6. Hey Ho, Let's Go !

In the summer of 1976, I left Essex University and moved to London. I moved into a squat in Muswell Hill with some art students from Middlesex Polytechnic. There were very few decent jobs to be had at that time. So I became a security guard. I had a uniform and a hat and everything.

This was my arty period. 

We were contracted to guard the exhibition rooms in most of London's top galleries and museums. 

I worked at The Hayward on the South Bank, The Tate, The National and The British Museum. 

It was deathly, dull work and a crushing, mindless way of earning a living. 

The worst gig was guarding the clock room at The British Museum. Hundreds of clocks wherever you looked. Wherever you went in that room, you couldn't avoid seeing the time of day.

It felt like you were watching every second of your life tick away.

Still, it was better than some of the other guard gigs we were    given. All-night shifts keeping squatters out of  empty mansion houses in Hampstead. I hated those jobs. I was convinced the places were haunted, they gave me the creeps.

Keeping squatters out. That was a bit of a farce really, seeing as I was only managing to live in London by squatting myself. 

Museum gigs were better, though the work seemed fairly pointless. Telling people not to touch the sculptures. They always did it. You could see them a mile off. They couldn't resist a furtive feel up. I'd see them, looking intensely, moving closer, then the fingers flicking out. Me shouting,

"Please don't touch the sculptures. Thank you".
"Or what?" No-one ever asked me that question, but I did       wonder sometimes. 
"What are you going to do about it if I touch it?" 
"Oh, you know, give you a knuckle sandwich. Batter nine bells out of you". Get you arrested for fondling an old bit of stone. They'd look sheepish, mouth a polite, "sorry" and move on. 
Then the next person would be there and the whole ritual       would start again. I felt like screaming some days, "look twunt, can't you read? Don't touch the fucking exhibits, okay?"

But I didn't. I kept it under control. 
When I was feeling really rebellious, or sick of the parrot-like    repetition, I'd turn my back, look the other way and let them    get on with their illicit sculpture fiddlings.

Equivalent VIII

It was very unprofessional of me I know.There had been incidents. Art had been damaged. The Tate bricks controversy was raging. 120 firebricks arranged in a rectangular formation and titled "Equivalent VIII", had been purchased by the Tate Gallery for £2,297. 

This caused uproar in the popular press because taxpayers'  money had been spent on paying an inflated price for a pile  of bricks. (At 2011 prices, 120 bricks cost around £30). 

When the Tate first exhibited Equivalent VIII, a visitor threw      blue liquid onto it. It was vegetable dye, and washed off easily. But it caused a panic amongst museum curators and exhibit safety was a major issue of the day in the mad nutty world of    security guarding.

The name, "The British Museum", really is a joke as well. 
There is hardly anything of British origin in there at all. Its full  of mummies from Egypt, statues from Syria, ancient Persian   scrolls. 
   "The Museum of Artefacts Stolen by British Colonialists            Whilst On The Grand Tour" would be a more accurate title. 
Like the Elgin Marbles.  Or The Parthenon Marbles as they     are known in Greece, originally being part of The Parthenon in Athens until Lord Elgin "acquired" them. 

Three events changed the world that summer. 
The first took place at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in                Manchester on June 4th. 
It featured The Sex Pistols and unlike thousands who have     claimed otherwise since, I was not there.
It has been well documented who did attend that gig -  
The Buzzcocks promoted it and the founding members of The Smiths, Joy Division, The Fall and Factory Records were        amongst the audience of 40 people, along with Mick Hucknall from Simply Red.
June also saw the publication of Mark Perry's "Sniffin' Glue    and Other Rock n Roll Habits For Punks" fanzine.
Taking its title from a Ramones song, this punk-zine                 remixed the counterculture ethos of the hippy underground     press for a new “do it yourself” generation.
"Sniffin' Glue” was hand written, photocopied and stapled        together. Issue 1 sold 50 copies and featured The Ramones  and "punk reviews" on the cover. 
It pioneered the DIY ethic and lasted for eighteen months. 
When it was over, Perry compiled his favourite bits into a        book he titled "The Bible".  
A month on from these era defining moments, I was in the       Duveen Gallery at The British Museum guarding the Elgin       Marbles. 
It was the Monday after sweltering at the now almost mystical 4th of July gig in The Roundhouse, Camden Town, the night  before. 
The Flaming Groovies supported by The Stranglers and The Ramones. It had been an epic night, cited now as the event     that ignited the London punk rock scene and changed the      world forever. The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Damned and   countless other future punks were amongst the crowd of 3,000 that dripped in sauna-like heat that evening.
"Hey Ho, Let's Go!" 
I can still remember the sets The Stranglers and Ramones       tore through. I couldn't tell you the name of a single song The Flaming Groovies played that night. “Shake Some Action”      probably, but that's just an educated assumption. 
So it goes sometimes, I guess. 

The Stranglers sneered and snarled a lot and were vaguely        menacing. They ran through the songs that were soon to be released on their incredible debut album,“Rattus Norvegicus”. Jean Jacques Burnell played his dirty growling bass lines       from somewhere around his knees and the whole band oozed with “fuck off” attitude.
The Ramones were very very fast. They kept it short and       simple, tearing through twenty songs in thirty minutes. 
Dr Feelgood now seemed lame by comparison to this sonic    blitzkreig. Or so it seemed at the time. Listening to their first     album again, as I am as I write this, the first thing that strikes me is how slow it seems now. Times have moved on, styles      and fashions have changed. The world has speeded up.
The Ramones didn't just alter the musical landscape that night, as all great bands are supposed to do. They also changed    the world. Music would never be the same again after their      visit.  
Not that we realised that at the time, or that the NME agreed.
"Dee Dee is possibly the most half-witted specimen I've ever    seen hulk over the golden boards" their reporter concluded.   "The appeal is purely negative, based on their not being able    to play a shit or give a shit. The thinking process involved in evaluating their performance is non-existent;
it's first step moronorock strung across a selection of imbecilic adolescent ditties whose sole variation lies in the shuffling of    three chords into some semblance of order. They were still    oodles more exciting than the majority of bands who usually    throw up our collective amusement, even if the songs are    indistinguishable. "Blitzkrieg Bop" became "Loudmouth" became "53rd & 3rd."Durrrgh."
This was all still rattling in my head when I went to work the     next day. There was quite a contrast between the hushed      atmosphere amongst the dead icons of Ancient Greece and     the boiling sonic cauldron of the previous evening.
Imagine my surprise, then, when Joey Ramone walked into      the room. The NME called him more "stick of well-salivated    chewing gum than a human being". 
He was tall, at least six foot six, and seemed to be dressed in   the same clothes he had worn on stage the night before. He    stood in the middle of the Duveen Gallery, nodding his head    in approval as he scanned the Marbles. I heard him say to his escort, "yeah, man, it good shit", in a thick New York accent. Then he left again. He did not try and touch the sculptures.

This was the closest I ever got to meeting The Ramones.
I never got the chance to speak with one of them, but at least I can say that I saw them in their prime.
Two things happened recently that brought all of this back to me. 

The first was seeing a young woman walking down the road    wearing a vintage Ramones T-shirt. When I saw her, I thought,that young lady wasn't even been born when The Ramones      were strutting their stuff. 
They're now more famous as a word on a fashion shirt than     for anything they did to pop music.
I do hope that they get some royalties from that T shirt. 

I almost went up to the woman, I was going to ask her if she   could name any of their songs. Or if she knew where their        name came from. 
But I didn't. You just don't do that sort of thing when you're out and about these days, do you? 

Paul McCartney is the answer to the name question. Its the     name the ex-Beatle used when he was checking into hotels in America. He couldn't register under his real name, so he used the pseudonym Paul Ramone. 

As for name a song, there are so many. “Beat On The Brat      With A Baseball Bat” is a personal favourite off their                 eponymously named debut album.
   Or “You Should Never Have Opened That Door” off "Leave Home", the equally brilliant follow up.
The second happening was a sad one. 
I learned that my good friend and one time partner in crime,     Mark H, had died. He was a lovely man. 
We had some crazy times in some wild and wacky places.
Too fast to live, too young to die. Only he did die. 
Mark worked for the Ramones during one period of his life, he worked on their European tours and knew them well. 

God bless you dear friend, you are sorely missed and I wrote  this piece as my dedication to you.
a mutual friend called Ian has just sent me a message that       pretty much sums up what a "night" out with Mark H was like. 
They lived in Sheffield, England in 1994 and decided to go to a football game one weekend. Ian describes what happened much better than i ever could:

Well at least we had a mad LA weekend - bona fide Hollywood hills rock party with topless models diving in the swimming      pool tequila gold on tap snow White dwarves and the other    ones out of guns and roses etc followed by burning and           dehydration at brazil vs Italy world cup final in passadena        rehydration in passadena with brazil fans steely dan in open      top classic chevvy on freeway back to west Hollywood            barneys beanerie sunset Melrose and another rock beach       party all courtesy of mr Gerry gerrard topped only by rude       corner at the Rutland arms (sheffield) and the occasional rose    where the sun don't shine - lurk on purco!

5. The Only Way Is Essex

"sex, drugs and question authority"

I escaped from Wigan in 1973. I enrolled at Essex University in Colchester. The decision wasn't academic. It was based on a book I'd read, "Playpower" by Richard Neville. He had achieved fame and notoriety as co-editor of counter culture magazine "Oz". In this he published a range of left-field articles. Heavily critical of the Vietnam War,"Oz" discussed sex, drugs, and other alternative lifestyle issues. These were themes Neville expanded in "Playpower". The book included a reference section. Essex University featured prominently in the crash pads list and that was enough to convince me to go there.

It was a Plate Glass campus university and hotbed of anarchy. Revolutionary politics dominated academic life. There had been a riot during the 1968 student rebellions and some members of the Angry Brigade had been based there. This was England's first libertarian communist urban guerilla group; a gang of middle class student drop-outs who formed a militant cell and started a bombing campaign around London. They blasted the homes of Tory politicians, government and corporate offices, banks, embassies and the 1970 Miss World competition.

Things hadn't calmed down very much by the time I arrived. Within the first month, student activists had occupied the university administration block, holding a sit-in that lasted the entire term. The campus became a mini free state. "Stand Up For Your Rights" blared from the sound systems, drugs were readily available and free love was not yet hindered by the shadowy fear of AIDS.

This was the age of the oil crisis, petrol shortages, Watergate and the three day week.

Counter culture literature was essential study. "The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test" described the story of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Driving their psychedelic coated school bus dubbed "Further" across the USA, they turned the youth of America on to The Grateful Dead and LSD. "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", Kesey's novel about the mental hospital as an instrument of oppression was based on his personal experience of working as an orderly on a ward and taking acid whilst on shift. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" described a savage drug orgy to the heart of the American dream. Laced with LSD, ether, cocaine, alcohol, mescaline and cannabis, its central characters ruminated on the decline of culture in a city of insanity. "The Teachings of Don Juan" and other books by Carlos Castenada described his training in sorcery and explored an alternative non ordinary reality. "Catch 22", the classic critique of military double speak, summed up the spirit of the times. "The only way to survive such an insane system is to be insane oneself".

It was also the golden age of mythical tales of rock n roll indulgence. The new generation of super groups raised the bar for legends of debauchery to new heights. 

Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks was rumoured to "powder the starfish" when her nasal septum dissolved from massive cocaine abuse. It was claimed that she employed a roadie to inhale a golden straw full of nose candy and blow it up her rectum.

On an average night out, Queen's Freddie Mercury necked two bottles of best Russian vodka and snorted a mountain of cocaine. It cost him £500 a day, but he didn't care. Queen were raking in millions. Freddie's parties were epic. He once installed naked lift attendants at a hotel where he was cutting loose. At another do, the entertainment was provided by naked mud wrestlers. Naked girls in painted-on suits served champagne. He hired dwarfs with bowls of cocaine strapped to their heads, and the main attraction one night was a naked woman romping in a bath filled with raw liver.

Alice Cooper formed The Hollywood Vampires, a drinking club made up of rock superstars. The club had one rule, "the last one standing wins". Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Micky Dolenz, Harry Nilsson, Rod Stewart, and Keith Emerson were all members. So was John Lennon when he was in town.

If you were operating at the top tier of the music business, you toured the States on Starship 1. The customized Boeing 720B became a jet-propelled Sodom and Gomorrah. It boasted a shag-carpeted lounge with swivelling leather chairs, a pair of sexy stewardesses and a brass covered bar with a built-in organ. The master bedroom had a queen-size water bed, fake fur bedspread and shower. A sea of maroon shag was installed, as was a film library that included everything from the Marx Brothers to ''Deep Throat.'' 

Led Zeppelin leapt aboard in July 1973. At the time, they were the biggest band in the world, and they celebrated in customary fashion. They painted their name across the fuselage, snorted cocaine with rolled-up hundred dollar bills and treated the master suite like a pay-by-the-hour motel. Starship 1 became a floating gin palace. Zeppelin's drummer, John "Bonzo" Bonham, once tried to open the plane's door over Kansas City because he had the urge to urinate. 

Ian Paice, of Deep Purple, recalled being in Miami and flying to Boston for a lobster dinner, a whim later estimated to have cost $11,000. Paice had no regrets. ''The Starship was a great place to join the mile-high club,'' he said.

When these bands weren't indulging in high-altitude high jinks, they were smashing up hotel rooms, riding motorcycles through the lobby and throwing television sets out of bedroom windows. Joe Walsh (The Eagles) took a chain-saw on tour in case he needed to "modify" his lodgings. These modifications included widening doorways, creating doors where there were none, and chopping up various pieces of the décor. 

His mentor, The Who's Keith Moon, graduated from blowing up (and almost deafening) Pete Townsend live on American television, to dropping sticks of dynamite down the toilet. 

“One day I was in Keith’s room and I said, ‘Can I use your bog?’ and he smiled and said, ‘Sure.’ I went in there and there was no toilet, just sort of an S bend, and I thought ‘Christ, what happened?’ He said, ‘Well this cherry bomb was about to go off in me hand and I threw it down the toilet to stop it.’ So I said, ‘Are they that powerful?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, it’s incredible!’ So I said, ‘How many of ‘em have you got?’ with fear in me eyes. He laughed and said, ‘Five hundred,’ and opened up a case full to the top with cherry bombs. And of course from that moment on we got thrown out of every hotel we ever stayed in” (Pete Townsend).

For variation, Moon the Loon once nailed his room furniture to the ceiling. By then, he was devouring a full bottle of champagne, with Courvoisier and amphetamines for breakfast. He died on my birthday in 1978. Even Elton John suffered a drugs overdose in the 1970's. He was later named Artist of the Decade.  

Edgewater Hotel, Seattle

Where legend had Mick Jagger caught in the act of eating a Mars Bar he had inserted into Marianne Faithfull's pussy, Led Zeppelin's roadies were screwing their groupies with fish. The band were once staying at the Edgewater Hotel, located directly on Puget Sound, Seattle. At the time guests were allowed to fish directly from their room's windows. 

Red Snapper

Zeppelin's tour manager, Richard Cole, recalled, "We caught a lot of big sharks, at least two dozen, stuck coat hangers through the gills and left 'em in the closet . But the true shark story was that it wasn't even a shark. It was a red snapper and the chick happened to be a fucking red-headed broad with a ginger pussy. And that is the truth. I did it. Mark Stein filmed the whole thing. And she loved it. It was like, "You like a bit of fucking, eh? Let's see how your red snapper likes this red snapper!" That was it. It was the nose of the fish, and that girl must have come twenty times. But it was nothing malicious or harmful, no way! No one was ever hurt."

David Bowie became the first major rock star to declare his bisexuality. Angela Bowie, his wife, found him naked in bed with Mick Jagger one day. The Stones released "Angie" soon after, a song allegedly about this incident. "Angie don't you weep, all your kisses still taste sweet". The Rolling Stones denied this allegation.

Danny Whitten

Neil Young recorded The Ditch Trilogy after his guitarist, Danny Whitten, died of a heroin overdose. At the time many said Young was committing commercial suicide. Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Iggy Pop and many other rock superstars also developed raging smack habits, but lived to tell the tale.

David Crosby's substance abuse reached epic proportions. On Crosby Stills and Nash's 1974 tour, things got so bad that he suffered delusions that he had served a tour of duty in Vietnam. He insisted that roadies call him “Lt. Gen. Crosby Esq.” and salute him throughout the jaunt. Within a few years he would be freebasing more than an ounce of cocaine a day. 

Bob Hope - dope

I did most of my "studying" in the campus bar. Beer was forty pence a pint and there were drug dealers openly selling blow at every other table. Finest quality dope cost twenty pounds an ounce. The campus was close to Harwich, a short ferry ride to the Hook of Holland. Many aspiring entrepreneurs regularly made that crossing, smuggling hash back from Amsterdam to keep the campus well supplied.

The first time I tried hash, I ate it. It was in a student house in Clacton On Sea where I'd gone with a friend whose name I have long forgotten. There was a group of hippies sprawled in a room. They were passing joints and a bottle of vodka around and doing a lot of giggling. At one point, this hairy Scottish hippy asked me if I wanted to eat a biscuit. I said, "yeah, sure. Why not?" I hadn't realised it was going to be covered with dope. He passed me a chocolate Club that he had covered with a thick layer of black resin. I ate it, the Bob Hope tasted bitter and left a burning sensation on my tongue. It took a while to kick in. When it did, I was flying. My brain was fried. The night descended into chaos. Everyone was smashed out of their minds. At one point my friend started pissing on the bed. The laced Club biscuit upset my stomach and I threw up. I was spewing everywhere, projectile vomit gushed for what seemed like hours. In the end I decided that I had to go home. I walked, it seemed to take forever, nearly as long as it took for the effects of that hash biscuit to wear off. I was stoned for days. I suppose you could say, after that I was hooked. I started buying dope regularly. You could skin up in that bar too. Nobody tried to stop you. I was constantly stoned after that. I didn't run out of dope until term ended and I went back up north for the holidays.

The music we were listening to was changing. When I first arrived, "Dark Side Of the Moon" and "Tubular Bells" were the order of the day. There were times when Mike Oldfield's album was blasting out of every student bedroom in the towers of residence. But that didn't last long. Prog Rock was on its way out as far as we were concerned. Glam rock was taking over and roots reggae was starting to come in. Boys wore make up, glitter and platform shoes. Tracks were getting shorter, faster and punchier. Bowie's "Jean Genie" vied with Gary Glitter and "Ballroom Blitz" on the jukebox and at the discos. I'd bought "Space Ritual" by Hawkwind with my first grant cheque. But soon, "Burnin" and "Catch A Fire" became turntable faves.

Infact, Bob Marley and the Wailers played Essex University in 1973. Sadly for me, it was in the term before I went there. I still got to see plenty of musical legends. John Martyn performed his ground breaking "Solid Air" album. Roy Harper played at the height of the sheep kissing myth. This story had it that Harper had given a sheep the kiss of life, contracting a rare disease in the process that almost killed him. Harper was a counter-culture icon. Led Zeppelin had written a song about him and he was soon to sing with the Pink Floyd on “Wish You Were Here”. He deserved respect, but we gave him sheep noises, bleating "baa" at him in the breaks between songs. He didn't find our bombed behaviour very amusing.

We had catholic tastes in music. In truth, Bob Dylan dominated my turntable through my university years. I was obsessed with him, particularly the 60's “electric” trilogy of albums. I sat up with my flatmates late into the night, analysing his lyrics, seeking the real meaning in “Just Like A Woman” (was it really about a man?)

Laurel Canyon luminaries Love arrived at the end of term two, though it would be true to say they were past their creative peak. I dropped acid for the first time at that gig. A gang of us dropped it together. After the show, we all crammed into a tiny bedroom in one of the resident towers. I remember being pole-axed, my head a kaleidoscope of colours, unable to move or speak. We listened to "Dark Side Of the Moon" all night on that trip. We had it on repeat. We thought the part with the alarm clocks was hilariously funny. We played that bit at maximum volume over and over again.

Grosvenor Square riot 1968

There was also a riot at the end of term two. It was a famous brawl at the time, though small scale compared with incidents like the Grosvenor Square riot a few years earlier. One hundred and five students got arrested and it was the lead story on the national news. There were riot police in full battle gear on campus that day. They didn't mess about. They beat us over the heads with their truncheons, before dragging us away to the waiting paddywagons. I saw girls grabbed by the hair having their heads smashed into paving kerbs. We fought back, kicking and punching any police that came near. At one point we hi-jacked a lorry that was trying to deliver vegetables. We liberated its cargo and pelted the pigs with cabbages and potatoes. It was a one sided battle that caused a media frenzy. The right wing press had a field day, running leaders demanding that the university be closed or turned into an college of agriculture.

I went back up North the day after battle. My parents were not pleased to see me. They had been mortified by the news broadcasts and wanted to know what the hell I was playing at. I didn't stay at home for long. I couldn't take the outraged silence, so I went back down to Colchester and spent Easter in the bar with my mates.

Essex University lost its excitement after those turbulent beginnings. The university authorities had a purge and the ring leaders behind the unrest were expelled. Life calmed down and we returned to some semblance of academic life.

Our drug use was changing. We were still drinking like fish, smoking tons of blow, and occasionally dropping acid. Poppers had come in, giving you a massive head rush and moments of euphoria. Dodo's, speedy slimming pills, were chewed by the packet to keep you up all night when exam time arrived.

By the end of my university years, the music of the early 70's was getting complacent. The super groups had lost touch with their roots and had run out of direction. The world was crying out for something new. The Damned, The Buzzcocks, The Undertones and The Sex Pistols all formed in 1975.

One band made a lasting impression in the final year at Essex. That was Dr Feelgood. They were a revelation, now perceived as the pre-cursors of punk rock, they played with an aggressive dynamic that hadn't been heard before. They came from Canvey Island, a few miles from the university and they produced an electrifying performance. They dressed differently to the prog and glam rockers of previous generations. Their hair was short, they wore suits and ties. But it was a gangster rather than a bank manager guise. They looked and sounded tough. It was all action, in your face, attacking rock n roll.

Attendance was poor at their gig. There were less than fifty people in the big booming hall. I stood at the front, so close I could almost touch front man Lee Brilleaux. Wilko Johnson, Feelgood's extraordinary guitarist, flew across the stage like a demented robot. He had developed a unique playing style, producing a stuttering machine gun type frenzy, using his thumb for the top two strings and a finger for the other four. He pulled as well as picked at the strings, enabling him to play rhythm and lead guitar at the same time.

In 1976, Dr Feelgood's live album, the adrenalin fuelled, “Stupidity”, went to number one. It seemed that they were destined for big things. But within two months of this happening, The Sex Pistols released "Anarchy In The UK" and the Feelgoods were pretty much forgotten as punk rock took hold of the nation's youth. 

  

4. By The Time We Got To Bickershaw

Wigan's Woodstock is remembered for being muddy and wet. The original UK Mudstock was held on a slag heap. Forty thousand hippies descended on the coal mining village of Bickershaw, near Wigan over the weekend of May 5-7 1972. It was only twelve miles from our house. 


Promoted by Jeremy Beadle before he achieved fame as a television presenter, the festival is musically best remembered for legendary performances by Captain Beefheart and The Grateful Dead. Woodstock veterans Country Joe and The Incredible String Band appeared alongside John Peel favourites Family, Stackridge and Al Stewart. 


I went with my brother and our cousin, Mark, the three of us squashing into a one man tent, pitching camp near the swamp at the back of the field. 


The rain pounded down on the first night. A gale blew the sound away. We shivered on the the foul, muddy coal wasteland as Dr John tripped the night away. He threw sackfuls of silver glitter into the pitch dark sky. The goofer dust twinkled Ju Ju in the cloying coal mud. 


He was followed by Hawkwind. They were the hottest new band in the land at that point and about to race up the charts with "Silver Machine". I guess we went to our tent soaked, cold, but contented that first night.


The next morning, I wandered the festival site. It already resembled a war zone. The rain and forty thousand pairs of feet had churned the coal field into a black mudbath. 


Things had already started falling apart. The fences were down and anyone could walk in. I bought Jamaican patties for breakfast. They were yellow Cornish pasties with heavily spiced filling, the most exotic food I'd encountered at that point in my life. A hippy offered me some acid and several more were selling hash. I didn't buy anything, I still wasn't taking drugs then. Looking back now, I think that we were the only festival goers who weren't tripping that weekend. 


Donovan and the Incredible String Band played gentle acoustic sets in the afternoon, Family rocked the night and the Kinks played pissed. On Saturday night, we sat shivering until 3am eternal. We were waiting for Beefheart. 


"And this is the master of fake, cold as a snake", he growled as the band finally launched into that fabulous set. 
Legend has it that it was this show that inspired Joe Strummer to form a band. A few years ago I managed to acquire a bootleg CD. Its mastered off a cassette recording and is average quality. 


I made a copy of it for my brother and when I gave it to him, I told him that it wasn't the best quality, but in places you could still smell the mud. There's a terrible earth loop that makes the amplifiers hum on a lot of it, but its still got the vibe. The hum gets so bad that the band have to stop playing in the middle of the set. 


"I have an electric lighter and I wouldn't take it out right now, for nothing", the Captain grumbles during the interruption. 


They were promoting "The Spotlight Kid" album, Beefheart's attempt at rock n roll super stardom. "The Spotlight Kid on spotlight", he says when introducing the band. Panned by the critics and hated by the Magic Band, I loved the album and had played it to death. This was a band on the edge, light years ahead of their time. As Melody Maker journalist Richard Williams put it, “The first impression is amazement that they aren’t actually hovering two-feet above the stage as they play, for their music doesn’t seem to be bound to the earth in any way.”   


If you'd like to hear what Beefheart sounded like that night, click here
(REMEMBER TO HIT BACK BUTTON IF YOU FOLLOW THIS LINK)

When dawn broke the next morning it felt like something special had happened. A spaceship had landed and abducted us. Exhausted, we spent that day waiting for the Dead to appear. It was a cold day and the site stank of wet coal mud by this stage. The last semblance of order had broken down. We were filthy, tired and hungry. It was a free concert by this point. The locals arrived in droves that afternoon, the straight people in their Sunday best came out to stare at the freak show. 

The Grateful Dead were in the middle of their historic Europe 72 tour. As the sleeve notes on that album say, "There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert." Their recordings of this period show them at their peak. The pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world were legend for their marathon sets. Fusing rock 'n roll, folk, bluegrass, blues, country and improvisational jazz; they forged a new psychedelic space 
rock with sets that lasted four or five hours or more. One song alone could last for half an hour. They always improvised and it is said that in the 2,300 concerts they played during their career, no two Dead sets were ever the same. 


The Summer of Love was reborn in Wigan that day. The sun came out when they started playing. People lit bonfires. The band commented on the stink they caused. 
"I don't know what you're burning out there, but it smells rotten."  
"It must be my shorts " 
"Everybody's burning their old socks (laughter) and its disgraceful, disgraceful." A young Elvis Costello stood in the mud amazed by the performance and was convinced he should start a band. I also stood in awe as "China Cat Sunflower" and "I Know You Rider" carried me away. It was a long strange trip. I would have stayed there forever, but then my mum appeared, demanding I leave. I didn't want to go. We argued. I wanted to stay until the end, but she insisted I come away. I had to prepare for school in the morning. We had a row in the car going home. I was furious with her. I sulked and didn't speak to her for weeks. Which was often the way between me and my mother back then.  

If you want to hear what The Dead sounded like that afternoon, click here

3. "What's it going to be then, eh?"

"The vibe at Woodstock was an expression of the times. Energized by repugnance for a senseless war and for the entrenched discrimination of the establishment, a spirited but non-violent counter-culture was sweeping the country. That counter-culture burst into bloom like the mother of all Mother's Day bouquets at Woodstock." Joel Rosenman of Woodstock Ventures once said. "Woodstock is a reminder that inside each of us is the instinct for building a decent, loving community, the kind we all wish for. Over the decades, the history of that weekend has served as a beacon of hope that a beautiful spirit in each of us ultimately will triumph."

As far as I was concerned, those three days of peace, music and love happened in 1970, not 1969. That was when the film and two soundtrack albums were released. The year Joni Mitchell's song was issued and "Woodstock" went to number one on the singles chart. 

In my world, 1969 had meant the Monterey Pop movie, missing Bob Dylan at the second Isle Of Wight and being slightly bemused by John and Yoko's Bed In For Peace interviews on the evening news. 

It was the start of the Me decade. The optimism of the middle sixties counter culture was going sour. People started proclaiming, "Let's talk about Me". 

Death was in the air. Charles Manson, on trial for the Helter Skelter murders, became a cult hero and front cover star of "Rolling Stone". 

The US National Guard shot dead four students during a protest at Kent State University, Ohio. Crosby Stills Nash and Young rush released the song on a single. It was receiving national airplay within a month of the deaths. 

"Gimme Shelter", a documentary about the Rolling Stones disastrous Altamont Free Concert was promoted with a poster that blurted, "the music that thrilled the world, and the killing that stunned it".

Jimi Hendrix's last concert, the third Isle of Wight, was disrupted by anarchists and activists who wanted the event 

declared free. Paul McCartney announced that The Beatles had officially broken up. John Lennon sang,"the dream is over". 



The infamous Oz School kids issue was released and its publishers were charged with obscenity; a crime carrying a sentence of life imprisonment. The charges were eventually dropped following an appeal. 

Heavy Metal was born. Kraut Rock was emerging. The Laurel Canyon singer songwriter movement was coming to its peak. 

The age of the ultra violent movie had arrived. "The Devils", "Straw Dogs" and "The Wild Bunch" depicted unprecedented scenes of nudity and brutality. "A Clockwork Orange" inspired copycat crime. "The adventures of a young man, (Alex), whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven", took the boundaries of the permissive society to their extreme. A 16 year old, James Palmer, beat a tramp to death. A woman was raped by a gang who, like Alex, sang "Singing in the Rain" as they carried out their ruthless violence. When questioned by police, one of the thugs said, "I got the idea to beat this bitch from a movie I saw. A Clockwork Orange". 

David Bowie originally modelled Ziggy Stardust on its fashions, coming on stage to the film's soundtrack and singing about droogies in "Suffragette City". 

During their 1975 American tour, Led Zeppelin's drummer, John Bonham, dressed like Alex and was introduced to the audience as "our Mr Ultraviolence". 

The influence of Clockwork Orange has never waned. Heaven 17, Moloko and The Droogs are all band names lifted from the book, whilst a label formed in Liverpool called Korova as an outlet for the band Echo and the Bunnymen. 

Going out became dangerous when you aspired to be a hippy and had long hair. That became crystal clear to me one night in Liverpool. Our school ran coach trips to evening events all over Lancashire. To football games mostly, but also to theatres and the cinema. One evening, they took us to Liverpool to see "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". I walked into a movie house full of skinheads. I almost crapped myself. When the lights dimmed and the film started, they kept tapping me on the shoulder and hissing in my ear, "Aye, lar, you're dead when you get outside, you are". I was bricking it. I didn't fancy a good kicking. So I bolted for my life as the final credits rolled. I made it to the coach in one piece. I sat at the back. I looked out of the window and saw a gang of skinheads shouting at the bus. "Aye, lar, come back down here, we wanna word wiv you". There was no way I was going to move. I might even have given them the finger as the coach pulled away. Or perhaps it was the peace sign. Make love, not war.  

I saw some phenomenal gigs. The Charisma Package Tour at the Floral Hall in Southport. Genesis supporting Lindisfarne and the headlining Van Der Graaf Generator. Fifty pence to get in. Within three years, Genesis would be filling football stadiums, Lindisfarne would go to number one and Van Der Graaf Generator would break up. It cost ten shillings for a ticket and very few people attended. 

I remember enjoying this gig, but this reviewer thought it was duff. 

King Crimson played the Wigan ABC. It was a completely different atmosphere to the Stones gig I had witnessed six years earlier. This one didn't sell out and the kaftan wearing long hairs were serious head nodders who wouldn't be seen dead screaming at the band. 

It was the golden age of Prog. The albums came thick and fast. The first three years of the decade saw all of these and more added to the shelf in my pink bedroom. Thick As A Brick, Close To The Edge, Selling England By The Pound. Foxtrot, Dark Side Of The Moon, Nursery Cryme, Fragile. Birds of Fire, Pawn Hearts, Aqualung, Meddle. Stormcock,  H to He Who Am the Only One, The Grand Wazoo. The Yes Album, In The Land Of Grey And Pink, The Inner Mounting Flame, Tubular Bells. In Search Of Space, Dance Of the Lemmings, Tago Mago, Neu !

I had discovered the Liverpool Stadium too. It became my musical mecca. It was a spit and sawdust  auditorium with a capacity of approximately three thousand. Cold and ugly, with primitive seating and a boxing ring in the middle that doubled as the stage. The air was always thick with the sweet smells of hashish and patchouli oil. There were dope dealers and stalls where vendors sold programmes, badges and other counter culture paraphernalia. Roger Eagles promoted an eclectic selection of the best bands around in this dilapidated boxing hall. He later opened Liverpool's legendary Eric's club. 

When Hawkwind played there, Lemmy was still in the band and Miss Stacia danced naked and handed joss sticks out to the crowd. Lemmy later said, "She was a bookbinder by profession and then she had an uncontrollable urge one night to take all her clothes off and paint herself blue. It was probably a throwback to the Roman invasion of Britain. You think woad, y'know? She was great, blowing bubbles onstage and shit. She was an impressive woman. Six foot two with a 52-inch bust. An overwhelming sight for the youngsters in the crowd."           (Do Not Panic, BBC 4 documentary 2007).


Hawkwind recorded "Space Ritual" at the Stadium. Many people consider it their best album, but I wasn't at that show. Captain Beefheart's Magic Band appeared shortly before their legendary Bickershaw appearance. Frank Zappa once came and played "Willie the Pimp". Roxy Music landed when "Virginia Plain" was released. Bowie brought Ziggy and the Spiders From Mars. One of the strangest bills was avant garde jazz rockers Soft Machine supported by Loudon Wainwright III. I went for Loudon Wainwright. He was a big John Peel favourite and I knew his albums off by heart. I went into the Cross Keys for a drink before that concert and he was in there. I got close enough to speak to him, but didn't have the bottle.