If you were touring America these days and you wanted to contact your manager or, indeed, anyone back in the UK, all you need to do is switch on a laptop or tablet or smart phone and use Skype. And if not Skype exactly, you'd use Viber or exchange e-mails or instant messages. But in the early 1990s, the internet was very slow and ridiculously expensive and most people weren't online anyway. So, when Crystal wanted to contact Madeleine, our agent, to find out how things were doing she had to seek out a payphone and drop a lot of coins into the slot for a not very long and usually unsatisfactory conversation.
I don't know how or when Crystal originally got Madeleine to represent her. She was Crystal's agent long before I first heard her live and she'd also represented John River before the River Bank became famous and ascended well out of her league. I sometimes got the impression that Madeleine was working for Crystal as a favour, although she did also manage some other rather more successful bands that regularly toured Europe and the UK. None were fabulously rich or famous, but they made enough for it to be worth Madeleine's while. This roster included folk groups, a jazz band and several minor league Rock and Pop groups. The most commercially successful band was called the Seven Imps. They were a Death Metal group who'd originally come from Norway but had now settled in East London and bore a remarkable resemblance to Snow White's Seven Dwarfs as illustrated by Arthur Rackham. To be honest, she and I were never really the best of friends. I think there might have been some sexual tension between us. I considered myself to be Crystal's primary lover after Mark and I think Madeleine might once have believed that she occupied that role. Whatever the reason, she was never especially friendly towards me. Madeleine was a rather offhand manager when we returned to England and, in the absence of anyone else, it was me who became the
de facto
acting band leader.
John River and Mark both told me that Madeleine was critical in the early days of Crystal's career and it was she who persuaded Christine Giordano to adopt a stage name that was less of a mouthful and thereby become the eponymous Crystal Passion. The acoustic sound of her first album,
Triad
, was a much better fit with the singer-songwriters Madeleine managedโsuch as Mary Jane Clover, Lenny Shroud and Joannaโthan it was with the direction the music took after she teamed up with me, my sister, Jane and Jacquie. And it was through Madeleine that Crystal Passion got signed to Gospel Records.
All the same, she still doesn't get much of a mention in Polly Tarantella's biography.
"So what's Madeleine got to say?" asked Olivia.
"We've had more news coverage in the UK over the last few days than we've ever had," said Crystal.
"Good or bad?" wondered the Harlot.
"Mixed," admitted Crystal. "And none of it's about the music. There was a short article about us in the
NME
that was on our side. It was about our American tour and how we've been maligned by the right-wing press and misrepresented on television and radio. It was more about the failures of the American media than an account of the gigs we've played."
"That's something at least," said Tomiko.
"Well, it's better than the articles about us in
the Sun
,
the Daily Mail
and
the London Evening News
where we've again been called Crystal and the Passions. In fact,
the Daily Mail
even managed to spell my name with a 'K', so that I'm now Kristal as in Kristallnacht. At least they don't also accuse me of being anti-Semitic."
"What do they say?" Philippa wondered.
"That we've been scandalising all of America with our shocking stage act. That we've been appearing on stage in the nude and having live lesbian sex in front of our fans. That we're in the same tradition of scandalous and outrageous rock groups as the Sex Pistols, the Slits and Throbbing Gristle. And, what's worse, the only gig any of them report is the one at the
Purple Robe
in Detroit. There's a small photo of us in
the Sun
but it's difficult to tell what's going on because it's obscured by so many black rectangles. There's nothing about our gig at Boston. Nothing about our gig with Veronica in Newport. And there's something in
the Daily News
about me once being John River's girlfriend..."
"And is that so?" Bertha asked.
"Hardly. John is my cousin. Even I draw the line at that."
"Don't worry about all that shit," said Judy Dildo. "No one pays attention to what's printed in those rags."
Unfortunately, Judy wasn't quite right. Even in the 1990s and without the prevalence of the internet, news could still carry a long distance. Maybe it wasn't as instant as it is these days, but it was fast enough.
Later that day I was hanging around our camp site with Andrea, Tomiko and Crystal while we discussed how to capitalise on the success of our first gig and what numbers we should play at our gig on the closing night. We weren't going to be the final act. That honour was given to a local Syracuse all-woman Hard Rock band called Third Rock. We weren't even the second-to-last. That slot was taken by the Women of Babylon, a Riot Grrrl band from Brooklyn defiantly proud to be both mixed race and lesbian. That was the perfect combination at this festival which the Crystal Passion band surpassed only by virtue of us having almost three times as many women as they had. But we were looking forward to being third from last and wondering whether we should perform some other cover songs. Andrea was keen on playing Carole King's
It's Too Late
while I was arguing the merits of Alison Limerick's
Where Love Lies
.
But our discussion was interrupted by Ariel Golgotha who appeared by our tent dressed in denim shorts, hand-weave sandals and the official festival tee-shirt.