.. it was firing there was nothing quite as awesome as Ariel live.
But Ariel was as erratic as it was incandescent and it couldn’t last. I was so crushed by the whole experience I retired on the spot and toyed with the idea of never performing again. By way of taking a break I took the family down to the Blairgowrie back beach where the in-laws had a shack, (the White House), and it was there I started putting down the rough drafts for The Jellabad Mutant. I had no particular plans for it - it was just something to do with my hands - but inevitably Bill got back in touch and we started mucking around with The Mutant together.
Then we started discussing the possibility of putting a band together and approached John Lee, who’d been playing drums with The Dingoes, to rehearse with us and see what might emerge.
One thing led to another and John suggested his old mate Harvey (James) should come on board, and before we knew it we were at EMI in Sydney with Peter Dawkins, demo-ing the bare bones of The Jellabad Mutant.
So, there we were in London and with the prospect of doing a major tour with the prog. band Camel, Harvey started to agitate to get some better equipment. And that’s how we found ourselves at the undistinguished-looking Marshall factory north of London in Bletchley, Milton Keynes, hassling to get the last of the valve versions of Jim Marshall’s world famous amplifiers.
The first gig we were playing with the new gear happened to be at the London School of Economics supporting Camel. I think we’d been added to the bill rather late as there was a fair bit going on back stage with doors slamming and dummies being spat. (‘We’re not going on before those bloody Australians’ etc.)
At this point I should introduce you to our roadcrew. Regrettably I can only remember one of their names. His name was Russell and his favourite saying was, ‘Been on the acid eh, boyo?’ He was Welsh and was naturally second in command because the other guy, let’s call him Martin, was English. Whereas Russell was always cheerful, Martin was forever gloomy and embittered. He was a guitarist and resented the fact that we’d breezed into town and were getting gigs while he had to resort to lumping our gear to make a quid.
So our ace roadcrew was thrilled with our new purchase, particularly as the LSE gig was on the first floor and there were no lifts. We waited at the top of the stairs with people storming in and out and doors slamming – and then we heard the sound of something banging up the stairs and getting louder. The door opened and there was Martin dragging up one of the new quad boxes. Only it didn’t look new any more. The rest of the boxes arrived looking equally battered. Then Martin reported that one of Bill’s two bass amps had been stolen out of the truck while they were dragging the rest of the gear up the stairs.
The atmosphere backstage was already poisonous so there wasn’t any point in adding to it. The gear was duly set up and we trooped sullenly onto the stage. The room was all concrete and glass. Marshall amps only function at the one volume. It may as well be eleven. People were leaving the room with their ears bleeding before the end of the first number. By the time we’d finished our set the room was empty. I think Harvey enjoyed himself.
Unsurprisingly, we didn’t end up touring with Camel. I suppose the experience might’ve hastened the demise of most bands, but Ariel survived to eventually return to London the following year, albeit with a couple of line-up changes. In the overall scheme of things it’s a shame the Abbey Road opportunity was wasted, but in retrospect I don’t think that line-up would’ve made the most of The Jellabad Mutant project, even if we’d had the sort of support from EMI that the Masters had enjoyed just a few years before. In any case, the concept needed much more development than I was capable of on my own while trying to keep a band on the road.
In the end, the Rock & Roll Scars album isn’t such a bad record of that guitar, bass and drums version of Ariel, despite being mostly rehashes of Spectrum and Murtceps material. If you look carefully at the cover you’ll see written there (almost illegibly in the CD format) ‘Before the Mutant’. Obviously, I still harboured ambitions for the concept, but in the end the demo session was the only record of what might have been

Unfortunately we’ve run out of our stock of The Jellabad Mutant CDs. It’s possible that situation will be rectified in the future, but in the meantime I’ve made the relevant tracks available for free download on the track listings page plus a never-before available background, script, (as used in the launch presentation) and lyrics. Just go to the track listings page and scroll down to The Jellabad Mutant.