Real Cool Cassidy
By Nick Kent
New Musical Express Magazine
13 October 1973
I ALWAYS FIGURED secretly that David Cassidy was a cool guy.
I mean, here was a pretty-faced loser if ever there was one – pre-pubescent beef-cake at 23 when his real competitors were all ten years his junior, a kid who could just about sing O.K. but who performed ineffectively, prancing around stages like someone celebrating his first wet-dream and then having to rigorously structure his persona under layer upon layer of spearmint glibness.
But that's O.K. – despite his age Cassidy looks only 16, and his competition is narrowed strictly to Donny Osmond, who's a bonafide 'Momma's Boy' if ever there was one.
Cassidy has always seemed into his racket on a resignedly knowledgeable level; in the immortal words of Iggy Pop: "If ya wanna make a buck, boy ya gotta be a geek, ahha".
He proved he had pretensions towards being hip when he posed nude for Rolling Stone and even when confronted by professional goons like Tony Blackburn during that embarrassing airport sequence on Top of the Pops 500th anniversary, he can still turn a trick or two.
Blackburn: "Uh, tell me David, what do you do in your spare time?" Cassidy: "Well Tony I like to sleep a lot".
So when Ian MacDonald manfully strode in to inform me that there was to be a David Cassidy press conference taking place in the Skyway Hotel at 11 a.m., I immediately leapt at the offer.
Press conferences are a proverbial pain in the arse but I felt confident I could corner the victim for a few minutes and plug him with a few incisive questions at to the state and nature of teen stardom: "Hey Dave, when are you going to clean up your entourage and get rid of all these parasites and losers?" – "Hey Dave what's it really like under the spotlight? Is it really lonely at the top?" – "Hey, Dave, why haven't you cleaned up your acne yet?".
OF COURSE, the whole thing turned out to be a farce.
My ire was dampened the minute I walked into the uncomfortably small room set aside for the conference and already full of some of the oddest-looking specimens of the journalistic profession I've yet to encounter.
One of the writers from the music press, who bore a disturbing resemblance to a newt, was half way through asking some question about Cassidy's supposed decision to quit music.
Cassidy himself was desperately trying to look comfortable in a velvet suit and what may have been a fake tan, and answered good-naturedly that no, he was not thinking of retiring from music, he just wanted to settle back for a while and get his situation a little more into perspective.
Some other character immediately stood up and asked him in condescendingly 'understanding' tones – "David, do you ever feel like returning to the stage? Perhaps that's where your contentment lies?"
Nope, Dave stated, I've already done that, it would just have to be something else.
Another typical Fleet Street question: "David, your publicity always makes you out to be a perfect character. Do you have any vices you'd like to tell us about?" "Well, I do bite my nails".
Shucks, what a cute rejoinder, this Cassidy boy sure is a barrel of laffs.
But let's get ethnic for a moment.
A long-haired, bearded journalist, displaying a mighty array of badges, of the "Sex is Good for You" genre, and looking not unlike the hippy stereotype portrayed on right-wing American comedy shows, asked plaintively "Could you tell us something about the new album?"
"Certainly" said Dave, oozing homespun sincerity. "In a way it's the story of my life. The songs are like vignettes in a way."
It turns out he's performing 'Bali Hai', the old South Pacific grass-skirts shuffler on it. "I remember being very young and hearing my father humming the song in the next room."
Also Peggy Lee's torrid 'Fever' – to name but a few. "I've got an awful lot more freedom now with my producer Rick Gerrard. I chose everything I recorded on the new album, except for 'Day-dreamer', the flipside of my new single, which I don't really like that much."
Fine. But let's get down to some grittier topics. One of the more senior members of the journalistic profession had been getting agitated throughout the proceedings.
Finally he spoke up: "Isn't it true that you're getting a lot of bad press at the moment for your statements about using drugs?"
Cassidy didn't blink an eyelid. "No, not that I'm aware of. That's a past issue. I stated a long time ago that I had taken drugs when I was younger and I don't do them anymore."
"Ah, but isn't it true that two of your friends died from drug taking?"
"Well, one of them died, yes, and the other one got very into them."
"The one who died's name is Kevin, right?"
"Yeah, but..."
"What's his second name?"
The reporter is now frantically taking notes, drooling at the vision of his copy.
"Oh, come on, man, I just don't want to talk about that. He was a close friend of mine and it happened years ago. That's all in the past."
The reporter grudgingly stepped down. No spicey revelations for him to pull on his avid readers this time around. It was also around this point that I realised that I was captive in a room full of total creeps and I suddenly felt extremely sorry for Cassidy.
Here was what seemed, on the surface anyway, to be a nice enough guy surrounded by hordes of absolute parasites desperately trying to suck a bit of scandal and sensation out of him, whether it concerned some bogus marriage plan, or unpleasant rooting around for former drug dalliances. Who needs it?
One of a pack of photographers that had been sitting at the back like vultures waiting for the prey to sanction their taking more action-snaps, requested that the star allow them to photograph him talking.
"Sure you can but..."
And the photographers crowded in, belligerently flashing away as more inane questions were thrown at Cassidy who had, by now, lost his grip completely.
Finally someone stated authoritatively: "That's all, ladies and gentlemen. Thank You".
Cassidy was dragged away quickly from the clutches of his oppressors.
Ten minutes later he was on a plane.
No-one seemed to know where it was going and I wondered if he even did.
