“Leave You Behind” taken from the 10″ ‘Janice Long session 11/11/86’ (Precious PRE 043) July 2024

Jesse Garon & the Desperadoes | Leave You Behind | (Janice Long session) 1986 | “Hey Janice, I can do this . . . “

They pulled the old place down on Caversham Road in Reading, years ago. Back then, the place had rung to the rhythm of American GIs dancing to Glenn Miller and those original Modernists soft-shoe shuffling to the R’n’B of The Who.

Today, another soulless apartment block. The roar of traffic drowns out the intercom buzz of a different gig economy as delivery drivers pitch up, dropping off even more new things in cartons.

Arcing back in time to October 1986, and the Majestic Ballroom is hosting the first night of the Shop Assistants‘ three-week British tour. Backstage, an excited Desperadoes, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, are anxious, both with first-night nerves and the thought of their missing two guitarists.

Kevin and Stuart have stayed up in Edinburgh due to work and college commitments. They are going to be splitting the rest of the tour, turn and turn-about, with Michael Kerr, erstwhile Meat Whiplash drummer, filling in on the other guitar. For this night, however, both are absent with David from the Shoppies standing in.

Ten minutes before curtains an unflustered David is coached in the alleged intricacies of the Desperadoes’ set (eight songs in 25 minutes, four chords in ever-decreasing circles) amidst a cramped backstage dressing room, swirling with a joyous gang of good companions and a splash of rock’n’roll royalty, Douglas Hart of the Mary Chain and equally glamorous friend, bedecked in 60s leathers.

The next day and the Desperadoes skedaddle over to Maida Vale in the hotwired Shoppies tour van to reunite with their absent guitarists for a Janice Long session at Maida Vale.

Jesse Garon & the Desperadoes | Leave You Behind | (Janice Long session) 1986

Leafy, urbane and spacious, the BBC studios are a world apart from any studio the band have been in before. This unworldliness is heightened in the canteen where the band purloin as many BBC-branded polystyrene cups as possible, queueing starstruck behind a delightfully diffident Michael York, the hero of Logan’s Run, and Richard Vernon, ‘pompous man on train’ in A Hard Day’s Night.

Difficulties arise as the band have invited the still disarmingly beleathered Douglas Hart in to produce the session and recreate that East Kilbride wall of sound. The BBC staff are having none of this; the BBC producer is ‘the producer’.

A sullen stand-off ensues, not helped by the sound engineer castigating the bemused Desperadoes for their instruments being out of tune — the intonations are seemingly all wrong.

Scottish accents rise and broaden perceptibly until an agreement is reached that Mr Hart can ‘advise’ from behind the desk.

Four songs are bashed out in the time that remains, tracks previously unrecorded, for who knows when the band may get back in the studio again.

Douglas performs his magic and the earth sighs heavily during “Hank Williams is Dead”.

Brian Cant

And the joke is added.

Two days prior, in the back of the van burling down the A1, tumbling atop drum cases and AC30s, delirious on Happy Eater food and fizzy pop, the joke is dissected and decided upon — the previous iteration and Walt Disnae’ dumped.

Weeks later a nation, and band, will cringe to a mass choir of . . . ” . . . and Brian Cant!” (Charlie Endell)

Line-up:

Fran Schoppler (vocals)
Kevin McMahon (guitar)
Andrew Tully (guitar)
Angus McPake (bass)
Stuart Clarke (guitar)
Margarita Vazquez Ponte (drums)

Other details