Gang Of Losers

  Chapter Eight

  Theo had been playing the drums since he was twelve years old. One day, his brother had brought a pair of drumsticks home from school. The second they were left unattended, Theo picked them up. They immediately felt like a natural extension of his hands. It seemed to Theo that as soon as you held a drumstick in your hand, everything was a potential instrument: chairs, pillows, floors, pots, walls, anything at all. Drumsticks seemed to be a passport to an unlimited rampage of hitting stuff.

  He created a drum kit of pillows arranged on the living room three-seater sofa. He used the left arm of the sofa as a hi-hat and placed a pillow on the sofa seat directly in front of him to act as the snare. He put a further two pillows on the top of the backrest to act as the tom toms. He would sit kneeling on the sofa hitting the pillows for hours on end, plumes of dust rising into the air. After several weeks of this (Theo's brother never did get the sticks back), the pattern on the sofa had faded to nothing, and it was completely dust-free. If he wasn't hitting the sofa, he was tapping out rhythms on his bedroom desk, his angle-poise lamp, his window sill.

  When it became clear that he wasn't going to stop, his parents embraced the drumming fully and encouraged him as much as they could. First his mother made makeshift drums by pulling grease-proof paper over saucepans, keeping the paper in place with rubber bands. Then, a practice pad was bought - a tapered block of wood with a six-inch wide rubber circle in its middle that had the same rebound as an actual snare drum. An enquiry to the school's music department established that drum lessons were available. Theo enrolled and was soon being marked 11/10 by his ex-military bandsman tutor. From then on, birthdays and Christmases brought more drums and cymbals until the kit was complete. The various drums had been different colours originally but Theo had painted them all matt black as he bought them, and unless you looked closely, the kit looked homogenous.

  Perhaps a psychiatrist might have had something to say about a musical instrument that built a wall between the player and the rest of the world. But Theo did not think of the kit as something to hide behind. To him it was like sitting at the controls of an aircraft or space ship. The drum kit was his vehicle, and only he knew how to power it. Here he constructed the framework that the music was built around. It annoyed him when people described drummers as not real musicians. We are the most real, he would think to himself. We provide the beat. We are the source! Everything is built around us!

  -

  By the time the first Steal Guitars rehearsal came around, Theo knew the material inside out. He decided to replicate the 'pocket of change' sound by adding a tambourine to his hi-hat. He worried that his kit was starting to look a bit shabby, so he bought new Remo heads for a couple of his toms and gave the whole kit a wash down and the stands a polish until the kit gleamed like it was in a music shop window.

  Theo enjoyed rehearsals even more than gigs. He liked the relaxed atmosphere, and the improvisation - trying out new songs or jamming established songs in new ways. The Blues Train rehearsals took place on a Tuesday evening and were Theo's favourite part of the week. The venue for the rehearsals was Tim Grattan's garage on one of the more well-to-do estates built on the outskirts of Lyncombe in the early 1970s. The garage was adjoined to the main house by a door through to the kitchen and it felt like a natural extension of the house. The garage was permanently vehicle-free; the family's car being consigned to the driveway. Instead the garage was home to a cacophony of Marshall amps, music stands, guitars, keyboards and a couple of square metres of thick shag-pile carpet for Theo to set his drum kit up on. The walls were plastered with posters advertising long-past gigs: Eric Clapton at Finsbury Park, Dr Feelgood at the Colston Hall. There was even an original poster from 1970 advertising the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music with Led Zepellin and Pink Floyd on the bill.

  In one corner lived the family freezer, and next to it an ancient fridge filled with wine and lager. Tim's wife often joked that the rehearsals were just an excuse for Tim and his buddies to sit around and drink. After all, they knew these songs like the back of their hand. Tim responded that they needed to practice for Theo's sake - someone so young couldn't possibly be versed in the blues and needed all the help he could get. Theo was happy to be the brunt of this particular joke, the role of being the youngest was one that he was well used to.

  The age gap between him and the rest of Steal Guitars was much narrower, which meant he'd be less likely to be pandered to. This worried Theo slightly as he was terrible at communicating adequately with new people of his own age. His shyness meant that he often came across as aloof and snobbish. He decided to counter his natural inability to make conversation by just being as polite as he possibly could. He knew politeness went down well, no matter where you came from.

  The Steal Guitars auditions were to take place in St Michael's church hall on the outskirts of Chippenham every Wednesday and Friday evening. Theo disliked church halls; they always smelt musty and were always cold. As ever, Roger helped Theo unload his kit from the car into the venue, making sure not to use any pet names for his son in company. They were to practice in one of the ante rooms at the side of the church proper. The room was used for coffee mornings and playgroups during the day and was decorated with murals depicting stories from the bible. There was a small kitchen in one corner, stacks of chairs and tables along one side of the room, and blue multi-stained carpet covering the floor. In the evenings the room was lit by harsh strip lighting hung from long wires attached to the high vaulted ceiling.

  Once Theo and the rest of the band were ready they kicked off the rehearsal with 'Brand new Cadillac'. The acoustics were not as good as at the Sounds International rehearsal space, and everything sounded angular and sparse. Theo's drums seemed too high in the mix, and he saw Lee glaring in his direction a couple of times as they played. When the song finished, Mark took off his guitar and left the room. He came back holding two dark red cushions, presumably taken from the pews in the main church. He laid one inside Theo's bass drum and then unzipped the other one, took out the padding and gave the cover to Theo.

  "Put this on the snare" he said. Theo did as he was told.

  "Okay, let's try it again," said Mark. With the padding, Theo's drums weren't nearly as loud. The acoustics were still pretty awful but at least now all the instruments were the same volume. They worked their way through the set list in the same order that it appeared on the cassette that Mark had given Theo. The simple intro/ verse/chorus/ verse/ chorus/ middle-eight/ chorus/ outro format gave Theo no problems and he finished each song exactly on cue. In between tracks he pulled his bass drum back into position and gave the nod to Mark that he was ready for the next song. No nonsense, just 1-2-3-4 rock n roll, played with precision and speed.

  Unlike the Blues Train rehearsals, Steal Guitars rehearsals didn't have much of a social aspect to them. There was very little chat between songs, and there seemed to be no variation in the way the songs were played, with no improvisation in solos or vocals. Maybe because the band was headed by two brothers who knew each other so well, conversation was not needed. But perhaps more surprisingly, none of the band members drank or smoked the whole time. This amazed Theo. With their reputation, he was expecting crates of beer and joints to accompany the sessions.

  With the songs being so short, the rehearsal was over in no time. The band packed their kit away and lugged it out to the front of the church. The Heritage brothers had a white van and they loaded theirs and Danny's amps into the back. Once the loading was complete, Lee got into the front of the van while Mark stayed at the rear. He put on his leather jacket and sparked up a cigarette. He offered one to Theo who accepted; even though he knew it would make him feel sick later (the strip lighting in the church had already given him the beginnings of a headache). Mark congratulated him on the session, saying he played well. Theo thanked him profusely in return, saying how strong he considered the material to be. Mark thanked him again and took a long drag from his cigarette. Mark
said nothing further so Theo made an exception to his usual rule and started a conversation himself.

  "Hey, I listened to that drum track you gave me. Really good drumming. I was trying to figure out what that sound was on the choruses. It's not coins is it?"

  Mark's eyebrows popped up. "You noticed that did you? Ha! Yeah, our drummer didn't have a tambourine and we couldn't afford to buy one, so when he was laying down his track I just stood next to the mic and tapped my pocket. Works well doesn't it? We might use it when we make the record."

  "Cool" Theo said. He wanted to ask what had happened to his predecessor but was afraid that he might hear an answer he didn't like, so he kept quiet. Mark stubbed out his cigarette and said that he had to get going. He offered to give Theo a lift but Theo said that his dad would be along soon.

  "Okay, see you same time Friday". With that, Mark got into the passenger seat of the van. Theo stubbed out his barely-smoked Marlborough and tapped out a rhythm on his trouser pockets as the van drove off.