Stories from the Edge of Music #36: Personal stuff (Part 2) — a teenager wins a prize, loses his virginity and discovers the entertainment world
Plus more useful phrases and clichés that make the music business work, whether you hear them or use them… and a quote for the week
A few weeks ago, I shared some memories of my first “career” as a boy newspaper reporter — years before I became involved with the world of Canadian music. If you missed it, you can read it if you go to Stories #33. But it was at this time, in the early ’50s, that I became fascinated by the entertainment business, and the stories you discover backstage.
THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS…
The Yorkshire Evening Press entertainment reporter was a slight and thirty-ish man called Stacey Brewer. He’d been at the paper for several years, and he went to all the shows, reviewed movies and records and reprinted gossip about film stars and radio personalities. He had rimless glasses, a snappy fedora, a weak chin and a receding hairline, and he draped his raincoat over his shoulders. He was very cool indeed, and I did everything I could to emulate him.
Eventually, I was assigned to review the weekly variety shows at York Empire, part of a circuit of theatres that were called music halls. The music hall tradition — paralleled in North America by vaudeville — was coming under increasing pressure from a newfangled medium called television. Folk stayed home and watched the single BBC channel, where the newsreaders wore full evening dress. Puppet shows for children seemed to occupy most of the daytime programming, which began at three o’clock in the afternoon.
At York Empire in the early ’50s, music hall variety bills consisted of some seven or eight acts. There could be a comedian, a whistler who imitated bird noises, a juggler, piano duettists, an acrobat, and the “star,” who was usually a familiar name because of appearances on BBC Radio.
Enormously popular in the ’40s, a decade later George Formby was almost forgotten.
The headliners were usually artists on the way up, or precipitously on the way down. I recall seeing Peter Sellers, long before his popularity as a member of BBC Radio’s Goon Show and his fame as a comic film actor; he was on stage at another theatre, Leeds City Varieties, doing Jewish schtick, and wearing a Royal Air Force uniform.
And I also remember ukulele player George Formby, whose enormous wartime popularity had long since faded, playing to a Monday night audience of 30 old-age pensioners.
I still recall Max Miller, the “cheeky chappie” who was banned by the BBC for jokes like his farewell line: “Apples are red and ready for plucking, girls of 16 are ready for… goodnight everybody!” And there was Max Wall, a slapstick comedian now completely forgotten (although you can find a couple of snippets of him on YouTube).
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The hypocrisy of British homophobia in the early ’50s
Frankie Howerd, one of the funniest men I’ve ever seen on stage, was transparently gay (but closeted) at a time when homosexuals were routinely sent to jail for committing “the ancient and abominable crime of buggery.”
In fact, despite the awful hypocrisy of British law, drag shows with salacious titles like “Hello Sailor,” “Life in the Navy” and “Behind the Rigging” were a regular part of the programming at York Empire. The casts of these shows were admired by almost totally straight audiences for their cross-dressing skill and their risqué jokes. During the day they could be seen, in full costume and makeup, on the street or shopping in department stores; people would stare and snigger, and the queens would simper and smile and wave. They were never arrested.
Sometimes the headliner would be an ecdysiast — British polite-speak for stripper. The best of these was Phyllis Dixey, who packed theatres wherever she appeared. A skillful dancer, you thought that she showed you everything, but in fact every inch of her beautiful body was hidden behind whirling fans and the way she turned her back to the audience when one might have glimpsed — shock! horror! — a nipple…
Strippers, indeed, were powerful attractions in the dying days of music hall, but while they were allowed to be naked, they could not actually move. In these routines, described as “artistic tableaux,” the “artistes” would pose for 15 or 30 seconds; they would change positions as the curtains were closed, and reveal themselves in a different pose after a few moments of darkness.
There’s a legendary story about a young woman on stage, posing naked and perfectly still, who freaked out when a mouse skittered across the stage. “Eeek!” she screamed, and ran off; she was charged by the police for giving an obscene performance.
I would stand at the back of the hall at York Empire, every Monday night, with the theatre manager, Joe Cullen, a cynical Cockney. As he watched the new weekly show for the first time, his comments were brutal; he had seen the best and the worst for years and years, and I suspect he knew that music hall was way beyond its sell-by date.
“Oh, my Gawd,” he muttered as we watched a show that was, basically, a circus adapted for a theatre. As the show proceeded, Joe would slap his forehead in exasperation. When the acrobatic act, with eight men standing on each other’s shoulders, collapsed and the man on top grabbed the curtain to break his fall, it ripped, sending up a cloud of dust. “’Ow can they DO this?” Joe moaned, burying his head in his hands. “My theatre! My theatre! They’re wrecking my theatre. I’m going to ‘ave words with their agent; there’s going to be lawyers…”
The best act that night, however, was the lion tamer, a thin weedy man with a wicker chair, a whip and three of the mangiest animals you could imagine. As he shouted commands, the roaring lions lunged at him as he fended them off with the chair. I was transfixed, and terrified.
Backstage after the show, I met the man to congratulate him on an excellent performance. “Ah, I sank you,” he said in a heavy Austrian accent. “Normally, ve are much better, but I ’ave broken my, ’ow you say, spectacles, and I cannot see my friends the lions very vell.”
The Evening Press, at my suggestion, had a reporter in the audience every night that week; I was convinced that the lion tamer would be mauled by his animals before the show left town. Didn’t happen, but it would have made a great front-page story.
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Moving to a newspaper where they didn’t know the mistakes I’d made as an apprentice
After three years at The Evening Press, I passed my final apprenticeship exams, and immediately moved to Bradford, a city in western Yorkshire then known as the wool capital of the world.
It was a Victorian industrial city with a monumental Town Hall in the centre of the city, grim wool mills, and a steep bicycle ride uphill to my lodgings. The editor and staff of The Telegraph and Argus (and its soon to be discontinued morning paper, The Yorkshire Observer) regarded me as a fully fledged, experienced reporter — they had no knowledge of the mistakes I had made as I learned the job, and I got as many good stories as the senior reporters, although I was not yet 20.
Sometimes I would work a day shift for The Argus, and sometimes in the evening for the morning paper, and in between I would write feature articles for the weekly newspaper, simply known as The Budget. My landlady, Mrs. Helm — and remember that in Yorkshire nobody pronounces the “h” — made inedible meals and could never understand that my shifts changed every week.
Once, cycling home after a late shift, I stopped when I discovered a wool mill's office building ablaze, surrounded by fire engines and helmeted firemen. By the time I unearthed what was going on, written the story in my notebook and phoned it in to the office, I was three hours late for my dinner.
Mrs. Helm, bless her, was still boiling the spaghetti (“some Eyetalian stuff”) she’d put on the stove for my original arrival time. “I don’t suppose you’ll be eating this now,” she said as she ladled the sticky mess onto my plate.
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Winning a prize; losing my virginity
In my first months in Bradford, I won an award as “junior journalist of the year” in the Westminster Press group, the newspaper chain that owned both The Telegraph and Argus and the newspaper I’d started at in York — and some 40 other papers across the country.
The prize was £50 and an air ticket to any European city and three weeks off work. The conditions: you were honour-bound not to spend any more than the prize, and you had to write an article about your trip. I decided to do the tour that everyone did on their first trip to “the continent.”
My father arranged my flight to Paris, and I travelled to Avignon, Geneva and Milan where, at the instigation of a South African youth hosteller, I lost my virginity in a well-appointed brothel. The two of us couldn’t find the place so we asked a policeman, who gave us directions.
When we got there and knocked on the door, a busty young woman leaned out of a second storey window and told us to come back in an hour; they weren’t open yet.
Once inside, a dozen almost naked women walked around the opulent red-velveted parlour, hoping to be chosen by the men seated in plush armchairs. An attractive brunette took my hand, and led me upstairs. On the landing, I paid an elderly lady, behind a cash register; she handed me a towel and told me to go to room seven.
It was an experience I look back on with great warmth. (Discreet details if I ever meet you in person and you want to know!)
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Venice, Genoa, the French Riviera, Paris and — eventually — home
I went to Venice for the first time with two lovely Norwegian girls, moved on to Pisa and Florence. Wandering back through Genoa to the French Riviera, I broke into a closed youth hostel with a buxom Jewish girl. Finally, I made it back to Paris; with no money left, I called my father, collect, and begged him to meet me at the Manchester airport and drive me home.
My newspaper stories about the trip — three full-page features — were well received, although when the photo editor looked at the shots I had taken with my cheap camera, he straightened my picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which, when it was printed in the weekly Yorkshire Observer, was perfectly vertical. “Jesus, kid, if you’re gonna take pictures, try to hold the bloody camera straight,” he said when I complained.
Prize-winning vacations aside, I covered fires, sensational court cases and even a light plane crash in a farmer’s field. (Oh my God, that’s the pilot’s decapitated head, nestled in the fire foam around the twisted metal. I vomited.) I covered the first meeting of the Bradford Pakistani Association — myself, a reporter from the competitive newspaper, and nine Pakistanis. Today, the city’s population is some 25 percent South Asian, and Bradford is now known as the “Curry Capital of Britain.”
But it all seemed a long, long way from the fascinating world of show business — but I was inspired by jazz recordings, stationary strippers, a lovely sex worker, pop bands and music hall comedians.
MORE VALUBLE PHRASES YOU WILL HEAR —OR USE. THEY’LL KEEP YOU IN THE LOOP IN TODAY’S COMPLEX MUSIC BUSINESS
A week ago I discovered a piece I’d written some 35 years ago, listing the clichés that people use — or have to listen to — in the music business. Surprisingly, they seem as commonplace and relevant now as they were back in the late ’80s.
There were too many to fit in a single Substack, so here are the rest of them.
At the nightclub
1) We got great dressing rooms for you guys.
2) Now look, all we need is four 50-minute sets a night.
3) I don’t know about music — can this band sell beer?
4) The male stripper does his thing between your sets.
5) All this equipment takes up room I can put people in.
6) Turn it down—my waiters are going deaf.
7) Look, you’re just not right for this room.
8) Whaddaya mean, you're going to go to the union?
9) If only we could try strippers again.
At the concert hall
1) We had it tuned last year.
2) The house sound system is terrific.
3) Of course, you’ll need 16 IATSE stagehands.
4) We're not union, but there shouldn’t be a problem.
5) We can set up (load out) in less than an hour.
6) Sure, we give the opening act a sound check.
7) Give me 10 more minutes to focus the lights.
8) You can trust the box office count.
9) This hall always sounds better with people in it.
At the stage door
1) It's okay, I’m with the band.
2) I’ve got the guitar player’s strings.
3) I freelance for the Toronto Star (Rolling Stone, NEXT, Pitchfork).
4) Look, I just need a quick word with the promoter.
5) So where’s the food rider set up?
6) Got any posters, stickers, badges, or T-shirts?
7) I hitchhiked all the way from Montreal (Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton).
8) Look, I know I'm on the guest list.
9) These guest lists are getting completely out of hand.
With the manager
1) I tried to call, but the line was busy.
2) We’re talking to all the big record companies.
3) This tour will get you into the bigger clubs.
4) They’ll go with it in the States the minute it takes off here.
5) Drake’s asked you to open for him if we can work out the logistics.
6) Boy, just check out these reviews!
7) Don't worry, you can sleep on the bus.
8) We haven’t got the contract back yet, but don't worry.
9) Look, I never said it would be easy.
Some final all-purpose phrases
1) It’ll look much better when the American (French, German, Australian, British) royalties come in.
2) Just wait till you see the video.
3) I’m waiting for a Canada Council grant.
4) The record company’s totally behind you on this one.
5) Check the lyrics; they’ll blow you away.
6) The pressure’s killing me.
7) Anybody know a good lawyer?
8) Trust me.
9) Where do I sign?
No winner, so far, for the offered free trip to Hollywood (hah!) for the best new cliché submitted in the comments, But there have been a couple of intriguing suggestions.
Suznne Nuttall suggested another phrase you’ll here in the recording studio: “We never use AutoTune.” And Brian Blain quoted the late producer Frazier Mohawk: “Sign on the star and we’ll make you a dot.”
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The gig has changed, the city has changed. There is more desperation, more people living on the edge. This means we need more music, more art, more reminders of the ability of a song to transform someone’s commute, or change peoples’ daily troubles into a way-back machine or an aural roller coaster.” — Toronto singer songwriter (and often a subway busker), Michelle Rumball.
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NEXT TIME AROUND
I’m still processing the first of the five music festivals that will make up my summer, but I’ll have my thoughts in order by then, I promise. Also some memories of Mitch Podolak, an eccentric festival pioneer in Canada. Oh, yes, and another five Substacks you ought to check out.
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Stage Door #6 - Dire Straits have "Badges , Posters, Stickers and T Shirts " on the Twisting by the Pool EP. True from top to bottom - always brings a smile.
I've been a George Formby fan since I was a kid. Thanks for including him in this week's substack.