Free Ain't Bad for a Pink by Sandra Gibson

important as preparation and announcement. As the pop explosion progressed bands increased the gap between their ordinary life and their stage life. Pink Floyd were taking pop performance into the realm of spectacle. As things escalated some musicians wore the sort of makeup that completely masked their identity. King Crimson started their show in Hanley with a screen showing waves crashing on a beach then one by one the musicians came on the stage, starting with the drummer, thus creating suspense. At the end of the show it all happened in reverse. There was a standing ovation and the audience started stamping their feet for an encore. This was impossible, of course: in those circumstances you can’t do a conventional encore because you would have to recreate the world you had just dissolved. A Shakespearian actor can’t come back and say a few lines once the play is over. It would be absurd and it would break the spell.
    Other bands introduced ritual destruction into their act. The Who routinely smashed up their instruments. It wasn’t just gimmicky sensationalism; according to them it was like sacrificing an animal. During their debut on American TV Keith Moon blew up his drums, setting fire to Townsend’s hair and causing Miss Bette Davis to faint – a delirious moment. Jimi Hendrix set fire to his guitar. He needn’t have bothered – he already had! Personally though, I feel that any musician worth his salt wouldn’t destroy his instrument. Perhaps in his case he did it because he didn’t like what he had become: you have to remember what Jimi said about his commercial success when he cut short “Hey Joe” on The Lulu Show (1969 ) before launching into Cream’s “Sunshine Of Your Love”.
    The Skunk Band didn’t go to such lengths – shows and sacrificial goats cost money for one thing but we weren’t the sort of band to make such a demarcation between ourselves and the audience or put ourselves into a situation where we couldn’t be spontaneous about encores.
    In all bands with longevity, people come and go, drift in and hang about, fall over, fall out, start their own band…die. I’ve always said that I could assemble the Skunk Band at a moment’s notice because I’ve built up a large loose network of musicians I can call on. The Skunk Band had at least five phases – not that anyone was counting – and the fluidity was part of its vitality and success. Most of the musicians I called in had heard the set and knew the feel of it. When I was billed as “Pete ‘Snakey Jake’ Johnson & Special Friends”, this was a reference to the wide musical circle I could call on for support.
Parallel Performer
    A steady girlfriend of the time was a performer in her own right: she was a model with an almost professional attitude to nudity and a relationship with the camera that brought this out. Photos reveal her fun-loving, mischievous nature and her slim, smooth body. She obviously enjoys the fantasy role playing afforded by the fetishist clothing and accessories. The nicest, most erotic photograph shows her in a white satin bodice with one breast almost covered. She is looking away from the camera, which in other photos she defiantly confronts. In another photo she is sitting on my friend Keith Brammer – lucky him! But all you can see of him are his oily hands. He is obliterated by her full-frontal pose; her relationship is with the camera, not him or the person behind the camera. She is a woman quite comfortable in the nude yet not aggressively sexual, having an ethereal quality: varied moods flickering over her. Chameleon is a good description: she could easily and instinctively blend in with whichever crowd or boyfriend she was with, and could and should have been an actress. Talk about multitasking: she could do regional accents and monologues, strip and tell jokes all at the same time.
    The Crown in Audlem used to hold a weekly disco for which I did the sound equipment. It was the end of the night