1970 was a good year for festivals. I’d got a taste for them at the Isle of Wight the previous year. The highlight for me had been an amphetamine enhanced introduction to The Who live. Unfortunately I overdid the Dexedrine, spent the whole night staring at the inside of a tent and was dead on my feet by the time Dylan came on the following evening. I didn’t even see him. Everyone stood up and I was staggering around on a sea of crushed beer cans at the back of the crowd, desperately trying to keep my balance. I could hear him, but it was still a massive anticlimax.
The following year I got to work there. Some mates of mine had a company distributing underground magazines. We got transportation, tent space, free jazz cigarettes and a bowl of muesli in the mornings. In exchange we did a couple of hours crowd-selling and took turns to mind the stall.
We’d done the same a few weeks earlier at the Bath festival. There I’d seen, amongst many others, Santana, Led Zep, Jefferson Airplane, It’s a Beautiful Day and The Pink Floyd debuting Atom Heart Mother. But Hendrix was headlining the Isle of Wight.
A dozen of us travelled down in the back of a Luton Transit containing 2000 copies of the Schoolkids Oz. [Shame I didn’t keep a few]. It was a massive festival. I’ve since seen the movie which tries to make out it was some kind of Altamont disaster. Well it may have been for the organisers and the guy who got bitten by a security dog, but I had a great time. The weather was superb. I didn’t overdo the dexies and crowd-selling was a breeze; International Times, Friends, Gandalf’s Garden and the Schoolkids Oz, which sold like hot cakes, joss sticks and Esmerelda large rolling papers. The sharing of Jazz Cigarettes with complete strangers turned out to be an integral part of the crowd-selling experience.
With the exception of the Stones, anyone who hadn’t played at the Bath festival played the Isle of Wight. The Who – Daltrey in the fringed jacket lassoing the mike around whilst a fearsome Townsend leapt about dementedly in a white boiler suit. The Doors – Jim Morrison – exuding charismatic magnetism whilst virtually standing still.
I missed far more bands than I saw. Forty years on a few things stand out in my memory. ‘Ten Years After,’ whom I’d seen being fairly pedestrian in a small blues club earlier that year, got two hundred thousand people up off their stoned arses and going mental to Alvin Lee’s killer-riffed ‘Going Home.’
Standing in the middle of that enormous crowd when Emerson Lake and Palmer debuted the Moog synthesiser. That moment in the middle of ‘Oh Lucky Man’ when the synth does a four octave leap: everyone just gazed at each other in astonishment. Two hundred thousand people all simultaneously thinking what the f*ck was that? And then there was Hendrix.
I’d dropped the acid at just about the perfect time. In the words of Lou Reed ‘I was rushing on my run’ as Jimi was announced. I hurtled off on my own. No need for mates. This was to be me and the man. Total concentration. Not surprisingly the arena was packed. Everyone was sitting down. I seemed to surf through the crowd, nimbly weaving through without treading on a single hippie; I headed for front and centre. By the time he’d begun I’d found a space thirty yards from the stage about the size of a dinner plate where I was able to ground one of my buttocks. I stayed there for the duration of the set, perched on one arse-cheek, my limbs contorted way beyond yoga. It’s amazing what you can manage when you’re nineteen and determined.
I’ve subsequently seen the film and know, that compared with, say, Jimi Plays Berkeley, this was not a great Hendrix gig. However, with my enhanced consciousness, this is what I experienced.
There was a beam of light coming out of the top of his head into the sky. There was another beam of visible energy coming from the centre of his chest into the centre of mine. A further beam went from the top of my head into the sky. Through this circuit incredible unearthly sounds of cosmic power and glory were flowing imbued with a passion and intensity that passeth all understanding. It was as if Hendrix was trying to pull God down from the sky to show everybody. He knew it was impossible, but he was going to try his damnedest.
At one point, just in front of me, a foolhardy hippie got to his feet and began to idiot dance. Immediately a stunningly beautiful blonde, incandescent with outrage, leapt up behind him, put her hands on his shoulders and slammed his arse into the ground. The fool had gotten between her and Jimi. He had the good sense not to rise again.
When Hendrix finished he apologised, said something like ‘maybe we’ll get it together next time.’ I couldn’t understand it. I was blissed out in the extreme. The top of the stage appeared to be on fire, but that seemed perfectly natural to me. How could you follow that? Apparently with Joan Baez or Leonard Cohen, I forget which, but I do remember running out of that arena as fast as I could. Hendrix was still resonating through my head, the way the taste of a delicious meal can linger in your mouth. I couldn’t be doing with acoustical folkiness whilst still savouring the afterglow of James Marshall Hendrix.
When I got back to our campsite ten minutes later I found that one of my genius mates had taped the Hendrix set. We plugged his cassette machine into a large pair of speakers and listened to it all over again.
With that daring thought in mind, here's the first in what may become a series of book reviews for RTYD - depending on how many snide comments are made about my grasp of music history or even music per se. I'm very sensitive, you know. Incredibly so, my bandmates tell me. But then what would they know? Gits.
Let's start with Madness. Perhaps you know (of) Terry Edwards - multi-instrumentalist, Londoner, sometime player with Robyn Hitchcock, Tindersticks and his own band The Higsons in the 1980s. (All together now: "Who stole my bongos? Did you steal my bongos?") Now he's written a book, in Continuum's 33-and-a-1/3 series, about Madness's album One Step Beyond . . . from 1979.
It's only 169 pages long, and they're quite small pages. But Mr Edwards is good company in print. The idea is to run briskly through the album track by track, "One Step Beyond" to "Chipmunks Are Go!", introducing its makers, their influences, their stories about ripping off Prince Buster, the pub rock scene, etc, as opportunity arises.
This works well, as it mainly requires Suggs and co to speak for themselves, as interviewed by Edwards in the past couple of years. The author has reminiscences and opinions of his own, too, beginning with his assessment of OSB . . . as not the best album in the world or even in Madness's back catalogue - but certainly the "blueprint" for the band's later work: "All the fun, pathos, quirky bits of timing, key changes and even an early string arrangement are already in place in their debut album".
Madness, a band once labelled as strictly ska for skinheads, are still going, still gigging. The Liberty of Norton Folgate shows that they can still surprise the critics. Apparently, in the 80s, they spent over 200 weeks in the singles charts - more than anybody else.
That's not bad going, is it? Impressive, even if you're not a fan of their music - but one thing this book makes clear is that they had eclectic roots and worked together superbly to create their own sound. Ian Dury, Alex Harvey, Prince Buster, the Faces, Elvis Costello, even Santana are cited here for one reason or another (the last being one of the drummer Dan "Woody" Woodgate's old favourites).
Thanks to Terry Edwards, I also know now that Madness, which includes several songwriters, split the royalties cunningly: 50 per cent to the named songwriter, the other 50 split between all seven bandmembers. "Razor Blade Alley" is about sexual transmitted diseases. The brother of Mike Barson (the keyboard player) played in Bazooka Joe with John Ellis, who went on to form The Vibrators - so there's a marvellously tenuous Rock-Til-You-Drop connection, since Phil Ram of The Great Outdoor Experience played with The Vibrators, they tell me . . . .
Enough Madness. There's one other book to mention for now, another first effort by a musician. From CBGB to the Roundhouse: Music venues through the years by Tim Burrows is badly copy-edited, with no index (which wouldn't be a completely unhelpful thing in a book that works through the entire post-war history of music venues on both sides of the Atlantic). There's been a great deal of raiding of newspaper and magazine pieces, but also a fair amount of original interviewing. In a sense, it's more about music scenes than music venues. And it's deftly done, as you'd expect from a contributor to thequietus.com.
Burrows covers everything from West Indian sound-systems blasting the xenophobes out of Notting Hill, to the Twist, to the MC5 going crazy in Detroit, to the Armadillo, the former National Guard armoury in Austin, Texas, to - well, the rest is fairly obvious. If you've seen that big hole in the middle of London recently, where the Astoria used to be, you'll know where the story is going as well. (And if you were a fan of the Astoria, check out this . . .)
There aren't any grand surprises, but it's a Not Uninteresting account. A concise chapter takes you from Woodstock to the 450 music festivals held in the UK a couple of years ago. And like the unexpected influences that came together to form One Step Beyond . . ., there's something striking about the sheer ad hoc-ness of many of the most exciting music venues Burrows discusses, their emergence from unlikely or unpromising situations (it wasn't "Country, BlueGrass and Blues" making waves at CBGB in New York, can you believe it, but Patti Smith, Television et al).
In that way, despite its scale and conservatism, the O2 ("the British government's monumental white elephant") is just following in a fine, old tradition . . . .
OK. Enough already. I only meant to write a couple of hundred words on this nonsense. Now look what I've gone and done.
My first electric guitar cost £4.It was home made. I bought it in a junk shop.I took it home and painted black and white swirly patterns all over its body.For eight quid I bought a knackered Watkins Dominator combo.After less than five minutes on full whack the Dominator made a noise like a demented donkey that you could only kill with feedback.Best feedback resulted from sticking the head of the guitar against the speaker, the guitar’s arse into my groin and basically humping the amp to vary the pitch of the scream.Psychedelically enhanced, this felt fierce and mighty.
I wanted to be original, so I resolutely refused to learn anything.That’s how smart I was.I twiddled and diddled.I bought a Marshall Fuzz Face and a Vox Wah Wah pedal.I fuzzed and wahed my twiddly diddlings.
After a year or so I met another guy called Dirk.We jammed.He would play A and E minor and I would twiddle and diddle.
Obviously the next step was a gig.I knew a chap called Ambrose who was putting on a benefit at Guildford Youth Centre.I blagged a slot.This was 1970.These were Acid Days.I may not have been able to play the guitar but I was more than able to talk.I knew a drummer called The Black Shadow.He looked like King Charles the Second.He knew a white South African who claimed to play the bass.We called him The Immigrant.They were both up for it.None of us had any gear.No matter. We would borrow.I called us ‘Scorched Earth’.
I invited Stephen Stills to come and jam with us at the gig.I’d never met him, but I knew where he lived.He’d bought the house that Peter Sellers had sold to Ringo Starr.It was three miles from Guildford.
I wrote him a very trippy illustrated invitation, which not only explained several of his own song lyrics to him, but also suggested he bring his friend Eric Clapton to our gig.I delivered it by hand.This was 1970.Security hadn’t been invented yet.I walked into Stephen Stills’ kitchen and handed the invite to a very beautiful young American woman.She assured me she’d pass it on to Stephen.I told the promoter.We got a mention in ‘The Raver’ column in Melody Maker.
At the last minute the other Dirk pulled out.His girlfriend went into labour.This was a serious setback.His A and E minor had been intrinsic.He did however lend me his claret coloured velvet doublet.It had puff sleeves and old-gold frog fasteners.He’d bought it in Amsterdam so it had to be cool.It went perfectly with skin-tight white needle-cord wranglers tucked into knee-length, ox-blood, Cuban-heeled Anello and Davide boots.Shoulder-length John Peel haircut complete with wispy teenage beard.No set, no rehearsal, but I looked great.
We arrived punctually, but Black Shadow and The Immigrant were not getting on.They were snarling at each other like a pair of rottweilers with too-tight nut-sacks.It was a struggle to keep them apart whilst attempting to explain to Ambrose, the promoter, my vision for the gig.
My plan was to be actually playing before anyone even arrived.It was going to be a hypersensitive organic psychedelic jam session.The vibe of the arriving audience would totally govern the music.In fact I told Ambrose it was an experiment in Anti-Music.With hindsight this may have been a mistake.
Ambrose did not share my enthusiasm.If anything there was a definite flicker of panic in his eyes. He told us he’d prefer to start off with a few records.I was a little bit disappointed.But he was adamant.So much for my cunning plan.First no rhythm guitar, and now, not only the bass and drums at each others throats, but my artistic improvisational brainchild aborted by the promoter’s short-sighted lack of faith.
‘Well be back later,’ I murmured through clenched teeth.I turned on my Cuban heels and strode off, Black Shadow to the left of me Immigrant to the right of me.
We went round to visit Christopher Robin.He was a vegetarian butcher:a troubled soul with a heart of gold. He lived just a few streets away.He had a big bag of weed.It helped calm down The Black Shadow and The Immigrant.It took the edge off.They stopped snarling at each other. After an hour or so we staggered back to the Youth Centre to see what was happening.We were well wasted.
The Youth Centre was now half full.Between fifty and a hundred people sat around looking bored and mildly pissed off.Ambrose rushed up.He now seemed even more panic-stricken than when we’d left.
‘Quick.You’re on. Now.’
Too stoned to argue, we stumbled onstage.I had a great deal of trouble plugging in my fuzz box and wah-wah pedal.Some kindly hippie assisted me but I was still too out of it to stand up.It was a big stage.We were surrounded by equipment belonging to the several other bands on the bill.Someone got me a stool.I sat down and we started.
I diddled and twiddled.The Black Shadow triple-flammed and paradiddled.The Immigrant pumped out some deep mumbling bass lines.I fuzzed and I wahed.It didn’t take long for me to get through my entire repertoire of three or four riffs by which time I managed to hoist myself upright and line myself up with a microphone.We seemed to have somehow slipped into a twelve bar blues which was a surprise.I’d never played one before.Hell, I couldn’t even play a scale.I sang some kind of ‘Just a Country Boy’ lyrics.
I noticed a pretty girl smiling.‘Hey, this is fantastic,’ I thought.Then I spotted a bloke yawning.‘Oh no it must be shit,’ I thought.I then turned my improvised lyrics into ‘hey lets all have a jam, everyone.’A couple of guys got up on stage at my invitation, but they were halted by representatives of all the other bands.No Way was anyone going to play any of their gear, Jose.That was final, non-negotiable and totally immune to all my ‘Aw c’mon, mans’.
None of these supposed hip musos seemed to understand the hippie ethic.‘I’ll bloody show them,’ I snarled to myself.I handed my guitar to the nearest of the two onstage volunteers, exited stage left and left them to it.
It would be two years before my next gig.It would also be two hundred miles from Guildford.
From the second the email plinks into the Inbox, it's clearly going to be a complete mistake. But who can resist an invitation to play at a ritzy event, even when you know that your band is definitely NOT a function band, that the audience will back off in seconds to the relative peace of the bar, and that the only people left to enjoy the loud and raucous riffs will be a couple of crazy teens who were expecting yet another polite but dreary evening with their parents friends. Yes – that dilemma – should you compromise your art for any opportunity to gig, especially when the champagne will be flowing free ? And no matter what you think you will answer here. I’m betting that at least once or twice you have gone against your better judgement, and lapped up the flattery to say yes please. Hell, we’ll worry about the setlist later.
The invitation usually goes something like “We saw you play at the Dog and Doormouse and just loved your music and thought you would be great for our thankyou party to all our fundraisers for our Save the last British Speckled Porcupine campaign. If questioned closely about this gig later, those who sent the invitation will seem a little vague about what music they actually heard – was it something by that band from Glasgow, you known, that one you all yell along to.. or maybe it was your version of that catchy tune that was number one for most of last year. Completely unaware that the band plays solid blues with a few long winded classic rock numbers thrown in so that the lead guitarist can show you what he has been practising in his bedroom all these years, it later turns out that the Charity’s PR happened to be in the Dog and Doormouse and thought your lead singer was kinda cute.
So you swallow your principles and ignoring yells from the drummer, who is the only one to see sense (unusual for drummers I know – but even he gives in to the idea of a real stage to play on and special lights just for his kit) you put the date in the diary. Then the arguments begin about what to play. Some of the more esoteric jazz-rock fusion numbers are easily abandoned but surely someone at the event would be thrilled to hear a little Foo Fighters or keen to writhe a bit to Guns N’ Roses best. Hours are spent debating and shaping a set list mostly from numbers that have been half practised and half abandoned long ago by the band (mostly when we were about 17). Family and friends are grilled for their favourite party songs and then with a lot of clenched teeth Status Quo, Slade and even Mud start to appear on the list. Rehearsals are a strange mixture of grim determination, outright hatred (fortunately directed towards the songs) and rumbling angst that no-one really wants to play this stuff.
Another email from the event organiser subtly wipes the doubts away by promising the coolest party furniture and lighting rig imaginable (thankyou ChillSpace, you rock !) while at the same time making a few “requests” for songs. At least Mustang Sally takes only seconds to pick up …
By the night of the gig, you’re all convinced that this really is the business. Trying not to think about the tepid list of numbers that await, you wow at the stage back-drop, the glittery lights and the couple of celebs on the guest list, and snaffle some delicious canapés while asserting your rights to free drinks at the bar. But in truth, a growing sense of unease is sinking in, the singer has lost his usual chirpy swagger and the drummer is looking increasingly grim.
As you take to the (lovely huge) stage the guitarist is heard to mutter “well we are doing this for free”. And then you launch into your worst nightmare. You play your heart out. Almost note perfect. But there is one truth. This event and your band were not made for each other. The audience are polite, some even clap a little, or sway on the spot. But they don’t want your songs and you don’t want theirs. There is no love, no heart, no emotion – no mojo. Every song feels more leaden than the last, until eventually you slope off and leave the DJ to refill the dancefloor.
Commiserating over a cold beer you all agree that next week back in the grimy old pub, the band will be in its element and that is where you all really belong. Until plink… you have mail ………..
Cream at The Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, London, 3rd May 2005
Me and the girlie saw Cream at RAH so came to testify.
I’ve tried to ignore all the comments I read following the concerts about their not being “young enough to desire it”.
After the event, there were always going to be ill-founded and utterly nonsensical comments flying around for all sorts of different reasons, after all this really was fairy tale stuff for the generations of people who were there the first time around and for the children, and the children’s children of those, the kids who – unusually for this day and age I feel – just came along to see what the fuss was about and to take the fantastic opportunity to experience a huge long departed chunk of it.
I've since read loads of reviews by a lot of seemingly over excited commentators who probably don't ever really listen to anything given the nature of their assumptions. I don't know whether bias or envy influence these people’s ramblings or whether they are simply naturally over-awed to a point of blindness - or is it deafness?
I am prepared to start a serious row with anybody if I hear anyone else say that Badge and White Room were "Awesome”.
Done live, Badge and White Room were NEVER awesome. It's absolutely impossible for those two tunes to be replicated with anything like the melodic qualities and the power they had as studio recordings.
White Room has about four guitar tracks missing and there was no 'second' guitar to shape the rhythmic underpinning to the bridge and solo section in Badge.
Having said that; As out and out power-trio jams the chord structures in both DO provide excellent workouts for some psychedelic soloing, of which, I do declare Clapton to be rather Godlike. These blokes invented most of that stuff, after all.
I didn't expect this concert to be anything like as brilliant as it actually was.
Pretty stunning deliveries from start to finish with each musician making the odd mistake and Eric occasionally getting a little lost in the more necessarily improvised tunes - namely Badge and White Room.
Given that it was always impossible to perform these tunes live, it wouldn't have worried me had they not been performed at all. It was more than enough that they were so influential as studio recordings in their day. The original solo in White Room is one of those that you know defines the way guitar solos are approached, and have been since he cut this one in 1967. With that solo [Clapton] has a lot to answer for - I’m glad to say. However, that's distracting....
They kicked off with the Skip James staple I'M SO GLAD and this reviewer was instantly stunned. I don't know what it was other reviewers were expecting but they are WRONG. This was the real thing and it was enough. Also real - and if you hadn't ever heard this before, this would have slaughtered you - Willie Dixon’s SPOONFUL turned the place electric. This was brilliant and set a level for the evening, which was only altered by further ascents.
Classy renditions of OUTSIDE WOMAN BLUES and even Ginger's PRESSED RAT AND WARTHOG (First time live????) SLEEPY TIME TIME and N.S.U. picked it up before BADGE came along and reminded me that we are all only human after all.
Next up, POLITICIAN - always one of your reviewer’s personal favourites - did not fail to please and gave us another lift contradicting my recent decision that we are ALL human. We are not.
SWEET WINE was a good leveller after that one. Some members of the audience were in danger of losing it by now. The trio duly left us with our chins on the floor, reminding us that they were also absolute masters of rhythm with a killer execution of ROLLIN' AND TUMBLIN' that quite frankly scared me shitless. Eric and Ginger combining to create a smoking riff on snare drum and slide guitar while - without bass - Jack delivered that trademark whining train whistle vocal and interweaving harp that made this group UNTOUCHABLE in the first place. Play the Blues? This is why Hendrix said Cream had opened the door. This is why Duane Allman said Eric Clapton had written the book for young white blues guitarists. Never mind Tears in Heaven and Wonderful Tonight. Some guitar players only ever needed to do one thing, and Eric Clapton is one of them.
A psychedelic ramble through T-Bone Walkers STORMY MONDAY BLUES was another reminder of how influential this band were, showing as they did, how a tune normally played by at least one more instrument can be given flesh by the application of the musician, in this case Jack was emphasising all those 7th and 9th slurs on the bass that would normally be covered by second and third guitarists and/or keyboard players. He even got in a suggestion of the G, Am, Bm, Bbm, D9, E9 progression while Eric was off again and taking us all the way to Klooks Kleek. Psychedelic Blues by its inventors. There is nothing else to do. This isn't my favourite way of dealing with a tune, but I cannot deny the originality and influence here. Wonderful.
A Cream original, DESERTED CITIES OF THE HEART was next, and reminded us of the very unique style that Jack Bruce and Pete Brown achieved as composer collaborators before Booker-T Jones and William Bells BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN gave another reminder as to why, when it comes to dragging the blues out of the past Cream had only one or two, if any peers at all.
WE'RE GOING WRONG a Bruce/Brown original from Disraeli Gears was delivered with canny accuracy. The six-time drum riff is uniquely Ginger Baker, and Clapton NAILS that lamenting oozy guitar sound, the way it has been mimicked oh so often since with varying degrees of accuracy, but never with such haunting effect. I didn't know if I'd been shot or if I'd shit myself at this point.
People said he shouldn't have been able to do it with a Fender Stratocaster. What they meant was that THEY can't even do it with a Gibson SG, which is the instrument on which Clapton originally recorded it. There is NO substitute for touch and feel - something many, if not most guitarists since the mid-'60s have failed to grasp.
A not too racy CROSSROADS followed with the "Rosedale" verse - which Cream generally tended to do - with good solid solos between the last two verses. I'm glad Eric DIDN'T go off on one here and that he kept it nice and compact, leaving the audience on a nice plateau for Chester Burnett’s SITTING ON TOP OF THE WORLD which was again performed faultlessly and with an accuracy sometimes lacking in their performances of old.
This was followed by the aforementioned WHITE ROOM and a steaming version of TOAD for which Clapton and Bruce duly left the stage for Ginger Baker to remind us all again just how influential this band were, not only as such but as massively talented individuals with no fear of boundary busting and rule breaking. I was never really one for drum solos and it might even have been the live WHEELS OF FIRE version of this tune that dulled my appreciation. I regained an appetite when I heard Jai Johanny Johannson doing duets with Butch Trucks that eventually took me back there to rediscover the joy of just drums! Ginger did not overdo this, and when Clapton and Bruce re-emerged for the closing chords I found myself almost disappointed that it was coming to a halt.Strictly employing the verse and bar structure of the opening gambits of the tune, far from being the tub thumping many wrongly consider [his] playing to be, what this did for me simply reinforced my notion of Ginger’s undoubted mastery.
The band left the stage to naturally ecstatic applause, although I can't help thinking that some members of the audience were applauding something totally different than I was.Maybe they applauding the fact that Jack made it the stage at all.Maybe they were simply applauding history.Fair enough.
The encore was the not unexpected SUNSHINE OF YOUR LOVE which, when delivered, was delivered with all the giving and all the knowing that this tune was - and probably still is - one of the defining pieces of music of all time, and it was delivered with such confidence you just knew were seeing and hearing everything you ever wanted to know about how music got where it got following the Beatles. After the Beatles, Cream cast the longest shadow of all over what was to follow. Jimi Hendrix broke into this tune as his farewell to the "group that made it all possible" during an otherwise rather drab performance on the Lulu show, many years ago. He played it just like Cream. The show was cut mid performance with Jimi gesturing just how important this group had been, with an almost uncanny knowing that if it was all over for Cream, it was all over for everybody - including himself. He knew it.
When Cream closed with it last night, we all knew it too. Eric Clapton probably is God The Father. Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker probably are the Son and the Holy Ghost – but don’t ask me which one is which.
A couple of things have happened recently that fit into my general musing about what it means to be a “pop” musician in the 2000’s, and more particularly for members of Rock Till You Drop, what it means to be a “mature” pop musician in the year 2009.
Pop Music: art or entertainment?
First, what is “pop music?” Originally regarded as a light, frothy and insubstantial form of entertainment for the masses, pop music has become the world’s common cultural denominator. The broad church of so-called “pop” music now encompasses the disposable trash peddled by Simon Cowell’s zombie hordes and the highbrow fine-art work of Roger Waters-period Pink Floyd and songwriters like Elvis Costello, as well as the abstractions of Jazz and soundscape artists like Phillip Glass. And who could deny the genius of Bob Dylan? My teenage daughters appreciate him as much as they do Elliot Smith or Jeff Buckley. Many people make their livings from the activities surrounding the pop industry and it is a significant contributor to the economies of England and America.
Its legitimacy as art is no longer questioned. As to the question “is it art or entertainment?” I recently heard a great definition of the two: entertainment is what you know you already know and know you want, whereas art gives you something you don’t already know or know you want. By this definition, pop music is definitely art.
The Age Contradiction
There is an inherent contradiction in pop music that is in the process of being exposed and resolved: the idea that pop music is youth culture. This preconception pervades its ethos and practise to the point where it has become the only industry in the world in which the more experienced you are as a practitioner, the less likely you are to get any work.
I’ve been a session musician for 30 years: nothing fazes me and I’m at home in all sorts of situations from stadium gigs to folk clubs, but I’m now considered too old to be booked to play with new acts, despite the fact that the presence of an “old hand” or two would benefit inexperienced performers immeasurably, (especially when they are faced with a hostile audience at the Glasgow Apollo on a dismal rainy February night .) The underlying assumption is that audiences want to see young people on stage and will find the presence of grey hairs offensive, but pop’s audience is now composed of all age groups, and artists like Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young are making music consistent with their ages.
It has become common for me to observe a phenomenon that never fails to make me smile: that of silver-haired old gentlemen in dinner-jackets playing air guitar when a covers band strikes up “Sultans of Swing” or “All Along the Watchtower” at the golf club dinner-dance. The front row of the recent Cream reunion gig at the Albert Hall was composed almost exclusively of balding but extremely well-heeled (check the ticket prices!!) ‘Captains of Industry.’ Not a teenager in sight! As one member of the “50-quid-man” demographic recently said in a survey; “My kids have allowances. I have a wallet stuffed with credit cards and cash!” And yet the music industry ignores this market, not daring to depart from the illusion that pop music is for “the kids.”
What use is Pop Music?
So having decided what pop music is, the next question I have been pondering is : what is pop music for? The answer came to me recently when I did my first ever Jewish gig at the age of 51; (yes, a little late in life to bite that particular bullet, but better late than never.) I sat there at a bat mitzvah in a Schule in Borehamwood, playing music that has been played at these events for thousands of years, and realised what I am for. If you leave aside the nonsense of being a “pop star,” what we as musicians actually do is provide part of the cultural context in which society exists and continues to exist. Look at paintings and read accounts of events from all through history; whether it’s the wedding of a King or a peasant, the death of a middle-class insurance salesman or a Sultan, there we are in the background; the minstrels in the gallery.
That is our function, and that is also our power.If I play the first few notes of the Funeral March during a wedding party I can totally change the mood in the room, and then I can change it back again simply by playing “I Will Survive” or “Dancing Queen.”
Pop music has entered our culture to the point where it is our culture. Even highbrows like Alan Yentob make documentaries about the history of the electric guitar. Commentators speak of the “triumph of vernacular culture”; the idea that the music of Elvis Presley is as valid artistically as that of Mozart. A recent complaint by a vicar that the music people choose to play at funerals is inappropriate completely misses the point: it is the old religious dirges that have become inappropriate. People relate more to “I Will Always Love You” than “Abide With Me.”
The Repertoire Theory
Pop music is now entering a new phase, similar in some respects to the world of so-called “classical” music. There is now a repertoire developing, and in the same way that an orchestra perform a programme of Tschaikovsky’s music or a concert pianist will go on tour playing the works of Rachmaninov, so a tribute band will present an evening of the music of Dire Straits or Abba, or any other band who are no longer touring themselves (or if they are, the tickets are prohibitively expensive and the concerts are in such large venues that there is no longer any sense of connection between audience and performer.)
This is what the phenomenon of tribute bands means; the emergence of an understanding on the audience’s part that the songs are more important than the performers who perform them, and the desire of that audience to hear those songs performed live. There are constant tours of so-called “revival” acts: Eighties pop stars now tour the world playing to audiences for whom that decade’s music was the soundtrack to their youth. In ten years’ time the Nineties revival tours wil be underway, Blur and Oasis sharing the same stage in an eerie echo of the Sixties package tours. Plus ca change.
The evidence for this is everywhere: EMI recently signed the Blockheads (the backing band of one of their dead artists), and there is a Dire Straits tribute band whose personel includes Chris White and John Illsley (both members of the original band.) I recently met a Pink Floyd tribute act who are playing the same 15,000-capacity venues I was playing with Roger Waters in the 1980’s. Where is the border between the original act and the tribute act?
Interestingly, many of the tribute bands are actually better musicians (technically speaking) than those whose repertoires they play: the original act just got there first and were the ones who made the music and style in the first place, but their interpreters are schooled at places like London’s Institute for Contemporary Music Performance, and possess sophisticated instruments and equipment that their heroes had to work for years to be able to afford.
End of the Blip
At the same time, the 50-year “blip” that was the explosion of recorded music is dying; ironically along with its inventor, Les Paul. The idea that it is possible to make millions of dollars by selling recordings of music (combined with the preposterous misconception that just because someone can sing a pop song and simultaneously have great hair should automatically be qualified to pronounce on the great political issues of the day) is falling into disrepair.
There is a generation that believes that recorded music is free, and that music is something you talk over. The music industry has to some extent only itself to blame for this: failure to invest in acts with long-term potential in favour of the “quick buck” boy- and girl-bands has devalued music in the eyes (ears?) of listeners. The ubiquity of music (in the mall, on the bus, in the airport, hairdressers, doctors’ waiting room and restaurant) has reduced the importance and value of music: it’s no longer special or unusual, just everywhere all the time.
Anyone who comes into the music business expecting to make millions is very quickly relieved of their illusions and goes off to make their fortune in organised crime, or The City. (No, not a lot of difference these days, I’ll grant you.) Those of us who are happy to make a living as musicians are having to adjust to a very different landscape.
The old music business paradigm of selling the fantasy of the Artist as someone whose lifestyle you should aspire to is dying. We have all seen far too many documentaries on “The Making of...”and “The Marketing of...” and “The Making of ‘The Marketing of’ “ to be taken in. It’s like being shown how a magician does his tricks; once you know how to saw a lady in half, the only interest that remains in the process is how well that particular magician performs that particular trick and whether they bring a new angle to it. The wonder is gone.
The attempt to sell us the fantasy that Bruce Springsteen rides his motorcycle through the streets of New York at 3 o’clock in the morningis increasingly ludicrous; we all know that he’s more likely to be tucked up on his orthopaedic mattress by half-past nine.
What Do I Have Left?
“You end up having to deal with whatever it is that you’ve got left.” Robert Wyatt ( a drummer who lost his legs.)
What is left is primarily live music, and this is where we find our metier, our place, and our living and being. Once again, the wheel has come full circle and musicians like me have returned to a very simple direct form of music-making: I put my guitar in the car, drive to a place where people go to hear musicians play their music, and play.
Selling CDs is a bonus: I no longer even expect it. I make money from recorded music by producing library tracks and producing unsigned/self-financedbands and singer/songwriters (which has the great benefit that I don’t have to kowtow to some scared kid from a record company who is so frightened of getting fired that the only thing he will accept is a carbon copy of whatever was a hit last week, regardless of its suitability for the artist.)
I teach, write magazine columns, play gigs in living-rooms pubs, theatres and all points inbetween, and am enjoying my profession more than I have done for decades. It feels more honest; less like whoring and more like the calling I felt it to be when I was 18.
I sit here in the gallery where no-one notices me and I observe the world at work and play. If I wasn’t there, you would miss me badly.
A wandering minstrel I —
A thing of shreds and patches,
Of ballads, songs and snatches,
And dreamy lullaby!
My catalogue is long,
Through every passion ranging,
And to your humours changing
I tune my supple song!
I tune my supple song!
Are you in sentimental mood?
I'll sigh with you,
Oh, sorrow, sorrow!
On maiden's coldness do you brood?
I'll do so, too —
Oh, sorrow, sorrow!
I'll charm your willing ears
With songs of lovers' fears,
While sympathetic tears
My cheeks bedew —
Oh, sorrow, sorrow!
One of the most worrying tendencies of growing older is the increasingly irresistible urge to pull on comfy clothes. Stilettos and sharp suits are abandoned to the back of the wardrobe while bland baggy casuals and sloppy old shoes cry out. Mmmm, feel the stretchy jersey in tepid colours which wraps softly around middle aged spread and won’t dazzle your eyes and hurt your brain….It’s a simple fact on which Marks and Spencer, Littlewoods and their like have successfully built massive empires but one thing is for sure – it ain’t rock and roll.
You can drone on all you like about music being the all important factor but putting yourself up on a stage means putting yourself out to the people. Rock performance is ultimately all about strutting your stuff to woo the crowd, thrilling people with what you can do, and putting out the come on through the lyrics and a bit of audience interaction – no wonder sex is such an integral part of the rock legend. But baggy old jeans and a sloppy jersey T shirt in shades of taupe chirpily teamed with Jesus sandals doesn’t do it for most of us, even if you are blistering through a guitar solo like Hendrix reincarnate. Sadly I’ve shared the stage a few times with British Home Stores’ finest and it wasn’t pretty.
It is of course, much more than just a matter of what you wear. A couple of years ago I went to HighclereCastle for a summer festival.Stevie Winwood and Eric Clapton demonstrated astonishing musicianship, and deserved their headline spot as the most accomplished players of the evening.But standing in the audience I felt that I could have been listening to a CD at home on the sofa with a cup of cocoa in my hand.It wasn’t so much a matter of bland clothes (what they had carefully selected from their wardrobes has left no impression whatsoever) but that there was nothing visual to engage and excite me. It was just nice music, made by a few guys who hardly seemed to move a muscle or twitch a little to show they were still alive, let alone get rocking out and thrash a little (heaven preserve, it might trigger some palpitations or stir up the arthritis). You wouldn’t dream of sex with a stiff mute would you ? (you might ? if you would, please don’t feel you have to mail me to tell me so but I can refer you to someone who can give you help …)You want someone to talk to you, caress you and move you with their energy as well as their sweet soul sounds .For me the stars of the show that evening were The Jones Gang. Good music is a given but their front man Robert Hart also really got to the audience. With his every move he drew us in to a relationship that promised thrills and spills.
There again most of know we can’t go back to the outrageous styles we might have once confidently strode around in as teenagers. Not everyone can manage that tight-jeans, ripped T shirt look once they are past 20. As we get older we become more self-conscious and less prepared to risk humiliation. Maybe we just give up on the idea of being sexy too, and don’t feel we dare risk trying flirting with the audience.
Its never too late. There is plenty you can do to sharpen your style no matter how old you are. In my day job I work with the elderly and every now and then a woman or man in their 80’s or 90’s comes through the door and make us all draw breath. Its not that they look anything other than their age, but they just have style and panache which gives them a certain zing (here’s one simple tip, wearing clean clothes and keeping the muesli out of your beard is a great start).
So what stage dress works as the decades pass ? Spandau Ballet who are back on the road after more than 20 years of cosy domesticity (or plain hard work) recognised there was no way back to the flounces and curls of the New Romantics that had brought them to fame in the 1980’s. So now they’ve gone for the sharp suited look in an attempt to maintain the sexy-but-smart dignity they aspire to in middle age, and it does the trick nicely.
Here’s a few other ideas :
-simple accessories like a cool hat (a la Mr Burton !!) some flashy shoes or an unusual coat, may be all you need.
-Black works – it sounds like a cliché but just look through a few rock mags such as Q and you’ll see band after band in black. Its an inherent part of the rock thing. Don’t ask me why but the answer is probably similar to why women look provocative in black underwear.If you just focus on black you’re bound to find something in a shape or style that you actually feel comfy in too. Black also has the added benefit of not casting shadows which would otherwise highlight the sins of decades of bodily neglect !
-Co-ordinating the band can help – it says you mean business and are making the effort. One local band I know (The Tigermoths) dress in black with the odd flash of red – its simple but effective and gives you lots of scope for accessories.
-Not everyone in the band has to dress up or put out. Shrinking violet ace musicians are always welcome so long as everyone isn’t stuck in that head’s down, focussed-on-instrument position.But you need at least one if not two people who are happy to be at the front, to make eye contact with the people watching and even tell a joke or two, or explain what’s going on. Reaching the crowd is an inherent part of entertainment.
-Believe in yourself. Will.I.Am.’s golden words of wisdom from the phenomenal Black-Eyed-Peas to the X-Factor contestants last week – don’t let anyone distract you from your beliefs in what works (although I’m not sure what to advise if your belief is centred around pale corduroy). Looking confident is half the art (not easy when you keep hitting bum notes but that’s how punk started). Of course not everyone will appreciate the purple velvet smoking jacket that you think is the bees knees but if you look certain of your cool they will eventually start turning up to your gigs on one too !
And when, at the end of the day you just can’t get your hair to go right, your clothes to co-ordinate or your midriff to stop bulging, take a tip from Justin and bring out your pink glittery guitar – that’ll stop the show !!
R-T-Y-D is a webzine aimed at mature musicians and all those who continue to support music made at a local level. If you wish to contibute to it, please contact tobyburton at rock hyphen til hyphen you hyphen drop dot com.
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1970 was a good year for festivals. I’d got a taste for them at the Isle of Wight the previous year. The highlight for me had been an amphetamine enhanced introduction to The Who live. Unfortunately I overdid the Dexedrine, spent the whole night staring at the inside of a tent and was dead on my feet by the time Dylan came on the following evening. I didn’t even see him. Everyone stood up and I was staggering around on a sea of crushed beer cans at the back of the crowd, desperately trying to keep my balance. I could hear him, but it was still a massive anticlimax.
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