Eating Madeleine with Whyte August

Index

italics are sometimes eggs

Supporting Jack the Lad

However, there was no doubt that the band was beginning to undergo a crisis. Mary had grown from a 16-year old to a 17-year old, and was beginning to miss more and more band practices as other attractions took her fancy. Mary's last gig with the band was when WA supported Jack the Lad at Salisbury Tech in January 1976. This was WA's biggest gig yet – and entirely due to the Planetarium connection.

Dave displays the chest that had students of Sarum Teacher Training College swooning. Mary's booty appears unshaken. Meanwhile, Steve gets emotional and Martin does that thing that bassists do.

The gig was memorable for various reasons. Jack the Lad kindly lent WA their PA, some microphones, and a sound engineer, who, having created a suitable mix, wandered off muttering "I didn't realise I'd have to mix fookin' Hawkwind". During the set, WA reduced an audience of 500 to about 200. At one point -- probably during House on the Hill -- Steve's drumkit began to fall apart. The JtL drum roadie happened to notice and wandered out onto stage, sat at the JtL kit, and joined in the beat, while Steve fixed his drums. The two then continued playing until the end of the song. WA later found out that audience members had assumed this to be a contrived piece of stagemanship. At the end of the set, some fool shouted "More", which enabled WA to play the legendary Train Blues, a scary improv based on a bluesy vamp, with lots of screeching bottle-neck guitar. The song had a particularly scary ending that night. Dave walked off and left his guitar leaning against his amplifier, with the volume and effects turned to maximum; while it fed-back and caterwauled, Martin and Steve chugged on; then Martin exited in similar fashion, so that a deep growl was added to the racket. Steve continued playing the beat for a few more bars, and then thrashed his kit to within an inch of its life, before throwing his drumsticks into the crowd. Despite that, some people did like the band. Some thought Mary's voice corking. Others thought her voice needed corking.

It was shortly after this gig that Chris, as the band's manager, took a decisive step. He decided to throw Mary out. Luckily, there was a ready made replacement in another of the band's friends, Paul "Crad" Craddock. Crad joined in early 1976. Mary was not that unhappy, it seemed; she had already complained about feeling her voice wasn't right for the band, plus she didn't like the "heavy vibes" that attended her increasing absence from rehearsals. Soon after Crad joined, John had to give up the flute, due to nosebleeds, vitriolic remarks by other band members, and adverse Tarot readings.

It must be considered a success that nobody threw the drumsticks back at him.

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Most members of the band had their own Tarot packs, and, indeed, it had become a custom to congregate at Terence's house during the week to drink tea, cogitate about the universe, discuss the band, and throw a Tarot or two. The Tarot was usually read by Terence or Steve; sometimes, the lucky querent would benefit from two readings, sometimes simultaneously. Now, I don't hold much truck with such supernatural nonsense; nonetheless, it was surprising how often the Three of Swords came up in John's readings while the band were discussing whether the flute was a useful addition to Whyte August's sound. In fact, the Three of Swords came up so often that it was renamed the Three of Flutes.

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