By . Mark Ellen . There were three main bands at Oxford in 1974. There was Bluebird, who were studious types, and two vaguely political units known as Flying Wedge and Frothy Green Stools. Attend any Left-leaning party or banner-filled occupation of a university building and it would be announced that the Wedge or the Stools were about to entertain. All of them had a few numbers they’d written themselves, so I had a crack at this caper and discovered it was harder than I’d imagined. In a fortnight my song catalogue had only three entries — a weak, twinkly thing called The Invisible Girl, a challenging rant called Sombrero Fallout and a fey and ineffectual dirge called I’m Flying (And You Are The Sky). Rockin' politico: Tony Blair (left) and his friend Alan Collenette outside the Vineyard in Richmond in 1972. Mr Blair is showiong his bohemian side by eschewing shoes . For one sparkling moment I thought they were classics and saw myself performing them in a halo of soft lighting, but when I tried one out on the Chilswell Road commune they suggested I stick to the bass. But the best possible thing happened: an old school friend called Adam dropped by to say he’d formed a band that wanted to play covers and they hadn’t got a bass guitarist. He had a beard and a mop of blond, shaggy hair and something shy and shrugging about him. ‘What are you called?’ I wondered. ‘Ugly Rumours,’ he shrugged. ‘Why?’ ‘Because . . .’ and he gave me a quizzical look as if my knowledge of rock’s outer reaches fell shamefully short of the mark ‘. . . because if you hold the cover of the Grateful Dead’s From The Mars Hotel album upside-down in a mirror, the shapes in the stars spell the words “Ugly Rumors”. So we’re Ugly Rumors,’ he shrugged, ‘but in English.’ Loose band rehearsals took place in somebody’s flat. Adam played rhythm guitar and brought some Harp lager. Jim played the drums and had a fur coat and a chipped front tooth and never surfaced till ‘Cool O’clock’. Al was the frontman, a proper lead guitarist with a knotted scarf, studded biker jacket and a flailing curtain of hennaed hair. He lived in Alma Place, off Cowley Road, which he referred to as Astral Space. They never lose it: Tony Blair plays the guitar with pupil Andrew Cragg (right), 15, on saxophone on a visit to Hartlepool . We all had Cuban-heeled cowboy boots and spent a rackety afternoon trying to master Long Train Running by Californian weed-enthusiasts the Doobie Brothers and Live With Me by the Rolling Stones. Within a month we’d cobbled together a set and played a couple of parties but nobody fancied singing. We took it in turns but this demanding activity interfered with the main point of being in any group which was posing expansively, waving at girls and wedging lighted ciggies under the top of your guitar strings like Keith Richards. Ugly Rumours needed someone out front. My friend Anji had an old mate at St John’s College called Tony Blair, who’d managed a band and appeared in revue shows, so we asked him to audition. ‘Audition’ was pitching it a bit high and the moment he arrived, wearing the same boots as we had, he’d effectively got the job. He had a folk-rock look — long hair with a fringe — and was keen, organised, quite posh, very funny and started a lot of sentences with the word ‘guys’. We’d sent him the set-list so he’d been up half the night with his ear pressed to a speaker transcribing the words and breezed in waving sheaves of handwritten lyrics. ‘Guys,’ he said, ‘great selection! Where’s the name from, Ugly Rumours?’ Docked four points: imagine not knowing that. There was some tutting and Adam had to fill him in. ‘Any chance of doing I Don’t Want To Talk About It by Crazy Horse?’ Tony wondered. This was impressive: only the most insanely confident singer of a college rock band would dare suggest a ballad, let alone an obscure one. The audition got under way, two acoustic guitars, an unamplified bass, an upturned wastepaper basket and Tony emoting into a microphone that wasn’t plugged in. He sang in high, fruity tones with the odd Jagger move thrown in. We signed him up and charged off to The Bear pub in Alfred Street to drink to our glorious future. The five-piece Ugly Rumours began appearing on the party circuit, Al perfecting his gale-force solos and Tony adopting a courageous hoop-necked top that revealed several square inches of bare torso. The only tensions were the do-you-tuck-your-flares-into-your-cowboy-boots debates seconds before showtime, and the irritating sight of pretty girls gathered round the central mike-stand. ‘Guys, guys.’ Tony called us together after one show. ‘We’re OK and everything but we could be so much better if we rehearsed!’ His level of enthusiasm was high even by my standards, and this was exceptionally keen. We played at a ball organised for the satirical Strumpet student magazine. Nobody threw anything, radical folk in suede shoes and military jackets clapped quite loudly and this whole ball business clearly got to Tony. ‘Listen, guys, you know these college balls that are 20 guineas a pop and have funfairs and slightly second-rate groups like Caravan, right? Why don’t we do an alternative one? Pints of beer, quid to get in, Ugly Rumours top of the bill?’ The Corpus Christi Alternative College Ball was held on a cloudless June evening. Anji (Hunter who went on to become Blair’s office ‘gatekeeper’ in Downing Street) wore a billowy blue frock and a felt hat. Blair's gatekeeper: Anji Hunter. She had an old mate at St John¿s College called Tony Blair, who¿d managed a band and appeared in revue shows, so he was asked him to audition . The ticket included three bands, tins of lager, wine from bottles with plastic stoppers and saucers of Twiglets and Smarties. In an attempt to be ‘far out’ we’d booked a string quartet to open the show — long-haired girls in flowing dresses — then a trad jazz band of old duffers in their 40s wearing straw hats and striped blazers. The idea was you could watch this cheesy, toe-tapping fare from the terrace while gearing up for the white heat of Ugly Rumours. The crowd thought differently. Two minutes’ exposure to these brass-edged stompers and they were hurling themselves about in riotous abandon, blokes in Indian shirts jiving uncontrollably and girls cantering down the little paths among the flower-beds. They were going to be a hard act to follow. Musical mates: Tony Blair and Boomtown Rats lead singer Bob Geldof . My heart was pounding as we stood and watched. I looked at the five of us, a great heap of split-ends and fag ash in our skinny T-shirts and giant trousers. Apart from Jim, we all had bare feet. We padded out nervously into the setting sun, squashing burning Marlboros into our guitar necks and placing bottles of warm Blue Nun on the top of our amps. The cowbell started up for Honky Tonk Women. We cranked up the riff and gave Tony the nod and he burst from behind a hedge doing his now fairly polished Jagger impression — low-slung flares, bare midriff, one hand on a hip, the other wagging a cautionary finger, elbows flapping like a chicken. A couple of camp handclaps above his head and he pulled the microphone from its stand.‘Well awwwrright Corpus Christi Alternative College Ball, how are ya?’ They were fine, thanks, but a bit danced-out by the jazz band. ‘Are you ready for some rock ’n’ roll?’ Possibly, but they had to get their breath back first. And that beer wasn’t going to drink itself. We gave it our best shot but the moment had passed. No matter how much Al threw his hair about, or Tony said ‘Awwwrright!’, or Jim whacked his cowbell while looking cool and distant, or Adam grinned bashfully and stamped on his effects pedals, we couldn’t fill the lawn like the boater-sporting jazzers. Tony knew it, too, and made an announcement I don’t remember discussing in the pre-gig huddle.‘Guys, we’re going to try something different, OK?’ The crowd lowered their lager cans. ‘We’re going to bring on the string quartet for a jam . . .’ Scattered applause. ‘. . . and let’s have a big hand for our brilliant jazz band, too. Come on back up, guys!’ Mass jubilant shrieks of delight. What the hell was this? In the interests of creating an ‘alternative happening’, we were now lumbered with six pensionable goons in cricket blazers who were far better musicians than we were. It’s after events like that, in the long sleepless hours of dawn, that even the most deluded would-be rock god in a college covers act tends to take a long, hard look at himself and ask some tough but quite reasonable questions. Such as this: if I was the least talented member of the fourth- best covers group at a university, how was I ever going to make it as a musician? Whatever uncertain paths lay ahead of the five of us, they wouldn’t involve being in rock bands.
The real truth behind Ugly Rumours, Blair's university band .
Invited to audition by Anji Hunter, who later worked for him at No 10 .
Wanted to sing a ballad and an obscure one at that .
Extracted from Rock Stars Stole My Life! A Big Bad Love Affair With Music by Mark Ellen, to be published by Hodder & Stoughton on May 8 at £18.99. © Mark Ellen 2014. To order a copy for £16.99 (P&P incl) call 0844 472 4157. rockstarsstolemylife.com.
By . Mark Ellen . There were three main bands at Oxford in 1974. There was Bluebird, who were studious types, and two vaguely political units known as Flying Wedge and Frothy Green Stools. Attend any Left-leaning party or banner-filled occupation of a university building and it would be announced that the Wedge or the Stools were about to entertain. All of them had a few numbers they’d written themselves, so I had a crack at this caper and discovered it was harder than I’d imagined. In a fortnight my song catalogue had only three entries — a weak, twinkly thing called The Invisible Girl, a challenging rant called Sombrero Fallout and a fey and ineffectual dirge called I’m Flying (And You Are The Sky). Rockin' politico: Tony Blair (left) and his friend Alan Collenette outside the Vineyard in Richmond in 1972. Mr Blair is showiong his bohemian side by eschewing shoes . For one sparkling moment I thought they were classics and saw myself performing them in a halo of soft lighting, but when I tried one out on the Chilswell Road commune they suggested I stick to the bass. But the best possible thing happened: an old school friend called Adam dropped by to say he’d formed a band that wanted to play covers and they hadn’t got a bass guitarist. He had a beard and a mop of blond, shaggy hair and something shy and shrugging about him. ‘What are you called?’ I wondered. ‘Ugly Rumours,’ he shrugged. ‘Why?’ ‘Because . . .’ and he gave me a quizzical look as if my knowledge of rock’s outer reaches fell shamefully short of the mark ‘. . . because if you hold the cover of the Grateful Dead’s From The Mars Hotel album upside-down in a mirror, the shapes in the stars spell the words “Ugly Rumors”. So we’re Ugly Rumors,’ he shrugged, ‘but in English.’ Loose band rehearsals took place in somebody’s flat. Adam played rhythm guitar and brought some Harp lager. Jim played the drums and had a fur coat and a chipped front tooth and never surfaced till ‘Cool O’clock’. Al was the frontman, a proper lead guitarist with a knotted scarf, studded biker jacket and a flailing curtain of hennaed hair. He lived in Alma Place, off Cowley Road, which he referred to as Astral Space. They never lose it: Tony Blair plays the guitar with pupil Andrew Cragg (right), 15, on saxophone on a visit to Hartlepool . We all had Cuban-heeled cowboy boots and spent a rackety afternoon trying to master Long Train Running by Californian weed-enthusiasts the Doobie Brothers and Live With Me by the Rolling Stones. Within a month we’d cobbled together a set and played a couple of parties but nobody fancied singing. We took it in turns but this demanding activity interfered with the main point of being in any group which was posing expansively, waving at girls and wedging lighted ciggies under the top of your guitar strings like Keith Richards. Ugly Rumours needed someone out front. My friend Anji had an old mate at St John’s College called Tony Blair, who’d managed a band and appeared in revue shows, so we asked him to audition. ‘Audition’ was pitching it a bit high and the moment he arrived, wearing the same boots as we had, he’d effectively got the job. He had a folk-rock look — long hair with a fringe — and was keen, organised, quite posh, very funny and started a lot of sentences with the word ‘guys’. We’d sent him the set-list so he’d been up half the night with his ear pressed to a speaker transcribing the words and breezed in waving sheaves of handwritten lyrics. ‘Guys,’ he said, ‘great selection! Where’s the name from, Ugly Rumours?’ Docked four points: imagine not knowing that. There was some tutting and Adam had to fill him in. ‘Any chance of doing I Don’t Want To Talk About It by Crazy Horse?’ Tony wondered. This was impressive: only the most insanely confident singer of a college rock band would dare suggest a ballad, let alone an obscure one. The audition got under way, two acoustic guitars, an unamplified bass, an upturned wastepaper basket and Tony emoting into a microphone that wasn’t plugged in. He sang in high, fruity tones with the odd Jagger move thrown in. We signed him up and charged off to The Bear pub in Alfred Street to drink to our glorious future. The five-piece Ugly Rumours began appearing on the party circuit, Al perfecting his gale-force solos and Tony adopting a courageous hoop-necked top that revealed several square inches of bare torso. The only tensions were the do-you-tuck-your-flares-into-your-cowboy-boots debates seconds before showtime, and the irritating sight of pretty girls gathered round the central mike-stand. ‘Guys, guys.’ Tony called us together after one show. ‘We’re OK and everything but we could be so much better if we rehearsed!’ His level of enthusiasm was high even by my standards, and this was exceptionally keen. We played at a ball organised for the satirical Strumpet student magazine. Nobody threw anything, radical folk in suede shoes and military jackets clapped quite loudly and this whole ball business clearly got to Tony. ‘Listen, guys, you know these college balls that are 20 guineas a pop and have funfairs and slightly second-rate groups like Caravan, right? Why don’t we do an alternative one? Pints of beer, quid to get in, Ugly Rumours top of the bill?’ The Corpus Christi Alternative College Ball was held on a cloudless June evening. Anji (Hunter who went on to become Blair’s office ‘gatekeeper’ in Downing Street) wore a billowy blue frock and a felt hat. Blair's gatekeeper: Anji Hunter. She had an old mate at St John¿s College called Tony Blair, who¿d managed a band and appeared in revue shows, so he was asked him to audition . The ticket included three bands, tins of lager, wine from bottles with plastic stoppers and saucers of Twiglets and Smarties. In an attempt to be ‘far out’ we’d booked a string quartet to open the show — long-haired girls in flowing dresses — then a trad jazz band of old duffers in their 40s wearing straw hats and striped blazers. The idea was you could watch this cheesy, toe-tapping fare from the terrace while gearing up for the white heat of Ugly Rumours. The crowd thought differently. Two minutes’ exposure to these brass-edged stompers and they were hurling themselves about in riotous abandon, blokes in Indian shirts jiving uncontrollably and girls cantering down the little paths among the flower-beds. They were going to be a hard act to follow. Musical mates: Tony Blair and Boomtown Rats lead singer Bob Geldof . My heart was pounding as we stood and watched. I looked at the five of us, a great heap of split-ends and fag ash in our skinny T-shirts and giant trousers. Apart from Jim, we all had bare feet. We padded out nervously into the setting sun, squashing burning Marlboros into our guitar necks and placing bottles of warm Blue Nun on the top of our amps. The cowbell started up for Honky Tonk Women. We cranked up the riff and gave Tony the nod and he burst from behind a hedge doing his now fairly polished Jagger impression — low-slung flares, bare midriff, one hand on a hip, the other wagging a cautionary finger, elbows flapping like a chicken. A couple of camp handclaps above his head and he pulled the microphone from its stand.‘Well awwwrright Corpus Christi Alternative College Ball, how are ya?’ They were fine, thanks, but a bit danced-out by the jazz band. ‘Are you ready for some rock ’n’ roll?’ Possibly, but they had to get their breath back first. And that beer wasn’t going to drink itself. We gave it our best shot but the moment had passed. No matter how much Al threw his hair about, or Tony said ‘Awwwrright!’, or Jim whacked his cowbell while looking cool and distant, or Adam grinned bashfully and stamped on his effects pedals, we couldn’t fill the lawn like the boater-sporting jazzers. Tony knew it, too, and made an announcement I don’t remember discussing in the pre-gig huddle.‘Guys, we’re going to try something different, OK?’ The crowd lowered their lager cans. ‘We’re going to bring on the string quartet for a jam . . .’ Scattered applause. ‘. . . and let’s have a big hand for our brilliant jazz band, too. Come on back up, guys!’ Mass jubilant shrieks of delight. What the hell was this? In the interests of creating an ‘alternative happening’, we were now lumbered with six pensionable goons in cricket blazers who were far better musicians than we were. It’s after events like that, in the long sleepless hours of dawn, that even the most deluded would-be rock god in a college covers act tends to take a long, hard look at himself and ask some tough but quite reasonable questions. Such as this: if I was the least talented member of the fourth- best covers group at a university, how was I ever going to make it as a musician? Whatever uncertain paths lay ahead of the five of us, they wouldn’t involve being in rock bands.
By . Mark Ellen . There were three main bands at be announced that the Wedge or the Stools were and Live With Me by the Rolling Stones. Within a selection! Where’s the name from, Ugly Rumours?’ a ballad, let alone an obscure one. The audition June evening. Anji (Hunter who went on to become was asked him to audition . The ticket included