The story of the Pellicci legend that was Jukebox Jimmy is told today over at Spitalfield's Life. It also features Jim talking about some of his favourite records, and where he first heard them - in a recording he made for Paul Tunkin and myself. It's a rare insight into East London and Bethnal Green during the sixties - a perspective on the pubs, the scene and the songs of the time.
On a visit to Pellicci's in 2010, and knowing I was a music avid, Nevio Pellicci sat me on a table with Jimmy, we got chatting about soul music, became a good friends, and met generally once a week, and occasionally outside of Pellcci's at record fairs - or other cafes, when Pellicci's was closed. Apart from sharing the same birthday (16th December) - we loved the same music and would rattle on for hours about soul, rock 'n' roll, country and Blue Beat (Jim refused to call it ska) , his love of Sam Cooke, The Beatles, Elvis and how he hated TV talent shows...
Jim was a fellow record collector and avid, a great pal and gateway to an archive of lost gems and nuggets by way of CDs kindly compiled for me from his vinyl collection - sometimes left in the Pellicci pigeonhole (by the side of the till). I'd regularly spin in Jim's tips during sets at The Railway (Nappy Brown, Sugar Pie DeSanto ) or Podrophenia (Lavern Baker, Robert John). In return I supplied him with the odd Elvis bootleg and DVDs of Hoss Allen's The!!! Beat
I'd always hoped to get Jim down to Southend for a DJ set. Unfortunately this never happened - however he contributed to our Podrophenia radio show by selecting records, making some jingles for us, and phoning in to choose a track or two...
He was a legend a gent and his passing is another part of the old East End lost forever
The JBJ story can be read here...and his guide to music heard below
Sad news the death of Davy Jones, the pocket sized pop star and tambourine banger in *the* Best Boy Band - ever. I can't better John Robb's piece - so I'll remember him with a repost...
RIP another legend lost
I've been on something of a Monkees buzz after reading this recent trigger from BLTP. Although I really can't understand why it's taken me almost two years to log some Monkee magic in the blog.
Retrospectively the amount of sniffery and snears directed towards The Monkees as they took their place in sixties pop society, seems almost hard to believe now given the quality of the catalogue, the pedigree of their legacy and the roll call of heavy-hitters happy to sit in with them - Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Neil Diamond Goffin/King. Oh, and then there's Brixton's David Jones having to rebrand himself as David Bowie to avoid any confusement
And Stepping Stone later being re-punked by the Sex Pistols - not bad for a band originally pegged as pop-puppets .
Mary Mary - The Strangers I only realised this was written by Mike Nesmith while looking at the label last week. As much as I love The Monk's version, this slightly thumpier rework just pips the original for me
You can grab an mp3 of Paperback Believer right here
If there was one person (aside from Bryan Ferry) instrumental in tooling the shape and scope of early era Roxy Music it was Richard Hamilton, Bryan Ferry's tutor and mentor at the University of Newcastle. The artist behind collages, constructs and installations with titles that won't be unfamiliar to Roxy/Ferry fans..
And 'Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?' - the 'deluxe and delightful' 'smart town apartment' source material for In Every Dream Home a Heartache.
As Ian Dury, Adam Ant and the Velvets absorbed their visuals from Peter Blake, Allan Jones and Andy Warhol - Bryan ferry's assembly of art graduates and academics in retro-futrist finery - sculpting, styling and framing them into something as much pop art as much as pop group - is entirely Richard Hamilton's influence refined and re-rendered for the rock format
I was lucky enough to nip along (twice) to the Whitechapel Gallery earlier this year to catch the This is Tomorrow retrospective - showing the blueprints and background to the 1956 Brit-pop Art expo, breaking down Just What is it.... to it's component parts: muscle mags, moon-shoots, modernist living and comic book romance tales celebrating and selling shiny new futures and glossy modern exotica. All off which, really, are a base-build materials for the early Roxy Music albums
The Reaper's certainly set briskly about his grim business this year, carrying out a ruthless recruitment campaign - John Barry being the latest to get his call up papers
I never got round to reading a John Barry biog although I've been meaning to for years. From the scraps I've gathered through other books - he seems to have led something of a James Bond-ish lifestyle during the swinging sixties: King's road address, film star girlfriend and international swishing with the champagne and sports cars set
And what a body of work from Bond to Born Free, Harry Palmer to The Persuaders. I'm no music theorist but - his innovative instrumentation (using everything from cimbaloms to synthesizers), the scope of his widescreen arrangements and minor modal motifs - could pluck your heartstrings like a harp.
A personal fave is perhaps a lower known TV theme but distillation of the Barry technique and almost a companion piece to The Persuaders, a melancholy toybox style arrangement - opening the Orson Welles Great Mysteries TV show*....
For something that John Barry himself described as near biographical I would recommend The Beyondness of Things - you can try a track over at Davy's place
It may sound strange, but Tony Curtis as Danny Wilde in The Persuaders was one of my earliest heroes and influences. It was the snappy chat and fancy togs that did it. I begged mum to get me a pair of kiddie driving gloves: velcro straps and knuckle cut-outs, some pretend leather trousers (beige the same colour seen here) and a yellow and blue suede suit as part of my Danny Wilde dressing-up gear.
The magic's still there. We spotted a Persuaders Ferrari Dino in the local Broadway a couple of weeks ago - I'm no petrol-head, but what a moment, the ol' ticker went up a gear instantly.
Anyway enough of my ol' guff and nonsense - let's raise glass for Bernard Schwartz. Another legend lost...
Both gone now - but I'll always think of them like this
The moment we had been dreading finally arrived on Sunday 25th July - when the hospital gave us an early morning call advising I should come over.
Mum remained sleeping and peaceful with four close family members by her bedside. And a few hours later when the final silence started to settle - the sun shone and mum's youngest sister and a niece held her hands as she slipped softly away in my arms.
I can't tell you what a comfort being there has been for me - knowing mum wasn't suffering, scared or alone in those closing moments. That she was sent gently on her way with kisses and a whispered 'Night, night' and 'God bless' - the same phrases she soothed me to sleep with so many times as a child.
We're ok and getting by at the moment. A bustle and swirl of phone calls, visits and arrangements to make have been keeping us occupied. Just over a month ago, the plan for this week had been to take mum away to Southwold for some sun, sea and a change of scenery. None of us expected to be arranging her funeral instead.
The final goodbye takes place on Thursday, and it's after this I expect the slump will really set in. All those hidden triggers for tears and heartbreak - seeing her handwriting, finding old pictures and bits in the loft, forgotten songs on the radio, questions I'll go to ask that will stay unanswered. The one-sided silence and a deep sense of loss and emptiness.
It was the same when Dad died nine years ago, although dad's death was so quick and unexpected - just two hours after being rushed into hospital, it left us reeling for years. But, eventually we found calm, comfort and a new normality. In some ways you never get over these things - you just get used to not getting over them.
I never got say goodbye to dad, so I'll play something from The Faces in his memory.
"My name is Malcolm McLaren, I have brought you many things in my time"Malcom introduces himself in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle
Given a multiple choice of Malcom McLaren's talent and character, where do you place a tick: genius or jinx, myth-maker or manipulator, situationist or self publicist? The correct answer is - all of the above.
McLaren's early history is one of fractured families, student riots and art college sit-ins. In 1971 he opened a profitable outlet for his outsider stance through the most English of institutions - shopkeeping. Kicking against the trends of glam, hot pants and heavy rock, McLaren, and girlfriend Vivienne Westwood, sold fifties outfits and rock 'n' roll accessories to Teddy Boys and bikers at the wrong end of King's Road (430: formerly the site of Hung On You, Mr Freedom and Paradise Garage) nestling like a neighbour from hell next to the Chelsea Conservative Club.
Three years later they refitted the shop as SEX, retailing rubberwear to suburbanites and creating a catalogue of inflammatory imagery that brought police raids, confiscations and later an arrest for wearing the infamous two cowboys shirt in public. Still at 430 King's Road, Seditionaries: Clothes For Heroes opened in '77, with a collection consolidating all that had gone before: rock 'n' roll and cultural icons reformatted in shock-horror collages, under-the-counter imagery posterised in cartoon colours or stenciled with situationist slogans - and adding spiky new lines: tartan bondage suits, long sleeve muslins, Spider-man boots and parachute shirts.
By the mid-seventies, following a brief period managing the New York Dolls (dressing them in red patent leather and hammer and sickle imagery), slow-shifting whispers about the hate couture on sale at 430 King's Road drew new blood to the shop, becoming something of a club house for a handful of bored teenagers. And, like a dayglo Fagin, McLaren focused and stoked this shapeless momentum into a movement of Molotov cocktail combustibility. When punk, the Pistols and all hell finally broke loose, it was just another chapter from the McLaren scrapbook of anarchy, chaos and controversy, but a chapter that perhaps overshadowed his other hits and highlights..
Recruiting college chum and member of Suburban Press Jamie Reid as punk's graphic designer
Creating the template of historical references and Burundi Beats for Adam Ant
Spotlighting Boy George's potential as frontperson (George performed with a pre-Annabella Bow Wow Wow)
Styling Bow Wow Wow’s pirate chic, which, underwrote the new romantic wardrobe.
Breaking Hip Hop in the UK by way of Channel 4 'Tube' special.
Putting world music on a world stage with his Duck Rock album
Whatever you're take on him is, the fact remains, McLaren was a career subversive, a serial situationist and a repeat offender - before, during and after punk. His real skill was technique more than talent, mixing and matching mediums - film, fashion, politics and Pop Art - although music was always a key ingredient (just lend an ear to the SEX jukebox). Whether dressing New York street-toughs in red leather, London bovver boys in Destroy shirts or discovering adolescents in launderettes and Harlem based break dancers - mixing street level chic with with art school concepts for maximum publicity was his signature style. I'll leave the final word to Barry Cain, who worked with McLaren on his (still unreleased) autobiography.
"He’s the Brian Clough of pop who should’ve managed England. Knowing Malcolm, I think love got in the way – he’s an incurable romantic. But we should all be thankful he turned the world dayglo"
The New York Dolls - Red Patent Leather Recorded while McLaren was the Dolls manager and taken from a live set that also includes Something Else later covered by Sid Vicious.
This really is a marvellous, marvellous piece of footage. Taken from the Dress For Pleasure documentary it uncovers SEX's bread and butter customers. Watch out for the chap who looks like Stanley Unwin, casually chatting at home in his black rubber number.
One of my earliest entries on the PM blog was something about Les Paul. So a great shame then, to hear the sad news of his death last week, almost two years to the day since posting it.
How different would our record collections sound without Les Paul's contribution to guitar construction, technique and music methodology? A true pioneer and godfather of guitar, who, as Keef points out "taught himself to play guitar in order to demonstrate his electronic theories". Les literally created, shaped and sculpted the sound and tools for rock's tradesmen to take forward: solid body electric guitars, multi-track technology, overdubs, high speed soloing. Pretty much all the conventions of modern rock then.
There's an almost limitless pool of tribute tunes and riffs to choose from, either written or played on, by legends whose signature sound comes from a Gibson 'Les Paul' - try to imagine any of these without the weight and wallop of an 'LP' underpinning them..
It wasn't always this way. Post rock 'n' roll boom, Jet-Age guitarists such as James Burton, Steve Cropper, Hank Marvin, Jeff Beck, Bob Bogle wanted shiny new Fenders in sci-fi colours. Gibsons were too expensive, too cumbersome and too reminiscent of big bands and the Palais age to be lusted after by young fret-fiddlers.
Ironically it was a player now forever twinned with Fender that brought Gibson and Les Paul out of the post R 'n' R wilderness and into the R.O.C.K arena. Eric Clapton was the first rocker to realise the physical weight of Gibson LP and it's 'mahogany tone', would add warmth and sustain to his soloing. Plugging in and over-driving his Les Paul through a Marshall amp, Clapton created thunderous tones of previously unheard heaviness, and the classic rock rig (Gibson 'Les Paul' and a Marshall amp) used by an endless list of fret-melters since. It's not much of a stretch to suggest that any 'Les Paul' player whether guitar legend or have-a-go hero whose strummed or soloed on any LP model since the sixties are indebted to this monumental moment.
EC and LP in his 'Beano' period
I'm no Clapton fan but his raw-ramped, riff-ripping work on The Bluesbreakers 'Beano' album is the shape of things to come. Add in it's moment of pivotal importance in rock and guitar history and you have possibly one of the finest tributes you'll find to the legacy of Les Paul.
