Away from the Numbers

The "Cooler, Older Brother" syndrome is synonymous with Rock music. If you don't have an older brother, like me, then you usually tend to adopt one. In my case, it was Wayne Waterson, or Wayne R.W. as he liked to be known back then. He was the older brother of my Sister's boyfriend, at the time, and, for a for about a year, maybe almost two, he became my introduction into the world of Music. Even though my Sister's little romantic liaison with Watersen Junior bit the dust, I remained friends with Wayne. He was, as is the requirement, Cool. He was a Mod, he was in a Mod band called The Numbers, played a Hofner Violin guitar (the six string, not the McCartney Bass version), worked for Polydor Records, had a fantastic record collection and wore the actual Stripey Blazer worn by Phil Daniels, in the film Quadrophenia., that he had bought when they sold off all the wardrobe for the film. As I said, he was, Cool. I must have been about 14 years old when I first met him, the Mod revival had just started and the whole smart, clean lined aesthetic just clicked with me. Wayne was probably about 8-10 years older than me and was living the life that I wanted, he had the top floor flat in a tower block across the way from me in Hoxton and it had one of the best views across the city of London that I had ever seen - "Life from a Window", if you will.

Watching his band rehearse, at the local youth centre, I would soon start to have dreams of putting together my own band. Having already begun to learn to play the guitar, just prior to meeting him, he encouraged me to write songs and became almost Mentor-like. His band,The Numbers, played a mix of originals and '60's cover versions, but, cool ''60's songs like The Creation's "Makin' Time" and "She' got Everything", a Kinks 'B' side. A 'B' side? The "Honey to the Bee" attraction of the much lamented, 'B' side is another subject entirely, so I will save that for another post. They even played a TV advert - The 'J' Cloth song - "Washing up, Pots and Pans, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, 'J' Cloth , Cloth" - you couldn't get more Pop/Art if you tried! Along with Wayne's Rhythm Guitar, Gary's Lead Guitar and Vocals, Ian's (Hofner) Bass and Danny "Spanner" on Keith Moon-esque Drums, their originals were 100% Mod. "Lies" (complete with it's backwards guitar), and "Away from the Jam", written in response to The Jam's own "Away from the Numbers", with it's sublime chorus of "I don't wanna be away from Jam, gotta get home as fast as I can" - they were my "Teenage Fanclub" before "Teenage Fanclub" were even a twinkle in the their Scottish, Power-Pop legend producing, parents eyes. Put simply, for a 14 year old boy, they were a complete Headfuck .

I lost touch with Wayne around the time of my first band, The Pleasures, in 1982, but, seem to remember giving him a copy of my first very demo tape. I never heard from or saw him again, apart from an article in the Hackney Gazette about a short film he had made, about a Gorilla, I seem to recall? Then a few years back, I was watching that truly awful surfing film "Blue Juice" set in Cornwall, featuring a pre-Michael Douglas shagging, Catherine Zeta Jones and Sean Pertwee. There was a club scene in it, a Mod-like Disco and, there, throwing some distinctly cool, Mod shapes in the shadows was my old mentor, Wayne R.W. Coming from Hoxton in the '70's, this was tantamount to getting an Oscar!

Via the mighty/evil Facebook, and namely Danny "Spanner", I chanced upon a recent picture of Wayne and Danny together in London and, although the years had rolled, they had both retained their Mod sensibility and, still, looked as "Cool as Fuck".