KINGS OF OBLIVION

(Attribution: MarkMarek: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en – no changes have been made)

A Cautionary Tale: Christmas Eve 1978, the Moonlight Club, West Hampstead, London.

FOUR GANGLING YOUTHS WITH SPIKY HAIR, stringy leather ties, skin-tight jeans and plimsolls are belting out a deafening hybrid of punk and reggae: the audience pogo and spit. Wannabes, hangers-on and groupies cluster at the side of the stage.  Amongst them is “Trippie” Nickie, proudly sporting the grey homburg acquired in the flea market in Amsterdam, a hip young gunslinger whose vitriol or praise The New Musical Express will beg to print (he hopes). He is wedged between a groupie in fishnet stockings and tartan mini-skirt and Lemmy in a black biker’s jacket, with an Iron Cross dangling on his hairy chest like a badge of office—a pouch sways alongside the medal, crammed with speed from which the fearsome rocker takes regular hits. The Vacant Lot end their set in a welter of feedback, and the Lightning Raiders take the stage. Trippie, our aspiring rock journalist, swings into action, coining images that he is certain will make the pinned eyes of NME decision-makers bulge in their sockets with respect and admiration.

‘You have to salute the Raiders: the missing link between hippiedom and punk. Long hair brushing the strings of their screaming guitars, demented eyes spawned by the same Gate and Grove basement apocalypse that nurtured Hawkwind and the Pink Fairies. Each number is short, tight, and spunky. The oafish Didja, the tongue-in-cheek assertion of  Amphetamine Melody,  the driving whirlwind of Views*, the clean power chords of Settling of Scores, an elegy to Steve Black, a musician remembered for pale good looks, cavalier locks, cutting wit, and an appetite for heroin. His death by overdose surprised no one. As Johnny “Guitar” Hodge croaks: ‘My friend was an archer/He searched his arm for bulls-eyes/Then he scored.’

“Little” John, the owner of two nicknames, lovingly fingers his guitar, soaring off towards Andromeda with his excellent slide. With him is the lion-maned Andy – “Watcha gonna do about it?” – Allen on rhythm and rabble-rousing, Sandy on a busman’s holiday from the Pink Fairies on bass, and ‘H’ on drums. Numbers like Addicted and Psychedelic Musik celebrate a level of drug-deranged burnout that makes the worst outrages of punk seem feeble posturing.’

Swaying alongside Trippie, Lemmy takes swigs from a bottle of Wild Turkey and then lights a Marlboro Red. He leans across, sweat glossing his forehead, his eyes amphetamine tunnels, and interrupts the flow of copy. ‘I’m worried about H,’ he croaks in his soft Northern burr and then buries his nose in the pouch. When he emerges, his nostrils are caked with powder. Such concern from one notorious for his wall-of-death lifestyle strikes Nickie as preposterous: a definite case of the pot calling the kettle black. The object of Lemmy’s misgivings has removed his shirt and is moving the sticks so fast across the skins that his arms seem to be everywhere, but the beat is a tad slower than usual. 

‘I’m an acid and hash man myself,’ declares Trippie. ‘Maybe an occasional toot, but smack never!’ 

This is not strictly true. In Amsterdam, where he has spent the last year, a joint was just as likely to be sprinkled with brown heroin as hash. The drug seemed equally widespread in London owing to the fall of the Shah in Iran and a diaspora of a ruling class who saw heroin as an efficient means of taking their wealth into exile. Everywhere you went, someone else was in the room, someone not particularly pleasant, who the person you were visiting could not live without.

The Raiders finished, Lemmy struts forward and takes the stage, soon joined by Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols. What links the furthest outreaches of hippiedom, ex-Hawkwind Lemmy, and the punk millennium? Are they two sides of the same coin, minting anarchy across the generations? If so, Lemmy is one arch of the bridge as is Pink Fairy Sandy, now leaning against an offstage amp, watching the action through hooded eyes. A leather-skirted woman lurches up to him and starts a conversation. Sandy, a connoisseur of ladies of the road, most famously super-groupie Pamela Des Barres, nods absently and twiddles with his ponytail. Trippie resumes the account whose cool, pun-packed tone will have the editors of Melody Maker or Sounds – anyone who will publish him, in fact – choking on their spliffs in wonder. 

‘Others have joined the émigré Pistols on stage. Johnny Guitar is up there with his black and white flying V;  H is bashing away at the drum kit in shirtless homage to his hero, Robert Wyatt. Sound drills the air, stabs of rattling staccato, as the guitars on stage metamorphose into machine guns and massacre the audience. The front row is down, a mass of twitching leather and denim felled by a stormin’ rendition of ‘Route 666’. Punk groupies clutch each other at the side of the stage, twitch in spasms that pass for dance, inspiring dreams of Morrison hotels, dressing room fumbles, and backstage passes. Fanned by the music and pungent fumes of Paki black, anarchy and abandon flourish.  

The impromptu band comes off without an encore. One of the Pistols greets his ladylove. He winks at her with a knowing smirk. Perhaps it amuses him to play with a load of whacked-out hippies. Let it pass. Why split hairs whose ends aren’t broken? Lemmy’s mobbed by a squad of swastika girls. The punters are leaving. The rest hang about in the hope of some post-gig action. It arrives in the form of an ugly brute with a spider tattoo on his forehead. Multiply pierced ears fail to rampart a face that resembles a tenement ripe for demolition. Clenched fists and furious agitation make it clear he’s set on mega aggro. He makes straight for Lemmy and tries to floor him with a punch that packs everything but acid.’

‘You’d think they’d know it was Christmas.’

A woman in a purple velvet dress with an afro and an attractive mixed-race face has moved up next to Trippie. There’s a pentagram around her neck, and she sports black nail varnish. Johnny Guitar comes up in his yellow silk jacket, the pupils in his kohl-darkened eyes dilated by speed; H is in tow in a grey leather coat that reputedly belonged to a U-boat commander. Meanwhile, three bikers have shoved through the crowd and drag off the ogre menacing Lemmy.

‘Looks like the GBH is on hold, man,’ says Johnny.

‘At least as far as Lemmy’s concerned, man,’ adds H.

‘Yeah, man, those boys are Angels from the Gate, man. They will sort it, man. Wouldn’t like to be in that motherfucker’s Doc Marten’s!’ Johnny’s mirthless laugh reveals a row of cracked teeth whose nicotine yellow clashes with his lipstick. 

‘What went down, man?’ says Trippie.

‘Oh, just a little hassle in the Gate, man.’ Johnny is deliberately vague. 

‘Strictly need to know, Nickie Boy’, adds H, tapping the side of his nose.

‘This Scorpio moon’s making everything so heavy,’ says the woman in the purple dress.

‘That’s right, Modesty,’ Johnny Guitar agrees. ‘It’s been a fucked-up month, man. Hey, I’m brassic! Buy us a drink, man!’

Consoled by Eva Brauns to either side, Lemmy has sidled up. Despite the sallow complexion, greasy tresses of hair and Nazi regalia festooning his jacket, he looks more bewildered than fierce, reminding Trippie that his first band was the Rockin’ Vickers, who wore clerical dog collars on stage.

‘It’s my fookin’ birthday and that gorilla had to fuck it up,’ he says in a Marlboro-hoarsened growl.

‘You were born the day before Jesus!’ gasps Modesty. ‘Why aren’t I surprised?’ 

‘I’d get you a drink to celebrate, man, if I had the spondula,’ hints Johnny hopefully. 

‘I can do your chart,’ offers Modesty. ‘ How old are you?’

‘Thirty fookin’ three!’ 

‘That was Henry Miller’s age when he moved to Paris and Jesus when he was crucified,’ Nickie, always a mine of trivia, chips in helpfully.

Lemmy glares at him. 

Is literature escapism, Trippie ponders? He mentally resumes vying with Nick Kent in coining amusing monikers for Byron Ferrari – aka Brain Fury – of Roxy Music before returning to the piece in hand:

‘The Nuremberg rally the image-makers have led Lemmy to at the bottom of that wilderness in the Grove is pure hokum. Through the slits of the bunker, he glimpses the endless daze of speed-and-Jim-Beam hangovers, the futility of loveless groupies and white line fevers. But his electric anthems pay tribute to the fragile grain of vision that lingers in the debris: Happy Birthday, Lemmy!’

The bar has stopped serving. The Moonlight is almost empty. Nickie reflects that it was in this venue, under its original name of Klooks Kleek, that Jimi Hendrix jammed with John Mayall and Led Zeppelin rehearsed when they were still the New Yardbirds.

‘Oh man, where can I get a fucking drink, man?’ demands Johnny.

‘I’ve got some wine back at my place,’ offers Modesty. 

‘Wine, man!’ snorts the guitarist. ‘It’s Christmas. Can’t we score some Southern Comfort? Nickie, man, you must have some dosh!’

Tempted by the prospect of Modesty, Trippie overcomes his inbred miserliness, which he blames on the double whammy of Welsh and Scottish blood and admits that he has. Johnnie Guitar announces there is a party in Chalk Farm. 

‘Be there or be square!’ says H.

They set off for the bus stop in Priory Terrace and catch a 31, which takes them to the Roundhouse, a short stroll from a Georgian mansion from which Raw Power throbs like a call to arms.

Mick Farren, lead singer of the Deviants and all-round underground pundit, lies sprawled across the living room carpet like a beached whale, snoring profusely, his MC5 sweat-shirt tugged up to expose a concave of plump, hairy belly. He is a willing victim of the Quaaludes that have been liberally distributed at the outset of the party. A Pink Fairy roadie stumbles on the stairs and tumbles down, seemingly unfazed by bouncing off the weighty mass of “Boss” Goodman, passed out on the carpet. Someone is noisily being sick in the downstairs loo.

Nickie is wedged on a sofa between Modesty and the Professor, an intense man with rimless glasses that give him the look of a Gestapo officer. Together, they contemplate the puffy, unshaven counter-culture hero whose tongue is lolling out of his mouth. The Professor reaches into his jacket pocket, produces a phial, unscrews the dropper, leans forward and squeezes out a few drops onto Farren’s tongue.

‘Best lysergic since Owsley,’ says the Professor, handing the phial to Nickie. ‘Pass it around!’

Nickie goes upstairs and ministers to several comatose bodies in the bedrooms. Some are couples sprawled on beds in various stages of undress, whose attempts to get it on have been aborted by the chemical cosh of the downer. In the study, Nickie comes across Lemmy browsing the book-lined shelves. H is sitting in an armchair, absorbed in a large tome on the Third Reich.

Nickie proffers the dropper. Lemmy blinks suspiciously, then crams his nostrils into the pouch, taking a mighty hit. 

‘I’ll pass as well if you don’t mind, Nickie old chap.’ 

H’s slurred tone makes Nickie wonder if he’s had a Quaalude. He realises something more sinister is afoot when the drummer’s head begins descending towards his chest in slow jerks. 

‘I want a word, H,’ says Lemmy.

‘A word to the wise.’ H’s eyes bat open despite the weights seemingly pressing down on the lids. He turns his cherubic face towards the rocker, all ears.

‘Wise is exactly what you’re fookin’ not. Now we all like to get a bit out of it.’ Lemmy raises the bottle of Jack Daniel’s he is holding and takes a deep swig by way of confirmation. ‘But you have to draw the line somewhere.’ 

‘Line seems to be the operative word,’ agrees H drily.

‘Smack makes you sick when you start and sick when you stop. If you’re not spewing your guts out, it’s a sure sign you’re hooked. Remember “Spade” Sue?’

‘Beautiful chick. Knew her well.’

‘So did that mummy’s boy Jagger. Called her the queen of the underground. Promised to put flowers on her grave, the twerp.’

‘O’D?’ says Nickie.

 ‘No, she died peacefully of natural causes in old age, college boy!’ Lemmy glowers, then turns to H again. ‘It’s obvious you’re dabbling with smack. I’ve lost too many muckers to that poison not to speak up.’ He takes a deep drag on his cigarette. ‘Clean up or it will kill you!’

‘Sure, Lem, I’ll give it a go.’

Speed kills, too, thinks Nickie, but not as fast as heroin. Smack means gambling with the ace of spades every time you have a hit. It makes you withdrawn, solipsistic, and socially obnoxious. Perhaps that was Lemmy’s real objection. Speed, like alcohol, animates people, and before they get too wired or paranoid, makes them almost pleasant company.

‘Lock yourself away with enough food and drink for 72 hours! After that, you’ll be free of it.’

‘At least physically,’ says Nickie.

‘When I want your opinion, I’ll fookin’ ask for it! And H, don’t do methadone! That fookin’ dishwater is even harder to quit.’

‘Dolphamine!’

‘Yer what?’

‘Methadone was synthesised in Nazi Germany when they ran out of opiates. The Allies found the formula in the ruins of Berlin.’

Lemmy strokes his Iron Cross. ‘You’ve got a head full of facts and figures but know jack shit!’

Nickie dangles the dropper. ‘It’s pure and clean. Best since Owsley.’ 

‘I had enough acid in Hawkwind to last ten lifetimes. Don’t get me wrong! That stuff is truth serum. Respect! But nothing beats this!’ Lemmy buries his nose in the pouch. ‘Or this!’ A prolonged swig of bourbon. ‘Or this!’ The musician sucks in a cloud of tobacco fumes. ‘A doctor told me not to stop. He said I’m like a tightrope walker. If I don’t go on, I’ll fall off. This is my fifth day awake, and I’ve never felt better. The fifth is always the best.’

Nickie says, ‘I met a junkie in Amsterdam who had to mainline speed to go to sleep. Is that a Nazi Iron Cross, Lem?’

‘First World War. Grand Cross. Only 19 were ever awarded. Got a few Nazi ones at home. I collect the regalia, not the ideas.’

‘Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves?’ says H.

‘Yeah, got one of those. I’ve even got an Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. I’d love to get my hands on a World War Two Grand Cross. Only one was ever awarded, and that was to Goering.’   

Rejoining Modesty and the Professor downstairs, Nickie finds the latter still gazing at the sleeping beauty like a naturalist observing a fascinating specimen of wildlife. 

Mick Farren’s eyes suddenly flutter open and register the mandala of coloured lights dancing on the ceiling, which is itself pulsating as though alive. His bulbous mouth gapes open in shock and disbelief.

‘My work is done,’ says the Professor.

All over the house, those who reeled and stumbled about, nauseous and vomiting, bruised and battered by Quaalude-induced falls and collisions, are now illuminated and serene, oblivious to the smoke seeping into the living room and up the stairs from the kitchen. Nickie makes for the source, bumping into Nik Turner on the way. The saxophonist’s kaleidoscope eyes are caked with green make-up. Smoke is pouring from a pot on the hob crammed with the charred remains of plants that have been stewing in water, long since evaporated. Nickie makes to open the window.

‘Don’t do that, man!’ hisses Johnny Guitar. ‘Take a deep breath! They’re opium poppies.’

Nickie does so and feels a wave of mellowness blunting the psychedelic pyrotechnics of the acid. 

‘Johnny,’ he hears himself saying, ‘why are we doing this? Getting so out of it, I mean.’

Johnny blinks and looks puzzled as he ponders this novel enigma. A grin splits his face, accentuating the premature lines. ‘Because it’s a gas!’

As if in confirmation, a semi-orgasmic spasm shimmers through Nickie’s mind. His brain seems to flip over. The acid is kicking in. He returns to the Professor and asks the same question.

‘Our parents passed on all the fear and angst of the great depression and conflict, but peace left a vacuum. That’s why we blitz ourselves. It’s our generation’s battle.’

‘And don’t forget,’ adds Mick Farren, who has been listening, ‘we inherited a terrifying world in which we can all be obliterated in an instant. We must change everybody’s mindset and get rid of the Bomb. It’s a matter of life and death. Only something as powerfully transformational as psychedelics can do that.’ That’s what he meant to say, but what came out was: ‘Scary boo-balooga bang bang! We’ll be nuked to smithereens if we don’t kick out the jams.’

‘And Quaaludes are going to do that?’ says the Professor.

‘You need a day off every now and then.’

The right man, the one perfectly qualified to answer, has just drifted into the room. Nickie poses the question.

‘It’s all down to World War fookin’ Two,’ declares Lemmy irrefutably.

* Views as performed by the Lightning Raiders at the Moonlight Club can be heard on YouTube.