I'm very pleased to present this specially commissioned article by Paul 'Smiler' Anderson on this seasons theme of Smashed Blocked. If you are not aware of his work you should check out his amazing books. He also runs a radio show Get Yourself Together and Soho Scene Jazz Scene record series. I met Paul in 2000 at the Isle of Wight rally and in and around various watering holes in Londons Soho, he's always been championing shared knowledge of all things mod, and is an absolute gent!
In 1966, Simon Napier-Bell was managing The Yardbirds, and was taking a break in the South of France when he met a young bass player by the name of John Hewlett, also on holiday from England. Napier-Bell quite fancied the young musician and promised to go and watch his band on his return to Blighty. Promise kept, he stumbled in to the band’s next gig, held at a barbecue party in Burford Bridge swimming pool in Surrey. ‘They were positively the worst group I’d ever seen’ Simon was quoted years later.
Luckily for the band, even though Simon had been tempted just to walk off, he was talked into following the band down to the local boozer. Seven pints and twelve whiskies later he’d somehow agreed to be the group’s new manager. Seeing as he’d only got involved in the first place because he’d seen John as a nice piece of eye-candy, but realising the boy’s limited musician skills, he quickly decided to name the band after him, and so the legend of ‘John’s Children’ was born.
Of course that isn’t really the start of the story. It had begun a couple of years earlier in Leatherhead. A young bass player named Chris Dawset had been struggling to get a band together. He’d bagged a guitarist by the name of Geoff McClelland, but was struggling to find a drummer. Enter one Chris Townson, who had got chatting to the pair of wannabe pop stars, and on hearing of their plight, had nominated himself as a suitable candidate for the job. The fact that Townson had never played drums in his life, seemed to be of little consequence, as he blagged his way into the band. Townson also said he could find them a frontman and nominated local boy Louis Grooner. The craze at the time was for American styled blues and R&B and when they bumped into ex-school friend Andy Ellison, who had told them that he owned a harmonica, he too was invited to join.
Under the moniker ‘The Clockwork Onions’ the band played their debut gig at St George’s Hall in Ashstead. The main distraction from the musical din on stage was the obvious fact that Louis couldn’t sing a note, well that added to the fact that he kept shouting through the microphone at one punter who was ‘chatting up his bird’. That would be the last we’d hear from him, as straight after the gig Andy Ellison was given vocal duties to add to harmonica playing. This was just a temporary set up though, as Townson introduced an East End Mod by the name of Martin Sheller. The band changed their musical direction by stepping away from the blues, and introducing Tamla Motown and Who numbers into their set. With this came a change of name too, and overnight The Clockwork Onions became The Few. Martin the Mod didn’t last long, but had had enough impact on the image of the band for them to consider themselves a Mod bad now. Meanwhile Chris Dawset switched from bass to keyboards. Bass player duties were now up for grabs, and a chance meeting with local boy John Hewlett seemed to be part of their destiny. Especially as John told them of not only his musical connections but his skill on the bass.
Obviously, in keeping with the band’s tradition, this turned out to be untrue. John, it turned out, was the worst player in the band. But the band all liked him and decided to ignore the sound he was making on stage. Chris Dawset’s parents encouraged their son to pursue his art education, and he left.
The band struggled on with their musical deficiencies. Chris Townson recalled ‘Even if we knew how to play a song, none of us had any idea how to end it. ‘Green Onions’ alone used to go on for half an hour sometimes!’ The lack of musicianship was covered by turning the volume up and they found the best way to end the songs they struggled with was to smash their equipment on stage. So it seemed rather inappropriate at this stage to change their name to The Silence. Andy had yet again taken on vocal duties, but had become bored of just standing there as the rest of the band destroyed their instruments, so he introduced mock fights on stage with John. This would soon become the highlight of their act, and the audience seemed far more interested in this rather than their musical offerings. The band had also started to write their own songs, albeit based on tunes of the day, but played so badly that there was no way that the audience could tell anyway. Despite all this, the band were actually building up a considerable following, and had been elevated to playing Leatherhead’s premier club - The Bluesette in Bridge Street.
It was around this period that the band had attracted the attention of Don Arden, who at the time was manager of the Small Faces. The Silence soon found themselves in his Carnaby Street- based offices signing contracts to support The Small Faces at four gigs. The gigs went well, and on their return the band seemed destined to sign with Arden. Just before this was due to happen, John and Chris went completely off radar.
The pair had decided to jet off on an unplanned holiday in St. Tropez, along with the owners of The Bluesette Club, who as it turned out, were a pair of rogues who had managed to get hold of some stolen cheque books. After a few days of fun in the sun, the local police eventually tracked them down. Luckily for them, one of the owners of the Bluesette Club had done a runner, and they were able to pin the blame solely on him. The hapless duo managed to secure bail money and then went their separate ways. Chris had signed up to join a crew of gun runners on board a boat bound for Tunisia, whilst John stayed local and hooked up with a prostitute.
It is here that Simon Napier-Bell entered their lives. Simon was on holiday and checking out The Steampacket who had a residency at the Voom Voom Club. Whilst checking out the band, he noticed a good looking boy paired with a rather fearsome looking female. He shouted out ‘What’s a good looking boy doing with an ugly cow like that?’ And so began a friendship between John and Simon, they spent a few days together, with John poncing a lift to Nice to fly back to England. Chris had grown bored of a life at sea and he too had returned back. The band now reunited, they set off for a gig, and Simon turned up to watch the band.
Having somehow agreed to manage the band, the first thing he did was give them another name change. Because he’d been attracted to John, he worried that John’s lack of bass playing ability may risk him being chucked out of the band, so he decided to name the group around him ; ‘John’s Children’ were born. ‘I wanted to create a living soap-opera of four boys in a group’ he said. In a time where the Stones were in and out of courts for various drug busts, Napier-Bell’s master plan was to make them look beyond innocent; dressed head to foot in white with gold medallions. A record contact with Columbia beckoned.
One stumbling block, apart from the fact that the band couldn’t play their instruments was Andy’s tuneless voice. Simon had written a song; ‘Smashed Blocked’ (well known Mod drug phrases). He jetted off to Los Angeles and recorded the backing using top session men. On his return he tried to get Andy to record the vocals , unimpressed with the final results, Simon dubbed a recording of a football crowd over the intro in the hope to hide some of the notes. He then got the actual band drunk, let them play the number, threw their version of it away and replaced it with the session musicians one. For the flip ‘Strange Affair’, although credited to Fingers Groin was actually written ‘in about half an hour’ by Andy. The backing tempo was stolen from a Jimmy Hughes song called ‘I Want Justice’ and the backing vocals feature Rod Stewart, Dusty Springfield and Madeline Bell! EMI immediately sussed the drugs references and demanded a new title so ‘Smashed Blocked’ became ‘The Love I Thought I’d Found’. Obviously the record bombed. Meanwhile, Simon convinced America’s White Whale label that John’s Children were the next big thing. Soon the single was riding high in local charts and even crept to 98 in the national charts. Convinced, White Whale demanded an entire album.
Simon got the band into Advision Studios, recorded the 10 best songs. Then to cover up the noise, bought the tapes of the Beatles film ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and dubbed the audience screams over the songs to make it sound like a live album. He then got Andy to do some made up chat to an imaginary audience, and flogged it as the ultimate live recording of a concert by naming it ‘Orgasm’. In the US it attracted advance orders of 35,000, but just prior to release a group of moral guardians called The Daughters of the American Revolution took exception to the records title and sleeve, and the record was shelved. With the record cancelled, so was their proposed US tour.
Simon was always after a gimmick, and purchased a white1935 Cadillac for the band to drive around in, and announcing it had belonged to one of Al Capone’s hitmen. He then hired members of the Docking Hells Angels to give the car a motorcycle cavalcade. The band carried on doing the UK live circuit, often double booking themselves on the same night, they got into the habit of getting Geoff to feign fainting on stage, so they could abandon a gig to attend the second booking. The band now had managed somehow to attain test model speakers from Jordan - the loudest speakers in the world at the time. The band took them to terrorise the audiences on a five week residency in Paris supporting Jimmy Cliff.
On their return, it was proposed that the band release a second single Once again, session men were brought in to record a band composition ‘Just What You Want- Just What You’ll Get’. For the flip, a very Who - sounding ‘But She’s Mine’, the band were allowed to play on it themselves.
‘We were recording ‘But She’s Mine’ at De Lane Lea Studios on Kingway, and Geoff wasn’t cutting it on the guitar solo in the middle’ remembers Andy Ellison ‘The Yardbirds happened to be in the building, and Simon asked Jeff Beck to come up. Beck walked in, picked up the guitar, played the solo and walked out again’. That was when it was decided that Geoff had to go. Simon, had recently started handling a young singer- songwriters career. He’d put out a 45 ‘Hippy Gumbo’ but it had flopped. The artist was a young Marc Bolan, and he was about to be implanted in John’s Children.
Not only did the band have a new guitarist ( Marc taking on electric guitar for the first time, as he’d only ever played acoustic before), but a new club! With the money made from the sales in the US, the band bought the Bluesette Club and renamed it The John’s Children Club. Meanwhile, Marc made his debut live appearance in the band at a hall in Watford. They’d all got drunk beforehand and came out to an audience of a lone girl, who walked out halfway through the first song. They managed to play a second tune to an empty venue before the club’s manager pulled the plug, and Marc burst out crying.
Soon, the band were sent off to Germany for a string of dates supporting The Who. Once there, the band piled into Simon’s Bentley. ‘We would get bored’ says Andy ‘So we’d make up stories on the journey. One was that Marc had turned into a superstar. Simon lent over and said ‘the next thing is Marc will have to die in a Rolls Royce’ to which Marc replied ‘No man, I’d like to die in a Mini!’.
Almost immediately the tour got off to a bad start because The Who weren’t impressed that the support band’s speakers were much louder than their own.But things were about to get much worse.
‘We’d have a fight on stage, and Marc would knock the shit out of his guitar. We’d have all this feedback going on, and I would dive into the crowd with pillows that I’d stolen from the hotel. I’d rip them apart, and there were feathers everywhere. We would smash all the lights along the front of the stage by kicking them in. We also started ‘Sieg Heiling’ which used to get the Germans on their feet, and they’d join in. It’s not a very good thing to have done in the first place’ says Andy. ‘We had these fake blood capsules, and I’d start a fight with John, and we’d be covered in what looked like blood. Chris would smash his drums, Marc would smash his guitar with chains, and then walk around with it on his head.’
About four shows into the tour, Kit Lambert and The Who felt they were being upstaged, plus the feathers hung in the air and affected Roger’s throat. The band ignored the complaints, and that night caused more mayhem resulting in the riot police firing water canons through the already broken windows. The next day the band were kicked off the tour and deported back home with their gear having been confiscated by police.Whilst waiting to leave they managed to get drunk and into various fights with locals around Ostend. When they reached the ferry, they found a drunken Marc in the lounge reciting pornographic poetry and pulling his trousers down in front of the families.
The first gig back in England was the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream at Alexandra Palace, Although the band had threatened to play naked, they just did their usual destruction and feathers act, although Marc just put his guitar on his head, and walked around the entire set feeding back.
Unbelievably, Kit Lambert was still interested in signing them, but they needed to get out of their contract with Columbia. Once Simon announced that the new song would be called ‘Not The Sort Of Girl (You’d Take To Bed)’, Columbia were happy to drop them, and they signed to Track Records.
Marc told Melody maker that he’d written ‘Desdemona’ in ‘about twenty-five seconds’, and although it gained positive reviews. The BBC instantly banned it for the line ‘Lift up your skirt and fly’. Sadly, the single again just disappeared, but at least there was good news for drummer Chris Townson. Keith Moon of The Who had managed to injure himself and was temporarily out of action. Simon persuaded Kit that Chris would be the ideal replacement, and so Chris got to play with his heroes for a few dates.In truth, he was gutted he had to go back to his misfit bunch.
To cash in on the new Hippy scene, Marc and Andy written a song called ‘Midsummer’s Night Scene’ with a chorus of ‘petals and flowers’. A few promo copies were pressed, but Track decided they didn’t want to release it. That seemed to be the excuse Marc needed to leave the band. Track decided to release ‘Come And Play With Me In The Garden’.
The band, now trimmed down to a trio, would now cause outrage by the promotion of the singe being a photo of them naked except for flowers strategically placed in front of their privates. They talked of ‘love, and drugs not being important’. Despite the fact that the three of them were basically walking chemistry sets. Their gigs went from violent riots to throwing bucketfuls of flowers into the audience. What the audience didn’t know was the fact that the flowers had all been stolen out of the gardens of the town they were visiting!
Fab 208 Magazine ran a feature on the young generation helping the old generation. They sent our three would-be heroes to help redecorate an old couple’s house. Old George and his wife had been expecting professional decorators. What they got was a bored pop band posing for photos for the article,who half way through stripping the walls, got a bit bored and left. George burst into tears and Fab had to get the council to finish the job.
Chris now decided he wanted to give up drums and take on guitar, even though he couldn’t actually play one. They called in an old Sheperd’s Bush Mod, Chris Coville to take over drumming duties…even though he couldn’t play either. John still hadn’t mastered the bass, so the band now was totally winging it. They decided, as always, just to rely on smashing their stuff up. Somehow, the band managed to complete a short tour in Germany , before returning home to record their final single.
‘Go-Go Girl’ was set to a backing track of a Bolan song ‘Mustang Ford’, whilst an old song ‘Jagged Time Lapse’ was pulled from the archives as backing. The record sold even less than the previous ones. Simon was desperate to keep the band going, and in one last throw of the dice, set up a short tour of the West Country. Tempers were frayed, and at a gig at The Flamingo at Redruth in Cornwall, Chris Townson and John had a fight on stage that was real. Chris hit John over his head with his guitar, and that was that. The two Chris’s returned to London, whilst Andy and John and came home a week later to find Simon had given up on the band. Andy did get to release a solo single later that year ‘It’s Been A Long Time’/‘Arthur Green’ in December ‘67. With that the last traces of John’s Children were gone.
Years later, sometime in the 1980’s various vintage record shops would offer huge sums of cash for the ultra-rare ‘A Midsummer Night’s Scene’ 45, and this has continued ever since. Of course, the fact is that this in-demand single was an early appearance of Marc Bolan, who had gone on to pop superstardom in the early 70’s with his band T-Rex. By August 1977, Marc had been offered his first TV show. Named simply ‘Marc’, the debut show featured a brand new band by the name of The Jam singing ‘All Around The World’ whilst another guest band on that show was The Radio Stars featuring ex- John’s Children frontman Andy Ellison on vocals.
That same year, one of the biggest selling films ‘Saturday Night Fever’- a film which revolved around the disco craze in America, had originally been written by Nik Cohn. As Cohn never really had much idea on the American scene, he based the main character on a Mod he’d met back in 1965 ; Chris Coville. So in a way, Tony Manero, king of the dance floor was once a drummer in John’s Children!
A truly sad end to the tale though is the fact that all those years earlier, on that drive to the gigs in Germany, the band had made up the story of Marc becoming a Superstar. When it had been joked that Marc would then have to die in a Rolls Royce, Marc had responded that he wanted to die in a Mini - then the most fashionable car at the time. This prophecy came true on 16th September 1977, when he died as a passenger in a purple Mini 1275GT , driven by his partner Gloria Jones when it hit a tree in Barnes.
- Paul ‘Smiler’ Anderson. April 2024.