People’s history of pop

Like many people my age, I often watch the music documentaries on BBC4 on a Friday night. Sometimes I enjoy these programmes. Sometimes I hate myself a bit for succumbing to cheap nostalgia. More often, I hate the presenters or the talking heads who half the time Weren’t There and most of the time are men. One of my friends even calls it “middleagedwhiteblokenight”.

The People’s History of Pop is a bit different. Not enough different, but a bit is a start. Because it’s not about presenters (although there always is a celebrity presenter) or about talking heads, but about fans.

Margate and me

Things I have in common with Tracey Emin:

• We’re nearly the same age.
• We spent our formative years in Margate.
• Er, that’s it.

Tracey Emin is rich and famous and I’m not, but she’s got an artwork up on Margate harbourside that says “I never stopped loving you”. Me neither.

Another Punk Britannia review, and some middle-aged angst

I've been thinking and writing a lot about punk lately. And I don't know if I want to think and write  about it any more. It's very easy when a lot of your thinking and writing is done online to find yourself trapped inside the same conversation. But I never wanted to be defined by my past.

You're history: Punk Britannia review

In honour of the jubilee (yes, I know), the Guardian asked some 60-year-old writers to ruminate on their lives. Sean O'Brien, in a rather good piece, wrote: 'One of the mixed benefits of ageing is reading accounts of your lifetime by people who weren't there.'

Shit. That means I'm going to have to get used to it.

Complaining about The 70s: BBC response

I recently wrote to the BBC to complain about the bias in their programme The 70s. This was the reply. It came from the Complaints department when I would really have liked to have heard from the producers.

The 70s: don't believe everything you see on television

Ten years ago, the BBC launched BBC4 with the slogan "Everyone Needs a Place to Think". I wrote to them saying I already have one, thanks very much, and it's called BBC2 (they didn't reply).

Since then, I've gone digital and become a huge BBC4 fan. As for BBC2, it's obviously not a place to think any more. I was looking forward to the new BBC2 series The 70s. I should have known better.

18 in the head

I was doing that delving in dusty boxes thing at the weekend and came across some scary 1970s memorabilia. My younger self.

Sounds of the 20th Century: real music, false memories, and why the 70s weren't actually that great

One of the things I'm learning in the 21st century is that radio is often better than television, and the internet is often better than both.
Meanwhile, back in the 20th century, it's 1979. Or it will be on Thursday, when a radio series called Sounds of the 20th Century gets to episode 29. They started in 1951 and they're going on til the end of the century: one year, one hour, a mixture of pop culture, pop music, politics and a little slice of archive zeitgeist.

I am old enough to remember...

The other night I was wasting time on Twitter as usual and stumbled upon a hashtag game #iamoldenoughtoremember. I couldn't resist joining in.

Contributions could be categorised as follows:

Nostalgia:
#iamoldenoughtoremember hovering your finger over the pause button when taping the top40 on a C90.
...there were 240 pennies in a pound.
...gramophones, 78s, 45s, LPs and EPs. And cassette recorders.
Spangles- the sweeties.
...the original Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men.

Weird stuff I thought I'd forgotten:
...Izal medicated loo roll. Or should that be tracing paper at school.
...buying shampoo in sachets because nobody washed their hair often enough to warrant the expense of a whole bottle.
...outside toilets.
...putting wallpaper on school books (why?)

Social comment:
#iamoldenoughtoremember when we had communities. Then Thatcher came to power and told us 'Individualism and commercialism' was good.
...thinking we'd won the punk wars. [that one of mine]

Then I remembered: #iamoldenoughtoremember what I did before Twitter.

The Ramones, My Back Pages and why vinyl is better than Spotify

Whenever I go on Facebook the 'top news' at any given time is a whole load of YouTube videos. I wonder if it's my demographic or just the sort of people I know. It might be interesting to see a typical timeline for people of different ages. Babies? Politics? Misspelled incomprehensible stuff?

Sometimes I think that it's all a bit like writing the name of bands on your satchel. We all know we all like the Clash, Mott the Hoople and Bob Dylan so why do we have to tell each other about it?

But sometimes it's nice to be told about something I don't know. Like the link to Spotify of the Ramones doing My Back Pages. (That really ought to be the theme tune to this blog.)

That's what sharing is all about. Or it is now.

Punk's not dead - discuss

I don't watch a lot of television but when I do I like to watch it in company. Which generally means Twitter.

A few weeks ago, BBC4 decided to resurrect Top of the Pops and kicked it off with a themed evening that included a documentary about 1976. It was this in particular that polarised commentators. Generation gap? I expect so.

As we watched the awfulness that was Sailor and Brotherhood of Man, half the viewers said: 'This is why we fought the punk wars'. And the other half said: 'I suppose someone will come on in a minute and say that punk changed everything'.

Let's nail this once and for all.

Actually, it did.

Typical Girls

RIP Ari Up.
The Slits were more punk than anyone. They couldn’t play (to start with) and they didn’t give a damn. They did things their way. And they were more genuinely revolutionary than any of the boys.

Two Tribes

A recent Guardian article asked ‘are pop tribes a thing of the past?’ Funny, I was just thinking the same thing myself.

When Husband complains there’s no good music any more I tell him it’s got to be there. It’s just that we don’t know about it, because it’s not meant for us any more. On that basis, maybe I’m wrong about the lack of pop tribes. It might just be my age, but young people look alike to me: all skinny jeans, self-conscious hair, and uniformity.

So I’m halfway through the regular punk-versus-hippie conversation that I have with my sister and I stop and ask my niece what there is now. And she says ‘in terms of style you mean?’ And that is exactly the point. It is only about style now. Once, it meant something.

Electric dreams

The best bit was when they gave the family a power cut.

The first episode of Electric Dreams on BBC4 put a modern family into the 1970s. They start in 1970, then move on one year per day and get the gadgets to go with it.

It felt almost authentic. I don’t remember anyone having such extreme interior decoration, and we couldn’t afford a Teasmade or video games. But the arrival of the stereo (joy) and the colour telly (horror: I decided my parents had sold out) were right on time.

Get it on

I’m chatting with a bunch of 20-somethings at work and they’re talking about how the wedding invitations are all starting… Which made me start thinking about life stages.

For me, it’s 50th birthday party invitations. Two parties in the past month, both great fun and both with a lot more personality than the off-the-peg rites of passage that the youngsters have to put up with.

The latest was a 1970s themed event, which made me ponder as I haven’t done since university about the propensity of English men to put on drag. It also opened an old debate: who was the prettiest – Marc Bolan or David Cassidy? Bolan won. Possibly on the grounds of being dead.

School's out

More proof that the 1970s was definitely another world. I came across an old school magazine while helping my mother clear out her loft. On the last page, after the lists of prefects and embarassing ‘creative writing’, was the title ‘News of Old Girls’. And what was the news? A list of girls who had graduated from university? A list of interesting and fulfilling jobs that they had taken up? No, a list of marriages. Just a list of marriages. So all the previous pages highlighting positions of responsibility, showing off exam results, and displaying creative talent, led to this. Changing your name. What exactly was the point of all that education?

I'm not a number II

One of my Facebook friends recently commented "I refuse to be in the core demographic for ‘The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency’"... Personally, I refuse to be in the core demographic for anything.

It’s easy to get sucked into watching what I call SAGA telly: anything with nice scenery and people in anoraks and vintage cars. Yes, I like the British landscape and I own walking boots and a bicycle. But that’s not all there is. It doesn’t mean anyone knows who I am. Or what I want to hear.

Last Sunday I found Partner listening to Johnnie Walker presenting ‘Sounds of the 70s’. On Radio 2. In the 70s we listened to Johnnie Walker on Radio 1. Hard to believe now but at the time we thought he was pretty hip. On the basis, as I remember, that he played Album Tracks. In the daytime. These days, well for a good few years now, I’ve just thought he was pompous and pointless. A bit like Bob Harris (but then, Harris always was).

The only DJ from that time who was always cool, and always will be, was John Peel. That’s not to do with the fact he’s dead. It’s to do with the fact that he followed his own path, regardless either of fashion or of what people his age were supposed to do and like. Which is, basically, the Older than Elvis definition of cool.

So, ‘Sounds of the 70s’ is on the radio station that used to have ‘Sounds of the 60s’. (How long before it’s ‘Sounds of the 80s’?) There’s a fundamental flaw in this. There was no such thing as the 70s. It makes no sense to play an early 70s Stephen Stills song next to... well, something good. Or something from the other end of the decade.

From 1970 to 1979 there were several, very different, eras. From where I was, there were the Jackie years, the cheesecloth years, and the punk years... Shortly before the end of society as we know it. The problem with the concept of 'Sounds of the 70s' is, there’s no context. It makes more sense to listen to one of the ‘Top of the Pops’ LPs that we’ve been collecting from charity shops. This way you actually get a genuine snapshot of what was genuinely happening at a specific moment. Minus the hindsight and minus the value judgements: they include songs you’d forgotten about and songs you will never hear on the radio because they haven't been classified a ‘classic’. The concept of ‘golden oldies’ is for people who don’t really like music. Or who don’t have a memory of their own. Count me out.

That'll be the day

I can’t remember if I cried... Actually, I don't remember Buddy Holly’s death at all. But I remember the first time I heard one of his songs. It was Everyday, it was 1973 and it was a cover version by the man who wrote American Pie.

The 1970s rock’n’roll revival was a wonderful thing. Wonderful for me anyway. Born too late to be there the first time round, the right age to discover it this time.

It wasn’t actually that easy. It wasn’t like today’s teenagers listening to the Smiths. All the music ever made wasn’t on tap in those days. We got drip-fed a bit at a time.

I heard Phil Spector filtered through Dave Edmunds and Roy Wood. Chuck Berry via ELO. Johnny Burnette via Ringo Starr. Elvis via Mud. They might not all have been authentic but in their own way they were great pop records. (I can honestly say I drew the line at Showaddywaddy.)

There were the occasional re-issue: Bill Haley, the Shangri-Las, Chubby Checker. There were documentaries on Radio 1. And there were films.

We went to see the film That’ll be the Day because we were in love with David Essex. We came out in love with rock’n’roll.

The soundtrack album (a double) was my musical education. Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers. Poetry in Motion, Runaround Sue, Runaway. And, of course, Born too late.

You can't judge a book by looking at the cover

It’s weird the way Facebook asks you to make lists of your favourite music. It’s not as if it proves anything.

I could make a list, and it would (of course) be the hippest list there ever was. I’ve made plenty such lists before. But it might not be true. Or it might only be true for a day. Some days I feel like listening to Cole Porter. Some days I feel like listening to Carl Perkins. Often I feel like listening to silence.

But whatever I put on the list, it wouldn’t mean anything.

When I was 15 (things might have changed since the 70s) the first thing you asked anyone you met was ‘what music do you like?’ You might snog someone who gave the wrong answer, but you wouldn’t go out with them. Use this as a basis for a relationship as a grown-up and you’re on very dodgy ground.

I learned, eventually, that the music you listen to isn’t an indication of character.

After all, a person is not immoral or politically unsound or aesthetically challenged just because they think 1980s pop is worth celebrating. All they are is ten years younger than me.

David Cassidy and the concrete ceiling

One day in the mid 1970s I horrified my English teacher when she found me reading Jackie magazine. She knew my favourite book was Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and couldn’t understand how I could hold two such contradictory positions.

Holding contradictory positions is, of course, a requirement of being a teenager (or any other transitional period, eg becoming middle-aged). And, as a talking head said in a recent TV programme about the magazine ‘If it was in Jackie... Jackie magazine was the bible.’

Outside the classroom, Jackie taught me everything I knew. How to put on make-up (I still do it the same way today). How to lose weight by eating half a Mars bar instead of a whole one. What to wear. How to talk to boys. There was sensible advice from Cathy and Claire, and some slightly less sensible (in fact, rather dodgy) fortune-telling quizzes. And there were, of course, the posters of Marc Bolan and David Cassidy, even if it was tricky putting them up without getting sellotape on the wallpaper (I think I was at university before they invented blu-tack).

It was also, as another talking head put it, ‘a 1950s bubble merging into the 1970s’. I didn’t realise until I bought a copy of a Jackie anthology for my sister’s birthday how shocking its real message was. Any girl shown in the magazine who had a job was a secretary or, if she was really glamorous, a receptionist. That was it.

When I started secondary school, the headmistress went round the class asking us what we wanted to be when we grew up. The majority chose to be hairdressers or air stewardesses (and this was a grammar school, where you might have expected some aspirations). Well, the only role models we had for 'career women' were scary spinsters like her and her colleagues.

By the time you got to sixth form, things had changed a bit. If you were top of the class you were going to university. A little below and you were going to teacher training college. Anyone left after that was going to work in a bank. University wasn’t a career move: it was an end in itself. No-one suggested what you might do afterwards. I’m not sure anyone actually came out and said it, but I got the impression that the main purpose of university was upward mobility via marriage. I was expected to find a nice middle-class boy who would go into a nice professional job so I wouldn’t have to worry about a career... Actually, what I did do at university was discover feminism.

This is recent history. So why are we surprised by headlines about the ‘concrete ceiling’? There are many good reasons why there are so few women in the board room. Partly it’s because, in the business world, social bonding is done through conversations about football not conversations about shoes. Partly it’s because women are too sensible to buy into the long-hours culture: we’d rather have a life. And partly it’s because we were never taught to want it. Partly, of course, it’s also because we grew up in an era where working for ‘the man’ (as opposed to ‘a man’) was not something to aspire to anyway.

But there weren’t alternative role models for girls, either. When I started looking beyond Jackie magazine, I had to find my inspiration in things written by men and about men: there was, after all, no book called Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman.