It was to be my last few weeks working for Steve. He had decided to try find a house to rent or buy in Los Angeles, he had a new manager based in LA, and I certainly did not want to move there myself. He already knew I was going freelance. We didn't find a house but hanging out was great fun, and Jim Cregan had recently left Cockney Rebel, joined Rod Stewart and moved to LA. Check out some of Jim's memories on Rockhistory.co.uk, here is an example...
My abiding memory of this trip was Britt making me a cup of tea at their mansion, while we all played pool. The whole Rod Stewart band were there.
While Steve and I had a two bed suite at the Hyatt House for three weeks, lots of visitors came by, and the craziest one was Keith Moon. It's all told on the audio file.
We were invited to go down to the studio one night by Rod, and Joe Cocker showed up with Nicky Hopkins and his wife, it wasn't funny really......
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I saw various acts while we were there and I've put up a selection of them on the YouTube clips. The best I think was seeing Lonnie Liston Smith and Millie Jackson, what a combination, and at the Roxy too!
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It was extremely sad that Marc Bolan died the way he did. I have a note in my diary that we went to see Gloria Jones, Marc's girlfriend, at ABC Studios while we were in LA. Around three weeks later on learning of Marc's death we flew straight back to the UK. In fact we couldn't because all the seats were taken so we went home via Boston. But Steve loved Marc and he was devastated at the news.
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During the first couple of weeks of October, while I was frantically getting ready to go to Munich to pick up the skateboards I was asked if I would tour manage Lone Star on a tour of the States before Christmas. My diary tells me I was in their offices three days in late October and then Abe Hoch, their manager, cancelled the tour. I was paid for some of the time and Brian Walters was involved. Brian and I became great friends, he was the accountant for various people in the business and was also the co-founder of Trinifold Travel. He was also Steve's accountant at this time.
The scan below is from the inside cover of Diary 1977. I wrote down the tours I was also offered but could not do because of my commitments. I often pondered on how my life would have changed but it gave me the confidence to finally go freelance and spread my wings.
Included on the list was The Stranglers for a UK tour. I didn't do it, but I went to see them in Oxford at the Polytechnic in late September, a great gig it was too...
I must say, I am indebted to Steve for the friendship and responsibilities he gave me for those 3 years after the original band split up. It was, I feel, very much a partnership in many ways, spending the amount of time we did together, but it was time for me to have a change, and I think it was for him too.
When I got home from LA I was contacted by a good friend of mine, Steve Tyzzer. I had met Steve in Oxford at my Grandmother's house, he was dating one of the secretarial college girls that lodged there. Steve was working in sports marketing and he knew that skateboarding would be the next big craze in the UK. He also knew of a stash of bankrupt stock in a warehouse in Munich........
He offered me a partnership if I could raise the money to buy the stock. My landlord in London and my Grandmother lent me the money. Check out the date sheet here, it happened all so quickly. On the 6th of October I flew to Munich and loaded a 40 foot trailer with 2000 skateboards. They came back to me in East Finchley and I filled up my garage and a 35 cwt van with the stock. My girlfriend June, went to the headquarters of the Co-Op in Stratford, East London and she sold 1000 to them for cash. In a week we had sold the lot and I repaid my grandmother and landlord.......
and I had earned the deposit for my first house.....
