When you've been in the False Dots for 47 years, you've met a few characters along the way. People discover the band, become fans and then disappear. As we are a grassroots band, it has always been part of our manifesto to love and value our fans. We always try and chat to them before and after gigs and make them feel part of the False Dots family. Our gigs have always been as much about people meeting up with friends and having a good time together as it has been about wtching a band play a few numbers. Over the last few years, when our profile has been higher than ever a few people who saw us in the very early days have turned up at gigs, mostly out of curiosity. I think most have been shocked, both at how much and how little we've changed. Ithink most expect some sort of bunch of geriatrics playing turgid blues rather badly. Not that we ever did that, but many of our contempories have moved into doing covers and being a bit staid. I don't think that can be levelled at us. That the feedback we've had though.
Perhaps even more interesting is when occasionally I meet someone from the very early days, who I'd completely forgotten about. Most are doing good things now. Occasionally, I will learn that a mutual friend from those days has passed away. Once in a while, there is a story that is so strange and bizarre that it leaves me speechless. The story of Saucy Sally from SW3 is one such person. One of the first False Dots gigs, I didn't recall it as it wasn't deemed 'an official gig', was at a mate called Sean's party at his squat Elgin Avenue in Maida Vale. The property is now a multi million pound house. At the time, Elgin Avenue was full of such buildings that were derelict squats. Sean worked at the Tyre shop at Fiveways Corner, with our bassplayer Paul Hircombe's brother. Paul was doing some work there and got friendly with Sean. Sean was havinga birthday party at his squat in Maida Vale and invited us to play. We were delighted to.
Sean invited the residents of many of the local squats, a fascinating bunch. The Dots did our set. We were nothing like the band we are now, far more punky and still really finding our feet. But we had written our first classic song, Not all She seems. A cautionary tale about exploitation of sex workers. Hank Marvin donated the guitar lick to us, when his son Paul was in the band. After we had played the set, a very attractive young lady, who I thought was about 21 started talking to me. She was clearly ons omething stronger than tea. She had listened intently to the band and asked about Not all she seems. I was quite shocked when she said "I really get that, you have no idea what pigs powerful men are". We had a pleasant chat and I was quite keen on her. She went off to do something and one of the other squatters said "watch her, she's trouble, don't get involved". I was about 17 at the time. When we played at the Moonlight club a year or so later, she turned up. She looked terrible. She was with a rather dodgy bloke, but said she desperately wanted to see us again. We had a chat after we played, she wanted to come back to our after show party, but the bloke wanted something else. I never saw her again.
Well not until 2014. I used to voulunteer at a homeless daycentre. One day, a new volunteer turned up. She seemed nice enough. Rather posh and well spoken. She had been doing some volunteering at Centrepoint. We started chatting and I mentioned I was in a band. She was really interested and asked the name. When I told her, she seemed completely startled. She asked how long we'd been going. When I told her, she asked if we'd ever played at a squat in Maida Vale. I said yes, and mentioned our friend Sean. To my amazement, she then revealed that she had seen us there and remembere me. Not only that, she remembered the song "Not all she seems". She then said about seeing us at the Moonlight Club. I twigged who she was. She told me she'd been going through a bad time. The bloke was in effect a pimp and also a bit of a dealer and a nasty piece of work. Someone we knew owed him some money.
I said "You were looking ill then, what happened?". She had spent several years strung out on drugs, in and out of rehab, paid for by her parents. The last time, she OD'd and nearly died. She then said "I had a near death experience. Jesus came to me and said he'd give me another chance, but I had to stop taking drugs and right all of the wrongs I'd done". She said she immediately gave up drugs. Oddly, she said that she had no real cold turkey, something that she'd had before when she'd tried to clean up. She cut all ties with her old associates and moved away. She then asked if I knew any of the old squatter tribe. I said that when Paul Hircombe died, I lost touch with Sean. What really shocked me was that she was my age. I had assumed she was a good few years older. She said that the drugs had taken a real toll on her, but clean living and yoga had got her back on track. She then asked if we still performed Not all she seems. I told her that it wasn't in the set at that time, but we may bring it back sometime.
What she told me next broke my heart. She said that she was not going to volunteer at Centre anymore. She said that she had to keep well away from all of her old contacts. I was really sad. I said "I don't see them", but she said "I have to stay away from that world completely". She told me that she no longer dated men, she had a real trust issue and lived with another woman. I was quite upset in truth. I was delighted that she was where she wanted to be, but felt she was associating me with a world that I was only on the very margins of. She said "You really should bring "Not all she seems back", you know sometimes when people are at the gates of hell, music can be a liferaft". True to her word, she never came back as a helper.
When Allen Ashley left the band in 2020, we brought Not all she seems back and recorded it on our last album. Recently, I was thinking about it. What happened to the person in the song? I have always assumed tragedy (in real life that was the case), but what if things had turned out different and they'd got their shit together? I used the conversation as the model. There is some artistic license in there but as happens in many False Dots songs, various people and various stories get aggregated. So I wrote Saucy Sally From SW3. The band rehearsed it last week for the first time and I did an unplugged version on the recent Tales of The Dublin Castle podcast. So in case you are wondering. she not called Sally, she's not Saucy anymore and she ain't from SW3, but the rest of it is all pretty accurate. I have no idea whether she'll ever read this or hear the song. If she ever gets in touch, I'll give her a credit. I hope she'd like it. You've got to respect people though and if she lives in a different world now and is happy, that is good enugh for me.
You can hear it if you listen to this!
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