Radio 4 – ‘Ziggy Stardust came from Isleworth’

For the next seven days you can listen again to this little radio gem. Radio 4 tackles the influence upon David Bowie’s well-known Ziggy Stardust persona of the now largely forgotten 1950s-60s rocker Vince Taylor. Oral testimony from those who worked with and knew Taylor is used to construct a narrative which takes us on a detour off the highway and into a fascinating little byway of British rock. The story is conveyed with wit, intelligence, sympathy, and no hint of nostalgic indulgence. 10/10.

‘Papa’ John – sufficiently ‘Hairy’, but too spaced out

Of all the numerous genealogical links to and from the Rock Operas which I have pursued (and, occasionally, simply stumbled across) during the last few years, Chris Campion provided one of the most intriguing and bizarre in this Sunday’s Observer Music Monthly. Campion’s excellent, in-depth article on the post-Mamas & Papas life and career of chief ‘Papa’ John Phillips is well worth reading in full.

For anyone interested in pop-rock music on the cusp of the 1960s and 1970s, John Phillips is an important figure. He wrote, for The Mamas & the Papas (and Scott McKenzie), some of the anthems of the ‘peace and love’ generation which had the widest transatlantic appeal at the time, and which have proved most enduring as iconic musical statements of the era. Despite (or perhaps because of) this, The Mamas & the Papas were and sometimes still are subjected to that tiresomely frequent accusation of ‘commercializing’ or ‘selling-out’ the ‘Counter-Culture’. A broadly-based audience warmed to their non-threatening version of hippiedom, their beautiful (by anyone’s standards) vocal harmonies, and Phillips’ melodies and lyrics. This wide appeal, combined with the fact that they did not play their own instruments (because they were singers – and we should note that this was never an impediment to ‘counter-cultural’ acclaim for Janis Joplin) has often made them rather too ‘pop’ for many ‘Counter-Cultural’ purists. Campion’s article goes some way towards redressing the perception of The Mamas & the Papas, and Phillips in particular, as ‘squeaky clean’. On the contrary: Phillips’ ‘spiritual’ and environmental concerns, prodigious libidinousness and even more prodigious drug intake place him firmly within the (admittedly contradictory) ‘mainstream’ of the ‘counter-cultural’ rock milieu of the time. This was, after all, a man who apparently ‘”believed in drug-taking as a way of life”‘.

Phillips also, it seems, developed a rock musical-theatre work with Hair producer Michael Butler. As Campion explains, in the early 1970s, between his first solo album and his dissolute 1977 recording sessions with Keith Richards, Phillips was ‘obsessed with the idea of writing an opera set in space’. The Apollo 11 moon landing had provided the inspiration, and the central role was written with Elvis Presley in mind. (Yes – Elvis.) Having ‘pitched the idea to Michael Butler’, Butler ‘brought on board a young director called Michael Bennett [who would take Broadway by storm in 1975 with A Chorus Line]. For several months, Phillips’ mansion became a hive of activity. Brainstorming sessions were held in the library, a pile of cocaine available for anyone to dip into….Unfortunately, it was not to be. Michael Butler pulled out of the project just as the final cast was to be approved. “Drugs made John very difficult to work with,” Butler says. “He also had a lot of paranoia. And that was the last thing we needed.”…The idea of turning the musical into a sci-fi comedy movie faded too (despite some interest from Jack Nicholson and the mooted involvement of George Lucas)…Nonetheless, with the help of Andy Warhol, Phillips had found new financial backing for Space, now to be retitled Man on the Moon….Harvey Goldberg attended one of the 45 preview performances. “It was so bad that I couldn’t even bring myself to go backstage,” he remembers. “It was truly one of the worst things I’d ever seen.”…The New York Times wrote: “For connoisseurs of the truly bad, Man on the Moon may be a small milestone.” The show closed after five nights…What was left was a suite of 22 songs (which will be released for the first time ever later this year) in which Phillips reinvented himself as a space-age Cole Porter, questing after love and truth in the outer realms.’ Read the full article here.

Festival of post-1945 footage

I’m very aware that things have been quiet round here recently, but I hope that normal service will be resumed in 2009.

Earlier in this year, however, I spent a lot of time putting together a variety of clips from YouTube (and/or the BFI and BBC) as additional teaching material for the QMUL Level 1 course ‘The Road From 1945: Britain Since the Second World War’.  My supervisor, Dan Todman of Trenchfever, hit upon the idea (excellent, I think) of a new blog consisting of primary film, televisual and musical sources to complement the other course documents and teaching materials. Although comments are not enabled on the Road from 1945 blog, we would be interested to hear any reactions through the comments which you can post here. 

As we explain on this page, the clips are categorized chronologicaly and cross-referenced thematically.  I was responsible for most of the material which might be of particular interest to Window Smashers: on The Sixties; the 1970s; the 1980s; Music; Cultural History; Political History and Devolution (or, more accurately, the non-English parts of the UK since the late 1960s). 

I’d appreciate any feedback on the the choices of clips, the passages I have written to contextualize them, and the questions I’ve posed to get the students thinking.

‘Tis Mr. Hendrix’ “quintessential psychedelic track”, my liege

The blogosphere thanks Gladys Hinton for solving the riddle of the BBC’s Medieval Purple Haze. The brilliant arrangement is the work of Tam Nightingale. You can read more about it and download it here.

I’ve been trying to figure out which musical form Jimi’s opus now most closely resembles (such are the kinds of questions that keep me awake at night). My best guess is that it has been turned into something that could almost be called a Rigaudon. It can’t be a Galliard, Gigue or Saltarello because it is in duple (ie, 4/4) time, and it can’t be a Gavotte or Bourree because it starts on the first beat of the bar, not with an anacrusis (i.e., on the up-beat or in the middle of the bar). But then, it could almost be a Tambourin because the Tef is so prominent (I’d never heard of a Tef either, but the BBC link explains). I’m racking my brain for the catch-all Medieval/early-Baroque term for ‘dance’ (form unspecified), in the same way that ayre/air can simply mean ‘tune’. Any musicologists out there?

If all of this has turned you on to shawms and rebecs, here’s a site which will enlighten you further. Bladder Pipe, anyone? I’m off to put my Virginals through a wah-wah.

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/

 

Twentieth Century Boy

Dandy in the Underworld? Or a traitor to the Counter-Culture, who turned his back on it as soon as it went out of fashion? Nothing more than Donovan with a gold Les Paul (and a brilliant producer – Tony Visconti – to pull his fragmentary ideas together)? Quintessentially English, hence unable to break America? Or already so successful here (and living an increasingly dissolute lifestyle) that he no longer cared to put in the effort?

Or how about, simply: a guy who happened to write half-a-dozen of the best and most distinctive rock/pop singles of any decade, which are instantly recognisable and difficult to hear without provoking at least a half-smile? And who not only didn’t deny that he could only play about six chords, but asked, sagely, ‘do you need any more than that?’ And who died when a Mini with under-inflated tyres driven by his girlfriend left the road and hit a tree in Barnes 30 years ago this Sunday – when he was just short of his 30th birthday? Yes – the second paragraph, for me, sums up Marc Bolan better.

Newspaper image: http://blogs.salon.com/0004217/2004/10/26.html

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.

BBC – ‘Classic Britannia’

Another TV heads up (but decent TV is like buses – none for ages, then all at once). Here’s a link to the webpage of Classic Britannia; a three-part series on post-1945 British music. Episode 1 focused on Britten and Walton; and also Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle and others such as John Ogdon who were at the Royal Northern (Manchester) College of Music together in the 1950s.

I thought it was brilliant – intelligent, creative use of footage, good analysis and excellent oral history contributions. Whether you’re an expert or a novice in ‘contemporary music’, this is great ‘cultural history’ TV (in the broadest – and best – sense). Good sample clips on the website too. This Friday we have, of course, ‘swinging London’ in the 1960s-70s – Boulez, Du Pre, Barenboim, Previn, etc.

Marianne Faithfull – Cultural Icon?

This Sunday, 24th June, Marianne Faithfull is to be profiled on The South Bank Show (broadcast times vary by ITV region, I believe.)I confess: I have a considerable amount of respect, even affection, for Marianne. This is not, I hope, based on any misplaced ‘Romantic’ notion of the tortured, auto-destructive artist. Rather, I respect the fact that even her greatest detractors couldn’t accuse her of ever having taken the path of least resistance in either her work or personal life. She also appears to have maintained a healthy sense of humour and self-deprecation (which is so often lacking in her contemporaries). In short – I’d love to meet her one of these days. I get the impression that she would be a genuinely interesting woman.

But I’ll reserve further judgement until we see what she has to say for herself at the hands of Lord Melvyn Bragg. Set your videos/hard-drives.