Guitar Gods in Beds. (Bedfordshire: A Heavenly County). Mike Buchanan
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The Bonas Brothers, because our brother Brian played drums. But it wasn’t the same, partly because Pete isn’t an organiser. He couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. But his girlfriend – Sara Turner, who lived with him at that time – was good at organising. You know Sara, the one who plays the tea chest bass, the one you fancy like crazy. I remember you told me recently that you thought she was ‘sex on legs’.
Pete’s current girlfriend, Carole Sproule, was then playing bass guitar in the band. But Pete then started dating Carole, which caused the break-up of the band, and obviously the end of his relationship with Sara.
Sid Worth is worth a mention. A lot of local people remember him. He was a dreamer, a bit idealistic and trusting, totally uncommercial, and in the end he paid a high price.
I knew Sid for a long time, starting when he was working for the Mr Music shop when it was down at St Mary’s, the other side of the bridge. Before that, it was run by ‘Black Cloud’ Martin Fallon, a good guitarist but rather a glum bloke, hence his nickname. Sid had been one of Joe Brown’s sound men. They closed down the St Mary’s branch, it wasn’t making money. I didn’t know why, at the time, but then they set up another branch of Mr Music in Bromham Road. Sid worked there too. He lent things out free to customers and sometimes didn’t get them back. The perplexed owner of the shop had faith in Sid, but it didn’t make any money, so it closed in the end.
In 1982 Sid started working at HMV in Silver Street, Bedford. They had a pilot scheme, selling musical instruments alongside the records and so on. I then got a Saturday job with Sid, which lasted for years. I suddenly realised why the businesses he’d worked for before had got to their knees. Sid operated in complete chaos. You’d look under the counter and things which he’d promised people were stuffed under there.
Eventually HMV closed that operation, so already Sid had been responsible for the closure of three or four places. Sid and Bruce Murray decided to set up a shop on their own, and asked me to join as a partner. Well, my aunt had previously offered me ten grand if I wanted to go into a small business venture, so I asked her for it, but she refused. She felt the business wouldn’t work. So I had to apologise to Sid and explain I couldn’t get the money. But Sid and Bruce asked me to join them anyway. Sid remortgaged his house to get the money.
And so Union Street Music was born. Now I knew a local guy, Mick Newman, who did any electrical work I needed in connection with amps, speakers, and so on. So when I learned that Union Street Music were looking for someone to do electrical work, I recommended Mick to Sid and Bruce. He turned up, was asked if he’d come about the job, and when he said he had, he was told, ‘Congratulations, you’ve landed it.’
Mick and I then started working together. I hired out PAs and Mick did all the electrical work. We started making some real money on the PA hiring.
In the meantime Sid was spending all the profits, giving stuff away and lending stuff and not getting it returned. By this time I’d done years of it and I’d had enough of the fuckin’ place, so I jacked it in. It was at this time I smashed my wrist in the pushbike accident. The lease ran out on the shop so they moved to what is now The Music Centre, on Tavistock Street in Bedford. Bruce still runs it, and Mick still runs the electrical workshop.
Bruce got so sick of Sid in the end that he told Sid one of them had to buy out the other. So Sid asked Bruce to buy him out. Sid then decided to buy a shop in Harpur Street, thinking he’d be viable competition to The Music Centre. He teamed up with Gary Clarke, who put up some money for the property. Now Gary was a clever businessman. He saw the benefit of Sid’s musical connections, but also saw that Sid wasn’t a businessman. So they came to an arrangement whereby Gary owned the property and Sid owned the stock.
Sid tried and tried, but the business failed. This time it was on his head. And so in 2002 Sid killed himself; he hung himself. Gary Clarke got the property back.
Gary employed me in the days after Sid had killed himself, and you should have heard the people phoning up for money, his suppliers, who hadn’t been paid. I started off being polite: ‘I’m sorry, there’s been a tragedy. Sid Worth has committed suicide.’ They’d explain they were owed ten thousand pounds, so I’d suggest they speak to Gary. But so many suppliers phoned up in the end, I’d say, ‘He’s brown bread. He’s finished. He’s deceased.’ It got to that.
By the mid-90s Pete was away a lot on tours in the States, the Far East, and elsewhere. He was playing lead guitar for some big names, like Jim Capaldi. When he was back in the UK he’d play a bit, sometimes with me, mainly recreational for pocket money.
Over the past ten years our audiences have become significantly older, so now we do ruby weddings, retirement parties and the like. And of course your 50th birthday bash last December at The Red Lion in Stevington. It’s usually for people who have a few bob. They have nice houses and gardens and so on. We’ve done quite a few house parties, which are usually great fun.
It’s difficult to find good live music locally, especially if you’re over 50. Over the past five years in particular, I find people asking me where I, or Pete and I, play. I explain that the pubs are reluctant to book bands, they’re all little puppets in big brewery chains. The landlords are on a fixed wage, regardless of how well the pubs do. If they work hard and turnover rises, the brewery chain just ups their rent. So I suggest to people that they get a few mates to club together and pay for a gig, maybe in someone’s back garden, and that’s exactly what’s been happening. And that’s great, because you’re playing for people who have actually paid and therefore want to hear the music and enjoy themselves. We get all age groups when we play. If you’re good, people will come to see you.
In about 2000, after a whole series of relationship catastrophes, I was living alone in a flat in Ashburnham Road in Bedford. Now there are only two pubs where I’d consider drinking in Bedford: The Flowerpot on Tavistock Street and The Ship on St Cuthbert’s Street. Ian Wagstaff – ‘Waggy’ – took over The Flowerpot, Ray Foster The Ship, and they both wanted Pete and I to play. We played a few times for free, with various guest musicians, and it always went down well.
Then Ray had the idea of paying me to do a regular Thursday event at The Ship, and it went well for a year and a half. But the sheer fuckin’ repetition got to me in the end. It had become like a regular job. I didn’t want to do it, so I took a break. After about a year I went back to it, but it was never the same, as is usually the case second time around. The Ship is a nouveau riche den, really. You don’t agree? Well, they’re all small-time businessmen, investors, and so on.
Now live music always has a dynamic curve. It’s of its moment. If you set something new up and it works, great. But God only knows what makes it work. Whatever the fuck that is, I don’t know – still.
It’s something to do with having the right people there. You’ve got to have stars. Not stars in the sense that they’re famous, but they know who they are, in a funny sort of way. And they won’t come if they think the event is going to be shit. But if you get four of five stars together, it will work and there will be a real buzz. Sara Turner’s a star. And the stars inspire other people.
But if you get someone’s company leaving party and they invite every dull bastard on earth, anyone who is a star will fuck off with another star, and the result is a shit party. That’s exactly what happens. So you need to keep the stars in the party.
If I have a choice between seeing a live band or getting their DVD out, I’d normally choose the DVD. I want to see bands as I want to see them. There was a woman who lived in Devon when I was playing there who told me she lived next door to John Renbourn. She said she could introduce us, and would I be interested in meeting him? I said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ because if he turned out to be a wanker, which he might be, I wouldn’t want to know that. I’ve heard him play the guitar and I think he’s fantastic. But I don’t want to know him as a person. I think there’s something sacred about great music, but it doesn’t mean the musician is sacred.
Good live music has to be just there, and just happening. It shouldn’t mean dragging everyone down to the same pub to listen to the same stuff every week. Then it becomes a job, and horrendous.
Now