An excerpt from Peter Daltrey`s

`Tambourine Days: The Definitive History of Kaleidoscope & Fairfield Parlour`

So off I trot to the school hall in Acton Town where Ed`s band practise. (24-3-64) I was worried about meeting these guys: musicians!. Danny Bridgman turned out to be a bundle of barely contained energy, a compact Bull Terrier with flashing drum sticks and greasy hair. My god, he could make a racket!. In the terrible acoustics of the empty school hall it was deafening. Try talking and he`d practise a few rolls; discuss chords and he`d feel it was time to murder a few tom toms. Ed had warned me that Steve Clark was a real nutter. I was nervous; sweating inside my ridiculous bear-size USAFparka. I needn`t have worried: yes, Steve was a nutter, but the happy kind, not the dangerous type. With his leg trembling he said hello and then went back to doing something odd with his beefy bass. `Dumpf, dumpf, kadumpf,` went the muddy thump of his guitar.

By tacit agreement I took up my position behind the microphone stand. I didn`t have the faintest idea what I was doing. They told me they liked R & B stuff. They launched into a number and I was expected to join in. Jesus, was I embarrassed! I hid behind the music stand that held the lyrics and moaned into the mic. The guys were very patient with me and although I thought I`d blown it, they took me on as their singer. I couldn`t believe it: I was a singer in a band!

Although we all liked the Beatles, it was easier to play Stones material. We also found that we all liked blues and were soon learning songs by Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and Mose Allison. The caretaker would stand in the doorway and listen, shaking his head disparagingly. He`d killed a man some years before; we didn`t ask him about it. He let us stash our few speaker cabinets and small amps in the boiler room. Then it was off to the pub opposite for huge halfs of cheap shandy.

After a few months we wanted to go out and play. We had played our first gig at a nurses` party at Fulham hospital on the 26th June, but the next day we had our first public booking playing for kids at the cinema: Saturday morning pictures; a British institution. I remembered it fondly myself: off to the cinema via De La Mura`s to watch cartoons and space serials and the Lone Ranger, yelling and chewing and punching. We got a gig playing in the interval. We set up in front of the stage at the ABC cinema in Edgware, north of London. The kids didn`t shut up for a minute. But we got a taste of what it was like playing in front of an audience.

By August we had gained enough confidence to book ourselves into Central Sound Studios, 6 Denmark Street in London. We recorded `House of the rising sun,` `Mona,` `Hi Heel Sneakers,` and our very first self-penned composition, `Drivin` around.` We wanted some songs of our own; we wanted to rise above being just a covers band. Ed and I just fell into writing without anyone ever discussing it: Ed wrote the music and I wrote the words. Terrible bloody songs to begin with! But we had all gradually become ambitious, driven on by the encouragement of friends and family.

Slowly we got better at performing and writing. Throughout 1964 and 1965 we gigged regularly. On the 19th February 1965 we supported Van Morrison`s band, Them, at the Starlite Ballroom, Greenford. One of our most memorable gigs was on the 5th April of that year when we supported The Who at the Lakesider Club, Hendon. Needless to say, they blew us off stage. They`d just had their first hit after changing their name from the High Numbers, `Can`t Explain`, a slice of raw Mod in-yer-face pop. We had a friend whose name was Janet Payne; she was convinced it was her song. Daltrey borrowed my tambourine before going on stage. Bastard smashed it to bits and then walked off with it. Townsend was just becoming notorious for stabbing his Rickenbackers into his speaker stacks. It was a violent, riveting act; you couldn`t take your eyes off them. Later, in the dressing room we stood open-mouthed as Townsend packed away his many Rickenbacker skeletons. Keith Moon, who was a dervish on stage, destroying his kit whilst still managing to play, wandered off wearing what would become his characteristic Cheshire-cat grin. Later that year we supported, though not so memorably, Fluer de Lys, The Ivy League and Dave Dee.

Earlier, we`d acquired a manager: young, thrusting, ambitious Barry Ashpole, with an equally enthusiastic missus. Barry was a couple of years older than us so we looked up to him and trusted him. He worked damn hard to get us into all the local rags and fixed us up with plenty of gigs. We were really going somewhere. Well, actually, Barry and his missus really did go somewhere, trouble was it was called Canada. I think Barry thought it was going to be easier to break the band than it turned out. Epstein had paved the way for young hopefuls like our Barry; made it look too easy. We were close to the Ashpoles so it came as a bit of a shock to get a letter from him explaining why he hadn`t been answering the blower. He was 4,000 bloody miles away. No hard feelings Baz. Hope you had a good life, mate; we did.

Then a prize prat called James East enters the saga: lanky, music-biz sucker fish. Smooth as Grade 4 sandpaper. `Thousands of contacts in the business, boys.` Actually, I think he got us the audition for Larry Page on the 5th May 1965. Could have been a break, but not to be. Mr.East obviously thought he was on to a winner. For the early part of 65 we`d been touted as the group most likely to win a big beat contest held at Wimbledon Palais. We bought some stage clothes: light slacks and sports shirts; well, we thought we looked good.

But it was a scam. At the end of each evening the audience placed their entrance tickets in a box for the group they liked best. But the management let it be known that if you bought extra entrance tickets you`d get more votes. They were conning us. Our poor parents all fell for it and emptied their sad wallets to purchase as many tickets as possible. Nice little earner. We got through to the finals, had a laugh, got excellent experience at playing in front of a big audience in a large venue and got a few good live photos of the band performing.

We also picked up a few fans who stayed with us throughout our crazy journey, and even played their own part in our travels. There was Dave Stimpson and his girlfriend Lynn, big Ian Udall and his laid back mate Ray Moon; nothing could faze Ray. Ed`s many sisters, particularly June and Sonia, became fanatics. Later, George and Annie would join the faithful who stayed with us through it all; part of our history -- part of our lives.

All this time Dan`s dad had been driving us to and from gigs in his van, working like the proverbial Trojan to make sure we got everywhere on time. They all formed part of our support team and all those times when we were low -- after lousy gigs or failed auditions -- they picked us up with a well-chosen compliment or another pint of steaming shandy. We would probably have thrown in the towel sometime in 65 or 66 if it hadn`t been for their faith in us.

Over the preceding nineteen months we`d recognised in ourselves a resilience and determination to succeed that surprised even us. We were easily brought down by failures big and small, but always came back with a renewed vigour. In an attempt to turn the tide, we decided to change our name.

On the 9th November 1965 we became The Key.

Copyright:Peter Daltrey 2021

Peter Daltrey`s `Tambourine Days: The Definitive History of Kaleidoscope & Fairfield Parlour`

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