I arrived in London with no idea what to do with my life and ended up working as “assistant technician” to a bloke called Terry at a private night club on Regent’s Street. Every night he and I squeezed into a tiny box equipped with a switchboard and worked the lights on the fancy glass floor at the Eve Night Club on Regent’s Street. Stuck at the back of the stage, I learned to time the changes to the floor lighting by the way the ladies wiggled their bums. After I had screwed up a few times, we came to a tacit understanding. Terry would work the lights solo, and I would cover for him on his ”fag breaks”.
Between shows I would join the ladies in the basement, most of them totally naked but for the gold moons covering their nipples, for endless games of cards and to exchange idle gossip. There was a distinct sense that we were going nowhere, just stuck in a waiting room of dashed hopes and lost expectations.
And then, on 21st September 1976, Tom Waits released his 4th album, ‘Small Change’. It was as though he had walked through the doors of the Eve and joined us all downstairs. His whisky flavoured voice told the story of all the misfits and losers who drift through urban landscapes by day and who trade their wares by night. OK. He was, is and always will be American, but this album contains a few monologues set to jazz and blues rhythms which evoke a bygone era of 20’s and 30’s urban angst. For me it was as if James Cagney’s street punk anti-heros had hit the streets of central London!
The record cover shows Tom Waits in detached and fatigued attitude. The distance between him and the show girl speaks volumes. He is jaded and ignoring her. She is faded and still hoping he came to the dressing room to carry her away to a life of suburban security, maybe even to a house with a white picket fence. Unfortunately, Tom Waits, like all the punters at the Eve, was no knight in shining armour. Just another low down bum, another hustler – who happened to be a troubadour. Whilst I recommend “Tom Traubert’s Blues » or « Invitation to the Blues”, it is the eponymous track, Small Change, which will echo forever in my memory.
Small change got rained on with his own thirty-eight And nobody flinched down by the arcade .. dreams ain’t broken down here now, they’re walking with a limp …
When I finally left the Eve it was with Tom Wait’s words ringing in my ears … there had been a shooting upstairs and I was the only person from downstairs the police allowed to leave the premises (the university girl who never “cased” the joint, never disappeared with punters to hotel rooms between shows … so obviously “innocent”). Up the stairs I walked, knees shaking – and carrying a hastily filled swagbag.
On the street at the back of the club an arm came across my throat and a sinister voice whispered in my ear: “You had better hand over your bag quietly if you don’t want any trouble.” So I acquiesed. The bloke tipped the contents of my bag onto the pavement. Out tumbled a worrying number of gold Dunhill lighters, leather wallets and last, but not least, a pistol. Might just as well have been a .38. We faced off. “This never happened,” he said. “Pick up your shit and walk”.
I did. And I never went back. But I still listen to the Tom Waits album and catch myself staring at the cover, wondering about that long lost world. My memories may fade but the spirit of Small Change still lives on.
Virginia Soukup
Virginia Soukup