![]() ![]() We went out as "Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages" sometime in 1959. All you can do is scream" and as it happened Dave was buying an american blues magazine which fearured a blues artiste called Screaming Jay Hawkins, so Dave like the idea of "Screaming Sutch" and somehow the name "Screaming Lord Sutch" evolved. Later after a meeting in a cafe with my sister Pat and the band Dave wanted a stage name and my sister jokingly said "Dave you can't sing. "As far as I remember Dave Sutch turned up at a very early rehearsal in late 58, with a top hat he had bought from a junk shop and put it on when our baritone sax player Jeff Wickens said "Dave, you look like a lord with that hat on" and somehow it stuck. Here is Pete Newman's own recollection about that: (1) From "The Man Who Was Screaming Lord Sutch" by Graham Sharpe (Aurum Press, 2005) p.29 Their very first gig with Screaming Lord Sutch as his Savages was at a local youth club Church Hall in Willesden, and was announced by a huge banner with words - "Tonight Screamin' Lord Sutch & the Savages!" - which they tied between two trees. He told them about his act (6) which was inspired from Screaming Jay Hawkins, and they then invited him to their next rehearsal there. ![]() ![]() When Johnny Kidd decided to work with a power trio, Pete Newman and Jeff Wickens teamed up with Vic Clark - who stood-in several times for Pirates' guitarist Alan Caddy - to form the Midnighters, backing singer Johnny Dark, whose father owned The Black Bull and allowed them to have free rehearsals and then a residency there.Īccording to Vic Clark, Pete Newman invited his friend Dave Sutch to see them during one of their residency at The Black Bull (5). Therefore Dave became Pat's boyfriend, and Pete occassionally backed him at the Two Eyes between jobs with Johnny Kidd (4). Pete and Pat remember their father wanted Dave to be thrown out because of his unusual apparel on that day. In fact, Pete Newman knew Dave Sutch since late 1957, thanks to his sister Pat who had met him at Cricklewood Rollin Skating Rink, in North london, and brought him back to their house in Cobbold road, Willesden, because at that time he had just started playing in a local band called Freddie Heath & his Rock & Roll Combo, whose lead vocalist was later to become "Johnny Kidd" (3). He sang an obscure old number called “Bullshit Boogie”. He had with him a large bundle of miscellaneous equipment - sheepskin, pair of Buffalo horns, a man-trap, snow shoes and so forth. I was very much amazed when he arrived, looking like a rag-and-bone man. Sutch and asked if he could do an audition. “One afternoon a strange individual came in, presenting himself as Mr. Littlewood, the boss did not pay much in those days he never paid much at any time." And there was the night that David and myself took to the stage in the cellar at the Two Is, our wages, a plate of fish and chips each if we where lucky. Don’t forget those where the days of Tommy Steele, Terry Dene, Marty Wilde, Wee Willie Harris, just to name a few. "At the ages of 16 and 17 we started to go to the Two Is Coffee Bar in Soho and the place was packed in those days. "We had an old Zundapp Bella scooter, and used to spend our time at the Ace Cafe, North Circular Road, Stonebridge, also the Blue Cafe, and Cricklewood Skating Rink, also 2Is Old Compton Street, Soho." (3) According to guitarist Vic Clark, it seems that David Sutch never had a motorbike but just a Vesper scooter that had to be push started: "It was quite an experience trying to jump on the back of a moving scooter while holding my guitar with one hand. ![]() On the Sunday we went to the Dominion Theatre, Tottenham Court Road, we walked in, bought two ice creams and saw him again for nothing - he was brilliant." "When Jerry Lee Lewis came to the UK, David and I spent our last few bob going to see him at the State Cinema Kilburn on the Saturday. I had grown my locks to 18 inches long and turned myself into a freak years before the hippies came along”. “The work gave me the freedom to be myself, let my hair grow long and wear whatever I liked as well as practise songs as I went on my rounds. ![]()
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