Climbing the Fountain of Eros: Part 3
In memory of friend Mike, The Rainbow, Cornwell in Prison
i
Having had our relatively minor brush with the law at the Fountain of Eros, (see Climbing the Fountain of Eros: Pt 1), it was time for me, Mike and Phil to head over to The Rainbow Theatre to procure tickets for the Stranglers & Friends gig. The Friends being a motley rag-tag assortment of musicians filling in for the recently arrested and imprisoned Hugh Cornwell.
The Finsbury Park Astoria, as it was called originally, was erected in 1930 on a triangular island site between Seven Sisters Road and Isledon Road, bounded at the rear by Coleridge Road. In 1971 it closed as a cinema, run by the Rank cinema organisation. The last films shown were the horror movies “Twisted Nerve” and “Gorgo”. The Astoria was then taken over by the Sundancer Consortium, managed by American John Morris, who had been the production manager of the 1969 Woodstock Festival. It was renamed The Rainbow, converted to a music venue, and launched by The Who on the 4th November 1971.
Outside the building we paused, looked at the imposing entrance block of the iconic venue and took in its façade of plain cream and green faience. No one else around. We grabbed the brassy shining handles of dark wood doors and into the foyer with its ornate Moorish fish-pond fountain in a star shaped pool mirroring the octagonal balconies above. Box office, but no one around.
There’s a booming of noise coming from the auditorium. Sound check. We look at each other. Why not? Inside, a couple of roadies shift some speakers. They don’t seem bothered by us. The stage is only half set up. Finally we are asked to get out. There’s an exit sign to the left of the stage, we just head for it, who’s backstage? But it leads to an external door. Back out into the sunlight on Isledon Road. Dave Greenfield is leaning against the brick wall smoking a cigarette alone. We are taken aback, torn by the desire of a music fan to make personal contact with a famous musician and the respectful sense that Dave’s having a quiet moment to himself. Dave’s looking gloomy and doesn’t register us. Maybe he’s thinking about Hugh up the road in Pentonville Prison just a mile and a half up the road. Maybe he’s thinking about Ravens. Maybe he’s just depressed and isn’t thinking about anything in particular. Of course, we can’t quite help ourselves. Er, hi Dave, do you know where we can get tickets for tonight’s gig? Dave’s really not into a chitchat with these pop-up fans. We can feel the darkness darkening. He shrugs us off up the road, where we eventually find a ticket agent. Why no Hugh?
ii
On November 1, 1979, Stranglers frontman Hugh Cornwell was arrested for possession of drugs. On the way back into London, from the penultimate gig of the UK Raven tour, at the Cardiff Top Rank, the police had placed a full roadblock across the highway into West London.
‘We were stopped in a routine roadblock which was a complete Sweeney-type blockage, on main thoroughfares in the middle of the night, with arc lights and a about fifty policemen and eight squad cars involved. We were stopped in Hammersmith Broadway which is about four lanes wide, with the squad cars diagonally across the road, cutting all the traffic down to one lane. They were stopping every vehicle, and checking every detail and, where anything looked a bit suspicious to them, they were searching the driver or the contents of their car.’
In Cornwell’s rucksack: Magic Mushrooms, two wraps of Cocaine, half an ounce of dope, some resin, some grass wrapped in a tissue, and 90mg of Heroin. On March 21 1980 he was sentenced to eight weeks imprisonment, on the eve of the band's latest tour. A Far Eastern visit was cancelled, but this pair of shows at London's Finsbury Rainbow went ahead on the 3rd and 4th April. The gigs were part of a series celebrating the 50th anniversary of the theatre, including acts such as The Jam, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Whitesnake, John McLaughlin, Average White Band, and Billy Connolly.
The Stranglers and Friends gig in April 1980 is a melee of guests rush rehearsed for the show: Toyah, Robert Fripp, Hazel O’Connor, Ian Dury, Peter Hamill, Nik Turner, Robert Smith, Basil Gabbidon, Richard Jobson, Wilko Johnson, Steve Hillage, Larry Wallis. We blag our way into the stalls despite having circle tickets. All the Stranglers greatest hits done with varying degrees of interpretation. It’s a blur, but we had a good time.
iii
Years later Phil reminds me that on the day we saw the Stranglers at the Rainbow, there was an exhibition in the foyer as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations. We both remembered a broken guitar in a display cabinet, but otherwise our memories are hazy. Wanting to find out more, in 2021, I managed to speak to Rick Burton, the stage manager of the Rainbow at that time and hence for the Stranglers show that night. He had worked at the venue since 1977, initially front of house then lighting and finally stage manager until the venue closed following maintenance and licencing problems on 24th December 1981. Rick designed the programme for the 50th anniversary and curated the exhibition. The jeans manufacturer Levi’s had sponsored the celebrations and donated denim cloth to cover the exhibition panels. The first two cabinets were a history of Levi’s, then material about the history of the Theatre with memories from staff who had worked there during the war. Wartime shrapnel, found in the roof, was on display. A slide show was projected onto a wall. The concluding concert scene from the film Breaking Glass, starring Hazel O'Connor, had been filmed at the Rainbow. Hazel O’Connor’s circuit board costume was on display. The broken guitar was from Ian Gillan band’s lead guitarist Bernie Tormé. It had been smashed up at concert they played in the venue, most likely in March that year. It wasn't the first guitar to have suffered in the venue. On 31st March 1967 The Jimi Hendrix Experience played The Astoria - the opening night of a package tour with Cat Stevens, The Walker Brothers, The Californians, The Quotations, Nick Jones and Englebert Humperdink. Hendrix's manager Chas Chandler asked journalist Keith Altham for advice on how to get more media exposure. They were aware of the Who's instrument smashing tactics. Hendrix joked: Maybe I can smash up an elephant, to which Altham replied: Well, it's a pity you can't set fire to your guitar. Lighter fuel was procured. Hendrix had the perfect song to activate the now legendary stunt - Fire. Hendrix not only burnt his Stratocaster, his fingers got a scorching and required hospital treatment. The Walker Brothers were upset at being upstaged and the Astoria Theatre manager was furious. He didn't try the trick again on that tour, but repeated it at the Monterey International Pop Festival a few months later.
iv
On his release from Pentonville prison, five weeks later, Hugh Cornwell was met at the gates by a small crowd that included his girlfriend Hazel O'Connor, Stranglers' drummer Jet Black, his mother, and several news reporters. When asked what prison life was like he said Why don't you go and find out for yourself'? During a later interview Hugh revealed that,
It was the most inhuman, demoralising experience of my life. All the bitterness is knocked out of you in there. It's a hell, you can't imagine how bad it is in prison. I just hope I can do something about it one day. When I was sentenced they slapped handcuffs on my wrists and drove me through the centre of London. I was looking at people outside the van while I cupped my hands smoking a cigarette.
He was released on the 25th April 1980 and documented his experience in a booklet called Inside Information.
v
The Rainbow Theatre was a designated Grade II Listed building, but it after it closed at the end of December 1981 it lay empty and unused for the next 14 years.
In 1995, the building was taken over by its current owners, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, a Brazilian Pentecostal church. They began work restoring the building and turning it into a church. The auditorium restoration was the last phase to be completed, in 1999, and the theatre is now the main base for UCKG in the UK. Their credo includes the belief that,
The Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins, a substitution sacrifice according to the Scriptures, and that all who believe in Him are justified on the ground of His shed blood.
On April 3rd 1978, almost two years to the day prior to the Stranglers & Friends gig, Patti Smith was at that very venue singing the introductory lines to Gloria:
Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine.
Personally, I'm more with Patti, who nevertheless reads the bible, derives inspiration from it, and is able to engage in exploratory spiritual conversations with her sister, who is a Jehovah's Witness.
vi
Mike and myself hadn't kept in touch much since I departed my home town, Wem. I had left in my early twenties to seek some new directions and to gain my independence. But also the emerging heavier local drug scene had created a social split that I wasn't comfortable with. Mike was always seeking the next hedonistic rush and adventure. His charm and charisma was always going to crash, eventually.
We went on holiday to Majorca together. My first non-parental holiday abroad. We got drunk a lot. Mike couldn't help ogling the topless girls on the beach, much to my shy, yet not disinterested, embarrassment. We nearly got beaten up in a back alley having stolen some T-shirts and headphones from a nightclub. Why we needed ten shirts with some dreadful disco club logo on them I just don't know. It was more or the risky drunken fun of it. We were lucky to get away with some mild punches. We hired motorbikes and drove over to the other side of the island. It was only on the way back that we realised we had limited petrol and no lights. The rental company had disabled the lights to prevent late returns. We rode in the dark until my bike ran out of fuel. I thought we were stranded. But Mike, practical as ever, spotted an empty Coke can on the side of the road. His bike still had some fuel, so he tipped his bike over and carefully poured some into the tin and transferred it to mine. We got back to a furious bike shop owner. But, me and Mike couldn't stop grinning.
For a while we went running regularly around Grinshill Hill. He had been a Shropshire schoolboy competition runner so I was usually a lot less fit than him. However, I remember giving up smoking in order to catch up with him. We got fit, Mike read runners magazines to get the latest on training techniques. The irony was that, having never smoked before, when he discovered cannabis, he took up smoking. Later, after the running phase was over, Mike, Phil and myself took LSD, climbed up the hill, sat on the sandstone outcrops and hallucinated Tolkien landscapes under the moonlight. He was upset that, under the influence of the drug, I saw him as an Orc. I was, of course, a Hobbit.
At Mike's house we listened to The Velvet Underground, The Rose of Avalanche, regularly did the Telegraph Crossword, and read Strangled - the Stranglers' fanzine. Mike liked Hugh Cornwell's intellectual content, political references and literary pointers. We read Cornwell's Pentonville Prison booklet Inside Information. We listened to Cornwell's solo version of the Cream song, White Room. Mike would have loved the fact that in 2016 I had been on a European Beat Studies Network panel with Pete Brown, who wrote the lyrics to that song in 1968.
vii
Right at the end of his life Mike lived on a canal boat and kept a journal. He loved, beer, drugs, sex and The Velvet Underground all the way. He was a tragic romantic, wanting to live more life in the process of destroying it. There is joy in chaos, but at some point the chaos gets the better of you. As his health declined, he probably wasn't easy to be around. His Boat journal records him being thrown out of pubs several times, angry encounters with other boaters, and some comic moments.
Extracts from: Mike's Boat Log. A snapshot of life on the Shropshire Union Canal, 2006
Monday 10 April 2006
Here we are living the dream. Got the paper - pissed about in Trevor a bit - it was like Piccadilly Circus - boats every fucking where. I had to tell one, with another one up his arse, to move on - to let the one behind him move and let me onto the Aqueduct.
Friday 14 April 2006 (Good Friday)
In the drink again. Head first this time. Landed with legs on the bank 'fighting for life or to breathe' only because I didn't want to get my legs wet. I'd almost resigned to it thought 'cos my arse was over the cut and I couldn't get the leverage to get myself out when this bloke pulls me out. He just happened to look over his shoulder and saw it all and rescued me.
Saturday 15 April 2006 (Easter Sunday)
...there is something special about having a can of beer for breakfast and listening to the Velvet Underground Live 1969 - a... mature sexy lady introduced me to this album and my daughter introduced me to a can for brekkie.
Monday after Easter 2006
I have had such a fantastic life. But we are all in the shit - only the death and viscosity varies and now I am falling asleep.
Sunday 21 May 2006
Still here listening to The Velvet Underground - wondering what would happen if a cataclysm happened. BOOM! That would be the end of that and I would die happy. The song is one that I think should be made compulsory from the age of 7: 'We're gonna have a real good time together...Nah nah nah nah' - Oh how I wish I could do that.
It's just 'Nothing. Nothing at all.'
Tuesday 11 September 2007: 20:08pm
Text to D: 'Might not make til xmas xx!'
Mike contracted hepatitis-C, developed cirrhosis and finally liver cancer, leading to his death on 11th October 2007, aged 48.
Via Piccadilly Circus, the Statue of Eros, motorbikes, boats, women, adventure and misadventure, he finally crossed over the Aqueduct. We only knew each other closely for around three years. We didn't stay in contact beyond that, yet I have always felt an ongoing connection to him. I have often wondered why. Everyone we meet is an opportunity to learn something. Maybe his lesson to me is twofold. Firstly, never loose sight of the wild side; secondly, the wild side on its own has a dark and destructive aspect. When I was exploring my more monastic, ascetic side, I hit a wall of unhappiness. I realised that, in my pursuit of 'the light' I had been ignoring my more earthy, embodied and wilder side. I had side-lined my sexuality and hedonistic drives. It is a phenomenon that is now recognised in psycho-spiritual circles as 'spiritual bypassing.' Spiritual practices, especially the ones that emphasise 'purity', or a dualism of body and spirit, can be used to side step the tricky reality that the body has natural desires, urges and needs for relational pleasure. Those desires either get demonised or displaced. When I finally started to acknowledge my own wilder side I became much happier and whole. Now I can draw on the spiritual practices I learnt in the past in a healthier way - the way of integration and wholeness. Mike never had a problem with wildness. Maybe he was doing the opposite of 'spiritual bypassing' - a 'hedonistic bypassing': seeking meaning and freedom in drug or sexually induced altered states, and in the process avoiding something more spiritually expansive and liberating. I would love to have had an opportunity to have that discussion with him. I think he would have taken to meditation like a duck to water on the Shropshire Union Canal.