For my old friend, David Cairns, RIP

This text was written by Graham Maby on 23 January 2020, the day that David Cairns' death was confirmed.

The news this week from England was upsetting and sad, but hardly surprising. Dave Cairns' body was found not far from where he was last seen, on October 26, 2019, almost three months ago. What is most shocking is that he wasn't found sooner, despite search parties and other efforts by the local police. His family, though devastated, can now at least exhale, but the sad fact remains that Dave has left us.

My first encounter with Dave was at OPCS, in Titchfield, Hampshire, in 1971. I had just dropped out of college and was hired by OPCS (Office of Public Censuses and Surveys) along with a horde of other young people to process the results of the 1970 national census. There was a warm and congenial atmosphere in the buildings that housed us, and Dave was one of several people with whom I would discuss music, and as it turned out was a musician too. Dave and I hit it off, his humor, taste in music, and loose-limbed charm all drew me to him.
       We started a band with a new friend of mine (who turned out to be an asshole), Paul, a terrific guitarist who had no problem with Hendrix licks. We called ourselves Mustang, rehearsed in Dave's front room in Gosport, and did a few local gigs, though they were hard to find. We recorded a handful of original songs, again in Dave's front room. Our friend Deke Phillips had a Revox reel-to-reel tape recorder and we tracked the songs and did primitive overdubs. For one song, we had the idea to create the sound of a waterfall over the opening chords, so Deke stuck a microphone into Dave's tropical fish tank. The pathetic result actually sounds more like someone taking a pee. We drove in Dave's van to Brighton to compete in a new band contest run by the legendary and revered British music paper, Melody Maker. We did okay but didn't win.

Edward Bear / Arms & Legs ca. 1976
Left to right: Graham Maby, Mark Andrews, Joe Jackson,
Dave Cairns, Clive Bates

       After catching Paul snogging my girlfriend at a party, I left Mustang and moved to Germany – for about a week. I returned and Dave tried unsuccessfully to persuade me to resurrect the band. We remained on good terms but played in different groups for the next couple of years. In 1974 I met Joe Jackson, and became a member of the embarrassingly named Edward Bear, with whom Joe had been playing pubs and clubs for a while. Steve, the drummer for EB, was a lovely person and a just okay drummer.
       I recommended Dave to Joe and the band's lead singer, Mark Andrews. As it happened, Dave was already on their radar, having recently played drums with our local heroes, Smiling Hard. Dave had been subbing for another Dave, Dave Houghton, a lifelong friend of all of ours. Dave Cairns joined Edward Bear in 1974, and was a member through the next few turbulent but exciting years.
       As well as now being a rhythm section again, Dave and I both began working by day as school groundsmen. (We barely made anything from the band, and what we did make we plowed back in for equipment and van repairs.) Initially we worked with the mobile grounds crew, going from school to school, mowing the lawns, marking out the soccer pitches, pruning the shrubs. After a few months, we both were given permanent positions at local schools, he at Fareham Technical College and I at Ranvilles School, also in Fareham. Since our schools were not far from each other, Dave would pick me up in the mornings and drop me at my school, then pick me up and bring me home after work. We were very close at this time, working, playing, and socializing together. If the band had a gig he'd often pick me up early, and we'd skive off together! By some miracle we avoided being caught. We were naughty boys back then. Dave and I stole some sectional staging from the college. It was perfectly configured to easily assemble as risers for the drums and the keyboards. I'm not a felon by nature, but somehow this theft seemed benign, especially as it was for the benefit of a third party – The Band!
       Things began to happen for Edward Bear. We got ourselves a manager, Alan Matthews, who was impressive to us as the manager of Smiling Hard. From that point, we got more gigs, and then, after recording some demos, we were offered a recording contract. (Correction: A RECORDING CONTRACT!!!) This was the Holy Grail, the pot of gold at the end of the shit-colored rainbow of crappy, thankless, sleep-in-the-van, make-hardly-any-money, could-you-PLEASE-turn-down-lads? gigs we'd been doing forever it seemed. We were over the moon.
       Except there was a catch. MAM Records (most famous artist at that time: Gilbert O'Sullivan) were going to hedge their bets. They offered us three singles, and if those did okay, then we could make a full-length album. Slightly disappointing, but we were confident we would show our new label that we were worthy. We had good songs, individually written by Joe and Mark, and we had a new kickass lead guitarist, Clive Bates.

For a short time they called themselves Edwin Bear

       Arms and Legs (yes, we had gone from one awful name to another) was a great little band, the best I'd been in. But in the meantime, nothing seemed to change. We were still slogging hundreds of miles all along the south coast playing mostly to audiences who would rather listen to the DJ playing "Hi Ho Silver Lining." Dave owned and drove the big, dark blue Ford Transit van with the white extension on top so we could fit in more gear. I'd often ride shotgun, talking to Dave to keep him awake as we drove home in the wee hours. If my conversation started to lull him into a coma, he'd wind down the window and stick his head, sometimes his whole upper body, out of the window so the bracing cold blast would wake him up.
       So began our fabulous recording career. Despite our excitement and naïve optimism, the first single, Mark's song "Janie," did absolutely nothing. With precious little radio play, it sank without trace. Our new producers, Andy and Steve, decided that Dave's drumming was not quite up to snuff, and for the next recording session brought in a session drummer, Henry Spinetti. I know Dave was devastated, but what could we do? We reassured him that his position in the band was secure, that this was strictly a one-off. This proved to be true, but not in the way we imagined.
       The second single was "Heat of the Night." This song wasn't even written by Joe or by Mark. It was written by some guy called Paul Nicholas, a so-called "professional songwriter" who'd had a hit of his own. It was an okay song, a very un-extraordinary recording, even the drums were nothing special, boring. The song did get some radio play, threatened to make the charts, and then didn't. (I'm quite sure that dear Dave experienced some schadenfreude over that!)
       By the time we went up to London to cut single number three, we were all glumly resigned to the seemingly inevitable doom of Arms and Legs' recording career. Dave Cairns played drums on "Any More Wine," a bouncy drinking song written by Mark, and augmented by our illustrious producers with a horn section and some humorous sound effects. Joe's song "She'll Surprise You," with its cool Steely Dan-inspired chord changes, was relegated to the B side, but again, Dave is actually on drums.
       Even as "Any More Wine" received more radio play than the other two singles put together, Joe left the band. He was disappointed and disillusioned, as we all were, and he already had ideas about his own solo career. Without Joe, it certainly wasn't the same. We continued for a while as a four-piece, but my heart wasn't in it and I threw in the towel too. Dave carried on with Mark and Clive. They found new bass and keyboard players, and eventually Mark changed the band's name. But my time playing with Dave Cairns was over.

Dave and I parted on good terms, indeed, were never on bad terms, ever. After Joe's recording career took off in 1979, I ended up living in the USA. Dave and I lost touch for some years. I always asked after him, though, and was aware of his breakup with Liz, his first wife, his marriage to Jan Morley (another of my coworkers from OPCS days), and the birth of their twin boys. Dave and I reconnected a few years ago through the miracle of social media, and would reach out now and then, on birthdays and such. Thus I knew he'd remarried and had another son, and was living somewhere in Sussex.
       Writing this, remembering the warm and instantly likeable man I first met almost fifty years ago (!!), is a little bit of an homage to a great guy, and a little bit of therapy for me, to help me over the shock and sadness of his passing.

My sincere and heartfelt condolences to his surviving family.

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