Henry Padovani PREVIEW
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Henry Padovani Secret Police Man PREVIEW Extracts from a few chapters. Images are optimized for online viewing. en Press Secret Police Man Contents 1. When you believed it was forever 5 2. Pete’s Death 6 3. A Golden Childhood 9 4. Lapsus, the first band 13 5. Le Club 22 6. Rock’n’Roll 30 7. Arriving in London 33 8. Meeting Stewart 37 9. The Roxy club 41 10. Doctor Mulligan 45 11. The early days of the Police 47 12. The Police are ready 55 13. London 1977 59 14. Europe 63 15. Mont de Marsan 71 16. The band splits up 75 17. London Clubs 82 18. Roxanne 87 19. Wayne County : Play Misty for Me ! 90 20. Aciiiiid !!!! 98 21. An Electric chair 106 22. The Flying Padovanis in the studio 114 23. The Flying Padovanis and the Pretenders 126 24. The Blue Note collection 137 25. Stolen guitar 150 26. Topper’s downfall 158 27. After Pete 171 28. Rock’n’Roll, part 2 178 29. IRS Records 185 30. Just what the doctor ordered! 196 31. Marc Zermati 201 32. Everything has a start 205 33. … and everything has an end 210 34. Amsterdam 213 35. Paris again 218 36. Il Volo 226 37. Ladies and gentlemen, il Maestro: Luciano Pavarotti! 232 38. The first time 248 39. Zucchero, Bono and Net Aid 253 40. Coming full circle 268 41. Families and Rock and Roll 278 42. Le Stade de France 284 43. And now… 297 44. Photographs 299 45. Acknowledgements 303 46. Index 304 Secret Police Man 1. When you believed it was forever love telling stories. I think I just simply like talking, so it’s I always a pleasure for me to answer my friends’ endless questions: How did I start to play the guitar? Why did I decide to take off for London? How did Sting, Stewart and I meet? Why did we split up? What was London really like in 1977? Was Wayne County a man or a woman? Who was in the gang? How did the Flying Padovanis get together? Did we play many gigs? Where did we hang out at night? How did Pete Farndon die? Why did it all end? Why this, Why that…. Yes, it’s true; I’ve got lots of stories to tell about those days, especially since most of the books that I’ve read about bands and London during those ‘new wave’ days haven’t always been accurate. Not surprising really, since most of the people who wrote them weren’t there! And then, they wrote them from an external point of view, and well after the fact when they already knew the end of the story. It’s just not the same… So I started to jot down and retell some of the memories that shaped my life. I wrote them just from my viewpoint and they only engage myself. And if their endings aren’t always bright, that’s how I lived them. All that I can say is that at the time, we didn’t yet know the end of the stories. We were struggling, and we just wanted to get through. And every time, and in every situation, we were simply doing our best. And, every time, we believed it was forever… 2. Pete’s Death pril 14th, 1983. It was raining in London. Nothing new there A then. I was with my wife Kristina, a Swedish journalist, at our place in Camberwell New Road, and while she was working on an article in the kitchen, I was upstairs working on a snippet of slide guitar that I wanted to add to a number that I’d just written. We’d been living for the past two years in a council house that cost us £19 per week. It wasn’t a lot but we still had to fork it out every week. Between what Kristina earned with her writing and the £100 that Wayne Chappell advanced me each week, we managed to pull through. At the end of the day, like always, I was happy with my lot. England had been good to me. I had lived there for six years. Kristina entered the room where I had set up all my gear: ‘Henry, there’s someone on the phone for you’. I went downstairs. Marvin Gaye’s What’s going On? was playing on the turntable in the living room. I lowered the sound and picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’ ‘Henry Padovani?’ ‘Yeah. It’s me...’ ‘This is Ladbroke Grove police station. Do you know a Peter Farndon?’ What a question! Pete was the bassist of Samurai, the new group that Topper, Steve Allen and I had put together the previous year. That particular day, Pete hadn’t turned up for rehearsals and we were mad as hell. We’d waited for over two hours while running through a handful of numbers with Steve, the singer, and then Topper and I had gone to look for him at his flat in Basset Road. His motorbike was there, in front of the porch, and I remember that we cursed him when we saw it, something along the lines of ‘that bastard! He’s there… He doesn’t give a shit… He could have phoned us... He could have let us know...’ I stopped in front of the house and Topper got out of my Morris Traveler 71 to ring the bell. No answer. ‘I bet he’s asleep’ said Topper. We drove off, disgusted. Secret Police Man 8. Meeting Stewart reen Street. To get there, you go through Marble Arch. G Sunday afternoon, traffic is good. There were a lot of people crowded around a guy standing on a soap box. ‘That’s Speakers Corner’, says Paul. ‘People come and talk to the crowd about whatever they want, about anything and everything.’ We turn left going down Park Lane. ‘This area is called Mayfair. The poshest area in London’, continues Paul. ‘Jimi Hendrix lived in this street … and he died in this street.’ I never verified this information. Anyway, all I wanted was to believe him. And he was looking at me very proudly, sure of the effect this anecdote would have on me. The street is a succession of Georgian terraced houses, with imposing porches, probably to shelter the visitor from the rain, which has been falling non stop since I have arrived in London. Paul rings the bell of number 26, somebody answers and the door opens. Voilà! Secret Police Man 11. The early days of the Police fter Christmas I decided to go for an audition. Just like that. I A wasn’t even sure whether or not I was going to stay in London. I was just rolling along, going with the flow. I often played with Stewart and Ian, and we got on well. We’d go out together to see bands. Stewart often talked about the band that he wanted to start. We’d see Miles organizing gigs – I remember watching Squeeze, his latest signing, supporting Generation X at some college gig, the audience seated behind the lecterns. And then, maybe just to prove something to myself, I decided to reply to a small ad. I was flicking through Melody Maker and I noticed a classified: London, punk group is looking for a guitarist. Why not? I gave them a call, and they asked me to come and see them in North London. Paul dropped me off. I met two guys: a singer, Riff Regan, and a drummer, John Moss, who later formed Culture Club with Boy George. Very cool. They handed me a guitar and I played some rock, a ‘twelve bars’ whilst Riff sang. ‘Do you want to join our band?’ Straight to the point. I said I’d think about it and call them, and I left, over the moon. It was my first audition and they’d accepted me. I had been a bit stressed. It’s not easy to sell yourself so quickly. I went back to Paul’s, and that evening I called Stewart. I told him all about the audition. He seemed a bit surprised that I had done it. He asked me: ‘But, are you planning to stay in London then?’ ‘Maybe… Anyway, I said I’d think about it’ ‘So you’re ready to stay?’ ‘Yeah…’ I replied, a bit lost. ‘I don’t know… I don’t really feel like going back just yet. Why?’ ‘Look, if you’re going to stay in London, why don’t you join my band?’ ‘You never asked me.’ Secret Police Man 12. The Police are ready e were ready. Every day we’d meet at Stewart’s, with or W without Sting’s son. Whatever may happen, we were impatient for our first gig. It was Miles, Stewart’s brother, who gave us our first break. Miles had offices at Dryden Chambers, near Oxford Street. I remember Miles wearing mittens in the office because it was so cold. He had already taken a few groups under his wing: The Cortinas, Chelsea, and he had just signed up Squeeze. In the same building were the offices of Sniffing Glue, the punk fanzine run by Mark P (P for Perry) and Danny Baker, which reported on all our favourite bands. Mark was also setting up his own group, Alternative TV. He wanted nothing to do with us. Miles was the same. He was already doing business with real punks and he regarded us as imposters.