Read Online Adventures of a Waterboy by Mike Scott - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mike Scott
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Reference, music, Composers & Musicians, Individual Composer & Musician
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he blew, grunted and grinned. As we watched, the crowd’s mood began to shift from amusement to affection and then to deepen into something bordering love. This feeling spread and radiated itself to the band, who could feel it even if they didn’t know what it was. Before our eyes, raised by the surrounding audience’s emotion, the little band grew as performers, relaxing into their stride, sensing what was funny about themselves then subtly emphasising it, joining in with the gentle joke and hitting heights of confidence and excellence they hadn’t known they had in them. The love was thereby radiated back to the crowd and, now flowing both ways, lifted us all in a sweet and heady atmosphere. At the end of the set, as Kev and I walked off into the Glastonbury night, we felt as if our souls had been cleansed.
The next day we blagged a lift to London with some friends and a week later regrouped with Z and The Waterboys for a tour of the UK. As we criss-crossed the country we were at first blighted by the same poor attendances as before, but after three or four dates I realised we were also suffering from a more immediate malaise: Z was burned out. The poor fellow was beginning to visibly wither, his skin grey and eyes bloodshot, and had taken to spending much of the day asleep in the parked van, neglecting his duties and leaving the band to fend for themselves. The solution, clearly, was to bring in an experienced tour manager who did this job for a living, and after a quiet conversation with our soundman, a stalwart Brummie called John who gave me the phone numbers of some likely candidates, I found one. Proving the truism that people who want to be successful will even fire their best friends, I sacked Z in the car park after a tough gig in a Preston disco full of oblivious soul fans. Next day his replacement turned up, a professional tour manager called Chris Rowley, and that evening we played what I still remember as the first truly great Waterboys show, in a tiny Manchester club called The Gallery. We were off again.
This time it was Z’s turn to retreat to Edinburgh to lick his wounds. He knew I’d done the right thing and we remained friends but I was to see him less and less from here on in: his global wanderings would take him to Madagascar, Brazil and the Far East. Whatever lay in wait for me on the road of rock, I would meet it without my old mate and fellow dreamer.
Chapter 5: The Black Book And The Moon
It’s a wickedly cold January evening in New York and my Canadian girlfriend Krista and I are walking arm in arm down Lexington Avenue. As we cross Twentieth Street she asks me, ‘So, is it easy to write songs?’ The correct answer is, ‘Yes, no, kind of, sometimes, but it depends and every song is different,’ though that won’t win me any kudos with my girl. But a demonstration might. So I say, ‘Of course it’s easy. I’ll write one now,’ and pluck a pen and a three-day-old envelope from my pocket.
I look around for inspiration. A luminous full moon dangles in the New York sky, the frayed edges of clouds streaming through its aureole like witches’ rags. On the envelope I write down a title – always a good starting place – ‘The Whole Of The Moon’, then a hook line pops into my mind: ‘I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon.’
Nothing more comes but it’s sufficient to impress Krista, who squeezes my arm and gushes, ‘Oh, that’s wonderful! I hope you’ll finish it.’ Well, we’ll see. It has a ring to it all right, and I can hear a hint of a melody dancing around the words as I spin them in my mind. I need my guitar. Fast. I fold my arm round Krista’s shoulder and hasten us back to our hotel.
A few days earlier, on a shadowy New York backstreet, I’d discovered the most curious shop I’d ever seen. It was a witches’ store, its shelves filled with potions, grimoires, scraps of wood, bark, root and numberless weird things I had no words or names for. As
The next day we blagged a lift to London with some friends and a week later regrouped with Z and The Waterboys for a tour of the UK. As we criss-crossed the country we were at first blighted by the same poor attendances as before, but after three or four dates I realised we were also suffering from a more immediate malaise: Z was burned out. The poor fellow was beginning to visibly wither, his skin grey and eyes bloodshot, and had taken to spending much of the day asleep in the parked van, neglecting his duties and leaving the band to fend for themselves. The solution, clearly, was to bring in an experienced tour manager who did this job for a living, and after a quiet conversation with our soundman, a stalwart Brummie called John who gave me the phone numbers of some likely candidates, I found one. Proving the truism that people who want to be successful will even fire their best friends, I sacked Z in the car park after a tough gig in a Preston disco full of oblivious soul fans. Next day his replacement turned up, a professional tour manager called Chris Rowley, and that evening we played what I still remember as the first truly great Waterboys show, in a tiny Manchester club called The Gallery. We were off again.
This time it was Z’s turn to retreat to Edinburgh to lick his wounds. He knew I’d done the right thing and we remained friends but I was to see him less and less from here on in: his global wanderings would take him to Madagascar, Brazil and the Far East. Whatever lay in wait for me on the road of rock, I would meet it without my old mate and fellow dreamer.
Chapter 5: The Black Book And The Moon
It’s a wickedly cold January evening in New York and my Canadian girlfriend Krista and I are walking arm in arm down Lexington Avenue. As we cross Twentieth Street she asks me, ‘So, is it easy to write songs?’ The correct answer is, ‘Yes, no, kind of, sometimes, but it depends and every song is different,’ though that won’t win me any kudos with my girl. But a demonstration might. So I say, ‘Of course it’s easy. I’ll write one now,’ and pluck a pen and a three-day-old envelope from my pocket.
I look around for inspiration. A luminous full moon dangles in the New York sky, the frayed edges of clouds streaming through its aureole like witches’ rags. On the envelope I write down a title – always a good starting place – ‘The Whole Of The Moon’, then a hook line pops into my mind: ‘I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon.’
Nothing more comes but it’s sufficient to impress Krista, who squeezes my arm and gushes, ‘Oh, that’s wonderful! I hope you’ll finish it.’ Well, we’ll see. It has a ring to it all right, and I can hear a hint of a melody dancing around the words as I spin them in my mind. I need my guitar. Fast. I fold my arm round Krista’s shoulder and hasten us back to our hotel.
A few days earlier, on a shadowy New York backstreet, I’d discovered the most curious shop I’d ever seen. It was a witches’ store, its shelves filled with potions, grimoires, scraps of wood, bark, root and numberless weird things I had no words or names for. As
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