Book Review: Hollywood Dream: The Thunderclap Newman Story by Mark Ian Wilkerson

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book in the post in exchange for my honest opinion.

My longtime friend Paul Salley, who wrote Little Wing: The Jimmy McCulloch Story told me about his friend Mark, who is writing a book about Thunderclap Newman and he kindly passed on my name to Mark to review his book and build up some hype and press for it. I love reviewing books about classic rock, especially ones about musicians I like or their side projects that I’m familiar with. So receiving this book in the mail came as a really pleasant surprise and really made my day. Authors supporting authors!

There’s also a special edition of the book available through Third Man Books, signed by the author Mark Wilkerson and Pete Townshend and it comes with a poster designed by Pete’s nephew Josh.

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If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of The Who. So much of a fan that I call myself Angie Moon in honour of Keith Moon. I also am a huge Pete Townshend fan and one of my most treasured memories is going to his book signing in Toronto with one of my friends and he winked and waved at me and my friend as he was walking to the stage.

Classic rock normies will be familiar with Pete’s incredible songwriting and concept albums for The Who, but they may not know about his side projects and how much he really enjoyed working with other musicians. One of his most treasured memories was recording and producing Thunderclap Newman’s one and only album Hollywood Dream. If you’ve watched movies like The Magic Christian or Almost Famous, you might have heard the band’s hit “Something in the Air”. That was their one and only hit.

One hit wonders are fascinating for a lot of music nerds because there’s always that question: How does a band drop only one hit single and then they never get another hit again and they fall off the face of the Earth? At what point is someone a one hit wonder? Why did they never get another hit again? Did they deserve better? Well, there’s a lot of people with similar questions and that is why Todd in the Shadows has a whole series called One Hit Wonderland. I’m a huge fan of that series. The format is basically:

1. Before the hit: the origins of the band, what they did before the big hit
2. The hit: talking about the one hit wonder itself
3. The failed follow-up: Other singles the band tried to release to capitalise on their newfound fame, but didn’t make it for one reason or another
4. Did they do anything else: Talking about the rest of the band or musician’s discography and other things the musicians did after the band’s breakup
5. Did they deserve better: Straightforward, did they really deserve one hit wonder status or were they just one trick ponies

Essentially, this book answers all of these questions and covers all that you’d expect from a One Hit Wonderland episode, but in even more detail because it’s a book. You know what they say about the book versus the film adaptation or the manga versus the anime.

I really like how the book is organised and tells the story chronologically from the roots and the precursor of Thunderclap Newman during Pete’s Ealing Art College days to the band being put together to the big hit to the rest of their work to the breakup and what had become of each band member: John “Speedy” Keen, Andy “Thunderclap” Newman, and Jimmy McCulloch. Three guys that look quite different from each other and you wouldn’t expect to be in a band together, but that’s what Pete loved about them. They’re talented, they’re outsiders, . It’s an easy to follow story, but there’s a lot of stories and details and it’s completionist in nature rather than an easy read. I think it would have been nice to have discographies for each band member in the back of the book as an appendix, but that’s just me and my preferences. The book is over 400 pages long so buckle up for this story! Also, Who fans, this book is endorsed by Pete Townshend and he wrote a really nice foreword.

Before The Hit

Part one of the book covers the before the hit and really, before the band too. There’s a chapter about Pete, Andy, Speedy, and Jimmy, each telling their backstories.

The Who’s managers in the 60s, Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, established Track Records to give the band more creative freedom, but also to sign this really incredible talented guitarist from Seattle, Jimi Hendrix who moved from New York to London after Linda Keith (Keith Richards’ girlfriend) was impressed by his guitar playing and befriended him. From there, she recommended Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham listen to him and give him a chance, but he rejected him (big mistake!). Next, she told former Animals bassist Chas Chandler about him and he was impressed and brought him to England. He loved the song “Hey Joe”. Because Jimi needed a record label in England, Lambert and Stamp moved quickly to sign him to Track Records and he became their most famous musician on their roster. His first single “Purple Haze” was the label’s first release and what a great way to establish a record label! Track also signed Arthur Brown, who was famous for his song “Fire”, not to be confused with his labelmate Jimi Hendrix’s unrelated song of the same title. Pete was put in charge of the Jazz and New Sounds department at Track Records and he would scout musicians in various clubs. This band of outsiders that Pete would put together would fit that jazz and new sounds label quite well. And they were almost called My Favourite Freaks.

How did each of them cross paths, well, the first three all met at Ealing Art College in the early 60s before The Who made it. Pete was studying graphic design and going to all sorts of lectures and performances and there were a couple that really made an impact on him: Gustav Metzger – the inventor of auto-destructive art and the inspiration behind Pete’s signature guitar bashing and Andy “Thunderclap” Newman: a very smart, well-read jazz piano player obsessed with Bix Beiderbecke. Newman worked for the GPO before becoming a musician.

Pete’s friend Speedy Keen was from the same neighbourhood as him and basically looked like a blond version of Pete, tall, slim, and with the same big nose. Speedy Keen was in a bunch of bands like Second Thoughts and The Eccentrics and even spent time in Europe playing gigs there, notably in Italy and Spain. One of his earliest compositions, “Club of Lights” was recorded by Paul Nicholas (under just his middle name Oscar) who played Cousin Kevin in the 1975 film adaptation of Tommy. Very catchy song. Speedy Keen also notably wrote the opening track “Armenia City in the Sky” from the band’s first concept album The Who Sell Out – the original title was supposed to be “I’m An Ear Sitting in the Sky” and it was inspired by a painting his ex-wife made of castles floating on clouds in the sky. As you can expect, he was tripping on acid when he wrote it. Besides writing songs, Speedy Keen worked as Pete’s driver.

Jimmy McCulloch was the youngest and tiniest in the band with him being eight years younger than Speedy Keen and 11 years younger than Andy Newman. He stood at 5’4″ while his bandmates were over 6 feet tall. He got his start in Scotland playing in beat groups like The Jaygars and One In A Million and they would open for a lot of the big 60s bands. They were especially popular with young Scottish girls. One day, he opened for The Who and Pete got an excellent first impression of the young guitar prodigy, then just 11 years old. He knew that Jimmy was going to be a star, but it would be two years until they crossed paths at the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream at Alexandra Palace. At that point, Jimmy and his family moved to London to further his musical career. After One In A Million broke up, he auditioned for Jethro Tull, but he was rejected because of his age.

The Hit: “Something in the Air”

Like I said earlier, Pete wanted to record a group of mismatched outsiders, people who aren’t ordinary and so he put together Thunderclap Newman and you’ll find that the music is not like anything you’ve ever heard with old fashioned jazz piano and kazoos for a zany sound, rock guitar enthusiasts will find many great guitar moments thanks to Jimmy McCulloch’s impressive guitar playing. The Who were at their peak at this point and were working on Tommy and touring it in America, and playing Woodstock, as we all know. Fun fact: Pete originally wanted Tommy to be a rock opera starring Arthur Brown. Pete wanted each musician to have a project, but management said that’s way too time consuming and Pete has enough on his plate, not just with The Who, but also his personal life: getting married and starting a family. With a big name behind the group, there’s a lot of potential. But it’s no guarantee of success or riches. Badfinger were signed to The Beatles’ Apple Records and they got really screwed over (screw you Stan Polley!) even though they got three top 10 hits in the US and UK. Tom Robinson’s band Cafe Society were signed to The Kinks’ label Konk Records, but that album sold only 600 copies and Ray Davies kept putting him on the back burner to work on the flops that were Preservation Acts 1 & 2. And then the two wrote diss tracks about each other.

Speedy Keen had written a song called “Something in the Air”, which was originally called “Revolution”, but since The Beatles already had a song with that title, they changed it so the two songs couldn’t be confused. That debut single was recorded at Pete Townshend’s home studio. It was hard to get Andy Newman to join the band and leave his day job behind because that GPO job was a very secure job with a pension and who would want to give that up? Keep in mind that in the music industry there are no benefits like paid holidays, sick pay, or pensions. Planning for time off, recovering from illness, and retirement is your responsibility. Also, remember that you gotta set aside money for the taxman (Speedy Keen did not and he lived reclusively to avoid the taxman as long as he could)!

Even the most successful artists don’t top the charts or even have a chart hit with their debut single, but Thunderclap Newman were one in a million and they did indeed top the charts in their native UK for three weeks in the summer of 1969 with “Something in the Air”, ousting “The Ballad of John and Yoko” from the top spot and keeping Elvis Presley’s “In The Ghetto from topping the charts. That’s quite a feat, unseating The Beatles and keeping Elvis Presley from hitting #1. It helps that it fit the mood of the time, this was the golden age of protest songs, after all. Of course all good things come to an end and The Rolling Stones took over the #1 spot by the end of July with “Honky Tonk Women”.

As we all know, the late 60s was tough competition so if you’re a band with a big hit, you gotta capitalise on it and show that you’re not a one trick pony, which leads me to the long journey to the failed follow-up.

The failed follow-ups and album: “Accidents” and Hollywood Dream

Too little, too late sums up the failed follow-up very well. The next single, “Accidents” came out nearly a year later in May of 1970. By that point, people had forgotten about Thunderclap Newman and so the name didn’t sound familiar and it couldn’t help market the single. The album version of “Accidents” is almost 10 minutes long and certainly that wasn’t going to get played on the radio, even if the guitar and piano instrumental jams and solos are really good. So to solve the length issue they released a single cut that was just under four minutes long, which cut out a lot of the good bits. Still, it didn’t solve the big problem with this single: the subject matter. Despite its cheery sound, it’s a morbid song. The lyrics talk about children dying whether it’s getting run over by a car, falling into and drowning in a river, getting hit by a train, or falling off a van. Not BBC friendly material – they’re very trigger-happy with the banhammer. The late 60s were a depressing time of political assassinations and war and people were looking to music for escapism, not to hear about kids dying, even if they’re fictional. It’s really no surprise that it didn’t make the top 40. Still, they tried again with “The Reason” and “Wild Country”, but neither had charted. It also does not help that the music isn’t mainstream or poppy in sound with that old-fashioned jazz piano.

As for the album, it actually did better in the United States as a cult hit and the band were supposed to tour the US with The Who and Marsha Hunt but then they’d broken up before that was to happen. In the UK it was a commercial flop. It wasn’t that widely reviewed – so not the best promotion, but critics generally had good things to say about the music and Pete’s production. Pete’s very proud of the album and the band members all have spoken highly of Pete. Of course we are our own harshest critics and Pete said that the album could have been tightened a bit more because multiple versions of “Hollywood” were superfluous, but then again albums with themes and song cycles were in vogue then. Still, he treasured those memories of creating the album nonetheless.

As a live band, they tried to augment and change the lineup to add other musicians, but even with those changes they were not well-received anywhere except in Scotland where there were a lot of Jimmy McCulloch fangirls, who thought that the whole band were Scottish so they’d support. One time Thunderclap Newman opened for Deep Purple (early Ian Gillan era) and the whole crowd were there for Purple and Thunderclap Newman were originally supposed to be the headliners, but they decided to go on first and they got booed and had coins thrown at them. Ouch! Pete bluntly said of their live shows that they were like a “cabaret act”.

Did they do anything else?: Post-Thunderclap Newman

Jimmy McCulloch went on to work with rock legends John Mayall, Paul McCartney, and Steve Marriott and was in a variety of other bands that he’d joined or formed like Stone The Crows, Blue, White Line, The Dukes. He was incredibly proud of the work he did with Wings and loved to sing and write songs. He wrote the music (but not the lyrics) for “Medicine Jar” and “Wino Junko”. He died in 1979 at the age of 26 in his flat in Maida Vale days before he was to tour again.

Pete Townshend gave Speedy Keen a Lincoln Continental. He also allowed Speedy Keen to stay rent free in his Wardour Street flat. While there, he exiled himself and kept writing songs and figured out his next move. He released two solo albums in the 70s: Previous Convictions and Y’Know Wot I Mean. Neither were commercial successes and for the longest time they were hard to find online, but now they’re available to stream on Spotify. One single “Someone To Love” received mixed reviews. Much like Pete Townshend repurposing Lifehouse (inspired by Andy Newman) into Who’s Next, Speedy Keen repurposed songs from a concept album called Alien 8 into Y’Know Wot I Mean. He also produced Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers 1977 album L.A.M.F. thanks to his connections to Track Records – quite a departure from his hippie-ish material! By the 80s he was essentially homeless, couchsurfing with friends before living on a houseboat on the Thames, sans record label and band, but with many regrets about his drug taking. He had written a memoir but it was never finished. He reconnected with his daughter Trish in the 80s. He died in 2002 at the age of 56.

The “square” of the band Andy Newman did not return to his GPO job, which surprised many of his friends. Instead, he continued touring as Thunderclap Newman, but without Speedy and Jimmy. Pete Townshend funded the recording of his solo album Rainbow, released in 1972 on Track Records. Not only could he play piano, but he could play a variety of woodwind instruments. Once again, Rainbow was not a hit. It’s an old fashioned, eccentric sounding album and there’s no mainstream appeal in it, but that’s what Pete liked about him. He also did a bit of session work, formed a couple of bands, and worked with Angie Bowie and Bob Flag (who played Big Brother in 1984) on Krisis Kaberet. By the late 70s he had returned to a day job as an electrician. One significant job he did was building a chandelier and rewiring Vivienne Westwood’s boutique World’s End. He was much more social than Speedy Keen, but he’d never let anyone come to his house because he was a bit of a hoarder and lived in squalor. He attended Speedy Keen’s funeral in 2002. In the late 2000s he formed a new Thunderclap Newman band and they toured for a bit, their last gig ever being at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2012. This incarnation of the band were going to record a new Thunderclap Newman album, but it never materialised. Andy Newman died in 2016 at the age of 73.

Did they deserve better?

Well, I guess that’s up to you. There were strengths like their musicianship and Pete Townshend’s production skills, but there were many weaknesses like the lack of chemistry between the band members and some bickering and fighting, the lacklustre and poorly received live shows, poor timing with the follow-up singles and LP, lots of competition, and the 20s/30s jazzy elements not being commercial. It also doesn’t help that the guitarist Jimmy McCulloch was a teenager and in those years you can be quite rebellious and with his talents he felt restricted and held back and he wanted something bigger and better. It’s like being really good at your job, but you’re stuck in a dead end environment with so much restriction. If you want to progress, you have to spread your wings and fly. Andy and Speedy were incredibly talented too.

In Conclusion:

This is a very complete book with everything you need to know about Thunderclap Newman and then some. Great for Pete Townshend fans and fans of the members of Thunderclap Newman and people who generally like outsider music and eccentric things. Speedy Keen said it well when he called Thunderclap Newman “the best worst band”.

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