Quite a buzz for a teenage state house kid, you'd think (NB: "state housing" is the Aussie/NZ equivalent of government or council housing). But Anderson was getting bored with the youth club and teen dance grind out in the Hutt Valley. Wellington might have offered some alternative excitement for Anderson, but its clubs - the Coachmen in Cuba Street, the Trades Hall and the Mexicali -remained out of reach, banned by his parents. His eyes lifted to another city, London.
Anderson wanted to check the source of the energy that was invigorating the pop scene, and aged just 16, he loaded up his green sparkly Ludwig drums and headed for Sydney, the first stop, he thought, on his way to England. In Sydney, he changed his name to Andy James and fell in with a bunch of bluesy long-hairs called the Missing Links. Anderson: "They were wild, as in head turners on the streets. Pete (Anson) and John (Jones) had the longest hair I'd ever seen. I had reasonably long hair, but these guys had shoulder-length hair. They were playing a lot of Leadbelly, and old R&B stuff I'd never heard." Anderson joined the Links after they'd released their only Parlophone single, "We 2 Could Live"/"Untrue", by which time the line-up was Ronnie Peel (bass), Dave Boyne (replaced by John Jones) (guitar), Pete Anson (guitar) and Bob Brady up front. "We used to play a wild pub opposite Darling Harbour, full of early beats," remembers Andy "I loved that place, I'd never seen anything like it. I first met Chris Gray (future Missing Link and sometime roadie) there. He was playing a guitar and harp, like Dylan."
Gray was a dope smoking rich kid with bohemian leanings, but he slotted right in with James, who was living a similar-styled life in Kings Cross, Sydney's red light district. They were all habitues of the Royal George, the beat friendly pub Anderson describes above. It was an exciting place to be as Richard Neville recalls in Hippie Hippie Shake. "One Friday I ventured in. Smoky alcoves, the juke box blasting Roy Orbison's 'Working For The Man,' paperbacks of Kafka and Camus protruding from pockets, people in black sweaters espousing free love. Then suddenly sirens, Black Marias ... the pub was surrounded by police, supposedly checking for under-age drinkers, but probably goaded by the pervasive whiff of anti-authoritarianism. A big word, much in favour at the time, for being a rebel without a cause. The 'George' was one of the few pubs a long-hair could enter without inciting an Ocker's thump, the fearsome king-hit." No doubt that last bit appealed greatly to the long-haired Missing Links.
The Missing Links hits the streets, circa May 1965. Andy James with conga.
By mid 1965, however, Sydney's R&B pioneers, the Missing Links were in disarray. The band had run its course and members were jumping ship for family and other bands. Pete Anson went on to play guitar in Jeff St John and the Id, while Ronnie Peel joined the soon-to-be NZ bound PleaZers. Potentially bad news for the outfit's newest recruits, bearded guitarist John Jones and drummer Andy James. Jones and James had other ideas and set about forming a new Missing Links. It was to be quite some second wind. Bob Brady stuck around on vocals for a short time and Chris Gray joined playing keyboards, harp and guitar. From the Showmen came wild drummer Baden Hutchens and hard-edged bass player, Ian Thomas, both of whom wanted move to a tougher sound. They were suburban boys compared to the rump trio's city bohemian origins which would prove an uneasy mix in the long run, but for now they were gearing up, and with the addition of guitarist Doug Ford, they were ready to play.
Ford, a relatively clean-cut rocker, James and Jones had run into in a local music store, was a friend of original Missing Link David Boyne, who'd recently arrived from Port Macquarie. With Hutchens on drums, Anderson moved to vocals, which he shared with Chris Gray. He also began to play around with congas, influenced by the African Drum Ensemble's
Ola Tunji and the
Drums of Passion album.
The new look Links settled into regular gigs at Susie Wong's and Beatle Village in Kings Cross, supplemented by occasional Surf City shows. The shows are as big a part of the Missing Links legend as their recordings. They were for Anderson the most important part of the band. His rafter swinging and stage dismantling exploits are the stuff of legends, as was the band's increasingly wild appearance and provocative stage wear. Anderson remembers a typical show: "We packed out Susie Wong's. We were a real joke to a lot of them, but the fans who did come down were die hard, real fired up. "We'd play 'Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut' for 30 minutes or for as long as the instruments would last. You'd have Doug Ford driving his guitar into the PA system and me with the mic in the PA system, underneath cymbals and bashing shit out of a conga drum with a mic, making ringing sounds, with John Jones feeding back for I don't know how long. We used to vanish."
James found other pleasures close at hand. He was introduced to pot at the club. The harsh realities of life as a sixties long-hair also came home. Chris Gray is rumoured to have carried a rifle to gigs for protection. Anderson can't confirm that, but yeah, they were risky times. "People were getting beaten badly around the place and some could have carried weapons, but I never did. But out at Bankstown (Sydney suburb), we only just got away. Bob Brady just booted this guy in the face after he'd leant over the stage and yelled 'yew fooken gurls' at us. We didn't think we'd make it out."
The inner city could be just as risky and conflicts with sharpies, sworn enemies of the long-hairs, were constant and violent. It all took its toll on the band as Ford recounted to Australian rock historian Dean Mittelhauser in 1989: "You were considered to be a poof and that was it. Just easy pickings for the gangs. I know it got to Andy after a while, to the extent he got very nervous and developed a nerve problem. Just from tension all the time." To the band's surprise, they quickly scored a record deal with Philips, who were beginning to venture into the Australian teenage pop market.
It took them barely a week to record their first two singles and debut album. Anderson contributed vocals to some tracks and two songs to the project. Anderson: "'Wild About You' I wrote when I was there. I planned a bigger sound for it, but it ended up sounding a bit tinny on the record. 'Speak No Evil' I wrote at the studio, and Hutch had 'You're Driving Me Insane.' He had the chords and he wanted me to sing it. He wanted John's feedback and jungly type drums." One of the album's standout tracks was the mysterious "H'tuom Tuhs," the best example, says Anderson, of the "jungle/space" sound he wanted for the band. It was in fact, "Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut" backwards. The Links had heard their original played backwards in the studio and liked it so much they insisted on including the backwards recording on the album. Philips, you'd think, would have left it at that. But the conservative label went one further. In what must be one of the weirdest pop events of the era, Philips released "H'tuom Tuhs" over two sides of the Links' third single. Why? Andy has a theory that it had something to do with trying to recreate the Links' live sound on single.
Despite the quick success of the second Missing Links, things were rocky within the band. Gray's and Anderson's dope smoking and desire to do original songs was causing divisions with the more professional Hutchens and Thomas, who wanted the band to clean up its act. Or put another way, wanted the band to alter all the things that their legend would be based on - untamed behaviour and searing, feedback-spitting originals. Like Anderson later said, chalk and cheese. The Missing Links broke up during the recording sessions.
When the band's final recording, The Links ... Unchained EP appeared, they were down to a four-piece with Anderson drumming again. Both Thomas and Hutchens returned to the Showmen. Chris Gray dropped out of sight and John Jones went overseas. He would turn up years later in Los Angeles writing and directing Amityville Horror 3. Doug Ford and Andy James, despite arguing frequently, decided to carry on, but not in Sydney, having already visited Melbourne and liked the city's thriving R&B and club scene, they upped and moved there, and formed the equally wild and respected Running Jumping Standing Still with former Pink Finks bassist Rick Dalton and drummer Ian Robinson. It was a typically impulsive move. Running Jumping Standing Still set about picking up where the Missing Links left off. Onstage, the band tore it up like few others, and in a hint of Anderson's future career as an actor, added theatrical elements to their shows. While performing their Melbourne hit single "Diddy Wah Diddy" on The Go! Show in April 1967, Anderson ended the song with an imaginary execution of the band.
Offstage, the relationship between Doug Ford and Anderson was strained, as it had been in the days of the Missing Links. Anderson's departure from the band would be swift and tragic. "We were playing the Thumpin' Tum and we were pushing it. I was getting these headaches and was singing 'River Deep, Mountain High' and ended up getting a haemorrhage and collapsing on stage with this blinding headache. I was in hospital for a month and that was the end of that."
Running Jumping Standing Still carried on without Andy recruiting Peter Newing (ex PleaZers) on vocals. When Anderson emerged from hospital he was a changed man. "After the haemorrhage I really got into the booze and drugs. I didn't know what had struck me." His first new band was the aptly named Andy James Asylum, a commercial R&B band with Doug Laverty (drums) and Alan Jones. He followed that with Mother Superior, an experimental outfit mixing R&B players with brass players.
Back in Sydney, Anderson joined the Action (ex Auckland) on drums. A stint with the Australian production of Hair followed, further whetting Anderson's appetite for the stage. Offstage, Anderson's personal decline continued. Bands such as Southern Comfort, and events and years were blurring into each other, until in 1972, Anderson was told by Kings Cross heavies to get outta town. NOW.
He did, returning home to Wellington. That's where we leave Andy Anderson. Anyone with a TV set in Australia and New Zealand will know Andy's now a popular in-demand actor. He's branching out into writing having developed a movie script and written several episodes of New Zealand drama, Marlin Bay. He's been a sober alcoholic for 18 years.
