Screaming Lord Sutch & The Playboys: September 1960 - March 1961

In the Autumn of 1960, Tom Littlewood decided to put Screaming Lord Sutch on the road - on his “2i's package show”- along with Vince Taylor, Keith Kelly, Lance Fortune and Paul Raven (later known as "Gary Glitter" in the 1970's), backed by the Playboys instead of The Savages because he wanted to save on cost. Dave Sutch described the group’ style at that time as “Rock’n’Roll, Wild and Frantic”. During this tour of Devon and Cornwall, Playboys' pianist Alan Le Claire used to drive the old van of his lordship as the latter had no driving licence. At the time Sutch slept in the back of the van to save on expences. Le Claire remembers Sutch's stage show as a visual performance of organised insanity without musical value...

The Playboys kept backing Screaming Lord Sutch until early 1961 when Vince Taylor eventually returned to Britain and then The Flee-rekkers, whose drummer was Micky Waller, would taken over from them on The "1961 All Stars" package tour headlined by American Rock star Gene Vincent.

During The "1961 All Stars" that started in Bedford on February 15 1961, Screaming Lord Sutch was billed as “the new non-recording star” but arrived late, in a horsebox he was living in - sleeping on straw in the back. "When he went on stage, he threw everything into his first song. Unbeknown to him the orchestra pit was covered up with tarpaulin and he jumped straight on it. He carried on singing but all you could see was his big buffalo horns sticking up" as Jess Conrad remembers.

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