James Bond and the Kingston Gas Board ...
Adrian Boot, music photographer extraordinaire, came to the club telling us tales of Jamaica, of dressing room rows, of photo shoots with The Clash on the Falls Road, of photographing Live Aid, Nelson Mandela and trying to get one of Van Morrison smiling.
He told us of a week in the desert ... a week when the Grateful Dead blew the money for their European tour! They blew it on spectacle and enough mind altering substance that they were convinced that mid concert, the crowd could levitate the Great Pyramid in Cheops, during the lunar eclipse, with the power of positive energy ... on leaving the after party, Adrian commiserated with Jerry Garcia on failing to get the pyramid to float ... his reply ... you just weren't paying attention ... but we were ... we were paying attention when he told us about studying the Zone System in Carmel under the auspices of Ansel Adams ... we were paying attention when he told us about the Fleet St editors who said content was more important than quality ... rather a blurry photo of Debbie Harry stumbling out of a taxi at a nightclub, than no photo at all.
We were paying attention as he regaled us with tales of gun battles by the pool that were terminated by the outraged Maitra de who stepped in to give the gunmen a good ticking off.
He told us about dodgy elections, Cuba, the CIA and the KGB.
There was toast, caviar and Soviet champagne whilst touring Moscow with Billy Bragg and Annie Lenox. Constantly shadowed by invariably short men in tracksuit bottoms with a few stripes down the leg ... the informal disguise of the same men listening in through the fake smoke detectors in the hotel rooms. Men that became known as the Kingston Gas Board as that way, you could talk more freely about the stooges from the KGB.
He showed us images of the house staff that attended Ian Fleming at the Jamaican villa where he wrote the Bond novels, but they weren't just servants to Adrian ... he rattled off all their names ... that humanity that Adrian possesses shines through in some of the moments he catches. The villa, Golden Eye, was later acquired by Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, a man who gave Adrian one of his early breaks.
There was talk of Billie Eilish, Bond and Blackwell, there was intrigue ... and at one point, Adrian paused and said "I'm not a spy" ... well, he would say that; wouldn't he? And he was good friends with Bob Marley, and Bob was quite fond of a tracksuit with a couple of stripes on it ...
Our next speaker is back at the Town Hall as usual ...
