BLOOD, SNOT AND GUTS - THE 1970s
A couple of days ago I was listening to the Radcliife and Maconie show on BBC Radio Two, and they were discussing the Channel Four mockumentary, “The Execution of Gary Glitter” . I didn’t see that apparently bizarre piece of programming, but it was reviewed by Liam. I am not sure that the death penalty is quite such a non-debate as Liam thinks, although it has little support among the politically engaged.
That aside, Radcliffe and Maconie played “Rock and Roll part two”, which was one of Glitter’s biggest hits,, rarely heard on the radio nowadays, and in its own way is a brilliant and extraordinarily edgy piece of pop music. Everyone’s favourite DJs then asked whether or not the edginess was based upon perspective of what we know now about Gary Glitter, or whether it was there at the time.
Because much of glam rock was not unambiguously “feel good” music. Even a comparatively up-beat band like Slade reflected the underlying seediness in their underrated, downbeat and brilliantly jaundiced movie about the music industry, “Slade in Flames”.
Both Sweet and the Glitter band built their music on the foundation of a quite menacing beat; and in the context of their times, the androgyny and flamboyant clothes were not the castrated campness of Liberace, but carried with them a whiff of danger. The Glitter band having two drummers meant they generated much more of a thumping trance energy than most pop groups of their time. Those who think that it was punk who broke from the pretensions of prog rock, should perhaps reflect on the impact of Sweet, who in their own way were equally subversive. Fascinatingly, Sweet by inclination wanted to be more like Deep Purple, but adopted a rebellious New York Dolls image because it was more commercially viable. A Sweet concert was a relatively risky occasion, with vulnerable young teenagers drunk, hyped up and oblivious to danger.
I had been contemplating only last week why it is that the 1970s TV show “the Sweeney” is so relentlessly melancholy in tone. Of course this is partly a function of its extraordinarily effective theme tune which sets an expectation; but also the programme does brilliantly convey a sense of pointlessness. The coppers are violent, hard drinking and sexist, but not without charm and humour; and their fight against organised crime (in those days armed robbery was the main game, not drugs) is a treadmill were there is no catharsis or closure; and the institution of the police is shown as hidebound, stuffy and out of touch. Maverick cops battling bureaucracy is of course a mainstream cliche of American police procedurals, but in the Sweeney the management prevail, and Regan and Carter moan about it, but ultimately comply.
Britain in the 1970s was indeed a relatively more dangerous place than today. Extreme racism and sexism was rarely challenged; rape victims would have a far worse time from the police than today; bullying was rife in schools and workplaces; there was a greater culture of hard drinking and violence. Gays and lesbians were treated brutally, and there was widespread genuine fear and disgust at same gender sexual attraction.
Britain was also at the end of an era. The stuffy class stratification based upon social standing not ability was beginning to crack; and a generation who had been educated to rule an Empire were struggling to adjust to the modern world. Although Britain is still a deeply unequal society, we now live in the days when public school educated politicians pretend an estuary accent, and pose as proletarians. The petty snobbery and social rules by which the old middle classes closed ranks to ostracise outsiders was still alive in the 1970s.
Organised labour was also posing what seemed like an existential threat to the old order, but even this was as edgy as it was liberationary. Outside of the relatively small ranks of the far-left who saw this as having revolutionary potential, there was a widespread unease even within the labour movement that wage militancy in the face of a recession was unsustainable. The trade union movement was also male dominated, and sometimes reflected the most backward social attitudes. The liberation movements against racism, sexism and homophobia were mainly located outside the organised working class at that time. As Richard Crosland once observed, the Bevanite left in the Labour Party were more socially conservative than a bench of bishops.
What is more the economic consensus in the Labour Party was ruptured, with the right wing rolling back from Keynesianism after James Callaghan’s conference speech in 1976, and Healy’s deal with the IMF.
Obviously, the left is much weaker than we were in the 1970s, working people are less class conscious, trade unions have less developed workplace organisation, and confidence in industrial action is lower. Communities of solidarity have been undermined, and there is more identification with the tawdry shallowness of consumer baubles.
But we have also made enormous social gains since then: sexism, racism and homophobia have been made much less acceptable, though obviously there is still a way to go; and in particular the trade unions, and for the most part the Labour Party have been completely won to an equalities agenda. While we still have a class divided society, the insufferable snobbery of the English middle classes has been much diminished. We live in a society when the Tories feel the need to pretend to be caring, and even the Nazis have to pretend to be non-racist.
The 1970s? Oh, yawn - having watched the BBC’s “I Love The 1970s”, which shamelessly nicked pop culture from the 1960s and 1980s, I don’t care if I never hear this ridiculously over-hyped decade mentioned again. As for Slade and Sweet - oh come on, a load of old tosh! Best thing about the 1970s was the 1950s and 1960s revivals. Even flared trousers were cutting edge in the late 1960s!
Comment by Maria — 25 November, 2009 @ 2:07 pm
Interesting piece, Andy.
Another fascinating look at the dark side of the 1970s is David Peace’s ‘Red Riding Quartet’ books. The serial killer stuff in Peace’s work is not for the faint of heart, but I think he captures the rise of Thatcherism very effectively.
Also interesting that the two most important musical forms to emerge from the industrialized world in the last period–rap and punk–emerged in the 1970s. Is there a case for seeing these two genres as a ‘music of defeat’, reflecting the decline of the civil rights movement and black power in the US, and the waning of the class struggle in Britain?
Comment by James — 25 November, 2009 @ 4:07 pm
Having lived through both the sixties and seventies (on strike for thirteen weeks in 1971), I can say that it was the start of the counter-revolution to the swinging sixties. It was at times nasty and then again it could also be an inspiring time. The Sweet were fantastic and up there with the best of musicians.
Comment by Theo Saurus — 25 November, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
To sum up : “we threw the baby of solidarity out with the bathwater of racism, sexism and homophobia”.
Comment by Laban — 25 November, 2009 @ 4:09 pm
B”ritain in the 1970s was indeed a relatively more dangerous place than today. Extreme racism and sexism was rarely challenged; rape victims would have a far worse time from the police than today; bullying was rife in schools and workplaces; there was a greater culture of hard drinking and violence.”
A greater culture of hard drinking and violence than today? I don’t believe that. Levels of drinking, and of drink-fuelled violence, are higher today than then, aren’t they? And I don’t think there was any meaningful culture of drinking or violence and violent bullying among women and girls in the 70s; but there certainly is today.
Comment by Jonny Mac — 25 November, 2009 @ 4:19 pm
Your right about the negatives of the 70s but in some ways there was more genuine opportunity for working class kids. More of them could go to university and the State would pay for that. Even those who did not could get an education from the Trade Union Movement or via political activism. Kids got free school milk as an investment in their future health until Thatcher abolished it. The sense of collectivism in working class communities was palpable. The middle class was on the backfoot still reeling from Atlee and Wilson. There was a sense that further gains were possible.
Compare that with the vice like grip of todays middle classes. Every year they consolidate their grip on every area of society ruthlessy excluding the not them.
Oh I think your wrong to attribute the sense of menace to Glitter and the Sweet. It was all around we could feel everything changing.
Comment by Christy — 25 November, 2009 @ 4:20 pm
“Oh I think your wrong to attribute the sense of menace to Glitter and the Sweet. It was all around we could feel everything changing.”
I agree with this. I am not saying they created menace, but they certainly reflected it. And the menace was all around.
Compare Ballroom Blitz with “I predict a riot”.
A sweet concert had a fair chance of really ending up as a riot.
Comment by Andy Newman — 25 November, 2009 @ 4:30 pm
I agree with Andy and Theo. The Sweet were fantastic. Maria at #1 should think twice about making such divisive comments.
Comment by Darren Johnson AM — 25 November, 2009 @ 4:39 pm
The best thing about the 1970s is that we were all much younger then. Apart from those who hadn’t been born yet.
Comment by Francis King — 25 November, 2009 @ 5:16 pm
#7 Or in the words of Fleetwood Mac (later copied by the Rezillos) “…it’s Wednesday evening, there’s sure gonna be a fight- somebody’s gonna get their head kicked in tonight!”
Oh, and just to be utterly and unecessarally sectarian, there’s a great line from the Sweet that sums up the SWP at the moment- We just haven’t got a clue WHAT to do!”
Comment by Armchair — 25 November, 2009 @ 5:18 pm
“Another fascinating look at the dark side of the 1970s is David Peace’s ‘Red Riding Quartet’ books.”
Completely agree with that. Don’t think the TV dramas adequately realised the darkness of the books, however.
Has the ‘insufferable snobbery’ of the English middle classes been diminished that much, though? In work, I occasionally glimpse and try and read the shite that passes for commentary in The Mail and it is filled to the brim with the most lethal class hatred. As for its own peculiar brand of misogyny, it’s quite brilliantly constructed stuff.
Comment by Seán — 25 November, 2009 @ 5:33 pm
#11
But wasn’t the class snobbery designed to put Daily Mail readers firmly in their place. As Lord Salisbury described it is “a paper written by office boys for office boys to read”
Daily Mail readers have traditionaly been more the aspirational Tory voting working class rather than the professional and managerial middle classes.
of course what has happened is a huge explansion of professions where people think of themseves as being middle class (paradoxicaly while actual working conditons in those jobs are being proletarianised)
Comment by Andy Newman — 25 November, 2009 @ 5:50 pm
#12- Yes there are probably more people than ever before whose basic work station is fairly identical: a chair, a small desk, a computer screen and keyboard/ mouse and a telephone.
Comment by Armchair — 25 November, 2009 @ 5:56 pm
‘of course what has happened is a huge explansion of professions where people think of themseves as being middle class (paradoxicaly while actual working conditons in those jobs are being proletarianised)’
Just so Andy but have you noticed the requirement for a degree when none is neccesary. This was an organic move by the middle classes to ensure livings for their own in the public sector; it ran concurrent with the decline of working class kids attending university.
The contempt of the commentariat for the working class is imo currently best illustrated by the Guardian. The Leopard has not changed its spots.
Comment by Christy — 25 November, 2009 @ 5:59 pm
Sweet’s Ballroom Blitz was inspired by a mass ‘rammy’ when they played the Grand Hall in Kilmarnock. Bet you didn’t know that.
Comment by Anorak — 25 November, 2009 @ 6:20 pm
The seventies was a fascinating decade, with 1973 the most acute crisis year for capitalism. The 1960’s still saw an expanding, optimistic welfare state capitalism, where the bourgeoisie could take part in a ‘progressive’ mood. But by the 1970’s, this had turned sour, as the post war structures of capitalism failed and the workers went on the offensive. The victorious miners strikes showed a working class stranglehold on Britain’s coal power, OPEC oil producing countries exerted their power, and the Vietnamese moved towards victory against the USA.
And it was there in the popular culture - do you remember the apocalyptic 1970’s kids TV? It was great stuff to set off your imagination …
remember ‘The Changes’? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYkkfBMK-7c
…society breaks down and people smash up the machines and leave the cities… and its done by the bbc in a really surreal way.. as a kid I found it fascinating and disturbing… brilliant, wild and challenging compared to kids telly today.
And ‘the tomorrow people’!!! - a multiracial collective of telepathic kids with their own underground HQ, committed to non-violence, and fighting nazi thugs on the streets of 1970’s britain… loved it… I always wanted to be a tomorrow person…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xez4o1ujOPI
Comment by Barry Kade — 25 November, 2009 @ 7:05 pm
watch those tomorrow people opening credits - great visuals and theme tune, no?
Comment by Barry Kade — 25 November, 2009 @ 7:09 pm
#15- Yes something else about the 70s was it was a lot less likely that someone would get stabbed and especially shot over sfa (I don’t mean football). A rammy these days would generally be a lot less amusing.
Comment by Armchair — 25 November, 2009 @ 7:16 pm
I think there were more educational and other opportunities for working-class people in the 1970s, and the left was in better nick. As to levels of violent crime, I don’t know if it was better, worse or the same as today. “A Clockwork Orange” is somewhat laughable today but shocked people at the time. I started reading newspapers in the 1970s and shock horror stories about crime and football violence were certainly around.
Comment by Mark Victorystooge — 25 November, 2009 @ 7:36 pm
Interesting that GG’s (Glitter, not Galloway) first hit, Rock and Roll Part 2, was an instrumental, essentially a backing track without a lead vocal. It was originally intended as the B side of the original single (Rock n Roll Pt 1 sung by King Tubby).
So the first hit was sans Glitter.
It was Mike Leander rather than King Tubby who was the auteur on that track. Incidentally, Leander wrote the string arrangement for She’s Leaving Home when George Martin was unavailable.
But, yes, I agree that it was an amazing single — “a brilliant and extraordinarily edgy piece of pop music”. Indeedy.
Anyhow, I was a Bpwie kiddie. Which means appreciation of Roxy, T Rex, Lou Reed, Iggy, as well as Glitter and Sweet, taste morphing into punk.
Comment by Madam Miaow — 25 November, 2009 @ 8:50 pm
And of course the war in Ireland and the suppression of the Irish in Britain made musical and theatrical appearances.
I remember when I was a ‘Bogwog’and England stopped at the door of every Irish pub. A very strange time the 70s.
Comment by Christy — 25 November, 2009 @ 9:26 pm
#17 To link back with an earlier thread - Homer Simpson’s claim that rock music reached perfection in the mid-70’s makes sense when you think that the youth movement for which rock music was the soundtrack peaked and died at that stage.
Comment by Daphne — 25 November, 2009 @ 9:34 pm
‘Rock and Roll Part Two’ I remember quite clearly as being the music used by Bob Dole in his campaign to win the Republican nomination for the 1996 Presidential Election. Whether it was used in the head to head with Clinton (and Perot and Nader) I can’t recall. That was, of course, several years before GG was beyond the pale…
Comment by anglonoel — 25 November, 2009 @ 11:47 pm
In terms of working class assertiveness my favourite glam rock lyric of all time has got to be:
“you look like a star but you’re still on the dole”
From Mott the Hoople’s “All the way from Memphis”
Comment by Darren Johnson AM — 26 November, 2009 @ 12:17 am
Sorry#24 right band wrong song “now my brothers back at home with his Beatles and his Stones,he never got it off onthat revolution stuff,what a drag too many snags” Oh and by the way Alice C were the best heavy metal sound to ever come out of the good ol US ofA
Comment by Scot in London — 26 November, 2009 @ 12:43 am
It was good growing up in the 50s,60,70,80,90, 2000 and a bit. Still here! Had a laugh listening to the lefties and their revolutionary plans. I joined MI5 after finding out the left were totally infiltrated not to mention they were a bunch of opportunists backstabbing each other. I get my regular pension for grassing on them. It turned out everyone was grassing on them including the leaders! Lots of MI5 WITH PENSIONS.CHIN CHIN. Have a good night Comrades.
This is a joke!! Aye.
Comment by Jimmy — 26 November, 2009 @ 1:09 am
Scott - the line you quote is from All the Young Dudes. Here are the lyrics for All the way from Memphis
Artist: Mott the Hoople
Album: Mott
Lyrics: All The Way From Memphis
(Ian Hunter)
Forgot my six-string razor - hit the sky
Half way to Memphis ‘fore I realised
Well I rang the information - my axe was cold
They said she rides the train to Oreoles
Now its a mighty long way down the dusty trail
And the sun burns hot on the cold steel rails
‘N I look like a bum ‘n I crawl like a snail
All the way from Memphis
Well I got to Oreoles y’know - it took a month
And there was my guitar, electric junk.
Some spade said “;Rock’n'rollers, you’re all the same.
Man that’s your instrument.”; I felt so ashamed.
Now its a mighty long way down rock’n'roll
Through the Bradford Cities and the Oreoles
‘N you look like a star but you’re still on the dole
All the way from Memphis
Yeah it’s a mighty long way down rock’n'roll
From the Liverpool docks to the Hollywood Bowl
‘N you climb up the mountains ‘n you fall down the holes
All the way from Memphis
Yeah its a mighty long way down rock’n'roll
As your name gets hot so your heart grows cold
‘N you gotta stay young man, you can never be old
All the way from Memphis
Yeah its a mighty long way down rock’n'roll
Through the Bradford Cities and the Oreoles
‘N you look like a star but you’re really out on parole!
All the way from Memphis
Comment by Darren Johnson AM — 26 November, 2009 @ 1:13 am
“But we have also made enormous social gains since then: sexism, racism and homophobia have been made much less acceptable, though obviously there is still a way to go”
Hence the far left’s need to invent new “isms” and phobias to try to worm it’s way back into the world of serious politics. The only guarantee to be thankful for is that sooner or later the SWP will swoop in and proceed to obliterate any such movement in pursuit of their own agenda.
Comment by Patrick G — 26 November, 2009 @ 5:49 am
the best thing about the 1970s? - Parliament Funkadelic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDcBpOO4Nu0
Comment by sapronov — 26 November, 2009 @ 9:28 am
There’s a tendency to stereotype popular music genres here.
Slade and Sweet were frustrated heavy metal bands, Slade did an 8 minute live version of the song that first introduced the term (Born to be Wild), while punk rock icons Clash and Stranglers were more influenced by prog rock than is often given credit (even Yes didn’t do a triple concept album or play the harpsichord).
And that Fleetwood Mac punk song (created by Jeremy Spencer) Armchair mentions was from the 60s not the 70s, while the Green Manalishi (with the Two Pronged Crown) in the 1970s set the standard for gloom and despondency (”The night is so black that the darkness cooks “) despite the band’s degeneration into MOR mush later that decade.
I also don’t think it is fair to categorise the whole of the 1970s as a homophobic period at least as far as youth music culture was concerned - David Bowie, particularly, set the tone wearing a dress on the cover of 1970s The Man who Sold the World and continuing the deliberately homo erotic images on the cover of Aladdin Sane (”A Lad Insane” to also continue the gloom and despondancy theme). I seem to remember Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” tribute to transvestites and gays being nominated by NME as its record of the year circa 1970. Certainly by 1971-73 Top of the Pops was full of men wearing make and feminine clothing. By 1977 thousands marched in defence of Gay News to hear Tom Robinson in Trafalgar Square. Of course life in the establishment, especially the armed forces and police, was immunised against these trends in youth culture, but millions still embraced a new openness.
And Prog Rock was not as bad as is often made out - Keith Emerson was one of the original punks, sticking knives in his organ on stage, burning the US flag and giving a big “Up Yours” to the classical establishment; great news that ELP are getting back together again , eh?
(groans all around from the ignoranti …). And of course the original punks were the Who with My Generation in the 1960s but that didn’t stop them writing a Prog Rock Opera and an 8 and half minute keyboard driven epic anti-establishment song (”Won’t Get Fooled Again” on 1971’s Who’s Next).
Comment by Prinkipo Exile — 26 November, 2009 @ 9:49 am
I remember an older female cousin was a big Bowie fan in the 1970s. Couldn’t see the attraction, myself.
Comment by Mark Victorystooge — 26 November, 2009 @ 1:51 pm
Slade sold out!! They were originally a skinhead band which built their following in the skinhead movement,check out “Get down and get with it” pure stomp!and even their 1st no 1″Take me bak home” where you can see them on TOTP hair growing back in as they evolved into glam rockers to sell lots of records and make lots of money and leaving behind their austere alienated skinhead youth following.Everyone always remembers Bolans sell out from hippy underground to glam but forget Slades sell out,however their pop songs were great and you could hear their origins in the brutal back beat and also in the spelling of the song titles.
Comment by Scot in London — 26 November, 2009 @ 3:28 pm
Slade were not a huge skinhead band. For a while they toyed with the skinhead look, but that was really a scam cooked up by their manager, Chas Chandler. They did not ’sell out’ - they were always a hard rocking commercial band. I don’t say that to criticise Slade - they were absolutely my favourite group of that era and I stand behind no one in my love for them
Live they would blow so-called hard rock bands like Deep Purple out of the water. If you don’t believe me, check out the first Slade Alive! LP - especially the version of Born to be Wild, already mentioned.
On another point, Mott the Hoople were glam but almost proto-punk themselves. Check out the lyrics to the track ‘Crash Street Kids’. Proper working class organic-intellectual-hooligan music imho:
See my thoughts and then see my scars
See my clothes, I dress to kill
See my blood and see my gun
The crash street kids are comin’ to get ya
(Better run, better run, better run)
The crash street kids are comin’ to get ya
(You’ll get done, you’ll get done, you’ll get done)
Heed my faults and heed my curse
Heed my frustration, you just don’t know
A new town nothing, send for the hearse
Pull down the wires, set you on fire
I’m getting too tired to resist
We’ll torture your flats
You keep us like rats
Then you tell ‘em we’re brats
And the press twist our fist
Get me out of this mess
Hear me swear, hear every word
I ain’t just a number, I wanna be heard
A TV announcer he talks to the scum
I ain’t been solved, I’m uninvolved
I’ve been annulled and I can’t seem to prove it
And you’re so pure, you know the cures
Just keep us poor, the juvenile delinquent bit
The crash street kids are comin’ to get ya
(You’re too late, you’re too late, you’re too late)
The crash street kids are comin’ to get ya
(Where’s your mates? Where’s your mates? Where’s your mates? )
The crash street kids are comin’ to get ya
(You’re exposed, you’re exposed, you’re exposed)
The crash street kids are comin’ to get ya
(Now you’re closed, now you’re closed, now you’re closed)
The crash street kids are comin’ to get ya
Now, you’re dead, now, you’re dead, now, you’re dead
Now, you’re dead, now, you’re dead, now, you’re dead
ps. Prinkipo, get over ELP (truly awful) and The WHo (Won’t Get Fooled Again is an attack on the left, not the establishment). If you are prog-inclined, try some Van Der Graaf Generator, King Crimson or, if you really want to count them as prog, The Soft Machine. If by ‘prog’ you mean musical adventurism, then no one can touch the awesome Mothers of Invention.
Comment by Andy Wilson — 26 November, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
“They were originally a skinhead band which built their following in the skinhead movement”
No, they were originally a long haired r&b band called the N’Betweens and subsequently (in a somewhat poppier incarnation) Ambrose Slade.The skinhead thing was a gimmick, suggested by manager Chas Chandler. To their credit, the band were initially unhappy about it, thinking that they would be considered racists.
Comment by lone nut — 26 November, 2009 @ 4:09 pm
#34: not sure about the racism bit… at least it would be news to me as an avid Slade follower. I wouldn’t have minded if Slade *had* been a skinhead band. I was a young skinhead myself, from a similar area (well, Coventry rather than Birmingham) though not a racist, and would not have assumed at the time (early 70s) that to be a skinhead was necessarily to be a racist. Far from it. That stuff really came later, as I recall. And, as we all know, early skinhead culture celebrated black culture completely (ie. reggae). I mean, don’t you think that, eg., the members of The Specials (also growing up in Coventry at the same time) were skinheads? But I could be wrong about Slade’s reason for dropping the skinhead style (I think they just thought it wasn’t really them - certainly Dave hill and Jim Lea weren’t natural skinheads) ….. but let me know if you know better.
Comment by Andy Wilson — 26 November, 2009 @ 4:20 pm
Inciedntly,, I saw Slade play Bath Pavillion in 1978, at the absoute bottom of their popularity, before they revived their careers at the Reading Festival the same year.
There were literally no more than 20 of us, standing in a venue with a capacity of about 2000
I was really impressed that they came out and performed as if the place was full. enthusiastic, banter with the crowd, full of energy and they didn’t even mind being gobbed at - understanding that this was a compliment of sorts!
Comment by Andy Newman — 26 November, 2009 @ 4:21 pm
Perehaps not entuirely reliable info, as it comes from my always slightly bewildered aunt. BUt she is a close neighbour of Dave Hill, and tells me he is Jehovahs Witness now.
Comment by Andy Newman — 26 November, 2009 @ 4:23 pm
#20: “Rock n Roll Pt 1 sung by King Tubby”
woah…. MMiaow, are you sure about this? King Tubby?
does not compute….
but, again, you may know better
Comment by Andy Wilson — 26 November, 2009 @ 4:24 pm
#37: Andy, He is indeed, or at least he was the last time I checked. He was still touring a depleted version of Slade recently, though I don’t really get the point. I still think, eg., Coz I Love You (Slade’s first hit single) is a masterpiece of (proto-)punk, folk-electronic hard rock that, weirdly, is prescient of, eg., Pere Ubu. Coincidentally (or is it an Illuminati thing?) David Thomas of Pere Ubu also became a Jehovas Witness.
Comment by Andy Wilson — 26 November, 2009 @ 4:28 pm
#39
Q: ” don’t really get the point”
A: £££££££££
it is his job, how else would he make money?
Comment by Andy Newman — 26 November, 2009 @ 4:34 pm
“Coincidentally (or is it an Illuminati thing?) David Thomas of Pere Ubu also became a Jehovas Witness.”
Also coincidently, Poly Styrene and laura Logic both ended up independently joining the same Buddhist sect years after their musical collaboration.
Laura Logic made the possibly libellous claim that Marion Elliot drove her out of the Buddhists in the same way she had been driven out of X Ray Spex.
Comment by Andy Newman — 26 November, 2009 @ 4:38 pm
No, I get *that* point. It’s the music that I don’t get the point of…. I mean, slade without Noddy Holder? That’s like the Sensational Alex harvey Band without Alex Harvey (also still touring, apparently) Mentioning them reminds me of their track ‘Give My Compliments to the Chef’, which I would put alongside the Mott the Hoople track as glam rock just at the point of (almost) spontaneously generating punk, so to say. As someone who did in fact leave school early to ‘join the Royal Navy’, I always loved the lyrics to this song:
Mother dear did you hear how they’re teaching me to do the goose step?
Father mine just in time you gave me a machine to wash my jeans in
the customer is always right the girl is much too young to know the difference
The guitar hanging in the hall is calling me in all its magnificence
Give my compliments to the chef
Give my compliments to the chef
Leo sits behind the desk he wanna see the woman cooking gravy
Nobody sent no argument and I gotta go and join the Royal Navy
Madamazelle you do so well you know the meaning of salvation
But the General wants me on the phone and he’s alone and needs my consolation
Give my compliments to the chef
Give my compliments to the chef
He’s crazy he got his head in a basket
She’s lazy and you don’t understand
You know I’m running and you don’t wanna hide me
I know a woman who’s a man is a man
One night I was dreaming as I lay on my pillow
The train I was riding was ten coaches long
And in the village they was looking at freedom
In the beginning when I knew it was any old time
Any old time
Comment by Andy Wilson — 26 November, 2009 @ 4:44 pm
Andy 41 Hare Krishna are not Buddhists and dont claim to be
sandy
Comment by sandy — 26 November, 2009 @ 4:47 pm
“And, as we all know, early skinhead culture celebrated black culture completely (ie. reggae).”
Yes, I am fully aware of that. But newspapers, club owners and promoters at the time associated skinheads with racism and violence so it wasn’t too smart a move.
Comment by lone nut — 26 November, 2009 @ 4:53 pm
#42
Well even more bizarre is Andy Scott touring with “Sweet” even though Brian Connolly and Mick Tuckeer are dead, and Steve Priest in the USA.
Andy Scott is NOT Sweet, whereas at lease Dave Hill was a big personality in Slade.
Comment by Andy Newman — 26 November, 2009 @ 4:55 pm
#44: yep. but it does mean that the lads took the decision for commercial reasons (bookings), rather than political principle (anti-racism), as I imagined. I don’t hold it against them, obviously. I rather liked their skinhead look. but the music did improve after they’d jumped ship. Actually, another reason I’ve heard given for them dropping the look is that the short hair made it more obvious what big, sticky-out ears Dave Hill had, and he started refusing to get a trim
#45: Andy, sorry to touch on such a personal point and raise such powerful emotions. It took me decades to get over Slade’s demise, so I sympathise
Comment by Andy Wilson — 26 November, 2009 @ 5:10 pm
#46
True, in a bizarre way, i still miss Brian Connolly, even though i never had any greater association with him than listen to his records 30 years ago!
Comment by Andy Newman — 26 November, 2009 @ 5:12 pm
In later press and biographical interviews Slade were always quite scathing of the management pressure they were put under to adopt the skinhead look. It was never their decision and Jim and Noddy have both said it created completely false expectations about what sort of band they were and what sort of music they played. However, Slade did play some fantastic music during this period 1969-70 and it is well worth checking out the newly released CD of their BBC session recordings.
Comment by Darren Johnson AM — 26 November, 2009 @ 5:29 pm
#48
I suppose that may inform the cynacism about the music industry in the film “Slade in Flame”
Comment by Andy Newman — 26 November, 2009 @ 5:36 pm
Andy Wilson - I saw King Crimson and Soft Machine live during their heyday;
I sadly missed VDG, though Pawn Hearts and H to He were among my favourite albums in the early 70s.
But I do think Keith Emerson is a misunderstood musical genius and I saw him a few years playing Tarkus (from 1971) which is an amazing piece of music, much maligned at the time but in retrospect truly awe-inspiring. But I’ve got eclectic and wide ranging tastes from blues, jazz and classical through to rock and pop so I suppose there’s no accounting for them and I’m aware ELP are the marmite of music.
Don’t agree about the Who - the song is ambiguous, like the Beatles Revolution, Townsend is a contradictory figure but never part of the establishment. It’s a bit like some people who say Bowie embraced fascism - afraid i don’t buy it, just confusion.
It was certainly true that skinhead culture in the late 1960 embraced West Indian music with a huge following for reggae bands like Desmond Dekker, Harry J & the Allstars, Jimmy Cliff etc, but growing up in a very diverse culture in the midlands there was never the same approach to asian culture and a high level of intolerance of Pakistanis and Sikhs in particular was prevalent by the early 1970s among those attracted to the skinhead movement, which was then built on by fascists and racists such as Martin Webster’s NF.
Comment by Prinkipo Exile — 26 November, 2009 @ 6:00 pm
When I was but a small kid, I had this relatively obscure Slade song. It filled me with excitement growing up in the early 70’s about the adventures and changes yet to come… weird seeing it now on youtube, nearly 40 years later:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNjBt-6TXn0
Its from the first slade album in 1970, Play It Loud - and its their cover of ‘Shape of things to come’, - ah! full of youthful optimism, if a tad deterministic…
“There are changes
Lying ahead on every road
There are new thoughts
Ready and waiting to explode.
When tomorrow is today
the bells may toll for some,
but nothing can change the shape of things to come…
There are young dreams
Crowding out old realities
Revolutions
Sweeping in like a fresh new breeze…”
ah!
Comment by Barry Kade — 26 November, 2009 @ 6:01 pm
#30: “Certainly by 1971-73 Top of the Pops was full of men wearing make and feminine clothing”
the “brickies in gold lamé” look, as it was called at the time…. with particular reference to Sweet, as I recall
The Bowie-led, sexual ambivalence thing was extremely…. well, ambivalent - I mean, people would do the full Bowie-Ronson-Spiders From Mars thing, with makeup looking (appropriately enough) as if it had been applied with a trowel, their eyes glued half-shut by mascara - but they would batter anyone’s brains out if it was suggested that they might be in any way actually sexually ambivalent (aka “are you a puff?”). Very confusing.
I don’t know what it is like to be a teenager these days, but my experience was that everyday life in the 70s for most teenagers came with the threat of violence permanently attached. I guess it was less deadly in the sense that there weren’t guns involved - but it was not uncommon to attacked by people carrying razors, flick-knives, nun-chucks (or whatever they’re called) and so on. The older skinhead gang on my estate (who gloried in the wonderful name ‘The King’s Konk’) all proudly carried sword-sticks which were not entirely for show. ‘A Clockwork Orange’ sometimes seems partly like a documentary when I look back on (my experience of) that time. The background to all this unfocussed violence was a collapsing social contract, feeble Labour Party, etc. It felt like anything could happen. Punk represented the moment at which that violence emerged from the underground to be reflected back at the ruling class, terrifying their poor souls, for a few moments at least. When I first heard the Sex Pistols it was as if my whole childhood suddenly came into focus and made sense… I thought ’so - it isn’t just me…’. I don’t pretend to have been a ’sex pistol before The Sex Pistols’, I just mean that they perfectly encapsulated a certain moment in time, a feeling that was not otherwise previously articlated in popular culture (witht he partial exceptions I mentioned above.) If you want, you can call that ‘art’.
Comment by Andy Wilson — 26 November, 2009 @ 6:03 pm
Tarkus (from 1971) which is an amazing piece of music, much maligned at the time
my experience was that everyday life in the 70s for most teenagers came with the threat of violence permanently attached
Very much so. Punk turned that violence into display - took the violence of the bootboys onto the plane of ideas, as Vaneigem or somebody said - but there was still a fair amount of real violence around; lots of “punks vs Teds” stuff where I lived, which I thought was rather sad. Then there was Oi!, which in retrospect looks a bit like a Sealed Knot version of early-70s bootboys (Where Have All The Bootboys Gone, indeed). By the mid-80s it had all died down, even at the football - Heysel doesn’t really count - and it’s never really come back. Don’t know what changed, really. Thatcher? Commodification of youth culture? 12″ singles? Channel Four?
Comment by Phil — 26 November, 2009 @ 6:46 pm
As for Tarkus, that album came up in conversation when I interviewed Mark Thomas - he was talking about how transformative punk had been, & said that when it happened he only had about three albums, one of them being Tarkus:
Me: “Top album!”
MT: No. No, it is not a top album. Step away from Emerson, Lake and Palmer…
Comment by Phil — 26 November, 2009 @ 6:51 pm
#30 I would be interested in ELP getting back together again if Keith Emerson wasn’t now partially crippled in the hands and incapable of playing his old stuff up to standard; and if Greg Lake wasn’t a living example of every reason that prog rock got a bad name. On the other hand, the Van Der Graaf Generator reunion is an untarnished success.
Comment by Daphne — 26 November, 2009 @ 7:29 pm
You know who else was a Jehovah’s Witness for a while? Damo Suzuki from Can.
Comment by Daphne — 26 November, 2009 @ 7:31 pm
Damo? Say it’s not true
Comment by VofH — 26 November, 2009 @ 7:38 pm
But then again they were not exactly on the level
What happened to Ammon Daal 2 out of interest?
Comment by VofH — 26 November, 2009 @ 7:39 pm
Presumably Ammon Daal 2 is an Amon Duul 2 tribute band
I think AD2 are still going. I hope so- i’d like to see Renate Knaup before I die…
Comment by RobM — 26 November, 2009 @ 7:57 pm
Damo married a JW girl and converted, but I think he’s much better now.
Comment by Daphne — 26 November, 2009 @ 8:08 pm
I stand corrected
Clearly you have the benefit of a classical education
Comment by VofH — 26 November, 2009 @ 8:34 pm
Well Socialist Unity blog may have failed completely in its mission to unite the various left groupings. But this thread has certainly united the disparate strands of glam, punk, prog and heavy rock. And for that we must all be extremely grateful. Cheers.
Comment by Darren Johnson AM — 26 November, 2009 @ 10:35 pm
#62 Is anyone interested in my reminisences about the ruck between Sussex Police and the united forces of the mods, skins punks and bikers on the beach at Brighton before a Jam gig in 1980?
Comment by Armchair — 26 November, 2009 @ 11:00 pm
#63 Not really, but let us know what role the SWP played in it.
Comment by aarghh — 27 November, 2009 @ 12:04 am
#64 It was dialectical if I remember correctly.
Comment by Armchair — 27 November, 2009 @ 12:12 am
“i’d like to see Renate Knaup before I die”
Renate was on TV a few weeks ago, in the BBC program about Krautrock - looking every bit the glamorous old freak, puffing on a cigarette while moaning about the Red Army Faction.
“a Sealed Knot version of early-70s bootboys (Where Have All The Bootboys Gone…”
that’s a great description of Oi! but I’d stand by Slaughter and the Dogs (’Where Have All the Bootboys Gone’) They were a bit of a joke punk group, but more Glam than Oi! I rather liked them, in a soft-headed sort of way. My friend Jim was a roadie for the Fall when they first formed and he tells some interesting stories about punch-ups between Slaughter and the Dogs (lumpen Wythenshawe rowdies) and the (equally working class, but rather more cerebral and considerably tougher) Prestwich / Fall crew. Long live Mark E. Smith, etc… Which reminds me, regarding the idea that punk was not innovative: what are The Fall if not one of the most startling, brilliant & articulate groups of all time?
Comment by Andy Wilson — 27 November, 2009 @ 10:21 am
I thought Poly Styrene joined the Krishnas, not the Buddhists ?
Comment by Laban — 27 November, 2009 @ 11:24 am
#66 So is your mate saying Prestwich are harder than Wythenshawe?
Comment by Armchair — 27 November, 2009 @ 11:35 am
#67
“Krishnas, not the Buddhists ”
my ignorance, I thought hari Krishnas were buddhists
Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2009 @ 11:38 am
#69- the Hare Krishna cult are Hindus who particularly venerate Lord Krishna, the subject of “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison.
Comment by Armchair — 27 November, 2009 @ 11:59 am
#68: He is. Want to make something of it?
just mentioning the 70s brings them flooding back…
Comment by Andy Wilson — 27 November, 2009 @ 12:40 pm
just mentioning the 70s brings them flooding back…
Oi, you looking at my comment?
Comment by Phil — 28 November, 2009 @ 10:17 am
#71- I have no particular objection to his stated opinion.
However I understand that there are a number of young gentlemen from the M22 area who may wish to have a discussion with your friend and as many residents of the M25 area as he may wish to accompany him to a mutually convenient location, where the issue at point can be decided once and for all.
They have asked me to suggest that it is unlikely that your friend will take up the offer as they believe him to be a “bottle merchant”.
Comment by Armchair — 28 November, 2009 @ 11:10 am
Oh,chillax.
Comment by tyresome points — 28 November, 2009 @ 2:32 pm
Hi there, I dont know if I am writing in a proper board but I have got a problem with activation, link i receive in email is not working…
Comment by Anonymous — 20 March, 2010 @ 12:39 am