smile and bring me back pretty swiftly from my inner Haight-Ashbury.
One of the most devastating of these gently critical attacks on our new sound was delivered by Tommy Hodges’ dad, Bill, who ran the newsagents over the wall. One afternoon, Tom and I were in his minuscule bedroom under the stairs listening to Neil Young’s new LP, After the Gold Rush . We were on the track ‘Oh Lonesome Me’ which, even by Neil’s standards, is a bit whiney, when Bill pushed open the door with his behind and turned in with two cups of tea for us. Placing them down on the tiny side table, he momentarily listened to the song and took note of our solemn reverence toward it. Walking the few steps back out of the room he struck up a strangulated parody of Neil’s famous timbre and warbled, ‘Oh I do feel sorry for myself . . .’ As the door clicked closed again we heard Bill walk away chuckling, leaving Tom and me thoroughly undermined, tacitly agreeing that this disastrous counter-revolutionary moment was best not openly acknowledged.
Toward the end of 1969 Dad announced he had ordered a colour television. This was a sensation and would place us right at the forefront of happening technology in this groovy changing world. More than any single invention I can recall, the arrival of colour television was greeted by the entire nation as a huge leap forward and proof the government was at last doing something to modernize life. You’ll always find the People are generally resistant to the New unless that New happens to be something that will spruce up their tellys.
It was an indication of how my cultural stance was changing that while my brother breathlessly said we would be able to see next year’s cup final ‘in full colour’, I was more excited by the prospect of at last being able to see the hot new music show Colour Me Pop without feeling short-changed. (In fact, that forerunner of The Old Grey Whistle Test had just been cancelled.)
Our magnificent new rented colour TV was delivered to our front room on a date heavy with significance: 1 January 1970. The arrival of this gleaming kaleidoscope coinciding with the dawning of a new decade seemed to ooze science fictional possibilities and further speeded my focus away from the path it would traditionally have been taking. Such a shift in priorities had happened quickly.
When I first joined West Greenwich they were holding mass football trials to see who was worthy of making the school first XI. I had a particularly good spell on the field and was announced to be ‘in’ before I’d even left the pitch. This was all I wanted to hear, know and be. Three weeks later, in our first game against our nearest rivals South-East London Boys, I scored four of the goals in a 10–0 demolition of the opposition. The sports teacher made me captain. We had a good little team and none of the local schools ever fancied playing us. Football, music and home life were in complete balance and the conditions were perfect.
But during 1969, hair, sounds and ideas began to get wilder, stranger and loose. Playing for the school now seemed routine and ordinary and far away from my engrossing personal world of musical experiment and discovery. On the BBC, Monty Python’s Flying Circus crept out in the same graveyard spots as the very few rock shows they broadcast and its divisive, uncompromising anti-normality tone gathered a knowing clique of us in awed witness to its daring. By the time 1970 dropped into the birthing pool, things underground were gathering strength and alive with secret possibilities. You could feel it everywhere. Or at least a lucky few could.
I began to take my eye off the ball.
Whole Lotta Love
N o part of my Pollyanna existence truly suffered as my obsession with rock music snowballed. I didn’t lose my sunny outlook and actually never became one of those grim early teens that, according to cliché, sulk in their rooms claiming nobody understands them.
One of the most devastating of these gently critical attacks on our new sound was delivered by Tommy Hodges’ dad, Bill, who ran the newsagents over the wall. One afternoon, Tom and I were in his minuscule bedroom under the stairs listening to Neil Young’s new LP, After the Gold Rush . We were on the track ‘Oh Lonesome Me’ which, even by Neil’s standards, is a bit whiney, when Bill pushed open the door with his behind and turned in with two cups of tea for us. Placing them down on the tiny side table, he momentarily listened to the song and took note of our solemn reverence toward it. Walking the few steps back out of the room he struck up a strangulated parody of Neil’s famous timbre and warbled, ‘Oh I do feel sorry for myself . . .’ As the door clicked closed again we heard Bill walk away chuckling, leaving Tom and me thoroughly undermined, tacitly agreeing that this disastrous counter-revolutionary moment was best not openly acknowledged.
Toward the end of 1969 Dad announced he had ordered a colour television. This was a sensation and would place us right at the forefront of happening technology in this groovy changing world. More than any single invention I can recall, the arrival of colour television was greeted by the entire nation as a huge leap forward and proof the government was at last doing something to modernize life. You’ll always find the People are generally resistant to the New unless that New happens to be something that will spruce up their tellys.
It was an indication of how my cultural stance was changing that while my brother breathlessly said we would be able to see next year’s cup final ‘in full colour’, I was more excited by the prospect of at last being able to see the hot new music show Colour Me Pop without feeling short-changed. (In fact, that forerunner of The Old Grey Whistle Test had just been cancelled.)
Our magnificent new rented colour TV was delivered to our front room on a date heavy with significance: 1 January 1970. The arrival of this gleaming kaleidoscope coinciding with the dawning of a new decade seemed to ooze science fictional possibilities and further speeded my focus away from the path it would traditionally have been taking. Such a shift in priorities had happened quickly.
When I first joined West Greenwich they were holding mass football trials to see who was worthy of making the school first XI. I had a particularly good spell on the field and was announced to be ‘in’ before I’d even left the pitch. This was all I wanted to hear, know and be. Three weeks later, in our first game against our nearest rivals South-East London Boys, I scored four of the goals in a 10–0 demolition of the opposition. The sports teacher made me captain. We had a good little team and none of the local schools ever fancied playing us. Football, music and home life were in complete balance and the conditions were perfect.
But during 1969, hair, sounds and ideas began to get wilder, stranger and loose. Playing for the school now seemed routine and ordinary and far away from my engrossing personal world of musical experiment and discovery. On the BBC, Monty Python’s Flying Circus crept out in the same graveyard spots as the very few rock shows they broadcast and its divisive, uncompromising anti-normality tone gathered a knowing clique of us in awed witness to its daring. By the time 1970 dropped into the birthing pool, things underground were gathering strength and alive with secret possibilities. You could feel it everywhere. Or at least a lucky few could.
I began to take my eye off the ball.
Whole Lotta Love
N o part of my Pollyanna existence truly suffered as my obsession with rock music snowballed. I didn’t lose my sunny outlook and actually never became one of those grim early teens that, according to cliché, sulk in their rooms claiming nobody understands them.
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