Stuff

It's Raining Watneys Party Sevens!

09 March 2012 04:01:00

This was my fourth and last Reading festival. I travelled down from Devizes by train with friend John Morris.http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/reading-79.html
The line-up was mixed and this was a disappointing festival because both Thin Lizzy and The Ramones were down to headline but both bands pulled out. I was particularly disappointed to miss the Ramones – I had seen them at the Bristol Locarno (Sept. 2nd 1978) and they were at their usual frenzied best, rip-roaring through their set at breakneck speed – there’s three clichés at once for you!And that's a good excuse for this:

The line-up was mixed and for me, nothing like as interesting as the previous year. The rockers were back with a vengeance! It spelt the end of an affair with Reading. It was like it finally dawned on me that, actually, this may have been a rite of passage but listening to crap bands, drinking crap beer, camping in a crap tent and getting rained on by not only rain but also by cans of beer wasn’t exactly a pleasant way of spending a weekend!
Here's a quote from ukrockfestivals.com:
'Throughout the festival I watched and lived in fear of this rain of empty (or half empty) beer cans and bottles (some with recycled contents). Party cans were hurled through the air and you knew when they landed, that was probably the end of someone’s festival. I braced myself when the frenzied lobbing erupted, expecting a cranium contact with a large Watney’s Seven can. Then, suddenly it would stop. Then start again. I saw one person wearing a crash helmet, in order to enjoy the music.'
And then there's the toilets:
'Going to the toilet in the portable loos was like a journey into hell. After queuing for ages I managed to get a cubicle. I now know what Joseph Conrad meant when he wrote: "The horror, the horror". An entity that could well have been the chum of the "Alien" existed in there, a pileup enough to make a Dyno-rod storm trooper quail. Motorhead were onstage, adding their soundtrack to this nightmare vision.'Playing early on the Friday wereThe Cure playing early stuff like ‘Killing an Arab’ (a reference from Albert Camus' 'The Stranger') and the wonderful pop of Boys Don't Cry:

Also on the Friday were two ok 'new wave' bands Punishment of Luxury (Newcastle-based theatrical-punk band) and Doll by Doll. The latter was fronted by Scottish songwriter and folk legend Jackie Leven, who died in 2011:

Early Punishment of Luxury single:

Next up of note was the manic epileptic splendidness of Wilko Johnson, ex of Dr. Feelgood.
Here's a clip with that band:

:
Also on that day were Motorhead, The Tourists (with Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart) and The Police. I was never any great Motorhead fan and remember leaving their set to go and find a pub. We found one down the road and walked in to the public bar. It was like a war-zone and there was smashed glass everywhere. We had a quick pint and went back to the festival! The Tourists, who had a hard time following crowd favourites Motorhead, and The Police, who went down a storm and aired Walking On The Moon for the first time in public, were ok and enjoying their five minutes of credibility.
On to the Saturday...And the only band I can say I remotely liked was Inner Circle. Much to my relief after the appalling welcomes meted out to Big Youth and The Mighty Diamonds three years earlier, they went down well:

Thin Lizzy were replaced by German band The Scorpions, which was a travesty, and other acts included Gillan, Steve Hackett of Genesis, and Cheap Trick. Yawn. I Want You To Want Me? No chance!
Sunday was not quite as poor. The Ramones were replaced by Nils Lofgren. Hardly an appropriate substitute, but I liked him and he put on a good show, including acrobatics. Some good guitar solos!

Peter Gabriel and The Members were the only other two acts I enjoyed. The Members, from Camberley and still going, were subject to more anti-punk antipathy but performed with customary vigour:

And here's their stab at reggae with 'Offshore Banking Business' featuring trombonist Rico from The Specials:

Peter Gabriel's Reading songs included 'Biko' and 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway' - both great songs and both with Phil Collins on drums. The 'Lamb...' was also a great Genesis double concept album from 1974.
The above two songs are on YouTube from this festival but the quality is poor so try these:

And just for good measure here's the early Genesis album 'Foxtrot' remastered in its entirety. forgot how good early Genesis were with Peter Gabriel and how different this album was!:

And that was that!

Davy Jones's Locker

03 March 2012 01:54:00

This post is a timely addition to a series on bubblegum cards. I’ve started ones on World War II and Batman, so here’s another on The Monkees. Timely as Davy Jones sadly passed away on the 29th February (aged sixty-six). The Monkees were an early manufactured pop band from the sixties who had several massive hits and who caught the zeitgeist of the times. They also had a hugely popular, wacky, weekly TV show, called imaginatively enough, The Monkees. This was produced by NBC and aired between 1966 and 1968 (two seasons – 58 episodes). This show used (at the time) innovative film techniques:‘Rafelson and Schneider (the producers) wanted the style of the series to reflect avant garde film techniques—such as improvisation, quick cuts, jump cuts, breaking the fourth wall, and free-flowing, loose narratives—then being pioneered by European film directors. Each episode would contain at least one musical "romp" which might have nothing to do with the storyline. In retrospect, these vignettes now look very much like music videos: short, self-contained films of songs in ways that echoed Beatles' recent ventures into promotional films for their singles. They also believed strongly in the program's ability to appeal to young people, intentionally framing the kids as heroes and the adults as heavies.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkees_(TV_series))
The four actors were taught improvisational comedy and given characters loosely based on themselves: Mickey Dolenz (the wacky one); Mike Nesmith (smart and serious); Peter Tork (naïve) and Davy Jones (sensible English pretty-boy).In the TV show, a situation comedy, The Monkees were depicted as a struggling band who shared a house in Malibu, California. They had a sign saying ‘Money Is The Root Of All Evil’ and a ‘Monkeemobile’ – a converted Pontiac GTO.
In praise of the show, Time magazine contributor James Poniewozik said:‘Even if the show never meant to be more than entertainment and a hit-single generator, we shouldn’t sell The Monkees short. It was far better TV than it had to be; during an era of formulaic domestic sitcoms and wacky comedies, it was a stylistically ambitious show, with a distinctive visual style, absurdist sense of humor and unusual story structure. Whatever Jones and The Monkees were meant to be, they became creative artists in their own right, and Jones’ chipper Brit-pop presence was a big reason they were able to produce work that was commercial, wholesome and yet impressively weird.’Below is a link to an interesting article re. a Davy Jones versus Justin Bieber argument! http://entertainment.stv.tv/opinion/299484-davy-jones-was-the-justin-bieber-of-his-day-so-rather-than-do-davy-down-lets-give-bieber-his-due/ Whatever the arguments are re. 'manufactured' pop and and its credibility, there is no doubt that The Monkees, 'put together' as they were, produced some classsic pop - and they were musicians in their own right. Pleasant Valley Sunday (in status symbol land) - written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King:

And Last Train To Clarksville:

The Monkees were also in a film called 'Head', described as a 'psychedelic comedy-adventure' written and produced by Bob Rafelson and none other than Jack Nicholson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_%28film%29
The film is either a 'landmark of surreal, innovative filmmaking or simply a fascinating mess.' You choose! Here's a trippy opening clip. Ah the sixties!:

The band also famously invited Jimi Hendrix to be their opening act for a 1967 tour - a match not made in heaven! 'Jimi Hendrix managed to get through a total of only seven dates with the Monkees, culminating in his final show on July 17, 1967, which may or may not have ended with Hendrix saluting the crowd with his middle finger.'
Read the full story here:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jimi-hendrix-drops-out-as-opening-act-for-the-monkees

Davy Jones was born in Manchester and famously appeared in Coronation Street aged eleven, playing Ena Sharples’ grandson. He also played The Artful Dodger in London and on Broadway and trained as a jockey at Newmarket. He was in The Monkees from 1965-71.
Back to the important business of bubblegum cards!:

And finally - if you turn the cards over you find a jigsaw puzzle - re-created here for the first time in over forty years!!

I have another full set of Monkees cards in black & white - but that's another day!

National Periodicals Publications Inc.

24 February 2012 10:49:00

Over to America now, and for this post I'm going to, eventually, publish an entire set of Batman 'bubblegum' or 'trading cards', issued from 1966 by National Periodicals Publications Inc. These cards take you right back to the sixties, and look great (or should that be fab). They came with the obligatory rectangle of pink bubblegum which was tasty for approximately five seconds. National Periodicals Publications Inc. was known as DC comics years before they officially adopted that name (1977). The DC stood for Detectice Comics and included: 'Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Robin, Aquaman, Nightwing, Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern and the Flash, along with such superhero teams as the Justice Society, the Justice League and the Teen Titans, as well as antagonists such as Lex Luthor, the Joker, the Riddler, Mr. Freeze, Catwoman, Sinestro, the Penguin, Two-Face, General Zod, Brainiac, Harley Quinn and Darkseid.'Their colourful seventy-eight year history can be found here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Comics
What we have here is Series 1, known to collectors as 'Batman orange backs' or 'Black Bats'.The majority of the illustrations are done by Norman Saunders, the veteran 'pulp' illustrator mentioned in the previous post, and from pencil drawings by Bob Powell, who died in 1967. They are hand painted images. Referring again to the previous post, these artists were also involved in the 'Battle' bubblegum cards from the A&BC Chewing Gum Co. based in England. You can note from the backs of these cards below that, although they originate from America, they are printed in Great Britain by, you guessed it, the A&BC Chewing Gum Company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Powell

Smoke me a kipper I'll be back for breakfast!

What a guy! What a lunchbox!

Robin: Look Batman - a pipistrelle!
Batman: Oh Lord give me strength!

Look Batman, I don't care what you say, the pants have to go!

Hey guys, there's that weirdo who wears his pants over his tights!

Oi! I can blow my own nose thanks!:

The truth dawned on Batman - 'I must look like a twat!'

Nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh...Batman!

Are you 'avin a larf?! Ah of course you are...You Joker you.

Lackey: Sorry to interrupt boss, but have you got a light?
Joker: Highlights? How very dare you! I'm a natural green!

Joker:The best way to get information out of someone is to allow them to poison themselves!
Batman: Ggrr...Those pesky poison pellets!

Never had Batman down as a trade unionist!

And I thought I was having a bad hair day!

Typical night out,cruising the street, swinging away. We get the picture.

Holy mackerel Batman! It's Mao's Little Red Book! It's those damn pinko-commie bastards again!

A&BC Chewing Gum Ltd

21 February 2012 13:17:00

Anyone remember Bubblegum cards?! ‘Bubblegum’ or ‘trading’ card games were, at least in Kent, a popular playground sport in the mid-to-late sixties. Cards were exchanged by swapping and by playing card flicking games played in the playground. For example, you would line a number of cards up against a wall and if you could knock any down by flicking another card at them then you win those knocked down cards. Another one was just flicking the cards onto the ground, and every time you landed on top of another card then you would win all of the cards that were already on the ground. Fun eh?! These cards were mainly bubblegum cards – i.e. they were from small packs consisting of three to four cards (can't remember exactly), each accompanied by a rectangular piece of pink bubblegum, bought for a few pennies. Other cards came free with Walls or Lyons Maid ice cream or with packs of tea, but these were usually smaller and not of the correct flicking thickness.Very important that - this was a serious business, and I managed to amass quite a collection!
Here’s a history of the most famous (English) maker of these cards (from the website referenced below): ‘A&BC Chewing Gum Ltd. formed in 1949, and folded in 1974. In its 25-year history it produced some of the best bubble gum and collectors cards ever seen in the U.K. The company has become a favourite amongst card traders and collectors for the quality, variety and imagination shown in the design and production of their gum giveaways. Their range covered film stars, the Beatles, the Monkees, Man from UNCLE, War cards and banknotes, as well as an impressive range of English and Scottish football cards, pennants, pin-ups, emblems and crests. In the history of gum and trade cards, they will go down as one of the greats. Using the letters of their names the owners had wanted to call the company ‘ABC’, but the Aerated Bread Company (a company which existed from 1862 until 1955 and which was known as the A.B.C. Company) objected. Instead, the partners decided on the name A&BC Chewing Gum Ltd. Their gum was made of chewable plastic, not chicle (a natural gum from a tree native to Central America). Since sugar was not available without a licence, A&BC produced one of the first ever-sugarless chewing gums using an artificial sweetener. They worked in this way so that the product did not require sweet rationing coupons. Since the children of the time had difficulty obtaining sweets, A&BC’s chewing gum, and therefore the company, took off fairly quickly.’(http://cards.littleoak.com.au/special_pages/abc_history/abc_history_part1.html).
One set of their cards were World War II cards known as ‘Battle’ trading cards, which came from A &BC in 1965. The thing about these cards is that most of them were incredibly graphic: full of gore, blood and death. Just what captivated young kids I suppose. Especially six to ten year-olds! Today they seem so strange that it's like they're from another world. But as well as being really quite shocking, they are also works of art, pop-artish and iconic.The Battle cards were painted by Norman Saunders, Maurice Blumenfeld, Ed Valigurski, and Bob Powell. I'm going to look into these artists, and here is a website for the first one: http://www.normansaunders.com/
And a review of a book on him: http://boingboing.net/2009/01/23/the-art-of-norman-sa.html
So here are some Battle cards:
Poor old Miss Anderson. Didn't quite make it to the, er, Anderson shelter:
Assume nothing!:

Blimey
Um, I think we get the idea:

Ah, just the sort of images to push on to innocent eight year-olds!
More, maybe lots, lots more, to follow, including iconic Batman (from the US), The Monkees and Tarzan cards . And yes, of course I've got the full sets!

Wealdstone, White Hart Lane and Wembley

03 February 2012 03:36:00

A couple of times over this period Chelsea & Watford were both playing away, so I went to see the nearest non-league club, Wealdstone, who were then a top non-league side and now based in Ruislip.

The Fulham and England legend Johnny Haynes (149 Fulham goals between 1952 -1970, 18 England goals 1954-1962) played for Wealdstone in 1972/3. When the £20 per week (hard to believe now) maximum wage was abolished in1961 Haynes became the first £100 per week player. Also ‘Fulham famously turned down an offer of £80,000 from AC Milan for "The Maestro" that would have been over double the record for a transfer at the time and would have made Haynes the best paid player in the world.’http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_HaynesEngland international and superb left-back Stuart ‘Psycho’ Pearce also played for Wealdstone (1978-1983).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_PearceAs did hard man and not very talented actor or footballer and (mystifyingly) Welsh international, Vinnie Jones (1984-1986). Having said that, I do respect what he achieved in football. He showed that competitiveness and commitment can go a long way. He was a part of Wimbledon’s ‘crazy gang’ that beat Liverpool 1-0 to win the FA Cup in 1988.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinnie_Jones http://wealdstone-fc.com/The eponymous 'weald stone' is a sarsen stone, a sandstone block (a la Stonehenge & Avebury) formerly marking the boundary between the parish of Harrow and Harrow Weald.There were precious few Saturdays of football in the three school holidays per year so there was no time to lose. I was addicted!The Chelsea I saw during these holidays was generally a team in decline. There were ups and downs along the way but there was no silverware between 1971 and 1997…A long wait!Actually, there was an exception to this – Chelsea won the Full Members Cup in 1986, at Wembley.

I went to this game with Tony Gavin, and it turned out to be a rather bizarre 5-4 win for Chelsea. I also remember City’s coach being stoned on its arrival at Wembley.

The Full Members Cup lasted from 1985 – 1992 and had two later names – The Simod Cup and the Zenith Data Systems Cup (ha!). It was created after English clubs were banned from European competition following the Heysel disaster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heysel_Stadium_disaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Members_Cup
Back to league games, and witnessed games between 1974-76 included a humiliating defeat in the first game of the season to Carlisle, on the latter team’s First Division debut.

I sat in the newly built (1973) East Stand, which is now Stamford Bridge’s oldest stand, and the one which almost bankrupted the club. At the time it soon became known as a white elephant. The term white elephant, meaning a burdensome possession which creates more trouble than it’s worth, ‘derives from the story that the kings of Siam (now Thailand) were accustomed to make a present of one of these animals to courtiers who had rendered themselves obnoxious, in order to ruin the recipient by the cost of its maintenance. Keeping a white elephant was a very expensive undertaking, since the owner had to provide the elephant with special food and provide access for people who wanted to worship it.’This defeat, however, was nothing compared to the ignominy of losing the last game of the season to Tottenham and being relegated. I went with my Dad to this game at White Hart Lane.

For safety reasons, we sat in one of the stands avoiding the terraces behind each goal. The game was huge– it was all or nothing. Pretty much - the team that won would stay up, the team that lost would go down. The atmosphere was electric and, as usual, you could feel the violence in the air. This was before the days when the football and police authorities finally started to get a grip on the game, and before the days of fenced in fans. Minutes before kick-off, and with all the players on the pitch, there was a huge pitch invasion from both sets of fans. They were mainly trying to kick each other, but several players got hit while they were sprinting off the pitch. I remember the Spurs (and Northern Ireland and Arsenal) legend Pat Jennings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Jennings), who had the furthest to run, taking several kicks. There were few punches in those days – it was the age of bovver boys – long hair, big flares, tank tops, Doc. Martens. The object was to get your ‘enemy’ on the ground and kick the shit out of them.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974%E2%80%9375_in_English_football
This was a sad day for me. The violence wasn’t shocking, because that’s just what happened. Even players being attacked and a full-on pitch invasion couldn’t stop the game. But the result – it was a disaster! This was by now a young rebuilt team that included Ray ‘Butch’ Wilkins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Wilkins)They would now have to carry on rebuilding in Division 2.Check out the fifth game down from this link:http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story/_/id/996923/first-xi:-tottenham-vs-chelsea-clashes?cc=5739
My games in the following season, in Division 2, included two away games - to Leyton Orient
(Brisbane Road) and Charlton Athletic (The Valley). I saw a young Laurie Cunningham playing for Orient. He went on to make his name at West Brom. and played for England and Real Madrid. He was the first black player to play for the England under- 21s. He tragically died in a car crash in Spain aged 33: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8149282.stm http://www.furd.org/default.asp?intPageID=35
In both games I watched as the Chelsea hardcore ‘took’ the home fans ‘end’ behind one of the goals. At the Valley this simply meant calmly walking around the ground (three sides of the ground consisted of enormous terraces) before running at the Charlton fans. After a few minute fighting the Charlton ‘end’ was soon theirs. The police seemed powerless to act. I also remember going to a Division 2 League game in 1976 against Fulham.

A local derby (you can see The Cottage over the river from the East Stand), and the first time in some time that the two clubs had met, it was more than a sell-out. What's more, Fulham booasted a line-up that included Bobby Moore, Rodney Marxh and George Best.

George Best tribute - some nice clips with a, er, Polish tribute song:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_MooreI stood on my own in the Shed end as the ground slowly filled up…And kept filling up. We were packed in like sardines, and I must have been moved a good twenty yards from where I originally stood, moved by the undulating sea of people. This was commonplace in those days, especially for local derbies like this. It would take Britain’s worst sporting disaster and the death of ninety-six people at Hillsborough in 1989 to change all that. My feet barely touched the ground and I couldn’t move my arms. I saw little, Chelsea won 2-0 and everything was fine with the world. This was simply the way it was. There's something at the back of your mind thinking 'hhmm, this could be dangerous', but you accept it because being crammed in to huge terraces was part and parcel of the sport.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disasterHillsborough may have been coming, but it wasn’t the first stadium disaster in Britain:
The first Ibrox disaster in 1902 – twenty-five died:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrox_disaster
Bolton Wanderers’ Burnden Park disaster – 1946 – thirty-three died, 500 injured:http://www.boltonrevisited.org.uk/s-burnden-disaster.html
The second Ibrox disaster - sixty-six dying in 1971:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/rangers/8230503/The-Ibrox-Disaster-of-January-2-1971-which-claimed-66-lives-was-a-tragedy-waiting-to-happen.html
Fifty-six people died and 265 injured at Bradford City’s Valley Parade in 1985:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_City_stadium_fire