Episode 38: Jimmy Nichol part 3/The End

After his tour with the Beatles and success with the Spotnicks, Jimmy Nichol finds success in Mexico doing soundtracks and tv work but then returns to London and disappears! Can Jimmy Nichol, The 5th Beatle ever be found? Listen and find out! 

Transcript

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Hello, rock and roll. Welcome back. Welcome back to Jay's Rock and Roll Stories. I am your host Jay, and we are wrapping up our Jimmy Nichols story. This is part three. This is gonna be the end. Let's just get back into it. Um, our last part of part two was Jimmy's requirement working for this record company in Mexico in 1967, was to find the next biggest hit, the star of Mexico. So 1967, Jimmy teams up with this 20-year-old guy in Mexico named Eddie Quinn. And they together uh create a band called Los Nicole Quinn, just putting the names together. And you can hear it on YouTube. I looked it up. Los Nicole Quinn, they just made one album. It's very psychedelic pop, um, kind of broke pop. Jimmy sings on it. Um it flops though. And Jimmy is uh very disappointed that he was not able because he thought that, you know, may maybe this uh Eddie Eddie Quinn would be the next guy or whatever, but it's my my thinking is that he just really didn't think of uh wasn't really thinking of the customer, because think about it. They're going from traditional Mexican music and they want to find a big rock star. So going from traditional Mexican music jumping all the way over to psychedelic pop music, it's like there's a lot in between there, a lot in between. And let me let me give you um let me give you some lyrics from a song off of uh off of the album, Los Nico Quinn. The song is called I'm Lost. And the lyrics go, I'm badly beaten up. And as the years go passing by, I'm lost, I'm lost, I'm lost, I'm lost. And as I go on like this, I ask myself, why should I live? I'm lost, I'm lost, I'm lost, I'm lost. Now I know I won't go back, and if I do, I'll break my back. I'm lost, I'm lost, I'm lost, I'm lost. Jeez. Relax, Jimmy. It's a bit of a bummer, right? But um I think that you you left out a lot of music there. Like if you're just gonna go from Mexican traditional music, you know, you're gonna have some sort of uh folk rock music, you know, a little bit of like blues or something. There's a lot of in-between there. So Jimmy is disappointed that he wasn't responsible for finding the uh next next big Mexican singer. Um the but he was found, but not by him. Um I I think it's NBC who found it. RCA discovered Armando Mancenero. So it's sort of like uh like a crooner, like a Paul Anca, you know, the the that type of like a singer with a backup band. Yeah, so that's that makes sense going from traditional music to a to a crooner, not all the way over to psychedelic pop music. But speaking of speaking of psychedelic pop music, uh 1967 also was the year of um Sergeant Peppers, right? And I want to tell you a quick little story about how, because we keep talking about how Jimmy feels like, oh, no one likes me, the Beatles didn't like me. But he was on their mind. Like here's a story from 1966. Paul McCartney is out walking his dog Martha, Martha, my dear, right? And he he has this, he he wants to make a positive song. How do I make a positive song? And what came to Paul McCartney's mind after after thinking of making a uh a positive song while walking his dog? He thought of Jimmy Nickel. Because every time when they were in Australia, Australia, every time Paul would ask Jimmy, hey Jimmy, how's it going? Hey Jimmy, like what's your experience like? Like just you know, trying to checking on Jimmy, Jimmy's response was always it's getting better. Jimmy, how's it going? It's getting better. Jimmy, how's it going now? It's getting better. It's getting better all the time. Ah, it's getting better all the time. Okay, so Paul McCartney used that for the uh Sgt. Pepper's album. So going back to uh okay, so it's Armando Manero. That was that was the the new fine by RCA, but it's uh it's not over for um for Jimmy. He has more work, and he gets chosen to do uh soundtracks. He gets a job uh uh doing soundtracks for RCA, and he does he does a soundtrack for a movie, 1967, by this Argentinian director called Carlos Lozano Danas. The movie is called El Mes Mas Cruel, or you can in English The Cruelest Month. It was screened in Mexico uh in September of 1969. Um it was only pulled, it was pulled from the theaters after one week. It didn't get a lot of uh buzz. I I try I can't find it movie, I can't find this movie anywhere. I I really wanted to check it out. I I read that it's kind of like a sort of a French New Wave film, which which I love because I love I love all those Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut stuff. So anyway, uh nothing is working out for Jimmy uh as in success, you know. So he his idea in his head is well, why don't I get back into that mindset of I'm the fifth Beatle again? So he comes up with this idea to do a Beatles traveling musical variety show, and he's looking for someone to help him. A friend of Jimmy contacts a relatively famous dancer in Mexico named Julia Villa Senor. Uh and the funny thing is that Julia Villa Senor was also doing jazz and um doing jazz dance in a jazz group in Sweden at the same time as when Jimmy was playing with the Spotniks. But they never saw each other, they always crossed paths because they were busy. So they hook up and she helps Jimmy uh do the project, and it's quite successful. Jimmy Nichol and a couple of other friends are dressed up as British Royal Guards with the you know, those big black hats, those poofy things. They are singing Beatles songs as uh Julia does her interpretive dancing. Okay, so it's it's quite it's kind of successful too. And Jimmy and Julia they get married and they move into their parents' house, uh Julia's parents' house. They are a happy couple and they enjoy putting on these things called happenings. A happening is sort of like a spontaneous production in public, so it sort of breaks down the walls of you know, performer and and um you know, like um spectator. Like we're all doing this, we're all together. So specifically, Jimmy would be playing his drums, he would have a couple other uh friends, band members who are playing instruments while Julia is doing her interpretive dancing to the music. Uh Jimmy is still quite bitter about the Brian Epstein thing, and he's convinced himself and he's convinced his new wife Julia that he was always a better drummer than Ringo, and it was uh it was it was shitty that he was not, you know, uh made a permanent beatle. So he he has a lot of anger towards this. Anyway, um a lot is going on in Mexico at the time. In 1968, the Olympics are about to come to Mexico, and the government of Mexico is trying to stomp out all of these little protests that students are putting on. I want to give you a quote. Here's a quote from uh a Mexican music historian named Federico Rubli. He says, We considered ourselves the new order, armed with flowers, peace, love symbols, and rock music. With a new sensorial and sound experiences as well as attitudes, we wanted to cultivate the aesthetic of revolt. But the Mexican government is not a big fan of rock and roll, so they are uh stomping these little uprisings out. Jimmy and Julia are there to see what's happening. Soldiers are just beating the shit out of students. They they beat up you know people passing by, journalists are there, like a lot of students were killed too, so it's it's it's tragic. It's it's horrible. Alright, some time passes. Jimmy and Julia are drifting apart. They're they're they're not getting along, and they get divorced. But Jimmy asks Julia, he asks her parents, can I, can I still live here? And they say, Yeah, sure, you can live here, Jimmy. So they live all together in the same house, and Jimmy and Julia um continue to exist as friends. Alright, moving on. 1969, Jimmy finally moves out of Julia's family's house to live with um uh her friend, it's her friend named Gelson Gass. He is a producer, he's a director, he's an artist. He's living on a mountaintop in this big house where all of these artists would go. They come to visit, do projects, have you know, party. Um gas, this guy Gas was creating a new film called Anticlimax. Anticlimax. It's a it's a psychedelic experimental film. I found this one. I found it on YouTube, and it looks like someone transferred it from VHS to YouTube, which I love because I love I love VHS. I was born in 81 and VHS was is is part of my DNA. Anyway, this movie Anticlimax, um, it's bad, yes, but I love it because it it looks like someone's like um college project or something. It's very DIY, it's very do-it-yourself. There's very for example, there's um there's a scene in it, okay, it it it it's it's filmed on like 8mm or like those the Bolex 16 millimeter. Like it's it, you know, it's it's artistically amateur, but it's it's cool. Like, for example, there's a scene where um uh a p like a man an actor dressed up as a police officer asks some young hippie kid like a question, and um when the hippie kid responds, it's the sound of bubbles. You know, so they're they're experimenting with sound and visuals. Um Jimmy is in the is in the movie, and there's there's a neat scene where they're filming uh movie like driving away on a truck and it's just filming the street, like like like paint lines or whatever on the street, and there's and there's music playing, and and you you I know it's Jimmy. I that that's his music. So I like it. I like this movie. If you want to check out something a little bit different and something that a group of artists put their blood, sweat, and tears into, look up and anticlimax. I think you might have to type in Gelson Gas Anticlimax. Alright. After Anticlimax, Jimmy Jimmy and Julia together performed on a variety TV show called TV Musical Osart. I I look this up, it I can find it, but I don't know what the Osart means. O-S-S-A-R-T. Anyway, they did 20 or 30 episodes. Um after that, Jimmy and Julia start a new band. Um, it's more into like a Bossa Nova, but Julia like really has like romantic feelings for the piano player. Jimmy can't take it. He's so freaking jealous, and he he leaves. And even though they are divorced, he he leaves for good. Like he he leaves a like uh a letter. One day Julia comes home to find a note. It says, Julia, I admire you a lot. I'm very proud of your singing and leading the band. I wish you all the success. Love Jimmy. Julia says that um he dis this this is her words, he disappeared. It's like he must have vanished. I never saw, I never saw him again in my life. From that day until now, gone. Okay, he's not gone though. He does record a track at a place called Orpheon Records, a record company, um, a Spanish version of Jumpin' Jack Flash, with just a new band that he threw together. He threw he throws a band, he puts together all of these bands. Um they they never last. Uh a band called Los Checkmates, another band called Los Flying Carpets. That's a cool name. Um, nothing ever pans out. And uh 1969, he gets hired as an independent consultant to contribute educational musical program programming to radio and TV on the XHIPN Channel 11. This is Mexico's educational and cultural television channel. Uh basically it's like public access, as we say here in the United States, which is probably not a bad gig. I bet I bet you it's kind of fun because you kind of have like all kind of all kinds of choices. Also, Jimmy begins to uh prepare uh course curriculum for students to learn about music business and history at the National Polytechnic Institute, which was uh Mexico's most important public technical and uh higher education in Mexico. So it's good gigs. After another failed attempt at getting a new band off the ground, uh the band was called Blue Rain, Jimmy hangs up his drums, drumsticks, quits music, and he actually leaves Mexico City to go back home. He goes back home to London, and this is the mid-70s. Jimmy starts um a business remodeling houses. Pretty successful. He visits Sweden in the late 70s to say hello to his old uh his old Spotnik buddies. And in 1983, uh the the Spotniks and Jimmy they get together and they put on a TV documentary called Spotniks, a quarter century of space pop. 1984. Jimmy and his son Howie are invited and they're put up in a big Beatles hotel by the official Beatles fan club, the uh the Dutch chapter in um in Amsterdam to celebrate the uh anniversary of the the Beatles' visit to Amsterdam with the canal ride and all that. Uh supposedly at the time, um, secretly sort of, Jimmy was working on an autobiography about his experience with the Beatles, about his whole story. So during the uh question and answer part of the convention, uh he held back a lot of information because all the questions coming from the press uh over there in Amsterdam was like I in his mind, he's probably I I want to tell you that, I'm gonna put it in the book. So he gets kind of like it was like noticeable he was like irritated from these questions. But wrapping it up, it was fun uh because there's uh a Beatles cover band called the Clarks, they were the biggest Beatles cover band in um Amsterdam, this is 1984, and they asked Jimmy to play. Could you please play with us? And so he plays drums with them. They do one song, but um it was noted that it was such an amazing experience for uh the fans and for the members of the band. Like this this was great. He did a good job and they they played Jimmy. It said Jimmy was smiling, he had a good time, but this will be known as Jimmy's uh last known musical performance of his life. Alright, time goes by. Uh Howie, Howie's uh Jimmy's son, he's becoming quite well known in uh sound production, and he even wins a BAFTA, which is the British equivalent of the uh the Academy Awards. So he wins a BAFTA for the Beatles and Followed Anthology of 1995 sound production. Jimmy, on the other hand, goes underground. His um his business is failing, and he does not want to talk about the Beatles anymore. He does not want to talk about anything that has to do with that kind of thing. So he's kind of a recluse. There's a there's rumors that he's dead. Uh Jimmy's dead, and everyone's trying to find this everyone's trying to find him. He's dead. So what uh what also kind of feeds the rumor is when um the 30th anniversary comes around for the Beatles uh in Amsterdam, this um the the Dutch fan club uh president, whatever, comes to track down Jimmy and knocking on the door, the door opens and it's not Jimmy, but it's his son Howie. Oh, hi Howie. Um I just wanted to uh invite you guys again to come back. We'll put you up, we'll put it on the whole show. And without any explanation, without any timeline or story, Howie says, No, he's dead. Oh, yeah, he's dead, he he can't go. Okay. So the without it, you don't want to I don't be rude, I guess I won't ask any questions, so he goes back home. So it was either, I mean, the rumor is that he's dead, but there's like, but can you tell us more? You know? So it turns out it was either Jimmy told Howie, just tell people I'm freaking dead, I don't want to talk about this shit, or it's Howie taking it upon himself to say, no, no, no, uh, he's not interested. Uh fuck it, he's dead. So uh, but there's um the rumors that he's dead, but there's sightings here and there. Oh my god, I think I saw Jimmy on the bus. Oh, he was over here getting a haircut. In uh, yeah, so in 2005, Daily Mail UK posts uh pictures of Jimmy, like paparazzi style, him coming in and out of shops and stuff. So he's not dead. Calm down, he's alive. And the book ends with the author, Jim Birkenstadt, leaving the United States, going to England, trying to track down Jimmy so he can get an interview for the book. So he he's not successful. He goes back to um the he has an address where Jimmy had been kind of hiding out, and he goes back there and some kid answers the door who has no idea who Jimmy Nichol is. Oh crap. So he he tracks down a private eye, and the private eye says, Yes, that unit is owned by Jimmy, but he's subletting it, but I can't find him, so he can't find him. Uh the author Jim Birkenstadt's daughter is living in Australia, Australia at the time, so he's like, you know what? Shit, I'll just go down to Australia. Maybe he's so he goes down to Australia to see family and does some some work down there, does some detective work. They track down birth certificates, death certificates, uh marriage licenses. Um, but there's there's quite a there's a handful of people named Jimmy Nickel, so there's kind of dead ends. Finally, they find a finally the guy, the author finds uh a marriage certificate, I think it was 1974, married to marrying in England, but to a woman uh from Mexico. So, where is Jimmy? Jimmy, like at this point in the book, I I literally was like, Jimmy, um, if you're listening to this podcast, uh get send an email, okay? Send an email to uh Jays Rock and Roll Stories at Proton.me, and I promise I will not ask anything about the Beatles. I'm gonna ask questions about Los Nicole Quinn and Anticlimax. I that's I I'm digging it. I want to know more. Alright, fast forward, right? So uh Jim Birkensett had been working 20 years on this project, right? Searching through all these things, the death certificates, marriage licenses, all these things, and um, you know, other people named Jimmy Nicole, finally, right? It tracks him down. So we have to I have to tell you, Jimmy is alive. He is married to a woman in Mexico named Josefina. He lives in Mexico. He's alive today. We found him. Okay, but that's all we know. Because I I'm pretty sure, okay, that Jim Birkenstadt found Jimmy Nichol, and Jimmy Nichol said, crap, you found me. Alright, I'll this is all I want to tell you for your book. You can tell them I live in Mexico. And that's it. So in the book, uh Jim Birkenstadt relays that Jimmy Nichols expressed a desire that no one knows his address or much about him. So it's like, oh shit, you found me. But you can't tell anybody. Well, anyway, that's great. You know, that's okay. Jimmy, I hope you have a fantastic life uh in Mexico with your with your wife, Josefina. That's it. That's the story of Jimmy Nichol. That was a cool book. Thank you so much for uh for the reps of uh Jim Birkinset's. Thank you for sending this to me. I really enjoyed it. And uh to tell you the truth, I I really wanna um at some point I want to pick up another book by Jim Birkinset, that one called the Um Beatles Underground. It's about the bootleg stuff. Alright, anyway, I if you enjoyed this podcast, if you enjoy this episode, do me a favor. Give me five stars. Uh give me a comment, do me do me something nice. So, anyway, thanks for listening. Thanks for coming back. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, shout-outs, you can write me an email at uh Jay's Rock'n'Rollstories at Proton.me. There's a podcast, there's a what's it called, a Facebook. Go online, find it on Facebook. I'll at some point I'll get to Twitter and this, that, and the other, and I'll get I'll get a website for you. It's just I have a full plate, but anyway, I'm happy. I'm glad you're happy. Thanks for coming back, and uh, I'll see you next time. We're gonna do something different, all right? Take care. Bye.