now..not so funny then!

Little campfire story:

 In 1995 JBM played a show at a club in Clifton, NJ called Connections. It was the line up with Billy War on vocals. Jerry Garcia had just died and we

were playing a cover of Bela Lugosi’s Dead by the UK goth band Bauhaus. When all of a sudden Billy War just out of nowhere started to sing Jerry Garcia’s dead instead of Bela Lugosi’s dead. 

The owner flipped his wig and stormed the stage pulling all of our equipment out of the electric sockets. Then he threw us the fuck out in the rain, we in turn called him a long haired hippie wanker and said that his club was a depressing shit hole. He said never try to come back and we told him to fuck off! Apparently he was a massive fan of The Grateful Dead. Lol!

THE END

THE POORBOYS AT HECKLES & JECKLES 

 

 AS YOU CAN SEE JOHN HAS PUT A LOT OF HIS FREE TIME FOR THIS INTERVIEW & DIGGING UP ALL THOSE COOL PHOTOS. BIG HAND TO JOHN.

IM SO GRATEFUL BOUT HIS HELP ON THIS.