Free Complicated Shadows by Graham Thomson Page B

version of Chris Kenner’s ‘Packin’ Up’ and a jokey canter through the hardy Hank perennial ‘You Win
Again’. The two songs of note, however, were Bob Dylan’s ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’ and Jesse Winchester’s 18 ‘Third Rate Romance’. The Dylan song had been released on the
Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid
soundtrack album in 1973, and was a recent addition to the Flip City live set,
first aired at a disco party in Charing Cross where the band had supported a miming Desmond Dekker. It was slightly out of the ordinary for the band’s style, but if the song’s
rudimentary, circular chord sequence never quite suited their tempo and the lyrics sat oddly with Declan’s sardonic vocal, then ‘Third Rate Romance’ was much more successful.
    A recent US pop hit, ‘Third Rate Romance’ (‘low rent rendezvous’) was a sly tale of two strangers meeting in a restaurant, cutting their losses and having a one-night
stand. A grown-up, unsentimental slice of sexual reality, it had at its heart a subject matter that Declan would go on to explore in minute and lacerating detail in later years. Even in 1975 he
does not disappoint, singing it beautifully with the kind of wry smile which indicates he is revelling in unravelling this slightly seedy sexual encounter. ‘She said, “You don’t
look like my type, but I guess you’ll do”,’he sings, adding, ‘And he said, “I’ll tell you I love you if you want me to”.’
    For Dave Robinson, it was a turning point. ‘Him doing a cover of “Third Rate Romance”, that’s what attracted me to him. I thought, “Fuck me, this guy is good. Why
don’t you find a real band?”. But he stuck with them.’ For the time being at least. While Steve Hazelhurst recalls that Robinson was slightly more ambivalent about Declan –
‘He liked him, but he wasn’t 100 per cent. He did use the phrase “verbal diarrhoea” at one point,’ – Robinson was keen enough on ‘Third Rate Romance’
to agree to put it out as a single on his fledgling Street Records. It was a break.
    While contemplating their luck, Flip City continued gigging around London and sometimes beyond through the summer of 1975. Gigs at The Lord Nelson on Holloway Road, The Brecknock in Camden Road,
The Greyhound in Fulham, The Hope and Anchor, and a late-night residency at the Howff in Primrose Hill, were slotted in alongside higher profile appointments: an open-air festival in Stepney; two
gigs at the famous Marquee in central London supporting Dr Feelgood and National Flag respectively; an out-of-town engagement in Dudley, near Birmingham; and two memorable performances at
Wandsworth Prison.
    The prison shows were held in the chapel on Sunday afternoons, where the band was requested not to smoke on stage or bring their girlfriends in case it should incite the inmates. The audience
were also threatened with solitary confinement should they not display sufficient enthusiasm. The ruse worked. As Flip City soundchecked with Commander Cody’s ‘Looking At The World
Through A Windshield’, one prisoner was particularly impressed with Declan’s guitar-playing talents: ‘He can really tickle them strings, can’t he?’
    But despite the approval of the cons at Wandsworth, Flip City were treading water. The most they ever earned collectively was £25. They had no fans as such, and most of the time they
barely even registered. There had been one professional photo shoot for the gig guide in London’s
Time Out
magazine, but no reviews, and certainly nobodywas
misguided enough to be touting them as the next big thing in the music papers. The same prominent UK music journalists that created such a ballyhoo when Elvis Costello eventually got his first
record on the shelves had encountered Declan MacManus and Flip City and gone away unimpressed.
    ‘Noboby wanted to know back then!’ he complained only a couple of years later. ‘I remember the time [Nick Kent] came down to the Marquee when