Sick Transits and Glorious Mondays

The dark blue Ford Transit pulled up outside Ana Marie's house in Harrow Weald, and waited while Ana finished cutting Buddy's hair. Being a trainee hairdresser, The Chevrons allowed her to practice on them. This saved them having to pay for haircuts and gave the impression of a corporate tonsorial image. It was Lump who had recruited her after they were introduced by Gobber John, The Chevrons' occasional roadie. Gobber justified his name after he once turned up late to meet the van outside Harrow County Grammar school having been detained for "Gobbing" at a master. Harrow County was also attended by Clive Anderson and Michael Portillo though neither were known to gob but at least one deserves to be a recipient. Lump had met Ana in the Royal Oak in Harrow, known to The Chevrons as The Gateway, their off duty watering hole. She was singing along to "Reunited" by Peaches and Herb; a performance only surpassed in its eroticism by her eating a saveloy routine.

'Eurghhhhhh wot sat smell? It dun 'arf pong!' Ana screeched as she took her customary seat on one of the upturned speaker cabinets next to Feedback and behind the driver. Buddy took his customary referee position between The Frog at the wheel and Lump on the passenger seat.
'Dun 'Arf Pong, isn't that the new chinky in Rayners Lane?' The Frog joked.
'I had to do a removal job yesterday. I've gotta earn a living.' Lump replied to Ana.
'Whatever the fuck did you move?' Buddy Enquired like a US tabloid.
'Horse shit.' Lump Confessed like Edward.
'In that case you better flash the ash to hide the smell!' Ana demanded.
Lump produced a small green and white pack of Player's Number Six.
'Numbies,' Ana disapproved, 'I fawt you only smoked Rotguts.'
'S'all they had in the machine outside the sweet shop when I got back last night.'
The van turned left by the Goodwill to All.
'Did a gig there once,' Buddy mentioned to complete indifference.
They then passed the Kodak factory.
'I worked there once.' Lump mentioned, and as he did so the other four all shouted, 'You always say that.' Just as they always did.


Lump working at Kodak was inevitable, part of the circle of life in that part of former Middlesex. He had only "temped" there for a week but all his mother's side of the family had worked there. He also knew of many other local musicians who had worked for Kodak at some point.
'How are we doing for money?' Feedback asked Buddy who kept the books though no one would ever have dared ask if he ever wrote in them.
'We just spent everything on new tyres but we have got some paying gigs coming up. Thirty quid from the Stapleton in Crouch Hill, thirty from the Two Brewers in Clapham and a percentage of the bar at the Swan Hammersmith.'
'No, the Swan cancelled.' The Frog interjected. 'The bastards gave our night to Iron Maiden.' He had phoned the Swan that afternoon from his managerial office: the table by the phone in Ben's Cafe.
'Let's hope this New Wave of Heavy Metal Crap dies out soon.' Lump wished.
'T'was better than all that New Romantic SHIT wernit?' The drummer effluenced.
'Well I like Duran Duran, I do.' Feedback admitted like a turnstile, missing the point as usual.
'So do I.' Ana agreed.
'Well you would; you're a hairdresser.' Lump bitched like a Jackie Collins novel.
'And we've sold fifty singles.' Buddy continued.

They had recorded a single at their own cost at Airport Studios in Southall. As a joke, and like most of their jokes it was misinterpreted by everyone other that Buddy and Lump, the single had been a double 'B' Side: "Sindy's got an Action Man" b/w "No More Tears Sally Ann" on Shy Talk Records.

They turned right at the lights in Wealdstone and past the Queens Arms pub.
'Did a gig there once.' Buddy ritually recited.
'Half a gig and paid off.' The Frog corrected.

Saint Mary's Church stands on top of Harrow Hill three to four hundred feet above the surrounding blanket of inhabitation. Seated on a flat tombstone on its south west side young Byron gazed at the magnificent view. In a crater overlooking Lowlands Road, hippies looked to the stars and experienced lysergic hallucinations, and in sight of the hill The Chevrons pulled up outside the Railway Tavern on Wealdstone Bridge. Here The Who had played and had celebrated the fact by immortalising the inside of the pub with a photo of their seventies Greatest Hits compilation: "Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy". It was here that The Chevrons had arranged to meet Wernit after he finished work at Harrow Civic Centre. They could have arranged to meet him outside the British Legion where they occasionally rehearsed but they enjoyed feeling part of the legend of rock and roll.

Wernit assumed his traditional position beside Ana and Feedback.
'That's where I bought these camouflage trousers wernit?' The animated drummer shrieked as they passed Sid's second hand shop in the parade next to the Harrow Civic Centre, where he worked as a printer.
'What camouflage trousers?' Buddy Jet asked.
'These ones I'm wearing.'
'I thought you were wearing foliage.'
'I thought we could all wear combat gear.' He continued, ignoring the wind up.
'Nah forget combat.' Lump declared like a winning cricket team.
'Why?'
'COZ THE CLASH HAVE DONE COMBAT TO DEATH!'
'Up the Stones!' Buddy shouted as they drove by the Wealdstone Football Club ground. 'I reckon we should challenge Small Hours to a five-a-side football match.'
'What you mean literally, physically play football?' The Frog exclaimed in a way that emphasised the impracticality of such an idea.

To the Frog figuratively playing metaphysical football would have been more his style. To imagine the others as a football team would have challenged even the most disordered mind. Lump would claim that his bulk was at least solid but it was only solid in comparison to liquid and gas. Lump was solid as trifle. Wernit was skinny with long angular limbs; to watch him stand up was like watching Bambi trying to recover his stature on the ice. Feedback always looked like the wimp of the gang, afraid to damage the spectacles he never wore. Only Buddy Jet gave an appearance of athleticism but this just might have been another confidence trick, in the same way he could trick whole audiences into believing he could sing and play the guitar. There is a subtle distinction between art and entertainment; Buddy was an entertainer who hated art and, like Chris Tarrant on Tiswas, you had to admire him, though you were never sure why.

Small Hours, on the other hand, were a fit-looking Mod revival band with two mean looking roadies.
'Did a gig there once.' Buddy, Lump and Wernit chanted as they passed the Havelock pub.
The Chevrons had done many gigs at the Havelock in their pre Ana, Feedback and Frog days.

The van turned right into College Road.
'Where the fuck are you taking us? We are supposed to be going to bloody Dingwalls, or are you perhaps looking to find a ley-line with the right vibe maaaan?' Lump mocked.
'Ner ner ner, I'm a fat Lump and I can't get laid.' The Frog replied.
'Well at least I know my way round.'
'You are a fucking round; a round the fuckin' bend.'
'I thought you two were mates?' Buddy observed.

Indeed it was Lump who had reluctantly suggested that The Frog auditioned as prospective bass player. On the day, the only other applicant proved to be extremely able, but turned up wearing a London Transport uniform having come directly from his job as a ticket collector at Harrow on the Hill Station. The Frog appeared wearing a stripped Breton style T-shirt and a large floppy hat. He apologised for being late by passing a joint around. Warhol could not have designed a more apt bass player and, so taken were Lump and Buddy by his ability to jam on songs he had never heard, that they gave him the job. It never occurred to them to ask him if he actually owned a bass.

Lump realised what kind of mistake they'd made after months of the Frog being late, jamming songs that he had not bothered to learn and having to borrow a bass to do the gig. Lump and Buddy agreed that treachery was the only sensible course of action. Then one day Feedback approached them. They knew him to be a skilled bass player, owner of a one thousand Watt Public Address system and looking to join a band. As The Frog's friend, Lump was assigned the Macbeth role. The moment came after The Frog missed a gig at the Duke of Lancaster in New Barnet, unable to get a lift back from the Reading Festival. The following evening Lump offered to take the Frog out for a drink. Together they quaffed a pint or three of Ben Truman as Lump prepared his friend for the blow, like George pointing Lenny towards the promised land before shooting him in the head in Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men'. After beating about the bush and any other shrubs he could find, Lump was ready to weald the axe, when The Frog put him out of his misery:
'I reckon you should get that guy with the PA system to play bass and just let me be the manager.' It was a far far better thing he was doing; like a man going to the guillotine in place of his friend.

'Did a gig there once.' Buddy announced as the blue van passed the Roxborough and turned left over the railway.

The Frog pulled the Transit into the National Petrol Station known locally as Bessborough. It was the place to go during the night when grasped by an attack of the munchies, when craving for Crunchies, when you're so spaced out only a Mars will do.

He parked away from the pumps and announced the imposition of a 'Quid whip' for petrol.
'But we've got petrol.' Lump observed.
'NO, this is for the petrol I put in last night.'
'You're a fucking twat.' Lump remonstrated.

The Frog had complete mastery of the languages of both Shakespeare and Dickens and that of Voltaire, Victor Hugo and de Sade. Of top of that he could speak fluent Alf Garnet, Billy Connolly, Max Boyce, Jasper Carrott and all other regions. He could distinguish between Canadian and Cajun French and imitate any colonial British accent. In addition to this, he could effectively impersonate celebrities and companions alike. He would often "do" Lump in such a way that the all the band recognised apart from Lump himself who believed it was just another one of The Frog's collection of generic silly voices. To say that the Frog had a way with language was like saying Stradivarius could knock up a half-decent fiddle.

Perhaps it was the overwhelming choice of responses at his disposal or just the uncanny knack he had of knowing exactly how best to 'wind Lump up', that forced him to reply, 'Na ner na ner ner!' in a childish playground singsong fashion whilst holding his thumb to his nose, as with fingers splayed he offered the final gesture from Vonnegut's 'Cat's Cradle'. He walked into the shop and emerged some moments later carrying Wernit's snare drum.

Stanmore