To Hell and Back by Walter Lure & DAVE THOMPSON

To Hell and Back by Walter Lure & DAVE THOMPSON

Author:Walter Lure & DAVE THOMPSON
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Backbeat
Published: 2020-02-17T16:00:00+00:00


Chapter Thirteen

TRACK MARKS

Back in New York City, my first port of call was the FDA, to hand in my notice—or, more accurately, to announce that I was leaving on the spot. I wouldn’t even have time to work out the statutory two weeks’ notice.

My boss understood, but he was still surprised. He gestured around the room, all those test tubes and microscopes, jars and bottles, mysterious substances and peculiar odors, and said, “You’re going to give up all this for a bunch of guitars?”

I nodded. “Yes sir, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

I surprised myself—I was actually sad to leave. I’d made some good friends there over the years, and the work was fascinating, even if it could also be boring.

It was one of those situations where you spend years dreaming of leaving the nine-to-five, to turn your dreams into reality, but when the situation actually arrives, it’s not as joyful as you expected. But I wasn’t going to change my mind. Besides, a little more than a week later, we were back in England, and according to some accounts, we were immediately loaded into a van for the drive up to Middlesbrough to play a show. Welcome back.

To be honest, however, I’m fairly certain this was another of those phantom gigs that never happened—we may have been scheduled to play there, but I’m sure I’d remember fighting jet lag through a four-or five-hour drive to the far northeast of England. Or maybe we did play it, and I was simply too jet-lagged to remember.

Leee was at Heathrow Airport to meet us when we landed and fill us in on the latest developments. We already knew that we had a record deal, with Track Records—it was they who sorted out our work permits; and at least a slice of the label’s largesse had already been put to good use, as Leee introduced us to our newly recruited full-time road manager, Gail Higgins.

In fact, Billy was the only one of us who didn’t know Gail. I’d met her a few times during the last days of the Dolls, but she also happened to be one of Johnny’s oldest friends. They’d known one another even before the Dolls got started; she’d housed him during one of his spells of homelessness; and he’d dated her cousin Janice for a time. Even Jerry couldn’t object to her presence.

Leee and Gail were old friends, as well; in fact, the two of them were now sharing a house—a big, beautiful three-story place in Islington—where the pair of them lived like vampires. Every night when we weren’t gigging, they’d go out on the London club circuit looking for pretty boys to take home, and that’s how they got into the whole rockabilly scene that was coming up. They’d go out and they’d meet kids at the concerts, and they’d bring them back home.

Leee would have first pick, but if he wasn’t able to get the kid into bed, then Gail would have him. That didn’t happen too often, though.



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