Letter from London August 2005

That’s not to say there weren’t the odd thing to catch your eye occasionally – one of George Harrison’s guitars costing £70,000, a Sex Pistol’s drum kit raising £15,000

That’s not to say there weren’t the odd thing to catch your eye occasionally – one of George Harrison’s guitars costing £70,000, a Sex Pistol’s drum kit raising £15,000

Rock n roll is a fickle temptress – a never ending merry go-round with A&R men, punters and critics alike mercilessly chasing after the Next Big Thing.  We will drop yesterday’s Next Big Thing like a hot brick if we sniff anything newer and more exciting on the horizon. 

 

Bands come and go taking their 15 minutes of feedback fuzzed fame with them.  Let’s have no illusions about this – this may be down to fickle consumer demand but the music industry learnt in its infancy that it can only survive by adopting a revolving door policy, permanently pushing new artists onto the public to replace the ones dropping off the other end.

 

Just as random examples:  the D4, Jet, the Beatings and BellRays were hotly tipped 2 or 3 years ago – now you probably wouldn’t even cross the road to watch any of them.  Menswear may have got mid 90s London gig goers to wear ties, but have barely left a dent on the average music fan.  Similarly Flowered Up, Northside and World of Twist may have once got people in a lather, but are now little more than funny little footnotes in the late 80s music phenomena which can be loosely termed baggy.  There are hundreds of compilation CDs of tracks pulled together from obscure 1960s bands, whom at the time were all the rage and no doubt tipped as the next Kinks, Animals or Pink Floyd.  Don’t take my word for it – look up any of the top 50 albums from any years gone by and see how many "oh yeah, remember them?" moments you have about bands you considered essential at the time.

 

So it seems funny that London at the moment is under going a summer obsession with looking back.  The legacy of rock stars gone by seems to be pervading all.  You can barely read a music related article now which doesn’t mention the "Fifty Quid Man," a slightly lazy demographic term used to characterise the older music fan who can’t get to gigs anymore but will regularly pop into a music store and spend £50 on CDs and DVDs to keep up to date and top up his collection.  Personally I find the term slightly depressing for several reasons.  Notice it is "Fifty Quid Man" and not woman, anything like this always reminds me of Nick Hornby and most of all because if I look closely I can see shadows of my future self. 

 

There is other evidence – you don’t need me to tell you that music weekly newspapers are dying on the arses.  Only NME and a few specialist titles like Kerrang! are still with us, as Select, Melody Maker and most of the specialist dance titles which sprang up in the 90s have now fallen away.  Admittedly most of their readership will now follow their respective scenes on-line but magazines concentrating on classic acts from music’s past such as Uncut and Mojo go from strength to strength.  This market could even welcome Word as a newcomer and not suffer in the slightest.

 

Gig goers are also reflecting this trend.  An earlier Letter from London documented how many come-backs were happening in 2005 and this shows no signs of abating.  The latest to announce autumn gigs here include Billy Idol and Bob Dylan, who has announced a November residency at Brixton Academy. There are also stories of a new Big Star album and whispers about a supporting London gig. Following his headlining slot at Glastonbury in 2003, Paul McCartney has been busy in the studio with Radiohead producer, Nigel Godrich (apparently recommended to him by Sir George Martin himself!)

 

It probably would have been unwittingly, but Brian Wilson himself has also blazed a trail reflecting a current obsession with all things nostalgic.  After playing Pet Sounds in full at the Royal Festival Hall in 2002, Brian returned to the same last year with Smile.  Now you can’t move for people recreating their albums on stage – Patti Smith, Wire, Sparks, Bowie and remaining members of Love have all played their most famous albums right the way through.   It’s even got the stage where a forthcoming festival called "Don’t Look Back" will include the Stooges playing Fun House and other bands re-creating their most celebrated works including Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Gang of Four, Lemonheads, Mudhoney, Belle & Sebastian and the Lemonheads. 

 

Even musicals are reflecting a desire for rock nostalgia  – Queen, Rod Stewart, the Smiths and ABBA have all influenced plays on the West End stage (it is not just confined to London either – apparently Broadway is girding its loins for a new musical based on the life of John Lennon.)

 

Don’t get me wrong Incendiary is culpable in all of this.  Mention a nostalgia trip and we are sitting on the coach with our packed lunch wondering if we should have brought an umbrella.  Like everyone else we’re a card-carrying sucker for images and iconography of rock-stars.  On a recent trip to Camden Market, we came across the Proud Gallery in its new location and popped in to see the latest exhibition of classic live images from rock’s history books.  The show aims to capture some of the most famous live moments, as voted for by an expert panel (including Dizzee Rascal and Ricky from Kaiser Chiefs) and the general public. Of course, we were thrilled by classic Mankowitz shots of the Stones, pictures of one of the Specials famous crowd stage invasions and an image of PJ Harvey in a lurid pink cat-suit.  As they say pictures paint a thousand words, so have a look at this link and save my fingers from typing it up for you:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4722285.stm

 

 What triggered this whole train of thought was a jaunt along to the Music Legends Gala Auction held recently in the West End.  Under the hammer were over 200 items from stars of the past ranging from Madonna to the big ticket 60s items connected to Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison and John Lennon.

 

Let me start by saying this was partly to report back to you about what happens at a swanky music auction but also out of curiosity – from what type of people will attend through to the very logistics of exactly how long does it take to sell 200 pieces of memorabilia?  

 

After purchasing an expensive catalogue, I was greeted by Sebastian in the Press Office and given a free glass of champagne by a pretty girl – no doubt to lubricate the wallet opening part of my brain as perfected by Vegas casinos.

 

In contrast to the rock n roll riches on sale were the rather dark and unwelcoming surroundings.  The auction was taking place in the Hippodrome in Leicester Square, one of those West End night-clubs which are expensive, cheesy and generally, crap.  Of course it was closed for the occasion so was quiet and dark but on the dance-floor cum stage was a glittering treasure trove for all rock fans. 

 

Guitars owned by some of the most famous musicians ever to record, signed posters, albums and photos, some of John Lennon’s paintings from his days in Liverpool and a note from Keith Richards to a fan detailing how he had bought a house in the country and that he had to keep chasing his neighbour’s ducks out of his garden.  Not to mention the top billers – the Vox Continental organ used on early Beatles records and which John Lennon played at Shea Stadium, a blanket given to the John and Yoko by a local Hare Krishna group for the Montreal peace-in 1969, furniture from their Dakota Building apartment, a military style jacket worn by Lennon for a 1966 photo-shoot and last but not least a sheet of handwritten lyrics for All You Need is Love. 

 

In contrast to the reminders of rock n roll excess was most of the small crowd in attendance – middle aged men in suits shouting into mobile phones, obvious 40 something rich men dressed a little more casually with trophy girls on their arms and a smattering of people like me who obviously come along to watch and not put their hands in their pockets.

 

Excitement was at a peak as the auction began.  After an hour or so of posters and photos being sold for less than three figures, it suddenly dawned on me that the auction was a pretty good metaphor for a band recording a classic album.  Everyone remembers the excitement of entering the studio and hopefully the end product (in this case thinking back to all of the most expensive Lennon items which were being auctioned last, much to the dismay of a press photographer who was obviously only there for the Lennon military jacket which was lot 205).  But in between there is a tedious, boring and time-consuming process – the auction lasted a numbing 4 hours in total.

 

That’s not to say there weren’t the odd thing to catch your eye occasionally – one of George Harrison’s guitars costing £70,000, a Sex Pistol’s drum kit raising £15,000, the crowd cheering a hotly contested winning bid of £7,000 for a Sex Pistols flag owned by Steve Jones and someone bidding £100,000 for a 12 string guitar owned by the Byrd’s Roger McGuinn only to be told this was below the reserve so they couldn’t take it home.  

 

On the whole though, during the middle part of the auction, there was nothing much to do but blag some more champagne, keep from waving your arms back so as not to be caught in a sitcom auction style embarrassment, watch the crowd and secretly hope for celebrities.  Surely Noel and Liam would be there?  Of course they weren’t, I’d guess they have people to buy Lennon memorabilia for them, if they’re interested at all.  Only Uri Geller and some actor who used to be in East Enders seemed to be in attendance.

 

Of course, to give it a socio-economic slant, the auction was a microcosm of capitalism demonstrating the principles of market forces for all to see.  The first no sale was a guitar owned by Cliff Richard, things belonging to Elvin Bishop and Tim Rose sold for only £20.  Anything connected to Hendrix and the Beatles raised much more interest. 

 

It did bring out a competitive streak even in non-participants.  I was swept along in willing bidders to go higher but stopped short of clapping big bidders like they were some sort of gladiators, instead of collectors with a lot of cash.  Most of all it brought home loud and clear that in this society money talks.  Most of the more expensive items seemed to be bought by the same small bunch of collectors who I’m sure usually buy this kind of stuff.  One of the phone bidders seemed to buy the vast majority of the Hendrix stuff (presumably he’d already got most of the other things he didn’t buy.)  If you thought too hard it would be hard not to be bothered about rock icons being reduced to commodities and cash.

 

Anyway, that’s enough of that.  Of course you want to hear about the exciting, headline- catching John Lennon things, which were sold at the end.   A pair of his glasses fetched £55,000.  The Vox organ raised £180,000, the military band tunic £100,000.  But the most intriguing part of the whole evening was the handwritten lyrics to All You Need is Love which John had with him on the famous live television debut of the song on 25th July 1967, watched by an estimated 400 million people world-wide.  Apparently a member of the BBC’s Outside Broadcast crew picked it up after the show.  Bidding started at a quarter of a million pounds and then rapidly increased in £50k increments (yes, that is more than twice the British average annual salary). After a bit of a Mexican stand-off at the half a million mark, where you could have cut the tension with a sharpened plectrum, the manuscript finally went for £600,000 to an anonymous phone bidder.

 

The winner might as well have put us on speaker phone and screamed out "Baby, I’m a rich man."   Part of me thinks that Lennon as a quasi-Marxist who flirted with left wing politics (Elvis famously called him John Lenin), would have been outraged at the sale.  However, reading a recent interview with Paul McCartney I discovered that before the release of Help! they sat down to write songs specifically to underwrite swimming pools and extensions to their country houses, so maybe he wouldn’t have been too bothered.

 

On the way home, after reflecting that £600,000 is a nice big house (even in London that will go a long way), I got to thinking why this fascination with collecting pieces of rock history?  Ironically rock nostalgia is also technology fuelled – the rise of EBay, the transfer of money and goods around the world is now easier than ever, and hither-to hard to find classics are now readily re-released on the CD format.  Whole generations totally familiar with the ins and outs of popular culture and with an accompanying disposable income are now the norm. 

 

Maybe it is children of the 60s and 70s (including journalists) who are now more advanced in years but refusing to grow old gracefully?  Maybe it is a reflection of their boredom with original new acts?  Maybe it is a mild form of autism yet to be diagnosed to want to own and collect or perhaps it is just symptomatic of Western 21st century consumption? Maybe we all have something in our DNA which automatically equates the past with being better than the present?   I don’t know but I can tell you that £600,000 is a lot of lolly, even for a unique piece of Beatles history.

 

http://www.cooperowen.com/

 

As is customary, I wanted to choose some stories from the lighter side of music to entertain you.  This month only one stood out – Damon Albarn’s supposed recent comments about Pete Doherty.  Okay it was actually meant to be Gorillaz bassist, Murdoc but we can guess Damon is a more likely candidate.  Of course he was deriding him for the usual stuff: media attention beyond his actual achievements, messing up on just about every opportunity including an out of it L8 appearance etc.  Then Damon/Murdoc announced he was going to start a "Make Doherty History" campaign…and concluded that our Pete himself would probably sign it in return for half a bag of pink whizz!

 

Words: John Cottrill.