Decades

[peterbirks]

In 1971 I went up the stairs next to a fashion boutique at the Tottenham Court Road end of Oxford Street and entered a record store. There I paid £1.90 for a copy of Five Bridges by The Nice. It wasn't the first album that I bought. Ignoring childish indiscretions from pre-teen years, I think that four of the first six albums that I bought were Sgt Peppers (mono version, from the hippie floor at Harrods, where we used to hang out a lot as kids. It looked like Clockwork Orange land), Bridge Over Troubled Water, the soundtrack to Hair, the soundrack to 2001, A Space Odyssey, and Tommy (from WH Smith's in the Elephant & Castle shopping centre)

Anyway, this record store, which was no more than the size of a large living room, was the first ever Virgin store, the beginning of today's sprawling Virgin brand empire. I have no idea if Richard Branson was behind the counter, although I somehow doubt it.

I was reminded of this when watching episode three of "The 1970s" on Channel Five, referred to by some upstart kid continuity announcer from what sounded like a Yorkshire ex-mining village as "the decade that taste forgot". What would he know?

In fact, making a TV series about the 1970s is a mistake from the word go, because there was no decade of the 1970s, not in fashion or musical terms. What there was, was a hangover of the 1960s (musically through to 1976) and a foretaste of the next 30 years (Sex Pistols, Gil Scott Heron, The Clash). The same can be said of fashion. Prior to 1976 lots of people had long hair. Anyone with long hair after 1977 was likely to be strumming an air guitar and reading Sounds or Kerranggg! (if the latter had been launched then).

Bespectacled junior entrepreneur Branson appeared on this programme, looking his age at the time.

Watching this series makes you realize how hotrrific that decade was. I mean, man, how unucky could you be to be (as I was) 15 in 1970? The most formative years of my life (14 to 21) were spent amidst three-day weeks, near hyper-inflation, rising unemployment, an oil crisis, a country quite undeniably heading down the sink as fast as the water could carry it, and governments on both sides that quite clearly had not a clue what to do about it.

My first day at university should have given me a clue that things were not going well; Egypt and Syria thought that it would be as good a day as any to invade Israel. Within four months the lights were going out every other day and the TV was being turned off at 10.30 in the evening. We were being told to have baths in about three inches of water. Luxury, not. Within six months of my first year there was a minority Labour government, and within a year Nixon had told us that he was not a crook. within two years, the North Vietnamese had united Vietnam in what can only be seen as one of the sorrier days in America's history. Yes, say what you like about my three years as a politics and economics undergraduate -- uneventful it was not. Indeed, Kent University actually made the leader pages of the Daily Express, mainly because we had occupied something or other because the University wanted to send someone down for, as far as I can remember, not doing a stroke of work. I wonder where Joe Cotter is now? The event seems even to have passed Google by.

The 1970s were, up to 1976, utterly miserable, as far as I was concerned. I mean, I guess that I had some good times. But the years themselves were not glorious days to be alive. It was 1976 before the decade found its voice, and that was a voice that didn't include the Austin Allegro or James Callaghan.


This has been a party political broadcast on behalf of the nearing Miserable Old Git status party.

Comments

the 70s

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting, I saw bits of the same programme and had entirely the opposite reaction, despuite the fact that there's only a month between us. For whatever reason, probably terminal shallowness, all the doom and gloom that they referred to seemed to have passed me by completely, all I was worried about through the first half of the decade, was getting by at school/uni and enjoying myself. I liked most of the music, still do in some cases, accepted power cuts and the like as just another part of life, and generally had a good time albeit in a pretty rural setting. If I'd been living in London maybe I'd have seen things differently, but then Newcastle wasn't a fountain of joy in the mid seventies either, and I enjoyed being there. And I'd be worried if I had felt any different, if you can't have a good time when you're eighteen when can you?

The 70s,

[(Anonymous)]

sorry posted it without signing, John W

[pb9617.livejournal.com]

Damn you!

I've been noodling a "what the hell happened in the 70's?" post for awhile now.

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

Similarly interesting how much difference a few years can make - I turned 11 as the 70s got underway. Things like telly off at 10:30? I was in bed. Three-day week? My memory offers nothing. By the time I was starting to take notice, and I wore my hair as long as school allowed until leaving in 1977, the sixties bit had disappeared. Even punk didn't really impact me - I hadn't had enough experience of popular music to be ready to react against it.

So it's just four years, which is naff-all now, but it made the decade a totally different one for me. The Eighties now, what the hell was that all about?

Mike (Junior Miserable Old Gits)

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I think part of it is personal as well (see Jonathan's comments below). I vaguely recall being pretty unhappy with life until I was 22 or thereabouts (so much for the "if you can't have fun when you are 18....") and this must have an impact on one's interpretation of external events.

PJ

Oblivious

[(Anonymous)]

I was 16 for most of 1970, but like some other people here I was largely oblivious to politics at the time.

In the 1960s I lived in Africa and merely went to school in England, where I didn't read newspapers (though I used to read New Scientist), and watched television only for Dr Who and The Avengers.

During the 1970s I gradually began to take a bit more notice, but the decade was a bad one for me for purely personal reasons. I don't even remember the power cuts you mention.

I do remember visiting the Virgin record shop in Coventry in the early 1970s: a dimly-lit, rather sinister anti-establishment sort of place. It would have been hard to imagine the proprietor of this hippy refuge running a successful airline later. I don't remember whether I bought anything there. I used to buy lots of LPs from the university's record shop -- but I took about half of them back because I detected imperfections. Rather surprisingly, the shop replaced all my rejects without question.

-- Jonathan

Re: Oblivious

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I don't think that I ever took a record back to the shop "because I detected imperfections". What is the reason for this massive bifference between us?

Is it:

a) that you went to a truly crap record store, albeit one that happily replaced a record when it was brought back?
b) that your hearing is far more attuned than mine?
c) that you are more of a perfectionist?

I mean, I think that a record would have had to have had a fairly obvious scratch on it for me to have taken it back, and that never happened. "Quality of sound" was something which didn't occur to me.

PJ

Perfectionism

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Pete, I think I've always been a perfectionist in some ways, and "quality of sound" was certainly a concept that meant something to me at the time, but to have taken so many records back now strikes me as rather excessive and embarrassing.

However, some of them were unquestionably faulty. I clearly remember my first copy of the Strawbs' excellent first album used to stick near the beginning of the first track on side two, and repeat the same phrase over and over again.

I still haven't got a copy of that album on CD, though I have some of the tracks on compilations. I heard that it was published on CD by an obscure Korean company some years ago, but it's not easy to get hold of.

-- Jonathan

Re: Perfectionism

[(Anonymous)]

Pete

Wasn't Branson's shop called Virgin Contempo records and wasn't it above Burtons or Moss Bros?

I remember going up there a lot as a kid for a relatively well off, and lazy, uncle of mine to get him various soul and jazz funk (although I am not sure the term was invented then...Bob James, Alphonz Mouzon, Ronnie Laws etc) albums that were only available on import and Branson being one of the only emporiums that stocked them at the time.

I also am sure that the 'bearded one' would have served me.

It was only a couple of streets from I grew up but, not only was I generously reimbursed for my 'shoe leather’ in a financial sense, but 6 or 7 years later, during my soul boy/jazz funker phase I was able to go back to the source and impress my fellow 'wedge heads' and access old and original vinyl from many of our new heroes, the afore mentioned and, most notably, Roy Ayers (Ubiquity).

I was forever known in the Lyceum as the one with the cool uncle.

Definitely remember going upstairs to Virgin Contempo records though.

Don't it make you feel old eh 8-(

Hope you are well mate....definitely missing you at the pub quizzes!

Stevie Bennett

PS You did read correctly a 'wedge'...big one too with loads of hair. Felt like a million dollars and looked like a right cu….

Re: Perfectionism

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I can't recall how long that store was there, Steve. I went off to University in 1973 and I vaguely recall that it was no longer there in 1976, when I worked in Hanway Street for a while.

I would have thought that Mole Jazz would have been one of your haunts...

I have no idea of the fashions of the 1980s. I vaguely recall the New Romantics through an alcoholic haze, but perhaps I was confusing them with the Bay City Rollers. What is a "wedge"?

PJ

Re: Perfectionism

[(Anonymous)]

Hard to articulate really. It was a layered haircut with a side parting, sometimes a centre parting too but rarely, and a big piece of hair on the other side that one would flick just by moving your head. Some of the new romantic haircuts were probably exaggerated versions of it to be honest.

Not the best description but it was a haircut heavily favoured by soul boys...and some girls actually.

Settle for any hair these days 8-(

Stevie B

Re: Perfectionism

[wedgedguy.livejournal.com]

A geometryic hairstyle (see icon) . Basically, it's diamond shaped at the back with the top layers longer than the lower layers. Where the top layers can vary from anywhere above the ears (chili bowl cut) to the bottom of the ears (stacked bob), and the shorter layers at the lower back can end anywhere between the hairline and chin length. The top layers can be bleached to make the style more dramatic. Dorothy Hamill was a famous ice skater who had a wedge cut.

The David Bowie album cover has a wedge, but the sides have been combed back:

http://img446.imageshack.us/img446/6050/bowielowwt9.jpg

The Human League video "Don't You Want Me Baby" has a blonde wedge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arUqoKjU3D4