LWE Chapter 7: Bar Tales #3

A pub with no name

Singapore called. Well, a guy I’d done freelance work for in Singapore called. Said he’d left the PR firm where he’d been working when I freelanced for him when I first got back from Australia in ‘88, and was now on his own. Would I like to work for him? At that point, my best friend, Gan, was living in Singapore and I had had quite enough of working for the altitudinally-challenged emperor-wannabe at McCann so I said ‘yes’ and right at the end of ‘89 I found myself in Singapore.

Within a few years, I was married and even became a father. During this time I used to hang out at a pub within a restaurant along Orchard Road. The pub itself had no name (though it was sometimes referred to as The Cellar even though there was no signage bearing that name as far as I recall) - it simply sat beside the Jack’s Place Restaurant and might even have been the only entertainment venue that that F&B group ever managed.

And a band with no name...

We simply called it Jack’s Place when we needed to name it and it was in the basement of Yen San Building along Orchard Road. Besides the pub not having a name, it also had a band that didn’t have a name! Terry Mortimer, Hans Vernie and Philip Teo sang together, usually under the moniker ‘Terry, Hans and Philip’ though that wasn’t really the band’s name. Every now and then there’d be a joke and a half-hearted attempt to name the band, but nothing came of it.

Like I did at Rennie’s, I used to hang out there quite a lot at some point. Jack’s Place was completely different though - it had live music for one thing, and lots of people coming in an out. A much busier and noisier place than Rennie’s which didn’t even have piped music if I remember correctly. To get to Jack’s Place, you walked down a set of stairs and turned left into a short corridor. To the right was the restaurant and to the left the entrance to the pub.  The pub had, like most other pubs, subdued lighting. A large central bar faced you when you walked in the door. Some seats ringed the bar, and more tables and chairs were to your right, between the bar and the stage. On the left of the stage was another seating area.

The place was just right for me as I started a new chapter in Singapore. The music was great and the ambience likewise. And the pubgoers who came in groups, kinda knew each other as well. My own group - Gan, my then-girlfriend Jessica, Andrew Chan (who used to phone me at Rennie’s) and one or two others used to go regularly. We got quite close to the band, to William the bartender, and to the waiting staff, many of whom had worked for Jack’s Place for some time.

This picture ©SPH via NLB and is part of an article published in the Straits Times on 18 August 1989. The article can be accessed at the link below.

Jack Daniels at Jack's Place

William poured a mean JDCoke (Jack Daniels + Coke for those unfamiliar with rocket fuel terminology). Thinking back now, perhaps some cosmic influence dictated that my favourite drink at my favourite watering hole of the late 80s and early 90s would share the same first name…  

The band would start playing around 9 (I think) and played a lot of 70s and 80s stuff. They were good musicians - make no mistake about that. I reckon Terry Mortimer is one of Singapore’s best bassists. He had pedigree too, having been part of the contest-winning trio Tony and Terry with Spencer. Hans played lead guitar and usually did all the other fandanglingly stuff with diskettes (remember those?) and drum beats etc, on some machine, and he sang. Really well. He also loved to talk about new age stuff and would often mention Shirley MacLaine… Philip Teo played guitar and sang as well, sometimes in a falsetto even. They served up a lot of rock and roll, some britpop, some 70s classics and more. There was music from America, The Eagles, Kansas, Alan Parsons Project, CCR, The Beatles... Much of it we could sing along to, most of it we preferred to let the pros do it. And they did it well. 

A year or so later, when Jessica and I were preparing to get married, we met Nigel Tan and his fiancée Anna at a marriage preparation course we all attended. Turns out Nigel was also a frequent customer at Jack’s Place and he and his bunch of friends used to sit on the left of the stage. We knew there was a bunch of guys there often though we hadn’t introduced ourselves. But finally became friends - lifelong friends as it turned out.

Nothing much happened here, someone said.

Someone once said that nothing much happened at this pub without a name. Well, perhaps - I never saw a fight, for one thing. I never saw someone pass out drunk. I also never saw an unhappy face. So what did I see?

I saw friends having a good time. I saw staff whom we knew by name and who knew our favourite drinks so much so that we never even had to order a drink - it would arrive at our table when we came in. I saw a bunch of musicians who played with talent and heart and who gave us hours of entertainment. I saw guys and girls singing along with the band and feeling darned good. In fact, I think that, contrary to what that fellow said, quite a bit actually happened at Jack’s Place. 

Like many good things though, it all came to an end eventually. Jack’s Place decided they didn’t want to run a pub anymore so took back the space to expand the restaurant.

The band moved on to Europa at International Plaza and some of us went with them - including William the bartender. I walked in for the first time there, and waved to that familiar face behind the bar. I found myself a table and scarcely had I put my book down (yes, some habits die hard) when the waitress brought me a JDCoke. ‘What’s this?’ I asked ‘I haven’t ordered yet…’

She replied ‘JDCoke. William saw you walk in and asked me to serve you this.’

Those were the days…

Note: The article referenced above is available at:
http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19890818-1.2.77.3.1?ST=1&AT=search&k=%22Hans%20Vernie%22&QT=%22hansvernie%22&oref=article