In the air

I’m pleased that the Broadway opening of Hair at the Biltmore Theatre on 29th April has been noted in Radio 4′s 1968: Day by Day. According to John Tusa, ‘Broadway’s defences crumble[d]‘ as the ‘first Rock Musical’ arrived after playing Off-Broadway for six months. (Not only that, Sir John: Hair was the first theatre piece ever to transfer from Off- to On-Broadway.) However, while it’s great to hear a burst of Nina Simone, the rather clumsy statement ‘at [Hair's] heart: Nina Simone’s classic – Ain’t Got No…I Got Life‘ could give the erroneous impression that she wrote the song. It was Gerome Ragni, James Rado and Galt MacDermot’s ‘classic’ before it was ‘hers’.

Forty years and one day later, Albert Hoffman, the man who invented LSD, died. He was 102. He must have been doing something right.

Forty years and two days later, the city formerly known as ‘Swinging’ London seems inclined, on May Day, to elect as its Mayor a man who does a very convincing impersonation of an imbecile – which, of course, he can’t be because he was ‘educated’ at Eton and Balliol. And it just doesn’t get any better than that, does it? If, forty years on, so many caps can still willingly be doffed at a pig’s bladder on a stick, did 1968 change anything…?

Demographics and intertextuality

As the title of this post suggests, I’ve been wrestling with a lot of theoretically-dense stuff recently. (Some of it could more accurately be described as ‘merely’ theoretical; some as ‘merely’ dense – but that’s another story.) Perhaps that’s why ‘demographics’ and ‘intertextuality’ pop into my head every time I hear the excellent trailer music for the BBC’s upcoming Medieval series. This cracking version of Hendrix’ Purple Haze tops even that by the Kronos Quartet. It takes a lot for a musical joke to make me repeatedly laugh out loud, but this one is so brilliantly observed and performed (I know not by whom) that it does the trick every time.

But the combination of Hendrix + irony + psychedelic-cum-Medieval imagery + the pack-shot appeal to ‘take a trip into the Medieval mind’ also makes very clear which demographic sector BBC Four is targeting. While I don’t know much about Medieval History (as Sam Cooke could have said, but didn’t) it might – just – encourage me to tune in (and ‘turn on’?)

If you’re feeling trippy, I will be posting soon on two audacious and highly informative cultural/musical texts which are high on my playlist at the moment. I first discovered Deep Purple’s 1969 Concerto for Group and Orchestra in 1987, when it could not have been more unfashionable and maligned. I discovered Zachariah: The First Electric Western (George Englund, USA, 1971) much more recently, when scouring editions of Time Out from the early 1970s. Jim’s Reviews rather over-plays the homoerotic subtext of the film, but does offer an interesting and perceptive reading of what it rightly summarizes as a ‘surreal and sometimes moving rock-musical Western’. Zachariah is, like the Concerto, an extraordinary, fascinating and very historically-specific piece of hybrid art. I watched it for the first time recently in a state of flu-induced, Benylin and Sudafed-inspired sleep-deprivation in the early hours. This put me, I think, in a similar psychotropic state as those who made it. But it also works in the middle of the day without chemical assistance.

I recommend them both, for various reasons which I shall blog about anon.

“What have you got, 1968, that makes you so damned superior?”*

Image (from London Shaftesbury Theatre production): http://www.michaelbutler.com/hair/ holding/photographs/hair/images/London5.jpg

[*The title of this post is a quote from Hair. In a debate amongst the generations, Claude, the hero, is asked 'what have you got, 1968, that makes you so damned superior....and gives me such a headache?' He replies: 'well if you really want to know, 1948....', then launches into the number 'I Got Life' (made famous by Nina Simone, amongst others). Later versions of the prompt script from the London production reveal that this reference was updated during the five-year run of the show. Thus the line later became, for example : 'what have you got, 1971.....well if you really want to know 1951....']

I mentioned below that there was a comment in a recent BBC Radio 4 programme which I found somewhat dismissive, unjustified, and all too typical of the ‘canonical’ view of the key case studies of my thesis: the ‘Rock Operas’ of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In ‘London’, the first episode of the series 1968 – The Year of Revolutions, presented by John Tusa and first broadcast on Tuesday 18th March at 9am, the playwright (and, generally, astute social commentator) David Edgar discussed the state of theatre during that year. So far, so good. Surely, I thought to myself, Hair, (the undisputed British theatrical event of the year, which opened one day after theatre censorship ended in September) will finally warrant the recognition it deserves?

And lo, we got a burst of the original London cast singing Aquarius, while Edgar told us that the Lord Chamberlain putting down his blue pencil for the last time resulted in ‘this sudden whoosh of work, I mean things like the musical Hair which knew it was coming and wanted to be the first on the block. But much more importantly all kinds of radical theatre work from America in particular but also from Europe which just couldn’t have been performed in Britain which of course came much more in 1969 and subsequent years and transformed the British theatre.’

Mmmm.

BBC Radio 4: ’1968 – Myth or Reality?’

Let’s not be churlish in advance (an easy thing to do, as we drown in simplistic Channel 5-style clip-shows): it is difficult to deny that the BBC’s extensive coverage of the events of 1968 looks extremely impressive and exciting. We have all summer to judge whether they succeed in answering the question posed by the umbrella title for the season of programmes. The depth and quality of the analysis remains to be seen, but the range of issues to be covered is very commendable indeed.

The 1968: Day by Day segment looks particularly interesting. Hats off to the production team (including Historical Consultant Dominic Sandbrook) for giving so much information on the website about sources and editorial policy.

Set your bookmarks/’Listen Again’ links/videos/BBC IPlayer, etc. It could be a long, hot summer. Here’s hoping it is also an informative one.

Nicker-less Parsons on “Hair”

One of the best things about writing a PhD on a subject such as mine is that ‘what archives are you using?’ – the ultimate historian-stuck-at-drinks-reception-and-lacking-in-social-small-talk question – seems almost laughable. I am frequently tempted to reply that ‘the world is my archive’; but that can sound both arch and somewhat ‘unprofessional’ (dear boy).

But it’s true, as proved by this week’s edition of Radio 4′s Desert Island Discs. Kirsty Young’s guest on Sunday 4th November was actor/game-show host/personality/national institution Nicholas Parsons. Charming, articulate, and with a touching interest in and empathy for all social stratas and walks-of-life, he also revealed himself to be a great admirer of Hair (if not quite a closet ‘counter-culturalist’). He was a late-1960s audience member who interpreted the famous nude scene in precisely the way intended by its authors. Here’s a transcript of his comments, which provided the context for his choice of the song Aquarius as one of eight pieces of music he would take to his desert island:

Kirsty Young: ‘In 1967 you won Radio Personality of the Year. Briefly, how did that come about?’

Nicholas Parsons: ‘People, young, and middle-aged like me, were breaking down all kinds of traditional, arcane attitudes and so forth, and the big breakthrough on television came with That Was The Week That Was. And I went to the Head of Light Entertainment for Radio and I said ‘you haven’t got anything similar on radio’. He said ‘no, we haven’t’. And I said ‘well, I’ve got this idea’. And we called the programme Listen To This Space and it took off, and I was lucky to get the award – the Variety Club Award of Radio Personality of the Year.’

Q: ‘Tell me about your next piece of music then.’

A: ‘Well, it’s all part of the Sixties, my next piece of music. New things were happening in the theatre. And there was a musical came over from America called Hair, and I went to see it. And it was memorable for one scene, I remember, because at the end of the first half they all seemed to be under a huge blanket and they struggled to get their kit off. And then the blanket was whipped away and they all stood up absolutely stark naked and they went into another number. And, you know, it wasn’t done to be provocative, it was actually rather innocent. And that was the joy of this period – there was an innocence, there was a great love going on everywhere. And one of the songs from that musical which has always been with me ever since is The Age Of Aquarius.’

Couldn’t have put it better myself. Thanks, Nicholas. I think you’ve just earned a little citation in my thesis.

Images: http://www.nicholasparsons.co.uk and http://www.michaelbutler.com/hair/

 

Tony Wilson

Another real loss to the British (and particularly Northern English) cultural landscape. Anthony Wilson, founder of Factory Records and all-round Punk/Post-Punk Renaissance man: dead from cancer at the age of just 57. His programmes and links from Manchester are some of my very earliest pop-on-TV memories. I recall thinking at the time how intelligent, articulate and charming he seemed to be for a man talking as a ‘mere’ muso/TV/critic-type (they just weren’t so ten-a-penny in those days, you see – JQ please take note).

But I’ll let others do the talking on Wilson. Pat Kane has written a good tribute on The Play Ethic, and, for the uninitiated, The Beeb’s Ian Youngs gives a precis of his main achievements.

And the first USHA goes to….

I have a sense of humour. I watch dodgy “history” clip-shows on very dodgy TV channels and am quite happy to forgive some (indeed many) factual errors if they can be disguised by a witty, pithy one-liner. I like ‘pop’ history (in all senses of the word) very much. I understand and value its function. I believe pop/rock music history is not only a valid branch of cultural history but a highly informative means of examining the recent past. I often find myself admiring music journalists – even when they irritate me – for their sheer rhetorical chutzpah. I also realise that the newspaper business can make deadline demands which result in short-cuts, non-existent research time or brutal hacking by a sub-editor.

Having said all that, could this be the most pointless, meandering, impenetrable and incomprehensible “article” on “music history” I have ever had the misfortune to read in a national newspaper?

Actually, I didn’t quite finish it. I just couldn’t. Two-thirds of the way through (having succumbed to the double-whammy of sinking heart and rising blood-pressure) I began to weep at the gratuitous mass-murder of trees required to run it in the very newspaper which used to be graced by the mighty Julie Burchill. (Incidentally, despite her somewhat fearsome reputation, I won’t have a word said against Julie. On a personal level I can vouch that she is a lovely woman: about five years ago she sent me an entirely unsolicited signed first edition of her brilliant, long-out-of-print first book Damaged Gods after I had tried every means to source it. In a small way she helped inspire me back on to the route which has led to my current PhD. Love or loathe her opinions, her prose style is phenomenal and her ability to sustain an argument unrivaled. She would never allow tosh like this to run under her name.)

The article in question, by contrast, is vacuous. Ostensibly about The Clash’s London Calling, it has no thesis or insights to offer. Its non-content is conveyed through prose both turgid and flaccid. It is not history. It is not sociological analysis. It is not entertaining to read, even to provoke opposition; it is devoid of any meaning worthy of opposing. It is, literally, pointless. I cannot work out what it is trying to convey to me, or about what. It put me in mind of Truman Capote (and not in a good way), who allegedly said: “that’s not writing – that’s typing”. More so, to paraphrase Harrison Ford to George Lucas: “you can type this sh*t – but you can’t read it”.

If anyone can decipher what the author is, in fact, trying to say (my life is too short for any further attempts at analysis) they may have a prize of their own choosing. If not, I declare that the author has just been awarded the first ever Smashing The Window USHA. Yes, you’ve guessed it: JQ is the recipient (proud, I hope) of the inaugural Utterly Sh*te History Award.

R.I.P. George Melly

What a great loss. I’ve always loved George Melly. Taking my cue from Airminded’s recent delve into childhood inspiration, this stems from his ubiquitous, colourful and extremely fruity presence on British TV in the 1970s. As a child I found his Trilby hats, big cigars and loud suits, posh-but-approachable accent and total theatricality – through an apparently instinctive awareness of ‘life as performance’- very appealing; largely because they were so far removed from the culture which surrounded me. The ‘panto’-like qualities (in a non-derogatory sense) of his singing performances – costume, direct address, blatant innuendo and sexual ambiguity – made George, on one level, a kind of jazz equivalent of Glam Rock.

Only later, of course, did I discover what a learned man he also was. But his ability to mix inspirations and move effortlessly between cultures – high/low; musical/visual/literary; black/white; straight/gay (and everything in between); ‘highfalutin’ and ‘base’; ‘respectable’ and ‘deviant’ – was clear to me even as a child (when I also found his gloriously polymorphously perverse tone quite hilariously naughty). His eclecticism was outstanding and unique.

Bizarrely, just yesterday I was searching for George Melly’s writings on life, art and culture in the 1960s (which have been high on my ‘to read’ list for too long). I was thinking that George represented a fascinating link between earlier incarnations of English ‘Bohemia’ and the Sixties ‘Counter-Culture’; that he was an exceptional combination of the learned and the (literally) ludicrous; and also that he wasn’t going to be around forever. So I’m going to get his books out of the library today. We need more Georges.
Photo (c) Colin Thomas, 2004

Fall into the Widescreen

Somewhat off-topic, but I’ve nonetheless added a link in the sidebar to the never-less-than-interesting The Play Ethic; site of Mr Pat Kane, Scotland’s cultural polymath. I’ll let his site and CV speak for themselves and take you into his busy, multi-skilling world.

For me, however, as far back as his Top of the Pops days in 1987 I was as much a fan of his writing as of his music. Not only does he possess the finest pop/soul/jazz-inflected male singing voice which the UK has produced in decades (perhaps ever), but a restless mind and eloquent tongue which still make me think and laugh 20 years on. Sometimes I disagree with his thoughts and writings; sometimes they infuriate me; sometimes I just don’t understand them; frequently they leave me feeling intellectually wrung-out. But even if I’m left feeling abandoned I’m still always seduced.

We all need role-models. I’m happy to recall that at the age of 17 as I first hit Glasgow and swayed, stormed and (often) staggered down Byres Road, Hue and Cry’s first album was my soundtrack. I Refuse, in particular, was the anthem/manifesto for this bright young thing (although I always thought the original 7″ version, with a niftier arrangement, was even better – ripe for a future re-release?) A physical resemblance to Mr Kane at the time – helped by my verbal style, which was not exactly reticent – was often pointed out, to my delight. I wanted that singing voice (and, although I’ve made a couple of quid from mine, I still do); but at least I was blessed with pianistic abilities rivaling Pat’s brother Greg. (A few years later my old acting buddy George Drennan and I did half-seriously, half-drunkenly consider becoming Glasgow’s first Hue & Cry tribute band, to be called…’Shug & Greet’, of course. Ah, the Glaswegian banter! Translation available on request.)

For my last major acting role to date (set in the late 1980s) I shamelessly used Pat’s sartorial style of the time for my character – to the delight of my designer, who was of a similar vintage to me. It took little effort or imagination on my part to go back there. On all levels, when I’m talking about the west coast of Scotland, 1987 and Hue and Cry I’m talking ’bout My Generation. Some elements, not just my stubborn default haircut, have never left me.

But Mr Kane moves relentlessly onwards and upwards with a curiosity and optimism which I envy slightly and admire greatly. Here are his most recent book and studio album. Productiveness alone makes him well worth checking out. After all, “the only injunction we have is that we create”.