Boys will be boys (1975 revisited)

No one likes to think of themselves as average. "Oh, I'm just average" you hear precisely nobody say. Not about themselves anyway. Only in hastily written police statements or headmasters' reports would we ever get the devastating truth about ourselves. (Average height, average weight, average intelligence.)

But if I was to transport myself back to 1975 then, like a lot of other boys in my class, I was an average teenager - full of hormones and not knowing what the hell to do with them. The obvious outlets were all too grubby (and sticky) to mention and a blog such as this wouldn't deign to stoop so low. Obviously.

There never were such (TV) times

However, in 1975 we had Purdey - the role Joanna Lumley has never surpassed in fifty odd years of treading the boards. When the New Avengers came to our screens it was like we had our own walking talking (not to mention sleeping) living doll all to ourselves; if you don't count Steed or Gambit. Speaking of Mike Gambit, it would be remiss of me to not share with you what was, for me, probably the finest interplay between him and Purdey. It was the scene me and countless pubescent schoolboys memorised and burnt into our collective retinas. File under 'boys will be boys'.

Lookin' like a streak of lightnin'

In what looks to be a mid-70s snap (another junk shop photo  find), the young lad photographed in his smart orange sweatshirt sat astride (almost certainly) his first ever motorcycle was, probably, channeling his inner Barry Sheene. I say probably. For all we know he may well have been nursing a secret desire to jump 13 London buses in some half-crazed, half-baked, stunt at Wembley Stadium. Though he'd have to lose those ridiculously wide flares first.

Without doubt, Evel Knievel was a lunatic; if you don't believe me, then just watch this short 15 minute film about his ill fated Wembley jump on a sunny Saturday afternoon, nigh on 50 years ago.

Evel Knievel - 26 May, 1975

The Green Fan

I've spoken to so many lads of my age over the years who remember watching this the night it went out on the Old Grey Whistle Test; like a rite of passage. Led Zeppelin, unsurprisingly, weren't available. And as no oven ready promo film of them playing Trampled Underfoot existed, it was left to the boffins at the BBC to come up with something. Anything. They didn't disappoint. 

Led Zeppelin - Trampled Underfoot (1975)

Be-Bop Friday

David - he's colour blind

My friend David - he of the salmon pink shirt which he swears blind is orange - recently wrote 100 words for me on the first single he bought with his own money.
At our most recent compact and bijou Vinyl Session (the one before lockdown), being a huge fan of Be Bop Deluxe, he played Futurama - their second album from 1975. Last Friday night when we discussed rebooting the sessions again, I asked David to tell me in 200 words why Be Bop Deluxe are his favourite band of all time.
And no, he didn't use the dreaded phrase Wakefield's finest; however, I did have to edit out at least five uses of the word genius; well, maybe two. Only kidding, David! But your shirt is still salmon pink.


"The reason I have always been enamoured by Be-Bop Deluxe, throughout my 40-odd years of being relatively sentient and capable of critique, is that they encapsulate perfectly all the things I love most about the rest of my favourite music. They are, for me, the absolute yard-stick of genius*.
Their prolific run of albums (five released between 1974 & 1978) is an absolute tour-de-force of song-writing, production, musicianship and downright inspired artistry.
Fronted by the sprite-like impresario Bill Nelson, the band were somehow able to contain his phenomenal guitar-playing, cool stage-presence, magical lyricism and innovative production techniques to come up with a sound that was as complex, unique, and relentless as it was loud.
Be-Bop Deluxe were simply the epitome of the heart-thudding excitement that good music induces; always so deliciously upbeat and able to use their breath-taking creativity to transport the listener to other worlds and sensitivities; like watching a movie. And the way their multi-layered productions included brass bands, guitars, synthesisers, horns and, of course, Bill Nelson’s virtuoso axe wielding, means there is always something new to discover. Even now.
Be-Bop Deluxe really did show how awe-inspiring, uplifting, artistic and, yes, clever putting together sounds and talent to make music can be."

* I kept one in!

Be-Bop Deluxe - Maid in Heaven (1975)

Are you able to write 200 words on your favourite band or artist? If so, you could be next up in the feature I'm already calling Be Bop Friday.  Please do get in touch.

Going Dutch

Some sad news reached Medd Towers yesterday: on the phone to my dad - our weekly lockdown catchup - and he told me that a much loved family friend had sadly passed away. Roelof der Nederlanden married my mother's maid of honour in the late 1950s and the couple made their home in Roel's hometown of Hillegom, 25 miles south of Amsterdam. Roel was a gentle man with an infectious smile and a never ending supply of stories.
Although it had been a long time since I'd seen him, I remember fondly the frequent visits he and Margaret (and their daughters Susan and Caroline) would make to the UK and their regular stopovers at my parents' house.
But it's a visit we as a family made to the Netherlands that I particularly remember. It was, I think, 1975 so I would been around 14. The trip was memorable in all sorts of ways. And not just because I discovered chocolate sprinkles on white buttered bread, or Dutch music magazines I couldn't read, or even trips to both Rotterdam and Amsterdam. It goes beyond that. 

Any thoughts that 1975 was a fallow year for sport (no football World Cup or Olympics) should be dispelled now: it was the year L'Escargot won the Grand National, West Ham beat Fulham in the FA Cup and Jack Nicklaus won the Masters. It was also the inaugural year of the cricket World Cup - West Indies beat the Aussies, since you ask. But all the above pales into insignificance. And I'll tell you why. Set up in our hosts' dining room when we arrived was a wooden board about six feet long and a foot and a half wide, with a kerb a couple of inches high around three of its sides, and a shed load of circular discs. We were bemused. But, after pleasantries were exchanged and a few ground rules explained, the Medds had been introduced to Sjoelen. Such was our passion for the game that every morning for our two week vacation that year the kids would arise bright and early and play Sjoelen till the noise emanating from downstairs woke the adults. We were addicted. Before we came home I persuaded begged my dad to buy our very own board - which, to his eternal credit, he did; but only after acquiring a brand new roof-rack in order to bring the (very long) game back on the ferry - stuck on the vinyl roof of his Hillman Hunter. 
And thus our love affair with this most quirky of games began. A love affair that still thrives to this day, 45 years later. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Sjoelen. 
A lovely footnote to this story is that James' wife Janneke is half dutch and both Janni & her family were quietly shocked that her new husband and in-laws were masters* of the Dutch national game**. A great way to cement Anglo-Dutch relations.

I'm also grateful to Roel for introducing me to the world of stamp collecting. Roel was an inveterate philatelist and his enthusiasm was so contagious I totally 'got it'. Roel mentored me and donated many items form his vast personal collection to get me going - a collection I'm still proud to own. It was after a long lay off from stamps that in 1990 after the birth of James I collected every UK first day cover in his name - which he had delivered up to and including his 18th. birthday.

Rest easy, Roel.



* Sorry, did I say masters? I may be exaggerating a wee bit.
** Of course it isn't. I don't think it is anyway.

Faucet

Subtlety is not heavy metal's default position; never has been - neither in its musical output or, indeed, its cover art. When UK hopefuls UFO approached Hipgnosis in 1975 for sleeve ideas for their new album it was the firm's crack design team, led by Storm Thorgerson, that came up with the initial idea. Thorgerson and co. then proceeded to absolutely throw the kitchen bathroom sink at it. Literally. The band wanted to call the album Force It, so Hipgnosis gave them taps (geddit?), and lots of them.

In the UK it was released as the band intended. Sexual politics aside, it's a non gender specific couple seemingly getting it on in the bath. But the Americans wouldn't stand for such shenanigans. On its initial release in the US the offending protagonists were airbrushed out totally (with a shedload more taps added) and then subsequently replaced by the band's guitarist Michael Schenker (though not, unfortunately, in the bath).

UFO - Shoot Shoot (1975)

That's the way to do it

In 1974 Bob Dylan was probably at the peak of his powers. From obscure Greenwich Village folk troubadour to global icon, all within 10 years, the man was on fire.
For his 15th studio album he went into the studio in the September with 10 songs and, two days later, he and the band had recorded the lot. Job done. WOAAH! Not so quick Mr. Zimmerman. Can you go back and tidy a few of them up? I'm sure you've got a better take in you.
So between Christmas and New Year he went back and re-recorded five of the tunes. Tangled Up in Blue being one of them. Four weeks later, in January 1975, it and the rest of the album - Blood on the Tracks - was in record stores and flying off the shelves. In the words of Mr. Punch: "That's the way to do it."

Bob Dylan - Tangled Up in Blue (1975)

Bottom

As band logos go, the Average White Band's is, shall we say, not very subtle. The line drawing*of a naked woman's bottom forming the 'W' is very route one. A single entendre. But what else were a bunch of horn players from north of the border going to come up with in the early 1970s? At a time when the very sound they were trying to emulate was essentially James Brown, or to be more precise his backing band - the JBs. Blaxploitation? Not really, more Jocksploitation.

When thy wrote Pick Up the Pieces in 1974 they used the JBs Hot Pants Road as their template. And why not, it had pedigree: the JBs had scored with variations on that groove - Pass the Peas, for instance, had given them a sizeable hit earlier in '72.

The JBs - Hot Pants Road (1972)

Average White Band - Pick Up the Pieces (1974)

And by way of thanking the Scottish sextet, the JBs under the moniker AABB (Above Average Black Band), repaid the compliment and came back at them with this. Touché.

AABB - Pick Up the Pieces One by One (1975)

* However, she did come to life briefly:

Arrr!

George with Billy Idol's brother

Let there be no doubt: George Harrison was the funniest Beatle. The youngest Beatle. The Darkest Horse. And the Wilbury most travelled.

George was, as I said in my Neil Innes piece, a fervent supporter of, and friend to, the Rutles.

He was also, as this piece of film from 1975 quite clarly shows, the most self deprecating ex-Beatle of them all. Watch the young lad from Wavertree in this archive footage from Rutland Weekend Television as he lampoons not only himself, but his former global Number One single He's So My Lord.  

George Harrison - The Pirate Song (1975)

FFS

For Fox Sake

Text message from my cousin Ray on Thursday:

Fox On the Run came on
the radio...I nearly came 
with it. Fucking brilliant 
when a song like that creeps
up and surprises you 

Tell you what, give me 150 

words on why Fox On the

Run is so fucking brilliant

  and I'll put it up on the blog. 

John, this isn't quite what you
asked for - but do as you wish
with it. An ordinary Thursday
afternoon. Christmas themed 
background music dominated 
the airwaves. And then...the 
explosion. It's amazing that 
despite having 24 hour access
 to one's musical preferences, 
when one of them springs 
unexpectedly from a radio 
station, it's inexplicably 
different. It's a joyous three
and a half minutes of nostalgia
that no pre-planned station can
 bring. March 1975. Sweet. Fox 
On the Run. Yes, lyrically it's
bitter, criticising as it does 
somebody whose glory of youth 
has deserted them. 'But the rest of 
you is out of place.' Hardly a 
compliment. Not being 
appropriately trained, I can't
identify what its musical qualities 
are. To be honest, I don't care. 
But what an ensemble. Like so 
many great Sweet songs, it didn't
quite make the top, being denied 
by the hysteria of Bye Bye Baby. 
This is a matter which has recently
been ignored amid the apparently
more significant Brexit issue, but is 
still one I intend raising with my 
MP on March 30th 2019. It's
never too late to gain justice.

Perfect. Thank you.

The Sweet - Fox On the Run (1975)

A Bloomin' Book

When my cousin Raymond Murray was asked way back in 1975 by John K**** (our tearaway, black sheep of a cousin) who his favourite cousin was, he told him. And he told him straight: 'Adrianne'.

Roscommon July 2015. L-R, John M, Adrianne, Suzie, Raymond

K**** was crestfallen: 'Adri-fackin'-anne? She's a fackin' girl.' Indeed she is. I, however, was never asked this question as a boy. If I had, I would have said Raymond. Though Adrianne would certainly have been on the podium too. Anyway, it's all immaterial now. I'm in my fifties and love Raymond, Suzie and Adrianne in equal measure. I probably told them as much last weekend. As for K****, he was a wrong 'un. He fell off the radar many moons ago and these days will either be inside or underground.

In 1975, Raymond kept a book. And in this book he transcribed every Top 40 singles chart rundown as broadcast by Johnnie Walker on Radio 1. This would have been on a Tuesday lunchtime when chart positions were everything and Radio 1 was still broadcasting on 247 meters on the medium wave.

I saw this book for only the second time last weekend and it was spellbinding. The level of detail that has gone into it is quite staggering. There's even a (very early) cloud showing every group, every artist, every novelty act who made the chart between 1 January & 31 December. It is indeed an historical document.

Or, depending on your standpoint, just a bloomin' book.

Missing cousins

I hadn't seen Suzie in nearly 40 years. But about two years ago I received an email that contained in its subject box the words 'Are you the John Medd that used to live in Grantham?' The email read 'If you are,  I have a photo of us together and you're wearing a most remarkable shirt.' I may be paraphrasing. And it was signed 'Suzie, your cousin - though everyone calls me Susan these days.' I simply replied 'Yes.'

That shirt

The next thing I knew another email arrived enclosing a photograph of us taken at a family wedding in 1975 - the last time we saw each other. And of course I remembered Suzie (and the shirt) vividly. Suzie not least because whenever we visited her I was always struck dumb by her bedroom: it was, quite literally, covered from top to bottom in Marc Bolan posters. Walls, ceiling, mirrors, every square inch of her room was given over to The Jeepster himself. The shirt because, as I told her when she came up on Friday for a 24 hour smash and grab visit, I loved that shirt so much I'm actually thinking of going to a tailor, with the photograph, and asking him to reproduce it - albeit several sizes larger.

Anyway, we stayed up 'til 7 o'clock in the morning drinking wine spodeeodee and generally playing catch up. But by the time the sun came up I'd be hard pushed to tell you most of what we'd been talking about. Though I can remember, quite clearly, her telling me that she went to see Marc Bolan and T Rex in the spring of 1977 not long before he wrapped his Mini round a tree in Barnes. She said he was back on form and it was also the tour he'd got The Damned supporting him. Sorry Suzie, you're going to have to come back again and tell me all that other stuff again.

Let's Get Physical

In the summer of 1974 the rock behemoth that was Led Zeppelin retreated to the country and recorded a selection of tunes that would come to define them. The resulting album would be their Exile on Main Street, their White Album, if you will. That's right, an album so big in every sense of the word it would have to be released as a double album and housed in an all singing, all dancing, gatefold sleeve. Physical Graffiti, when it came out in February of the following year, would, at a stroke, put every rock album that had ever been released before it in the shade.

The sleeve depicts a pair of tenement blocks in New York and as men of a certain age (and women for that matter) will tell you, in the seventies you saw an album long before you ever heard it: the artwork was as crucial to the success of an album as the strength of its songs, the dexterity of the guitar solos or the dark art skills of the knob twiddlers.

And Physical Graffiti was no exception. From taking it out of the rack in the record shop, paying for it at the counter and bringing it home on the bus, you couldn't take your eyes off the cover. Where was the photograph taken? Who was that sat on the steps? What does it remind me of?
And, of course, the question we all asked ourselves: will it be as good as Houses of the Holy?

The answers I came up with: 96-98 St Mark's Place, Greenwich Village - where the basement is now home to Physical Graffitea. John Bonham. Jose Feliciano's Compartments (pictured above right) and, oh yes, it was as good as anything they would ever release.

Got Wood

June 1 is always something of a red letter day for Ronnie Wood: not only is it his birthday (he's 66 today) but it also marks the anniversary of his first gig with with the Stones. In 1975, still in The Faces, he joined Mick and Keith on their summer jaunt across America. They warmed up with their new boy in Baton Rouge pulling in a seven night residency at New York's Madison Square Garden along the way and wound the whole thing up in Buffalo on August 8.

But it would be another four months 'til the band formally announced that they'd got their man. And thirty eight years later he's still seen as the new boy. Many happy returns of the day Ronnie!

Here's some recent footage of him jamming at the 100 Club with his predecessor.