Román Leão

Tag: 1960s

  • Kingdoms of the Radio: On the Lash (1964) [ficção]

    SOHO, LONDON, ENGLAND  |  1964

    Simon Wilkie leaned his lanky frame against the brick archway of the Marquee Club’s new Wardour Street location and smoked. He was splitting his time watching girls running in and out of the boutiques and scanning the crowd for the rest of his band. The National Loaf had finally secured an opening slot for the latest Fab Four-wannabes and the group was primed to cut them to ribbons, if the rest of them showed, that was.

    “Oi, Si!” The voice of an ardent voyeur called from down the street. “The birds are certainly out today, eh, mate?”

    “Cornish, about time you slipped yer nan’s clutches,” Wilkie needled the one person in the band he felt close enough with to take the piss out of. “I thought I might have to do an extended bass solo, and I don’t know if this lot is ready for it.”

    Pianist Koda Cornell forced his focus away from a young woman in a raspberry A-line shift dress that danced above her knees as she walked. “Where are those wankers, anyway?”


    “Where were you?” Wilkie pitched his fag end into the street. “I feel like I’m the only one serious about this gig.”

    “Steady on, mate,” Cornell finally pulled both wandering eyes into focus on the situation. “You know those two, probably drunk as lords. I don’t know how Jere keeps up with that punter. He’s got a wooden leg, that one.”


    “Wooden leg?” Wilkie snorted. “Cole’s a bloody Trojan horse, he is. Seeing how those two prolly have a head start, buy you a pint?”

    “I thought you’d never ask.”

    “Did Simon just say he was buying?” Cole called from up the block, Woodrow in his wake, proving that he hadn’t yet burned out either his hearing or love of a free pint.

    “Fuck me,” Cornell bemoaned. “Mention the Devil and he appears.”

    “Cheers, good fellows,” Cole beamed. “Are you ready to tear this pile down? Mark my words, people in the future are going to lie and say they were here tonight just to sound gear.”

    “Let’s hope the room isn’t all phantoms,” Cornell spoke up. “Hard to shag a ghost.”

    “Fear not, my thirsty friend,” Cole mollified. “While you two were holding up the bricks, Jere and I were busy getting the word out… and here they come now.”

    The entire National Loaf turned to see a crowd of fashionable young women coming up the street.

    Jere, here, knows a secretary who works around the corner and just so happens has a lot of beautiful friends looking for something to do this evening.”

    “Cor, it’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for,” Wilkie gave Woodrow a nod. “Well done, mate.”

    “All right, that sorted, let’s talk setlist,” Cole got down to business. “I thought we’d open with ‘On the Lash!’”

    We had better get drinking, then,” Cornell exclaimed. “We can’t very well play that one sober.”

  • Kingdoms of the Radio: Charlie Perigo 1 [ficção]

    UNFINISHED DOCUMENTARY, KINGDOMS OF THE RADIO  |  1995

    What fiery creation / Streaking across the skies… I love that fucking song! Oh yea, sorry, man. Are we rolling then? I was just about to say how much we all dug that “lost” Lucious Cole album when it came out. I can remember exactly where I was when I heard that Cole had died. The first time. I guess I’m getting ahead of myself.

    I was driving back up from surfing the Point break all morning with Chae. You’ve already talked to Chae, right? Man, I had just bought the Olds back then, a beautiful 1970 442 in Nocturne Mist. The top was down, of course, and the wind was blowing her long black hair around like she was in a shampoo commercial.

    I had the radio tuned to a pirate station from out in Boonville and they were playing a block of tunes from Cole’s old band, the National Loaf—not really my favorite as I’ve always been more of an R&B guy. Otis, Sam and Dave, that’s my bag. James Brown! Say it Loud!

    At the end of Cut the Loaf, their last big hit before Cole was shitcanned due to his uncool behavior, and alarming—even for that time—drug use, the DJ broke in and laid the trip on us that he was gone. It was still all rumors as to what had actually happened to him. I remember one story said that he had choked on his own vomit while crashing his motorcycle into an airplane. Hey, man, you have to consider the times, we had just lost Jimi, Janis, and fucking Morrison in quick succession, so we were getting used to shitty news and were becoming… uh, a little cynical.

    Chae was a big Lucious Cole fan, especially of the more personal solo stuff he had put out after the Loaf breakup. Personally, I can’t stand that singer-songwriter shit. For my money, if you can’t say it with a five-piece horn section, then maybe you should just keep it to yourself, that’s just me. Chae was pretty upset and moped around the rest of the day playing Cole’s records until I secretly started being glad that he was dead.

    Cole had checked out at the going sell-by date of 27 and everyone made a big deal of him being another member of the “club;” yet another case of wasted youth and potential. I’m here to tell you that 27 didn’t seem all that young back then. A lot of us had grown up hard and fast when the ’60s went up like a house fire next door to a fireworks factory. All the “flower power” bullshit that you hear about those days had been pretty well defoliated in Vietnam before getting stabbed to death by the Angels out at Altamont.

    I did one tour flying Hueys overseas—lift and assault—and got out just before the shit really hit the fan. It was no picnic, but nothing like those poor fuckers had to deal with after Tet. At least I ended up with a marketable skill after all that grind.

    Back home, I found enough action on both sides of the law to keep me flying with enough under-the-table cash and free weed that I was able to by my own chopper before too long and stay high enough to often forget where I had seen it last.

    My main gig before the farm was flying rescue for the County and fire spotting for the Department of Forestry. I was still keeping the hair high and tight at that time, and as a decorated vet, I didn’t attract too much heat. Of course, I ran night missions in the Triangle come harvest time. Back then, I was the only motherfucker crazy enough to make those runs, although our drunk uncle Sam was churning out flyers younger and crazier than me by the DC-8 load.

    You could say that I was mixed up with the family out at Girassol from day one. My man Zongo Khumalo was the one that first got permission to be there from the old lady that owned it, back before things got really weird. I used to party with Zongo when I first got back from Vietnam, back when he was still going by what he started referring to as his “slave name.”

    Zongo is tan as a motherfucker, but he’s not Africa tan, if you know what I mean, and the only two things he’s ever been a slave to are weed and pussy. As you can imagine, we hit it off pretty well.
    I do feel partly responsible for what happened, but when I really think about it, the whole downfall of Girassol was Lucious Cole’s fault from the jump.

    You know, if Chae hadn’t been feeling so bummed out that day, I wouldn’t have taken her out there with me and maybe she wouldn’t have gotten mixed up in all that foolishness. I guess some things are just written in the fucking stars.

    I read somewhere lately that the word disaster actually means “bad star.” That’s really when the trouble started, when that bad star showed up.