And she sang:
And it was right! I wanted to jump about the garage doing my Rex Harrison impression and shouting, 'She's got it! By George she's got it!' Everything else I'd worried about and been depressed by that evening evaporated, just disappeared. I had been right; it was worth it. I was quivering, half-stunned when she finished. I hardly heard the others humming and hahing and David Balfour saying, 'Aye, well, not bad... ' She held up her hand, launched into 'Blind Again'. She sang it all, and I was close to tears by the end, not because of the lyrics but because it was there, it was real; it had been inside me and now it was born; I saw its faults and knew it should be changed, but I loved it. And somebody else thought it was beautiful too; she must have, to have sung it like that...
The last chord faded. I cleared my throat and could only grin inanely at Christine and give her a completely stupid thumbs-up sign. I looked at the others.
'Aye... that's all right,' Steve the bassist nodded, looking me up and down. 'I'm sure it reminds me of something, though...' Mickey shook his head, I didn't know at what. Wes just stood looking at Christine and chewing on his lower lip.
'Yeah... no bad,' Dave Balfour told me. 'Well done, hen,' he said to Christine.
'Don't call me "hen",' she told him, putting the guitar in its case. I watched her, and remembered hearing some old saying; Ladies glowed, gentlemen perspired, and horses sweated. Christine was shining, then.
Balfour grinned. 'So, what do you want to do, big man?' He crossed his arms, head to one side as he studied me.
I shrugged. 'Write songs,' I told him.
'What about the guitar?' He nodded at the Woolworthed bass, back standing against the wall.
'What do you m-mean?'
'You wanting to join the band, or what?'
'No. It's just a b-b-bass anyway...' (that went down well with Steve) 'I just want to write. I'm not that g-g-g-good on it, aaactually,' (I was trying to reassure the bassist) 'I just wanted a good band to play ma stuff' (Diplomacy).
'Aye.' Dave Balfour shrugged. 'Okay then.' (Success!)
They took half a dozen songs to rehearse with; in three weeks they were ready to launch them on an unsuspecting public, at a Christmas gig in the Strathclyde Union, supporting some briefly successful Glasgow band called Master Samwise. Master Samwise were attracting attention from a couple of record companies, which was the important point.
Frozen Gold were the warm-up band, but the audience was more sympathetic than normal, just because the beautiful Christine was a student there, and had a semi-serious fan club all of her own. It seemed to consist mostly of bespectacled wimps and over-enthusiastic Malaysian students shouting 'Strip! Strip!' at her, but what the hell; it's the thought that counts.
Frozen Gold... I had tried to get them to change the name, honest.
I gave them a list:
French Kiss
Lip Service
Rocks
MIRV
Gauche
Boulder
Sine
Spring
Espada
Z
Revs
Synch
Rolls
Trans
Escadrille
Torch
XL
Sky
Linx/Lynx/Links/Lyncks
Flux
Braid
North
Berlin
... all brilliant names (dammit, at least three of them have been used since by other bands), but they weren't having it. That is, Dave Balfour wasn't having it. It had been his idea. Why not Percy Winterbottom and The Snowballs? I suggested at one point, though he didn't seem to get the joke. I played what I thought was my trump card and told Balfour that the name sounded too much like Frigid Pink, an American band that had had one hit back in '69 or '70, and hinted that he'd probably just half-remembered that name when he was trying to think of a title for his own band.
No dice. Frozen Gold it was.
So I started trying to think of a way of turning this into an asset. Strategic thinking; when stuck with a disadvantage, remove the'dis'.
The band played a stormer at the Strathclyde gig.
My songs weren't perfect even yet; they still had a few rough edges, but they went down well (as 'some of our own songs'; I had apparently been granted honorary membership of the band). Frozen Gold had a better reception than Master Samwise. They could have played for another hour but Master Samwise's manager was making threatening signals from the side of the stage.
When I joined the band in the corridor that was passing for a dressing room, I got there at the same time as an enthusiastic young Artistes and Repertoire man from ARC Records called Rick Tumber.
The Waterloo bar, Causeyside Street, August 1974:
'How are you, Jean? Haven't seen you for yyy...yonks. You okay, aye?' I set a dark rum and coke down in front of her.
'This a double, Daniel?' She inspected the glass.
'Aye; I told you; we're celebratin.'
'Oh aye?' 'Yeah; come on; no kiddin. I'm serious.'
'You seen the money yet?' She asked, sceptical, drinking.
'I've signed the contract. We've shhh...aken hands. It's all set up. Rich and famous; fame and fffortune. Here we go; yahoo!' I clapped my hands. 'It's g-great; we're away, Jean; we're off; this is it. You want ma autograph now?'
'Ah'll wait till you're on Top Of The Pops.'
'You think I'm jokin, don't you?'
'No, Daniel, Ah'm sure you're serious.'
'We're gonna be famous; honest. Want me tell ye how big the advance is?' I asked her. She laughed. 'ARC Records,' I told her.
'Heard of them?'
'Aye.'
'They've taken us on; we're gonna make an album; we go to London next month, to a proper studio. Soundproofin; technicians ... big t-t-tape machines... everything.' My imagination failed. 'They're gonna rush it out in time for the Christmas,' I persisted. 'We'll be stars.'
'The next Bay City Rollers, eh?'
'Aw, Jean, come on...' I shook my head. 'This is serious stuff; more albums, no singles so much. You wait; just you wait and see.'
'Aye, but will it last, eh?' Jean looked serious. 'What makes you think you'll see any of this money... you goantae leave any in the bank for tax, or just spend it all?'
'Jean, ma main problem's goantae be decidin how tae spend it all!' I told her. She looked unconvinced. 'Look,' I said, 'don't you worry; yeah, we might have been ripped off, but one of the guys in the band, the lead guitarist, his dad's an accountant. He's looked at all the contracts and agreements an that, and had his lawyers look at them too; we've probably got a better deal than half the bands you see in the album charts. I'm telling you; we're off tae a brilliant start: An I'm going to be the bass player.' I made as though to nudge her elbow, accidentally did nudge her elbow, and spilled some of her dark rum. 'Oh, sorry... hell.' She dried her wrist with a hanky. 'Anyway, I'll be on stage; their bass player is leavin to go to music college and...'
'Music college?' Jean looked at me oddly.
'Yeah, what about it?'
'Nuthin. Carryon.'
'... So I'm gonna be the bass player. I mean, I'm still learnin, but I can do it.'