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Ticket to Ride
'All in all, the book exudes the optimism and "damn the torpedoes" attitude of any young rock and roller from any era - definitely recommended.' 'Ticket to Ride is a fun book to read. The fact that it is rooted in reality makes it seem like a genuine biography or autobiography rather than a novel. It is evident that much of it is, or could be, based on actual events. The book provides an insight into the life of a hard-working band in the 1960s.' 'To the hundreds of members of British groups (remember, a lot of groups from Scotland played in Hamburg) who had never-to-be-forgotten experiences in Germany in the Sixties; this is a book to jog their memories!' 'A highly recommended book which is currently only available in English.' 'The book is a cracking little kitchen sink drama, littered with all the hopes and dreams that any young kid with an interest in music has. ' 'Ticket to Ride shows us the seamier side of life in Germany in the 60?s and how it is easy to fall into the dangers of this kind of living.' 'It's all here in one gangster and hooker infested plate of realism, which was the Reeperbahn at that time.'
307 pages, Paperback
First published May 23, 2006
1 person want to read
About the author
Graham Sclater
12 books1 followerGraham studied at the Phoenix Arts Centre in Exeter, where he concentrated on creative writing for the screen and television. His key interests are teleplays, and screenplays as well as developing and writing original drama series’ for television. Those recently completed include the television series “Pebble on the beach” set on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus and “Yesterday man” a psychological thriller.
Adam Faith, John Altman and actors, directors and producers who have favourably reviewed his work and several television companies including Central Television, Channel 4 and the BBC have taken options on other television series’.
He spent many years living and playing Hammond organ in many groups in Germany and Scandinavia during the sixties. He returned to England in the early seventies where he worked as a session musician in many of the top London studios.
An accomplished songwriter and musician, Graham has been featured in arts and musical programmes and performed and recorded with many artists including Jimi Hendrix, Fats Domino, Ritchie Blackmore, James Taylor, Elton John, Christine Perfect, Tony Ashton and numerous name musicians. Many of his songs have won competitions in France, Spain, Gibraltar and Japan as well as being recorded by artists around the world.
Tabitha Music Limited, the independent music publishing company and record label formed by Graham in 1976, has a catalogue of more than a thousand songs and tracks were released in much of Europe, the Caribbean and the Far East including Japan. The Company’s songs have been featured in numerous films, television programmes, documentaries and releases on major record labels including EMI, CBS and Phonogram. Tabitha Records: http://www.tabitharecords.webs.com
Keen on artist management he successfully signed groups to CBS, EMI and other worldwide labels. He has spent many years combining his production, publishing work with the management of his artists. Signings to the company include girl band Eye Spy, songwriters Toni Leo and Andy Littlewood from Doncaster, Harambe from London, Billy Curtis and Red i from Exeter and Feddy in St Petersburg. The most recent signings are pop reggae artist MXT, Kotadama from Australia and blues singer/guitarist Jay Tamkin.
Graham has produced records in varying styles as diverse as punk, folk, country, heavy rock and MOR in studios as far afield as Trinidad and Jamaica. Many of these productions were released on the Tabitha Record label in the Benelux and Spain and major or independent labels around the World. Graham’s production credits have resulted in hit records by many artists.
Graham’s first novel “Ticket to Ride” set in Hamburg during the 1960’s was published in 2006 by Flame Books.
Active on developing many projects at any one time, Graham is a prolific writer who carefully researches his subject before reaching for the PC. Many of his projects involve music and his background enables him to combine an unusual mix of original music and script.
Graham Sclater enjoys working in many arenas, using first hand experience of as many subjects as possible, often spending time researching overseas. He is at home writing and developing any concept. He has an understanding of budgeting, the logistics of production, location and direction and has had a number of his projects optioned in the UK and overseas by television and film production companies.
His first children’s novel “We’re gonna be famous” was published in 2009 followed by historical novel “Hatred is the key” in 2010 by Tabitha Books. He is also working on the titles: “Other side of the tracks” & “Lying eyes.”
Graham’s updated version of his first novel “Ticket to Ride” was re-printed in late 2012 and is now available across the world from Amazon.com and was then followed by his fourth novel “Too big to cry” in spring 2013. Graham’s fifth novel “Love Shack” set in the East End of London and the Red Light District of Amsterdam is publi
Adam Faith, John Altman and actors, directors and producers who have favourably reviewed his work and several television companies including Central Television, Channel 4 and the BBC have taken options on other television series’.
He spent many years living and playing Hammond organ in many groups in Germany and Scandinavia during the sixties. He returned to England in the early seventies where he worked as a session musician in many of the top London studios.
An accomplished songwriter and musician, Graham has been featured in arts and musical programmes and performed and recorded with many artists including Jimi Hendrix, Fats Domino, Ritchie Blackmore, James Taylor, Elton John, Christine Perfect, Tony Ashton and numerous name musicians. Many of his songs have won competitions in France, Spain, Gibraltar and Japan as well as being recorded by artists around the world.
Tabitha Music Limited, the independent music publishing company and record label formed by Graham in 1976, has a catalogue of more than a thousand songs and tracks were released in much of Europe, the Caribbean and the Far East including Japan. The Company’s songs have been featured in numerous films, television programmes, documentaries and releases on major record labels including EMI, CBS and Phonogram. Tabitha Records: http://www.tabitharecords.webs.com
Keen on artist management he successfully signed groups to CBS, EMI and other worldwide labels. He has spent many years combining his production, publishing work with the management of his artists. Signings to the company include girl band Eye Spy, songwriters Toni Leo and Andy Littlewood from Doncaster, Harambe from London, Billy Curtis and Red i from Exeter and Feddy in St Petersburg. The most recent signings are pop reggae artist MXT, Kotadama from Australia and blues singer/guitarist Jay Tamkin.
Graham has produced records in varying styles as diverse as punk, folk, country, heavy rock and MOR in studios as far afield as Trinidad and Jamaica. Many of these productions were released on the Tabitha Record label in the Benelux and Spain and major or independent labels around the World. Graham’s production credits have resulted in hit records by many artists.
Graham’s first novel “Ticket to Ride” set in Hamburg during the 1960’s was published in 2006 by Flame Books.
Active on developing many projects at any one time, Graham is a prolific writer who carefully researches his subject before reaching for the PC. Many of his projects involve music and his background enables him to combine an unusual mix of original music and script.
Graham Sclater enjoys working in many arenas, using first hand experience of as many subjects as possible, often spending time researching overseas. He is at home writing and developing any concept. He has an understanding of budgeting, the logistics of production, location and direction and has had a number of his projects optioned in the UK and overseas by television and film production companies.
His first children’s novel “We’re gonna be famous” was published in 2009 followed by historical novel “Hatred is the key” in 2010 by Tabitha Books. He is also working on the titles: “Other side of the tracks” & “Lying eyes.”
Graham’s updated version of his first novel “Ticket to Ride” was re-printed in late 2012 and is now available across the world from Amazon.com and was then followed by his fourth novel “Too big to cry” in spring 2013. Graham’s fifth novel “Love Shack” set in the East End of London and the Red Light District of Amsterdam is publi
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 3, 2018
Graham Sclater, today a music publisher in England, was active as a musician in the “Hamburg Sound” era when Germany was fertile ground for English “beat groups” plying their trade and crafting their sound and style. Sclater was there as organist of The Wave, The Birds & The Bees and Manchester Playboys. With this “ticket to ride,” he gained the experiences translated into fiction form in this, his debut novel.
However, I think this rich trove of experiences would be more entertaining in a work of non-fiction, as anecdotes to add color to the lives of working musicians, perhaps easily integrated into the largely known history of Brit rock with some occasionally recognized names, albums, etc. This, I think, would add a depth to the story that is currently lacking.
Ticket To Ride is full of wild tales and outlandish incidents as the musicians become prisoners in a foreign land to tiring and harsh transitions from desperation to decadence. Through this, the characters are remarkably flat, lacking in dimension and emerging at the end of their tribulations lacking in real transformation. Sclater fails to give the characters in his work real emotional depth and believable motivations.
However, do not let my arguments against the book detract from its joys. I myself have walked the streets of Hamburg’s St. Pauli district and eventually met Erin Ross, who designed posters for Rory Storm and Hurricane, The Beatles, and more. I was hoping for just such an encounter to somehow find my own link to this era and place.
So it is quite fun to muse upon Sclater’s book as to what facts and real events are behind the elements of his story. Do we think that we recognize anyone in these scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue? The chapter titles have lyrical references like the book title, do you recognize them? Also, as a former indie rocker myself I feel a connection to the characters in this book. I have gone through and experienced and seen much of what they have and I think any current or former amateur gigging musician will also make that connection.
[My review that ran, among other places, on ink19.com]
However, I think this rich trove of experiences would be more entertaining in a work of non-fiction, as anecdotes to add color to the lives of working musicians, perhaps easily integrated into the largely known history of Brit rock with some occasionally recognized names, albums, etc. This, I think, would add a depth to the story that is currently lacking.
Ticket To Ride is full of wild tales and outlandish incidents as the musicians become prisoners in a foreign land to tiring and harsh transitions from desperation to decadence. Through this, the characters are remarkably flat, lacking in dimension and emerging at the end of their tribulations lacking in real transformation. Sclater fails to give the characters in his work real emotional depth and believable motivations.
However, do not let my arguments against the book detract from its joys. I myself have walked the streets of Hamburg’s St. Pauli district and eventually met Erin Ross, who designed posters for Rory Storm and Hurricane, The Beatles, and more. I was hoping for just such an encounter to somehow find my own link to this era and place.
So it is quite fun to muse upon Sclater’s book as to what facts and real events are behind the elements of his story. Do we think that we recognize anyone in these scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue? The chapter titles have lyrical references like the book title, do you recognize them? Also, as a former indie rocker myself I feel a connection to the characters in this book. I have gone through and experienced and seen much of what they have and I think any current or former amateur gigging musician will also make that connection.
[My review that ran, among other places, on ink19.com]
October 5, 2015
Review: Ticket to Ride by Graham Sclater
Second Edition for America 2012
Rating: 5 Stars out of 5
Reviewer: Patty Inglish
Reading Ticket to Ride is quite an eye opening experience and a welcomed entry of gritty knowledge for those unaware of the rock music scene in Germany during the 1960s. It was a time of Cold War and cold realities for the English rock groups that struggled to make it to renown and wealth in Hamburg. The very first page of the book smacked me between the eyes and made me sit up straight and listen open-mouthed to the entire exciting story.
Based on composite portraits and events, this book is clear about life as it was in those rock and roll days for young musicians wanting to be The Beatles or perhaps something even better. “Bigger than the Beatles” was a dream of dreams for some although an often-failed one.
Rock careers in Hamburg from 1965 - 1970 were often not as fun or glamorous as expected. Hundreds of European and American rock groups jumped full on into the sixties music scene and were spit right back out. Now I am shell shocked and well informed, sad and elated at once - and I want to read the book again.
A few groups created success in varying degrees. They plotted the range of fame from total failures and one-hit wonders to the long-lived Rolling Stones. April 2012 saw the Stones’ 60th Anniversary as a hit rock group and teenage garage bands still want to be them. I often wondered what went on in Hamburg during and after The Beatles.
If you weren’t living in the UK or Germany, or didn’t have a relative in a band traveling around Germany in the 1960s while freezing or starving to death, you’ve little idea of that corridor of history. We might have appreciated these young groups’ efforts a bit more had we known of their hardships and their drive to continue making their beloved music no matter cost. Some died. Who knew that music was so dangerous? All these sixties musicians deserve a monument and this book is that tribute
Ticket to Ride feels like an autobiography and while it may be only fractionally autobiographical, its characters and events ring totally true. Success for the Cheetahs rock band is intermittent at best and not everyone has a happy ending. Hearts and bodies are broken, but business continues for promoters and club owners as if nothing happened.
The story follows the five-man group called the Cheetahs, quickly put together to fill a gig in Germany. The musicians include college-aged Dave, a men’s wear assistant who helps his mom schedule rock gigs. Stumbling upon a letter requesting a group for Germany, Dave marshals the group. Other members are Dave’s friend Tony who loads beer onto trucks; Gerald, just 16 years old with an expired driving permit; Adrian in his early 20s and already professional; and 17-year-old Jimmy who lives with his partially deaf grandmother.
These young men travel in winter from Devon, England to Hamburg in a rundown borrowed van without heat. They drive dangerously close to the Berlin Wall and its snipers and come close to losing their lives several times in their adventures. His or her first accommodations in Hamburg are so horridly filthy that anyone vomited immediately upon entry. Their year in Germany was the hardest that many might imagine and fewer might try, with the exception of a TV reality show and a big payoff. The pace of the Cheetahs’ career exhausted me in the reading as they moved from club to club and from various German cities to Switzerland and back.
The young men play 30-night contracts of long hours on stage, sometimes after 12-hour road trips. After the last set each night, they socialize, make useful connections at other clubs, and may reach their beds by 6:00 or 7:00 AM if they are fortunate. Then they rise at teatime to power through another long day’s night.
After a contract is completed, they scurry to secure another and are not always successful. In addition, club owners do not always pay and we see another group living in a van in January. The pace is breakneck and harrowing in Hamburg's Reeperbahn district full of temptations -- The Cheetahs have fun, but are absorbed into inordinate drinking, recreational drugs, the pleasures of prostitution and female fans, along with STDs, violence, and worse. This all reminds me of The Great Depression (with more music and drugs) in that many died in the attempt to work in hard times. Hamburg Beat Central was just as hard. There was not enough ecstatic glamour to satisfy late sixties groups, but there was useful experience for later use. The Cheetahs improved from their hard work despite obstacles, but their only recording appeared after a brutal year and the breakup of the group. However, surviving members seem to intend to go on with music, while the causalities lost friends become deep memories.
The Cheetahs are people that readers want to know better. We hope for their best and lament when bad things happen. We laugh at the way they come by their stage costumes and transportation. Sometimes we are appalled, gasping when their lives are in danger, but many times they have fun. The relationships are interesting, especially between Jimmy and his estranged dad, Dave and his mom, and Gerald and his. This is the best story of the sixties rock era, including biographies like No One Gets Out Alive by Jerry Hopkins about Jim Morrison and the Doors, who also performed in Germany during the era.
Musician and author Graham Sclater did much more than survive Hamburg; he went on to found a successful music-publishing house, Tabitha Music Limited. In the sixties, he spent time playing and jamming with rock stars like Jimi Hendrix and Elton John, Fats Domino and James Taylor. He was called Sandy and played the organ (like Gerry of the Cheetahs) in Hamburg (1964 - 1969) for bands called "The Wave," "The Birds & The Bees" and "The Manchester Playboys". Then he returned to England with useful experience and a lot of memories. His novel Ticket to Ride is an extreme close-up of the late sixties Reeperbahn experience for rock musicians and it is on the mark. It illustrates a place that many of us have never seen before
Second Edition for America 2012
Rating: 5 Stars out of 5
Reviewer: Patty Inglish
Reading Ticket to Ride is quite an eye opening experience and a welcomed entry of gritty knowledge for those unaware of the rock music scene in Germany during the 1960s. It was a time of Cold War and cold realities for the English rock groups that struggled to make it to renown and wealth in Hamburg. The very first page of the book smacked me between the eyes and made me sit up straight and listen open-mouthed to the entire exciting story.
Based on composite portraits and events, this book is clear about life as it was in those rock and roll days for young musicians wanting to be The Beatles or perhaps something even better. “Bigger than the Beatles” was a dream of dreams for some although an often-failed one.
Rock careers in Hamburg from 1965 - 1970 were often not as fun or glamorous as expected. Hundreds of European and American rock groups jumped full on into the sixties music scene and were spit right back out. Now I am shell shocked and well informed, sad and elated at once - and I want to read the book again.
A few groups created success in varying degrees. They plotted the range of fame from total failures and one-hit wonders to the long-lived Rolling Stones. April 2012 saw the Stones’ 60th Anniversary as a hit rock group and teenage garage bands still want to be them. I often wondered what went on in Hamburg during and after The Beatles.
If you weren’t living in the UK or Germany, or didn’t have a relative in a band traveling around Germany in the 1960s while freezing or starving to death, you’ve little idea of that corridor of history. We might have appreciated these young groups’ efforts a bit more had we known of their hardships and their drive to continue making their beloved music no matter cost. Some died. Who knew that music was so dangerous? All these sixties musicians deserve a monument and this book is that tribute
Ticket to Ride feels like an autobiography and while it may be only fractionally autobiographical, its characters and events ring totally true. Success for the Cheetahs rock band is intermittent at best and not everyone has a happy ending. Hearts and bodies are broken, but business continues for promoters and club owners as if nothing happened.
The story follows the five-man group called the Cheetahs, quickly put together to fill a gig in Germany. The musicians include college-aged Dave, a men’s wear assistant who helps his mom schedule rock gigs. Stumbling upon a letter requesting a group for Germany, Dave marshals the group. Other members are Dave’s friend Tony who loads beer onto trucks; Gerald, just 16 years old with an expired driving permit; Adrian in his early 20s and already professional; and 17-year-old Jimmy who lives with his partially deaf grandmother.
These young men travel in winter from Devon, England to Hamburg in a rundown borrowed van without heat. They drive dangerously close to the Berlin Wall and its snipers and come close to losing their lives several times in their adventures. His or her first accommodations in Hamburg are so horridly filthy that anyone vomited immediately upon entry. Their year in Germany was the hardest that many might imagine and fewer might try, with the exception of a TV reality show and a big payoff. The pace of the Cheetahs’ career exhausted me in the reading as they moved from club to club and from various German cities to Switzerland and back.
The young men play 30-night contracts of long hours on stage, sometimes after 12-hour road trips. After the last set each night, they socialize, make useful connections at other clubs, and may reach their beds by 6:00 or 7:00 AM if they are fortunate. Then they rise at teatime to power through another long day’s night.
After a contract is completed, they scurry to secure another and are not always successful. In addition, club owners do not always pay and we see another group living in a van in January. The pace is breakneck and harrowing in Hamburg's Reeperbahn district full of temptations -- The Cheetahs have fun, but are absorbed into inordinate drinking, recreational drugs, the pleasures of prostitution and female fans, along with STDs, violence, and worse. This all reminds me of The Great Depression (with more music and drugs) in that many died in the attempt to work in hard times. Hamburg Beat Central was just as hard. There was not enough ecstatic glamour to satisfy late sixties groups, but there was useful experience for later use. The Cheetahs improved from their hard work despite obstacles, but their only recording appeared after a brutal year and the breakup of the group. However, surviving members seem to intend to go on with music, while the causalities lost friends become deep memories.
The Cheetahs are people that readers want to know better. We hope for their best and lament when bad things happen. We laugh at the way they come by their stage costumes and transportation. Sometimes we are appalled, gasping when their lives are in danger, but many times they have fun. The relationships are interesting, especially between Jimmy and his estranged dad, Dave and his mom, and Gerald and his. This is the best story of the sixties rock era, including biographies like No One Gets Out Alive by Jerry Hopkins about Jim Morrison and the Doors, who also performed in Germany during the era.
Musician and author Graham Sclater did much more than survive Hamburg; he went on to found a successful music-publishing house, Tabitha Music Limited. In the sixties, he spent time playing and jamming with rock stars like Jimi Hendrix and Elton John, Fats Domino and James Taylor. He was called Sandy and played the organ (like Gerry of the Cheetahs) in Hamburg (1964 - 1969) for bands called "The Wave," "The Birds & The Bees" and "The Manchester Playboys". Then he returned to England with useful experience and a lot of memories. His novel Ticket to Ride is an extreme close-up of the late sixties Reeperbahn experience for rock musicians and it is on the mark. It illustrates a place that many of us have never seen before
October 5, 2015
This was my first novel
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews