Rock and Roll stories #18 - The moment you know!

Rog T - Teenage Rock and Roller

 Being in a band is a funny thing. Not that I really have much experience of being in bands. I've only really ever been in two, although I've been in one of those for 45 years! I jumped in with a few setups for a jam over the years, but as I'm not much good at jamming, I didn't really enjoy it, apart from with a bunch of Natty Dreads in Notting Hill, where I just sort of went with the flow, in a haze of beer and smoke and it seemed Ok. Of the two, one was a covers band with some school mates. We played songs like Help! by The Beatles and Teenage Kicks by The Undertones. I played bass. I joined to help out and quite enjoyed the vibe. It wasn't like being in The False Dots, where it was all terribly serious and we did things like writing band manifestos and having punch up's with the Moje's (our nickname for one of our local punk rivals) over who wore bondage trousers first.

We'd just turn up, the band leader was a chap called Rod, who would ask us if we liked a song and the next week, get the music. We'd then learn it for a week and play it the week after. Oddly, most of the songs sounded pretty OK, as all of the players were actually quite good. In The False Dots at that time, we were all rubbish and it was just a cacophony of haf baked ideas played rather badly and out of tune. The crunch came whemn Pete Conway, my partner in crime in the False Dots found out I was in another band.Not only that. I'd been playing his bass without asking. He was massively disgruntled. As was the way with Pete, it was all black and white. I was given an ultimatum. The False Dots or the other band, and if I chose them, I could buy my own bass.

This put me in a spot. Did I stick with the guys who knew what they were doing and were almost ready to do gigs or did I stick with Pete and hope that one day, it all came together. In truth, it was never in doubt. I gave my apologies to the covers band and dedicated my time to The False Dots. Within a couple of months, I regretted my decision as we had a massive fall out and the band split up. The other lot were doing gigs and had a decent sound. They'd soon found another bassist, far better than me. I spent from September 1979 to Xmas sulking. Then I bumped into Pete and we got the band together. However, we'd come to the same conclusion. We were rubbish. The technical side, we'd just have to work on, it would come with practice, but the material was rubbish. That was more serious. What could we do?

We too the radical decision to chuck it all in the bin and start again from scratch. This time though, we'd spend our time trying to write proper songs. We took a few blueprints from songs we liked and rather than rush to put together ten songs in a week, we'd do one song at a time until it was 'perfect' whatever that meant. It actually payed dividends. We were both workaholics and with the new, focussed approach, we had seven songs within a month and were ready to recruit a new drummer. Initially it was Pete's 'fiance' Deb, but they split up fairly soon after. Pete then recruited Paul Marvin on Drums. Son of Hank from the Shadows. For reasons I can't properly recall, we had a couple of rehearsals in my sisters flat in Hale Lane. Pete and myself had been practicing the songs pretty hard at home and in my bedroom, so it really was just a question of getting it in time with the drums. 

There was one song that we immediately knew was a killer, it was called She's not all she seems. We played a couple of the more standard songs to start with. They were OK, but nothing special and we knew it. Then we explained the tempo and beat to Paul and launched into it. The band had been going for over a year at this point, but as we went into it, it was like a mystical power from God descended on the flat. Not only did it sound absolutely amazing, but it felt like the whole Universe was screaming out for the song. It is hard to explain, but I felt like I felt the first time I saw The Ramones as we played it. In truth, the band had been a bit of a joke with all of my schoolmates. They knew we couldn't play and had no idea how to write songs. But here we were. I'd seen a few of them and jammed with a few and none sounded like this. As soon as we finished, we were so excited that we wanted to play it again. And we wanted an audience. Luckily, next door to my sister (who was out, otherwise it would have been her), lived a bunch of hippies, who spent their lives smoking dope and being stoned out of their brains. We marched around and demanded that they all came in and listened. They were quite a relaxed lot and liked music, so that was exactly what they did. I didn't really know them at that point, but they came in, around six of them, sat on the floor and we played the track, followed by another song, which we felt was almost as strong called Ride. 

As soon as the sat down, I started to regret our decision to invite them. They all started skinning up joints and getting comfy. That wasn't the problem, the problem was they were hippies! We were a bunch of schoolboy punks. They were all ten years older than us. I think Pete had similar thoughts. But when they had settled, he said "We're gonna play two songs to you. Tell us what you honestly think". As Not all She Seems was a slower song than most, we got Paul to give us a count in of eight, to get the tempo right. That was the intro for a very long time! Then we came in. They just stared at us and inhaled vigorously as we played. As soon as we finished Not all she seems, Pete shouted 1-2-3-4 and we went into Ride. We'd had schoolmates and friends at rehearsals, but not strangers who were older than us and into a completely different music. The odd thing though, was that as soon as we started playing, it was like we were onstage at The Marquee or the Roundhouse and we were the best band in the world. It is impossible to explain, but there is a moment in a band, where you just know!

As we finished playing the second number, my sister came in. She knew we were rehearsing, but not that we had a bunch of hippies smoking dope in her front room. She was quite shocked but took it in her stride. We then agreed to take a break for tea and biscuits and get the feedback from the Hippies. I was expecting them to hate it, but to all of our amazement, they loved it. One of them, a chap called Yogi, who has sadly passed away, told us he was best mates with Punk band The Vibrators. Another was a chap who organised benefit gigs locally, who promised us a slot 'when we had it together'. They were all complimentary, they knew their music and mentioned the influence of the Who and The Velvet Underground. We made allies that night, and it was a great lesson for us as a young band. You never know who is in the audience or what they do, what they know, who they know or what they like. 

It took us another six months, a few changes of line up and the loss of Pete Conway, before we started gigging. But that was the moment that The False Dots really happened. We only played them two numbers, didn't want to play the weaker ones, which we soon replaced. There are many lessons for bands, but when you are starting out, the lesson we learned there is to get your music to whoever you can and listen to feedback. Over the years, we have recorded Not All She Seems four times, with four different singers. Most recently, I sang it for the recording on our album "Don't be afraid of a finger in the Sun". A was delighted that my mate, Boz Boorer, produced the track and added a guitar solo, with a real Johnny Thunders vibe to it. To this day, of all the songs we play  live, it's the one I enjoy playing the most!

You can see the False Dots live at Fabwick in Hackney at 8.30pm, Friday 6th December and at 8pm on Friday 13 December at The Dublin Castle, for our Xmas Party. Please come on down! And this is how Not All She Seems sounds in 2024!