Posts Tagged ‘central London’
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
Over the past year I’ve devoted a number of blogs to my first cousin once removed Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones. Having talked to various people about Ray and located assorted print references to him made after he’d retired from being the greatest cat burglar in the world, I thought it was time to dig back into the past. Old newspaper reports of Ray’s court appearances verify much of what he had to say about his life, clarify various matters, and show that more recent accounts of his famous jail break have been distorted by those retelling the tale. Doing a quick search through national newspapers, I found no reports of Ray’s boxing career, and the earliest press coverage I could locate was dated 8 March 1940. The Daily Mirror put things this way:
“Thief Celebrated With 21 Suits
“A man living on the proceeds of house breaking once had so much money that he bought 21 suits and had £50 in his pockets. And for two years his fists kept him free.
“The police stated this at the Old Bailey yesterday when Raymond Jones, 23, described as a labourer of King Edward Walk, Lambeth, London, was sentenced to two years imprisonments for causing grievous bodily harm to a constable who tried to arrest him at the Marble Arch in December 1937, and for attempted theft from a car.
“He was arrested in Lambeth last month.
“A detective said Jones admitted assaulting numerous police officers to escape arrest in the last two years and he had been living on the proceeds of house breaking.”
There was an equally biased report in The Times also of 8 March 1940:
“Caught After Two Years. Labourer’s Savage Attack On Policeman.
“After being at liberty for over two years a man who twice escaped from police in 1937, on both occasions leaving a police officer unconscious on the ground and was not recaptured until early this year at Lambeth Walk, appeared in the dock at the Central Criminal Court yesterday.
“He is Raymond Jones, 23, a labourer of King Edward Walk, and he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for causing grievous bodily harm to one of the two constables, and attempted theft from a motor-car.
“Detective Hope said the prisoner admitted assaulting several police officers in order to escape arrest in the past two years. He had been living on the proceeds of house-breaking. On one occasion he had so much money he bought 21 suits and had £50 in his pocket.
“Judge Beazley, in sentencing Jones, said he had been guilty of a savage attack.”
On the basis of these reports, the press should be in the dock, charged with spreading unctuous bullshit. As I hope I’ve made clear in my earlier blogs, Ray was not guilty, he was fitted-up. The papers, taking their cue from the Old Bill and a slimeball judge report him as being guilty of numerous assaults on cops, but he was found guilty on just one count! And in this instance, he acted in self-defence after being violently assaulted by a bully dressed in blue.
Ray’s 1952 appearance at the Old Bailey was also widely covered by the press under headlines such as Alleged Complicity In Fur Coats Theft (Times April 25 1952), £4000 Fur’s Theft, Six And A Half Year Sentence (Times 24 June 1952), and Police Kept Watch From ‘Q Van’ He Says (Daily Mirror 21 June 1952). This need not detain us, although the swiping of guests’ coats during a swanky New Year party thrown by Colonel Martin Charteris for his upper-class chums is an amusing tale; and it is also worth noting that in his evidence Ray mentioned a feud between his family and notorious 1950s gangster Billy Hill and that to defend his brother who’d been stabbed, Ray punched out the Mister Big of the London crime world. But let’s move on to Ray’s famous jail break. The Times of 18 October 1958 described it thus:
“Two Escape At Pentonville. Others Fail In Attempt.
“Five men took part in an escape attempt from Pentonville Prison last light. Three were recaptured, but two others got away. They were the first men to break out of the prison since it was reopened in 1946. A full scale search of the area was carried out.
“The men who got out of the prison were Raymond Jones, aged 42, serving 8 years preventative detention, who Scotland Yard said might be violent, and John Rider, aged 28, serving 5 years imprisonment.
“The escape was made during the period given over to evening classes. Jones and Rider found ladders being used during the repair of the prison roof, and took them to scale the 20ft wall of the prison.
“Once on top of the wall, they jumped into an alley that skirts the side of the prison and one turned left, the other right… Tracker dogs, police cars, wardens, uniformed and plain clothes police with torches toured streets around Caledonian Road.”
The Daily Mirror (18 October 1958) used Gaol Break 2 Men Hunted as its headline, and this front page story contained the following information not provided by The Times: “Two of the other three men perched on the top of the wall then dropped back into the goal yard. The third fell and was injured.” Rider enjoyed just 24 hours freedom, as The Times reported on 20 October 1958:
“John Rider aged 34, one of two men who escaped from Pentonville Prison, London, on Friday night, was recaptured on Saturday while he was asleep on a sofa in an unoccupied home at Antler Hill, Chingford, Essex.
“The search continues for the other prisoner Raymond Jones aged 42, who was serving a sentence of eight years preventative detention. Scotland Yard issued a warning he might be violent.”
The idea that Ray was potentially violent was just a cop smear designed to justify the filth’s 1940 fit-up; Ray never carried weapons, although he would defend himself with his fists if attacked. Ray also knew how to run and hide, having spent the whole of 1938 and 1939 on his toes… When he was finally recaptured The Daily Express (24 November 1960) put the story on the front page and reported it this way:
“Two-Year Escaper Caught
“Pentonville’s record escaper, Raymond Jones, was recaptured in Staines, Middlesex, last night.
He went ‘over the wall’ two years ago – the longest time a fugitive has been on the run from the jail.
“A tip-off at lunch-time sent the police to Staines. They waited six hours to seize him at a house.
“Jones, a 42 year old Welshman, was serving eight years preventative detention.”
So there you have it, plenty of contemporary documentation to confirm just why Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones is a legend! And this is also why as recently as November this year Wales On Sunday devoted yet another page to this famous criminal, the closest thing the 20th century ever produced to a new Robin Hood!
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: Antler Hill, Billy Hill, Caledonian Road, car theft, Central Criminal Court, central London, Chingford, Colonel Charteris, Colonel Martin Charteris, Daily Express, Daily Mirror, Detective Donald Hope, Detective Hope, Donald Hope, Essex, fit-up, GBH, goal break, goal escape, jail break, jail escape, John Rider, John Ryder, Johnny Rider, Johnny Ryder, Judge Beazley, King Edward Walk, Laambeth Walk, Lambeth, London, Marble Arch, Martin Charteris, Middlesex, Old Bailey, over the wall, Pentonville Prison, Q Van, Ray Jones, Ray The Cat Jones, Raymond Jones, Robin Hood, south London, Staines, The Times, Wales, Wales On Sunday
Posted in True crime | 74 Comments »
Monday, December 7th, 2009
The oldest of suppressed traditions
In a world dominated by illusion, it comes as no surprise that censorship should be popularly misperceived as a form of social repression. The contradictions which support such an inversion are manifest in every area of daily life; they constitute the apparent “reality” of our “time”. Despite the fact that it has been demonstrated time and again that consciousness is an effect of a closed system of exclusive focus, of censorship, “literate” consensus maintains that censorship and silence are the negation of consciousness. It is clear that Power has a vested interest in maintaining a monopoly on censorship. The “concept of freedom” is an unreachable, collapsing, absolute. All experience becomes equal when exchanged via Capital; with class “privilege” determining how much of this worthless “equality” each person is entitled to.
The negative and its use
Anything can be censored for any reason; start by censoring this text. The censors of the “left”, “right” and “centre”, all do their collective part; despite the fact that they imagine themselves to be motivated by the very beliefs we will ultimately negate.
From originality to ontology: the decline of the text
The possibilities for communal transformation of this world lie in disconnection from imposed notions of progress and democracy. Plagiarism is the “beginning”, the negative point of a culture which finds its justification in the “unique”. Censorship supersedes plagiarism as an “intelligent” negation of “originality” because it suppresses not only (“original”) production, but also reproduction (plagiarism, appropriation &c.) which revalue the “original” and maintain its circulation in “reality”. Censorship is to the present what plagiarism was to history.
The healing power of doubt
Revolutionary propaganda sets itself the task of discrediting all received ideas without offering a single “alternative” thought with which they might be replaced. Kill your desires and live! Erase, destroy and make useless all recorded information. Physically and otherwise attempt to suppress all expression in art, politics, history &c. Resist culture and all other forms of institutional identity. Suppress, by refusing to participate in, interpersonal and mass social relationships. As you see fit, smash the “imagination”, “schizophrenia”, “death”, “sexuality”, “values”, “time” and all other forms of seduction and abstraction. Experimentally break down the frames of reference by which you organise non-valued perceptions into valued entities: i.e. objects, ideas, means of self-perception &c.
An end to social relations
“Self-destruction” is a semantic swindle. The moralism against suicide is reactionary resistance to change. Only total opposition, both theoretical and practical (i.e. silence), is irrecuperable. Anything else must necessarily appear absolutist and contradictory.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: 1960s, 557087 Seattle, 60s, Alex Trocchi, Alexander Trocchi, APG, Art and Culture, Artists Placement Group, Arts Journal, Barry Flanagan, beat generation, Better Books, black beauties, black bombers, Bluecoat Gallery, Bow Street Magistrates Court, cannabis, central London, charge, Clement Greenberg, conceptual art, Destruction In Art Symposium, Destruction in Art: Destroy to Create, Diamond & Co., drug smuggling, Durophet, Finch College, Finch College Museum of Art, Fluxus, forgery, Francis Morland, heroin, Jeff Sawtell, Jeffrey Sawtell, John Latham, John Lennon, John Perreault, junkies, Liverpool, London, LSD, Lucy Lippard, MOMA, Morning Star, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York City, New York Museum of Modern Art, Norwich, Norwich School of Art, Number 7, NYC, Paula Cooper Gallery, pot, purple hearts, Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, Sheila Malcham, Simon Ford, sixties, Soho, St. Martin's School of Art, Still and Chew, The Art Forum, UK, USA, weed, Yoko Ono
Posted in art criticism, counterculture, True crime | 26 Comments »
Saturday, December 5th, 2009
I finally caught up with one time Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones press spokesman Michael Morgan at his Hackney flat yesterday. We spent much of the day going over Ray’s life-story, and Michael also kindly presented me with a bundle of press clippings and other material he’d photocopied for me.
Among the many impressive cuttings Michael Morgan gave me is one entitled ‘The Night I Stole Liz’s Jewels In The Gresham’ (from the Irish tabloid The Sunday World, 23 November 1997):
“One of the world’s oldest jewel thieves has spilled the beans on how he amassed a £5 million fortune by robbing top showbiz stars as revenge for his brother’s tragic death in a World War II bombing raid. And legendary burglar Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones says one of his most memorable jobs was when he broke into a Dublin hotel room and stole jewels belonging to superstar Elizabeth Taylor…
“…Ray told the Sunday World: ‘Way back in 1940 I was due to fight for the World Middleweight Championship… I was real good and I had boxed and beaten the legendary Fred(die) Mills and now I was in with a chance of a World Crown. But I was involved in a melee in London and was charged with hitting a copper. I found out later that the copper was himself a middleweight boxer. They framed me to get me out of the way. I got six years for the assault.’
“His brother, who lived in the family home in Gwent, South Wales, came to visit Ray in Pentonville prison in North London. But he was tragically killed in the first bombing of London by the Nazis at the end of 1940…. Said Ray: ‘I got on my knees in my prison cell. I vowed I would hit back at society and the judiciary for taking the things I cared most about in life away from me. When I got out, I said to myself, I would become the greatest cat burglar in the world. That was my mission in life… I would only hit rich people. They were the cream of the crop and had everything they wanted. I had been robbed of my life. I had to hit back.’ ”
My chat with Michael Morgan, other papers he gave me and one of my previous blogs about Ray The Cat, can fill in a few details here. Jones had moved to London around 1936 to further his boxing career and had settled in Maida Vale. One Sunday morning in 1937 he went for a stroll with a friend and they were stopped by the Old Bill under the notorious SUS law (this allowed the cops to stop, search -and even arrest – anyone on the suspicion they were going to commit a crime; the law was finally abolished after the Scarman enquiry highlighted the role its use played in the 1981 Brixton riots). Metropolitan police boxing champion PC Spratt told Ray he was being arrested for SUS, and when Jones protested he hadn’t done anything, this bully-boy cop grabbed Jones by the collar and punched him in the face. Ray fell back against the wall, sprang up and with a well-placed punch KOed the violent thug who was attacking him.
The knock-out blow delivered against the best fighter in the Met was a clear-cut case of self-defence, but Ray and his friend understood the necessity of being on their toes, and the cops didn’t catch up with Jones for three years. When they did, the crown used Ray’s sporting nickname of ‘Slasher Davies’ to falsely paint him as a violent thug involved in razor attacks on innocent members of the public; when in reality the moniker was derived from his punching prowess in the boxing ring. As a result, Jones did a six year stretch for an assault perpetrated not by him, but against him!
Jones insisted that he was innocent of both this and the alleged crimes (thefts of coal, shoes and a bottle of milk) that led to the spell he spent in Reform School as a boy. However, Ray was guilty of the robberies for which he was sent down at the Old Bailey in 1952, since he’d decided to hit back against the rich who were ruining society and making life a misery for poor families like his own, by stealing from aristocrats and showbiz stars. Unfortunately, despite Ray’s guilt in this instance, there were to be more fit-ups. The outline for the official biography of Ray’s life (the book was never written) includes the following: “Within eight days of leaving prison he was arrested for living on the immoral earnings of prostitution. Despite the fact that he had only been out of prison a week, and that the woman concerned was not a prostitute he was sentenced to a further 6 months. Ray says that years later the officer who had arrested him, admitted that he had been framed on directions from someone in Scotland Yard.”
Another frame-up took place in 1957, the filth used a nark to lure Jones to a London cul-de-sac in which they’d parked a a stolen car and then arrested him for the theft. This led to Ray’s famous escape from Pentonville in October 1958, when using ladders left by a work gang doing repairs to the prison, he and Johnny Rider got onto the roof and then down the walls. When Ray fell and injured himself, Rider attempted to carry him but Jones insisted his friend run on because it was important at least one of them got away; sadly Rider was recaptured very shortly afterwards. Jones managed to crawl to safety and eventually asked a couple of men, one of whom was an ex-con, for help in return for money. They drove him to a pub run by one of his cousins (one of the sons of his west London based gangster uncle Dennis ‘Dinny’ Callaghan), who gave him the keys to a flat where he could clean himself up and rest. Unfortunately the landlord was inspecting the property when Jones arrived and told him to go away, since he didn’t want someone covered in blood going into his building. Ray then directed the men aiding his escape to the home of a fence called Benny Selby, who paid them £50 and helped him clean up.
Eventually Ray found a flat to stay in, and his wife Anne who worked at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital For Children in Hackney Road, persuaded a doctor she knew there to attend to her husband’s injuries. Once he’d healed up, Jones went back to his chosen profession of robbing the rich. While Ray was on the run, Peter Scott approached him and said he’d been given inside information on a big job by a couple of bent coppers. Scott needed a skilled accomplice to rob Sophia Loren (who was making The Millionairess in England) of her jewels; once these had been flogged the detectives who’d put them up for the theft would be paid off with £6000.
The raid took place in May 1960, with the bumbling Scott acting as look-out and Ray breaking into Loren’s bedroom to steal the diamonds. The haul was sold to a fence for £44,000, with Scott and Jones netting nearly £19,000 each (slightly less because of expenses on top of the bung to the filth). Scott visited Jones immediately after paying off the bent coppers at a White City Stadium dog race, claiming that they’d read in the papers the stolen jewels were worth £185,000 and they wanted another £6000 for putting up the job. Ray thought Scott was trying to con him out of three grand and refused to give him any cash.
After he was recaptured in October 1960, Ray suspected that Scott may have given the cops the information that enabled them to track him down; the look-out was pissed off that Jones hadn’t coughed-up the extra money he later discovered the bent detectives had indeed demanded. Despite his suspicions on this score, when Ray decided to go public about having done the Sophia Loren job in the early 1990s, he warned Scott he was going to do so. At the time Scott begged Jones not to mention his name, and Ray respected his wishes although he harboured serious doubts about the integrity of this ‘man’.
Ray’s 2 years and 28 days on the run from Pentonville apparently earned him a place in The Guinness Book of Records. Michael Morgan also told me that Ray’s younger daughter Anne-Marie Jones was both conceived and born while he was on the lam; her older sibling Beryl was born before the 1957 fit-up. Thanks to Michael Morgan I also have yet more tales to tell about Ray The Cat, but they won’t all fit into one blog…. So the further adventures of this 20th century Robin Hood will have to wait for now! But before going, I would like to emphasise the injustice of the fit-ups Ray suffered: he claimed that 17 of the 33 years he spent in jail were for crimes of which he was innocent…
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: Anne Jones, Anne-Marie Jones, Benny Selby, bent cops, Beryl Jones, boxing, Brixton riots, burglary, central London, Dai Jones, David Jones, Dennis Callaghan, Dennis Dinny Callaghan, Dinny Callaghan, Dublin, east London, Elizabeth Taylor, fit-ups, Freddie Mills, Hackeny Road, Hackney, John Rider, Johnny Rider, London, Maida Vale, Michael Morgan, north London, Old Bailey, PC Spratt, Pentonville Prison, Peter Scott, Queen Elizabeth Hospital For Children, Ray Jones, Ray The Cat, Ray The Cat Jones, Raymond Jones, Scotland Yard, Slasher Davies, Sophia Loren, south Wales, SUS law, The Millionairess, The Sunday World, west London, White City, White City Stadium
Posted in True crime | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
I’ve never been into the Cocteau Twins myself… just ain’t my thing. However, I recently got into an online discussion in which I mentioned that I’d known their second and main bass player Simone Raymonde in the old days when he’d been in a band called Disruptive Patterns, and that this group had morphed into The Drowning Craze. Or rather, I mentioned that the Drowning Craze had emerged from a band whose name I couldn’t remember off the top of my head! It took some serious thinking to retrieve the name…
In the late-seventies and early-eighties I belonged to various groups that played and rehearsed in and around London and its south-west suburbs – the furthest out of London I played was in places like Guildford and Stevenage (okay Stevenage is north of London, but mainly we played south-westish), usually in pubs or sometimes clubs like The Starlight in West Hampstead (the less prestigious upstairs venue twinned with the relatively small Moonlight Club). We practiced all over the shop too, but the best place I ever rehearsed (circa 1980-81) was in an 8 track recording studio located in the basement of Theatre Projects in Neal’s Yard, Covent Garden.
Dave King, who drummed for a band I was in called Basic Essentials, worked at Theatre Projects as a recording engineer and so we were allowed to use the place at the weekends for free, not just to rehearse but also to record. It was amazing, during breaks we’d rake through old tapes and dig up demos by the likes of T. Rex and The Average White Band who’d used the Theatre Projects studio…. although during the week the bread and butter work there was recording stage effects for plays. At the start of the eighties, Covent Garden was still in the process of being transformed into the shopping mall from hell it has become today, so we’d have a laugh in the area and after rehearsals we’d usually go to a tiny caff on the north side of Leicester Square which we called The Basic Essentials Cafe (I can’t remember it’s actual name and – like Theatre Projects in Neal’s Yard – it isn’t there any more) for espresso.
Anyway, because I was playing in various small time groups, I got to know a lot of other bands, including Disruptive Patterns. I’d guess Disruptive Patterns were a going concern around 1979-80, I certainly saw them several times and one of their tunes is still lodged in my mind. It was probably called Pleasure Never Hurt Anyone, since that line was the main refrain of the chorus. Disruptive Patterns were a fairly straightforward new wave act with some backwards and forwards psychedelic nods (and more like The Psychedelic Furs than The Sex Pistols). The two members of the combo I recall being on friendly terms with were singer Andy McInnes and bass player Simon Raymonde, although I’d imagine I spoke to other members of the group as well. Both Andy and Simon struck me as nice guys, but given the way bands work it didn’t surprise me when Andy was kicked out and an American girl called Angela Jaeger was brought in to front the group, which simultaneously changed its name to The Drowning Craze (the line-up and name change may have been at the instigation of the indie label Situation 2, who the group signed a record deal with, but I’m not certain this was the case).
I went to see The Drowning Craze early on somewhere in central London (I don’t remember which venue, but some small club) and didn’t like the new singer or the new songs (the set was completely different to the one Disruptive Patterns had been performing). I lost sight of Andy McInnes pretty soon after this, but carried on running into Simon Raymonde by chance on the street or in clubs pretty much up to the time he joined The Cocteau Twins, I haven’t seen him since then. Since I didn’t like Angela Jaeger as a singer, I only ever saw The Drowning Craze once when she was in the group – but after she was replaced by Frank Nardiello, I have a very dim memory of giving them a second chance and liking what they did with him a little bit more (but whether this was a gig or a rehearsal I’d been invited to witness, I can’t recall).
There are a couple of photos of the Disruptive Patterns on Fred Pipes’s Flickr pages, and a comment in a Cocteau Twins discussion thread riffing off Fred’s photos. But it would be nice if someone could help me recall some other Disruptive Patterns tunes, the venues they played (mainly around Guildford as far as I recall – Wooden Bridge etc.), and possibly even upload any demos that might exist! Also am I right in thinking there is a link between Disruptive Patterns/Drowning Craze and a late-seventies punk band called The Rubber Flowers who were probably based in Farnham (which is further south-west than I ever ventured) and whose line-up included Alex Binnie?
It was interesting attempting to dredge this minor piece of music history from my memory, and thereby realise how much of it I must have forgotten. That said, there are a lot of tunes that probably never made it onto vinyl rattling around my head from that time. For example, I can remember two songs by a band called The Lasers, Living In A Television (‘livin’ in a television, ray tube for a home, livin’ a television on my own!’) and Show Us Your White Bits. I can’t recall where this band were from but I assume it was south-west or west London suburbs. Anyone know anything about them? I guess I’d better stop there or this is gonna get too seriously obscure!
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check - www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: 1970s, 1980s, 70s, 80s, Alex Binnie, Andy McInnes, Angela Jaeger, Average White Band, Basic Essentials, central London, Cocteau Twins, Covent Garden, Dave King, Disruptive Patterns, eighties, Farnham, Flickr, Frank Nardiello, Fred Pipes, Guildford, Leicester Square, Living In A Television, London, Neal's Yard, north London, Pleasure Never Hurt Anyone, Psychedelic Furs, Rubber Flowers, seventies, Sex Pistols, Show Us Your White Bits, Simon Raymonde, Situation 2, south-west London, Stevenage, T. Rex, The Drowning Craze, The Lasers, The Moonlight Club, The Starlight, Theatre Projects, west Hampstead, west London, Wooden Bridge
Posted in deep topology aka psychogeography, music | 25 Comments »
Saturday, November 21st, 2009
A few days ago I got an email from Michael Morgan, who’d acted as press agent for Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones (the greatest burglar ever and one of my mother’s cousins to boot): “I wonder if you could find time and get in touch with me regarding a story about ‘Ray the Cat’ in Wales on Sunday on 1st November?” I replied: “I have to go into The City on Friday, if you’re still based around Dalston maybe we could meet at the The Masque Haunt (the Wetherspoons on the corner of Old Street and Bunhill Row) at 3pm on Friday? If this isn’t good let me know another day or time that is… And if you’re not in Dalston any more let me know…” Since I’d not heard back, and I felt like heading home to The Island (Isle of Dogs E14 that is, not Long Island) when I’d finished my editorial tasks on the Semina fiction series in the Book Works office, I called Michael Morgan on his mobile. Unfortunately all I got was an answer service, so I left message saying I’d head to the Masque Haunt anyway in the hope that he was there.
I arrived bang on time and had the joy of going around all the solitary afternoon drinkers (about a dozen) asking if they were Michael Morgan. None of them were, but I got asked plenty of questions by a couple of drinkers who seemed a bit bored. Is he a relative? Why don’t you know what he looks like? Why do you want to find him? Where’s he from? Is he thin and tall? So as a psychogeographical exercise in the classic ‘letterist’ style, this non-meeting sparked off many conversations and was very revealing of the ambiance of that particular bar (progressively proletarian, during the daytime anyway, and far more so than when I used to drink there a decade ago)… but I’m still curious to know what there is to discuss about the recent Wales On Sunday article. The piece by Nathan Bevan merely repeats in Michael Morgan’s words a story I’d blogged way back in June using a rare example of Ray The Cat’s own writing.
The long and the short of it is that Ray was always insistent he became a major league burglar to avenge himself against the cops, who’d fitted him up and in the process inadvertently caused the death of his brother. It’s nice to see information about my most famous criminal relative becoming more widely known, since Wales On Sunday clearly reaches a few people who don’t regularly check this blog, but what really interests me is putting fresh information about Ray The Cat into the public domain. This was, of course, one of the things that really pleased me about my last Ray Jones blog, I was making available a story that as far as I knew was not until then a matter of public record. And it is, of course, particularly important that this tale of a fit-up becomes as well known as Ray’s legendary jewel thefts and prison escapes.
Hopefully I will manage to meet up with Michael Morgan soon, and get some new stories. But if you have any tales about Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones, please post them in the comments below or email them to me via my website contact form. Only by stories about Ray being collected and disseminated can his legend live on!
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: Book Works, Bunhill Row, central London, City of London, Dalston, east London, Isle of Dogs, letterism, lettrisme, London, Michael Morgan, Nathan Bevan, Old Street, possible appointment, psychogeography, Ray Jones, Ray The Cat, Ray The Cat Jones, Raymond Jones, Semina, The Masque Haunt, Wales On Sunday, Wetherspoons
Posted in deep topology aka psychogeography, True crime | 24 Comments »
Sunday, September 6th, 2009
Yesterday I posted an essay on the main part of this website entitled The Real Dharma Bums: on the beatnik frenzies of Julia Callan-Thompson & Bruno de Galzain. The text documents one of my mother’s relationships and the endless scamming that accompanied the hardcore drug use that was a part and parcel of said romance. Running to 10,000 words, this piece was too long to use as a blog. I prefer to place shorter and more fragmentary materials here. But as a supplement to that and other writings about my mother, I’m running below a couple of letters she wrote to my grandmother Elsie in the early 1960s.
The first letter was written from 101 Barnsbury Street, London N1. It is undated but would have been composed in either August or September 1961; most likely mid-to-late August. My Uncle Terry had recently been caught in possession of stolen goods and was banged up, while my Uncle Johnny was on the run from the army and the cops. Shortly before this, my grandfather Dai was one of several Newport dockers to lose his job after he was discovered incapacitated at work as a result of liberating and downing a large amount of booze that he’d been handling. The early 1960s were tough times for my family and my mother resolved to hide from them fact that she was pregnant (they would, of course, have been very happy to hear this had she been married). My mother was always a little cagey in her letters home, and I’ve heard enough stories about her teenage years to know that while she was only 17 years-old when she penned the first missive I reproduce here, she was already extremely streetwise and adept at pulling scams and cons.
I don’t really know what to make of the employment my mother refers to below, she was a nightclub hostess at the time she wrote the letter. Likewise, the story about going to Germany appears to be no more than a way of covering her tracks: she did not want to see family members when she was heavily pregnant with me. My view is my mother had no intention of leaving London – where I was born just before Easter 1962. That said, while disentangling truth from falsehood may be difficult here, the expressions of love towards my grandmother and our wider family are nonetheless one hundred percent genuine. So here’s the first letter:
“I’m writing because I’m wondering why you haven’t written. I sent you a card and a small something on your birthday which included my present address. Have you received this? If it has been mislaid in the post tell me in your next letter and I’ll get in touch with the post office as I’ve a receipt.
“How are things at home, did Terry get off lightly and have they caught up with Johnny yet? Hell! Here I am writing you what is supposed to be a cheerful letter and I haven’t said one cheerful thing yet.
“I’m living near to the hospital where I used to work. Its quite a nice area except when the Cypriots that live next door start arguing. Honestly I’d thought our family could argue but you should see this lot once they start going. Bank Holiday they started at about 11 am and no word of a lie mum they were still at it when I came home about midnight. The trouble is they start off with two people arguing and then their family join in then all the people that occupy the flats where they live join in, then the bloke who owns the cafe down the road joins in until you’ve got every Cypriot that lives within the radius of 4 miles joining in . It wouldn’t be so bad if you knew what they were arguing about but the trouble is that you don’t because they’re either babbling in Greek or Turkish and it does make old nosey want to know what’s going on.
“I must tell you mum I’ve actually acquired a sewing machine, a typewriter and a camera all within the last week. No I haven’t won the pools!!! The typewriter I had given me. You see mum up until this week I was working for a solicitor in Baker Street and the girl who I was supposed to be successor to was leaving to go to South Africa with her husband so naturally she wanted to get rid of all the things that she couldn’t take with her. The only problem was that I had to carry it all the way from East London. God I nearly killed myself doing it. It’s not a nice modern portable, but one of those big black heavy pre-war things and so you can imagine what a job it was lugging it all the way to the underground. When I got there the tube was full so I had to carry it. Then off the underground to get the bus then I had to walk about 200 yards from the bus stop to the house. Honestly mum I’m sure that if anything I lost about 2 stone that night and put muscles that were never there in my arms. Still I mustn’t grumble must I. At least I’ve got a typewriter for nothing. Also I bought the camera off her for only £1. Is a simply super one too.
“Now for the sewing machine. Last Sunday I was in the market. I don’t know if you know mum but the markets in London are all in the streets not closed in like the ones at home. You know you can bid a price down and I got the machine that was advertised for £6.10 for £3.10. I was so pleased with myself for getting it at £3 less that I just had to buy it.
“I’ve also paid my overdraft at the bank and got my tape machine out of the pawn shop. Honestly mum with all these things I’m beginning to feel that I ought to open up a shop.
“By the way is the radio working? I’m enclosing a spare valve because one of them is practically burnt out and it would cost you about fifteen bob to replace so as I’ve one here which I can’t use for anything else you might as well have it.
“Also mum when I collected my cases at Paddington there were only two. Did you send the other one or not? In case you haven’t I’m enclosing ten shillings which I hope will pay it, if not I’ll send on the difference You might as well have it sent straight to the house mum.
“I don’t think I’ll be home before next Easter at the earliest mum, as a German girlfriend who I have known since I’ve been in London stayed with me last week as she was going back to Cologne this week and she invited me to stay with her family for Christmas. If the finances will enable me I intend staying until almost up to Easter in which case I’ll come home straight from Germany and stay for a few weeks before I move on to somewhere else but after next Easter I don’t somehow think I’ll come back to London. I’m thinking of going to Leeds or Manchester or some other city as I’m becoming a bit fed up with London. Or maybe I’ll do a season job in Germany or someplace. I just can’t get over how much I’ve written, honestly mum, I’m bound to have paralysed my hand or something.
“I hope that you had some days out mum. I really do wish that I could share my luck with all the family. I had a really wonderful holiday in the Isle of Wight. I visited Ventnor and tried to see if I could find the hotel Johnny stayed at, but I’d forgotten the name. I hope you all received my cards and that Pat and Gerald received their rock all in one piece. Also when I was down there after about two weeks I went on to Lee-On-Solent which is just a small seaside place – but I was able to go to Southampton – which wasn’t very thrilling as I’d been there too many times before, and also you only had to take the ferry over the water and you came to Portsmouth where I’d never been before. Also, Margaret will probably know its only a 5d bus fare from Portsmouth to Southsea which is a lovely place, really mum you ought to spend a holiday there. The beaches are just as nice if not better than Brighton and the lights in the nights are really and truly beautiful from the water.
“I really must close now mum although I do miss you all. I must say thank you mum for giving me such a nice welcome at home and look forward to my next visit whenever that is. My regards and best wishes to the family. All my fondest love, Julia.”
Here’s the second letter, written by my mother on 2 March 1963 from 24 Bassett Road, London W10:
“Dear Mum
“I’m glad to hear that you’re up and about again, I was quite worried but it was good to know that the family hadn’t neglected you.
“In your letter, as in nearly all the letters you’ve written me, you have once more asked me to come back home. Well mum although I haven’t been very much use to you as a daughter, I would be of even less use to you in Newport. At least in London I’m being of some use to myself and I hope my friends.
“I was very young when I left home and most probably it caused you considerable worry, but myself I have never regretted the decision. This is no reflection on you but rather on other circumstances.
“You always seem to think that I’m unhappy. I sincerely want to stress the point mum that I am far happier here than I would be down there, it isn’t because of the higher wages that I stay here, although obviously it is much more pleasant not to have to worry about every penny. I had a very different life than I would have had had I stayed at home, and have therefore become a different type of person. I just wouldn’t fit into a Newportonian way of life any more, so please don’t fret about it.
“It’s very sweet of you to save up for my 21st. I’m not being ungrateful, but I’d much rather you had a holiday or some extra luxury with the money.
“Fondest love to dad, also my love to the rest of the family. Bye for now. Affectionately, Julia.
“PS. Look after your legs and don’t over use them, you won’t be supplied with a new pair if those should wear out.”
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: 1960s, 60s, Barnsbury Street, Bassett Road, Bruno de Galzain, central London, Cologne, David Callaghan, Elsie Callaghan, Germany, Isle of Wight, Islington, Johnny Callan, Julia Callan-Thompson, Ladbroke Grove, Lee-On-Solent, Leeds, London, Manchester, Newport, Paddington, Portsmouth, sixties, Southampton, Southsea, Stewart Home, Terry Callan, Ventnor, west London
Posted in Julia Callan-Thompson | 17 Comments »
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
Despite the recently fashionable status of the Bethnal Green area in east London, this has to date failed to lead to a revival of interest in the 1970s band who named themselves after the hood. Bethnal were formed in Bethnal Green in 1972, and sounded like a cut-price Who minus the vocal skill of Roger Daltrey and the songwriting talent of Pete Townshend. I saw Bethnal at The Marquee in Wardour Street on Thursday 24 August 1978 and had a good night out. Bethnal had plenty of energy but beyond their deployment of a violin, there was nothing very memorable about them. They simply weren’t as good as the other bands I saw at The Marquee that month: The Vibrators on Monday 14 August 1978 and Ultravox! (when John Foxx was still the vocalist) on Tuesday 22 August 1978. I caught plenty of other bands that August too, at venues all around London… Bethnal were simply another night out on the town.
At some point after that Marquee gig, I pulled Bethnal’s first album Dangerous Times out of a bargain bin. It’s bog standard seventies Brit rock. The opener Out In The Street (not the tune of the same name from the first Who album) sounds like a second-rate Pete Townshend song covered by a boogie band, but it’s still enjoyable. The best tracks are covers of We’ve Gotta Get Out Of This Place and Barba O’Reilly, but while acceptable they’re not as good as the originals… And other tracks like Who We Gonna Blame are seriously let down by the vocals. Bethnal’s second and final album Crash Landing was not at all to my taste, since it veers much more in the direction of stadium rock and prog, so even when I came across bargain bin copies of this swansong recording, I left them lying where I found them.
One reason for mentioning Bethnal is because I’ve been enjoying John Eden’s series of blogs at Uncarved about uncool gigs he attended as a teenager. The ninth and most recent in the series is about him going to see The Mission in 1987. Eden appears to have ticket stubs and other memorabilia to jog his memory, whereas I’m relying on internet research to date the gigs I went to 30 and more years ago. I’m a bit older than Eden and I seem to have been more hardcore about my gig going from an earlier age. I liked a lot of seventies new wave and punk acts and among my early live experiences can list The Stranglers, The Damned and The Clash. I hate to admit it but the first band I ever saw was The Jam, and that was sometime before they had a record contract. For me, more interesting than these ‘name’ acts are those who never made it. One of the best bands in this latter category is Burlesque, a jazz rock combo with new wave trimmings, who like Bethnal managed to release a brace of albums that have yet to be reissued on CD.
According to the Billy Jenkins Webzine Burlesque were: “Selected as the ‘Band Most Likely To Succeed’ in both the tabloid Sun and Melody Maker at the end of ’76, it took a flying visit from America by music business legend Clive Davis to sign the band to Arista Records.” I don’t like the construction of that sentence, but I presume an article hosted on a former Burlesque band member’s website will be factually accurate. All I can say is he and his band-mates in Burlesque cracked me up with songs like Steel Appeal (about being sexually turned on by people in wheelchairs). Better yet, Burlesque saxophonist Ian Trimmer wore a tatty army jacket with ‘Bird Lives’ sprayed punk-style across the back; even at the age of 15 I knew that ‘Bird’ was jazz legend Charlie Parker. Making things even more surreal, the one time I saw Burlesque Paul Weller of The Jam was in the sparse audience. That said, Weller was obviously present to check out support act The Pleasers, who were Merseybeat revivalists replete with collarless Beatles’ jackets. The Pleasers even had their own one band musical movement – Thamesbeat!
I caught Burlesque and The Pleasers at some college (can’t recall which one) at some point in 1977, and it is curious to recall some of the acts I saw in the late-seventies that no one I know talks about any more. For instance, I subjected myself to Nina Hagen at The Lyceum, but I’m not sure if this was in 1978 or a bit later. I guess people still rave about Hagen in Germany, but she hasn’t been of much interest to UK based hipsters for the past 30 years. She made her initial international impact with a German language cover of the new wavish Tubes’ song White Punks On Dope, done with re-written lyrics as TV-Glotzer. In the early/mid-eighties Hagen made tunes like New York with disco legend Giorgio Moroder acting as producer, and for me that collaboration is the most notable thing about her.
I don’t like Hagen’s voice, so I’ve no idea why I went to see her circa 1978 – I can only assume there was some other act on the bill that I wanted to catch. I can’t remember where I saw Hagen’s one-time boyfriend, the Dutch rocker Herman Brood, but it may have been on a multi-act bill with his consort of that era. Brood is Holland’s most famous rock ‘n’ roll junkie, but I haven’t heard mention of him in London for years, despite his 2001 jump from the roof of the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel leading to saturation media coverage of his suicide and subsequent funeral in The Netherlands.
Back in the late-seventies I used to see a lot of bands and my tastes were very varied. I would catch Sham 69 one night and Wire the next; groove to The Vapors on Saturday then freak-out with Gloria Mundi or The Virgin Prunes on Sunday… I even saw Motorhead, but I much preferred The Pirates! Having started out as Johnny Kidd’s backing band, The Pirates had been around since the late-fifties. On record they weren’t bad, although I didn’t really bother with their vinyl, I just liked them live… and in 1978 you’d have been just as likely to find me at a Pirates or Wilko Johnson gig as at a punky-reggae party. I was also going to see British reggae bands like Steel Pulse, Aswad, Misty In Roots and Matumbi. Since I much preferred small clubs to concert halls, I didn’t bother with visiting Jamaican acts although I liked their sounds. The Lyceum Ballroom in The Strand was the biggest place I went to with any regularity. I only ever went to The Hammersmith Odeon once, to see Lou Reed in 1979, and I considered the experience shitty.
Out of the stew of music I caught live 30 and more years ago, it is curious to see what’s disappeared. Amazingly, bands like The Pleasers made it onto CD in the late-nineties, whereas as far as I know the output of Burlesque and Bethnal has never been reissued on that format…
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: 1977, 1978, Amsterdam Hilton Hotel, Arista Records, Aswad, Barba O'Reilly, Bethnal, Bethnal Green, Billy Jenkins, Bird, burlesque, central London, Charlie Parker, Clive Davis, Crash Landing, east London, Giorgio Moroder, Gloria Mundi, Hammersmith Odeon, Herman Brood, Ian Trimmer, John Eden, Johnny Kidd, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, Lou Reed, Lyceum Ballroom, Matumbi, Melody Maker, Misty In Roots, Motorhead, New York, Nina Hagen, Paul Weller, Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, Sham 69, Soho, Steel Appeal, Steel Pulse, The Beatles, The Jam, The Marquee, The Mission, The Pirates, The Pleasers, The Strand, The Sun, The Vapors, The Vibrators, The Virgin Prunes, The Who, Ultravox!, Uncarved, Wardour Street, We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place, Who We Gonna Blame, Wilko Johnson, Wire
Posted in music | 53 Comments »
Sunday, July 26th, 2009
5 years ago Kiko Amat wrote a big feature on me for La Vanguardia, Spain’s biggest selling paper. A couple of days ago he emailed me 38 questions saying: “…we’ve started a new series of Q&A to people we like or we feel inspired by. It’s a very simple Q&A, very Guardian Weekend like, but we find it very telling. And amusing too.” Since my answers will be published in translation, I thought I’d share them with English speaking readers here.
Q. When were you happiest?
A. This morning.
Q. What is your greatest fear?
A. The US hardcore punk band Fear – I’m not a huge hardcore fan but I do like Fear’s I Don’t Care About You and I Love Living In The City. The only thing to fear is fear itself.
Q. What is your earliest memory?
A. Being on a ferry boat going to The Isle of Wight in 1964 when I was 2 years old. It was raining and there was a striped awning over the passenger deck. This may not be my earliest memory, I have a lot of memories of central London from the same period, but this stands out because I often went on the tube into central London as a small child, but going on a boat was more unusual.
Q. Which living person do you most admire and why?
A. Myself. Everyone should admire themselves most…
Q. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
A. My modesty.
Q. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
A. No sense of humour.
Q. Where would you like to live?
A. London in the 1960s.
Q. In what historical time would you have liked to have lived?
A. 1960s/70s London but as an adult so I could have seen bands like The Who and The Creation at small clubs in the mid-1960s.
Q. What would your superpower be?
A. Bullshitting but since I already got that one, maybe I could get to sing as good as Aretha Franklin too!
Q. What makes you depressed?
A. Ignorance and stupidity.
Q. Ever been in a fight?
A. Lots of them when I was teenage. But the best fighters don’t need to fight, as Bruce Lee demonstrates early on in Enter The Dragon; I’m a real fan of the art of fighting without fighting.
Q. Would you kill?
A. I’d prefer not to kill, but there are circumstance in which it could be unavoidable. I’m vegetarian but not a pacifist.
Q. Who would play you in the biopic of your life?
A. Pamela Anderson.
Q. Make a list of 4 or 5 favorite books.
A. Tainted Love, 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess, Slow Death and Blood Rites of the Bourgeoisie (published next year); all by me, of course!
Q. Make a list of 4 or 5 favorite records.
A. The Electrifying Eddie Harris; Link Wray, Walking With Link; Lee Perry, Scratch The Upsetters Again; Willie Mitchell, Ooh Baby, You Turn Me On; The Real Kids, The Real Kids. All albums.
Q. Vinyl, CD or MP3?
A. Vinyl for dub reggae and heavy dance grooves that depend on the bass, CDs for pop & rock & Motown, MP3 for convenience (but non-proprietorial OGG format is better than MP3, if only everyone would use it).
Q. Make a list of 4 or 5 favorite films.
A. At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (Coffin Joe), Last Year At Marienbad (Alain Resnais), Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion: Beast Stable (Shunya Ito), Persona (Ingmar Bergman), Succubus (Jess Franco).
Q. What is your favorite smell?
A. Coffee.
Q. What is your favorite food?
A. Curry.
Q. What is your favorite drink?
A. Coffee, espresso naturally.
Q. Where do you stand politically?
A. Left.
Q. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
A. My nose (could be smaller – scaled to the same level as my ego would be great – but I guess it ain’t all bad, coz you know what they say about men with big noses and big feet….).
Q. What is your guiltiest pleasure?
A. Seeing my name in print.
Q. What do you owe your parents?
A. I got my good looks and sharp mind from my mother…
Q. Who would you invite to your dream party?
Pamela Anderson, Naomi Campbell, Carmen Electra, Angela Mao, Jennifer Lopez, Meiko Kaji… and Soledad Miranda if she could be brought back to life looking as beautiful as she did on 17 August 1970.
Q. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
A. A groove sensation…
Q. If you could edit your past, what would you change?
A. A few bad decisions about which bands to go and see when I was still at school in 1976/1977 and didn’t have enough money to get in to all the gigs I wanted. Around May 1977 I should have gone to see The Ramones rather than The Stranglers…. But I saw both bands other times. Also I’d change getting turned away from gigs in 1976/1977 for being under 18 and would have seen the shows I missed, which included one by The Stranglers in January 1977. Being pissed off over getting turned away from that Stranglers show was what made me decide to go and see them and not The Ramones in May 1977.
Q. When did you last cry, and why?
A. When I got these questions coz it made me so happy knowing I’d see my name in print again in Catalonia!
Q. How do you relax?
A. With coffee or a work out!
Q. What is the closest you’ve come to death?
A. I had a near death experience in the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood in the winter of 1984. I went in there to rest from the cold coz I didn’t have a regular place to live and was staying with different friends. It felt like I was propelled out of my body on this silver chord into a lot of golden light. I thought I was dying and it was a very happy experience. But then a museum guard shook me and asked if I was alright. It took a while to ground myself after that.
Q. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Leaving the Bethnal Green Musuem of Childhood alive, despite croaking seeming like such a great option when I had that near death experience there in 1984.
Q. What keeps you awake at night?
A. Coffee.
Q. What song or songs would you like played at your funeral?
A. Burn, Baby, Burn by Mel Williams and Disco Inferno by The Trammps.
Q. Where would you most like to be right now?
A. Riba-roja d’Ebre.
Q. What is your most treasured possession?
A. My mother’s fashion model portfolio photographs and press clippings.
Q. How would you describe yourself?
A. A groove sensation!
Q. How would you like to be remembered?
A. As the first man to commit adultery on Mars (but I’d have to get married to do that and marriage ain’t really my thing).
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org - you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess, Alain Resnais, Angela Mao, Aretha Franklin, At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, Barcelona, Bethnal Green, Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood, Blood Rites of the Bourgeoisie, Bruce Lee, Burn Baby Burn, Carmen Electra, Catalonia, central London, Coffin Joe, Disco Inferno, Eddie Harris, Enter The Dragon, Fear, Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion: Beast Stable, Guardian, I Don't Care About You, I Love Living In The City, Ingmar Bergman, Isle of Wight, Jennifer Lopez, Jess Franco, Kiko Amat, La Vanguardia, Last Year At Marienbad, Lee Perry, Link Wray, London, Meiko Kaji, Mel Williams, Motown, Naomi Campbell, Ooh Baby You Turn Me On, Pamela Anderson, Persona, Ramones, Riba-roja d'Ebre, Scratch The Upsetters Again, Shunya Ito, Slow Death, Soledad Miranda, Spain, Stewart Home, Succubus, Tainted Love, The Creation, The Electrifying Eddie Harris, The Real Kids, The Stranglers, The Trammps, The Who, Walking With Link, Willie Mitchell
Posted in culture gossip & parties, humour | 17 Comments »
Friday, July 24th, 2009
I knew 1979 was gonna be a bad year before it even started, although I didn’t see Thatcher’s election as a certainty until it happened. Much of my take on the world back then was filtered through the music I loved. On 29 December 1978 I headed up to Camden to catch a multi-band new wave gig at The Electric Ballroom headlined by The Brian James All Stars. This was the band that eventually became The Brains. Their performance that night was so-so and for me it didn’t compare with the excitement of seeing The Damned live when James was their guitarist (or even when they reformed without him).
I don’t remember who was bottom of the bill on 29 December 1978 at the Electric Ballroom. I hope it wasn’t 4th Reich, who used to do a lot of central London support slots at that time; they were one of the worst named punk bands of that era. As far as I could tell this group weren’t political, they had a female singer and their most memorable song was a cover of the early sixties hit Bobby’s Girl. But the name 4th Reich was so stupid that I never paid them much attention, although I saw them at least half-a-dozen times as support to other bands. Billed immediately beneath Brian James was Squeeze. I was more interested in Squeeze then than I would be now, since I’d rather liked their Packet of Three EP (more to do with John Cale’s production than the band’s live sound); their subsequent chart hits failed to groove me. Anyway, at some point it was announced that the Squeeze van had broken down with them and their equipment in it, and since they couldn’t make the gig, the The Police would play instead.
I knew before I heard them that any band calling themselves The Police had to be terrible. The filth were scum and no one in their right mind would name their group after the old bill. Brian James hadn’t pulled much of a crowd, and there were only about 50 punks in the Electric Ballroom, which I guess had a capacity of something between one and two thousand. When The Police took to the stage everyone in the venue walked away from it and headed for the bar at the back of the room. Pretty much the entire audience had their backs turned on Sting and company for their entire set. Unfortunately this was the most memorable thing about the night… Not a good gig.
I don’t remember what I did that New Year, my recollection of the following one is much better since I was back at the Electric Ballroom to see in 1980 with a double-bill of The Lurkers and Adam & The Ants. Musically this was a much better night than Brian James and The Police a year and two days earlier. That said, while the Ants were playing a girl who was standing close to me tried to pull Adam off-stage, and rather than taking it out on her, the bouncers beat me up. Then, because I looked a mess with my bloodied face, I got pulled by the filth on my way home. I’d picked up one of the free clear vinyl flexi-singles The Lurkers used to give away at their gigs, and the old bill held me for ages while they tried to work out what this was. I told them it was a record but they didn’t believe me; apparently they’d never seen a flexi-disk before. Eventually, after a radio conversation with their controllers and a close inspection of the grooves, they concluded my Lurkers freebie was indeed a record and not some drug paraphernalia, so plod let me go with a warning that if I was caught fighting again, I’d be nicked. I headed off with their verdict on my flexi-single still ringing in my ears: “Very clever!” Little things impress little minds.
Three days later I made my way to Wardour Street in Soho to catch Eater who’d been advertised as playing at The Marquee. This schoolboy punk band were best known for bitching that The Sex Pistols were too old, and I really dug their super-dumb sleaze-bag thud. Unfortunately, being almost as young as me (I was sixteen at the time), they tended to bicker a lot. When I arrived at 90 Wardour Street (now a swanky Terence Conran restaurant, but back then a rock and roll toilet) on 3 January 1979, there was a sign saying Eater had split up and Marseille would play instead. I’d heard the Marseille song Do It The French Way and seen pictures of this Liverpool based group, so I knew they weren’t for me. Back then people didn’t use the phrase New Wave of British Heavy Metal, but that’s what Marseille were subsequently tagged.
I was on my own and since Eater weren’t playing, I decided I’d only go inside if some of my mates were around. I couldn’t see anyone I knew but got talking to punkette in the queue and since she was going in, I decided to hang with her. I warned her that Marseille played heavy metal and we should go somewhere elsewhere. I wasn’t interested in Marseille but I was taken with the girl, so I parted with 50p to get in. Afterwards we both agreed that Marseille sucked and I walked the punkette down to Charing Cross station, where she caught a train to south east London. Unfortunately she didn’t invite me to go home with her but I did get her phone number. When I got around to calling the punkette a week later, she wouldn’t meet me coz I’d taken so long to bell her. I was playing cool, not hard to get.
So 1979 started badly and ended badly too with a beating at the Electric Ballroom. There were some good gigs in-between, with The Specials just before they broke being particularly memorable. First time I caught them was bottom of the bill to the reformed Damned (without Brian James) and The UK Subs (I think), at The Lyceum Ballroom in The Strand. The Specials were even better when I saw them headlining at The Nashville in South Kensington – unfortunately they had the same support band both times, Madness, who were fucking awful. The best gig I saw at The Marquee that year was Slaughter and the Dogs on Monday 3 September. The most impressive act at The Lyceum in 1979 is hard to pin down, Pure Hell from Philadelphia were memorable – but I’m unsure whether I saw them there in 1979 or the year before. Ditto Destroy All Monsters, who I saw at The Lyceum, but this might have been in 1980 rather than 1979. Both Pure Hell and Destroy All Monsters were right up there with some of the class US acts I’d seen in 1977, such as The Dictators and The Dead Boys. But even The Fall, who I’d hated when I’d seen them at The Marquee the year before, were excellent supporting Stiff Little Fingers at The Lyceum in 1979. The audience loathed them and Mark E. Smith did a perfect job of winding up the massed ranks of punk zealots. Smith is very entertaining when he has an audience that really hates him, but under all other circumstances I find him a bore.
I was also going to see a lot of the mod revival bands in 1979: Purple Hearts, The Mods, The Chords, Secret Affair, Back To Zero etc. But rather than the big events like Mod’s Mayday at the Music Machine, the best gigs were smaller ones at places like The Notre Dame Hall off Leicester Square and at The Global Village under the Charing Cross arches (then a straight disco, but later the gay nightclub Heaven). I liked catching bands from around London who you could see play every few weeks, and if they had a pop sensibility that made them even better. I saw both The Vapors and The Members repeatedly in 1979, as well as some of the more dire-hard acts like Chelsea and even Raped; the latter more after their name change to Cuddly Toys. So there was some good music, some bad music, but the winter of discontent was the real groove sensation – even if it was followed by the affront of Thatcherism. And since the current economic crisis is reopening the revolutionary possibilities that the ruling class wants us to believe were closed down back then, the seventies are on my mind a lot right now….
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: 1979, 4th Reich, Adam and the Ants, Adam Ant, Back To Zero, Bobby's Girl, Brain James All Stars, Brian James and the Brains, Camden, central London, Charing Cross, Chelase, Cuddly Toys, Damned, Dead Boys, Destroy All Monsters, Do It The French Way, Eater, Electric Ballroom, Global Village, John Cale, London, Lyceum Ballroom, Madness, Margaret Thatcher, Mark E. Smith, Marseille, Music Machine, Notre Dame Hall, Packet of Three, Pure Hell, purple hearts, Raped, Secret Affair, Sex Pistols, Slaughter and the Dogs, Soho, South Kensington, Squeeze, Stiff Little Fingers, Sting, Terence Conran, The Chords, The Dictators, The Fall, The Lurkers, The Marquee, The Members, The Mods, The Nashville, The Police, The Specials, The Strand, The Vapors, UK Subs, Wardour Street, west London
Posted in music | 37 Comments »
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
The Serpentine Gallery is a curious institution. On the one hand it is stuck in the middle of Hyde Park and gets treated by the weekend hordes as a glorified toilet; while on the other, current co-director Hans Ulrich Obrist is preparing some heavy-weight exhibitions, most notably a Gustav Metzger retrospective that will kick ass from the end of September. But last night it was the opening of the summer show, a silly season special called Popeye Series by Jeff Koons.
Popeye Series doesn’t interest me. Koons makes exactly the sort of art you’d expect from a former Wall Street commodity broker, the visual equivalent of junk bonds, over-priced trash. Just a tad more entertaining from the perspective of morbid curiosity are the idle rich who flock to be seen at the shows Serpentine director Julia Peyton-Jones puts on for their benefit. These are the people who bankroll the Serpentine as an institution, and exhibitions by the likes of Koons are payback for their support.
The first thing I noticed when I arrived at the Serpentine was an enormous queue to get in; waiting in line is fine for those who have just spent the afternoon in Harrods buying fake wings for their lap-dogs, but personally I’ve got better things to do with my time. I quickly figured out there was a scam way to beat the queue via a back entrance. When I got into the party area what immediately caught my attention was a very tall and thin woman wearing a pink diaphanous summer dress and no knickers. Given her size zero figure, this off-the-peg garment was a poor fit but it did make her stand out among the identikit millionairesses.
Inside the gallery there were a lot of people getting very excited by the fact that photographers and a diarist from Art Forum were present. The Eurotrash polluting the place were clearly craving attention of a type they’d be more likely to get at a night club, so it beats me why they bother with events like the Serpentine summer show and the Venice Biennial. I saw a good number of people I know and exchanged greetings with Serpentine staff Sally Tallant and Nicola Lees, writer Paul Buck and assorted artists including Clunie Reid, Cedar Lewisohn and Jonathan Allen. Nonetheless, we were completely outnumbered by girls in very high heels with plumbs falling out of their mouths. Said girls were asking inane questions like: “what is Koons trying to say?” Others didn’t know who he was, and I even heard one woman tell another that: “Poons is wonderful”.
On the whole the culture industry types present and the Eurotrash didn’t mix. The most visible exception to this caused a great deal of puzzlement. Some middle-aged artists asked me if I could tell them the name of the man who had more press photographers interested in him than anyone else. I revealed that the geezer in the red jacket and black jeans was Duggie Fields. My acquaintances thought the name rang a bell but couldn’t place it, so I gave them a quick run down of eighties phenomena like ZG Magazine. My guess was that the photographers were more interested in the Eurotrash ‘babes’ Fields was greeting than the artist himself.
As I left an identikit millionairess was using her mobile to tell her daddy how excited she was by the Jeff Koons exhibition: “I’ll have to ask Andrew what it means, he’ll know!” This particular woman had transformed intellectual vacuity into a fine art. I trust that ‘Andrew’ was able to tell her that art no longer has anything to say, if it ever did, and Jeff Koons is the best proof yet that bourgeois culture is utterly bankrupt. That said, there were hundreds of super-rich people present with blank expressions on their faces. They all looked like they needed a harsh does of reality to jolt them out of their self-satisfied stupor, but they’re not going to get that from a Koons exhibition. All I can say is roll on Gustav Metzger!
And while you’re at it, don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: Cedar Lewisohn, central London, Clunie Reid, Duggie Fields, Eurotrash, Gustav Metzger, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Harrods, Hyde Park, Jeff Koons, Jonathan Allen, Julia Peyton-Jones, Kensington Gardens, London, Nicola Lees, Paul Buck, Popeye Series, Sally Tallant, Serpentine Gallery, Venice Biennial, ZG Magazine
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