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Overview
Kevin Duncan is obsessed with the rock n roll dream. Always has been. “Congratulations Mrs Duncan, it’s a lead guitarist!” But his way of pursuing it is much smarter than the usual route of ignoring your education, donning some daft clothes, and hoping to be picked up by a record label. His plan was always to make the money first, and then use it to fund the dream. Aged nine he was refusing to join the school choir and buying a guitar instead. After scenes of near-riot at the boarders’ feast where he aired his first Telecaster miming to Slade, he left to form Fixed Dice, a totally amateur bunch of hairy teenagers playing Lynyrd Skynyrd and Status Quo – loudly and badly.
His succession of obscure bands has wrought a trail of rock n roll havoc over the years, and no few anecdotes. In 1978 Radio Ferret became notorious for encouraging a fan onstage to sing with them who promptly had an epileptic fit. At the height of punk, The Disease came very close to destroying the Merchant Taylors’ old boys club when they encored with Anarchy in Moor Park. In The Polite Assassins in 1983 he was widely ridiculed at a Battle of the Bands competition for wielding a deeply unfashionable Flying V – an axe he still proudly owns to this day. And the smoke bombs detonated at the Half Moon in Putney led to the fire brigade being called out to rescue Nice n Tight and their fans.
In 1990, Q magazine described his Murder by Handshake ensemble as “relentlessly average with an urgent desire to be like every other rock band”, and suggested that their crowd-pleasing classic Living Today was “a rigorous analysis of how to launch a women’s magazine”. The talent scout at Virgin, on hearing one of their power pop songs burst into a trombone solo, dismissed them as “too quirky”.
Unperturbed, he has ploughed relentlessly on, forming dozens of bands, writing over 500 songs and religiously going to over 300 gigs in 30 years. His bands have variously supported the Stranglers, Elvis Costello, Steve Gibbons and Mungo Jerry. He has bunked off school to see the Sex Pistols, interviewed Motorhead, and been on a blues pilgrimage down the Mississippi. You name them, he’s seen them: the classic Thin Lizzy line up in 1976, blues greats Chuck Berry, BB King and Homesick James, punk grit from The Ruts and The Damned, and heavy metal stalwarts Saxon, Iron Maiden, UFO and Van Halen.
He loves it all so much that he has even kept every ticket and set list from every gig, and his house is a temple to the rock n roll gods – bristling with gear and memorabilia. Now aged 44, he still can’t help himself. He owns 25 guitars, has a recording studio in his cellar and is still releasing CDs at a prolific rate.
Businessman by day and rock god by night, he has already commissioned the world’s first rock n roll wheelchair, complete with leopard skin upholstery, built-in silver glitter Gibson SG, and a sidecar for his roadie. The story ends with the author picturing his own demise onstage at the Twilight Home for Retired Rock Stars, where he has organised one grand finale….
CHAPTERS
1. Cissy choir boy or rampaging rock star? The summer of 69
Boarding school insubordination, Alice Cooper rocks the system, and the birth of a closet rock god
2. Gone electric: Telecasters are go!
Dodgy school reports and pandemonium at the boarder’s feast
3. Conversion on the road to Hammersmith
Thin Lizzy and Lynyrd Skynyrd inspire the launch of Legend and Fixed Dice
4. Confused of Watford: punk meets Judas Priest
That famous Pistols gig and the “truly extraordinary” Radio Ferret
5. Anarchy in Moor Park
The Disease fans attempt to destroy the old boys’ social club
6. Green strides and Flying Vs
Maelstrom take Rickmansworth civic centre by storm riding the New Wave of Suburban Heavy Metal
7. The college years
The Inrage go power pop, Straight, no chaser! grace the dinner jacket era, and interviewing Lemmy
8. Goodnight Wandsworth!
The Polite Assassins, Murder by Handshake and the record company trawl
9. Odds, sods and beer bellies – the wilderness years
Marriage, kids, and eight years without playing a gig
10. Back with a whimper
A return of sorts with Section Six, Beats Working, and The Hamptons
11. A white man sings the blues
Blues pilgrimage down the Mississippi, meeting Homesick James, Chuck Berry plays Clapham, and Nice n Tight ignite Putney
12. Mustangs, minis and new millennium grown-up rock
The triumphant Return of the Guitar, Look Lively, and BB King and Bo Diddley come to town
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