Wells Kelly had bought a Jaguar Mark VI from the Belgian Embassy. We’d been in town and were coming back to Orgeval where we lived, 30 miles out of Paris on the autoroute to the west. He was warned to put some oil in the Jag but that didn’t happen and he went screaming down the road to Orgeval. He managed to attract the attention of the police and he outran them for a while until the Jag blew up. Out of oil and he had to pull over.
I was following at a leisurely pace in the Mercedes bus left with us by Dale Metcalf, fresh from hanging out with the Merry Pranskers and Kesey and all those guys and touring Europe with a beautiful Swedish girl. Another story. I once drove that bus to the Haute Savoie in winter with no brakes for a gig in Megeve. Another story. I used the slow drive in the Merc to smoke a a couple of hash joints, from Novak’s trip to Lebanon. Another story. And came upon Wells’ smoking Jag and the police everywhere.
So being charitable, I pulled over to give him a ride home or pick him up at the police station. As I recall we followed the cops to the station and it being Christmas Eve, they were pretty easy on us. We had an old French tenor banjo, given to me by Jacques Higelin, and a guitar. Another story. Went inside and sang some Christmas songs for the cops and all had a pretty good yuk and they eventually cut us loose without too much drama. But the Jag never rose again.
As an afterthought I was counting the places we played in Europe, France, the Army bases in Germany with Nancy Holloway (another story), Amsterdam with Chicago Beau and Julio Finn, and on the way back Julio stole a CD of Shaft from a truckstop and we played it in the van all the way to the French border where we were pulled over by the CRS. Thus ensued being surrounded by little French cops with machine guns who recognized the Ohio license plate that the truckstop guy called in.
In the end Julio pocketed the stolen tape, 8 track, and stowed it in the toiled cistern at the police station at the border. We were waiting under surveillance and spotlights when Julio came out and asked us derelicts huddling in the van for 50 francs which we found and he gave it to the cops and we went on. Don’t know how he did it. He was a silver tongued devil. But we got to the gig we had at the American Center about two hours late and we had to force ourselves to play out of pride.
Also we played a great gig at the Aviano army base in northern Italy. Had to drive under a mountain to get there. I did Spain with Sammy Gaha, Tony Cahill and David Montgomery, and Steve Leach was down there then too. He’s now Seasick Steve. Another story. And Rod played The Intercontinental Beirut. That story about him hitting on the King Of Jordan’s daughter at the hotel pool until the Royal bodyguards came and intervened. Classic.
Eduardo
1 comment:
Two comments on th various gigs. First, I think it took place at an army base outside of Frankfurt. The soldiers weren't happy to have a bunch of longhairs backing Nancy Holloway. They were rude. So, Rod finally stopped the show and said, hey , you, your hair's so short I can smell your brain.
Second comment. On the way to Aviano, Eddie, Wells ( i believe that's right) and I stopped off in Kossen, Austria, to see Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who was there for a month giving an advanced course for prospective teachers of TM. We arrived on an overnight train from Frankfurt, stopped at some hotel terrace bar for breakfast and coffee, were treated to the local brass band ( at 8am) practicing in the street- marched right up to our terrace and played some German song- and then went to an all day lecture. We got in because my brother had alerted the people in charge that we were on our way. It was quite an experience and I think eventually was the base for Eddie, Rod and me to keep going in the process and become TM teachers several years later.
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