Nowadays I live a life of quiet rural seclusion in our cottage in the South Downs.
At night the only sounds are the nocturnal scurrying of woodland animals, the call of the Owls and the music of the swirling wind.
Ah but there was a time when I lived a world away from such bucolic charms.
For almost two decades I lived and worked in the heart of London.
The nocturnal choirs there were composed of police and ambulance sirens, the omnipresent roaring traffics boom and the relentless beat, beat, beat of youthful ambition.
Millions upon millions of dreams and desires, spoken and unspoken, melding and clashing twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
And, dreams and desires are tales we tell to ourselves and the pursuit of those tales leads to public stories.
Heroic stories. Comic stories. Tragic stories.
Oh, I could tell you some stories.
Like the time, well refreshed, when I attempted to jump onto the open platform of the 159 Bus as it accelerated up Regent Street.
The Bus was travelling at about 30mph so I did well to time my approach run and very well to manage to grab the bar of the platform.
However, while it’s one thing to grab on to the bar it’s quite another to then hold on and pull yourself in to the Bus.
So, that’s how I became the first man to perform a triple Salchow Jump from a moving Bus onto tarmac and live! (though I did disrupt traffic and walk with a limp for several weeks after).
I had a number of unexpected encounters with The Metropolitan Police when I was, ‘Living on the Frontline’.
Like the time I was walking home not on the well lit Main Street but by the route that skirted the Park as a short cut.
Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by dozens of Her Majesty’s Constabulary supported by some very vocal Dogs as a drugs raid was carried out on the Rastafarian Temple just around the corner from my flat.
They didn’t seem interested in my observation that Bob Marley had stayed there on his first visit to England!
Like the time I woke up intrigued by the unusually high volume of sirens in the night and an eerie red glow in the night sky.
This turned out to a serious riot in nearby Brixton.
I thought I might get a closer look by walking to the end of my road but found on opening my front door that the Police Control Line had been set up exactly there.
So, that was how I first met the Metropolitan Police Commissioner who wasted no words in ordering me to immediately return to my flat and on no account leave unless formally instructed to do so.
Stories. So many stories.
But I have to admit, though I like to think I tell a good story, that no story of mine can hope to match a London story that starts with these lines :
I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
Walkin’ through the streets of SoHo in the rain
No, when it comes to London stories my favourite will always be, ‘Werewolves of London’ by the late, very great, Warren Zevon.
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Warren Zevon was a complete, ‘One Off’ with a songwriting imagination that knew no bounds.
He had a blacker than black noir imagination so that many of his songs could double as screenplays for classic film noir movies.
I first saw Warren when he supported Jackson Browne and though I was a fan of JB it was Warren who I came out of the show madly enthusing about.
He was a highly charismatic performer who didn’t seem to be performing at all – just allowing the audience to spend some time interacting with his outrageous tales of love and loss and rage and bewilderment at the madness of life.
I saw and met some extraordinary characters during my time in the Big Smoke (one day I’ll tell you the story of how I won £50 from Peter O’Toole or the time Richard Harris threw a pint of Guinness all over me).
But, more’s the pity I never saw :
Lon Chaney walkin’ with the Queen
Doin’ the werewolves of London
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Stories. So many stories.
Like the time I called in to one of the music pubs I frequented to find I was the only audience member prepared to pay to see an unknown pedal steel player called Sarah Jory.
Over a drink we agreed she would do the show and I would applaud wildly throughout.
Turned out she was excellent and my parting comment of ‘Stick with it – you never know where you’ll end up’ was proved more prescient than I had imagined when I saw her a few years later as part of Van Morrison’s Band at the grand old Albert Hall!
A great story needs a punchline that lodges permanently in the imagination and I know there is no song punchline anywhere to to top :
From the first time I ever heard Werewolves of London it plays in my head as I walk through the Capital’s storied streets.
Look – there’s where the great fire of London started.
Look – that’s where they publicly hung Perkin Warbeck!
Look – that’s the house that both Handel and Hendrix lived in!
Look – here we are in Mayfair; keep your eyes peeled for a hairy handed gent, you know the one who ran amok in Kent, because given half a chance he’ll rip your lungs out Jim!
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Yup, compare to Warren’s howling at the Moon wild werewolf imagination almost all songwriters are very domestic dogs indeed!
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
The Immortal Jukebox 
I was also at that show at the New Victoria Theatre which was great. In May 1978 my wife and I were driving around the US. Excitable Boy had been released and we heard it a lot on FM radio. In New Orleans we heard Warren was playing at a club called Rosey’s and we managed to get two tickets for the sell out show. An unknown (then) stand up called Richard Belzer opened the show. It was magnificent and of course much like the “Stand In The Fire” show. Happy Days!
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I too first saw WZ at the New Victoria Theatre supporting Jackson Browne in 1976. His album was the best of that year & we were there for him as much as the star. Everyone at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1988 was happy to see Warren looking so well & he could have played it all night long. He didn’t but luckily the BBC were there to record a set that was, for me, one of the great nights. https://archive.org/details/wz1988-01-25_London_flac16
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It would appear quite a few of us on here were at those New Victoria Theatre shows in 1976, and for me personally, that was a seminal year when it came to watching some of one’s favourite artists/bands live, (most of which just happened to originate from and/or reside in North America). Most weeks it seems, a few of us would jump into someone’s car and head the 40 odd miles into London, mostly to then Hammersmith Odeon or New Victoria Theatre, possibly Wembley Arena or Earls Court, or if we were very lucky, the much smaller and intimate Marquee or 100 Club.
That was my first opportunity of seeing Jackson Browne live, having missed out on the 1972 Royal Festival Hall gig, when he was supporting Joni Mitchell. However, I would have to say, even today, the highlight of 1976 for me would be catching 3 of the 4 nights Neil Young and Crazy Horse played that March at the Hammersmith Odeon, followed by 3 of the 6 nights of the Stones residency at Earls Court. Other memorable shows that year would be Lynyrd Skynyrd, J.J. Cale, Little Feat, supported by The Outlaws, Hot Tuna at The Roundhouse a few days after Knebworth, The Marshall Tucker Band, Linda Ronstadt and Poco.
Returning to Warren Zevon, I also caught the that 1988 Hammersmith show, when he was really on fire, supposedly promoting the recently released “Sentimental Hygiene” album, although six of the 12 songs performed that night were from “Excitable Boy”. I also recall a 1983 concert at a barely half full Hammersmith, it was Warren’s only UK show that year, played solo, and from memory, his first words to the audience were “did you all come in the same car!”
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Such great stories you have. I’m still limping vicariously after the bus. Great post, Thom
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