5. The Only Way Is Essex

"sex, drugs and question authority"

I escaped from Wigan in 1973. I enrolled at Essex University in Colchester. The decision wasn't academic. It was based on a book I'd read, "Playpower" by Richard Neville. He had achieved fame and notoriety as co-editor of counter culture magazine "Oz". In this he published a range of left-field articles. Heavily critical of the Vietnam War,"Oz" discussed sex, drugs, and other alternative lifestyle issues. These were themes Neville expanded in "Playpower". The book included a reference section. Essex University featured prominently in the crash pads list and that was enough to convince me to go there.

It was a Plate Glass campus university and hotbed of anarchy. Revolutionary politics dominated academic life. There had been a riot during the 1968 student rebellions and some members of the Angry Brigade had been based there. This was England's first libertarian communist urban guerilla group; a gang of middle class student drop-outs who formed a militant cell and started a bombing campaign around London. They blasted the homes of Tory politicians, government and corporate offices, banks, embassies and the 1970 Miss World competition.

Things hadn't calmed down very much by the time I arrived. Within the first month, student activists had occupied the university administration block, holding a sit-in that lasted the entire term. The campus became a mini free state. "Stand Up For Your Rights" blared from the sound systems, drugs were readily available and free love was not yet hindered by the shadowy fear of AIDS.

This was the age of the oil crisis, petrol shortages, Watergate and the three day week.

Counter culture literature was essential study. "The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test" described the story of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Driving their psychedelic coated school bus dubbed "Further" across the USA, they turned the youth of America on to The Grateful Dead and LSD. "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", Kesey's novel about the mental hospital as an instrument of oppression was based on his personal experience of working as an orderly on a ward and taking acid whilst on shift. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" described a savage drug orgy to the heart of the American dream. Laced with LSD, ether, cocaine, alcohol, mescaline and cannabis, its central characters ruminated on the decline of culture in a city of insanity. "The Teachings of Don Juan" and other books by Carlos Castenada described his training in sorcery and explored an alternative non ordinary reality. "Catch 22", the classic critique of military double speak, summed up the spirit of the times. "The only way to survive such an insane system is to be insane oneself".

It was also the golden age of mythical tales of rock n roll indulgence. The new generation of super groups raised the bar for legends of debauchery to new heights. 

Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks was rumoured to "powder the starfish" when her nasal septum dissolved from massive cocaine abuse. It was claimed that she employed a roadie to inhale a golden straw full of nose candy and blow it up her rectum.

On an average night out, Queen's Freddie Mercury necked two bottles of best Russian vodka and snorted a mountain of cocaine. It cost him £500 a day, but he didn't care. Queen were raking in millions. Freddie's parties were epic. He once installed naked lift attendants at a hotel where he was cutting loose. At another do, the entertainment was provided by naked mud wrestlers. Naked girls in painted-on suits served champagne. He hired dwarfs with bowls of cocaine strapped to their heads, and the main attraction one night was a naked woman romping in a bath filled with raw liver.

Alice Cooper formed The Hollywood Vampires, a drinking club made up of rock superstars. The club had one rule, "the last one standing wins". Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Micky Dolenz, Harry Nilsson, Rod Stewart, and Keith Emerson were all members. So was John Lennon when he was in town.

If you were operating at the top tier of the music business, you toured the States on Starship 1. The customized Boeing 720B became a jet-propelled Sodom and Gomorrah. It boasted a shag-carpeted lounge with swivelling leather chairs, a pair of sexy stewardesses and a brass covered bar with a built-in organ. The master bedroom had a queen-size water bed, fake fur bedspread and shower. A sea of maroon shag was installed, as was a film library that included everything from the Marx Brothers to ''Deep Throat.'' 

Led Zeppelin leapt aboard in July 1973. At the time, they were the biggest band in the world, and they celebrated in customary fashion. They painted their name across the fuselage, snorted cocaine with rolled-up hundred dollar bills and treated the master suite like a pay-by-the-hour motel. Starship 1 became a floating gin palace. Zeppelin's drummer, John "Bonzo" Bonham, once tried to open the plane's door over Kansas City because he had the urge to urinate. 

Ian Paice, of Deep Purple, recalled being in Miami and flying to Boston for a lobster dinner, a whim later estimated to have cost $11,000. Paice had no regrets. ''The Starship was a great place to join the mile-high club,'' he said.

When these bands weren't indulging in high-altitude high jinks, they were smashing up hotel rooms, riding motorcycles through the lobby and throwing television sets out of bedroom windows. Joe Walsh (The Eagles) took a chain-saw on tour in case he needed to "modify" his lodgings. These modifications included widening doorways, creating doors where there were none, and chopping up various pieces of the décor. 

His mentor, The Who's Keith Moon, graduated from blowing up (and almost deafening) Pete Townsend live on American television, to dropping sticks of dynamite down the toilet. 

“One day I was in Keith’s room and I said, ‘Can I use your bog?’ and he smiled and said, ‘Sure.’ I went in there and there was no toilet, just sort of an S bend, and I thought ‘Christ, what happened?’ He said, ‘Well this cherry bomb was about to go off in me hand and I threw it down the toilet to stop it.’ So I said, ‘Are they that powerful?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, it’s incredible!’ So I said, ‘How many of ‘em have you got?’ with fear in me eyes. He laughed and said, ‘Five hundred,’ and opened up a case full to the top with cherry bombs. And of course from that moment on we got thrown out of every hotel we ever stayed in” (Pete Townsend).

For variation, Moon the Loon once nailed his room furniture to the ceiling. By then, he was devouring a full bottle of champagne, with Courvoisier and amphetamines for breakfast. He died on my birthday in 1978. Even Elton John suffered a drugs overdose in the 1970's. He was later named Artist of the Decade.  

Edgewater Hotel, Seattle

Where legend had Mick Jagger caught in the act of eating a Mars Bar he had inserted into Marianne Faithfull's pussy, Led Zeppelin's roadies were screwing their groupies with fish. The band were once staying at the Edgewater Hotel, located directly on Puget Sound, Seattle. At the time guests were allowed to fish directly from their room's windows. 

Red Snapper

Zeppelin's tour manager, Richard Cole, recalled, "We caught a lot of big sharks, at least two dozen, stuck coat hangers through the gills and left 'em in the closet . But the true shark story was that it wasn't even a shark. It was a red snapper and the chick happened to be a fucking red-headed broad with a ginger pussy. And that is the truth. I did it. Mark Stein filmed the whole thing. And she loved it. It was like, "You like a bit of fucking, eh? Let's see how your red snapper likes this red snapper!" That was it. It was the nose of the fish, and that girl must have come twenty times. But it was nothing malicious or harmful, no way! No one was ever hurt."

David Bowie became the first major rock star to declare his bisexuality. Angela Bowie, his wife, found him naked in bed with Mick Jagger one day. The Stones released "Angie" soon after, a song allegedly about this incident. "Angie don't you weep, all your kisses still taste sweet". The Rolling Stones denied this allegation.

Danny Whitten

Neil Young recorded The Ditch Trilogy after his guitarist, Danny Whitten, died of a heroin overdose. At the time many said Young was committing commercial suicide. Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Iggy Pop and many other rock superstars also developed raging smack habits, but lived to tell the tale.

David Crosby's substance abuse reached epic proportions. On Crosby Stills and Nash's 1974 tour, things got so bad that he suffered delusions that he had served a tour of duty in Vietnam. He insisted that roadies call him “Lt. Gen. Crosby Esq.” and salute him throughout the jaunt. Within a few years he would be freebasing more than an ounce of cocaine a day. 

Bob Hope - dope

I did most of my "studying" in the campus bar. Beer was forty pence a pint and there were drug dealers openly selling blow at every other table. Finest quality dope cost twenty pounds an ounce. The campus was close to Harwich, a short ferry ride to the Hook of Holland. Many aspiring entrepreneurs regularly made that crossing, smuggling hash back from Amsterdam to keep the campus well supplied.

The first time I tried hash, I ate it. It was in a student house in Clacton On Sea where I'd gone with a friend whose name I have long forgotten. There was a group of hippies sprawled in a room. They were passing joints and a bottle of vodka around and doing a lot of giggling. At one point, this hairy Scottish hippy asked me if I wanted to eat a biscuit. I said, "yeah, sure. Why not?" I hadn't realised it was going to be covered with dope. He passed me a chocolate Club that he had covered with a thick layer of black resin. I ate it, the Bob Hope tasted bitter and left a burning sensation on my tongue. It took a while to kick in. When it did, I was flying. My brain was fried. The night descended into chaos. Everyone was smashed out of their minds. At one point my friend started pissing on the bed. The laced Club biscuit upset my stomach and I threw up. I was spewing everywhere, projectile vomit gushed for what seemed like hours. In the end I decided that I had to go home. I walked, it seemed to take forever, nearly as long as it took for the effects of that hash biscuit to wear off. I was stoned for days. I suppose you could say, after that I was hooked. I started buying dope regularly. You could skin up in that bar too. Nobody tried to stop you. I was constantly stoned after that. I didn't run out of dope until term ended and I went back up north for the holidays.

The music we were listening to was changing. When I first arrived, "Dark Side Of the Moon" and "Tubular Bells" were the order of the day. There were times when Mike Oldfield's album was blasting out of every student bedroom in the towers of residence. But that didn't last long. Prog Rock was on its way out as far as we were concerned. Glam rock was taking over and roots reggae was starting to come in. Boys wore make up, glitter and platform shoes. Tracks were getting shorter, faster and punchier. Bowie's "Jean Genie" vied with Gary Glitter and "Ballroom Blitz" on the jukebox and at the discos. I'd bought "Space Ritual" by Hawkwind with my first grant cheque. But soon, "Burnin" and "Catch A Fire" became turntable faves.

Infact, Bob Marley and the Wailers played Essex University in 1973. Sadly for me, it was in the term before I went there. I still got to see plenty of musical legends. John Martyn performed his ground breaking "Solid Air" album. Roy Harper played at the height of the sheep kissing myth. This story had it that Harper had given a sheep the kiss of life, contracting a rare disease in the process that almost killed him. Harper was a counter-culture icon. Led Zeppelin had written a song about him and he was soon to sing with the Pink Floyd on “Wish You Were Here”. He deserved respect, but we gave him sheep noises, bleating "baa" at him in the breaks between songs. He didn't find our bombed behaviour very amusing.

We had catholic tastes in music. In truth, Bob Dylan dominated my turntable through my university years. I was obsessed with him, particularly the 60's “electric” trilogy of albums. I sat up with my flatmates late into the night, analysing his lyrics, seeking the real meaning in “Just Like A Woman” (was it really about a man?)

Laurel Canyon luminaries Love arrived at the end of term two, though it would be true to say they were past their creative peak. I dropped acid for the first time at that gig. A gang of us dropped it together. After the show, we all crammed into a tiny bedroom in one of the resident towers. I remember being pole-axed, my head a kaleidoscope of colours, unable to move or speak. We listened to "Dark Side Of the Moon" all night on that trip. We had it on repeat. We thought the part with the alarm clocks was hilariously funny. We played that bit at maximum volume over and over again.

Grosvenor Square riot 1968

There was also a riot at the end of term two. It was a famous brawl at the time, though small scale compared with incidents like the Grosvenor Square riot a few years earlier. One hundred and five students got arrested and it was the lead story on the national news. There were riot police in full battle gear on campus that day. They didn't mess about. They beat us over the heads with their truncheons, before dragging us away to the waiting paddywagons. I saw girls grabbed by the hair having their heads smashed into paving kerbs. We fought back, kicking and punching any police that came near. At one point we hi-jacked a lorry that was trying to deliver vegetables. We liberated its cargo and pelted the pigs with cabbages and potatoes. It was a one sided battle that caused a media frenzy. The right wing press had a field day, running leaders demanding that the university be closed or turned into an college of agriculture.

I went back up North the day after battle. My parents were not pleased to see me. They had been mortified by the news broadcasts and wanted to know what the hell I was playing at. I didn't stay at home for long. I couldn't take the outraged silence, so I went back down to Colchester and spent Easter in the bar with my mates.

Essex University lost its excitement after those turbulent beginnings. The university authorities had a purge and the ring leaders behind the unrest were expelled. Life calmed down and we returned to some semblance of academic life.

Our drug use was changing. We were still drinking like fish, smoking tons of blow, and occasionally dropping acid. Poppers had come in, giving you a massive head rush and moments of euphoria. Dodo's, speedy slimming pills, were chewed by the packet to keep you up all night when exam time arrived.

By the end of my university years, the music of the early 70's was getting complacent. The super groups had lost touch with their roots and had run out of direction. The world was crying out for something new. The Damned, The Buzzcocks, The Undertones and The Sex Pistols all formed in 1975.

One band made a lasting impression in the final year at Essex. That was Dr Feelgood. They were a revelation, now perceived as the pre-cursors of punk rock, they played with an aggressive dynamic that hadn't been heard before. They came from Canvey Island, a few miles from the university and they produced an electrifying performance. They dressed differently to the prog and glam rockers of previous generations. Their hair was short, they wore suits and ties. But it was a gangster rather than a bank manager guise. They looked and sounded tough. It was all action, in your face, attacking rock n roll.

Attendance was poor at their gig. There were less than fifty people in the big booming hall. I stood at the front, so close I could almost touch front man Lee Brilleaux. Wilko Johnson, Feelgood's extraordinary guitarist, flew across the stage like a demented robot. He had developed a unique playing style, producing a stuttering machine gun type frenzy, using his thumb for the top two strings and a finger for the other four. He pulled as well as picked at the strings, enabling him to play rhythm and lead guitar at the same time.

In 1976, Dr Feelgood's live album, the adrenalin fuelled, “Stupidity”, went to number one. It seemed that they were destined for big things. But within two months of this happening, The Sex Pistols released "Anarchy In The UK" and the Feelgoods were pretty much forgotten as punk rock took hold of the nation's youth.