13
THE BAND FROM
SNOWY RIVER
LEON: Now that the R’Jays had pulled the Manly Pacific out
of the shit, Nick Devery was under pressure from Johnny Wade and Millers’ to get
a cheaper band to last through the summer season. The surfing craze would keep
the pub going through Christmas, no matter who they got - or so they thought.
Meanwhile, Sandy Davis obtained a rather lucrative contract for the band to go
to the Snowy Mountains Hotel in Cooma for a couple of months. With promises to
Nick Devery to return again next year, we said our goodbyes with a farewell
show on December 7, 1963, and headed off to Cooma. The crowd at The Can weren’t
too happy with this arrangement and nearly tore the place apart on our last
night. We seemed to have built quite a large following of loyal fans. A very
happy Johnny Wade and a very worried Nick Devery surveyed the broken chairs and
glasses as we packed up our gear and readied ourselves for the trip to Cooma.
“Good Luck, boys! Ring me the first week in
January and don’t forget to learn The Miner’s Dream Of Home,” said Nick
Devery, looking genuinely sorry that we were leaving. We were all feeling a bit
sad ourselves at this stage, surrounded by groups of well-wishers and
girlfriends declaring everlasting love. “Don’t worry boys. A change is as good
as a holiday,” I consoled as we tried to pack all of our gear into Michael’s
trailer.
This was
going to be a pretty cramped trip in Michael’s father’s dirty old FJ Holden but
it was the best transport we could manage without taking two useless sports
cars or Jon’s replacement for the badly wounded and totally written-off
Customline, a 1929 Dodge Convertible, complete with leaking roof and no chance
of making it to Cooma (or any further than Manly for that matter). Who cared
about prestige anyway?
“Christ, with the money I’m payin’ you blokes, I thought you’d arrive in
a bloody Mercedes Benz!” This was the welcome from the manager of the Snowy Mountains
Hotel, Lionel Friar, as he gave a disparaging look at our daggy looking FJ
Holden, flanked by a trailer full of instruments. So this was Cooma. It was a
sleepy old country town that had been invaded by European migrants working on
the Snowy River Scheme. It was hardly a rock’n’roll venue. Engineers from all
over the world were lured here by the Australian government and paid extremely
good wages. Consequently, about three or four night clubs had sprung up to help
the lonely “New Australians” spend their money. As well as the Snowy Mountain
Hotel, there were two other main nightspots, the Lido Night Club and The Savoy,
both with Italian Bands. We were the token Australian band and the audiences
were very appreciative and generous with their money.
It was
lucky that the band was experienced enough to play just about everything.
Unfortunately, our European repertoire was fairly limited and our German
repertoire was restricted to only one song, Elvis Presley’s Wooden Heart,
with a few suspect “German” words- “Putsch it in, putsch it in, Dum schtick it
oop ya arsche!” Even this was good enough to earn us a ten-pound note for an
occasional homesick Kraut. If we had known a few more, we would have cleaned
up! The Poles were so pleased with our playing; they plied us with piles of
Polish vodka called Wisnowka. It was a drink that tasted like a mixture of
cherries and petrol and you were expected to skoal it in two seconds
flat. This was usually followed by delighted applause from the Poles who would
then order another round! As usual, our floorshows were very successful and we
were fortunate to have a female vocalist, Yvonne Ross, to provide some sex
appeal for the first few weeks. This also proved fortunate for our resident
“sex maniac” (and co-author), “Clever” Jon, who immediately commandeered her
Ford Falcon as well as her body.
Our
accommodation was a four-bedroom house at the back of the hotel, which, after
our first week, was immediately stocked with girlfriends. It was all very
pleasant with horse-riding, trout fishing, swimming and sightseeing during the
day, followed by a few outrageous parties at night - if we could still stand
up!
After a great Christmas party at the house
where Michael got dressed up as Santa Claus
and doled out all the presents, a band meeting was held to decide our future at
Cooma. Much to Sandy’s disgust I was elected band leader by default and it was
decided to fly me to Sydney January 2, so I could line up some gigs and try to
get a recording contract with Festival. Jon, Michael and Sandy waved me off at
Cooma Airport, no doubt hoping that I would justify the cost of the plane fare
and not have too good a time.
The
plane looked a bit dicey. As I looked out the window, I noticed great billows
of black smoke coming from the engines. The hostess told me cheerfully that I
was extremely privileged to be on the very last commercial flight of a DC4. I
hoped it was not my last flight as well as the plane coughed and sputtered up
into a beautiful summer blue sky. I needn’t have worried. This was going to be
one of those magic days where nothing can go wrong.
My
first stop back in Sydney on January 2, 1964, was the Palace Theatre, where Dig
was playing the part of Squire Skinflint in a children’s pantomime called
“Mother Goose” with The Delltones, Jay Justin, Robb Egg, Bryan Davies and
Jackie Weaver. It was a school holiday show produced by Digby’s manager, Bill
Watson. This was the man I had come to see. Bill was taking a show on the road
next month, featuring all his main artists. After all the kids had stopped
screaming for Mother Goose, aptly played by Pee Wee Wilson, and booing the
devil, played splendidly by Jay Justin, Bill and I made the deal then and
there. It was for a five-week tour of Southern Australia, starting on February
19. During lunch with Dig and his fiancée, Suzie, I rang Hal Saunders and
clinched a recording deal with Festival. We would have to change the name of
the band now that we were separate from Dig. Things were going great!
My
next stop was the Manly Pacific to arrange our return to The Can. I was
welcomed like a returning hero. Every time Nick Devery tried to get a word in
he was interrupted by an enthusiastic fan asking, “When are you guys coming
back?” After about the tenth interruption, Nick got really bugged and called me
into his office. The negotiations were definitely on my side. I told him we
wanted more money and he would have to wait until we returned from the Bill
Watson tour at the end of March. Another deal done! It seemed like I could get
away with anything. I even had the hide to ask him for a free room for the
night. “Don’t worry Nick we’ve even learnt The Miner’s Dream of Home,” I
lied as he bought me another drink and agreed to everything.
“Leon! Leon!” The voice came from the Mayor of
Manly’s daughter, Maz, who was accompanied by her spunky girlfriend Val. I
followed them into The Can to watch our replacement band, The Renegades, who I
had lined up to fill in for us while we were in Cooma. After a few more drinks,
I ended up in the intimate surroundings of the Shell Bar with Val! This was
going to be the end of a perfect day for me. My first day as the band manager
had been a howling success and I was now surrounded by a beautiful warm
summer’s night with the smell of the salt air drifting into the Shell Bar. “Why
don’t we go for a midnight swim?” asked Val. “But I haven’t got any cozzies”
“That’s alright. We won’t need any near my
place at Narrabeen beach.”
“But Nick Devery’s booked me
a room in the pub.”
“You
don’t want to stay here, stay at my place.” She was right of course! And I
thought I’d had a good day already! The rest of the night was even better than
the love scene from From Here To Eternity. Oh well, back to Cooma
tomorrow with my report to the band, minus a little bit of skin. I bet they’ll
be impressed, I thought, but of course I’ll leave the last bit out of the band
report, which ended with… “so we’re now booked until almost the end of the
year!” I sat back and waited for the accolades and a few “Good onya Leon’s”.
But they never came.
After a couple of unenthusiastic nods, Jon
piped up and said, “Couldn’t you get any more money out of Bill Watson? We’ll
have to back the whole bloody show and there’s a couple of prima donnas in
there as well!” It was then that I realised that being the bandleader wasn’t
going to be the heroic gig that I thought it was supposed to be. In addition to
this I was supposed too keep the peace. This was proving more difficult each
day.
Sandy seemed to be drinking a lot more since
his girlfriend had come to stay in the house and he was starting to fight with
Jon and Michael. Sandy had a slightly different concept of the band than the
rest of us. To him it was a vehicle to make him a star and a lead singer. He also
wanted to replace Michael and get Nosmo King back in the band, on bass, because
he thought Michael was a bit slow learning new songs, not that Sandy was any
quicker himself! Things came to a head the following week, after a party at the
Lido Night Club to welcome the new Maori band that had just hit town to replace
Mario’s Italian band. The next morning, on January 9, 1964 Sandy was still
drinking and had a terrible fight with his girlfriend, followed by another
fight with Jon. He delivered his drunken ultimatum, “Either Michael goes or I
go!” The next day Sandy was gone!
A
frantic phone call was made to Nosmo King in Sydney. He was playing the bass
with Catfish & The Deejays. “ Of course I’ll join the band,” came the reply
from Nosmo. “What happened? Did you sack Michael?” “No, we sacked Sandy!” (Long
pause). “You mean, you want me to play the guitar?” “YES!” “Right, I’ll be
there on Sunday”
Waiting a couple of days for Nosmo gave us the
chance to do a lot of rehearsing and reassigning the songs that Sandy used to
sing. It was a shame to lose Sandy, really. After all, no one else in the band
could get out the front and “sell” a song like Sandy could. While we were
rehearsing, we also found time to rig up Nosmo’s room with some elaborate
tricks.
Michael had just bought a
brand new Akai two-track tape recorder, which we had used with great success
the week before. We put it under Michael’s bed, with some ghostly recordings of
weird voices calling out his name. As Michael dozed off, we turned on the tape.
It frightened the shit out of Michael, so we decided to play the same trick on
Nosmo. As well as the tape recorder under Nosmo’s bed we rigged up a
complicated network of fishing lines that controlled a number of tricks by
pulling a few appropriate strings from another room. One string would tip a
Chianti bottle full of water on his head while another would mysteriously move
a picture on the wall. The coup de grace was a string, which sent a huge
wardrobe crashing to the floor a few inches from his head. We could hardly wait
for Nosmo to arrive and spend his first night.
SUNDAY JANUARY 12, 1964. As we finished our last set for the
afternoon as a three-piece band, enter one Nosmo King with a silly grin on his
face and carrying a new, “dog-dick” pink Fender Stratocaster guitar and a
Gretsch amplifier. We settled Noz into his room at the house and spend the last
part of the night at the Lido Night Club with the new Maori band called the
Maori Esquires, with whom we had become very friendly. They were an excellent
band with a fantastic “pukiha” (white man) called Peter Martin on lead guitar.
Maori bands usually consisted of about ten guitars. Jon always reckoned the
lead guitarist was the one who could strum the fastest! Not this Maori band.
With Kerry Strummers on vocals and Harry Rivers on drums, they sounded great.
Nosmo wanted to rage on all night, so we all
started to yawn and make noises like we wanted to go home to bed. We had better
things in store for Nosmo back at the house. We eventually got Nosmo into his
new bed and waited until we could hear a few odd snores. Then the dirty tricks
department sprung into action.
We
started the tape. “Nosmo… N-o-s-mo-o-o.” After about ten minutes, Nosmo ran out
into the hall with a white face. “Were you guys calling me?” We all shook our
heads, pretending to be woken up by his outburst. “Your not going to believe
this but every time I look at that picture on the wall, it moves!” “Go back to
bed Noz, you’ve had too much to drink.” Now it was time for the big one! Just
as Nosmo slipped into dreamland, he was woken by the Chianti bottle in time to
see the wardrobe crash to the ground and set off two pre-arranged streamers.
This time Nosmo wasn’t waiting around for an explanation. Amidst screams of
laughter from the rest of the house, he picked up his pillow and headed from
the lounge room. “If you think I’m going to sleep in that bloody room, you’re
crazy!”
It
was going to be great fun having Nosmo in the band. He had the perfect
temperament. As well as being a pretty outrageous guy in his own right, he
could always be relied upon for good comedy relief. He even looked funny. It
was going to be a lot of hard work whipping the band into shape but we were all
very determined to make it work. Another three weeks in Cooma would give us the
time we needed. With such a wealth of new material to learn, Nosmo and Michael
had to use music stands. These were rather unkindly referred to by Jon as
“monkey-see-monkey-do” stands.
Our
female singer, Yvonne Ross, went back to Sydney, so Lionel Friar, in his
dubious wisdom booked “The Amazing Ali-Kazam” for the floorshow on Sunday,
January 19. As the patrons tucked into their dinner, The Amazing Ali-Kazam,
complete with turban and female assistant, went into his act. The first part
consisted of a fire dance followed by the eating of about twenty razor blades,
which he reproduced again through his stomach. The patrons started to shift in
their seats as he topped this little number off by eating a middy beer glass.
As he went into his finale of hammering a couple of four-inch nails up his
nose, some of the more faint-hearted patrons started dry retching. It was while
he was showing the front row of the audience his snot-covered nails to prove
that they were real, that a red-faced Lionel Friar ran onto the stage screaming
“That’s enough, that’s enough! You’re fired!”
After ‘The Amazing Ali-Kazam’, it was easy to
convince Lionel Friar that it would be better to get another female singer from
Sydney. So we went ahead and booked Del Juliana. At least Del knew a few good
rock songs and didn’t stick nails up her nose. When Del and her girlfriend Anne
arrived, we put them straight into Nosmo’s booby-trapped room. Del made it
through the night all right but her freaked-out girlfriend caught the plane
back home the next day.
Jon had bought a Chrysler Royal for a £1,000, so we took Del for a
hair-raising ride up the top of Mount Kosciusko. Jon wanted to see if his new
car would do a hundred miles per hour. Why we were riding in a car with Jon at
the wheel is a mystery. I was still suffering occasional headaches from the
last time I rode with him and Michael was still picking pieces of windscreen
glass out of his head! We were supposed to be suing Jon for negligent
driving-but that is yet to come up in our story. Meanwhile Jon had driven us
all to the top of Mount Kosciusko. Nosmo reckoned he was going to be the first
person to pee off the highest peak in Australia. Del was horrified! She wanted
to be the first!
We
wanted to have a party for our last week in Cooma, so we invited all the guys
from the Maori band at the Lido. It was also their lead singer Kerry’s 21st
birthday. What a night! By this time we had the whole house booby-trapped! The
Maoris had never been to a party in Australia before and they all thought it
was normal. The R’Jays had some life-size photographs (with bow ties), which
were left over from The Can, so we did a dance behind them. Everybody thought
this was quite funny until Nosmo appeared with an empty frame, where Sandy’s
photo used to be, wearing nothing but a bow tie! And with his balls hanging
over the bottom of the picture frame! The Maori band’s girlfriends were
somewhat embarrassed but after a “Dance of the Flames” and an “Eric Baume”,
everybody settled in and had a wonderful time. “If this is what they do in
Cooma, I can’t wait to get to Sydney,” said drummer, Harry Rivers.
It was coming to the end of the month and we still hadn’t thought of a new name for the band. To make matters even more urgent, we were booked to do Johnny O’Keefe’s TV show on channel 7. J’OK left a message with Del for me to ring, the moment we got back to Sydney. The suggestions were coming thick and fast; The War Babies, The Band from Snowy River, The Blowflies, The New Direction. “The Nude Erection?? What sort of a name is that?” I queried, “Come on guys, we’ve got to come up with a decent name for the band.” We carried on searching for a name for days with a lot of silly suggestions coming forth. It was henceforth decreed to forget about a new name until we arrived back in Sydney.
FROM R’JAYS TO RAJAHS
MONDAY FEBRUARY 3, 1964. Festival Records. Harris Street, Pyrmont. Hal Saunders' office. 11.05am… I talked to one of the maidens who’d almost been devoured... oops! Wrong story! Dig and I looked down at the recording contract on Hal’s desk. Dig had come along with me to witness the contract and make sure we weren’t getting ‘dudded’. The band name on the contract was still blank.
“Maybe it should be something like the R’Jays?” I pondered out loud,
“...the Red Jays... the Rah Jays...the Rajahs…”
“The RAJAHS! That’s not bad,” said Dig. Hal nodded thoughtfully, “The
Rajahs! That’s perfect!” said Johnny O’Keefe enthusiastically." You can
wear turbans on the TV show. JO’K started to drift off, “satin cushions...harem
girls...I know! We’ll get an elephant!” JO’K had a thing about elephants. It
sounded like a pretty silly name to me but as I looked around at Hal, Dig and
JO’K, they all seemed to be nodding their heads in unison. Even Robert Iredale,
popped his head through the door. “The
Rajahs?” he said, trying to hold back a snigger, “Not you lot again!”
Dig drove me over to Bill Watson’s place to give him the latest news
about the new name of the band. Bill was anxious to get the publicity out for
the forthcoming tour. “Don’t worry Leon”, said Bill as we walked through the
door. “I’ve thought of a great name for the band.” “It’s alright Bill,” I
interrupted as we sat down, “ Dig and I have just come from signing a contract
at Festival. The band is now called the Rajahs.”
“But I have already put out the publicity,” protested Bill, I’ve
advertised you as the BRUMBIES!”
“Oh
no” Suddenly “The Rajahs” didn’t seem like such a bad name after all! Bill
handed us a beer and I sat down and read the poster for the show, “SEVEN HITS
AND A MISS, Starring * LUCKY STARR * DIG RICHARDS * ROB E.G. * THE (FOUR)
DELLTONES * LITTLE PATTIE and THE BRUMBIES.”
“
Leon, your not one of the Brumbies are you?” The huge booming voice came from
Peewee Wilson, of the Delltones, who was affectionately known as The Bird -
“The Bird is the word!” As I nodded in disgust, The Bird kept pointing at me
and laughing hysterically, “The Brumbies!”
“I
wouldn’t laugh too loudly Bird. You and your “Dill Dolls” are going to have to
be backed by the Brumbies in a couple of weeks.” Bill was starting to look a
bit peeved at The Bird and me cracking up every time we mentioned the Brumbies.
“I thought it was a good Australian name,” said Bill indignantly. This
statement was greeted by another round of guffaws. Bill must have had a thing
about horses. The last band he had on tour was Warren Daly and the Steeds.
Could it be that he wanted to turn us into a backing-band for his stable of
stars. “Boy, wait till I tell the other guys,” I thought to myself. “Jon’s
already a bit bugged about going on this tour as it is. He doesn’t even know
that he’s a Rajah yet, let alone being demoted to a Brumby!”
Meantime there where a lot of things to get together before we galloped
away on this famous Bill Watson tour; A visit to Andy Ellis to get measured up
for some new coats, four days recording at festival records and then the TV
show Sing, Sing, Sing with Johnny O’Keefe.
JO’K invited us over to his place at Castlecrag, for a bit of a
rehearsal. He had a couple of great little kids, Johnny Jnr. and Vickie. They
helped us set up the gear in the lounge room. JO’K wanted us to do some Beatles
songs on the show and was very keen to have his own personal band that could do
their own stuff as well as vocal backing for all of his songs. The songs on Sing,
Sing, Sing were usually pre-recorded at Festival so,
while we were doing our first Rajahs session, JO’K came down and we put down
three Beatles songs for the show. As we listened to the playback, a guy from
the Sunday Mirror exclaimed, “That’s amazing! You guys sound exactly like the
Beatles! What about putting down a couple more songs and I’ll get the Sunday
Mirror to release them as a Beatlemania E.P?”
Well, we couldn’t argue with that could we? We didn’t need any rehearsal
for Beatles songs. We just put them straight down then and there and didn’t
think twice about it. At the end of the session, however, there was one rather
cutting remark from our recording engineer, Robert Iredale that worried me.
“You know what this means don’t you?” said Robert in his usual sarcastic tone,
“You guys are going to be the poor man’s Beatles!”
The next session was a backing track for Dig’s new single Come on and
Dance with Me b/w Livin’ Lovin’ Wreck. A couple of days later, Jon
and I were back at our old stomping ground at ATN channel 7, except this time
it wasn’t the R’Jays it was the Rajahs with Michael and Nosmo. There weren’t
any harem girls or elephants, but as promised, JO’K had the turbans. “We can’t
wear these stupid bloody things,” I protested, “We all look like The Amazing
Ali-Kazam.”
“It’s alright,” said JO’K, “Look, I’ll wear
one too.”
We
opened our spot in the show with I Want To Hold Your Hand and Roll
Over Beethoven, then JO’K joined us for I Saw Her Standing There, wearing
a turban and looking as silly as the rest
of us. Our spot went over very well with the studio audience and we joined the
rest of the cast at the end of the show, singing Yes Sir That’s My Baby in
a medley of old songs to appease the “oldies” after all the sinful rock‘n’roll.
It was quite a big cast for that particular show; it included George Karen, Rod
and Barry Stanton, Colin Cook, The Dekroo Brothers, The Ponytails, Denise
Keene, Margaret McKenna and Rod Dunbar. With only a few days to go before the
tour, we went back into Festival to finish off the Rajahs’ first single. The
first song was called You’ll Get Over It, which was written for us by
Lonnie Lee, a few months earlier, before we went to Cooma.
Since we weren’t game enough to write a song ourselves, I had terrible
trouble finding a song that I thought would suit us. Lonnie suggested that Jon
and I go over and see a new friend of his, Barry Gibb, who seemed to be able to
write about ten songs a day. Barry and his little twin brothers, Robin and
Maurice, lived in a little old white house in Lakemba. Barry pulled out his
guitar, which was unconventionally tuned to an ‘A’ chord, and the Bee Gees
played about a hundred songs. After this I was totally confused.
“I
know”, said Barry, “Pick a song off the Top Forty that you like and I’ll write
one just like it.” “What about Glad All Over?” said Jon helpfully.
“Right!” said Barry. About fifteen minutes later, he had a new song with Robin
and Maurice singing instant harmonies.
I’m afraid all this has been a major digression on my part because we
forgot about all these songs anyway and we probably passed up about twenty
hits. I had tried to get the Bee Gees a spot at the Manly Pacific with the band
but Robin and Maurice were too young to sing in a pub and a month later we went
to Cooma. We eventually found a song by Tommy Quickly, one of the Brian Epstein
stable of Liverpool stars. The song was called Kiss Me Now. So, we ended
our song search. This would be the Rajahs’ new single on Leedon, swimming in
Robert Iredale’s newly found reverb, which was the latest replacement for the
echo chamber in the dunny. Now, with recording and television exposure, the die
for the Rajahs had been cast.
THE BRUMBIES
Bill Watson’s “7 Hits and a
Miss with The Brumbies” Tour prepared for it’s assault on the southern half of
Australia. The seven “Hits” were Lucky Starr, Dig Richards, Rob E.G and the four
Delltones. The “Miss”, was one Miss LITTLE PATTIE who had to be replaced at the
last minute by LYN ALVAREZ, younger sister of Bandstand star, Robyn
Alvarez. The Child Welfare Department decided that poor Little Pattie was too
young to embark on such a perilous trip without a chaperone. This meant that
there were now two bogus acts on the bill. Not only were there no Brumbies,
there was no Little Pattie either.
On
our first show at the Hobart Town Hall on Friday, February 21, Jon made the
mistake of introducing us as the Rajahs and apologising for the absence of the
Brumbies. This later prompted some of the audience to scream out “WE WANT THE
BRUMBIES!” Jon turned to me with a disgusted look on his face and grumbled,
“I’ll kill that bloody Watson.”
The “7 Hits and a Miss” Show
consisted mainly of survivors of the early rock scene, trying to prove that
they could appeal to a more mature audience. It was strange for us to see our
former fearless leader, Dig Richards, opening the show with a comedy and cabaret act but this
was the new direction that Digby wanted to pursue. At this time he was trying
to live down his “pretty boy-teenage idol” image. Dig was followed by the
Delltones who were still riding on the crest of a wave with their surfing hit
from the summer of 1963, Hangin' Five, sung by their new lead singer
from The Crescents, Col Loughnan. The rest of the original Delltones were still
intact. They were Warren Lucas - tenor, Brian Perkins (“The Duck”) - baritone,
and Ian “Pee Wee” Wilson (“The Bird”) - bass. Apart from a couple of schmaltzy
cabaret contributions like Love Is A Many Splendored Thing and You’ll
Never Walk Again, The Dellies always killed ‘em. The Bird was big and gawky
and everybody loved him, including us. He had a natural rapport with the
audience and could always be relied on to say something new and funny every
night, whereas everybody else in the show seemed to have patter that was
contrived and rehearsed.
Speaking of contrived and rehearsed, our next
act was the “Liberace of the Steel Guitar”, the one and only Rob E.G. Most of
Rob’s act was sickly sweet but the audience loved him, especially when he
smiled. Rob’s guitar was mounted on a homemade chrome stand, which we
christened “The Wheel Chair”. Lyn Alvarez was very nervous for the first couple
of shows but she soon settled down and was able to keep up with the rest of the
more experienced cast. She was a good sort too! Bill Watson’s protégé, “The
Fortunate Planet”, closed the show. Lucky Starr had just returned from Las
Vegas where he wowed them at the Flamingo Hotel. This was Lucky’s “Bobby Darin
Renaissance” period, complete with new confidence and a Hugh Hefner pipe. Apart
from I’ve been everywhere and Mack The Knife, lucky got to do all
the big rock‘n’roll numbers at the end of the show, which never failed to have
the audience bopping and dancing in the aisles. Over all, the “Hits And A Miss”
Show certainly gave the crowds their money’s worth.
One other important member of the troupe was our driver and roadie, Tex Harris. Tex was an old friend of Bill Watson, who originally came from Texas in Queensland. He was a reformed alcoholic who drank gallons of soft drink and always laughed at our gags. Tex and the rajahs immediately became comrades-in-arms, as we were the workers in the troupe, not the stars!
On our next show
in Launceston, some of the audience threw apples at us, which I thought was
quite appropriate, seeing we were in the Apple Isle. The main street of
Launceston was blocked off, so we could do the show from the balcony of the
Metropole Hotel. The fun started as the rain began to come down during Rob
Egg’s spot on the show. As Rob ripped into one of his instrumental hits Si
Senor (I Theenk?), the apples started flying. We were glad to get back to
our sanctuary at the Star hotel. No, it wasn’t Lucky’s hotel. In fact, Lucky
was staying at the Cornwall hotel and Dig and the Dellies were staying at the
Launceston Hotel. We seemed to be holed up all over the town.
On the way over to the Launceston Hotel for lunch the following day, Sunday, February 23, we were driving our complimentary rent-a-car, which had a huge sign emblazoned on the side “THE BRUMBIES DRIVE KAY’S CARS”, The Brumbies are more famous than the Rajahs”, grumbled Nosmo as we passed the local news agency. “Hey look at that stupid sign”, said Michael pointing to a news placard. “ONLY 10/- BEATLES FOR ALL.” I wonder what it means?”
“It could mean anything in Tasmania,” said
Jon as we ignored it and drove on. Our ostentatious rent-a-car pulled up
outside the Launceston Hotel where we were confronted by an overly excited Tex
running towards us.
“You’re on the front page! You’re on the
front page!” he kept screaming as he waived a newspaper above his head. It was
true. We couldn’t believe it. There we were on the front page of the Sunday
Mirror, a ridiculous photo of the four of us wearing plastic Beatle wigs. We
turned to page two and there we were again taking up the whole page! “AND NOW
OUR OWN AUSSIE BEATLES,” the headlines screamed, this time with a photo of us
looking normal. In the middle of the paper were another two full-page
advertisements for The Rajahs Tribute to The Beatles record. We expected
them to maybe advertise the record but we didn’t imagine anything like this.
How embarrassing!
“Were more famous than the Brumbies”, said
Nosmo jubilantly while we beat Tex over the head with the newspaper.
After a celebration champagne lunch with Dig and the Dellies, I was invited to accompany the “stars” for a radio interview on 7EX with Dig’s local DJ friend, the yet-to-become-famous Rod Muir. Our status had almost changed overnight. Suddenly all sorts of people wanted to see us, talk to us, touch us, feel us, hit us! The following night, the packed audience at the Devonport Town Hall didn’t give a shit about the Brumbies. They were happy to have the NOW famous Rajahs, although as the Devonport crowd screamed we could still hear a faint “We want the Brumbies!” in the background. This was later identified to be Col Loughnan and The Bird, screaming out from the wings!
We said farewell to Tasmania after a show at the Burnie Star Theatre and
a party back at the commercial Hotel. The party was for Pee Wee’s 24th birthday
and a good time was had by all. No groupies, no band vultures, no sex, drugs,
rock’n’roll, just an old fashioned sing-song around the piano with lots of
laughing food, booze and a fair sprinkling of negro spirituals. The staff
thought it was wonderful!
After a short flight to Melbourne, we found
ourselves heading towards Adelaide in Tex’s bright orange truck with its
equally bright orange trailer. We stopped for one of the best shows on the tour
at the Warnambool Town Hall in Victoria. The now famous Rajahs almost stole the
show!
Adelaide was beautifully decked out for the
annual Festival of Flowers as Tex’s orange truck rolled into the Havana Motel
in Glen Osmond on Thursday, February 27. This was where we were to spend the
next four days, splashing around the pool and admiring Lyn Alvarez’s
considerable cleavage. Actually, we had three shows to do at the St. Claire and
Salisbury Youth Centres. There was a bit of a riot at the end of the last show
when some Adelaide lovelies stormed the stage and knocked over a couple of
expensive Channel 9 cameras that were televising the show. We crammed as many
of these Adelaide lovelies as we could into the Tex’s truck and headed back to
the Havana Motel. Unfortunately silly old Tex ran out of petrol on the way home
and we lost most of our precious cargo. Another newspaper whipping for Tex!
Not to be deterred, we eventually arrived
back at Michael’ room with only two Adelaide lovelies, who were eager to
participate in a “Shallimanikee Meeting”. One of them complained that there
weren’t enough of us and insisted that we invite the star of the show to join us.
A quick phone call was made to a very obliging “Fortunate Planet”. While we
were waiting for the star to join the Shallimanikee, sneaky Jon whisked one of
the girls into his room while we were busy watching the other one taking her
clothes off. This was considered a definite “off side-free kick” by the rest of
the group and, after Lucky got the ball got rolling (so to speak); Jon was
refused re-entry in to the Shallimanikee. Jon missed all the fun and he was
furious. We court-martialled him the following night for “protecting”, which is
the act of willfully keeping a willing participant for one’s own carnal
desires!
After Adelaide, we played to packed houses
in Port Pirie, Port Augusta and Port Lincoln. Bill Watson looked suitably
impressed as 970 people poured into the Whyalla Civic Hall. While we were being
mobbed for autographs after the show, somebody stole Nosmo’s beloved beret and
Jon was attacked by a spunky Greek girl. Or was it the other way around?
Tex’s orange truck crossed the border on Friday,
March 6 into Broken Hill, closely followed by Brian Perkins (The Duck) in his
FB Holden carrying the Delltones. Warren Lucas was worried about going bald so
Col was in the back seat, giving Warren’s scalp a personal massage. This was
known as the “personal treatment” which consisted of Col and Warren mutually
“masturbating” each other’s heads for the entire trip with Ashley &
Martins’ and various other baldness cures. Warren’s baldness phobia wasn’t
helped by the rest of the Delltones, who would secretly send him ads for
toupees through the mail.
A copy of our Beatlemania record
arrived at the Palace Hotel in Broken Hill and we sat down with the Dellies and
had a listen. “Christ, what happened? It sounded better than that in the
studio,” said Nosmo. Everybody agreed mournfully.
“It sounds great, if you ask me,” said The
Duck enthusiastically, The Delltones were very worried about the direction that
rock’n’roll was taking with the advent of the Beatles. Their follow up record
to Hangin’ Five wasn’t selling at all. It was another surfing song
called Out the Back written again by one of our Manly Pacific regulars,
ex-walloper, Ben Acton.
“Our harmonies are too nice” Col Loughnan
was heard to say. “We’ve got to sing nastier,” he continued as he dug his
fingers into Warren’s scalp. The Duck sat quietly through this profound
conversation and then summarized the whole situation by saying “I reckon
surfing music’s had the dick, man!”
It was Sunday and the Rajahs hit the front
page again. This time Tex received a thrashing with the Melbourne Truth. With
all the publicity we were getting things seemed to be hotting up back home and
this was not a good time to be on tour. Offers were coming in from all over the
place. TV Week and Womens Weekly wanted to do a spread on us.
Strange people were ringing up with all sorts of gigs and TV shows including Bandstand
and Graham Kennedy’s high rating show In Melbourne Tonight. I managed to
stall the IMT show for our return but there wasn’t much I could do about
the rest. After all, we didn’t even have a manager. When you’re hot, you’re hot
and we were going to be lukewarm by the time we got back to Sydney!
Three dreary crowds at three dreary
Victorian towns, Swan Hill, Kerang and Ballarat, then a great show at Bendigo
Town Hall where we finally convinced Warren to put some black boot polish on
the back of his head to stop the glare of the spotlight from his bald patch. A
barbeque was held in our honor at a local fan’s place on Saturday, March 14. It
was on our way to the front door of the Bendigo barbie that we encountered two
shadowy figures revealed by somebody’s headlights.
“Don’t tell The Bird we’re out here,” said a
voice through a strange cloud of pungent-smelling smoke. As we walked through
the front door in search of sheilahs and snags, I heard some wheezing noises
coming from the bedroom. I was surprised to find The Bird working-out with some
weights and barbells. “I think somebody in the Delltones is smoking dope,
Leon,” he boomed in a very sombre voice. “It can’t be any good for you,” he said as he continued to pump
more iron.
The Delltones went off to Melbourne to pick
up their 1963 Tunetable
Award while we stayed behind to catch up on our washing before heading off to
Albury for a radio interview at 2AY with Lew Stephens. The whole cast came
together the next day for a show at the Albury Civic Centre and the Wangaratta Town Hall. “It’s WAngarrata
not WOngarrata!” exclaimed one of the frustrated locals from Ned Kelly country.
“They don’t call them KOngaroos now, do they?”
We were finally heading towards home. The
tired old orange truck chugged its way through the Snowy Mountains on Thursday
March 19, to our old stomping grounds at Cooma, where we were greeted by Lionel
Friar’s son, Stephen, who was clutching a copy of our new Beatlemania
EP. “I didn’t know you guys were famous,” he said as he asked us to autograph
the record. “Neither did we,” said Jon while we set up the gear at the Monaro Theatre. Most of the locals
were very happy to see us again, especially Peter Martin and the Maori
Esquires. They set up a party at their place to pay us back for the last party,
where we horrified all their girlfriends.
The show at the Albert Hall in Canberra the
following night was booked out so Bill Watson decided to have a matinee show as
well. The dreaded advance publicity was still hounding us “7 HITS AND A MISS
with LITTLE PATTIE and the BRUMBIES”. It sounded like the non-existent Brumbies
had formed a band with Little Pattie. “Just think, after tomorrow night the
world will never hear about the Brumbies again,” I reflected.
“I wish they’d never heard about them in the
first place!” said Nosmo as he punctuated his remark with a huge fart on cue!
We quickly got out of the truck and checked in at the Zebra Motel. The
Bird and The Duck scored a huge suite with a lounge room. This was immediately
designated the “party room” for after the show.
And what a party it turned out to be! After
lots of comings and goings with the local Canberra girls and various members of
the troupe, (except for Rob of course), by the end of the night there was a
full “Shallimanikee Meeting” under way in the party room. The Bird took over as
Master-of-Ceremonies (in the absence of the Grand Master, John Bogie from the
Joy Boys) and explained to our excited young recruit that the Shallimanikee
Club was usually reserved for people in rock’n’roll show biz only but seeing as
though she had such a great body and was interested in dancing, maybe we could
make her an honorary dancer if she took the oath and passed the test. With Lyn
by his side, the Bird did a masterful job of getting our beautiful new recruit
to strip off all her clothes off and take the sacred show business oath.
Anybody who laughed during this solemn occasion was banished to the bathroom.
Everyone chanted reverently “Shallimanikee, yeah, yeah”
After taking the oath, our new recruit then
took on the Brumbies one by one, followed by the Delltones and the “Fortunate
Planet”. She was still yelling for more when our cunnilingus connoisseur, Digby
finally arrived after taking one of the local lovelies home. We convinced him
that the naked girl in the bedroom was in love with him alone and we had
been waiting all night for him to arrive and start the action. “Don’t worry
boys, for the honor of the Shallimanikee, I’ll take care of it!” was Digby’s
gallant reply. About fifteen minutes passed and Dig reappeared with the
triumphant announcement, “It’s okay boys, she’s ready now.” Dig couldn’t
understand why we all fell to the floor laughing hysterically. We didn’t have
the heart to tell him that he was actually the “last cab off the rank”.
Our last show at the Goulburn Lilac Time
Hall on Saturday, March 21, was hilarious. As with most end-of-tour shows, the
dirty tricks department came out in full force. While Dig was doing his opening
spot, members of the Delltones kept appearing at the back of the stage dressed
as waiters and whatever other guise they could find from the props department.
We tied some fishing line to Rob’s guitar stand (“The Wheelchair”), so that
every time he looked up to do one of his smiles, one of the Delltones would
pull his “Wheelchair” a couple of inches toward the side of the stage. By the
time Rob finished playing a few extra-unwanted slides on his steel guitar, he
was practically playing in the wings! Rob’s father, Maurie Porter, was in the
audience and he was not amused. Poor Rob couldn’t understand what was
happening; the audience kept laughing in all the wrong places. Lyn and Lucky
didn’t escape either. A lot of uninvited people kept joining in their acts and
when Lucky went to put on his guitar, he found it was tied to a house-brick.
The audience seemed to sense that we were having a good time and they loved it.
Jon may have originally thought that the “7
Hits and a Miss” tour was a bit of a backward step, especially as we were
billed as “The Brumbies”. But the Rajahs certainly made the best of it and we
were lucky enough to make a lot of great new friends!
7,588w
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