I spent the second half of yesterday ruminating over the loss of a really good friend. I thought about all the things that brought us close together, things like music, British radio comedy, the twinkling of the stars and the turning of the earth. Good things. Jake Brockman was a true gentleman, a scholar and an acrobat. For some of the early years I knew him, he formed an unholy trinity with those paragons of percussion, Pete de Freitas and Tim Whittaker. I have always thought that Jake was like Jeeves to Pete’s Bertie Wooster – two poshers let loose on an unsuspecting working class sitcom: “Carry On, Don’t Cash My Giro”.
It was the early eighties. This arrangement was augmented by the bonding of former Deaf School drummer, Whittaker, who became ras e-by-gum the northern sage that changed everybody’s life. There was this beautiful synergy between them and at a time when Pete and Jake’s pop group were becoming larger by the moment, Tim Whittaker acted as spiritual adviser and go-to geezer for all the assumed answers. They lived in a shared flat on Aigburth Drive – at one point all the Bunnymen minus McCulloch lived there at the same time – but it was Tim’s world, they just lived in it. And they were perfectly aware. Tim was a
shining light of wayward information and my first step into the world of art. Even though I was about ten years younger than him, he always treated me as an equal he never condescended, always spoke to me as a peer. I loved that in him. He loved telling you things that you may not have been aware of – Jasper Johns, Al Jackson jr, Willem de Kooning, King Tubby, concrete poetry, Mike Hart and the Liverpool scene. He could witter eternally about the merits and high points of Jimi Hendrix’s drummer, Mitch Mitchell. He was, without doubt, one the most vital parts of whatever education I may have had.
Once in the early nineties, I met him on Lark Lane on a lovely morning – I told him I had some acid at home and had just acquired a copy of Creedence’s 1970 cracker “Cosmo’s Factory”. “Is that the one with “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” on it?” he asked- yes it is, I replied. He paused for a moment, as if choosing his words carefully. “Would you like to bring your acid and your Creedence LP round to ours for an afternoon of adventure?” was what he said. Seeing as he had put it so wonderfully, how could I refuse? The HQ at 19 Aigburth Drive had begun to fall into disrepair so activities were often confined to one room or space. Jake still lived there, when I arrived, was in the garden tinkering with a motor cycle. He said “Connor, Whittaker is upstairs. He’s expecting you.”
Once more up that fantastic staircase, to the very top. I have to admit, Whittaker greeted me at the door and the acid got necked before I’d even had time to say hello. While we waited for the drugs to start working, he regaled me with a yarn about how the wondrous nature of “Cosmo’s Factory” had blown his embryonic, feeble mind upon its release in 1970, and taken his psyche apart with a spanner. Fair enough mate, you were there. As the fractal arms of flowing psychedelia began to penetrate the real world, he started on “Grapevine”. When the bass and the electric guitars had flown round the room for the thousandth time, we noticed that when they dissipated, the colours changed and when the solo started, the light would dim and reignite. Sometimes in the same second. It was on that occasion that I decided – rightly or wrongly – that Creedence’s version of “Grapevine” was the template and building blocks of everything Television did in the Seventies. Everything in that guitar solo is Tom Verlaine. I don’t know anything at all about music, as such, but I can spot a direct influence when I hear one. We played it over and over. And over. And over. Every time was a whole new world of music – never before had I heard so much in such a finite piece of music. It was one of the most revelatory moments of my entire life. I can still see and feel it now.
Tim was prone to the wise old owl bit, he wallowed in it. He knew we were just passengers on his trip, man. And we knew it too. I can’t and won’t forget those moments. Now today, I’ve been reminded that that unholy trinity is no longer with us, of course. I miss them an awful lot, not every minute of every day but sometimes I’m reminded of the jolly pirate ship we sailed on, Whittaker at the wheel and even though it was the best of times and the worst of times, those moments will shine on for an eternity and the love and happiness
they generated will keep me warm forever. They were The Crucial Three in my life. Thanks, chaps. I’ll never forget. X
bernie@happening-things.com 