And an old dog learns no tricks, they say.
And the dead men tell their tales today
In the Land of the Western God.
Here’s an eye for the past and one for the present.
The future is dark as a new-dug grave.
Will our children sing any songs tomorrow
In praise of the Western God?
So uplifting! Pure joy!
You don’t get quality lyrics like that any more. And the new Sumerian Kynges are, in my opinion, little more than a pale shadow of their original counterparts. But still right there at the top of the pops, you notice. So some of our class rubbed off on them, and class, as we know, never dates.
And so, without any further words needed, let us get it on, as they say. And for the first time ever, as no biographies of the band have ever been published (for I now knew how to employ a Cease and Desist Order), let me take you on a cosmic journey into the world of the twentieth century’s ultimate band. The raunchy rock ’n’ roll World that was The Sumerian Kynges.
Let’s Rock.
31
The Sumerian Kynges did plenty of rehearsing in Toby’s big rehearsal room, and when we had half an hour’s worth of material ready, we knew that we were ready. Now, I know what you are thinking: half an hour’s worth of material? That’s not very much. But these were the nineteen-sixties, so you do have to allow for the adding in of the guitar solos. Those long and inspired twiddly-widdly guitar solos that were so loved back then, and so missed now by folk who so loved them back then.
So we had ten three-minute songs rehearsed. But if you added in the obligatory twenty-minute guitar solo at the rate of one per song, well – you had a decent performance.
And when we were done with our rehearsals, we took to the road with The Flange Collective.
The Flange Collective was the catch-all title, the banner, as it were, beneath which danced the colourful ladies and dandified gents. Where the jugglers, stilt-walkers, fire-eaters, tumblers, clowns, madmen and fools followed their crafts. Where freaks and freaksters mingled. Where strange music played. Where strange drugs were imbibed. Where the weird and the wonderful were the ways of the everyday. And in the midst of what might be mayhem one moment and revolutionary genius the next, stood a single figure. A grey eminence. A puppet master supreme. What Warhol was to the Factory, The Flange was to The Flange Collective.
There is much that could be said regarding The Flange, all of it fascinating in its own way and books and books could be written about him, but to give you an idea, I’ll tell you about a pet theory of The Flange’s that he spent the last few years of his life trying to prove. The Flange believed in the Universal Axiom that things are where they should be because they should be where they are. The Flange’s deepest desire was to facilitate the Second Coming of the Lord, and in his retirement, he worked long and hard to create something that he called The Lounge of the Lord – the perfect sitting room for God. He believed that when the room was completed, correct to the tiniest degree, completely and utterly correct down to the sub-atomic level, then following the Universal Truth that states that things are where they should be because they should be where they are, Jesus would come and have a good sit down in that sitting room, and that the Second Coming would come to pass.
Weird and wonderful were the ways of The Flange, and I am truly glad I met him. For had I not, things would have turned out very differently…
But I digress, and I will stop that now. Honest.
On the day that we were to begin our tour with The Flange Collective, Mr Ishmael sent a furniture van to pick up all our equipment, then had his own chauffeur (Rapscallion, his name was) come over and pick us up in the limo. Which was pretty fab and raised our spirits no end.
Not that our spirits were down, really. Back together and playing again, we had sort of picked up where we left off. And although we all thought that we’d given up music for good, deep down in those rock ’n’ roll hearts of ours I feel certain that we’d all been secretly hoping that we might get the chance to climb back up on a stage again. In front of a genuine and appreciative audience this time, and hopefully composed of teenage girls.
And this time we were really ready.
We’d grown into ourselves, as it were. We were no longer foolish boys who would probably, in truth, have gone all to pieces on the road. No, we were older and more sophisticated and mature and better able to cope.
So this was our time. And we meant to make the most of it. Take it to the limit and beyond.
So, Rapscallion drove us off to The Flange Collective, which was presently camped upon Ealing Common. And we had the windows of the limo wound down so we could shout out at the girls.
And I think it was Neil who first coined that immortal hailing-of-the-female call, ‘Yo, bitches.’ Or it might have been Rob, although I think he was mostly calling, ‘You cheeses.’
But I cannot be altogether sure, so please don’t quote me on it.
What I can be sure of is that I was most impressed when, having stepped from Mr Ishmael’s limo, I was greeted by The Flange, who presented to us a most unique appearance. He was wearing the robes of a wizard of myth, all stars and moons and sigils. And he carried a staff of the Gandalf persuasion and wore a mighty wig that reached down almost to his knees.
‘This fellow,’ I said to myself, ‘is a character.’
And The Flange shook me warmly by the hand. ‘You,’ said he, ‘are a character, sir. Dressed up as a billiard table.’
‘It’s Glam Rock,’ I informed The Flange. ‘We invented it. But it has yet to come into its own.’
‘Well, welcome, friend, to The Flange Collective, the place where dreams come true.’
‘I often dream of cheese,’ said Rob. ‘Do you have any cheese in The Flange Collective?’
‘More cheese than you can shake a stick at, should you so choose.’ And now The Flange admired Neil’s baldy head. Because Neil, having had his head shaved, had decided to stick with that look.
‘Superb,’ said The Flange. ‘Might I stroke it a little?’
But Neil wasn’t keen and said, ‘No.’
‘Never mind, never mind – welcome all.’ And The Flange shook Andy’s hand and made admiring glances at his mullet, asked why he was dressed up as a postman but did not receive a coherent answer, and led us all into the tent.
A big top, it was, one of those jolly candy-striped affairs with seating all racked up around a central ring. And this ring was covered in sawdust, just as a ring should be. I admired that big top very much, for I was fond of the circus. There was a circus on Ealing Common for one week each year. It would appear as if magically from nowhere, set up and perform and then in a week be gone, leaving nothing but a circle of flattened grass.
I recall, years later, seeing photographs of crop circles and reading the ludicrous theories put forward to explain their existence. I shook my head rather sadly, I also recall, knowing that the mundane but obvious explanation – that of ‘travelling circuses’ – didn’t seem to be making any headlines.
I’ve seen crop circles myself and there is no doubt in my mind that they are the result of travelling circuses. Travelling fairy circuses, I might add.
‘Why is this not called The Flange Circus?’ I asked The Flange.
‘Because it is not a circus. It has elements of circus, but it is more a shared experience, an interactive human be-in.’
The Flange had a freak or two in that show. And I’d never encountered a real freak before this time. Certainly there were sufficient human oddities living in the Ealing area during the nineteen-sixties to have overstocked P. T. Barnum’s American Museum, had he chosen to return from the dead and set up shop once more, but you didn’t see them much in the streets. My mother told me that there were conjoined triplets living at number twenty-seven. But other than the family of dwarves who lived at number thirty-two and the Human Blancmange who lived at number forty-two, you just didn’t see them around. So I must confess to a certain amount of fascination, be this either, ‘morbid’ or simply ‘justifiable’, when I was first introduced to The Flange Collective’s Human Menagerie. But I must say, as many others have before me, that inside they were just like normal people. Adding that, during the long years of my life, I have yet to have it accurately defined for me what exactly normal is supposed to mean. I have met many many folk, but none I regarded as normal.