I went to concerts to dance. I shoved as much down me neck and other areas as I could possibly get my hands on, and got up on the good foot.
One of the people I really liked a lot was the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. He’d walk around in the crowd, and I went up and said hello, and it was great. His band
was billed to support Alice Cooper at the Finsbury Astoria, before it became the Rainbow, and for some reason Alice Cooper cancelled that concert. I’d bought tickets for John Gray, Dave Crowe
and a few others, but I was such a fanatic of both bands, I kept the tickets, I never went back and cashed them in. In fact, I’ve still got them.
I even joined the Alice Cooper fan club and had a box of chicken feathers sent to me, and this silly letter of information. The whole thing just struck me as really funny. There were people that
really would take this a bit too seriously.
So I told Arthur, ‘I’ve still got the tickets from that gig that was cancelled,’ and he went, ‘It weren’t me!’ So, that’s how our conversation started.
I was just some awkward kid that was giving teachers a bad time, and he was good enough to talk to me as an equal. I won’t hear a bad word said about him, because there’s all too few of
those kinds of people on this earth. Anyone who talks to me openly is fine by me. It’s the ones that leer down or flare their nostrils that drive me crazy. But that man was bonkers, seriously
out there. Lunatics make good records, oddly enough, and they make good paintings too, and write good novels. They just can’t seem to fit into the shitstem.
Another great band I saw at the Roundhouse was Can. They used this equipment that reached bass tones so low you wouldn’t hear them – you’d
feel
them. Well, so did the
stage, which vibrated and collapsed. All the scaffolding crumbled. Afterwards everyone waited hour after hour for it to be rebuilt, and finally at the end of it all – the most amazing
drumming I’ve ever seen! Thank you, Jaki Liebezeit! Just the sound and the audacity of it, and where it was coming from. It was way beyond the trippy-hippie bongo crowd in the audience. This
was coming with a far harder message, and it wasn’t the dull stupidity of love and peace.
Also from Germany, Faust earned my love by selling theiralbum,
The Faust Tapes
, for 50p – a bargain, even in 1973. I actually saw them at the Rainbow in
Finsbury Park, and they just basically made their noise, which was made up of very interesting, hypnotic, trancey electronic-box-produced noises, while they were wrapped around a pile of old TVs in
the middle of a huge, empty stage. I must admit, at the time I was really angry because I didn’t have a TV. ‘What are they doing with all those TVs – I could definitely use one of
them!’ Then they kicked them to pieces, and rewired them. It was an appropriate backdrop for what they were doing musically, but at the same time – forever the practicalist, me! –
I tried so hard to get backstage to nick one.
Everything and anything, I was into it. I went to free festivals too. I even went to one of the first Glastonburys. I think Audience played, maybe Atomic Rooster, and possibly
even Melanie. I really don’t know. It was non-stop alcoholic faze, perpetrated by wonderful amphetamines. It was a texture of gloriousness.
I don’t think bands were even introduced. It just seemed to be that one lot would mélange into another. There wasn’t a great turnover of equipment, road crew or DJ activity
going on. It just seemed to be who turned up, turned up, and then things swifted over, and before you knew it, it was a completely different band. It was quite wonderful for that.
And in the middle of that kind of affair, I’d also be off to sit cross-legged listening to Nico waffle on about the ‘janitor of lunacy’. Fantastic, completely Queen Vampire! It
was John Gray who said, ‘Oh, we must go see her!’ Everybody knew she was a smackhead, like that’d
One of the people I really liked a lot was the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. He’d walk around in the crowd, and I went up and said hello, and it was great. His band
was billed to support Alice Cooper at the Finsbury Astoria, before it became the Rainbow, and for some reason Alice Cooper cancelled that concert. I’d bought tickets for John Gray, Dave Crowe
and a few others, but I was such a fanatic of both bands, I kept the tickets, I never went back and cashed them in. In fact, I’ve still got them.
I even joined the Alice Cooper fan club and had a box of chicken feathers sent to me, and this silly letter of information. The whole thing just struck me as really funny. There were people that
really would take this a bit too seriously.
So I told Arthur, ‘I’ve still got the tickets from that gig that was cancelled,’ and he went, ‘It weren’t me!’ So, that’s how our conversation started.
I was just some awkward kid that was giving teachers a bad time, and he was good enough to talk to me as an equal. I won’t hear a bad word said about him, because there’s all too few of
those kinds of people on this earth. Anyone who talks to me openly is fine by me. It’s the ones that leer down or flare their nostrils that drive me crazy. But that man was bonkers, seriously
out there. Lunatics make good records, oddly enough, and they make good paintings too, and write good novels. They just can’t seem to fit into the shitstem.
Another great band I saw at the Roundhouse was Can. They used this equipment that reached bass tones so low you wouldn’t hear them – you’d
feel
them. Well, so did the
stage, which vibrated and collapsed. All the scaffolding crumbled. Afterwards everyone waited hour after hour for it to be rebuilt, and finally at the end of it all – the most amazing
drumming I’ve ever seen! Thank you, Jaki Liebezeit! Just the sound and the audacity of it, and where it was coming from. It was way beyond the trippy-hippie bongo crowd in the audience. This
was coming with a far harder message, and it wasn’t the dull stupidity of love and peace.
Also from Germany, Faust earned my love by selling theiralbum,
The Faust Tapes
, for 50p – a bargain, even in 1973. I actually saw them at the Rainbow in
Finsbury Park, and they just basically made their noise, which was made up of very interesting, hypnotic, trancey electronic-box-produced noises, while they were wrapped around a pile of old TVs in
the middle of a huge, empty stage. I must admit, at the time I was really angry because I didn’t have a TV. ‘What are they doing with all those TVs – I could definitely use one of
them!’ Then they kicked them to pieces, and rewired them. It was an appropriate backdrop for what they were doing musically, but at the same time – forever the practicalist, me! –
I tried so hard to get backstage to nick one.
Everything and anything, I was into it. I went to free festivals too. I even went to one of the first Glastonburys. I think Audience played, maybe Atomic Rooster, and possibly
even Melanie. I really don’t know. It was non-stop alcoholic faze, perpetrated by wonderful amphetamines. It was a texture of gloriousness.
I don’t think bands were even introduced. It just seemed to be that one lot would mélange into another. There wasn’t a great turnover of equipment, road crew or DJ activity
going on. It just seemed to be who turned up, turned up, and then things swifted over, and before you knew it, it was a completely different band. It was quite wonderful for that.
And in the middle of that kind of affair, I’d also be off to sit cross-legged listening to Nico waffle on about the ‘janitor of lunacy’. Fantastic, completely Queen Vampire! It
was John Gray who said, ‘Oh, we must go see her!’ Everybody knew she was a smackhead, like that’d
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