Happiness Is A Warm Rolls

Picture by LAWRENCE BOGLE

Yes... that's me with John Lennon's psychedelic Rolls-Royce. I had the unexpected pleasure of checking it out on its brief visit to London a few days ago when it was part of a display of famous Rollers at Bonhams in central London.

It normally resides at a museum in Canada, but it was here to help R-R promote a new model – along with cars belonging to Fred Astaire and the Queen.

Lennon took the car to the States in 1970, and ended up donating it to a New York museum to ease a tricky tax situation. It is now reckoned to be the most valuable automobile in the world

Even today, it is still a work of outrageous art. Chums such as Paul, George and Ringo, not to mention Brian Epstein, Bob Dylan and Keith Moon, all seemed to have had a jolly time in the back of the car – which was said to have an extensive supply of drugs and alcohol.

But the exterior was perhaps the trippiest thing of all – a collision of psychedelia with gypsy caravan-style art that defies you not to smile at the irreverence of it.

I thought of it again today when I was in rehearsal with my old band, the Shark Dentists, working on the infernally difficult-to-play Lennon song 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun'. With a little more work, it – and its combination of 4/4, 3/4, 6/4 and 2/4 – should be ready for performing at a little festival in the Midlands next month.

Death On Mars

Sometimes some space is a good thing… now the hoo-ha over David Bowie has died down a little, maybe it's possible to reflect a bit more clearly.
Neil McCormick from The Daily Telegraph may well have reflected quite a bit after his review of 'Blackstar' which drew the conclusion: "It suggests that, like a modern day Lazarus of pop, Bowie is well and truly back from beyond."
Kitty Empire, who got it similarly wrong, used the whole of a piece in The Observer this weekend to make her excuses in full.
'Blackstar', with the advantage of hindsight, is so obviously a grim farewell to mortality, but few people knew what was coming, so it's not entirely surprising that they got it so wrong.
My own feelings about – and memories of – Bowie are fairly straightforward. I loved 'Hunky Dory' and I loved the fact that you couldn't go into my local bar in the early 1970s without 'Life On Mars' blasting out of the jukebox – the perfect soundtrack for that time.
 I never liked the 'Ziggy Stardust' and 'Aladdin Sane' albums that much. 'Young Americans' was a wonderful return to form. And I'm afraid, for me, that's just about it.
I only saw him once on stage – with Queen – and he was truly remarkable. Bowie was a great musician, and a great performer with great presence – and  a great appetite for sex, drugs and rock 'n roll, and maybe he willingly paid the price for that. 
Now he's gone, 'Life On Mars' still says it all, I reckon.

Royal Progress

Playing gigs across the UK tends to mean driving back through the night late. The more gigs we play, the more of a ritual it becomes. And the radio tends to be one's only companion on the road.

Whenever the National Anthem used to come on at 1am, I always used to switch it off. It was the last thing I wanted to hear, then — or at any other time. (Anthems don't really do it for me, unless it's Hendrix playing The Star Spangled Banner.)

But then a strange thing happened. I found myself leaving it on and allowing it to become part of that nocturnal post-gig ritual.

For the past two nights, after really wonderful gigs, I've let "God Save The Queen" mark another minor musical success. I've found something positive in it — rather than something negative.

And that's a pretty amazing turnaround.

Mind you, I still prefer the Sex Pistols...