We’re Going to a Party Way Down South

Dad drove down.  I was starting me second year at Southampton reading Geology.  The reason Dad drove was that I was taking a couple of cases of records and me record player as well as some clothes and books.  A couple of cases and a box of records.  Make that a couple of cases and two boxes or records.  And a box of singles.  I was going to be living in Chamberlain Hall so I needed to impress the neighbours with me record collection.  I’d spent some of the summer working for Dad with Saturdays off for football.  I’d spent all the money I’d earned on vinyl: Dr Feelgood’s Stupidity, Dock of the Bay, old Small Faces albums, Why Can’t We Live Together, Be Bop Deluxe’s Modern Music, loads of stuff old and new.

The previous year hadn’t been too great – I was stuck out in Millbrook in digs, which is like three miles from the University and all uphill on the bike.  Trigger (that was me bike) didn’t come down this time cos Dad didn’t want to put a roof rack on the Daimler.  We had a Daimler then – a 4.2 Sovereign which was pretty expensive even if it was second hand.  He said I could drive it if I ever went to a wedding.  I hadn’t been to a wedding on me own.  Jill who did geography had got married that summer but I didn’t really know her any more, so I wasn’t invited.  We’d met the previous year and become pals, partly because she thought I had a Barnsley accent.  I don’t know what me accent was – at home most of the plebs have Brummie accents which are foul.  The rest of us had this part Midland, part Northern accent which I later came to identify as southern Derbyshire/eastern Staffordshire.  Tony Woodcock had it, so did Lee Chapman. Or sommat like it. But I tended to harden my accent up when I went to the football like saying “the” instead of “they”.  I still don’t know why she thought it were Barnsley.  

The story about Jill was that she lived in this part of Chamberlain Hall which is how I first got to know it.  She’d have Pooh and Tigger posters in her room and she’d make tea using just a cup and a tea bag.  But she had a copy of It Don’t Come Easy by Ringo Starr which I really loved, especially the guitar riff that George most likely wrote.  I could almost play it myself.  As I hadn’t got a copy, I’d go round to listen to it.  Jill fancied this bloke on her course and decided to throw a party.  She knew I was into music so she asked me to play the music – fun stuff like Rod Stewart (I played Nod’s as Good as a Wink and some of Smiler) and romantic stuff.  Loads of Motown for a start; I absolutely had to play Diana Ross “Still Love You”.  How could I not – it’s an awesome piece of music like Ain’t No Mountain High Enough or the other stuff she did during the early seventies.  I was really into Motown when I was younger.

In fact Motown was probably the first music that I listened to that was my own choice rather than just stuff off the radio.  It probably really took off in 1971 with I’m Still Waiting.  Those were the days when we’d pretend to be skinheads, wear Levi’s Stays and Ben Sherman shirts and go skating every Saturday morning.  The rules were that you had to listen to reggae and soul.  The reggae was stuff like It Mek, Guns of Navarone, Al Capone, Liquidator, Double Barrel – ska in fact.  We didn’t know the difference then – ganja influenced reggae, slower and dreamier, or the rougher sharper ska more suited to skinhead moonstomping.  And to us Motown was soul.  Come on – we were only fourteen.

Motown was the Disney of music.  Everything was manufactured.  They’d find kids off the streets from Detroit, groom them to look good, dance well, and smile.  Have you ever seen the Supremes?   No matter what they’re singing, they’re always smiling, you can see their face muscles aching.  The really important thing, though, was the song.  And the thing that made Motown was that they had the perfect songwriters.  Like Holland Dozier & Holland.  The Supremes and the Four Tops were my favourites, stuff like Reach Out I’ll Be There, I Can’t Help Myself, You Can’t Hurry Love, Baby Love.  Later on I got into The Temptations (magic like Papa was a Rollin Stone), Junior Walker, Martha and the Vandellas.

And if the artist didn’t toe the line, they’d drop em.  Look at Martha Reeves; much better singer than Diana Ross but nothing to sing after 1966.  Same with Flo Ballard, one of the original Supremes.  That’s probably why so many of them up and left in the seventies.  They must have wanted a bit more freedom.  

But the music was pure, heavenly Pop.  I had this tape of  Motown stuff:

Four Tops

• Bernadette
• I Can’t Help Myself
• Reach Out I’ll be There
• Standing in the Shadows
• Walk Away Renee
• If I were a Carpenter
• Baby I need Your Lovin’

Supremes

• Reflections
• The Happening
• Baby Love
• Where Did Our Love Go
• You Can’t Hurry Love

Diana Ross

• I’m Still Waiting
• Remember me
• Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Isley Brothers

• This Old Heart of Mine

Smokey Robinson & the Miracles

• Tracks of my Tears
• Tears of a Clown

Marvin Gaye

• Grapevine

Temptations

• Take A Look Around
• Just My Imagination
• Papa Was a Rolling Stone
• I Wish it Would Rain
• I know I’m Losing You
• I could never love Another

Junior Walker

• Road Runner

Martha & the Vandellas

• Jimmy Mack
• Dancing in the Street
• Heatwave
• Nowhere to Run

Velvelettes

• These things will keep me loving you babe

Jackson Five

• I’ll Be There
• I Want You back

No Stevie Wonder – I always thought he was overrated.  If I was doing it now, I’d put on some early Temptations like The Way You Do the Things You Do, My Girl, Jimmy Ruffin’s What Becomes of the Broken Hearted, maybe some more Marvin Gaye, maybe not.  But, Hey, it’s not a bad album is it?

So where was I?  Oh yes, Jill’s party.  Well she got off with this bloke – same one that she married.  She was so happy that she gave me ‘It Don’t Come Easy’ to say thankyou.  I’ve still got it.  Wonder what happened to them.

Anyways,  we unpacked the car and Mom & Dad checked out the room which was the same as everyone else’s:  bed, fitted wardrobe & desk, chair, and coffee table for putting your feet on when you sit down.  Except being a second year I hadn’t been down for Freshers’ week, so every one else had got a head start in the poster stakes.  I’d just bought a new copy of the first Roxy Music album, so I thought it would be really neat to put the old one on my wall – vinyl here with the classic early seventies Island logo (not the orange rubbish they had in 76), outside of the gatefold sleeve there, and cut up pictures of the band from the inside spread out over the remaining bits of wall.  That was a definite statement:  “Look at me – not only do I know that this is the greatest album ever made, but I can afford to buy two copies of it”.  And it really was the Greatest Album Ever Made.

But I had to get rid of the old dears and get down to business.  Eddie and the Hot Rods were playing Glen that Sunday and I had to get a ticket.  Sunday, as in tomorrow.  Of course like all Freshers’ week stuff, they’d sold out before I even arrived so I had to go round asking everyone I met.  Man I was desperate.  For the past year or two we’d been trying to find something new and exciting in music, cos let’s face it the Stones were past it.  Like I say, they sounded like some old disco queens on Hot Stuff.  The Faces had broken up,  Rod Stewart was fannying around with some blonde, Genesis had broken up.  We were forced to hunt around for bands like Be Bop Deluxe & Burlesque, Split Enz & Deaf School for our kicks.  OK so the Feelgoods were around and they had been amazing at Birmingham Odeon that summer, but what all of us remember most from the summer was the way Eddie and the Hot Rods had saved RocknRoll with one resounding B flat chord.  I remember reading about them in the NME and watching Top of the Pops the day they were on.  Top of the Pops that you never admitted to watching anymore.  Top of the Pops that your Dad watched to see Abba or the Brotherhood of Man.  Then suddenly one Thursday night, there were these four youths just like us – flared jeans, T shirts, the sort of haircuts that just touched your shoulder, the sort of hair you could only have at the end of the summer holidays because you’d only had since school broke up to grow it.  They played 96 Tears at a gallop.  I’ve heard the original since and I’ve heard Aretha Franklin’s version.  Neither come close – this was fun.  This was like chasing a football around the school playing field.  This was like your first Motor Bike Ride.

I went into Virgin in Birmingham the next day to buy their single.  And like I did in those days when I discovered something I liked, I bought their other two the following week.  But it was the Live at the Marquee EP that was the business.  96 Tears at speed.  Get Out of Denver with words sung as fast as possible and then the singer gasping for breath at the end: “Get out of Denver Baby” GASP “Get out of Denver Baby” GAAASP “ Get out of Denver Baby” while the guitar punches a single chord out at each Gasp.  The other side of the EP was even better.  The crowd is chanting “Hot Rods” “Hot Rods” like at the football then the singer comes on and says like what are these chairs doing here “Can’t ‘ave chairs in the audience – Get ‘em outa here”.  And with that rebellious war cry, the guitar explodes into Van Morrison’s most glorious riff and they do Gloria and then without stopping the riff chops and changes into Satisfaction.  This is when you know these guys are like us.  They look like us (even though me Mam thinks I dress smarter and talk nicer when we go out).  More important they listen to the same music as us.  None of these old American blues covers from the 40s and 50s like the Stones used to crow about.  These guys are playing what we used to listen to.

So, this being a fairy story, I get the ticket and meet a few assorted boys who also like the Hot Rods and a few girls who just thought they’d join in the fun.  The gig wasn’t like the Feelgoods at Birmingham Odeon, where you’d have to sprint to get to the front.  This was better.  For the Feelgoods we’d get tickets for a place like Birmingham Odeon right at the back.  You’d have to time things just right.  Too fast and you’d be the only one moving and the bouncers would get you, too slow and by the time you got to the front, there’d be 500 people in front of you.  At the first hint of the lights fading Alex would be off, dodging and weaving, down to the front.  I’d take my cue from him and take off, side stepping the security guards like Mike Slemen, careful not to get knocked into any of the chairs which meant missing out on the front as well as possible injury.  You’d just be able to make the front row or two with only a couple of guys between you and the front if you ran your fastest.  Then for ninety minutes, you’d be crushed in a sweaty embrace with two hundred and fifty other Feelgood fans not dancing but jumping vaguely in time with the music although, through necessity, totally in time with each other.  But what a gig it was.  Wilko stammering across the stage and Brilleaux spitting out “Back in the Night”, “Stupidity”, “She Does it Right”, and all the rest.  

Yeah, the Feelgoods in Birmingham had been hot but somehow the Hot Rods over at Glen were better.  The Feelgoods were serious enjoyment, but the Hot Rods were pure fun.  Hell, I even forgot that we lost to Hull City the day before.  Having hundreds of freshers packed into a hall helps when everybody just wants to have a good time.  The disco beforehand saw different guys trying to impress by getting all sorts of records played.  Some were even good.  It was a mistake asking for MC5’s “Back in the USA” but that gave us chance for a breather.  We’d dance around in groups of eight or ten or even twenty and everyone wanted to be mates.  When the Hot Rods came on the whole crowd was drunk.  Some on falling down water, some, like me, just on the air.  We loved every song they played even though only a few of us knew only a handful.  I remember trying to tell some guy who I thought was their manager what a great band they were and trying to buy his Hot Rods T-shirt.  I kept seeing him around the union in the next few weeks, but he never recognised me.  Thank God.  After the gig the Hot Rods just picked up their stuff and walked out through the door.  Me and a couple other fans got in the way, but they talked to us like old school pals.  The Bass player told me how his hair was better than Andy Mackay’s and the singer said that they had had the idea for an EP first, but Bryan Ferry nicked it and because he was a star, his got to be number EP1.  Any way who cares.

And then we went back in for the disco.  After about fifteen or twenty minutes I got chatted up by a couple of girls, because in those days I could still pull the women you know.  They got me to rescue a friend of theirs who was being pestered by a drunk and then about five or six of us went back to her place for coffee.  Except I insisted on having tea because, as you know, I don’t like coffee.  And then I asked for Cornflakes and then suggested we have toast.  But, as the milk was that long life crap and as the bread had been open since the beginning of the week, it was all a dead loss really, so I went home.  But in the quiet of my room the magic thrash of the Hot Rods echoed back across my brain and I went to sleep happy that after a year at University and after a year out in the sticks in smelly digs, I’d found the City of Fun.