Original Punk : Max Hamilton
Max Hamilton and his identical twin brother Eddie were known to everyone on the London early punk circuit. As school boys near to the Kings Road they were just a short walk from McClaren and Westwood’s shop Sex, The Beaufort Street Market and Boy, so could be found wandering around the daytime heart of punk most days. Whilst it seemed to everyone that they were at every gig going their real allegiance was to The Lurkers. Rustling up a group of friends they followed the band all over London an beyond, so much so that the band was know for having The Fulham crew as their followers, as The Stranglers did with the Finchley Boys. The Lurkers first album was “Fulham Fallout” with a picture of The Fulham Crowd in the middle of the cover.
I have a feeling that I first meet Max at a 999 gig at the Nashville, I am guessing first half of 77. At that point we still had one big punk family and people were thirsty for knowledge so you would just walk up to another punk and start chatting…..which was Max all over, he was charming, funny and genuine in contrast to Eddie, who I liked but he was more aloof and edgy……a sort of punk James Dean. We bumped into each other a few times over the next year and chatted, who we had seen, where the next gig was etc. Then in 78 I moved to Fulham and went for a beer at my new local, The Crabtree pub, to find Max and Eddie along with about six punks playing pool, they lived round the corner.
Max and I struck up a friendship and I started going to gigs with him Eddie and a group of others who appeared on a less regular basis. I soon realised that one of the reasons Max and Eddie went to so many gigs was they could blag his way on to any guest list…..they knew everyone from the band to the management and the road crew…….
Three nights really stand out. One afternoon I was drinking at the Crabtree Max comes in and asks if I am going to the gig tonight, what gig? Stranglers are playing a secret gig at the Red Cow, a pub in Hammersmith a short walk away. So we get there to find that it was not such a secret and a few hundred people were outside. Obviously we moved straight to the front and blagged our way in. Now if the venue had a capacity of 120…….240 were there, it was a magnificent evening but it was so hot in there if you see any photos everyone looks like they have been caught in the rain.
Next up was The Lurkers at the Lyceum 1979, by this point the scene had become very tribal with troops of skinheads turning up at gigs just for a fight. So off we all go up west, walking into the auditorium and there is a bad vibe about the place. Support is two mod bands, Back to Zero and the under rated Chords. As you might expect the audience consisted of punks, mods plus a few hundred unwanted National Front skins. Fighting at a low level ensued during the support sets. It was quite obvious to all that the security was well out of their depth. The Lurkers came on to great acclaim this was a 2,000 venue and they were headlining…………then suddenly all hell broke lose, every skin in the place picked up a chair, bottle etc and launched into the crowd. We were near the front so had to battle our way towards the exit as everyone jammed to get out. The bouncers just panicked and were standing at the sides with what looked like truncheons striking people as they went past. Bloke in front of us got a crack and staggered out with blood pouring from his head. As Max and I got to the front door a bouncer was just screaming “get out, get out” and swung what looked like a metal pipe at Max’s head…….he ducked and we ran down the Strand as multiple Police van’s full of SPG arrived.
Final storey is similar…….Siouxsie and the Banshees gig at the Rainbow, again in 79. Support were the Human League who I had seen a few times and their electronic music with slide show was going down a treat with the arty set. Anyway great show….usual bad atmosphere of the era, quite a few skins in the venue but no major trouble. gets to 10.45 and we all walk out to find the streets full of north London skins, mainly around the tube entrance so anyone going there was getting a kicking. This lead to a stand off which lasted a while, we chatted about what to do when Max spotted the Eailing Skins……..”I know them let’s catch the tube with them” (the benefit of knowing everyone!) so our little group walked up to about 40 skins who had been at the gig…….it wasn’t a warm welcome when Max greeted them but we sort of integrated with them and managed to get into the station with out much hassle. Get on the train and it’s busy when it gets to Finsbury and then suddenly The Rainbow crowd descend, now the train is rammed. At which point to skin to my right shouts “it’s too bright in here, switch the light off” and the skin rammed up against me punches the florescent light…..glass everywhere and some sort of powder….couple of girls start screaming…..he’s holding his hand in the air laughing as blood is dripping on all around. Next thing we know someone else is complaining it’s too hot in the train so as we are going along at high speed a group of skins prise open the double door….more panic inside. The crowd had thinned out by the time we got to Gloucester road when the doors opened a very large skin asked a middle aged traveller sitting near me if this was his stop …….”no I am going to Uxbridge”……..not the consensus of his new friend who picked him up by his jacket and shoved him out of the train just as the doors shut living a very bewildered commuter looking at us as the train departed.
Very happy days. during this time Max always used to say he wanted to join the army, he had joined the TA in Hammersmith so he was obviously serious about it. I moved to the Oval and the scene we had joined had evolved into different directions. Mr Hamilton did achieve his ambition and served with the Green Jackets which became The Rifles.
While he was doing this I joined Department S and no one was as surprised as me when Vaughn Toulouse came up with GOING LEFT RIGHT as the follow up to IS VIC THERE. The song is about Max joining the army….it also has his picture on the front cover, on joining I had no idea they knew each other…..but everyone knew Max, and everyone knew Vaughn.
Following on from the Army Max carried on serving, this time with the Ambulance team as a first responder for over 30 years. Over the years we did manage to catch up a few times, I remember having coffee with him at Arding & Hobbs when he said it had been a tough week, he went to a call about a bloke his age, around 50 at the time, he had had a heart attack and had died as Max worked on him…….it made me think how lucky we are to have people like him who move forward into situations whilst most of us run away. He also mentioned he designed the 999 ticket logo, I had no idea.
Anyway the point to this is Max Hamilton left us this week at far too young an age. He will be missed and remembered fondly……..from my point of view it was a privilege to have had Max as a friend…….