Forever Changing

By Dave Clemo

Dave Clemo began playing music in the mid 1960s and spent the next fifty years untroubled by success, fame and riches. He is blessed with a memory that collects facts like a magnet attracts iron filings, and a restless nature that has led him to play almost every style of music from rock to pop, folk to country and punk to funk.
This is Dave's third instalment of his musical story and begins in 1990 when his self imposed retirement from all things musical ended when he became a Christian. He began writing songs and recorded his first album in 1994. Between 1994 and 2005 he released seven albums of mostly self penned songs.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s years Dave was involved in the UK Christian music scene, playing churches and festivals, representing radio stations and taking services in village churches. He spread out into the local acoustic music scene, playing open mikes and jam sessions. Along the way he took up bass guitar and played on all his recordings. His career took a change of direction when he was asked to play bass on a number of tours, including a 30 date UK theatre tour in 2009.
Later that year he was diagnosed with Leukaemia. The day to day account of his treatment and recovery forms a significant part of his story. He took part in two further national tours in 2010 and 2011 but further health issues brought an end to that aspect of his life. He then formed a new acoustic band and over the new few years was involved in folk music and singer songwriter events including a number of house concerts.
He kept diaries and wrote a number of blogs which have been incorporated into his books. Through them he paints a vivid picture of the grassroots music scene of the last 50 years and his involvement in it.
Dave's first book ‘Too Young for Rock and Roll’ recounts his beginnings when he played folk, pop, country, lounge jazz, rock and traditional folk music. ‘Too Old for Punk’ covers the story of his rock band Left Hand Drive and pop covers band Conspiracy. This volume brings his story up to date.

‘Dave is a great story teller. His memory for places, names and history has always been remarkable. Expression is his strong point. It comes from his life experience, his love for people and the intent to explore his surroundings wherever that may be at the time.’
Nicki Gillis (Australian singer/songwriter/entertainer)
‘Part rock history, part autobiography Dave’s books can also be read as social studies as they also capture some of the seismic shifts that swept the country. In an age of power cuts, strikes and three day weeks it can’t be overemphasised how music added colour to the leaden seventies.
Just like you're sharing a drink with Dave ‘Too Old for Punk’ is told in a conversational tone as he regales you with some of the best stories from Northampton's rich musical heritage.’
Peter Dennis (Pulse Alternative Magazine review)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dave Clemo
• Release date: May 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463504918

Dave Clemo

Dave was born almost exactly halfway through the last century. His first home was a beach chalet in Cornwall, England. The plain wooden shack had none of the things we take for granted like electricity, sewage or running water. Cornwall in the 1950s had no TV and only two BBC radio stations, so he had very limited exposure to popular music. He was seven when Elvis and Cliff Richard hit the charts. His family moved to West London in 1962. He was given a guitar for Christmas and spent the next few years trying to play it.In 1967 the area around Ladbroke Grove was the epicentre of the underground music scene that shook the music business like an earthquake. During that late 60s and early 70s he went to a host of gigs and saw groups like Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Who, Jethro Tull and Genesis in their earliest incarnations before they became global superstars.He also spent the next few years trying to emulate his heroes using clapped out and home made guitars and amplifiers before moving to Northampton in 1974. For the next ten years he played in two of the most successful local bands. He wrote his first songs in the late sixties but his writing took off when he became a Christian in 1990. Since then he has had over 100 songs published, has contributed articles for magazines, written and delivered dozens of sermons and was a regular contributor to a 'one minute thought for today' on local radio. He has recorded and released over ten albums of mostly self penned songs, played pubs, concerts and festivals across the UK on guitar, mandolin and bass.From 2009 a series of health issues has meant that Dave was unable to play at the same frequency as before so he has used the time to turn his writings and research into a series of autobiographical books.The first volume ‘Too Young for Rock and Roll’ was published in June 2018.‘A highly recommended read not only for fans of grass roots music but also for those wishing to experience a flavour of those times.’ Pulse Alternative Magazine.

Book preview

FOREVER CHANGING

Volume Three of my musical story.

Dave Clemo

Text Copyright © Dave Clemo 2019

Dave Clemo has asserted his right in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be lent, resold, hired out or reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author and publisher.

All rights reserved.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of photographic and other resource material used in this book. Some were unreachable. If they contact the publishers we will endeavour to credit them in reprints and future editions.

Published by Dave Clemo on Smashwords.

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favourite authorised retailer.

Thank you for your support.

Contents.

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1. Back on the road again.

Chapter 2. Making contacts.

Truckstop.

Chapter 3. The Misfits

Any Road.

Chapter 4. The Covered.

Chapter 5.Touring with Jerry.

Chapter 6. Touring with Patsy- Part One

Chapter 7. Touring with Patsy- Part Two.

Chapter 8. Touring with Nicki in 2009.

Chapter 9. Living with CLL.

Chapter 10. The 2010 Nicki Gillis Tour

Chapter 11. Nicki Gillis 2010 Part Two.

Chapter 12. Touring with Nicki 2011- Part One.

Chapter 13.Touring with Nicki 2011 Part Two.

Chapter 14. After the tour was over.

Chapter 15. Back to recording.

Glide.

Chapter 16. Constant change is here to stay.

Chapter 17. New horizons.

Chapter 18. Giving Something Back.

Chapter 19. And Finally?

About the Author.

Discography.

Dave's other books.

Dedication.

To my good friend Jerry Arhelger.

Remembering the good times we shared,

and the great songs we wrote together.

To Andy and Caroline at 3p Publishing

For their help and encouragement.

Introduction.

My first two books (‘Too Young for Rock and Roll’ and ‘Too Old for Punk’) covered my musical story up to 1984, when I ‘retired’ from playing music and moved from Northamptonshire to Somerset to start a new life. I had a new wife, a new family and a new job and no time or desire to make music. I can’t say that I enjoyed living in Somerset enough to want to spend the rest of my life there, and within three years we had returned to Kettering. The next stage of my life had begun. I became a Christian in 1990 and began writing songs soon afterwards. This is my musical story from about 1984 onwards.

Over the last few years I made a number of aborted attempts to write my autobiography. The first efforts had too many strands to the story to be easily readable so I split it down into three main threads. The first strand was my musical story and this is the third volume of that. The second strand deals with the many and varied jobs I had and the third thread will cover my spiritual journey. I have no idea how many of these books will see the light of day, or if anyone will read them, but that’s not why I wrote them. It’s only by writing it all down that I can make any sense of it.

I have to say that I was unburdened with fortune or fame during my musical career. Many have found out to their cost that becoming successful at an early age is a double edged sword. Many artistes have found that their audience won’t allow them to develop beyond their early success. I would have hated that.

Looking back over more than fifty years of playing music there’s a common thread. I also picked up on it when I wrote my book about the jobs I’ve had. Whether by accident or design, not one of my groups kept the same lineup for more than eighteen months. I was a member of Captain Swing for about eighteen months. I stayed with Left Hand Drive from its inception in the spring of 1974 up to Christmas 1976. Conspiracy lasted about five years but went through six changes of personnel in that time. When I look back over the time covered by this book I see a similar pattern.

I was always making music, and it was forever changing.

Dave Clemo 2009.

Chapter 1. Back on the road again.

My last book ended when I took a new job in Somerset. I had my hands full with the new job and a house that needed a full refurbishment, so not surprisingly had no desire to play music. Any spare time was spent volunteering at the local tourist railway restoring an old steam locomotive. I was a part owner of an old engine back in Irchester and we’d successfully steamed it just before I moved away.

Our new home was on the edge of Shepton Mallet. It looked out over the Mendip Hills on the other side of the valley where the town nestled. There was an old orchard behind the house and beyond that open fields sloped down to Evercreech. We were a couple of miles from Pilton and over the weekend of the annual Glastonbury Festival we could sit in the garden and listen to the music being played a couple of miles away. This was the year when the authorities had banned the Stonehenge Free Festival, so in the weeks leading up to the festival a small but steady stream of hippies in old coaches, converted vans and horse drawn caravans could be seen making their way through the lanes leading to Pilton and Worthy Farm.

The Friday night before the festival saw Shepton Mallet gridlocked as thousands of cars tried to travel down the lanes to the festival. Sue was working as a waitress in a pub in a nearby village and was concerned that she wouldn’t be able to get to or from work but some workmates showed her a longer but traffic free route to and from work.

Soon after we moved the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra were booked to perform in the Cathedral with Simon Rattle conducting. We wandered into the huge ancient space and listened as they rehearsed before that evening’s sell out performance. What an incredible sound. There’s not a hi-fi system available that can reproduce the sound that I heard that afternoon. The sound just filled the space. Awesome.

The only concert I went to when I lived there was when Stephane Grappelli and his band played at the tiny theatre in Shepton Mallet market square as part of one of his final UK tours. I listened in awe as four virtuoso musicians played the most sublime jazz that I’ve ever heard. Although in his seventies, Stephane’s playing was ageless as he took the band through classics like ‘Sweet Georgia Brown.’ His fellow musicians were no slouches either. His two guitarists were Martin Taylor and Diz Disley and they also had a Dutch double bass player whose name escapes me now. If anything, the guitarists were too good. They played ‘Caravan’ as their party piece. I think I’m a fairly knowledgeable player but most of what they played went over my head. Did the audience appreciate what they were hearing?

By the mid 1980s I’d had my fill of popular music. The shop I managed in Somerset sold chart singles and LPs and we tried to stock the current top 20 or 30 at all times. I began to notice that a huge percentage of ‘hits’ charted for one week, never to be seen or heard of again.

The ‘difficult’ second album was nothing new. In the early 70s many rock bands recorded all their best stuff for their debut, songs that had taken years to come to fruition, and the second album always suffered from substandard material. The labels took this into consideration and bands like Genesis and Queen only got into their stride on their third or fourth release. The record companies had faith in their artistes and persevered until the breakthrough.

The difference this time was the rise of the ‘yuppie’ and the desire to own an ‘eclectic’ music collection. They wanted music for every occasion, and all of it on the new fangled CD. Their collection included albums by Dire Straits, Paul Young, Wham, Sade and others, but only one from each artiste. Their attitude was ‘I have a Queen album. Why would I want two?’ The rise of the ‘Now that’s what I call music’ compilation album, each one stuffed full of one hit wonders was a complete turn off for me. I left them to it and got on with my life.

My new job lasted 18 months before the firm went bust. I found a new job and after a successful first year was able to move back to Kettering to open a brand new shop in St Ives. I still wasn’t interested in playing music so I helped build a railway museum instead.

Peckett locomotive number 85 steams for the first time in 1984.

At that time we were based in the old goods shed at Irchester, alongside the main line to St Pancras. We tried to buy it from British Rail but were gazumped so we moved into the local Country Park. My first view of the site was of a grassy meadow with four wooden pegs driven into the ground. Over the next year or more we cleared the ground, dug out the foundations, erected our building and fences, and put rails down before moving our engines. We had to build a road so the lorry could reach the museum site.

I got my dream job in 1989 when I was appointed the manager of a brand new 3000 square foot bookshop in Northampton town centre. The learning curve was steep but I was determined to make a success of it and for the next four years my shop was one of the busiest and most profitable in the chain.

Early in 1990 I started to go to church. Six years of inactivity from 1984 to 1990 had reduced my singing voice to a croak. By joining in the singing during the church services and singing along to tapes while driving to and from work my voice gradually got back to something like it was before I retired.

I’d written a few songs in the 1970s for Left Hand Drive, but they were inconsequential things. Unlike my idols like Dylan or Joni Mitchell I had nothing to say back then. I started writing songs within a year of becoming a Christian and as time passed became more and more prolific. Some of my early songs were for my own benefit as I struggled to work through what I was learning.

Did you know that the preachers of old wrote hymns as a way of helping their congregations learn important truths? While my efforts weren’t meant for public consumption, or even of a comparable quality, the principle was the same. Several friends of mine have undergone similar experiences and were also inspired to express their love of God in poetry or song lyrics.

I suppose that I had a head start, having had many years of music experience. Very often my songs would come complete with tune, and all I had to do was to write them down as fast as I could. At other times the process took a lot longer. Sometimes I sweated over every word of a lyric, trying to find the exact word or the right phrase. I heard a songwriter speak about the difference between writing a song and crafting one, and I’m hoping that from time to time I was able to craft a song. Sometimes I jotted a lyric down without knowing what tune or style of music to set it to. It was only some time later that I got an inspiration for a tune and found the perfect lyric among my notes. Even now I’m applying the finishing touches to songs that I started more than twenty years ago.

Occasionally I showed a new song to our pastor and from time to time he would ask me to sing a song during a service. It was uncanny how a song I’d worked on in the previous week or two would be so relevant for that time! My wife Sue and I began to sing together and we visited different churches and worked alongside local church musicians, training and developing their talents.

A friend gave me a cassette by an American singer called Bob McLeod. He sang his own country gospel songs. I thought my songs could work within that genre so a lot of my new songs were country tinged. By this time I had dozens of songs.

After I was made redundant from the bookshop in February 1994 I started my new ‘career’ as a singer/songwriter. My redundancy insurance paid the mortgage for twelve months. However, I had been away from the music scene for many years and the world had moved on. Where would I start? And how would I get my songs heard? To be honest I hadn’t given any thought to putting a band together. Most of the musicians I knew had other commitments. I was still discovering my own voice and until I had worked out who I was, I couldn’t think about recruiting members to the cause.

I bought a PortaStudio and began making demos of my songs. Out of the blue I had an opportunity to record an album as a fundraiser for my Church’s missionary project in Poland. I wanted to record it in a studio and use professional musicians, so I went to Premier Studio in Corby and spoke to the owner. I knew Iain from my time in Conspiracy when his band Energy played the same pub circuit as us. He recommended that I contact Dave Anderson. He was a member of a professional country band called ‘Wishbone’. They were regulars at his studio.

There was a problem. He was once a member of my band Conspiracy and had left after an acrimonious final gig at the Friendlies Club in Northampton. We hadn’t spoken in over a decade. It was with some trepidation that I contacted him and apologised for the way he’d been treated by my old band. Once we were reconciled we agreed that members of his band would help me record some songs.

On Monday 18th July 1994 I turned up at the studio and began my first recording session in more than a dozen years. The drummer and bass player set up in the live room while Dave and I stood in the control room with Ian. After a couple of dry runs we attempted a take of the song. I was amazed but not surprised how easily the band got into the songs. They were all professionals with many years experience.

As the day progressed we worked our way through the tracks. I enjoyed the thrill of working with such excellent musicians. It had been a long time since I’d been so stretched musically. By the end of the first day we’d recorded everything except the vocals and the overdubs. Two days later it was my turn to add my vocals, and this was the moment I dreaded. It was one thing to sing along while the band are playing, but another to have to sing ‘naked’ in front of everyone. Every flaw is magnified. I got through the ordeal fairly intact, and then we added the backing vocals. The sessions went very well. I enjoyed the experience, the music and the banter.

Dave’s fellow band members lived all over the country. Dave lived near me in Kettering, his drummer was based in Peterborough, the bassist lived in Luton and the fourth member was a Scotsman who lived near Woking. The band’s gigs were all across the country and while they tried to travel together in their van someone always had to drive miles to the rendezvous point at a service station and leave their car until they got back after the show. There were occasions when the bookings were spaced closely together and they had to stay out for a night or two. A network of fans was on hand to offer overnight accommodation when needed. Concert fees had hardly kept up with inflation. It was tough to make a living. A couple of bands used coaches. They carried their gear in the luggage space and lived in the coach. That wasn’t for me. I preferred my home comforts!

Dave’s band played five or six shows a week all over the country. One night the show was in a town a few miles away and I went along. It was great to be back in a live music environment. All my recent experience had been in churches and chapels. The band’s Peavey amplifiers and the mikes for the drums were fed into their JBL PA. The balance was perfect and they had their sound check down to a ‘T’. Their music was mainly aimed at the line dancers and there were a lot of them, filling the dance floor all night.

I’m no dancer. I never have been, but it was almost hypnotic to see dozens, or on one occasion, hundreds of dancers filling the dance floor, row upon row, rank upon rank. However, I was left with the distinct feeling that many of the dancers weren’t that interested in the band and would have been just as happy dancing to records. Most of them ignored the band. The majority were middle aged, the same age as us, with a smattering of younger dancers. I also got the impression that the clubs’ popularity was more to do with the fact that they were one of the few places where couples could dance together, rather than a place to see and hear a live band.

I went out with the band several times over the next few months. I remember a day at The Bottom Line, a converted cinema in Shepherds Bush.

When I lived in West London in the early 70s the building was the Essoldo Cinema. I went to see the film of Woodstock there. The building seemed tiny in between the BBC TV Theatre (now the Shepherds Bush Empire) on one side and the huge Odeon cinema (now a hotel) on the other. With all the cinema seats stripped out the interior was enormous. The stage was huge with dressing rooms beneath. The in-house PA system was a top-of-the-range JBL rig. There was also an array of huge PA cabinets stacked in front of the stage. They stretched from one side of the room to the other and were two cabinets deep. I asked about them and someone said that they once belonged to The Pink Floyd. They added that if I handed over £5000 I could take the lot away. OK. I’d also need a big truck- and a warehouse to store it all in so I declined their kind offer.

We loaded in and someone drove the van to the nearest lorry park about a mile away at White City and walked back. The lack of parking was one of the reasons why I disliked taking bookings in Central London. Wishbone rarely played in the capital for the same reason. Whenever Sue and I took a lunchtime service at the City Temple in Holborn or one of the other churches we would take the train down to St Pancras. That’s a bit more difficult when you have a van full of kit rather than one acoustic guitar.

The Bottom Line show was an all-dayer and many of the top UK country bands were due to play during the day. It was being filmed as a show reel for possible gigs in the US. I recognised the two cameramen. One was my old friend Gary. I hadn’t seen him for almost twenty years.