This page contains all the articles that match the The Cromwellian-tag, chronologically sorted, from old to new.
Most browsers have a search function (Ctrl-F) that will highlight the entry you are looking for.
Alternatively there is the 'Holy Search' search field and the 'Taglist'.
Several Floydian sources publish a scan
of a NME (New Musical Express) article from November 1966, featuring
Iggy, dancing on a party. Most of the time the date is cited as
Wednesday the 16th of November, but the scan of the magazine shows a
different date that of Saturday the 26th of November. As NME appeared
every Friday the article probably appeared in issue 1037
(of Friday the 25th of November). Of course there is always the chance
that the actual pictures were taken on Wednesday the 16th.
Here is the full text that accompanies the pictures:
(On sale Friday, week ending November 26, 1966 - NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS) DOWNSTAIRS... On
the small, intimate dimly lit dance floor in the basement, it's all
happening, PATRICK KERR, dancer from RSG, and his girls demonstrate the
bend dance. Above: Three pop personalities (l to r) ADRIANNE POSTA,
FRANK ALLEN (of Searchers) and TWINKLE try the Bend, watched by
Cromwellian publicist SIMON HAYES. Left: Another Bender - model IGGY,
who is half-Eskimo. Below: CHRIS FARLOWE dancing in sheepskin jacket.
The party in question was held at The Cromwellian (3 Cromwell Rd,
London SW7). The Crom, as it was generally nicknamed, opened in 1965 in
Earls Court, was a three-floor cocktail bar and discotheque and one of
the posher (and more expensive) places to be. It was also one of the
places for a would-be star to be discovered (or at least they believed
it).
The basement described itself as ‘England’s Famous Discotheque
(and restaurant)’ where pirate station DJs and well-known bands as Georgie
Fame and Zoot
Money performed. The ground floor had ‘Harry’s
International Bar (and restaurant)’, promising the ‘greatest
atmosphere in town’. Upstairs was a gambling area, an ‘Elegant
Casino’, where you could try your luck at dice – roulette – black
jack – pontoon and poker. Successful musicians, photographers, fashion
designers, artists, television personalities (and the odd East End
gangster) would hang out at The Crom, where the new m’as-tu-vu
elite could enjoy a glass of champagne without being disturbed by
obsessive and pushy fans. Ray Davies remembers it as the ideal place to
‘observe the almost endless supply of dolly girls parading in
mini-skirts’. Probably the fact that there was ‘free
entrance for girls’ helped as well.
Simon Hayes, publicist for The Crom is remembered by pirate radio
DJ (and ex-roommate) Phil
Martin: “Simon ran a pop PR agency called Ace Public
Relations and he and his business (it seemed to me then) were at the
absolute epicentre of the Swinging Sixties scene in London at the time.”
(Taken from Offshore
Radio)
Bend It moves.
No wonder that The Crom was chosen by Patrick Kerr, one of the
choreographers of the Ready
Steady Go! TV show to present the new dance of the week: the Bend.
(Probably he already knew that the RSG!
show would end a couple of weeks later.) The Bend was named after the
risqué Dave
Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich hitsingle Bend It! that had been
released in September. According to NME a new version with a different
set of words had to be recorded for the US market. Update July
2010: the story behind the Bend craze can be found in the following
article: Rod
Harrod remembers The Crom. Update October 2012: the Bend
link at Sixties City seems to be broken, so here is an alternative: the Bend.
Other prominent guests at the party were (according to NME): Adrienne
(with an E) Posta (or Poster). An actress
(and singer) who would have a prominent role in the forthcoming movie Here
We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1967). In the next decade her
sheepdog would become world-famous, posing for a Dulux paint
advertisement campaign. This also led to the single ‘Dog Song’, written
by her husband rockstar Graham Bonnett (The Marbles, Rainbow, Alkatrazz). Frank
Allen who joined The
Searchers in 1964 and is still with them today. Twinkle (Lynn
Annette Ripley), the first British female singer / songwriter to
score in the rock era. Her debut single Terry (1964) had catapulted her
into the top3 and was followed by Golden Lights, Tommy, Poor Old Johnny,
but with degrading success. (Update: as Simon Hayes and Twinkle
were an item it is logical that she was present at the club. See
also: Rod Harrod
remembers The Crom.) Chris Farlowe, one of Britain’s
earliest exponents of R & B, had been struggling until his 1966 version
of Think (Jagger & Richards) made it into the top 20. His
following single Out Of Time (also a Rolling Stones tune) became
number 1 and Farlowe
was voted Best New Singer for 1966, although he had been performing
since 1957.
Well so far for the small story, but what really matters is:
What was Iggy doing at The Cromwellian when Patrick Kerr demonstrated
the Bend? Who invited her to the spectacle (knowing that the press
was also invited)? Was she somehow connected to the RSG show (as a
dancer, a model or a figurant)? Was she somehow connected to The
Cromwellian? Was she somehow connected to Simon Hayes and/or his PR
company? What about singer/actress Adrienne Posta, one hit wonder Twinkle
and superstar Chris Farlowe? Was her aim to be discovered by a RSG!
talent scout (perhaps not knowing that these were the last weeks of the
show)?
The Holy Church Of Iggy the Inuit will continue to investigate this.
Update April the 1st, 2010. A new gallery has been
uploaded containing the complete Come
with NME for a pic-visit to THE CROMWELLIAN article and pictures
from New Musical Express 1037, 25 November 1966. Photographs by Napier
Russell & Barry Peake. Words by Norrie Drummond. (Just another
world exclusive from the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.)
Sources (other than the above internet links): Bacon, Tony: London
Live, Balafon Books, London, 1999, p. 74-75. McAleer, Dave, Beatboom!,
Hamlyn, London, 1994, p. 93-94 & p. 126-127. Platt, John: London’s
Rock Routes, Fourth Estate, London, 1985, p.137-139. Tobler, John
(editor): NME Rock ‘N’ Roll Years, Hamlyn, London,
1992, p.163.
Last summer the Church wrote about Iggy’s noticed visit at the
Cromwellian club in November 1966, where the dance-crew of Ready Steady
Go! were launching the latest dance-craze The
Bend.
The club existed since 1964 or 1965 and in the autumn of that year
jazz-singer, writer, critic and generally bad tempered journalist Georges
Melly wrote a piece about the place, that was later re-printed in
his excellent account of the pop art days in Britain Revolt
Into Style. In contradiction with most flower power studies his
book did not appear two decades or more after the facts happened. Melly
wrote his essays when Swingin’ London was still swinging although it was
slightly running out of breath. The Reverend finds it funny how many of
the anecdotes that Melly has noted on the spot can now be found in other
books.
The Church’s archive had a copy of this work for ages, but dark forces
made it disappear into the same vortex that also swallows the Reverend’s
second sock when he is in search for a clean nice pair. But this summer
the book miraculously re-appeared from the vaults of Atagong mansion. As
the book has been long out of print we hereby re-print Mr. George
Melly’s reflections. The Church is confident he won’t mind…
The Cromwellian
I don't know the details of Roy Harrod's quarrel
with the Cromwellian, but there is no doubt that it is ‘out'.
I went there six months ago (early 1965, FA) and it was full of
well-known faces. On my recent two visits I recognized nobody.
Bart Kimber, the general manager, says he is delighted. 'It's back to
sanity and smartness' is the way he puts it. He hated the place full of
paint-stained jeans and last century T-shirts. 'We get three distinct
crowds,' he told me, 'downstairs the younger set. We offer them
name-groups, and records introduced by disc jockeys from the pirate
radio stations. In the ground floor bar, there's a higher age group,
drinkers you see. While upstairs there's gambling. Would you care to
look around?'
The club is in a large house in the Cromwell Road. It too is decorated
in the baronial style except here there are suits of armour and old
master reproductions in heavy gold frames. The basement has murals of
nymphs seducing puritans, and is very noisy. The atmosphere of the whole
complex is relaxed and pleasant. 'Nobody rushes' is how Mr Kimber puts
it. The prices seem very reasonable. 'Here,' he says, ‘the artists are
not being fleeced, but they're just too high for the kids.' Quite a lot
of pop performers still come; Georgie Fame, the Zombies, the New Faces,
Jonathan King were all there on one night he told me, and Dusty
likes it. What about the top groups, I asked. 'We have them here
occasionally,' he said, 'and we're pleased to see them, but were not
desperate.' The club was full and spending so I am inclined to believe
him. I asked him who his clientele was. 'A lot of continental people,
film extras, hairdressers, P.R.OS, advertising people, no boxers. They
cause bother, but quite a few wrestlers.' In fact the club is owned by
five wrestlers so of course it's natural that they have never had any
trouble.
'Look,' said Mr Kimber, 'of course we're successful. Parking's easy out
here, and you can get stoned out of your eyeballs for 2£. We don't want
to be in.'
Rod Harrod
George Melly’s description starts with the observation that a certain Roy
Harrod has had some troubles with the Cromwellian. Rod (not Roy)
Harrod had been attached to The Cromwellian but offered his services to The
Scotch of St James club after a quarrel with the owners. Rod Harrod,
who made some fame in the city as a music journalist, knew several bands
personally and had enough influence to invite them to the club that he
favoured. When he left The Crom that club was out and, in a
matter of weeks, The Scotch of St. James was in. Harrod’s guests
weren’t second grade. The Beatles, The Stones and The Animals eagerly
accepted his invitations (consumptions were always on the house for
these bands). Although the club obviously benefited from these famous
visitors Roy Harrod tried to respect their privacy, George Melly tells
the story how a visitor, who had the audacity to ask George Harrison for
an autograph, was immediately removed from the club. His account ends
with the fact that Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon would arrive in
five minutes, reason enough for George Melly to go home.
Rod Harrod had a nose for bands and singers and on the 24th of September
1966 he invited a young American guitarist to have a blues jam on stage.
The contract, hastily written on a napkin, was signed by an unknown
artist called Jimi Hendrix. (back to George Melly's
Cromwellian essay)
Update 2010: Rod Harrod has shared some of his memories with the
Reverend: Rod
Harrod remembers The CromJust another world exclusive of
the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.
Ready Steady Go!
Regular visitors of the Church will know that the Reverend strongly
beliefs in a connection between Ig and Ready Steady Go! The evidence is
rather flimsy to say the least, but George Melly’s account adds another
piece of the puzzle that may prove this theory.
When George Melly interviewed Bart Kimber that last one claimed that
Dusty (Springfield) liked the Cromwellian (autumn of 1965). The next
year Ig was spotted by NME on a Cromwellian RSG!-party
and the person who (probably) introduced Ig to Syd Barrett maintains
that Ig invited her ‘once to a party with Dusty Springfield and
crew’ (see When
Syd met Iggy).
So far for this weeks sermon from the Reverend, go in peace, sistren
and brethren, and don’t do anything that Iggy wouldn’t have done.
Sources (other than the above internet links):
Melly, George: Revolt Into Style – The Pop Arts In Britain,
Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1972, p. 98-101.
When JenS,
who may well have been the person who introduced Iggy to Syd Barrett,
told the Church that they both went to a Dusty Springfield party the
Reverend was absolutely certain that he had found a solid path to
unravel more about Iggy’s past (see: When
Syd met Iggy).
Iggy was a bit older than the Cantabrigian underground gang and had
already been active in the London club scene for a couple of years. Update:
this is not true, as we would find out later.
DJ Jeff Dexter had already noticed Ig in 1963 in The Orchid at Purley,
where she used to go clubbing until 1967. Kathy McGowan and her
RSG!-team raided the place to ‘spot for dancers to appear in her show’
(see: Where
did she go?).
In 1966 Iggy was spotted on a party at The Cromwellian that was (partly)
organised by the main choreographer of the RSG!-show. We will not go
further into that as this story has already been told on this blog
before (see: Bend
It!).
Dusty Springfield started her solo career in 1963 and was voted the Top
British Female Artist in the New Musical Express reader's poll in 1964,
1965, and 1968. She appeared a couple of times at the RSG!-show as
presenter and would, in total, appear 24 times on the show. In 1965
Springfield hosted a special Motown edition of the RSG!-show and some
while later she had her own Dusty show at the BBC.
The Church found it relevant to investigate if there really had been an
Iggy – Dusty – RSG! connection somewhere and if some witnesses still
remembered her.
The first person to get in touch with the Church was Douggie
Reece, bass player (and singer) of The
Echoes, Dusty Springfield’s backing band (watch him singing Mockingbird
with Dusty). It was Reece who contacted the Reverend after the Church
had asked amongst fan-circles if anyone could remember Ig being in and
around the Dusty Springfield scene.
I don't remember her at all. Or the Dusty Springfield scene. I
spent most of the 60's with Dusty maybe I went out to get some
cigarettes or something and missed the whole occasion!!! LOL Douggie
xx
Although it was suggested that it would be a nice name for a tribute
band there has apparently never been a Dusty Springfield scene to
begin with as far as Douggie Reece remembers, if Ig did ever meet Dusty
it may have been purely coincidental.
Another Dusty connoisseur advised the Church to contact Vicki
Wickham. Vicki and Dusty had been friends
since 1962 and even shared a flat at London's Westbourne Grove. After a
brief stint on the radio (as a secretary) Vicki was hired by Ready
Steady Go! as talent manager and producer. When Dusty told her friend
she had heard a nice Italian song at the SanRemo festival Wickham
(co-)translated the tune into English and named it You Don’t Have To
Say You Love Me. It would become Dusty’s first number one hit (1966)
and was covered quite a few times by other artists, including Elvis
Presley (1970, #1 at Billboard Country & Western and #11 at Billboard
Top 100) and Guys’n Dolls (#5, UK, 1976). In total more than 80 million
copies of the song have been sold worldwide.
After her RSG!-days Wickham moved to America and although she didn’t
have a clue how to do it she successfully managed Patti LaBelle, Nona
Hendrix, Marc Almond, Morrissey, Holly Johnson and of course, her
long-life-friend Dusty Springfield.
It took the Church quite a while to trace Vicki Wickham, and after a
trail of bounced faxes and mails, the Reverend wrote a letter in the
good old-fashioned way. It pleases the Church a great deal that Vicki
Wickham cared to reply:
I am the last person to ask about anything from the 60s 'cos mostly I
don't remember! But definitely do not remember this girl. Can't
help. Best. Vicki Wickham
At least we can now say with a certain certitude that Iggy did not
belong to the inner circle of Ready Steady Go! but this does not mean
that she never has been at the show. The crew of RSG! visited dance
halls to recruit good looking youngsters for the audience and organised
dance and singing contests where the participants could win ‘passports’
to the show. In the few years that the show existed thousands of people
passed through the temple of the mods and Ig may well have been one of
them.
Authorised subsidiaries:
The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Youtube
channel The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit Facebook Fanpage The
Holy Chuch of Iggy the Inuit on Twitter
First of all, happy 2010 to all brethren and sistren of
our Church!
It was in the Seventies that Bernard White’s Syd Barrett Appreciation
Society and its fanzine Terrapin
died a silent dead because of what was later described as ‘lack of Syd’.
There has been fear that The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit would also
vaporize into a state of oblivion for ‘lack of Iggy’. The Reverend
however assures this will not be the case. Although about all there is
to find about Iggy has been published on this holy place there are still
enough spin-off scenarios to make a Star Trek producer grow pointed
ears. Of course the Church will still be looking for her but, and that
is primordial, it may never slide down into a witch-hunt. Confucius once
said that the quest for a goal is more important than to reach it. On
second thought that could have been Obi-Wan Kenobi as well.
In 2010 the Church will further publish articles about The
Cromwellian (the bar where Iggy was first spotted) and has (some
very premature) plans to dedicate some of its space to the Ready Steady
Go!-phenomenon.
And of course the Reverend will go on lobbying at Chimera Arts to
finally release the Iggy,
Eskimo Girl movie if the judges will be willing to ease his
restraining order a bit.
So far for the New Year’s resolution list of the Holy Church of Iggy the
Inuit. Watch this space, my sistren and brethren, and
don’t you do anything that Iggy wouldn’t have done.
Tranquillity is slowly descending upon the Holy Church of Inuit like
smog upon Victorian London. Several brethren and sistren
of the Church, and one-time visitors who entered through the front gate
to study its baroque interior, have passed some valid information to the
Reverend and these will be further investigated in the future. The
Reverend also wants to apologise to the people that have been contacted
(and interviewed) last year, especially those associated with The
Cromwellian club. The articles about The Crom have been postponed due to
the unexpected result the Mojo Syd Barrett article created, but they
will - one day - hopefully appear.
To all our readers: please keep on going on giving the Church
information, how futile it may be, but remember that the Reverend will
not break its own rules that stay unchanged even now that Iggy (Evelyn)
has been found. Especially now that Iggy (Evelyn) has been found.
The Reverend is not a souvenir collector who will ring at her bell like
all those so-called (and in the Reverend's eyes: messed up) true fans
used to do at Syd Barrett’s door. Evelyn's wish to be left in peace is
and will be unconditionally granted. The same goes for other witnesses
of the Barrett era, the Church will send them a nice note from time to
time, as a reminder of its presence, but will not break their privacy.
Some will call this bad journalism but the Church is not dependent from
sold issues and follows a strict deontological code.
Croydon Guardian
On the thirteenth of February of this year The Croydon Guardian
published a short, hastily noted down, interview with (a quite
reluctant) Iggy, titled: Croydon
Guardian tracks down elusive rock star muse. Here it is in full
(with some comments from the Reverend):
Croydon Guardian tracks down elusive rock star muse By Kirsty
Whalley
An iconic model who stole Syd Barrett’s heart in the 1960s has been
found after three decades of anonymity. Known only as Iggy, the
enigmatic woman was immortalised posing naked for the Pink Floyd star’s
solo album, Madcap Laughs. She disappeared in the late 1970s and has
been living in West Sussex, oblivious to her iconic status. In September
2008, the Croydon Guardian appealed for information about the model and,
more than a year later, we managed to track her down.
The story of how the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit convinced The Croydon
Guardian to assign some place in its columns for the Iggy enigma can be
found at Where
did she go? and (I've
got my) Mojo (working...).
She inspired artist Anthony Stern, who filmed her dancing in Battersea
Park and also took striking photographs of her on a houseboat in
Chelsea. They were released at the City Wakes festival – a tribute to
Syd Barrett – in October 2008, in Cambridge.
The above has of course been extendedly covered by the Church as well: Anthony
Stern.
Mr Stern said: “Iggy was my muse. I met her at a Hendrix gig at the
Speakeasy. She entirely captures the spirit of the Sixties, living for
the moment, carefree.”
Jimi
Hendrix gigged quite a few times at The
Speakeasy and was spotted there on other occasions as well, for
instance on the 22nd of February when he attended a press conference for The
Soft Machine.
Jimi Hendrix
The club has been described in the (excellent) London Live book
from Tony Bacon as follows (most information about the club has been
taken from that book).
When The Speakeasy was opened by Roy Flynn around the end of 1966 in
Margaret Street, just north of Soho, the rock elite soon discovered a
handy new watering hole, a prime early-hours jamming post, and an
altogether useful hanging-out kind of place.
By May 1967 the club was part of the London spot-the-celebrity
circle next to - amongst others - the Scotch (of St. James) and of
course the Crom. On a good night you could having a drink next to The
Bee Gees, Jeff
Beck or The
Who, although, keeping up his avant-garde experimental jazz
appearance, Robert
Wyatt from The Soft Machine couldn't care less: "Rock groups meeting
in expensive clubs that are difficult to get into? What's all that crap?"
On the 19th of January 1967 Jimi Hendrix gave the first of 3 concerts at
The Speak. On top of that he would also jam a few times with other
people on stage, including Jose
Feliciano and Georgie
Fame. That night in January he tried to get into Marianne
Faithfull's pants with the seductive remark: "What are you doing
with this jerk, anyway?" The jerk in question was of course Mick Jagger
who wanted to check out the new kid in town.
Yes-fans
will know the club for its owner Roy Flynn. When, on the 13th of
December 1968, Sly
And The Family Stone didn't show up for their gig an impromptu band
was found to take their place. When Roy Flynn saw Yes's performance he
was so thrilled that he became their manager for a while. The band
eagerly agreed, not because he had some managerial skills but because
the restaurant at The Speak had an excellent reputation:
Roy had never managed a band before and he kind of took us on and then
the whole world of the Speakeasy opened up (laugh). It was a great club,
I mean, it was a wonderful club, it used to close at 4 AM and we would
not only rehearse there, we would play there some nights, and of course
after a gig if we were playing within, let's say 150 miles from London,
we would rush and go to the Speakeasy and eat there, and most of the
meals were completely free. So for about a year I ate pretty good. Most
of the evenings I ate there. Because that was the life style, we would
be in the Speakeasy after 3 AM and the kitchen still would be opened and
the food was not fantastic but thanks to Roy Flynn we would get free
food and quite a lot of few drinks as well. (Peter
Banks, who invented the band's name and left the group in 1970)
The extensive Jimi Hendrix gig database
located at Rich Dickinson only mentions 3 genuine Jimi Hendrix
performances in 1967: the aforementioned gig on the 19th of January 1967
and two more in March: 8th March 1967 and 21st March 1967. So Iggy (and
Anthony Stern) must have attended one of these. For the completists
amongst us the Church gives now the complete list of Hendrix sightings
at the Speakeasy (1967): 67-01-19: Gig. 67-02-22: Press
reception for the Soft Machine. 67-03-08: Gig. 67-03-16:
Launching party for Track records (Jimi gives three interviews). 67-03-21:
Gig. 67-04-17: Jam (on bass) with Georgie Fame (on organ) and
Ben E. King (drums). 67-05-08: Brian Auger Trinity Concert. 67-06-04:
Jose Feliciano concert and onstage jam. 67-12-06: Party for The
Foundations. 67-12-22: Musicians from Christmas on Earth and Hendrix
jam until the morning hours. 67-12-31: New Year's Eve Party where
Jimi plays a thirty minute 'Auld Lang Syne'.
London Live
There is quite an intriguing picture
on page 103 of the London Live book, showing co-managers Roy Flynn and
Mike Carey, sitting at the Speakeasy bar, accompanied by two ladies.
According to CowleyMod
one of the women undoubtedly is Ig. Although most of the members of the
Church do not think it is her the Church wants to give Cowleymod the
benefit of the doubt and the visitors of the Church the chance to make
up their own mind (click here
to see the full picture). Update (November 2010): it has been
confirmed to the Church that the person on the picture is NOT Iggy /
Evelyn.
Iggy said: “I cannot believe there is a film of me, that there are
photos of me.”
Iggy spent a brief part of the 60s
living in Croydon with DJ Jeff Dexter, who used to play at the Orchid
Ballroom. She said: “The Orchid Ballroom was the place to be, the
atmosphere was fantastic. I loved going there, I loved to dance. Jeff
wanted to turn me and two other lovely girls into the English version of
the Supremes, but that never happened.”
She does not
like to talk much about Syd Barrett, but admits she lived with him in
Chelsea in the late 1960s. She said: “Syd was so beautiful looking. We
had a relationship, I lived with him for a while.”
Although the Reverend is aware of at least four witnesses who have
confirmed in different biographies (and directly to the Church) that
Iggy and Syd weren't an item this is now contradicted by Evelyn herself.
It was at that time she became known as Iggy the Eskimo. She said: “In
part I made up the nickname. The rest was the photographer Mick Rock,
who asked where I was from. I said ‘my mother is from the Himalayas’ and
he said ‘we will call you Iggy the Eskimo’.”
Update March 2018: Iggy's mother, so was confirmed to us, didn't
live near the Himalaya's, but at the Lushai Hills, a mountain range in
Mizoram, Mizoram, situated at the North-East of India, sharing borders
with Bangladesh and Myanmar.
NME, 25th of November 1966.
The Church will not deny that Mick Rock may have thrown around the 'Iggy
the Eskimo' nickname to describe the mysterious girl on his pictures but
the epithet dates from much earlier. It was first spotted in the NME
magazine from the 25th of November 1966 (more than 2 years earlier)
where Evelyn was described as 'Another Bender - model IGGY, who is
half-Eskimo': Bend
It!
Mick Rock took the pictures for Madcap Laughs. Iggy said: “When Mick
turned up to take the photos I helped paint the floor boards for the
shoot, I was covered in paint, I still remember the smell of it. In the
pictures my hair looks quite funny, I remember hiding my face behind it
because I did not want my mum and dad to see it."
Again other witnesses tell other stories. They claim that Syd (with a
little help from Iggy) painted the floor boards early in the year,
certainly before April 1969. As Syd only started recording mid-April it
is a bit weird that he painted the boards especially for the album
cover, unless - of course - he (and with him Mick Rock) already had the
cover in mind before the recording sessions started. A theory that is
not implausible.
She broke up with Syd Barrett shortly after the photo shoot and moved to
Brighton. She said: “I have just been living very quietly, I left London
in the 70s and I got married in 1978. I met so many people in the 60s –
the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart. I was a free
spirit. I have left that life behind me now.”
The Church would gladly accept to publish her memoires though.
But until that happens, my dear sistren and brethren,
don't do anything that Iggy wouldn't have done…
A new gallery has been uploaded containing the complete Come
with NME for a pic-visit to THE CROMWELLIAN article and pictures
from New Musical Express 1037, 25 November 1966. Photographs by Napier
Russel & Barry Peake. Words by Norrie Drummond. (Just another world
exclusive from the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.)
Sources (other than the above internet links): Bacon, Tony: London
Live, Balafon Books, London, 1999, p. 101-104.
The Holy Igquisition, that part of the Holy Church of Iggy the
Inuit that nobody likes to talk about, firmly controls the state of Iggyness
on the world wide web and on printed matter.
Thus, after their monthly congregation, held in a Trappist
monastery, they issue a report that is handed over to the Reverend who
will take note of its accounts.
Siren's of Sound and Image
So they had, for instance, noticed late in 2009 that the Siren's
of Sound and Image blog had consecrated an entry to none other than
our goddess. On Wednesday, April 29, 2009 that blog published a post
aptly titled: Iggy
and Syd: How I wish you were here. Its text sounded remarkable
familiar but luckily at the end of the article due credit was given to
the Church.
Vintage Groupies
More recently (2010-05-18), another blog, Vintage
Groupies dedicated a page to Iggy
the Eskimo, with its text largely based upon the articles that have
appeared in the Croydon
Guardian. Further investigations from the Holy Igquisition
have found out that this blog has already consecrated 5 articles to Evelyn,
the earliest dating from 2008.
Rod Harrod
Last year the Church contacted Rod
Harrod, the person who organised Jimi Hendrix's first gig on British
soil and made him sign a record contract on a napkin from The Scotch of
St. James club. Before joining the Scotch Harrod had been the
public relation manager (although that term probably didn't exist by
then) of The Cromwellian. The Church was, of course, eager to know if he
remembered Iggy who had been snapped, dancing The
Bend, by a photographer of NME.
The Church is a little bit ashamed that the post, although largely
written, has not been published yet but sees now the chance to pay back
its debt. In his later career Rod Harrod started the South-African PROmpt
music school and he has asked us now to vote for his candidate in the
National Anthem contest for the FIFA World Cup.
Last but not least, a message from our own house. When JenS,
who may well have been the person who introduced Iggy aka Evelyn to Syd
Barrett, read our Margaretta
'Gretta' Barclay articles, she remembered that she had been involved
as well with The Magic Christian movie (see top left picture).
Margaretta Barclay, from her side, found back a picture of Rusty
Burnhill in her archives and gave us the kind permission to publish
it at the Church. Gretta
Speaks (Pt. 2) has been updated as from today.
So long my brethren and sistren, and don’t do anything
that Iggy wouldn’t have done!
Years before she entered the Underground and met Syd Barrett, Ig’s first
venture for glory and fame came when the cameras of NME
magazine spotted her in November 1966. Issue 1037 had an article Come
with NME for a Pic-Visit to the Cromwellian, written by Norrie
Drummond (who passed away in April 2005) with photos by Napier
Russell and Barry Peake.
Some relevant info can be found in two previous articles
at the Church but it need to be stressed that, already then, Iggy
claimed she was a model and used to throw around her alleged Eskimo
roots. (The complete NME
Cromwellian Pic-Visit article can be consulted on this blog. Just
another world exclusive of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.)
Quorum
It is not unthinkable that Ig may have worked, at one time or another,
for Quorum.
Quorum was a boutique led by the eccentric fashion designer Ossie
Clark, whose ‘stuff was fluid and drapey and revealing all at once,
in key places it fit so exactly that you couldn’t wear a bra or
panties’. To Marianne Faithfull he once told that the dress he presented
to her was so designed she could have sex anywhere.
One of the people bragging he was a Quorum model was a lad called David
Gilmour but in reality he just drove Quorum’s delivery truck around.
"Dave Gilmour never really said very much. He just used to stand around.
It was a bit unnerving.", recalls Celia Birtwell in Pigs Might Fly.
Syd Barrett used the Quorum boutique not only to pick some clothes.
Quorum models Gilly Staples and Kari-Ann Moller (of Roxy Music album
cover fame) have been ‘associated’ with Syd at one time or another.
JenS,
one of Syd’s Cantabrigian girlfriends, who lived in Anthony Stern’s flat
for a while and who suggested The Pink Floyd to Peter Whitehead when he
was looking for a soundtrack of Tonight
Let’s All Make Love In London, first met Ig in 1966. Iggy
invited JenS to a Dusty Springfield and crew party and this may have
taken place at The Cromwellian as well, one of the clubs Dusty liked to
frequent if we may believe George
Melly.
Revolt Into Style, George Melly. Cover: Peter Blake.
Revolt Into Style
Musician, critic, journalist and raconteur George Melly reviewed the
place in Revolt Into Style. That ‘brilliant guidebook’ about the
pop arts in Britain is a collection of essays, written between 1965 and
1972 and it has the advantage that the situations and anecdotes
described were noted down when they were actually happening and are not
(blurry) memories from three decades later. The Church would not like to
feed the authors who have taken bits and pieces from Melly's essays to
add some extra candy to rock biographies or Swinging London books.
George Melly’s Cromwellian
piece dates from 1965 and tells how the club was already old news by
then. When Disc and Music Echo journalist Rod Harrod, who used to be the
Crom’s PR-moonlighting-agent, offered his services to The
Scotch of St. James, the Crom suddenly relegated from premier to
second league. In only a couple of weeks time the, still rather
exclusive and expensive, Crom club would only host and entertain some of
the minor gods from the rock pantheon.
In the only interview
we have got from Iggy she says:
I met so many people in the 60s – the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling
Stones and Rod Stewart.
She may have met them in one of the many artist clubs that were around:
The Scotch of St. James, The Cromwellian, The Speakeasy (where she met
Anthony Stern during a Jimi Hendrix gig). The London Live music
club anthology has an intriguing picture,
to say the least, depicting Speakeasy managers Roy Flynn and Mike Carey
with two ladies. One of them could be Iggy, although not all Church
members agree with that. Update November 2010: it has now been
confirmed - by a very reliable source - that the woman on that picture
is not Iggy / Evelyn.
Rod Harrod.
Rod Harrod
In 2009 the Church contacted the man whom George Melly had interviewed
45 years ago but just when the Church wanted to publish the article
Iggy, now known as Evelyn, was featured in a couple of articles in Mojo. Quitesomebuzzhappenedafterthat,
but as the spring storms have settled down a bit, the Church finds it is
about time to get on with its business.
Update December 2021: Rod Harrod died on the 3rd of December 2021
in his home village of Dinas Powys in South Wales. Rod will be
remembered for so many things both locally and Internationally. As the
Host of the Scotch of St James Club in London in the 60's Rod gave Jimi
Hendrix his first chance to play at the Club.
Rod
Harrod describes himself as a doyen of music business and is
remembered by some as the person who offered Jimi Hendrix his first gig
on British soil and made him sign a record contract on a napkin from the
St. James club. Harrod more or less tones this down a bit:
I did not make Jimi Hendrix sign a record contract on a napkin. The
Heads of Agreement were drafted on a napkin between Jimi's co-manager Chas
Chandler and the owners of soon-to-form Track
Records - Kit
Lambert and Chris
Stamp (brother of actor Terence Stamp).
I do not want people
thinking I forced Jimi to sign anything... I didn't.
Kathy
Etchingham, who lived in a flat in Zoot
and Ronnie Money's house in Fulham, was DJ for me at the Scotch of Saint
James at the time Jimi made his first appearance. (Rod Harrod, 30
July 2010, e-mail)
The first night Hendrix arrived in London, he began a relationship with
Kathy Etchingham that lasted until February 1969. (Taken from: Wikipedia.)
After a life in music business Rod went to South Africa where he was
founder of PROmpt
(Professional Music Performance and Technology) trying to bring music
closer to the life of the disadvantaged youth in Cape Town.
Living in Great Britain, Harrod seriously thinks of moving back to South
Africa to revitalise his music-training
centre and to finally start writing his memoirs. Some facts that
have appeared in rock biographies over the past decades didn’t really
happen as such and Harrod would like to put the record straight once and
for all…
Obviously the Church's first question was if Harrod remembered the girl
called Iggy whose snapshot had been taken at The Cromwellian:
...sorry to disappoint but although I have vague recollections from the
photo I can not add more...
Twinkle (Lynn Annette Ripley).
Twinkle
One of the people pictured on the NME article is Lynn Annette Ripley aka Twinkle
who had several hits in the mid Sixties.
I immediately spoke to Twinkle (Ripley) who lives quite close to me. She
used to go out with Simon (Hayes)... but she does not even remember him
being the PR there...
She remembers him as working in a PR Agency
in Berkley Square or somewhere - not owning it. Trouble is when you run
down memory lane these days you sometimes hit cul de sacs and others
take you in totally the wrong direction...
But Harrod’s trip down memory lane isn’t exactly a dead end street,
quite the contrary… The Church is proud to publish some of his
Cromwellian memories in avant-première…
The Cromwellian
So many things changed quickly in those days...
I was around at
the Cromwellian as PR around 1964 – 1965 before I moved on to the Scotch
of Saint James that became even more famous as THE Club... The late
George Melly's account is reasonable except he got my name wrong (it is
not Roy, but Rod).
George Melly's account of the Crom can be found at the Church article: The
Style Council. Rod Harrod continues:
George Melly missed mentioning the very camp 'Harry the Heart' of
Harry's International Bar on the ground floor of the Cromwellian (the
'Heart' bit came from his delightfully effeminate wave over the heads of
a packed bar as you walked in: 'Hello (dear) Heart, how are we? Be with
you now."
According to Melly, Harrod left the Crom club after a quarrel with its
owner. Rod disagrees:
I do not remember having a row with the owner - wrestler and promoter
Paul Lincoln - who wrestled incognito wearing a mask, just that the Crom
decided they did not want to pay my bar bill anymore. I had a better
offer anyway from Louis Brown who, with Lenny Bloom, owned the Scotch of
Saint James.
Patrick Kerr and dancers.
Ready, Steady, Kerr!
Dusty (Springfield) was closely associated with Ready Steady Go! and the
show's booker Vicki Wickham. It was her idea for a RSG Motown Special
that broke Motown in the UK after a flop theatre tour.
The importance of Ready,
Steady, Go! as an instant pop style catalyst can not be emphasized
enough. The program literally uphove the island of Britain from a
dark and gloomy past. George Melly in Revolt into Style:
In the McLuhanesque
sense RSG was an important breakthrough. It plugged in direct to the
centre of the scene and only a week later transmitted information as to
clothes, dances, gestures, even slang to the whole British teenage Isles.
When I was touring in the 50s fashions took an almost incredible time to
spread. Even the large provincial centres like Liverpool and Manchester
were at least six months behind, while in small Yorkshire mining
communities as late as 1960 it was still possible to find Teddy Boy
suits, and not only that. They were tailored in ruby red or
billiard-table green cloth. As for the borders of Scotland the girls'
dresses had hardly altered since the middle 30s.
RSG changed all that. It made pop work on a truly national scale. (…)
The whole chemistry of RSG was right. So was its timing. Friday night
just after work. ('Your weekend begins here' was its slogan.)
Already in 1964 George Melly had described the program as an example of telly-brutalism,
never seen before on British television.
New trends in dancing, clothes, even erotic habits (a tendency to tug
gently at the legs of the singers has recently become common) appear on
this programme at the same time - or even in advance of - what's going
on in the teenage clubs.
Patrick Kerr was a national celebrity thanks to his involvement in Ready
Steady Go! Nearly every week the choreographer (and his go go girls)
presented a brand new hot dance that would be copied and mimicked in
dance halls all over the country.
In the early sixties Kerr turned to full-time dancing with his dance
partner (and future wife) Theresa Confrey. After a contract on a cruise
ship in the Americas he returned to Britain in 1963 where he was
immediately spotted by RSG! to promote the most popular (American)
dances. Later on he picked them up at the hip London clubs, often the Sabre
where he would also recruit the weekly bunch of volunteers to appear at
the show, but if no hip dance could be found he designed the new moves
by himself. The RSG! dance of the week would be published in newspapers
and youth magazines so that the kids were able to learn it for their
week-end dance hall debauchery.
(In the mid-sixties Kathy
McGowan used to present the show in Biba
clothes and on Saturday morning Carnaby Street was invariably overrun by
fans looking for gear they'd seen on Ready, Steady, Go! the night
before. Patrick Kerr (and Theresa Confrey) cashed in on that trend as
well by opening the Hem and Fringe boutique on Moreton street.)
In 1964 Patrick Kerr debuted as a pop singer. Although he was in the
capable hands of Adam
Faith and Sandie
Shaw's manager, Eve Taylor, his career would be limited to one
single only: Magic
Potion / It’s no trouble to love you. After a UK package tour with
Adam Faith, Sandie Shaw, The
Barron Knights and the proto-Procol-Harum-gang The
Paramounts he returned back to Ready, Steady, Go! as its main
choreographer.
But perhaps Kerr's recording contract was not based upon his singing
qualities alone. When Sandie Shaw was due on stage for Top Of the Pops
the floor buzzed with the rumour that she and Kerr had been found inside
a broom cupboard and that the thing they were looking for wasn't exactly
a broom...
Sadly Patrick
Kerr passed away on the 15th of August 2009 so the Church can’t ask
for his comments anymore, regarding Iggy obviously…
When 'Bend
It' came out, the programme controller of the pirate station Radio
London, Alan Keane, was very reluctant to play it as he suspected it was
obscene. So we came up with the ruse that 'The Bend' was intended as a
new dance, hopefully dance craze. (Taken from davedeedozybeakymickandtich.nl)
Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley hastily wrote (and recorded) a few other
Bend songs and approached Patrick Kerr from Ready, Steady, Go! fame to
devise a brand new dance. Kerr accepted, the dance was promoted on RSG!
as this week's brand new thing and its steps appeared in the press. Update
October 2012: The Bend-It Step by step link from Sixties City appears to
be broken, here is an alternative: the Bend.
The Bend made it on the Pathé news with Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick &
Tich miming the song, in front of Patrick Kerr and his dance group
Tomorrow's People, at the London Playboy club near Hyde Park (Park Lane
45). More a casino than a club the Hutch On The Park, as the
place was nicknamed, was an immediate success and the place where one
could occasionally meet The Beatles, George Best, Warren Beatty, Michael
Caine, Judy Garland, Sean Connery, Roman Polanski or Sharon Tate. (Taken
from Wikipedia.)
Update January 2013: The Playboy promo-clip with DDDBMT & Patrick
Kerr can be seen at Bend
It (2013).
The Playboy Club had only recently opened, described by some as a 1.6
million pounds celebration of female pulchritude, it contained
several restaurants, a nightclub, a casino and flats and suites that
could be rented by the day, week or month. This was not the place the
average Londoner would, nor could, enter. Woody Allen, who had done the
opening night as a favour to Hugh Hefner, called it the London clubhouse
for visiting Yanks and he was spotted joining Telly Savalas, John
Casavetes, Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin during all-night poker games
(this was in 1967 during the shooting of The Dirty Dozen). There
was lots of money, lots of drugs and, not unsurprisingly for a Playboy
subsidiary, one might add, lots of women.
Gaylord Parrys Carnival Band.
The Bend party at The Cromwellian may have been, according to this source,
the finals of the British national 'Bend' competition, so actually Iggy
may have been one of its contestants, if - of course - there has ever
been a contest to begin with, because it had all been a publicity stunt
just to sell the Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich single.
Alan Blaikley:
The ruse worked, and thankfully 'Bend
It' got onto the Radio London playlist, vitally important in those
days. I don't think the 'dance craze' ever quite happened!
As a follow up tune for Bend It Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley wrote a
carbon copy, that even didn't pretend to have been ripped from Mikis
Theodorakis' Zorbas
anymore. Simply called The
Bend it was recorded by a non-existent five-strong London group, The
Potatoes, actually Steve
Rowland, Alan
Caddy and Alan Blaikley in disguise. Its flip-side was called Bend
Ahead and that was about the end of this Bend dance craze that never
was.
In Germany a third Bend single was released, apparently recorded by the Gaylord
Parry's Carnival Band. Actually the A-side Let's Bend was
sung by composer Ken Howard, with the help from the same studio
musicians that had recorded the Potatoes single, while the B-side Bending
Kremlin' Gremlin' was mainly instrumental, apart from some fake
Russian grunting. Its sleeve shows Patrick Kerr and Tomorrow's People in
full action, although the British public never was aware that it ever
existed.
Thanks for reading (an updated, rewritten and enhanced) part three of
our Bending
at The Crom series. Part four, that will reveal everything about Doctor
Death, will come out when you see it appearing on this website! In
the meantime, brethren and sistren, don't do anything that
Iggy wouldn't have done!
Many thanks go to: Rod Harrod, Lynn Annette Ripley, the Dutch Dave Dee,
Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich fan community.
Sources (other than internet links mentioned above): Bacon,
Tony: London Live, Balafon Books, London, 1999, p. 103. Blake,
Mark: Pigs Might Fly, Aurum Press Limited, London, 2007, p. 72,
p. 108. Levy, Shawn: Ready Steady Go!, Broadway Books, New
York, 2003, p. 191, p 207-211. Melly, George: Revolt Into Style –
The Pop Arts In Britain, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1972, p.
170-171. Palacios, Julian: Lost In The Woods, Boxtree, London,
1998, p. 209.
PROfessional Music Performance and Technology
Rod Harrod let the Church know on July 30, 2010:
Things have progressed on the PROmpt training re-opening in Cape Town
front. I got back from meetings with Government Ministers and others
there last week. We have been offered by the Provincial Government a
huge building on three floors that needs a massive amount of renovation
but could work. But first I have to raise a lot of funds for that and to
run the programme.
Please visit Rod Harrod's South-African PROmpt website that says most
that anyone might need to know. Any contacts or potential donors or
anyone interested can contact Rod Harrod through that site: PROfessional
Music Performance and Technology.
When George Melly visited
The Cromwellian club in 1965 he found quite a few wrestlers at the bar,
what was no coincidence as the club was owned by four of them.
Paul Lincoln
Paul Lincoln, arrived in the mid-fifties from Sydney and single-handedly
build a British wrestling emporium and that without the aid of
television. As Dr Death he was the most famous masked heavyweight
wrestler of the early sixties and numerous (masked but untalented)
copycats wrestled under the same name trying to cash in on his success.
Here was a man who could use blindside skulduggery and torment his
opponents with punishing nerve holds to bring the fans to a frenzy.
(Source: Wrestling
Heritage.)
Paul Lincoln Advert.
In 1962 Paul Lincoln, as wrestling promoter, arranged a legendary fight 'to
the finish' between the villainous Dr Death (in other words:
himself) and another masked 'identity unknown' wrestler nicknamed The
White Angel. Three thousand fans witnessed how the Doctor beat the
Angel and the losing party was obliged to shamefully reveal his identity.
At the end of the contest, a no rounds fight to the finish which had
ended by a knock-out, the defeated wrestler shook hands with the victor
and dramatically removed his mask. The White Angel was Judo Al Hayes, a
successful heavyweight who had recently left the Joint Promotions camp
to work for Paul Lincoln and other independent promoters. (Source: Wrestling
Heritage, password protected members area.)
But Paul Lincoln not only staged wrestling matches, his name is also
linked to the British rock scene. In April of 1956 he and
fellow-wrestler Ray
Hunter (who apparently had a fling with Sophia
Loren) took over premises at 59 Old Compton Street, London and
baptised it the 2I's
coffee bar.
The bar started the career of many young rockers. Skiffle band The
Vipers more or less debuted at the club (on the 14th of July 1956)
and would gradually grow into The
Shadows (via The Drifters).
We went inside for a coffee and asked Paul Lincoln (…) if we could do a
bit of busking. (…) We started playing, and suddenly the place had come
to life. it seemed to work well and Paul asked us to make it a regular
stopover. Within a short time the place was jumping; in a few months
they were queuing around the block.
The club is known in rock history as the place where Tommy
Steele, Marty
Wilde, Cliff
Richard and many others were discovered. Even Ritchie
Blackmore's (from Deep Purple and Rainbow fame) musical training
started at 2I's.
Paul Lincoln's entrepreneurial skills were not limited to the 2'I's
coffee bar alone, he also opened an Italian restaurant in Soho and
together with Ray Hunter, Bob
Anthony (for his looks baptised the wrestling Beatle) and Al
'The White Angel' Hayes
he purchased The Cromwellian. A fifth partner - who was sold out by the
wrestlers a couple of years later - was Tony Mitchell, rumoured to have
underworld connections, and the owner of The
Blue Shark club at Bridgend.
Update Januari 2011: Paul Lincoln, the man who was the Doctor
Death, passed away on Tuesday 11th January 2011: RIP
Paul Lincoln. Update April 2011: In an exclusive interview
for the Church, Bob 'Anthony' Archer has told the Church that Paul
Lincoln's Italian restaurant 'Trattoria del buon vivitore' was
just a couple of blocks away from the 2I's coffee bar. It was located at
36 Old Compton Street, the first floor had the Paul Lincoln Management
offices (see advertisement above): The
Wrestling Beatle.
Burning tables
The Cromwellian was not only a bar and restaurant but also a casino.
Initially the tables had been at ground-floor but in the autumn of 1965
the craps
table was badly damaged by a Molotov cocktail thrown through the window,
probably by racketeers or by slightly covetous competitors. The owners
quickly decided to move the casino to a higher floor and to barricade
the building with iron security grades.
Randy Steed, who was a croupier at The Crom, has written down some of
his memories in The
Private Gambling Clubs of 1960s London. It is an enjoyable piece to
read, filled with funny anecdotes, but in this article we will off
course only cite Crom related parts.
The Cromwellian had only five tables, but possessed a faded, hip
elegance which attracted the show business and rock star elite of those
times; on any given night you’d be dealing across the tables to the
likes’ of Brian Epstein; the Beatles first manager, and numerous other
luminaries of the exploding sixties, music scene.
Stars such as Tom Jones, Lulu, and Eric Burden of the Animals, and
Jonathan King were regulars and could be found hanging out downstairs
most nights, in the restaurant-disco where the Long John Baldry Band,
featuring Reginald Dwight aka Elton John on keyboards held sway.
NME, in its Cromwellian pic-visit,
wrote that 'there was a night that Omar Sharif lost £400 on the tables
and the other occasion when Lee Marvin after being down £400 left the
club by £2000'. Randy Steed, as a young croupier, also happened to be
there:
One memorable night the American film actor, Lee Marvin wandered, more
like staggered into the club (…) and started playing Pontoon. (…) Mr.
Marvin kept writing checks on his Beverly Hills Bank till he finally
wised-up and unsteadily navigated his way to the poker game. (…)
This particular game attracted many of London’s better behaved villains
who were quite happy to have this inebriated American actor sit down at
their table. As fate would have it Marvin nailed a full house on this
first and only hand to out-draw the rest of the table. He gave it a
brief moment’s thought and gathered his winning chips into his arms (yes
his arms, these were French style 'jettons’ which were rather slippery
and unwieldy) and calmly but wobbly made his way to the cashier’s cage.
There was dead silence in the room as the faces’ at the poker table
stared in amazed disbelief at their easy-money walking away…not a word
was said, just stunned silence.
Carmen Jimenez and unknown priest.
Carmen from Fame
Another memorable night at The Crom was held on the 8th of January 1967
when Carmen Jimenez turned 21. Now who was Carmen Jimenez and why did
most of The Beatles and Brian Epstein (dressed as a clown) turned up at
her party?
Not a lot can be said about Carmen Jimenez. The only interview she gave
(to James Dawn) appeared in NME 1054 of 8 April 1967. Titled: Glamour?
I’m the Target for All the Lies and Digs, Carmen Jimenez
disclosed (reluctantly) what it was like to be Georgie Fame’s fiancée,
but unfortunately the interview can't be located on the web.
We do know for sure that Georgie
Fame threw her a fancy dress birthday party in January 1967. Several
pictures were taken on that night and these can be found dispersed all
over the net, but a good place to start is the Georgie Fame (unofficial) website
and Getty
Images. These show Georgie Fame with a priest (John Lennon), a US
soldier (Paul McCartney) and an Arab Sheik (Ringo Starr).
Iggy on Carmen Jimenez's birthday party.
One photo
however has taken the immediate interest of the Holy Church of Iggy the
Inuit. It depicts John Lennon, but standing behind him could be a
vaguely familiar figure (see left side image). In the only interview
she has ever given Ig (Evelyn) has told that she met The Beatles and the
Fame-Jimenez party could have been an excellent opportunity. Update
2011.02.19: Iggy has confirmed that it is indeed her on the picture:
"Yes, this is a picture of me." The Church will look further into the
matter.
Rod the Mod
Another famous person Ig has met was Rod Stewart. Interestingly it was
at the same Cromwellian club in February 1967 that Jeff Beck, who had
just been kicked out of The Yardbirds, recruited Rod Stewart for his new
band the Jeff Beck Group (featuring Ron Wood). Douglas
J. Noble asked Jeff Beck in 1993:
DJN: Is it true that you met Rod Stewart when he was watching
Peter Green in a pub?
JB: Yeah - no, it was in the Cromwellian club which is now gone,
I think, opposite the Exhibition Road. That was our hangout - our
watering hole. And this particular day or evening, rather, he was
somewhat worse for wear through drink and I just thought there's the guy
- the one guy - I would like to play with. Have him sing in my band. And
I was pretty down as well - totally out of the Yardbirds, nothing going,
no money. I hadn't got anything to lose so I asked him if he would be
interested and he said, 'Yup!' Amazing! Next day we met up and the rest
is, uhh, on record [laughs].
Sources (other than the above internet links): Bacon, Tony: London
Live, Balafon Books, London, 1999, p. 8. ♥ Iggy ♥ (2011 02 19). Platt,
John: London’s Rock Routes, Fourth Estate, London, 1985,
p.10-12. Many thanks to the Wrestling
Heritage website. Grazie mille Gianna!
Iggy's public life started 44 years ago when she was spotted by an NME
photographer and was promptly and accurately described as half an
Eskimo. This took place in The Cromwellian, a bar, restaurant and casino
owned by wrestler Paul Lincoln. For a while The Cromwellian was the hot
place to be and even when the place lost its crown to The Scotch Of St
James there were still enough celebrities around to have a chat with.
The club was owned by wrestler Paul Lincoln who set his first steps in
music business by opening the legendary 2I's
coffee bar. In our four-part series Bending
at The Crom the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit attempted to assemble
several loose facts about the club that lay scattered all over the web,
but unfortunately we were unable to contact Paul Lincoln himself.
The wrestling fraternity is mourning Paul Lincoln, the man who was the
Doctor Death, passed away on Tuesday 11th January. (...)
In 1951 he left Australia for Britain, where he started wrestling the
following year. He established himself as a popular and respected
wrestler, particularly in the south of England. Paul met up with a
school friend who was also a wrestler, Ray Hunter. In 1956 they pooled
their savings to buy a coffee bar in Old Compton Street, London, the
“The Two I’s.” The name was retained from the previous owners, the Irani
brothers.
Under Paul Lincoln and Ray Hunter management the coffee bar established
itself as a home for many young entertainers, giving them the chance to
display their talent to fellow customers. Amongst the many who took this
opportunity and went on to greater fame were Tommy Steele, Adam Faith,
Marty Wilde and Cliff Richard. Lincoln also opened an Italian restaurant
in Soho and together with Ray Hunter, Bob Anthony Al ' Hayes he
purchased The Cromwellian bar, restaurant and casino.
In 1958 Paul and Ray turned to the promotional side of wrestling,
setting up Paul Lincoln Managements. (...) Paul pulled on a mask and
appeared on his own bills as the masked man Doctor Death. Even without
television exposure Doctor Death became a household name. The masked man
was imitated many times, but fans overwhelmingly believe Paul Lincoln
was not only the original Doctor Death he was also the best. (...)
Paul Lincoln was to be remembered, and will continue to be so, as one of
the most influential figures in British wrestling. Paul Lincoln passed
away on Tuesday 11th January, 2011. (Taken from: Wrestling
World Mourns Paul Lincoln.)
On behalf of The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit I would like to offer our
sincere sympathies to the Lincoln family.
Words: Mark Blake. Pictures: Storm Thorgerson, Iggy Rose, Rank
Organisation. Date: 20 January 2011. Previously published on
mojo.com.
If there is one image of Syd Barrett that never ceases to fascinate it's the
back cover of his debut album, The Madcap Laughs. The reason: the
mysterious naked woman perched on a stool with her head thrown back and
face obscured by swathes of long dark hair. Syd's companion was known
only as "Iggy The Eskimo". But as Barrett fans have been
wondering since 1970 - who was Iggy and where did she go?
Photographer Mick
Rock believed that his cover girl had "married a rich guy and moved
off the scene". Barrett's old flatmate, the artist Duggie Fields,
heard that "Iggy had become involved with one of the voguish religious
cults of the time", before adding to the mythology with a story of once
seeing her disembarking from a Number 31 bus in Kensington, wearing a
1940s-era gold lamé dress, and very little else.
In 2002, Mick's coffee-table book Psychedelic
Renegades featured more shots of Syd and Iggy posing outside the
Earls Court mansion block, alongside Barrett's abandoned Pontiac. Rock's
photos found their way onto most Pink Floyd fansites, where Iggy
had acquired cult status. Before long, The
Holy Church Of Iggy The Inuit, a fansite in her honour, had
appeared, its webmaster, Felix Atagong, sifting through ever scrap of
information gleaned from MOJO and elsewhere with a forensic scientist's
attention to detail. Among Felix's discoveries was a
November 1966 issue of NME which featured a photo of "Iggy who is
half eskimo" dancing at South Kensington's Cromwellian club.
While researching my Pink Floyd biography (2007's Pigs
Might Fly: The Inside Story Of Pink Floyd) I quizzed everyone about
Iggy's whereabouts. Anthony Stern, formerly a schoolmate of David
Gilmour's, told me he had met her at a Hendrix gig and had
just discovered photos he had taken of her on a houseboat in Chelsea;
Anthony had also filmed Iggy dancing in Russell Square. Meanwhile,
former Middle Earth club DJ Jeff Dexter recalled meeting "the
mysterious-looking" Iggy in 1963, when she was a "part of a group of
very wonderful looking South London girls" that danced at The Orchid
Ballroom in Purley. Jeff even hatched a plan with his friend, the late
DJ and Shadows songwriter Ian "Sammy" Samwell, to turn
Iggy and two of her friends into "a British version of The
Supremes. We booked a studio but unfortunately none of them could
sing." Believing that Iggy may have gone to school in Thornton Heath,
Jeff and Anthony contacted The Croydon Guardian, who ran an article - So
Where Did She Go To, My Lovely - enquiring after the whereabouts of the
girl "who entirely captured the spirit of the '60s".
Then, in March 2010, MOJO received a letter from ex-Cambridge mod Pete
Brown, who had "shared some wild nights on the town with Iggy in the
1970s". Pete informed us that Iggy had been last heard of in the '80s
"working at a racing stables... and has since been keeping her
whereabouts quiet." Pete sent a copy of the letter to The Croydon
Guardian, whose reporter traced Iggy through the stables and phoned her
out of the blue. Their subsequent article included a handful of quotes
from its reluctant subject, including the words: "I have now left that
life behind me." Which is why it came as a surprise when my mobile rang
late one Saturday night. "It's Iggy!" declared the voice at the other
end, as if I would have known that already. "I've been reading what you
wrote about me in MOJO... about the pictures of my bottom."
Relaxing on Worthing Beach, early '60s.
The local newspaper's call had prompted Iggy to borrow a neighbour's
computer and go online for the first time. She was amazed to discover
MOJO, the fansites, the photos, and the wild speculation and
misinformation about her time with Syd Barrett. Which is why, in October
2010, I found myself stepping off a train at an otherwise deserted
Sussex railway station to be met by the woman that had once graced the
cover of The Madcap Laughs. Three hours in a local gastro-pub and
countless phone calls later, Iggy pieced together her story. Some of it
was printed in MOJO
207, the rest is here...
Firstly, why Iggy? "My real name is Evelyn," she explains. "But when I
was a child, my neighbour's young daughter could never pronounce Evelyn,
and always called me Iggy. Now everyone calls me as Iggy. But 'The
Eskimo' nickname was a joke. That was something I told the photographer
from the NME when he took my picture at The Cromwellian." Iggy's father
was a British army officer, who served alongside Louis Mountbatten, and
attended the official handover ceremony from Great Britain to India's
first Prime Minister, Jawaharial Nehru in 1947. "My father also knew all
about Mountbatten's wife's affair with Nehru," she adds mischievously.
During a spell of leave, he had travelled to a remote village in the
Himalayas "where he met the woman that would become my mother." Iggy was
born in Pakistan, and attended army schools in India and Aden, before
the family moved to England. But not, as believed, Thornton Heath. "I
grew up by the seaside," she reveals. "I went to art school. I became a
mod in Brighton, and saw the fights with the rockers, and I met The
Who when they were on Ready Steady Go! I loved soul music, loved The
Righteous Brothers, and I loved dancing, so I used to go to all the
clubs - The Orchid Ballroom in Purley, where I met lovely Jeff Dexter,
The Cromwellian, The Flamingo, The Roaring Twenties..."
It was at The Cromwellian that Iggy encountered Eric Clapton. "I
didn't know who he was at first," she insists. "He took me to meet Lionel
Bart and to a party at Brian Epstein's place..." By the
mid-'60s Iggy had become a Zelig-like presence on the capital's music
scene, sometimes in the company of Keith Moon, Brian Jones,
Keith Richards.... She saw Hendrix make his UK debut at the Bag
O' Nails in November '66, and in February '67, narrowly avoided the
police raid at Richards' country pile, in West Wittering: "The night
before, I decided not to go, thank God." A year later, still in the
Stones' orbit, she found herself watching the recording sessions for
what became Sympathy For The Devil.
Iggy at Granny Takes A Trip, 1967.
By then, Iggy had made her film debut. In 1967, IN Gear was a short
documentary screened as a supporting film in cinemas around the country.
Its theme was Swinging London, including the chic Kings Road clothes
shop Granny Takes A Trip, a place, according to the breathless narrator
that "conforms to the non-conformist image of the !" A
mini-skirted Iggy can be seen in one silent clip, sifting through a
rack of clothes and chatting with Granny's co-owner Nigel Waymouth.
By 1967, pop music had changed. The summer before, Iggy had met Syd
Barrett's girlfriend Jenny Spires, and drifted into the Floyd's social
clique, showing up at the UFO club nights where Pink Floyd played
regularly: "When I recently watched that Syd Barrett documentary [The
Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett & Story] and saw Syd in the kaftan,
chanting [on Pow R Toc H], the memories came rushing back," she
explains. "I'd been there. I'd seen that." In April '67, Iggy joined the
counter-culture throng in Alexandra Palace for The
14-Hour Technicolor Dream - "all 14 hours of it!" - where Floyd
played a hypnotic set at dawn.
By early 1968, though Barrett had been replaced by David Gilmour, and,
according to many, was on a drug-fuelled downward spiral. Towards the
end of the year, he moved into a new place with his level-headed friend,
the would-be artist Duggie Fields. The pair took over a two-bedroom flat
at 29
Wetherby Mansions in Earls Court. Around January '69, at Jenny
Spires' suggestion, Iggy, needing a place to stay, moved in. She hooked
up with Barrett, but shared a musical bond with Fields: "Duggie and I
were into soul music, and Syd used to laugh at me dancing around to
Motown."
As Iggy told MOJO 207: "I didn't know Syd had been a pop star."
Elaborating further, "I didn't make the connection between him and the
person I had seen at UFO. I knew he was beautiful looking and he had
real presence, but that was all." Once, when she picked up his acoustic
guitar, fooling around, he took it off her and started playing properly.
"I was overwhelmed. The way he played the guitar, the way he moved. He
said, 'Do you think I look good?'," she laughs. "I said, 'You look
amazing. Wow!' He then said, 'Would you listen to this?' And he bought
out this big, old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorder, and said, 'Tell
me what you think'." Syd then played her the songs that would end up on
The Madcap Laughs. One track, Terrapin,
made an immediate impression. "I said, 'That's quite catchy', and, of
course, I don't think Syd was really into catchy...It was a long tape,
and he didn't demand any opinion, but just asked if I thought it was OK.
At the end he said 'Someone at EMI - I cannot remember the name - wants
me to make a record. How would you feel about having a rock star
boyfriend?'"
Let's start with what you are all waiting for. At the left you find
another unpublished picture, from the mid Seventies, Iggy was so
friendly to mail us. The recent interviews
at Mojo,
probably the best music magazine in the world, by Mark
Blake, probably the best music journalist in the world, has
triggered a gentle snowfall of friendly reactions all over the web.
At night, before going to sleep, you notice but a few snowflakes falling
down and you think: is this all? But the next morning the garden has
been transformed in a peaceful white blanket only disturbed by the
parallel stepping marks of a passing Lucifer Sam.
The Church has gathered some of these heartwarming reactions. Let's
start with one from the city of light:
I’ve just read Mark Blake’s article
and I am extremely moved to read Iggy’s words about those months with
Syd in 1969 and extremely moved to see her on a brand new photo. She
looks like an attractive lady.
Some elements are quite interesting : the fact that Syd wanted Iggy to
be naked on the photos and the fact he decided not to smile on the
photos are a great new perspective on that shooting.
Also the fact that she confirms she and him were together (which some
people seemed to doubt about these latest years) is a lovely
confirmation. And when she says he wasn't a dark-minded man and used to
laugh a lot with her, this is so cute...
By the way, the article ends with Iggy saying she’s very flattered to
discover she hasn’t been forgotten by everyone: what a pity we have no
(mail) address to write a small message to her, to tell her that not
only many of us hadn’t forgotten her at all but, on the contrary, her
photos and especially the album sleeve have been part of our lives.
(Taken from: The
Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit @ Late
Night.)
Questions for Iggy
The past year several questions have been submitted to be asked to Iggy,
for the then unlikely event an interview would take place. Some
of those have been asked by Mark Blake and were (partially) answered in
the Mojo extended
interviews:
I would just ask her what she remembers about Syd... Dear Iggy, do
you have anything of Syd's that I can have? Did you think there was
anything wrong with Syd mentally? Do any particular discussions stand
out for you... were they deep and philosophical, did you discuss current
events or just what you needed at the market... In his song "Dark
Globe" Syd Barrett says: "I'm only a person with Eskimo chain". Do you
think that is/could be a reference to you? Maybe you have some
personal photos/snapshots of Syd. Was Syd violent towards you like he
was with others girlfriends? Were you at the 14
Hour Technicolour Dream at the Alexandra Palace? If yes could you
tell us your impressions about that? What do you think happened to
Syd in 1967/1968? What happened to you after you last saw Syd? Would
you prefer to be called Iggy or Evelyn?
Mark Blake added to this:
Off the top of my head, (…) Iggy doesn't have any snapshots of her and
Syd, or any of his possessions (unfortunately, she no longer has the
photo she had of the two of them, which he tore in half, mentioned in
some of the books). She was at the Technicolour Dream '"all 14 hours of
it!" - and tried but couldn't spot herself in the documentary DVD. She
was also at the Isle Of Wight festival in 1970 (went with Twink of the
Pink Fairies) and the first Glastonbury Fayre. (Taken from Questions
for Iggy @ Late Night.)
People and places
The recent interviews show that Iggy met a lot of people and visited
lots of places in Swingin' London. The Croydon Guardian and Mojo
articles mention Brian Epstein, Brian Jones, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix,
Keith Moon, Keith Richards, Rod Stewart & other assorted Beatles, Who
and Rolling Stones. Oh yeah, and of course also a bloke named Syd
Barrett.
The clubs she visited did not only include the Cromwellian, the
Flamingo, the Orchid Ballroom, the Roaring Twenties and the Speakeasy,
but in a mail to the Church Iggy also remembers other places like the
Alexandra & Crystal Palace, Annabel's, Bag O'Nails, Embassy, Garrick &
Hurlingham private clubs, Roundhouse (Chalk Farm), UFO, Marquee, Middle
Earth, Tramps (Tramp Club?) and generally everything that was located in
or around Carnaby Street. Needless to say that we try to look further
into that for the next couple of months.
But after the many pages the Church and Mojo have dedicated to Evelyn,
it is perhaps better to let Ig speak for herself. She send a long mail
to the Church and we hope she doesn't mind that we will publish some of
its heartwarming highlights here. Ig doesn't have an Internet account so
the mail was written and send by a friend. The Church took the liberty
of omitting some names and places.
Iggy wishes to express her thrill and excitement for putting this
factual and honest portrayal of her and is enchanted by your unwavering
interest. She is utterly flabbergasted of the magnitude of it all.
Many thanks to Mark Blake, for his perseverance and the genuine way he
has cared for and protected Iggy.
Many thanks go to Ig's wonderful husband and to her most trusted and
loyal friends [some deletions here by the Church] and Z., who was
there for us right at the beginning by printing hundreds of pages on her
computer.
But some old friends from the past haven't been forgotten either:
Iggy also feels the need to mention the charismatic Jeff Dexter, who has
given so much of his precious time by always welcoming and receiving all
her calls at all hours day and night.
Anthony Stern, Storm Thorgerson, Mick Rock, who created such amazingly
beautiful images. To debonair Nigel Waymouth and the extraordinary
couple Pete and Sue.
Many thanks and good love for the wonderfully exquisite description of
Iggy. She is totally overwhelmed and humbled by the delightful memories
of her.
Much love, Iggy
Vintage groupies
Reading the pages that a good friend had printed for her, Iggy got hold
of the Vintage
Groupies website that also dedicated some space to her. She asked
the Church:
Felix, would you do me a really big favour and contact vintage groupies
(little queenies) to express my gratitude to all the lovely people who
left all the nice comments about me.
Love from Iggy.
Immediately after it had been published several reactions arrived:
Wow, thanks so much Felix for the message, please tell to Iggy thanks so
much from Little Queenies :) This is so great, she is so kind to
think about us :) Warm regards to her and to you Felix Elia &
Violeta, Barcelona, Spain
Its wonderful, to hear from her. Dancas
So amazing! Thank you so much for not only sharing the interviews but
relaying the message to us here at Vintage groupies! So fantastic. Lynxolita
Iggy, 2011 (photo: Chris Lanaway).
Iggy the Eskimo 2011 photoshoot by Chris Lanaway
The Mojo article had a recent Iggy picture,
taken by Chris
Lanaway. A second picture has recently turned up at his Tumblr
account. Chris writes:
Here is a teaser from a recent series which will be viewable soon: Iggy
the Eskimo.
A hi-res version of the picture in question can be found here.
This article has nearly ended, and we pass the word to Anne from Paris
who passed us a letter for Evelyn:
Dear Iggy,
Because you told Mark (Blake) that you were surprised and flattered to
discover that so many persons were interested in you (and I'd even say
that they're your fans!), I want to tell you that many of us have got a
great tenderness for you; you've been part of our lives during decades
and were at the same time a magnificent mystery and a flesh and blood
woman in Syd's life, two good reasons not to be able to forget you!
Of course, the fact that in these latest years, a great deal of
beautiful photos of you appeared just increased the admiration and
fascination about you.
I hope that the affection, admiration and fascination that many of us
have been feeling towards you warm you up and that you'll stay in touch
with us in any way you want ("us" means Felix, Mark, Syd's fans and even
maybe, one day, the organization around Syd's memory in Cambridge).
Needless to say that not only was it a great relief and a great joy that
you were found again last year, but it's also a great joy now to see new
photos of you.
Friendly regards. Anne (Paris, France) (I've got the "Madcap
laughs" since 1988, I was 17 then)
From an entirely different continent comes the following:
It was really nice to know that you are around and OK. My happiness is
enormous! I’ve just loved your recent interviews and pictures. You are
indeed a beautiful person! I hope you share with us some of your views
and stories on those fabled years that influenced the cultural paradigms
in so many ways and in so many countries. I wish you the best with all
my heart.
Peace and Love, Dan, Ottawa, Canada
And...
HI. My name is Griselda. I just wanted to say I am a big fan of Iggy.
When I saw on your website that she was going to be on Mojo Magazine, I
was so excited. I can't imagine how you felt!
You may find it strange that a 19 year old girl is so interested in
Evelyn, but I really think she was a wonderful model. The pictures taken
by Anthony Stern are really beautiful. She was such a free spirit,
living in the moment. I think most models today are so polished up,
their too skinny, or try to change their looks as much as possible to
look like Barbies or something. That's why I love Iggy so much because
she was a natural beauty, and she didn't have to try hard to look
wonderful in pictures.
Take Care. Griselda, USA
Space girl
The Mojo (extended) interview ends with an excited Iggy who phones Mark
Blake out of the blue.
Last week, Iggy called to tell me she had found a poem online written
about her by a professor at a university in Missouri. "And it's in
French," she said, sounding astonished. "'Iggy l’Esquimo, Fille de
l’espace.'...it goes. I never believed anyone would ever write a poem
for me."
Although the professor actually lives in Manitoba,
Canada, where the temperature descended to a blistering minus 41 degrees
in January, the news arrived to him. Probably by sledge-dog express,
driven by – who else? – an Eskimo.
In the summer of 2006 Denis Combet wrote a collection of poems as a
tribute to the musician and painter Roger Keith Barrett who passed away
in Cambridge on the 7th of July 2006. The poems highlight the life of
the young artist as a nonconformist who preferred – or was forced – to
withdraw from the music world for a more humble existence. They were
published (in an English translation) in the online magazine Ecclectica
of February 2007.
The Church got the permission to pick an Iggy dedicated poem out of the
collection, not only in English, but also the original French version,
that had never been published before: From
Quetesh to Bastet / De Quétesh à Bastet .
Unfortunately these poems never went into print, because of the high
cost involved for publishing poetry, that often sells no more than a few
dozen of copies. But miracles sometimes do happen and hopefully we might
read more from Denis Combet in the near future.
Epilogue
In the next post the Church will probably give a detailed analysis of
the latest Iggy interviews, until then, sistren and brethren.
We leave the last word to Anne from Paris:
I don’t think Iggy's mystery will be over from now on; I
do think the mystery that comes out of her photos in the 60’s just
cannot die.
The Church wishes to thank: Anne, Dan, Dancas, Denis, Ela & Violetta
(Little Queenies), Griselda, Jenny, Kieren, Lynxolita, Mark, Zoe, Late
Night, Mojo magazine & Vintage Groupies and all others who commented and
contributed.
Last but not least: ♥ Iggy ♥ and her loyal friends who pass her
messages to and fro.
Life, my dear sistren and brethren, is not like a box of
chocolates, except perhaps those from the exclusive and exquisite Tartufo
shop in Louvain. Life is like an Eskimo chain, tattooed all over our
brains. When the Reverend started the Church he didn't realise what a
strange caterpillar ride it would be, a beautiful quest into the
unknown. The path we trod was narrow, the drop was sheer and very high
and ravens were watching from a vantage point nearby, to paraphrase a
great poet.
On the narrow paths, that Iggy had followed in the past, she had thrown
breadcrumbs to find her way back home afterwards. Only Iggy never
returned on her footsteps but went far ahead into the unknown. Most of
these crumbs had long been eaten, by the ravens cited above, but some
could be traced back by the Church. And one big trail lead to the
Cromwellian club.
The Cromwellian wrestling club
Before it acquired its fame the house at 3 Cromwell Road was known as an
illegal casino, run by the London underworld. When gambling became legal
the three store building turned into Harry's International Bar (run by
the legendary Harry Heart), an elegant casino (quickly moved to the
first floor because some competitors wanted to heat the place with
Molotov cocktails) and a cellar full of boys, much to the enjoyment of
the bartender, but the management decided to repair the equilibrium by
giving 'free entrance for girls'.
Before one could say 'faites vos jeux' the place was visited by Brian
Epstein and his gang of four and that perhaps thanks to one of the
owners who was nicknamed 'the wrestling Beatle'.
Bob Anthony.
Bob 'Anthony' Archer
Bob
Anthony (Bob Archer), the wrestling Beatle, was a popular
welterweight during the 1960s and may not be confounded with the
slightly ridiculous George Ringo (Bob Sabre), a Chicago wrestler who had
the same nickname. Bob turned professional in 1956 and around 1962 he
moved to Paul Lincoln Management. He was one of a group of wrestlers
chosen by Paul Lincoln to take part in a prestigious tour of the Far
East in the early sixties.
But, like we have already revealed in our article Dr
Death and other assorted figures..., he was also one of the owners
of the Crom and, what the Reverend didn't know, responsible for booking
the bands that would make the place a legend.
Recently the Church was contacted by Emily Archer and thanks to her we
can bring you the following testimony from her father:
I was part owner and manager of the Crom up to 1967 when I gave up the
management, but not my share, to create Pantiles Club and Restaurant in
Bagshot.
The Pantiles
Club was built in 1898 for the personal secretary of the Duke
of Connaught who lived at the Royal Bagshot Park opposite. During
the 1920s there was a Pantiles Athletic & Tennis Club, followed by a
Pantiles Swimming Pool Club. In the early 1960s a Pantiles Tea Dancing
Club was opened and in 1967 it would become the infamous Pantiles
nightclub and restaurant owned by Bob Archer.
I was also a Pro Wrestler as Bob Anthony. There were 4 of us wrestlers
involved - who were also 4 good friends, plus the originator of the
Cromwellian Tony Mitchell. Ray Hunter, Judo Al Hayes, Paul Lincoln. Al
died in the States where he wrestled as Lord Hayes, Ray died also in the
U.K. My great friend Paul Lincoln died recently. Paul and Ray also owned
The 2'Is in Old Compton Street, where the whole British Rock industry
emerged from.
Judo Al Hayes.
Judo Al Hayes
Judo
Al Hayes, alias the White Angel, alias Lord Hayes once was the the
nation’s youngest ever judo black belt. He hooked up with Paul Lincoln
and had a fun run as the White Angel, culminating in a famous 1962 fight
were he was unmasked by Doctor Death (Paul Lincoln with a mask).
In the early seventies Hayes went to the United States. After a
successful career as a wrestler he became a television commentator and
manager for the American Wrestling Association.
After a car accident he suffered from several complications and died a
very sad death in 2005, aged 77.
Rebel Ray Hunter.
Rebel Ray Hunter
Rebel
Ray Hunter, Taswegian tag partner of Judo Al Hayes in their Lincoln
days, and a globe-trotting Heavyweight Champion of the Commonwealth.
When Hunter came to Britain in 1950 he had been the youngest
Commonwealth wrestler to do so. Success came in German heavyweight
tournaments but the sixties saw a hedonistic jet-set lifestyle in Soho
where Hunter and Lincoln owned the famous 2'Is coffee bar.
Rumour goes Hunter had a fling with Sophia Loren once.
Around 1970 he disappeared mysteriously from the wrestling scene.
2I's
The bar 2Ii’s was located at 59, Old Compton Street. Underground legend Barry
Miles remembers:
At the 2I’s we sat drinking coffee from glass cups, staring out at Old
Compton Street, thinking this was the centre of the world as Dream Lover
by Bobby Darin played on the jukebox and various sleazy Soho types
drifted in and out. It had opened early in the summer of 1956.
Compared
with the other coffee bars in Soho, the 2I’s looked pretty tame. Just
round the corner on Meard Street was Le Macabre, which used coffins as
tables, Bakelite skulls for ashtrays and the jukebox featured the
Funeral March. The 2I’s had been open three weeks when Soho held its
second annual Soho Fair, to coincide with the July 14, 1956, Bastille
Day celebrations. The Vipers skiffle group were among the bands in the
procession. When a downpour made them jump down from their flatbed truck
and take refuge in the 2I’s, the nearest coffee bar, Paul Lincoln
suggested they continue playing there. Immediately a large crowd came in
from the street.
Paul Lincoln realised that live music was
what was needed to pull in the customers and hired them to play a
regular gig from 7 to 11pm, four nights a week. At first they were paid
only in spaghetti, Coca-Cola and any tips they were able to collect, but
their leader Wally Whyton soon decided that a proper fee was required as
the place was crammed to its 80-person capacity every time they played.
Paul Lincoln made a derisory offer and Wally, bravely, said he would
wrestle him for double or nothing. Lincoln was impressed by his guts,
strapped on his Doctor Death mask and lost the fight hands down,
presumably intentionally. The Vipers got their wages. (Taken from: Going
underground: the secret life of London.)
Food and drinks
Le Macabre coffee bar was not unknown to the wrestlers either and was
owned by someone they knew. Bob Archer:
Le Macabre Coffee Bar was in fact owned by Tony Mitchell who was the
original owner of the Crom until we bought in with him. He also had a
restaurant called the New Yorker in Soho. Al Hayes, Ray Hunter
and myself would meet for lunch at his restaurant before going on to
wrestling engagements or sometimes before training at the YMCA.
Later
Paul Lincoln and Ray Hunter also opened The "Trattoria del buon
vivitore", an Italian restaurant in Old Compton Street with the
Wrestling Promotion Office above.
In a previous article (Dr
Death and other assorted figures...) we already mentioned that Paul
Lincoln owned an Italian restaurant in Soho. What we didn't know was
that the place was just a few blocks away from 2I's (56 Old Compton
Street) and located underneath the Paul Lincoln Management offices (36
Old Compton Street). No wonder that Paul Lincoln often took his business
associates to the place and even a top ranking Milanese police officer,
who Lincoln had befriended during an Italian wrestling showtour, always
visited the restaurant whenever he was in London for police business.
The Crom
Bob Archer continues:
Tony [Mitchell] is long gone so I am the only remaining ex owner. I ran
Pantiles from 67 to 2007, 40 years, till we sold the land. I was the one
who originally created the Swinging London status of the Crom and the
60's celebrity hangout of the stars.
I booked the right bands,
and encouraged the sit in sessions, with The Animals, Clapton, Hendrix,
and you name it. Elton's band Bluesology were probably my most regular
booking, plus Brian Auger. The Drifters, Patti LaBelle, Stevie Wonder,
Wilson Picket, Benny King.
They all worked in that small cellar.
Harry Heart [the bartender] was a legend. I could go on all night. True
fact is the first place Jimi [Hendrix] played in London was The Crom. He
sat in with Brian Auger. Chas [Chandler] brought him in the first night
he arrived. Kathy [Etchingham] worked a bit for me.
JHRG: Are you sure the first jam was at The Cromwellian? Brian
Auger: It was The Cromwellian, yes. JHRG: Some say it was
Blaises, and I think Vic Briggs said he was convinced that it was The
Scotch Of St. James! Brian Auger: Yeah, but it wasn't. I'm
afraid Vic kind of rewrites history a bit, (chuckles) but it wasn't The
Scotch Of St. James, it was The Cromwellian. I have a mental picture of
Jimi being introduced to me and looking out across the stage at the
staircase that goes up from upstairs to the first level of The
Cromwellian. We definitely played at Blaises but that was later. Anyway,
he came down to The Cromwellian and Chas [Chandler] introduced him to me
in the break and he seemed like a very nice guy. He asked me if he could
sit in and I said absolutely, yeah, what would you like to play? Jimi
showed me a chord sequence and said, can you play this? And I said yeah,
it's pretty straight forward, and it turned out to be the chord sequence
for "Hey Joe"!
And all that thanks to a cellarful of wrestlers.
Harry the Heart
The bartender of the 'International Bar' was, to put it in Rod Harrod's
words the “very camp 'Harry the Heart'”. Heart wasn't his real name but
came 'from his delightfully effeminate wave over the heads of a packed
bar as you walked in: 'Hello (dear) Heart, how are we? Be with you now.'"
Unfortunately, not a lot is known about him. Bob Archer:
The last time I heard, Harry was in North, but that was a long time ago,
from Danny La Rue [the famous British drag impersonator]. I fear that he
has passed away. He was amazing. His bar was always full with people
like Tom Jones with his band, Brian Epstein, Lion Bart, Terry Downes,
Lita Rosa, Robert Stigwood. I could go on and on...
A bartender can make or break a place but Harry is surely remembered as
one of those extraordinary people who turned the place into a succes.
He knew what everyone drank, and asked "Your usual Heart?" They
would say: "Yes Harry and will you have one?" Harry then
replied: "Just one for the pot Heart."
This inevitably turned into Harry's own little ceremony, serving a glass
of gin he would...
...throw another gin into the cut glass vase that he had on the bar,
with bits of lemon and cucumber floating about in it.
Bob Archer has nothing but lovely memories about Harry:
He would introduce me to all his friends as "My lovely Boss". We would
often go for a burger after closing, unless he said "I'm trolling
tonight Heart" and would then walk up past Harrods.
Keith Goodwin
Rod Harrod, the club's PR man and interviewed
by the Church as well, wasn't the first journalist who had been hired to
promote the club.
I have been trying to remember who was Rod Harrod. The name rings a
bell, but the guy who I used as PR was Keith Goodwin, who had his column
in either the MM or the NME, where we were regularly mentioned. He was
also PR to quite a few music stars.
Keith Goodwin was indeed an NME journalist in the early sixties and one
of the first professional music publicists in the UK with a diverse,
even oddball, taste in music.
He started his agency with folk band The
Springfields (it is eerie how Dusty materialises every time we
investigate Church matters) and Tom
Springfield was best man on his wedding.
But it was when psychedelia fully hit the scene that Goodwin acquired
the most success for his publicity work. Amongst his clients were –
initially obscure bands like - Argent, Black Sabbath, Camel, Magma and
Yes. One day in 1966 a young singer songwriter, Cat Stevens, was in his
office, looking for an appropriate title for a tune he had just written.
Keith Goodwin looked out of the window and suggested the name of the
shop at the other side of the road: Matthew And Son.
His love for symphonic rock wouldn't falter although the genre was
declared dead in the late seventies, early eighties. He continued
promoting bands like Pallas, Twelfth Night and Pendragon but it was with
Marillion that he could finally prove that the progrock genre still
attracted massive popularity. In 1988 Keith Goodwin retired and settled
in Malta. He died on the 25th of January 2004, only 69 years old. (Taken
from: Keith
Goodwin: early professional music publicist.)
Many thanks to Emily and Bob Archer for sharing these memories with the
Church. Wrestling information and pictures have been taken from Wrestling
Heritage. Grazie mille Gianna!
Emily Archer informed us that she started a brand new blog dedicated to The
Cromwellian Club.
So far one entry has been posted and it already learned the Church a
thing or two. Probably Emily will be able to add some sensational
stories and anecdotes as well, because she has access to a wealth of
inside information coming from a man who could write a few books on
British wrestling and clubbing alone, her father, Bob Archer. Known as
Bob Anthony in wrestling circles, he was a co-owner of the Crom and
responsible for its 'entertainment' division as he hired the bands that
turned the place into a huge success.
The Reverend had the pleasure to ask Bob a few questions a while ago
(see: The
Wrestling Beatle) and this may have made his appetite grow for more.
People often tell Bob he should start writing his memoirs and we
certainly hope that Emily will squeeze him hard enough to get those
juicy stories out of him.
We wish Emily all the best with her Cromwellian blog and all we can add
so far is: it's about time!
The White Angel
Recently the Wrestling
Heritage website has started with a 'members only' Top
Twenty Masked Men feature and The White Angel has made it on
the 8th position. Hiding behind that mask was Judo Al Hayes, another
Crom owner.
The White Angel with Paul Lincoln.
In one of our previous topics (Dr
Death and other assorted figures) it was revealed how The White
Angel had to fight another masked wrestler, Doctor Death, in
April 1962. At stake was not only a 500 £ price but also the loser's
secret identity. Doctor Death won the match and in a great ceremonial
ending The White Angel was unmasked before the cheering crowd, much to
the enjoyment of Doctor Death whose reputation sky-rocketed.
What most wrestling fans didn't know at that time was that Al Hayes had
just signed a contract with Paul Lincoln Management and that the outcome
probably had been staged. Paul Lincoln was not only a wrestling manager,
but also Doctor Death, a personal friend of Al Hayes and another
co-owner of the Cromwellian. For the next months to come Doctor Death
and The White Angel repeated the match at other places and always with
the same result.
At the moment we write this (May 3, 2011) the Top 3 of the Masked Men
remains to be published at Wrestling Heritage and still there is no sign
of Doctor Death.
Paul
Lincoln passed away in January 2011 and the British
Wrestling Reunion website has published a tribute, written by Wayne
Bridges. It gives a detailed career overview of Paul Lincoln and we
hereafter present some highlights of this eulogy.
Simultaneously alongside wrestling, Paul had always enjoyed a love of
music and would often frequent a bar in Goodge Street run by Greek
grappler: Milo Popocopolous, where he soon learned of a derelict
condiment shop for sale in Old Compton Street, owned and run by the
Irani brothers. Paul and Ray bought the premises to open as one of the
first ‘coffee bars’ in London, complete with new fangled ‘expresso
frothy coffee’ from Italy. Not knowing what to name this venture, they
saw that the previous owners had left a tatty old sign with just the
letter 'I' displayed in two places , being all that was left of
their name, and the 2i’s legend was born.
A small stage was set up in the corner, a jukebox and Gaggia coffee
machine added, and it soon became a mecca for budding musicians who were
eager to copy their idols such as Elvis Presley. With the skiffle era in
full swing it also attracted many wannabe stars from this field of music.
Never one to miss a chance, Paul invited these kids to rehearse on the
stage in return for help with erecting the rings at his many wrestling
shows. In the beginning Lonnie Donegan, Nancy Whiskey and Chas McDevitt
were the rage, but these youngsters were hot on their heels, just
waiting the chance to make it !
Paul together with impresario: Larry Parnes, soon to be known as Mr
Parnes, shillings and pence, saw the opportunity for these musicians and
names such as Colin Hicks were changed to Tommy Steele, Ron Wycherly to
Billy Fury, Reg Smith to Marty Wilde, and of course Harry Webb became
Sir Cliff Richard. The fabulous Shadows: Hank Marvin, Bruce Welch, Jet
Harris, Tony Meehan all worked for Paul prior to becoming the legends
that they did. The names created reads like a who’s who and includes Joe
Brown, Mickey Most, Vince Eager, Terry Dene, Wee Willie Harris,
Screaming Lord Sutch, Georgie Fame, just to mention a few.
With so many halls booked nationwide for wrestling on a monthly basis,
it was a simple step to add rock shows in between at these venues and
wrestlers such as myself were used as bouncers to control the screaming
girls, eager to get at their new heroes.
The 2i’s has been credited as the birthplace of British rock’n’roll
assuring Paul Lincoln a place in the annals of music history. In 2007 a
plaque was placed on the wall of the building commemorating this
achievement for generations to follow. Sir Cliff Richard, Bruce Welch
and Wee Willie Harris all attended to pay tribute.
Now recognised as a real mogul in the entertainment business, Paul & Ray
together with Tony Matchelli and Bob Anthony, then moved into nightclubs
by taking over ‘The Cromwellian’, which was struggling but by booking
Tom Jones and P.J. Proby to appear by calling in favours, soon had
queues of patrons circling two roads.
Update 2014.12.13: unfortunately the Cromwellian blog has stayed
unchanged since 2011 and it is still stuck at its first post (that
borrowed a lot from the Church). We doubt if it will ever be updated.
The Holy Church's secret service, also know as the Igquisition,
has sent over its latest trimester report about all things Iggy.
Underneath the smooth surface of our blog and Facebook
page a maelstrom of facts and rumours are reinforcing and contradicting
each other, making the Church's hidden agenda to inundate the Barrett
world with false and gratuitous information so much harder to achieve.
So let us immediately open this can of worms and have a meditative look
at what the (2013) future may bring (or not).
1. Photo shoot
Recently Iggy was the subject of a photo shoot by a Canadian journalist
/ photographer and we are pretty sure these pictures will eventually
find their way into a magazine or to the different Iggy Rose pages on
the web.
Update December 2016: nothing has ever been heard of this photo
project.
2. Rolling Stones
Iggy was also contacted by a renowned journalist and biographer who
wanted to know if she would be willing to share some memories about her
days with the Rolling
Stones, to appear in a new biographical article or even a book about
the band. Iggy Rose has told the Church and Mojo
a few anecdotes about her different encounters with the Stones before,
but it would be nice to see these all bundled into one publication.
Iggy met Syd Barrett in the spring of 1969 but before she had been
spotted in Rolling Stones circles, as has already been revealed in the
Mark Blake's Mojo
article from 2011.
In February '67, [Iggy] narrowly avoided the police raid at Richards'
country pile, in West Wittering: "The night before, I decided not to go,
thank God." A year later, still in the Stones' orbit, she found herself
watching the recording sessions for what became Sympathy For The Devil.
where she was present at several studio sessions.
Carmen Jimenez, a Beatle and Iggy (picture: Bruce Fleming).
Iggy 'rolled' into the Stones through Stash
(Prince Klossowski de Rola) who presented her to Brian
Jones. There is a picture of Iggy, taken by Bruce
Fleming, standing close to John
Lennon, at the party of Georgie
Fame's girlfriend Carmen
Jimenez at the Crom (January 1967) and Iggy still remembers eating
Carmen's delicious paella at Brian's apartment just around the corner.
After some time she befriended Keith
Richards although one thing she says she will ever regret is turning
down 'Hot Rod' Stewart
in favour of Keith. Photos of her with the Stones should exist, but
those in her property have all been stolen, lost or destroyed (see also: Iggy
- a new look in festivals).
Having met Keith Richards she also befriended Anita
Pallenberg and went with her to the set of Performance
where most of the action did not take place in front of the camera. Iggy
told the Church:
They used real magic mushrooms... I was at the house [Powis Square,
Notting Hill, FA] when they where getting ready to shoot the bedroom
scene, the lady in charge was getting shrooms for the cast and offered
me some as well.
Anita Pallenberg & Donald Cammell.
At the set she met Donald
Cammell, the co-director of the movie and his 'beautiful dusky'
girlfriend (probably Myriam Gibril). Unfortunately this is not the time
nor place to start writing about Iggy's adventures in movie land but we
certainly hope someone will some day.
Donald Cammell would only make half a dozen of movies in 30 years, being
burned after the Performance débâcle (the movie only gained notoriety
decades later), and one of these, White Of The Eye (1987), is known by
Pink Floyd fans for its soundtrack by Nick Mason & Rick Fenn.
On the 15th of June 2013 the first annual Birdie
Hop meeting will take place in Cambridge. It will be a small,
exclusive and informal encounter between about 20 fans from all over the
world and those that still carry Syd Barrett deep in their heart.
Although an agenda has not been set yet there will probably be a guided
Cambridge Pink
Floyd Walking Tour and some drinks in The
Anchor (or another relevant pub) afterwards. The only official
demand to make this fan meeting possible was that the Church would not
be present and in his infinite goodness the Reverend has agreed.
4. The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit next Big Thing
The weirdest rumour, with echoes arriving only this week, is that the
Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit is preparing a Big Thing for 2013.
Unfortunately nobody seems to know what this big thing is going to be
and when asked, the Reverend didn't have a clue what it was all about,
so you might as well just forget about that. On the other hand, this
blog publishes nothing but big things, so keep on checking once in a
while.
Happy New Year to all visitors, sistren and brethren, of
the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.
When this blog was created on the eighth day of the eight month of the
eight year, more or less as a harmless prank, we didn't know yet it
would grow into a little monster when, in a weird apotropaic collision,
synchronicity and serendipity morphed into Iggymania.
The Holy Igquisition interrupts this post for the following message:
Dear Reverend, please be more careful with the eggnog.
We had our good and lesser days in 2012 and a quick glance at the
articles we published learn us that this blog would not have existed
without our friends, colleagues and (sometimes reluctant) informants
from Argentina, England, Germany, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, Russia,
Spain and Sweden... we may not always have the same opinion but the
common thing that binds us all is our love for Syd & Iggy...
2008 - 2013: 5 years in the name of the Rose
This year we will celebrate the Church's first lustrum and how can we
honour this better than with a little dance that brought a certain Iggy
the Eskimo into the spotlights.
Dave Dee.
The Band
Dave
Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich formed a band in 1961 but it would
take until 1964 before they got a recording contract (together with
their impossible name) with Fontana.
After a few false starts DDDBMT finally hit the British charts late 1965
and the next year they were ready to conquer America. September saw the
release of 'Bend It', a catchy tune with some saucy vocals. However, the
suggestive lyrics
put their managers (and authors of the song) Ken Howard and Alan
Blaikley (nicknamed Spike & Owly) before a dilemma:
The song stormed the charts in no time. It teased the audience with its
sped-up tempo and an offbeat guitar break midway but mostly with its
salacious lyrics! The heavy tongue-in-cheek suggestiveness arose some
moral outcries - but exactly that was probably the extra boost to shoot
the single to #2 in UK in September and even #1 in Germany! (Taken from: www.dddbmt.com)
Conquering decadent Europe was one thing, but to win puritanical America
over some drastic measurements had to be taken. NME reported:
Dozens of US radio stations have banned Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick &
Tich's 'Bend It' because the lyrics are considered too suggestive, and
the group have responded by recording a new version in London with a
different set of words.
According to the official DDDBMT website
the band recorded two new versions of the single, a clean one for the
American market and an even smuttier one, that is - as far as we know -
still unreleased 47 years later. The band apologised in an open letter:
As a pop group we have no right or wish to set ourselves up as arbiters
of public taste or morals. But neither would we want to be viewed in any
way as corrupters of these standards. Our two countries are so close in
most things that it is always surprising to find the exceptional cases
where meaning and innuendo differ between us. (Taken from: www.davedeedozybeakymickandtich.nl)
The replacement of the dirty single for a clean one was done with almost
KGB secret service efficiency as the catalog numbers of both versions
are identical. Collectors, however, can recognise the different versions
by comparing the master number and the duration of the single printed on
the label.
On Youtube a 'clean' version can be heard in the cover version by Barbara
Eden: 'Bend
It!'.
Patrick Kerr.
Bandits
By re-recording the single an American boycott had been avoided but at
least one British radio station had threatened to put the single on the
blacklist as well (see also: To
bend or not to bend). A somewhat cheaper trick was used to divert
the attention from the English censors. It was explained that The Bend
was really a brand new dance craze sweeping the country, like The
Watusi or the Twist.
The only problem, there wasn't a dance to start with, so one had to be
invented, and really fast.
In came Patrick Kerr, choreographer of Ready Steady Go!, who didn't mind
creating a few steps that, if we may be so bold, look a bit like Zorba
the Greek staggering home after his eleventh ouzo.
On the 23rd of September 1966 Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich played
their single on RSG! and the dance was promoted in the teenage pop music
papers. (See also: Ready,
Steady, Kerr!)
Bend It, step by step.
BEND IT! STEP-BY-STEP
It had to happen! That smash hit for Dave, Dee, Beaky, Mick and Tich -
“Bend it” - has just been crying out for some bright person to devise a
'66 dance for it. And who better than Patrick Kerr who introduced
countless dances to “Ready Steady Go” viewers? Above is his step-by-step
idea of how it should be done. Read it, put on the record and get
bending!
1. Step forward on to left foot, at the same time bending at the knees
and lowering the left shoulder. 2. Step forward on to right foot,
still with knees bent, but on this beat lower right shoulder. 3. Take
a step back with left foot at the same time beginning to straighten. 4.
Take a step back with the right foot, now straightening to upright
position. Repeat this three more times. 5. Step to side with left
foot. Close right foot to left. Bend knees and then straighten again.
Step to side with right foot. Close left foot to right. Once again bend
knees and then straighten them. Repeat this three more times. Now repeat
first step four times. Now repeat pattern once more but this time make a
quarter of a turn each time on the first variation and a half turn on
each of the second variations. With feet slightly apart, bend at the
knees and sway from left to right. Repeat this three times more. 6.
Take a step forward with the left foot at the same time bending at the
knees and lowering left shoulder. Without moving feet sway back so that
weight is on the right foot. Repeat three more times. Now go back to the
first variation for four more times. Then, starting from first
variation, do each of the other variations doing only one of each. Kepp
going until fade of the record.
The above instructions, we are afraid, read a bit like a Korean
micro-wave manual and therefore a Bend It video was shot by Pathé
News who showed it in the ABPC
movie theatres all over the country as part of their Inside The
Playboy Paradise documentary. Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich
mime their greatest hit (so far, there would be others) in the London
Playboy club and Patrick Kerr, in a Bend shirt, demonstrates the dance
with his group Tomorrow's People, a few Playboy Bunnies and some random
guests who miraculously know the dance moves as well. One of them, the
girl in the plastic triangle dress, will even show up in The
Cromwellian, a few weeks later.
The full documentary
is on British Pathé (with an annoying watermark) but the song (and
dance) that make up the biggest chunk of it anyway can be found on YouTube:
To give The Bend a status of authority there was even a national
competition although it can be discussed if regional contests were ever
organised. A so-called final took place in November at The Cromwellian
with as one of the contestants an unknown model named Iggy the Eskimo.
The report about this event in NME started this blog, almost five years
ago: Bend It!
Happy New Year!
(This text is a partial rehash / redux / upgrade / update from a 2010
article that has even more detailed information about Patrick Kerr,
DDDBMT & the different Bend singles: Rod
Harrod remembers The Crom.)
Sources (other than the above internet links): Tobler, John
(editor): NME Rock ‘N’ Roll Years, Hamlyn, London,
1992, p.163.
Many thanks to: Ron Cooper, Herman van Gaal. ♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥
Somewhere mid December we were informed by Iggy that she had been asked
some questions by the British Jimi
Hendrix magazine: Jimpress.
Jimpress started in July 1991 and is currently at its 100th issue and
obviously no other issue than this centenary one was suited to
welcome Iggy Rose. Pages 9 to 17 have the article Mr Love, where
author Tim Greenhall examines several events from Brook
Street 23 in London.
Mr Love, The Jimi Hendrix London Experience, Tim Greenhall examines
events in Brook Street
The article starts with the memories of Doug
Kaye, who used to work in his brother's restaurant in Brook
Street. Above the Mr Love restaurant was a flat where a certain Jimi
Hendrix and Kathy
Etchingham set up residence. Doug first met Jimi at the cigarettes
machine and they started talking about blues music. Doug lend Jimi two
blues albums that he never saw back but that are now part of the Jimi
Hendrix exposition
at the EMP museum in Seattle.
Doug Kaye started the secret Mr Love Facebook group (later renamed to Echoes)
that unfortunately has been declared terra incognita for the
Reverend but that accommodates quite a few Sixties celebrities among its
members (and many of those are friends of Iggy Rose as well).
Jimi's cavalry jacket.
One of them, mentioned in the article, is Robert Orbach who owned I
Was Lord Kitchener's Valet and who sold Jimi Hendrix his trademark
cavalry jacket. The Hussars tunic dated from 1850 and was the personal
property of Robert who wore it in his shop. Jimi Hendrix first proposed
to buy it for 20£ but Orbach told the item was not for sale. Over the
next few days Hendrix and his manager would drop by with higher bids and
at the end the uniform changed owner for the tenfold of the originally
proposed price. To modern 2013 standards Hendrix must have paid the
equivalent of about 2000£ (or 2320€ or 3100$), but as it became one of
the most renown jackets in the world of rock that price was probably a
fair one.
Jeff
Dexter probably doesn't need to be introduced to Iggy Rose fans,
he tried to make a record with her but this miserably failed when he
found out at the studio that non of the girls he had chosen for his
Motown-like act actually could sing. Dexter met Hendrix on different
occasions.
Introducing John
Altman would take us at least three Church blog posts, so we
will just say he is a (film & ad) composer, music arranger,
orchestrator, conductor, an occasional contributor to Monty Python and
that he has more anecdotes up his sleeve than the Reverend has ever got
hangovers in his entire life. John Altham talked most about jazz with
Jimi and Hendrix confided him he wanted to take some guitar lessons from John
McLaughlin.
Iggy Rose @ Jimpress
And then it is finally time to attribute some lines to our goddess:
One of the group's most colourful ladies is the lovely “Iggy Rose”. Iggy
was Syd Barrett's girlfriend and met Jimi on a few occasions. She is
probably best known for being the model on the cover of Barrett's album
The Madcap Laughs, however she has been seen in many a sixties nostalgia
film, most notably Granny Takes A Trip which you can find on YouTube no
doubt. Iggy also worked in the store of the same name.
Note: as far as we know Iggy did not work at Granny's. The
article from Tim Greenhall continues:
I asked Iggy what she remembered about Jimi in that time ?
I never really spent much time chatting but was in his presence. I met
Kathy Etchingham on a couple of occasions. I knew Noel Redding quite
well. I remember seeing him at The Bag o'Nails where he blew everyone
away. I just feel very fortunate to have met him and will always be
grateful for that.
...the article ends with a thank you note to Iggy:
I would particularly like to thank Iggy for putting me in contact with
Jeff Dexter, Robert Orbach and John Altman.
Iggy Rose in Jimpress 100.
Hendrix at the Church
The Church has destined a few articles to the Iggy Rose - Jimi Hendrix
connection before.
In 2010 the Church interviewed Rod Harris, who has been described as the
man who launched Jimi Hendrix in the UK: Rod
Harrod remembers The Crom. Co-owner from The Cromwellian club Bob
Archer told the Church he was the first to book Jimi Hendrix:
True fact is the first place Jimi [Hendrix] played in London was The
Crom. He sat in with Brian Auger. Chas [Chandler] brought him in the
first night he arrived. Kathy [Etchingham] worked a bit for me. Taken
from: The
Wrestling Beatle.
And in his 2011 Mojo article Pink Floyd biographer Mark
Blake revealed that Iggy saw Hendrix make his UK debut at the Bag O'
Nails in November '66: The
Strange Tale Of Iggy The Eskimo.
Mr. Love.
A few years ago the Church asked Iggy what she did remember of that
Hendrix gig and here is what she confided to the Church (unpublished
before):
I think the first mind-blowing experience I had of watching Jimi
Hendrix's explosive performance was at the Bag 'O Nails on November the
25th, 1966.
I actually sat on the edge of its tiny stage waiting for the gig to
start.
The so-called super cool blasé London in-crowd didn't realise what hit
them. From the very first stupendous chord this felt like a typhoon
blasting away all sense and reason, reducing everyone in the public into
a quivering state of amazement. This phenomenally unique sound provoked
a spontaneous eruption in the crowd. Suddenly everyone leapt to their
feet with a roar, clamouring to get near the stage to absorb the
extraordinary.
And as if that wasn't enough, as soon as Jimi dropped to his knees and
started to play the electric guitar with his tongue the roomful of
trendy clubbers went ballistic and then he hadn't set his guitar on fire
yet. For me it looked like he continued through the night producing
spectacular feats of unparalleled works of genius.
Then of course his electrifying voice that touched and melted the most
vital. This was oozing raw scalding sex, a river of molten lava erupting
from a volcano. Hendrix created an uncontrollable sensation of having
multiple orgasms.
Unfortunately the pictures that were in her possession from Jimi Hendrix
(with her?) have been lost through the years, as well as those with Eric
Clapton, Roger Daltrey, George Harrison, Brian Jones, Anita Pallenberg,
'Keef' Richards and 'lovely' Keith Moon... (and then there is still a
hidden, but rather naughty, but rather arty, Syd & Iggy Madcap
Laughs photo session that is in ultra safe hands somewhere).
But not all is lost, the Church also heard that some people want to
contact Iggy for a new Rolling Stones related project. The Reverend is
pretty sure that somewhere there must be pictures, probably in private
hands: Iggy & the
Stones.
Many thanks to Tim Greenhall from Jimpress and to all
contributors from previous articles mentioned here: Bob Archer, Mark
Blake, Rod Harris, Kirsty Whalley... ♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥
Dear Iggy, with happy new year wishes for 2015 comes a question. I've
had this album since the early 2000s and I wonder, is you I see on the
cover?
The picture in question was from a CD-compilation called Ripples
Volume 4 - Uptown Girls And Big City Boys, issued by Sequel Records
in 1999 (NEMCD 455) and since long out of print. The eight Ripples
compilations on the Castle / Sequel label were all issued between 1999
and 2000 and contain mostly rare items of British ‘sunshine’ pop and
mod. In 2007 the label dissolved when Sanctuary, who had bought them in
2000, became part of Universal Music Group.
While the Reverend was hesitant at first it was Iggy who confirmed it
was indeed her.
Iggy Rose: Felix, I was always at that club... look at my
dress... same as the black and white picture of me dancing. The
Reverend: I didn't recognise you. Iggy Rose: It does look
odd, LOL... but it’s my button nose, my eyes and baby face...
Iggy the Eskimo. NME 1064, November 1966.
Iggy was of course referring at the black & white picture
that we published on the very first day of the Church (see: Bend
It!). There was no mistake possible, this was Iggy in the same
silver dress.
The conversation at Facebook then turned to the time and place where
this picture was taken. Not Tiles, like someone suggested, but The
Cromwellian. The diagonal wooden ornaments on the wall, behind the
crowd, are the same as on the pictures that can be found in NME 1037
(see triangle.jpg
at our NME Cromwellian gallery).
It also seems this picture was taken at the same November 1966 night of
the postiche British Bend dance-craze competition. Iggy is posing next
to Patrick
Kerr, choreographer of the Ready
Steady Go! show, who had been hired by the managers of Dave,
Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich to devise a Bend
It novelty dance to avoid an obscenity ban (see Bend
It (2013)).
In the background, behind Iggy, is standing another celebrity, as was
pointed out by Astro Mocker. It is none other than Chris
Farlowe, whose Stones’ cover Out
Of Time hit number one in July of that year. The single had been
produced by Mick Jagger, who also can be heard on backing vocals (and on
acoustic guitar was Jimmy Page, by the way). From the eleven singles
Farlowe recorded as a solo artist for the Immediate label five contained
Stones covers. Paint It Black and Out Of Time would also surface, next
to a shortened version of Pink Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive, on the
1968 soundtrack of Tonight
Let’s All Make Love In London.
Iggy the Eskimo on the 'Uptown Girls And Big City Boys' CD cover.
The NME
pic-visit to The Cromwellian has a picture that was taken just
before or after the one with Iggy. It shows Farlowe looking at the
photographer (either Napier Russell or Barry Peake) with Patrick Kerr at
the right side: Farlowe.jpg.
Chris Farlowe & Patrick Kerr, The Cromwellian, November 1966.
John Cavanagh found out that the copyrights of the picture belong to
Pictorial Press Ltd (yeah, this one: Pictorial
Press selling fake Pink Floyd pictures!) and a search
on their public database finds some other pictures of the same night,
all without Iggy though. The nice thing is that they are in colour, so
we will contact them to ask what pictures they still have hidden in
their closet as they logically must have all shots of that night.
Fingers crossed.
But, do you know what this actually wants to say? That Iggy can now
be found on two record covers. Or to quote her once again:
It is meeeeeeeee. WHOOOOOOHOOOOOO. WOWEEEEE.
We just couldn't say it better.
Many thanks to: John Cavanagh, Sean Cowell, Joe Foster, Lori Haines,
Antonio Jesús, Astro Mocker, Iggy Rose. ♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥
We ended the first season on a low note because it seemed that the
entire Iggy story had been told in a handful of articles. It seemed that
she had disappeared and that she would not be found back.
How wrong we were, but we were not the only ones. Duggie Fields (to Mark
Blake):
I have no idea who Iggy was or even what her real name was. (…) I
saw her not long after Syd left the flat and she was looking more like a
Sloane Ranger. I heard she’d become involved with one of the voguish
religious cults at the time.
(As a matter of fact, this was not that far from the truth, but of
course we didn’t know that in 2009. For a while Iggy was signaled in Scientology
circles, one of those incredible stories we might tell you one day.)
Here is an overview of the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit’s tumultuous
second season (August 2009 -July 2010).
Iggy in Space by Felix Atagong (2009).
Fille de l’espace
We celebrated our first birthday with the publication of a brilliant
poem written by Dr.
Denis Combet, professor at Brandon University, Manitoba, Canada, who
specialises in French literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, but he
has also written lyrics for the pretty awesome stoner rock band Rescue
Rangers. In 2006 – 2007 he published a Syd Barrett inspired
multimedia project under the title Guitars and Dust Dancing (that
is unfortunately no longer online, but archive.org has a partially saved
backup: Guitars
and Dust Dancing).
The Church could exclusively issue the French version of the poem ‘De
Quétesh à Bastet’, dedicated to Iggy the Eskimo, and would
later publish Crystal Blue Postcards, a digital booklet with
(mostly) new poems, dedicated to Syd and Iggy. It can still be found
here:
Crystal Blue Postcards, exclusively hosted at the Holy Church of Iggy the
Inuit.
Iggy was moved to tears when she found out that someone in Canada had
written a poem for her and she kept on repeating that on our weekly
phone-calls. Thanks Denis!
The Iggy story, so we thought, was a dead end street or at least a slow
lane. In absence of our subject of adoration we started a series about
the legendary Cromwellian club, bar and casino. We also looked deeper
into The Bend dance craze, a clever marketing scheme started to twist a Dave
Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich single into a genre.
You
don’t have to believe us but we think these are still the best articles
about this nightclub on the web, with several interviews from people who
were there. The complete Cromwellian & The Bend series (running from
2008 till 2015): The
Cromwellian
Mojo March 2010 Cover.
The Madcap’s Mojo
2010 started with a bang. Rock magazine Mojo had a Madcap Laughs 40
years anniversary special, annex tribute CD, and it was undoubtedly
clear that some writers had found inspiration at the Church, but without
mentioning where they had found the information. (It needs to be said
that our secret informant in those days, Mark
Blake, who also wrote for the special, was not amongst those.)
We ended our review of the Mojo special with the prophetic words:
Ig’s story as published in Mojo may be the butterfly effect that will
cause the storm at the other side of the world. So perhaps, thanks to
Mojo, the Church will be one day able to fulfil its quest.
On the fifth of February 2010 Mark Blake informed us that Iggy was alive
and well and living in a small village in Southern England. The Church
were the first to publish this news on this entire planet. World
Exclusive: Ig has been found!
Initially Iggy wanted to anonymously live her life in her little village
in South-England, but her cover was blown by The Croydon Guardian. (Here
was another journalist suffering from amnesia. She didn’t find it
necessary to give a nod to the Church, although it was us who had
informed her about Iggy.)
Timing couldn’t have been better. Iggy was found just when we were going
to publish an interview with Gretta Barclay, who – with her friend Rusty
Burnhill – was a regular visitor at Wetherby Mansions in 1969.
A decade later this is still Margaretta’s one and only interview in the
Barrett-sphere.
We also tracked down Rusty Burnhill, living in a small town in Northern
Germany and sent him a polite letter where we asked if we could ask him
some questions. To our amazement he called us a few months later,
started swearing and shouting, threatened to call the police and smashed
down the phone. Needless to say that we didn’t pursue our plans to have
him interviewed.
Iggy had been located (by a few journalists) but wasn’t communicating to
the outer world (yet). A decision we obviously accepted. The Church has
never been into trophy hunting.
The Holy Church had already published the intriguing theory that the
painted floorboards at Syd’s flat didn’t date from autumn 1969, but from
spring 1969. This was contradicting all witness reports and all
biographies and obviously it was clear evidence that the Holy Church was
lead by a raving lunatic.
But our anonymous witness JenS had said so, Gretta Barclay and Iggy
confirmed it and more ‘proof’ for this was found by Barrett enthusiast
Dark Globe, a member of the Late Night Syd Barrett forum and one of the
people helping the Church with valid information.
Rob Chapman didn’t update this information in his Syd Barrett biography,
but Julian Palacios did, just before the printing deadline, making him
one of the believers. What was a wacky theory at first, laughed at by
several people, has now become the gospel.
Our review of Rob
Chapman’s Syd Barrett biography A Very Irregular Head
was quite polemic (and made us persona non grata in top level
Barrett circles). We did conclude it was one of the better biographies
around but there was of course the Octopus – Clowns & Jugglers
controversy.
Rather than stirring up a dying fire and prejudicing you we suggest you
read the review first and we’ll talk about it afterwards.
An intriguing anecdote was told to us by Gretta Barclay. One that also
couldn’t be found in any biography. Syd Barrett and his Welsh
counterpart Meic Stevens, who also suffered from a few psychological
drawbacks, met each other at different occasions.
Prydwyn read Steven’s autobiograpy (in Welsh) and translated the
relevant bits into English for generations to come. One pretty exiting
bit is that the two musicians were filmed by a BBC camera-team, but
apparently the movie has been destroyed, unless it still is hiding in a
BBC archive somewhere.
2019 sees Meic Stevens gigging again in Britain (although he immediately
started with some controversial
statements). Men
On The Border singer Göran Nyström published an excellent follow-up
to our Solva Blues article just a few days ago, with a few new
discoveries. Or how an article from a decade ago inspires people today
to further investigate in all matters Syd.
The Church wishes to thank all of those who helped us 10 years ago.
Unfortunately, many of them have already left the scene. : Anonymous,
Banjer and Sax, Margaretta Barclay, Paul Belbin, Mark Blake, Rusty
Burnhill, Constance Cartmill, Rob Chapman, Denis Combet, Duggie Fields,
Dark Globe, Rod Harrod, JenS, Pascal Mascheroni, Kerry McQueeney, David
Moore, Julian Palacios, Paro नियत, Prydwyn, Douggie Reece, Lynn Annette
Ripley (Twinkle), Brian Roote, Beate S., Jenny Spires, Allison Star,
Jean Vouillon, Kirsty Whalley, Vicky Wickham and the Dutch Dave Dee,
Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich fan community (not online any more)… (Sorry to
those we have forgotten to mention.) ♥ Libby ♥ Iggy ♥
Holy Church Wordcloud (2018). Artwork: Dolly Rocker. Concept: Felix
Atagong.
The church started as a jokey blog in August 2008, but we had to get
serious when, only a year later, Iggy was found back, thanks to Mark
Blake, from Pigs Might Fly fame. She lived in a village in
West-Sussex, 52 miles from central London in the north and 14 miles from
the south coast, with a population of approximately 5,000.
Those and other stories you can read in the overview of the first two
seasons of The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, a name that Iggy
thoroughly hated, by the way.
In season three the Church had acquired some maturity and because
Iggymania hit us hard there were over 30 articles that year. Here is
what happened a decade ago, a condensed overview of our third season, in
a reader’s digest way.
Metallic Spheres (cover: Simon Ghahary).
Metallic Spheres
Somewhere in the early nineties, the Reverend got aware of the band The
Orb, basically because some lazy journalists had baptised them the
Pink Floyd of ambient house. It has been a love/hate relationship ever
since because The Orb used to spit out songs and or remixes by the
bucket-load, often from uneven quality. (Check their 2020 sixteenth or
seventeenth studio album Abolition of the Royal Familia, that is
really good.)
In August of 2010, the official David
Gilmour blog (that no longer exists) finally confirmed the rumours
that a Floydian Orb partnership was going to take place. You can find
all juicy (and wacky) details in two articles but those aren’t amongst
the Reverend’s bests.
For those fans who might think, what does The Orb has to do with Pink
Floyd, Syd
Barrett or Iggy the Eskimo, there was news about Syd Barrett
compilation number 6 that saw the light of day in October 2010. An
Introduction To Syd Barrett was the first compilation combining solo
and Pink Floyd songs on one single album.
Before you say ‘what the fuck’ this compilation did have some extra bits
and pieces for the Syd Barrett anoraky collector. Four songs had been
remixed, plus one partially re-recorded, by David
Gilmour and for the first time in history, the 20 minutes version of Rhamadan
was offered as a downloadable extra track (for a limited period only).
About a year and a half after Rob
Chapman’s An Irregular Head Julian Palacios’ retaliated
with Dark Globe, a complete re-write of his previous Barrett and
early Pink Floyd biography Lost In The Woods.
Somewhat hermetic and not always the easiest prose to read it still is the
Syd Barrett authoritative biography around, giving credit where credit
is due, a department where Chapman lacked somewhat. Palacios is the kind
of biographer who will give you the brand of the coffee machine that was
used in a bar in Cambridge where Syd used to have an espresso and who is
a bit cross he couldn’t trace back its actual serial number. We have you
warned.
Mojo 207.
Mojo
The Mojo
edition of February 2011 (#207) put on its cover that Iggy the Eskimo
had been found and surprised us with a (small) article. Mark Blake
promised us a more in-depth article later on while Iggy was learning how
to type the right syllables on her portable phone, leaving a bunch of
quasi undecipherable messages at the Mojo website (for the first time
published here, see underneath).
Meanwhile, the Reverend and Iggy tried to connect, de tâtonnement en
tâtonnement as the French so beautifully say, figuring out what
the future should bring if there was a mutual future, to begin with.
The Strange Tale of Iggy the Eskimo was Mark Blake’s full article that
appeared as a Mojo Exclusive on its website. Unfortunately, it was
deleted a couple of years later. It is not even sure any more if it is
still around on Mark Blake’s own website, but a copy has been saved for
eternity at the Holy Church.
Obviously, the Church had quite a few articles about Iggy's reappearance
in season three:
Some of Iggy's comments on the Mojo website. (She had never used a
smartphone before.) Terrapin
9.
False Claims
In January 2011 somebody who appeared to be close to the Barrett
epicentre tried to sell a handwritten poem by Syd Barrett. Only, the
handwriting was not Syd’s, but by Barrett collector Bernard
White, who had published the poem in the fanzine Terrapin.
When the Church tried to investigate we were warned not to dig too deep,
for reasons still unknown, a decade later.
Anno 2020 there is a Syd Barrett lyrics book in the making. Perhaps it
will finally clear the fog around ‘A Rooftop Song In A
Thunderstorm Row Missing The Point’.
Fakes come in all sizes and colours. A Pink Floyd acetate containing Scream
Thy Last Scream and Vegetable Man was analysed by the Yeeshkul
community and proven to be a forgery. It's value dropped from ten
thousand dollars to about zero. Beware for the (many) fake records and
autographed items out there, people!
Fake as well, was an interview with the proprietor and mentor behind the
Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit, the famous and agile Reverend Felix
Atagong. Originally issued – in Spanish! - on the fantasticoSolo
En Las Nubes Barrett blog, it gave away all its dirty secrets. Ay
caramba! The English version appeared some while later at the
Church. It truly is an article of epic proportions.
Ian Barrett, Iggy Rose and Captain Sensible (picture: Captain Sensible).
Idea Generation
Iggy’s first public appearance in about half a century took place at the Idea
Generation exposition on the 17th of March 2011. A lot of people
were invited and Iggy was pleasantly surprised that she was asked, by
about everyone (minus one), for autographs and pictures.
That she was the star of the evening not only surprised her.
Unfortunately, it also led to a jealous outbreak from someone whom we
will call X. That person had always been high on the Syd Barrett pecking
order and was afraid to lose that spot. Iggy and X would be frenemies
for the rest of their lives, en passant adding the Reverend to
the war zone who was hit by friendly (and less friendly) fire.
In our third season, we also continued our Cromwellian nightclub series
with articles about professional wrestlers Paul Lincoln, Bob 'Anthony'
Archer, Judo Al Hayes and Rebel Ray Hunter who co-owned The Crom and
other clubs in the sixties.
Meanwhile, David Gilmour and Roger Waters are fighting an online battle
to get the most attention of the fans, by releasing home recordings of
Barrett, Floyd and solo songs. Nick Mason (with his Saucerful band) is –
obviously – still the coolest guy around.
See you next year, sistren and brethren!
Many thanks to all collaborators who helped us a decade ago and who are
still helping us today. RIP to those who are no longer around.:
Adenairways, Amy-Louise, Anne, Bob Archer, Emily Archer, Russell
Beecher, Paul Belbin, Mark Blake, Libby Gausden Chisman, Dallasman, Dan,
Dan5482, Dancas, Denis Combet, Dominae & Ela & Violetta (Little
Queenies), Paul Drummond, The Embassy of God, Emmapeelfan, Felixstrange,
Babylemonade Flowers, Gianna, Dark Globe, Griselda, Rich Hall,
Hallucalation, Rod Harrod, JenS, Jimmie James, Mark Jones, Kieren,
Krackers, Lynxolita, Natasha M, Mojo, MOB, Moonwall, Motoriksymphonia,
Natashaa', Giuliano Navarro, Neonknight, Göran Nyström, Julian Palacios,
Alain Pire, PoC (Party of Clowns), Antonio Jesús Reyes, DollyRocker,
Dolly Rocker, Jenny Spires, Vince666, Vintage Groupies, Brian Wernham,
Wrestling Heritage, X, Xpkfloyd, Zag, Zoe and all the beautiful people
at Late
Night and Yeeshkul. ♥
Iggy ♥ Libby ♥
It passed by as a fait-divers. On the third of December Rod Harrod died
in his home village of Dinas Powys in South Wales. Many people,
especially those in Floydian spheres, will not recognise him.
In the early days of the Church, when we were still looking for Iggy, we
had an agreeable conversation with Rod about the heydays of The
Cromwellian and the other clubs Iggy used to frequent. Rod Harrod was
the man who - more or less – discovered Jimi Hendrix and who gave him a
first chance to play at the Scotch of St James Club in London. To read a
bit more about Rod Harrod you can go to these early Church archives: Rod
Harrod remembers The Crom and The
Style Council.
Our condolences to the family, relatives and friends of Rod.
2021
Twenty twenty one was a lousy weird year, with – unfortunately – also a
few deceases closer to the Floydian home. The Church also had a few good
moments, even something we could call the highlight in our thirteen
years existence.
All of these have been illustrated on our Tumblr
sister blog … and here is our annual overview:
January
2021: the long awaited Syd Barrett Lyrics book is finding its way to
the fans. It is assembled by the Moriarty of Barrett biographies Rob
Chapman, meaning that controversy is never far away. Our review: The
Syd Barrett CookbookFebruary
2021: a 2015 Syd Barrett mood-board by Manu, aka SydParrett, who has
disappeared from social media since 2016. Hope you’re doing fine, girl! March
2021: RIP Duggie Fields. Picture: Iggy and Duggie, at the Barrett book
launch, 2011. Obituary: RIP
Duggie Fields 1945 – 2021April
2021: Iggy and some musician. Picture: Mick Rock. May
2012: Orange Dahlias in a Vase. Syd Barrett painting auctioned and
sold for £22,000. Article: Orange
Dahlias in a VaseJune
2021: in June of 2021 the Church was contacted by Iggy’s relatives in
Mizoram, who had lost all connection with the British side of the family
for over half of a century. This created quite a buzz in India and the
Church was mentioned in half a dozen of newspaper articles, culminating in
the Reverend's second interview ever. Read more at: Family
ReunionJuly
2021: who could’ve guessed that The Anchor really existed in
Cambridge? August
2021: Syd Barrett wearing his notorious Yogi Bear tie. Warning for our
younger fans: this is not an original. Syd. Shopped by: Fabio Mendez. September
2021: Octopus ad, made by Hipgnosis. October
2021: the object of the Reverend’s adoration. Pills not included. November
2021: RIP Mick Rock. Picture: Dave Benett. Obituary: Rock
of AgesDecember
2021: Iggy, 2010, by Chris Lanaway, for Mojo magazine. She hated that
shooting. Always a bit of a rebel, our Iggy. RIP girl.
Anonymous, Ajay Dep Thanga, Antonio Jesús Reyes, APH, Asdf35, Barbara,
Basit Aijaz, Chandrima Banerjee, Din Nyy, Eleonora Siatoni, Elizabeth
Joyce, Elvee Milai, Euisoo's left sock, Göran Nyström, Gregory Taylor,
Hallucalation, Hmazil, Hnamte Thanchungnunga, Julian Palacios, Kevin
Arnold, Kima Sailo, Lalrin Liana, Lzi Dora Hmar, Mact Mizoram, Mafela
Ralte, Mark Blake, Matthew Cheney, Mick Brown, Myithili Hazarika,
Noeeeayo (Rinnungi Pachuau), Panjee Chhakchhuak, Park Yoongi, Psych62,
Racheliebe (Chha Dok Mi), Ramtea Zote123, Rich Hall, Rinapautu Pautu,
Rob Chapman, Rontoon, Rosang Zuala, Roy Alan Ethridge, Stash Klossowski
de Rola, Stephen Coates, Swanlee, Syd Wonder, Tnama Hnamte, VL Zawni,
Wolfpack, Younglight, Zodin Sanga, Zolad.