That was exactly what I’d hoped he was going to say. Truth was, I’d been waiting a long time for this moment. I’d dreamed about it. I’d fantasised about it. I’d had conversations with myself on the shitter about it. One day, I thought, people might write newspaper articles about my ad in the window of Ringway Music, saying it was the turning point in the life of John Michael Osbourne, ex-car horn tuner. ‘Tell me, Mr Osbourne,’ I’d be asked by Robin Day on the BBC, ‘when you were growing up in Aston, did you ever think that a simple advert in a music shop window would lead to you becoming the fifth member of the Beatles, and your sister Iris getting married to Paul McCartney?’ And I’d answer, ‘Never in a million years, Robin, never in a million years.’
It was a fucking awesome ad. ‘OZZY ZIG NEEDS GIG’, it said in felt-tip capital letters. Underneath I’d written, ‘Experienced front man, owns own PA system’, and then I’d put the address (14 Lodge Road) where I could be reached between six and nine on week nights. As long as I wasn’t down the pub, trying to scrounge a drink off someone. Or at the Silver Blades ice rink. Or somewhere else.
We didn’t have a telephone in those days.
Don’t ask me where the ‘Zig’ in ‘Ozzy Zig’ came from. It just popped into my head one day. After I got out of the nick, I was always dreaming up new ways to promote myself as a singer. The odds of making it might have been a million to one—even that was optimistic—but I was up for anything that could save me from the fate of Harry and his gold watch. Besides, bands like the Move, Traffic and the Moody Blues were proving that you didn’t have to be from Liverpool to be successful. People were talking about ‘Brumbeat’ being the next
‘Merseybeat’. Whatever the fuck that meant.
I ain’t gonna pretend I can remember every word of the conversation I had with the strange, velvet- trousered bloke on my doorstep that night, but it I’m pretty sure it went something like:
‘So you got a gig for me then, Terence?’
‘The lads call me Geezer.’
‘Geezer?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You taking the piss?’
‘No.’
‘As in “That smelly old geezer just shit his pants”?’
‘That’s a very funny joke for a man who goes around calling himself “Ozzy Zig”. And what’s up with that bum fluff on yer head, man? It looks like you had an accident with a lawnmower. You can’t go on stage looking like that.’
In fact, I’d shaved my head during one of my mod phases, but by then I was a rocker again, so I was trying to grow it back. I was pretty self-conscious about it, to be honest with you, so I didn’t appreciate Geezer pointing it out. I almost came back at him with a joke about his massive nose, but in the end I thought the better of it and just said, ‘So have you got a gig for me or not?’
‘You heard of Rare Breed?’
‘Course I have. You’re the ones with the strobe light and the hippy bloke with the bongos or whatever, right?’
‘That’s us. Only we just lost our singer.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘The ad said you’ve got your own PA system,’ said Geezer, getting straight to the point.
‘That’s right.’
‘You sang in any bands before?’
‘Course I fucking have.’
‘Well, the job’s yours then.’
And that was how I first met Geezer.
Or at least that’s how I remember it going down. I was an ornery little bastard in those days. You learn to be like that when you’re looking for a break. I was also getting very restless: a lot of the things that had never bothered me that much before had really started to piss me off. Like still living with my folks at 14 Lodge Road. Like still not having any dough. Like still not being in a band.
The hippy-dippy shit that was all over the radio after I got out of Winson Green was also winding me up, big time. All these polo-necked wankers from grammar schools were going out and buying songs like ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)’.
Flowers in your hair? Do me a fucking favour.
They even started playing some of that shit in the pubs around Aston. You’d be sitting there with your pint and your fags and your pickled egg, in this yellow-walled shithole of a boozer, staggering to the pisser and back every five minutes, with everyone knackered, broke and dying from asbestos poisoning or whatever toxic shit they were breathing in every day.
Then, all of a sudden, you’d hear all this hippy crap about ‘gentle people’ going to love-ins at Haight– Ashbury, whatever the fuck Haight–Ashbury was.
Who gave a dog’s arse about what people were doing in San Francisco, anyway? The only flowers anyone saw in Aston were the ones they threw in the hole after you when you croaked it at the age of fifty-three ’cos you’d worked yourself to death.
I hated those hippy-dippy songs, man.
Really hated them.
They were playing one when a fight broke out in the pub one time. I remember this bloke getting me in a headlock and trying to punch my teeth out, and all I can hear on the jukebox is this kumbaya bullshit being tapped out on a fucking glockenspiel while some knob-end with a voice like his marbles are in a vice warbles on about ‘strange vibrations’. Meanwhile, the bloke who’s trying to kill me drags me out into the street, and he’s jabbing me in the face, and I can feel my eye swelling up and blood spurting out of my nose, and I’m trying to reach around so I punch the fucker back, anything just to get him off me, and there’s a circle of blokes around us shouting, ‘FINISH IT, FINISH IT.’ Then, CRRRAAAAAASSSSSHHHHHH!
When I open my eyes I’m lying half-conscious in a pile of broken glass, big lumps of flesh torn out of my arms and legs, my jeans and jumper in shreds, people screaming, blood everywhere. Somehow, during the fight we’d both lost our balance and fallen backwards through a plate-glass shop window. The pain was unbelievable. Then I saw this severed head lying beside me and I almost crapped my pants. Luckily it was from one of the shop mannequins, not a real head. Then I heard sirens. Then everything went black.
I spent most of the night in hospital being stitched up. The glass ripped off so much skin that I lost half a tattoo, and the doctors told me the scars on my head would be there for life.
That wouldn’t be a problem though, as long as I didn’t become a baldie. On the bus back home the next day I remember humming the tune to ‘San Francisco’ and thinking, I should write my own fucking anti-hippy song. I even came up with a title: ‘Aston (Be Sure to Wear Some Glass in Your Face)’.
The funny thing is, I was never much of a fighter. Better a live coward than a dead hero, that was my motto. But for some reason I just kept getting caught up in all these scuffles during those early days. I must have looked like I was up for it, I suppose. My last big fight was in another pub, out near Digbeth. I’ve no idea how it started, but I remember glasses and ashtrays and chairs flying all over the place. I was pissed-up, so when this guy fell backwards into me, I gave him a good old shove in the other direction. But the bloke picked himself up, went bright red in the face, and said to me, ‘You didn’t want to do that, sunshine.’
‘Do what?’ I said, all innocent.
‘Don’t play that fucking game with me.’
‘How about this game then?’ I said, and tried to chin the cunt. Now that would have been a reasonable thing to do, had it not been for a couple of things: first, I fell over when I took the swing; and second, the bloke was an off-duty copper. Next thing I knew I was lying face-down with a mouthful of pub carpet and all I could hear was this voice above me going, ‘You just assaulted a police officer, you little prick. You’re nicked.’
As soon as I heard that, I jumped up and legged it. But the copper ran after me and pulled some rugby move that sent me crashing down on to the pavement. A week later I was in court with a fat lip and two black eyes. Luckily, the fine was only a couple of quid, which I could just about afford. But it made me think: Did I really want to go back to prison?
My boxing days were over after that.
