17. "77 Sunset Strip" stamp kick...or should it read 'trip' at the Rhodesian Rock Band Competition.

Sometime in 1962, soon after he joined the band, Hodge introduced us to singer by the name of Verlaine Crisp...who ended up singing with us -- for awhile. Around the same time Jack McGroarty a singer who heralded from Bulawayo appeared on the scene and also hooked up with the band.  

For the Chequers singers were like London buses; not a sign of one for ages then two appeared on the scene at once. 

I have a photographs of them performing with the band. Verlaine at the Punch Bowl.

                                         what happened to the audience?

...and Jack at the Kamfinsa Hotel.

Come 1963 the Chequers engagement 'cupeth' was overflowing. We had regular weekly sessions at the Kamfinsa Hotel, the Punch Bowl  and at the S.O.E. Hall (Sons Of England Hall)...most Fridays and every Saturday night saw us playing somewhere, if not for a dinner and dance at some hotel, then at a High School or sports club. And then, to top it off, we were offered the Saturday lunchtime session at the La Bo (La Boheme Night Club). Alan was going out with the owner’s daughter at the time which I'm sure helped swing it for us.

The rise in the Chequers’ fortune, financial as well as standing was reflected in our new instruments.

Lea gave up his hotch-potch drum kit for a set of silver glitter Pearl drums... 

...then shortly after splashed out  on a red glitter Premier set...with added bongos and crash cymbals.

Alan sold his violin shaped Hofner bass and bought a Fender style Hofner bass.

I bought a Hofner guitar...

...then moved onto an Ibanez...

 ...and ended up Kay Red devil.

Hodge replaced his Burns guitar for a Fender Stratocaster and a Echolette echo chamber.

Lea and I sold the Watkins Copicat  Echo Chamber we’d been using solely for vocals and replaced it with the Meazzi PA System.

Oh, yeah...Jack had bought a Shure microphone.

Around this time we entered “The Rhodesian Rock Band Competition” which was to be held for the first time at the Glamis Stadium during the Agricultural Show...it would be the setting for an embarrassing incident which centred on the theme tune to one of the most popular TV shows of the day, “77 Sunset Strip”...

...not the actual instrumental theme tune we covered but the ridiculously complicated set of synchronized steps and kicks we had devised to go with it. 

Things had moved on leaps and bounds since the ‘Beat Girl’ days and ‘77 Sunset Strip’ was as good as it got choreographically for The Chequers. Every time the eight note musical phrase “77 Sunset Strip” was played, Hodge, Alan and I would stamp on the first beat and give a kick on the second... Imagine the ‘Tiller Girls’ with guitars – that was us.  

77 Sunset Strip, stamp, kick!  77 Sunset Strip, stamp, kick!  77 Sunset Strip, stamp, kick! The three identical eight note musical phrases made up the chorus. The rest of the tune followed accompanied by a series of walks and box steps before returning to the chorus and the stamps and kicks.

The number seemed to go down well with audiences so we decided we’d open and end our set with it at the rock band competition.

Stamps and kicks are all well and good if the stage you’re stamping and especially kicking on is stable...not so great if it moves. The stage at the agricultural show’s rock band competition moved. It had to. It was designed to move. It’s what’s known in the theatre as a ‘revolve’...a stage that revolves on a central axle, like a gramophone record on a turn-table. The revolve stage is usually divided into sections. In the case of the Rock Band Competition it was divided into two equal halves by a wall, which meant at any given time half the stage was visible to the audience and half was hidden. Which meant at the Rock Band Competition, a band, let’s call them for arguments sake, ‘Band A’ would be performing on the visible half of the stage while a second band, ‘Band B’ was busy setting up hidden from view behind the wall....so when ‘Band A’ finished playing instead of the audience having to wait for ‘Band B’ to troop on and set up, the revolve stage turned 180 degrees, that’s a half circle for those of you not in the know, and ‘Band B’ having set up during ‘Band A’s performance would swing round into view, ready to kick off. 

And so it went on, Band C setting up whilst Band B played, Band D setting up while Band C played, etcetera, etcetera, until all the twenty odd competing bands had set up, spun round and performed.

Before proceeding with this tale of humiliation I should mention, because it’s integral to what happened, that the ‘revolve stage’ in use at the Glamis Stadium for the Rock Band Competition sponsored by Texan Cigarettes was a great cumbersome beast. Constructed out of heavy angle iron and thick wooden planks it stood a towering eight feet off the ground and ran on large heavy industrial rollers on a circular track. As there was no electronic motors available to turn this great unwieldy beast it had to be pushed manually by a small army of stage hands secreted beneath the stage, screened from the audience by a cloth apron that reached to the ground.

On the night of the rock band competition as soon as the band on before us swung round to face the audience and the gear of the band who had just finished had been cleared we staggered up a set of BOAC boarding steps, the organisers had ‘borrowed’ from the airport, onto the stage with our guitars, amplifiers, drums, mics, mic stands and speaker columns, etc., and set up. 

Music crescendoed on the audience side of the stage and loud cheering erupted.  A man ran up the BOAC steps and instructed us to start playing then dashed down the steps and out of sight. 

With adrenalin pumping and the stage facing away from the audience, Lea counted us in. With great gusto we went into “77 Sunset Strip”.

‘77 Sunset Strip’...Stamp...Alan, Hodge and I stamped like we’d never stamped before.

The stage still hadn’t moved.

Then on the second beat came the kick!  As our legs shot up as one... disaster struck. At that precise moment when our right feet were at their zenith and we were at our most vulnerable balance-wise, it happened.  The stage hands concealed under the ‘revolve’ gave the stage an almighty shove...they had to, it was so heavy they had to attack it violently to start the bloody thing moving. We swung round into view of the audience hopping frantically to regain our balance – why is it when someone, anyone, loses their balance whilst hopping they don’t put down the other foot to steady themselves, nobody does.

Did one of us teeter on the edge of the stage arms wind-milling to regain balance and coming an gnat’s bollock away from falling off...or is that an embellishment added to the memory mix over time?  I’m not sure. But what I do remember the audience found it was pretty damn funny. Not a great start to a rock band competition... Incidentally we didn't win.

           Rock Band Competition Glamis Stadium Salisbury

                                 Proof we actually had fans!

I have come to the conclusion The Chequers were jinxed when it came to rock band competitions, or cursed as something always went wrong. The Rock band competition at Glamis Stadium hadn’t been our first foray into the competition of a rock. In fact it had been our second. The first had taken place a couple of years earlier at the Duthie Hall and didn't exactly go to plan either. 

We were performing the Eddie Cochrane hit, “C'mon Everybody”. Duncan Harvey was on lead, it was just prior to him leaving. A guy named Tommy Coulter was our singer. I can’t remember how or why he came to joined us. I just remember he was singing with us at the time.

Anyway, we were on stage performing, “C'mon Everybody”. Things weren't going too bad (no one was actually booing us). Tommy finished the second chorus and the rest of band went into the customary instrumental break.

It was then that Duncan must've had a brainstorm because he suddenly changed key to E. As Alan and I were playing in the key of C the result was...well, let's just say it wasn't easy listening. It took a moment to register that something gone wrong. We looked across at Duncan and shouted, “C”!!! Simultaneously he shouted back, “E”!!! You guessed it. We changed to E and he changed to C. The discordant racket continued. 

Eventually we sorted it out by which time we had lost any chance, albeit an extremely small outside chance, of winning. That was our first Rock Band competition. There would be a third but that comes a tad later after we had turned pro.