It is probably really too late for me to add my Ottilie Patterson reminiscence to the slew of letters that appeared in The Herald while I was on holiday, but you are in no position to stop me.
I was brought up in a household of jazz devotion and taken to trad gigs from my earliest years. Patterson singing Trombone Cholly, a Bessie Smith novelty tune that was a feature with then-husband Chris Barber, was a childhood favourite. So when Patterson and the Barber Band came to Edinburgh at the end of the 1960s to headline a memorial concert for local trombonist and band leader Archie Sinclair, who had died in a car accident, my father was all set to take me along and, apparently, wrote to ask for the tune to be played for one of Ottilie’s youngest fans.
And so it was, apparently, but sadly I missed the dedication because the concert turned out to be a late-night affair and well past my bedtime. My mother, who was less interested in the execution of the perfect clarinet solo in High Society than me, had to go instead. At least that’s the way I remember it.
Having thus abused my privileged position as a journalist, it only seems appropriate to consider the musical tastes of the former editor of the News Of The World, Rebekah Brooks, nee Wade. A profile of her on the wireless included the evidence of a former school-friend that she was a big fan of The Cramps in her youth. Mrs Brooks has nearly 10 years on me, so she missed the trad revival, but we have this in common. It is a shame that this column’s only picture is of me, because a photo of Cramps founder and guitarist Poison Ivy Rorschach would be instructive. Brooks’ mane of russet curls is clearly a continuing homage to the girl christened Kristy Wallace who met and married Erick Purkhiser (aka. Lux Interior) and with him produced some three decades of classic goth ’n’ roll until his sudden death two years ago. Anyone who has lived through those rock ’n’ roll years would mark Brooks down as a teen goth grown up: the spelling of her name is a dead giveaway -- the letter K is obviously frivolously gothick. My mother, incidentally, may be comparatively musically ill-informed, but her suggested sanction for the (allegedly) erring editor is the administration of an Eton crop -- not a corporal punishment but a severe haircut apparently. That’s octogenarian justice for you.
Anyway, not only have I lived through those rock ’n’ roll years, I did so in the company of The Cramps. I remember seeing the classic early line-up, with the genuinely spooky Bryan Gregory on lead guitar and Nick Knox on drums, at Strathclyde University. I also saw them when The Gun Club’s Kid Congo Powers was in the line-up, a chap who should still be seen whenever he is in your vicinity with his current band, the Pink Monkey Birds. In the 1980s I even toured France with the band when I was half of the less-than-entirely-competent road crew for their support act, Glasgow’s Primevals, occasionally helping out with some of Lux and Ivy’s wants and needs.
By that time Poison Ivy was playing lead guitar herself and the band included a female bass player called simply Fur, whose stage costume was bikini of that material. Sadly I never found out about her requirements, but I do recall my chum on the catering side of the touring operation reporting that he had delivered a late snack to the group’s central couple and found Ivy ’n’ Lux in bed in matching pyjamas. The Eric and Ern of garage punk.
All of which is just by way of an excuse for me to paraphrase veteran Democrat senator Lloyd Bentsen in his famous riposte to vice-presidential candidate Dan Quayle, when he compared himself to JFK. Yes, I served with Ivy Rorschach. I knew Ivy Rorschach. Ivy Rorschach was a friend of mine (kinda). Lady, you’re no Ivy Rorschach.
I should have been in that committee room on Tuesday really.
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