The members and guests of the Pattaya City Expats Club were entertained by one of the forerunners of the punk rock scene in the 60’s. Darryl Read is a poet, singer, guitarist, drummer, song writer, actor, and book author. Master of Ceremonies Harry “Sig” Sigworth, introduced Darryl at the Sunday, August 7 meeting in the Amari’s Tavern by the Sea Restaurant. Darryl, a native of the UK, has performed in his native country, the USA, Germany, and other countries.
Darryl started by singing a few songs – Vince Taylor’s Brand New Cadillac; a song Darryl co-wrote with Jim Avery – On the Streets Tonight; and another song Darryl wrote – Down to Marseille. He then described some of his career and the people he worked with over the years. He said he first got into acting as a child and this progressed on to music. He spent much of his career alternating between music and acting. He also found a talent for poetry and, although he couldn’t read until later in life, he is proud that he has overcome this problem and has written his autobiography and is now working on a second book.
Darryl Read is a poet, singer, guitarist, drummer, song writer, actor, and book author, and was one of the forerunners of the punk rock scene in the 60’s.
As a child actor, he won a Silver Lion medal award at the Venice Film Festival for his role in1964’s Daylight Robbery. He explained how he got into the punk rock scene and mentioned his first band, Crushed Butler, and other groups he worked with as well as doing a number of solo albums. He described and provided background information on his collaboration in recording with such musicians as Bill Legend, Mickey Finn, and Ray Manzarek. In addition to Daylight Robbery, he wrote a screenplay with Bernard White for the feature film Remember a Day, and starred as Roger Bannerman, a character based on Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett. He acted on stage in two rock-based plays. In Let the Good Stones Roll, which debuted at the Edinburgh Festival, he played Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. He was featured in Bastard Angel, a play inspired by the band The Kinks. Darryl has also worked in many television productions as an actor. He published a book of poems called Set in 1999, and in 2004 the autobiography, which Darryl said was more like a novel, entitled Stardom Road.
Membership director Judith gives us an update on memberships, and the procedure for guests & visitors to become members of PCEC. MC Sig Sigworth looks on.
Darryl mentioned his first trip to Thailand was about 11 years ago. He said he enjoyed his stay and later even wrote a song entitled Walking Street. He visited off and on after that. He has now come back to Thailand because it a great place to relax and to write his new book. His recent album All The Ghosts of Rock ‘n’ Roll, was released on September 19, 2010 and on May 17 this year he released a new single called Money Number One which was recorded in Thailand. He said that he was in Pattaya’s Canterbury Tales book shop where he saw a book by that name and thought it would be a great title for a song. He said his lyrics had nothing to do with the book or its topic. Darryl concluded with a couple of more songs, one being Mark Bolan’s Twentieth Century Boy, and the other, a Door’s song Roadhouse Blues. You can read much more of his fascinating life by going to the Wikipedia website at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darryl_Read.
Proving that ‘old rockers never die’, Darryl cranks out a few classics that most in the audience recalled fondly from their youth.
After Darryl answered several questions from the audience, Sig brought everyone up to date on upcoming events and called on Roy Albiston to conduct the always informative and sometime humorous Open Forum where questions are asked and answered about Expat living in Thailand, recommendations for restaurants and movies are made, an and perhaps a joke or two are told.
