Satans Rats

In My Love For You / Facade
(DJM 1977)

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Year Of The Rats / Louise

Punk77 says: Louise would feature on any of my top twenty punk toons coz it is just sooooooo fab. Single sank without a trace. DJM didn’t like spending money on fancy single covers did they?

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You Make Me Sick / Louise
(DJM 1978)

Paul Rencher Soon we were back in the studio, at Rickmansworth where Vic Maile agreed to produce our third single. I really liked “You Make Me Sick”. It was privately dedicated to Steve. But the record betrays the unhappiness in the studio. Satans Rats were pissed off and sulking. So, although “Sick” was a better record altogether, it lacked the energy its live performance. 

Punk77 says: Despite what Paul says, it’s still a fucking brilliant Punk toon!

Olly: He is a great producer, very direct and offered good advice (as a drummer) keeping it simple and cutting out the fills and frills. I remember some of the lyrics for “You Make me Sick” being completed in the studio under his watchful eye. He gave us confidence and took that song from a mediocre demo to a punk classic. Scene Point Blank

1: Prophecy

The Seventies were a strange time – economically poor, culturally rich. By the middle of the decade, youth was tired of the glamorous lifestyles of the supergroups. It was reggae band Culture who prophesied upheaval when they sang “When the Two Sevens Clash”. So it was that, even in the backwaters of Evesham, the Spirit of 1977 arrived spitting, snarling and wearing bondage pants.

A visit to London clarified matters for Steve Eagles and myself. Kids were still dressing up but now it was pink rubber and spiky hair. We returned to Evesham and began our search for a rhythm section. Having found Sharpie and Clint Driftwood, we discussed the christening. We chose “Satan’s Rats”, a name that a journalist was to call “obviously adolescent”. But then, our average age was seventeen.

I didn’t care much. The name was immaterial – I wanted to perform. That was all that mattered. My credentials were limited to the acting I had done at my last school when I appeared in “The Rivals” and “The Matchmaker”. The dusty room over Ma Bomford’s garage was no theatre, but ideal for us to set up our equipment and run through Communication Breakdown at garage band speed – 1 minute 30 seconds.

“What’s that?” growled Steve, as I let out a whoop at the end. “Don’t do that – it’s unprofessional.”

I said nothing but reflected that professionalism was about as far from punk as you could get, according to the papers. We were still developing our sound, continuing our painful odyssey through the cheesy Led Zeppelin songbook.

Something had to change. So I penned the lyrics to several songs that were to constitute the set at our first gig. On one productive afternoon in the college library, an essay on ‘The Return of the Native” was pushed aside so that I could conjure up these songs.

“You Make Me Sick” was comic-book punk exploring the classic motifs of nausea and vomiting, as induced by just about anyone who upset me in those days at Evesham College.

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2: Punk without Filth

Our first live appearance was at Bretforton Village Hall on 4th March, 1977. The audience comprised mostly fellow students from the college, hopeful of seeing us fail. From the clothes sported by a few, there were also potential fans among them.

My first utterance as a singer was to make an “Ughhh!” noise at the beginning of our version of the Damned’s “New Rose”. Howls of derision from the secretaries and mechanics were ignored as we ploughed through the set at the speed of light. Afterwards, a gaggle of kids came backstage to see us.

“Hi, I’m Lurch,” said the first.
“And I’m Pele,” said the second.
“Screw,” said the third, rather enigmatically.

Their hennaed heads and bondage trousers were a little outré for my taste, but their enthusiasm for our music more than matched our own. So it was that Satan’s Rats acquired a posse. To this day, I can’t say their real, names, but then in an age of Social Security fraud and Poll Tax evasion, the pseudonym disease has reached epidemic proportions. Messrs Rotten, Scabies and Vicious set the tone and Conservative economic policy did the rest.

At home, brother Mark was buying up Evesham’s entire stock of Punk records. The names of the “musicians” were becoming predictable – Dee Generate, etc. – but some of the songs were clever. Alternative TV’s “How Much Longer?” spoke to everyone.

Then Sharpie turned up one day and expressed misgivings about Punk Rock. He looked at us through his Uriah Heep haircut, stroked his velvet loons and murmured: “It ain’t for me, mates.”

He’d been reading the Dailies. He’d seen Johnny Rotten on the front of the Mirror, all safety pins and attitude, and quite sensibly questioned his own suitability for the job. Half and hour later his mate Roy Wilkes arrived and strapped on a bass. Had he and Sharpie done a deal? Did it matter?

A few days later, we attended an interview and photo session with the local press which resulted in a few column inches and a picture in the Asum Journal, bearing the headline “At last – Punk without Filth” and the caption “Steve Eagles, Paul Rencher, Roy Wilkes and Clint Driftwood”. This piece was a little clean, but then we were, and still labouring under the impression that the music mattered more than the image …

The next group meeting was excited and fractious. We felt we had arrived and were now preparing ourselves for stardom. Man.

To check out the new sound, I went to Malvern Winter Gardens and saw The Damned and The Cortinas play a set so amateurish that it gave me increased hope. But what I liked was standing next to Rat Scabies in the bar, where he nursed a pint of lager in the corner and looked quite cherubic. A stark contrast with the last band I’d seen there: BeBop Deluxe, who looked distant and pompous by comparison.

The next time I met Satan’s Rats, I expressed my belief in the new music.

“Yeah, “said Roy, “But we need more rebellion in our lyrics.” Absently fingering his expensive leather jacket, he continued, “Paul’s songs are OK but the set’s being diluted by those old fart tunes we’re playing.”

Steve winced. Roy was referring to his beloved Led Zep numbers, the ones that gave him the chance to show off his guitar solos. Steve flew at him:

“Ok Paul fookin’ McCartney, show us what you got!”

Without hesitating, Roy whipped out a sheaf of papers from his jacket and spread them out on the table before us. I picked up one called “The Year of the Rats”. This was good stuff: it celebrated the advent of a new era, rather grandly proclaiming it the Year of the Rats. Knowing Roy’s predilection for dope, I would have expected it to go like this:

The lovers of ale have had their day
I guess we always knew they would
The barrels of beer turned a bit queer
I know I always said it could
The pints we paid our dole for
Turned completely stale
The lager in our sleevers
Made our kidneys fail (So I say)
No more boozers – in the Year of the Losers
No more pubs – in the Year of the Clubs

A dope-smoker’s manifesto. As it was, Roy wrote a song about the demise of the Old Fart groups and the arrival of the New Wave. “It scans rather well, so let’s use it.”

In ten minutes Steve had dashed off a chord progression for us to try out. We included it at our next gig, Bidford-On-Avon Village Hall before an audience of greasers and soul boys who stared each other out across the dance floor while our loyal bunch of followers pogoed in front of the stage.

The following day, we crammed into the van and headed off to Worcester to record our first demo at Muff Murfin’s studio. We recorded six tracks in four hours, though Roy, Clint and myself finished earlier than Steve who added some rather tasty guitar over-dubs to “Don’t Come On” while we chatted amongst ourselves.

“We’ve reached the point where we must give up village halls and play larger venues,” said Steve, at the next meeting.

“Don’t we get a say in that?” snarled Roy.

“Err, I suppose so, ” said Steve, sounding slightly despotic. “But I’ve booked us to play at Barbarella’s in a couple of weeks.”

“Isn’t that the Birmingham Punk Festival?” asked Roy.

“It is,” said Steve coolly.

“Oh,” said Roy.

Steve looked triumphant. His aim to control was working.

“M-m-m-m-.”

We all looked round to see that Clint Driftwood, our illustrious young drummer was trying to speak. This was unusual.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“M-m-m-m.”

“Come on Clint, spit it out!”

“M-m-my Dad doesn’t want me playing with punk rockers!”

“You wimp,” laughed Roy.

“W-w-wimp yourself,” replied the young rock n roll rebel.

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3: Real Punks

The next morning I got a phone call from Steve telling me that our drummer had quit. He’d already found a replacement: people were queuing up to join the Rats at that time. Ollie Harrison, one of the band’s followers, was in. Steve had decided. No vote, no democratic process.

Fortunately, both Roy and I liked Ollie and knew he could play. He learnt the set in a few days and proved his worth at Pershore College of Horticulture on the 17th June. The set looked something like:

A few days later we travelled to Birmingham for the festival. But as he climbed into the van, that evening, Roy whispered in my ear: “Heard about Steve’s new stage-name? Its Steve Ego!”

We were a moderate success at Barbarella’s, outshone by The Killjoys and the Suburban Studs but better than a couple of other outfits. Just as well. In the club were a few hundred Brummie punks. They turned over half a dozen cars before the gig just to pass the time, pogoed and spat their way through all eight bands, then rounded the night off with a concerted attack on the club’s bouncers.

We returned there the week after to see the Buzzcocks and the Fall. When singer Pete Shelley asked, “Would any little boys like to come backstage afterwards?”

I sensed that I had entered a new social scene. The Fall were equally different. Ranting on about “Industrial Estate”, but telling us nothing about it, was clearly intended as some new urban poetry. Our material was old-fashioned by comparison.

Yet it was a proud day when the cassettes of our first demo arrived and we handed them over to Mick Butler and Duncan Hands, proprietors of a record and tape shop in Evesham, imaginatively called “The Evesham Record & Tape Centre”. Butler and Hands claimed to have influence in the business, so we let them send off copies to the major companies on our behalf.

We took them with us to Tracy’s in Redditch, where DJ Pete played “Year of the Rats” for the apathetic locals. The dance floor was comfortingly small – our dozen or so fans filled it as they loyally pogoed along. Perhaps success was a little harder to achieve than we had so far thought?

“You’ll go far,” said Butler, making it a total of one hundred clichés he’d used that night. Tosser. We were sitting in his office, discussing plans for the band. Across the desk sat Duncan Hands, Butler’s diminutive sidekick. He played Josef Goebbels to Butler’s pathetic portrayal of Adolf Hitler.

“You sound like the Who'” pronounced Duncan. That was a new one. Blatant flattery. He knew I liked the Who – I’d bought “Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy” the week before.

Steve looked dubious. Not that he didn’t think we sounded like the Who – it was simply that he thought the person to decide what we sounded like was … himself.

“Let’s hope the kids think so,” said Roy, sounding rather too much like Pete Townsend for my liking. Were we all losing our personalities? For my part, the pressure to sound like Johnny Rotten was proving an unwelcome burden.

“Let’s hope the record companies like us,” said Steve, realistically.

One record company did: Dick James Music. They sent an ageing A&R man, Les Tomlinson to see us play at Tracy’s. When Les told us he liked our “Primitive Dance Principles”, Roy looked as if he was going to heave, but we accepted Les’ invitation to sign for DJM after considering the offer for a full five minutes.

One wet lunchtime in Denmark Street, the four members of Satan’s Rats made their mark along the dotted line and immediately ordered larger size headgear and leaded boots to keep their feet on the ground.

“I think you look like Les McKeown,” said Linda from A&R, pointing a bejewelled finger at yours truly.

“Don’t you mean Jean-Jacques Burnel?” I asked.

“Is he a Bay City Roller?”

Satan’s Rats looked at Linda and knew they were on their own. DJM were not a Punk label, like Stiff or New Hormones, or Virgin. These Jewish Princesses loved Elton John and Johnny Guitar Watson and regarded us with polite caution. When Linda rose to her cute little feet and proposed a toast to the band, saying:

“Good luck, S-S-Satan’s Rats,”

I suspected she wanted to laugh at the name. Let’s face it, it just didnt fit. It was on a par with “Slaughter & the Dogs“. While other bands either went for brute nihilism – Sex Pistols, Stranglers, Dead Kennedys – and others settled for subtlety – XTC, Wire, Undertones – we had a name which reminded people of a naff B-Movie. It never stopped us getting a gig, probably helped us at the beginning, but did it sell discs?

Years later, at college in London, a bloke on my course told me that back home in Thame, together with his mates he had once set fire to “Year of the Rats”. I remarked on what a nice ashtray “In my Love for You” can be moulded into … then told him the Tale of Rikki’s Can.

4: Rikki’s Can

We arrived at the studio to be confronted by the unedifying spectacle of our label-mate Rikki Sylvan, leader of the Last Days of Earth, perched on the mixing-desk and waiting to start.

The bony-faced prophet of doom ignored my question, but promised to do a competent job. As he did. Of sabotage.

We got a farting drum sound, indistinct vocals and too much top in the tonal range. Sylvan was aloof throughout, silently hostile to DJM’s newest signings who posed a threat to his domination of the company’s new wave roster.

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5: Unreal Punks

We drowned our sorrows that last night in the Vortex, where girl band The Slits were assaulting anyone who ventured into their pungent orbit. The bands on stage were reassuringly crap. Mean Street posed and puckered like petulant adolescents, threatening members of the audience at random.

The atmosphere was plastic. There was TOO much aggression, TOO much spitting and TOO much swearing. These kids were acting in a mannered way, a tabloid-inspired way. The truth was embarrassingly plain. They, like the Greasers and Soulboys in Evesham, had believed the Sun.

Two months later we returned to London to play the Roxy in Covent Garden. A group of sub-Nosferatu creatures set up a barrage of abuse as we took the stage. They had rumbled us for a bunch of hicks from the sticks, though what they called us was less poetic. I gave as good as we were getting.

“Fuck off – you’re nobodies,” they shrieked.

“Fuck off yourselves,” I replied.

“We want the Pistols.”

“Never mind the Pistols, we’re Satan’s Rats.”

“We want the Pistols.”

“Fuck off and find them then.”

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6: Pistols at Dawn

It’s a small world. A short time after this advert appeared, we got a phone call asking us to support the Pistols at the Wolverhampton Lafayette, on their secret tour – they were banned by most city councils by then.

I suppose we should have expected a Malcolm McLaren-inspired trap. But then even that would have been worth it. There was no BAD publicity in those days – McLaren’s own credo. In fact the atmosphere in the Rats camp was ecstatic. Rotten and co were my favourite act, though the others were less committed, citing The Clash and The Stranglers as possible rivals. But we were unanimous in our recognition that the Pistols were the top draw in rock at that time. And we were to support them.

Before getting in the bus that evening, I spoke to my brother, then thirteen, who was keen to come along. I’m glad I said No.

Rotten spent the afternoon laying on the club’s floor reading about himself in the Melody Maker, while Sid and Nancy skulked in a corner, hyperdermics at the ready. Two paunches appeared briefly in the doorway, then were gone.

“Where have they gone?” asked Roy.

Jones and Cook were down the pub, leaving the Pistols’ road crew to entertain us. A scrawny individual who called himself “Rodent” wasted no time castigating us for the NME advert and for including a Beatles song in our set.

“I hate the fucking Beatles,” he opined.

And a fat roadie named Steve English put his arm round Jackie Pickles, one of our camp, causing so much nervousness that our roadie Lurch suggested we fetch some fish and chips from down the road.

Looking remarkably timid for a twenty-stone bloke, Lurch approached the current star of British Punk, who appeared engrossed in his paper.

“What would you like from the chippie, Johnny?” he asked the prone star. “Would you like scallops, like the rest of us. Without looking up, the Finsbury Park Anti-Christ replied:

“Never mind the scallops, I’ll have cod roe.”

Our sound check was highlighted by Sid Vicious’ refusal to allow Roy to use his bass stack. I was tempted to suggest to Mr Vicious that from what we’d just heard, he didn’t need the gear himself, anyway. I relented when I got an eyeful of Sid’s expression. Somewhere between Charles Manson and Freddie Kruger.

Two hours later the club was fuller than Gaye Advert’s bum flap. The Pistols were tight and brilliant. Satan’s Rats got an encore and enjoyed themselves thoroughly. We did not get to know our heroes, but did we want to? Their general demeanour was unsociable.

The club was still filling when Satan’s Rats the support group hit the stage.They were a mixture of high energy pop and new wave,very energetic and a good warm up for the audience. (Peter Don’t care personal reflection of Pistols/Rats gig)

There followed a period of intense gigging. We appeared on the same bill at Barbarella’s as Slaughter and the Dogs and XTC. The former were foul-mouthed yobs – the Genuine Article? – while the latter took the stage with the meek diffidence of public schoolboys. As Andy Partridge looked around the Brummie punks, he seemed to say, “We’re good, we’re really good, you’ll like us – Promise.”

Barbs was also the place for a night out, the place to “die a little”. It stank of stale beer, served lousy ships, but the underclass of Birmingham fraternised there in a sub-culture of drugs and kinky sex that lent it a powerful energy. In Ollie’s company mostly, I stalked its corridors, bumping into the likes of Bill & Belle, tailors to the Stars of Brum’s Underworld and one night, to a lad of our age who introduced himself as Spizz.

“I’ve got an album coming out,” he said. I nodded, not especially impressed – everybody in the club seemed to be signed up. Spizz sensed my boredom and asked: “Do you like Star Trek?”.

7. So who were Satans Rats, Grandad?

Personal profiles of the band were prepared by Butler and Hands:

Roy Wilkes. Bass Guitar and Vocals
Educated at Prince Henry’s High School, Evesham. Left in July 1976 with eleven O levels and 3 A levels, with a place at Birmingham University to read Psychology. Unsettled, worked in three different factories and a Petrol Station. Played with several rock bands since 1974.

Likes: Beatles, Donovan, Yes, Led Zeppelin.
Dislikes: Tony Blackburn, Production line Music e.g. discos, Bay City Rollers.

Joined the Rats in February 1977 and regards Punk Rock as a viable medium for healthy communication and not degeneration as portrayed by the mass media.

The other members of the band, Steve, Ollie and myself don’t merit inclusion in this profile. We were soon to eject Roy from the band, an error of judgement. 

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8: No Safety Pins just the Sack 

Drones appeared. Hurtling out of Manchester at the speed of … well … speed, Gus Gangrene, MJ Drone, Whispa Cundle and a drummer, entered our lives and wouldn’t leave. Their songs about white-collared workers and skeletons were a heady mixture which mystified soul boy regulars of Worcester as they took the stage after us. A hundred eyes focused on them from the bar area and contemplated violence. 

Barbs had us back again and again – until the management, the Futrells took a dislike to my activities with a microphone stand. At the climax of the set I had launched it into the seething crowd. Backstage, John Futrell was in no mood to pogo. He put me up against the wall and threatened me with Concrete Wellies:

“You could have caused a riot,” he snarled.
“It was an accident,” I croaked. 
“Some accident,” spat Futrell, and relaxing his grip on my throat, he added:
“You won’t play here again.”

Across the room, Steve and Ollie looked perturbed. 

“Yes,” I thought, “You disapprove of my behaviour and yet all you do is PLAY THE PART of Punks – when I do something of any significance, you’re quiet as mice.

At this point, Mr Eagles showed himself reluctant to talk openly. Thus began the era of the Ulterior Motive. It filtered through via Ollie that he was displeased with the microphone episode. I decided to play it his way.

Soon we were back in the studio, at Rickmansworth where Vic Maile agreed to produce our third single. I really liked “You Make Me Sick”. It was privately dedicated to Steve. But the record betrays the unhappiness in the studio. Satans Rats were pissed off and sulking. So, although “Sick” was a better record altogether, it lacked the energy of its live performance. 

Disappointment was alleviated by prior knowledge – we were all up-to-date with the really good stuff that was around – and the simple charge of adrenalin that ran through that era. Reappraisal was on the agenda: I came to regard the appearance with the Pistols as rather less than a stepping stone to better things. We could gig with The Drones and hold our own but any more than that? It seemed that, after all, we didn’t have what it took. In any case, did I want the hassle that goes with being in the public eye? 

Being spat at was nothing compared to the intrusion of the press – heralding us as a kind of modern-day pariah when in fact we were four middle class kids from the Shires – and the expectations of younger kids like my brother and his mates. Also, stories about Rotten and Cook being beaten up were worrying. Satans Rats knew that Evesham contained as many idiots per capita as Finsbury Park.

But if my doubts about the future were shared by the others, they said nothing. Instead Steve and Ollie combined on another matter. They demanded Roy’s dismissal from the band.

“He’s too square,” they complained to Butler and Hands, still our “management”.

We duly met one day in a pub and told Roy he was out. He responded with disbelief. The fact was communication was slack between us. He had suspected little, just a bit of spite. Instead it was a big enough schism to merit the sack. I didn’t share Steve’s opinion that Roy was a bad musician, and watched him leave the pub, knowing that personal politics were to blame. 

We farted around for the next few gigs with stand-ins Stan and Dave B, until a bloke named Dave Sparrow answered our Melody Maker advert and got the gig. Our next London date was the Marquee. Halfway through the set, when I stopped to argue with the crowd about the merits of skate-boarding, I caught sight of Sparrow bouncing round the stage. We had replaced Roy, who fair enough was more an ideas man than an icon, with someone no different. What was going on? 

More than anything, Roy’s exclusion from the band was a display of Steve’s megalomania. Perturbed at the occasions when Roy or myself had different ideas on band policy, he knew that the only person he could rely on in argument was Ollie. He saw that in the event of a band vote, it would be two against two. 

I looked around for mates outside the band and found Stu Dyke. Stu was keen on Cheltenham and our trips over there bore fruit in the from of Natalie Kolot. Natty compensated for working at the C & G by donning stockings and mohair at night and frequenting the Pavilion Club.

Over-consumption spoilt our night of passion, leaving me to walk sixteen miles home, the next morning. Ambling through Bishop’s Cleeve I was treated to a spectacle of rural life never encountered before. A bloke was masturbating in full view in the orchard across the road. If I’d been Joe Orton, I might have cheered. Instead, I averted my gaze from the dew-drop on his penis, only to catch sight of a sign outside of the pub next door.

“LAST DRINK BEFORE CHELTENHAM”

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9: A Suitable Venue for Punk Rock

In their wisdom, DJM set up a tour for us, combining the middle class ebullience of Satan’s Rats with the Eton and Harrow ethereality of Rikki & the Last Days of Earth. The author of our commercial failure was to spend a month on the road with us, and bring his double-barreled chums along for the fun.

To complete this spectrum of English Class System, DJM assigned a pair of East End rockers name Rent-A-Rig to do the PA. 

“I like you boys,” said Camp Joe after a couple of dates. “You remind me of Slade.” High praise indeed, we thought, but was there an ulterior motive for his compliments? He placated our fears by adding: “That Noddy Holder, y’know, he used to bring a suitcase full of used knickers on tour with him, the ones thrown on the stage by the girlies.”

“Oh yeah.”

“And every now and again he’d reach his hand in, take a fistful out and rub his face with ’em.”

Manchester, Rotherham, Dewsbury, Bradford sped past as Satans Rats and the Last Days peddled their terpsichorean doom vision to the United Kingdom.

At the Bishop Grotesk College in Lincoln, I decided to get controversial, announcing to several hundred dancing students that they were a “crap audience”. As we left the stage, I was roughed up by … our drummer.

“What the fuck did ya say that for?” snarled Ollie.”They loved us!”

“We’re a Punk Band, Remember?” I snarled back.

We were pleased to accept the invitation from Long Lartin Prison to play for the inmates, even if our advance publicity did get us onto the Home Office blacklist. The van pulled up in front of the gates, where we had our photo taken for the press, before driving into the place, expecting a ticker-tape reception but getting surly stares from the wardens. 

A group of men was assigned to help us unload our equipment. One craggy-faced character started up a conversation while we unloaded the gear.

“What would you say was the sociological significance of what you’re doing?”
“Eh?”
“What do you think Punk is achieving?”
“You what?”
“Is the Punk Explosion of any great sociological importance?”

I looked at the craggy face. Intelligent eyes inhabited a furrowed brow. They were studying me closely, waiting for my reply. I thought for a second, then said:

“Oh, well its about … youth rebellion … and … class revolution … “

The craggy one was nodding. I warmed to my theme:

“And violence, angry violence.”

He flinched at that. A flash in those sensitive eyes indicated a Past. My interrogator nodded his head and asked more questions. We stood there for ten minutes discussing the merits of The Clash and the rest, while the rest of the band humped speakers around. 

When the job was done, I watched the curious man wander off until I felt someone tapping on my shoulder. I looked round. It was a screw.

“Do you know who that was?”
Christ, so many questions! 
“No, I don’t as a matter of fact.”
“That was John McVicar.”
“Who’s he?”
“He’s doing life.”
“I thought he was a warden.”
“Ha ha ha.”

The screw turned and walked away. I spent the rest of the evening trying to establish who the hell John McVicar was. The most famous armed robber of his generation appeared that afternoon like an ordinary Joe. It is no surprise to me that he is now an established academic with a specialisation in social issues such as youth rebellion, but he got no enlightenment from me.

10: Three go Crazy out West

I had been granted a week’s reprieve. Dad, Mark and I were sitting watching TV when Dad announced that we all needed a holiday. 

“Let’s spend a few days down in the West Country – just the three of us.”

My brother, thirteen and looking anything but healthy since his illness, was sceptical:

“What’s there to do, down there?” he asked.

“Weston’s got lots going on,” enthused Dad.

I agreed, wanting to get away from Evesham. Wanting a change and a rest. The following day, we set off in Dad’s Renault. This was the first time we’d gone away without Mum or Sue being present, so I was curious about the interaction.

Day One was spent in Taunton, where Dad wangled it so we watched Somerset County Cricket Club play, with … Ian Botham in the side. Old Wonderboy was in his youthful glory, holding court on the balcony with the likes of Viv Richards and Joel Garner. 

The next two days were spent in Weston-Super-Mare and Bristol, where the evenings were Mark and I off in one direction, Dad in another. Something very sad about that. When we got back to the Vale, I knew I wanted to quit the band.

Rubbing shoulders with celebrities aside, I was tired of touring and tired of rowing with Dave Sparrow, who had become Steve’s henchman. The fact was that without Roy in the band, Steve ruled. OK? No, especially not, what with this pain I’ve been having in my groin. It sent me to the doctor’s.

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11: A Fate worse than AC/DC

“Your balls are going to drop off.”

The doctor’s diagnosis was sobering. Had he read that I was a wild punk rocker who would respond to this kind of talk? Standing with my jeans round my ankles in the surgery, I wondered what had brought my scrotum into such ill-repair that I was in danger of losing my gonads. Overuse? Misuse? Dr Cox continued:

“Unless you have surgery soon, you will lose the left one. The right one is not so bad.”
“But we’ve got a gig at the weekend.”
“You want to sing falsetto?”

I saw his point. Testicles are a testament to masculinity – without them we are willies in the wind. All pump and no action. 

“What a mess,” I said.
“You’ve been having too much nookie, Mr Rencher.”
“Hardly,” I groaned.
“Then you’ve been too enthusiastic.”
“Well, when I do it, I do it with feeling.”

He looked amused. “Then you must try and curb your ardour. Otherwise your ardour will curb you. As it is you need surgery, if we are to save the left testicle.”

Jeez – “General Hospital” was never like this. “O.K. When’s the operation?”

“I’ll phone Worcester and see when they can fit you in,” said Dr Cox, and realising the double-entendre of his phrase, he gave me a grave look, the way a shrink must look at a nymphomaniac. Ironically, I wasn’t getting any.

Satans Rats responded to the news with amusement. I felt a mixture of anger and disappointment as I heard Steve say:

“I’ll take lead vocals.”

Entering the hospital ward that afternoon, I reflected that Steve had become less and less of a friend. Come to think of it, he, Dave and Ollie were now a separate band, socialising without me, meeting me only for band purposes. Fuck them, I thought, as I submerged in an ocean of anaesthetic. 

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12: End-games

We re-united some weeks later and wrote some new songs. These included four lyrics by me – “Flatmate, Friday’s Child, Look at the Band, She’s Artistic”. They drew a negative response that I found irritating. 

Then one afternoon I knew it was over. Waddling into Ollie’s house, with a sore scrotum, I sensed antipathy. I announced my retirement by walking out. Reflecting that the three of them had just harangued me for not wanting to play a distinctly pop-sounding tune, I realised that none of them respected my opinions any longer. 

I was glad to go but regretted the spite of those final few months. My poor balls, they recovered well, but my disappointment at the behaviour of Eagles, Sparrow and Harrison has not. The fact that they got a new singer and scored a hit LP was no bad thing though – it had my songs on it.

Satan Rats? It was better than the dole.