“Kate Bush gave me a copy of Aerial at a party. I knew it was a gentle, emotional record. She said, ‘Don’t fall asleep while listening!’” Simon Drake’s career as a magician was inspired by prog

In 2019 Prog got up close with a real prog wizard as Simon Drake, musical illusionist and advisor to Kate Bush, explained how he dealt his magic hand with Arthur Brown as the ace.

“My father died when I was 12, leaving a wife and five children. He was cremated the same month that I bought Fire by The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown; and Arthur was about to change me forever. When I saw him on Top Of The Pops cavorting about in a flaming helmet, I thought, ‘I want to do that!’

My brother was older and into John Peel, so I’d hear great things like Arc or Syd Barrett’s The Madcap Laughs. My brother stayed in music school in London while Mum took the rest of us to Nelson, New Zealand. There was a big population of young people there. Neil Young and Jethro Tull ruled; Aqualung was everywhere – a terrific album.

I fell out of school at 15 and in with a group of heads. You were either a surfer, a biker or a hippie or a hairy. I was a hairy, and I proceeded to take my O levels in LSD. One couple had these great records that we’d listen to outside on speakers in a valley, and that’s where I heard The Mothers’ Just Another Band From LA and Audience’s The House On The Hill.

There was also more Arthur Brown with the amazing Kingdom Come album Galactic Zoo Dossier, based around war and destruction and Arthur being born during an air raid. Those albums weren’t conducive to having a merry time on drugs – they’re very dark and weird – but I loved them, and Zappa reminded me of a version of Arthur.

One year was quite a drug-addled year, and the soundtrack was Ron Geesin’s Music From The Body. It’s a wonderful, experimental record. It reminds me of the film Futtock’s End, starring Ronnie Barker, which had no dialogue, just farts and burps – very original.

It’s like An Electric Storm by White Noise, which I can hardly describe!My copy is holding up remarkably given the amount of wear and tear it’s had. Here Come the Fleas is so weird; you don’t just hear it, you feel it. I didn’t know at the time that it was the Radiophonic Workshop creating it – which is odd, given my godfather is Ron Grainer, who wrote the Doctor Who theme with them.

I’d learned some basic magic tricks so I did a few children’s parties while I also worked for my uncle, sea-fishing. I earned enough to come back to London in ’73 and stay with a school friend. He was going to the Marquee Club, and Charisma boss Tony Stratton-Smith was there. I found myself in limousines with my mates and Strat, going to the most blinding gigs I’d ever seen, like Genesis on the Supper’s Ready tour.

I then realised that Arthur wasn’t the only amazing music visualist – Peter Gabriel was something completely on his own. I know every word of the first five Genesis albums. Selling England By The Pound is the best – it still has that weirdness, but they’ve matured. However, Supper’s Ready is their greatest song. I was really privileged and lucky to be there.

I got a job as an office boy at Decca Records. I was going to loads of gigs and the ancients at the label – they must have been at least 30! – would buy me beer and ask me who to sign. I had no doubt; I brought in Galactic Zoo Dossier, played them the track Sunrise and they signed Arthur for a release called The Lost Ears.

Here Come The Fleas - YouTube

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I became a junior plugger and before I knew it, I was in a car with Arthur, doing promo. I was touching the hem of greatness! But one day he come to see me in the Hampstead flat I shared with Jerry Floyd, the DJ at the Marquee. I was showing him my dancing cane magic routine and Arthur said, ‘You have to do this for a living!’ He booked me to open for him and Alexis Korner, then for another show at The Speakeasy. It started something new for me, and Lene Lovich did my sound cueing.

From seeing Genesis, I got to know Steve Hackett, who asked me to do visuals for his show after I’d worked with Kate Bush – but it never happened. Please Don’t Touch! is a great album; it was Steve who told me about the automata at Jack Donovan’s in Portobello Road, and that’s where I got the actual ‘please don’t touch’ sign that inspired him.

As well as the day job plugging, and the illusionist show that I was developing, I briefly worked for Lou Reed as a minder for his partner, Rachel Humphreys. It was while he was on tour in Europe; it was really weird hours, and Humphreys was a handful, so I was quite disoriented.

One day the radio alarm went off too early and started playing Wuthering Heights. It got into my dream and under my skin like a science-fiction virus. The announcer said, ‘That was Kate Bush.’ I got into work and phoned up a representative, asking to get a message to her. The song was a few weeks from being No.1, but it was so out-there and so me. I knew she was going to be successful and I wanted to be involved.

Genesis - Supper's Ready (Live 1972) - YouTube

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A week later I was performing in my little leotard and white face combo at a party for Roxy Music at J Arthur’s club in King’s Road. I’d invited Kate to come, and she did, on her own. We met and chatted, then she said that whatever she was doing next, I would be a part of it. For the next six months we met up, with her brothers, and talked through her visuals. I immersed myself in her music. I’ve still got the books of notes and sketches for what became the Tour Of Life – I was employed to add pepper and salt to an extraordinary groundbreaking and ambitious show.

It opened a lot of doors for me, like contemporary theatre in Japan and headline shows in New Zealand. Andrew Lloyd Webber wanted me to take the lead role in Cats, but I wasn’t interested; I’m very much an outsider performer, and I think that’s down to prog. When I came up with the idea for [90s TV show] The Secret Cabaret – late-night, youthful, rock’n’roll – it was against the norm; it was a prog version of light entertainment.

My favourite Kate Bush track is Sunset, from Aerial. She sings directly to your heart, and her songs are so personal you think they’re written for you. But just like Peter Gabriel, she’s warm, kind and a little disappointingly un-weird. She gave me a copy of Aerial at a little party she had. Knowing it was a gentle, emotional record, I said, ‘I’m probably going to need a box of tissues for this.’ She said, ‘Just make sure you don’t fall asleep while listening!’

Doing what I do today all came from Arthur and Peter, but mainly Arthur. I got to know him well; he gave me his Crazy World helmet and performed Jerusalem at my wedding. Watching Arthur and Peter helped me be myself.”

Sunset (2018 Remaster) - YouTube

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