Every Day of My Life. Beeb Birtles
I bought for five guineas in a cardboard box under my arm.
Beeb, John and Tony de Vries started learning a few songs together and then invited me to join the group. The first song I remember doing with the guys was ‘Under The Boardwalk’ by The Drifters. It was also my first attempt at singing background vocals. Not long after that, Tony decided he wasn’t interested anymore and the three of us continued on.
I remember playing The Shadows’ ‘Apache’ in front of Beeb’s mum and her friends in their kitchen at Harvey Avenue. We were rewarded with Dutch salted licorice and pancakes.
English migrants gravitated towards living in one of two outer areas in Adelaide. One was the Salisbury and Elizabeth area and the other was Christies Beach. When John’s family moved to Christies Beach around Christmas of 1964 it became my hangout on weekends.
I completed only three years of high school. As I was getting older and the teachers were getting younger it became hard for them to maintain control in the classroom. Some classes were complete chaos with kids mucking around all the time. That made it impossible to pay attention to what was being taught. Consequently, my grades started to suffer and I lost interest in subjects like Chemistry and Physics. They bored me to tears. French and Mathematics were my strongest subjects.
I completed third year of high school but failed the final examinations. I had the choice of repeating that year or going out into the workforce. The thought of having to repeat without my friends didn’t enthral me, so I dropped out of school. A choice I have regretted ever since!
I guess I must have been about sixteen when I started going out at night on the weekends. I still didn’t drive so I either walked everywhere or caught the bus. I heard about a dance called Sixth Avenue that was held in a hall on Marion Road towards South Road. Gordon Rawson and I walked there a couple of times. I can’t remember whether we had to pay to get in but it was a dance that was chaperoned by adults. A small sound system amplified records that were played from a record player set up in one corner.
At Sixth Avenue most of the kids just came to dance and pash on with each other during the slow songs when they dimmed the lights. They had some kind of mirror ball set up that rotated coloured lights around the hall during these slow numbers. Working up the courage to ask a girl to dance was always a pretty uncomfortable thing for me to do. I was very shy but eventually I did ask a girl to dance during one of the slow songs. As we were dancing I could feel that she was wearing a corset made of very stiff material. It was a total turn off and, to top it off, all she wanted to do was pash on for the duration of the song. I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there!
My friend Barry Smith (lead singer of The Town Criers) knew Darryl Cotton at Marion High School, where they were both on the cricket team – Barry was captain. He also remembers this:
There were two dances and the one I played at was in Fifth Avenue. It was called The Pad. My first band, The Acorns, played there a few times. I don’t recall going to Sixth Avenue but I do remember the venue and it would have been a bigger dance than The Pad. It was just a coincidence that the two dances were only a street away from each other.
I think the first time I met Beeb was when he and his dad came around to my folks’ place in Glandore and he bought my Hofner Beatle bass that I played. Beeb took the scratch plate off and played it upside down with the control knobs at the top. It was the first of its type in Adelaide.
When I first saw it in the window of Allans Music it was like the Holy Grail. I had to have it and I stood guard over it for several Saturday mornings trying to hide it so no one else would buy it. I finally snared it on hire purchase. It was like my first girlfriend, car and cigarette all wrapped up in one.
Sixth Avenue didn’t last long for me and I moved on to clubs in the city. One of the first clubs I went to on a regular basis was Beat Basement at the top end of Rundle Street. Man, did I see some great bands performing there. Bands like Hard Time Killing Floor, The Others, Blues, Rags and Hollers, Dust and Ashes, The Bentbeaks, and The Mustangs, who would soon become The Masters Apprentices. Harmonicas were very in at the time and many bands had lead singers who played them. I went to The Cellar in Twin Street a couple of times but the scene there was more folk music and jazz. I was more into pop and rock and roll music.
One of the biggest thrills was when I bought tickets to see The Rolling Stones. Bev Harrell, The Newbeats and Roy Orbison were the opening acts. Seeing the Stones in action gave me chills up my spine and made me want that kind of life.
Some of the best bands in Australia came out of Adelaide. The melting pot of Australian, English and European kids produced fantastic groups. At that time The Twilights were by far the best band in Adelaide. They were the resident band at The Oxford Club in King William Street.
Darryl Cotton and I went to see them there one Sunday night when The Bentbeaks supported them. The club was jammed shoulder to shoulder with pop music fans. No other band in Australia could duplicate the popular songs of the day like The Twilights could. Between the six guys in the band they had such a cool image and a fantastic sound. Glenn Shorrock was one of the two lead singers and Darryl and I loved his voice.
There was a group of us who hung out at Big Daddy’s in the city. Jim Popoff was the man who ran the club. I’m pretty sure this is where I met Skinny (Barry Smith’s cousin whose real name is Lynette) and Dianne and Pam. Big Daddy’s is where we saw Five Sided Circle, The Y?4, The James Taylor Move and visiting Melbourne bands like The Loved Ones.
In those days, alcohol wasn’t served in clubs and we knew no different. When the clubs closed we usually ended up going to someone’s place and having a few drinks there. Skinny’s parents were very relaxed about kids coming over late at night and drinking and having fun at their house.
Valda Rubio remembers this about living in Adelaide during those days:
I was fortunate enough to be born in Adelaide. I am of that opinion more now than when I was growing up there. Melbourne was where it was all happening but Adelaide is where much of it began. For some reason, whether it was the huge influx of British immigrants or just some collective unconscious, Adelaide was the breeding ground for progressive ideas and excellent bands.
The Scene, Scots Church, The Cellar, Big Daddy’s, Opus, Twenty Plus Club, The Oxford Club, Beat Basement, Snoopy’s Hollow and my favourite, Sergeant Peppers, were just some of the popular venues in which local and interstate acts played. Many musicians got their start in Adelaide before moving interstate or overseas.
All I thought about was which band, which venue and what to wear. I remember even going to Big Daddy’s during my lunch hour to get in a quick dance, only to find myself explaining to a slightly bemused supervisor, how I had managed to sprain my ankle during my lunch break.
Those years were some of the most exciting times in my life. We all made so many friends at these clubs and dances, some of them would follow us to Melbourne when our bands moved there to try to make it in the big smoke. Some of us are still friends after all these years, and when we get together we reminisce about those great old days in Adelaide.
Three
TIMES UNLIMITED
Beeb (playing his homemade bass guitar), Darryl and Ted
On weekends I started to hang out and make friends in the Christies Beach and Port Noarlunga areas, about twenty miles from Adelaide. Every weekend I hitchhiked there and crashed the night at someone’s place. If for some reason I couldn’t find somewhere to sleep, I slept on the beach under the Port Noarlunga jetty or in bus shelters. On winter nights I froze my arse off trying to keep warm in my black duffle coat and sleeping on hard bus shelter benches. I didn’t care though, it beat hitchhiking all the way back home to Netley.
I got to know so many people through hanging out in Port Noarlunga during the day and going to dances at the Masonic Hall in Christies Beach at night. Popular up and coming bands like The Masters Apprentices, The Others, Blues, Rags and Hollers played at the Masonic Hall on Saturday nights.
Sometimes