A last look around the market.

I love Camden - the very cobblestones of Camden Lock;

 

Polished smooth; first by horses hooves and steel shod cartwheels. Now by an army of tourists. And us.

 

There's a lot more designer gear now and the second hand stuff is a lot more classy than it used to be. But you can still pick up a record player;

 

 

 



I have to confess I was drawn to 'Modfather', a MOD clothes shop at the bottom of the stables. All the gear you could want and more besides.

The scooter is definitely a bit over the top for me but I did clock the cool geezer in the doorway.

This is definitely much more 'me' - understated with a very cool flame artwork.

As you can see, it's become a meeting place for men of a certain age - reliving their youth in the 1970's like me. This is mainly The Walthamstow Scooter Club, out for the day just like we were.

There's everything in Camden - here you can buy every possible item for (ouch!) body piecing;

It always seems to me that every time I come, all the stalls are different - there is a big turnover. However 'Cyberdog' has been a long term fixture - it's got loud music, dramatic lighting and some very interesting sales staff. This is the shop for clubbers and ravers - it's all fluorescent or LED stuff. So you can buy clothes that light up or belts that flash. you can glow, if that's your thing.

And then, when I was starting to collapse....it was time to go back to the real world.

 

 

 

And we promised each other we'd make it back, somehow.

 

Neil Harris

(a don't stop trill you drop production)

 

Home:  helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

 

Contact me; neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

 

 

The Highs at The Cedar tree, Bagshot.

Friday night at the Cedar Tree, time for action, time for the Mods.

Time for;

 

The

H I g h s

 

I haven’t seen the band for ages; they’ve had a tremendous year appearing at various scooter rallies and for the spring bank holidays they were on Brighton pier celebrating 50 years of the Mods.

I couldn’t make it but we made it tonight for a packed Cedar Tree in Bagshot of all places.

For an evening of Motown, Stax, Northern Soul and R ‘n B from the 1960’s with a little bit of The Jam and Paul Weller thrown in too.

 

Thanks again guys.
And then while we were outside in the interval, we watched an amazing (Ooh! Aagh!) fireworks display in the distance while we stood on the central reservation of a dual carriageway to get a better view.

Nice night.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

 

The High-s lighting up Bracknell.

The Highs!m

This is Bracknell;

 

 

 

At the Travelodge hotel the guests were standing around on the pavement outside drinking lager.

There are endless Dual carriageways, office blocks and windswept underpasses - ‘A town called Malice’.

– but not on Saturday night it wasn’t.

Because Saturday night  was when the mods came out to play at The Royal Oak.

 

The High-s were in town to play their usual mix of 1960’s Rythm and Blues, classic Jam and Paul Weller.

This is the opening of ‘See me, feel me’ by The Who.

 

The High-s are just back from their two bank holiday appearances on Brighton Pier marking the 50^th anniversary of mod culture hitting the scene.

    o     
There was dancing past midnight – see what I mean?;

I’m a bit past that and far too cool to get remotely excited about being given one of these;

 

                              Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

If you haven’t yet taken a journey into the land of a thousand dances – then you need to check out The High-s……

Click on a picture for a slideshow - Blogger is getting meaner and meaner in giving out bandwidth for pictures.

 

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

The

BeaTles    say;

HelpmesorTouTsTpeTers.blogspoT.com

Home:     helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

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Sunday Morning and Saturday Night.

F modnight

Sunday morning and Saturday night.

Spending the Sunday morning before Christmas at Tesco’s  just didn’t match the Saturday night before.

The night before? That was spent in the countryside, dark and deep – just outside the boundary of Windsor Great Park – the queen’s garden.

 

    l

If you know me you know that’s not where you are usually going to find me – unless it’s

F modnight

It was; 'The High-s' were playing at The Sun, Wick lane, Englefield Green and I was looking for a fix of 6T’s music mixed with The Jam and the world of Soul.

 

Up till now you’ve had a serious reviews about this band, (set lists, the lot) but not today – blame the Doctor, because this time dancing was allowed.

 

I wasn’t alone – this was now a pub full of skinheads as well as this proud MOD.  I think they'll get over the shock, not least because if I’m well enough and a number of other things work out, I’ll be spending New Years Eve with most of them and with The SkaSouls. You never know, perhaps I can help them out with a few style tips!

They didn't need much help with the dancing - this was hardline MOD music, hard and fast with no compromises. That’s why I keep coming back for more and so do the skins.

 

I also won a prize in the Raffle; a number of CD’s including ‘While My (acoustic) guitar gently weeps’ by the lead guitarist Andrew Deevey. That's him on acoustic and I’ll do a proper review of that in a day or so.

Clearly the landlord has a thing about The Modern World and more than a passing brush with the world of Northern Soul, but it always puzzles me how the locals, who are from a very different world indeed, cope with this culture shock every month. It's The Kinks meet ‘David Watts’.

Did I mention what a good night it was?

 

aaaa

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Lord John and SK7.

Friday night and I was making a journey out into the middle of nowhere (Bagshot – honestly) to see a local Mod band I’ve been meaning to catch for some time;

  LORDlJOHN

who were playing at The Three Mariners on Bagshot High Street.  I’ve been missing them forever and I wasn’t going to this time.

 

But first a word from our sponsors;

 (Sk7-unisex_HairSalon)

Who were kind enough to put up the money for the gig - catch them at 7 High Street, Bagshot or on

www.facebook.com/sk7bagshot

Me, I can’t cope with facebook and don't use it – the page for this campaign is dead because I can’t get used to the format and I don’t even like my own page. It's an age thing.

But SK7 were celebrating reaching 3000 likes which is a real achievement and as a treat they put on this show just for us.

They are also on;

www.sk7hairsalon.co.uk and seem very reasonably priced although after they took one look at my hair they moved on fairly quickly.

Certainly there were some very glamorous ladies out to celebrate:

 

And if anyone tries to blackmail me with any of their photos I will deny everything. I rarely go out and how do you know I don’t have a twin brother anyway?

I also think there is a Tattoo joint connected with SK7, certainly there were some impressive ‘Tats’ on display. For a moment I was daydreaming about having the ‘Trojan Records’ logo done on my chest……...no I think I may have left that a bit late.

 

Lord John are Paul on lead Vocals (off with a bad throat), Darren vocals, Martin lead Guitar, Steve on Bass and Jeff on drums. The name comes from the famous clothes shop which used to be on Carnaby Street and which provided the wardrobe for the 1960’s.

Their music ranged from the classic mod bands of the 60’s, through to The Jam and even a bit of 90’s Britpop and some classic soul along the way. Do you see why I drove all that way out into the middle of the country just to see them?

The pub had a clock that went backwards above the bar – it didn’t work for me. The time flew.

There was a hard and heavy R ‘n B beat running through the evening which really worked and came up from the drums and bass. It spiced up ‘Parklife’ for me – I always liked it anyway.

When I got home I caught a late night compilation of BBC clips from the 1960’s and Lord John had captured the urgency of the live performances of bands like the Small Faces and The Kinks, which is usually missing on their records.

The Jam they can’t do and that’s no criticism at all; I enjoyed ‘Start’, ‘A Town Called Malice’ and especially ‘The Butterfly Collector’- the ‘B’ side to ‘Strange Town’. It’s just that The Jam were Punks as well as Mods and that gave it an anger and an energy you can’t come up with today. I know, I was there and it won’t come back.

I do like ‘The Butterfly Collector’ and they did it well. I may get a chance to hear it again tomorrow if I’m very lucky. Written about Soo Catwoman, it was an attack on the Art-school punks of 76/77 and was a cry from the suburbs as well as the first sign that Weller was moving towards ‘The Style Council’ in sound and ideas.

I really liked Booker T’s ‘Green Onions’ – which I heard a month ago on a real Hammond organ thanks to  ‘The James Taylor Quartet’. Last night it was all lead guitar which gave the old tune a harder edge, a tougher feel.

 

Boom Boom’ was great as was ‘High heeled Sneakers’.

"Put on your red dress baby and your high heeled sneakers too"…….now what does that remind me of?

 

Martha and the Vandelas ‘Heatwave’ and the original version of ‘Tainted love’ were the Soul element. They ended with a Who medley which included ‘Won’t get Fooled again’ which was also one of the BBC clips. You know, I actually preferred it harder and faster!

You know, maybe I could still get that tattoo……..No I mustn’t.

That was a good night.  The band is on lemonrock and the dreaded facebook - you have no excuses now.

 

A

HELPMESORTOUTSTPETERS.BLOGSPOT.COM

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home:    helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

This is the Modern World.

This is the modern world

I was thinking how could I explain what being a mod was about and how it was that the most internationalist and progressive youth movement of them all came out of the racial segregation of 1950’s America?

    r

 

 

Why do mods drive scooters, wear fishtail parkas and Italian suits?

Or Ben Sherman shirts with Levi’s 501’s and Italian shoes?

Or Wayfarer shades, straight ties and black jackets.

     v

It all started in the late 1950’s, when you either liked Rock n’ Roll or Jazz. It was a real problem if you liked Modern Jazz, because the British and American Musicians Union’s had a longstanding dispute and there was a mutual ban on musicians crossing the Atlantic to tour.

Of course, all the biggest stars in Modern Jazz were American. So no Jazz, man. London sucked – until Ronnie Scott set up shop and the unions did a deal.

For late 50’s/early 1960’s kids there was only one solution. Racial segregation in America meant that many black jazz musicians touring Europe found the European attitude to race so agreeable that they stayed on. The most agreeable place to stay was Paris.

As a result from the late 40’s onwards you could hear fantastic Bebop in Paris and nowhere else this side of 52^nd street. It was like the pied piper of Hamlyn – youngsters from all over Europe were drawn to the clubs of the Pigalle for the weekend.

From Germany they came wearing fishtail parka anoraks – they’d been conscripts doing national service and either kept them or bought them from army surplus shops.

From Milan, Turin and Rome came smart and stylish young Italians in good shoes and well cut mohair suits – the cappuccino kids. After all that they didn’t have any money left so they drove their everyday little Vespa’s and Lambretta’s over the Alps to get there. Not an easy journey and a cold one too, so the Tifosi also bought up those surplus German parkas for the cold alpine passes.

nnnnnn

From London, stylish youngsters from the world of advertising, fashion and the arts headed over the channel with cool haircuts, Rhythm and Blues and a load of attitude to spare. They also brought Ben Sherman and Fred Perry along for the ride.

And Paris?

h You didn’t have to look too far to find existentialism, wayfarer shades and the black, black clothes of the pavement cafés of St. Germaine and the left bank.

Sartre, Simone De Beauvoir, ennui, gauloise and the cool new wave movies. In black and white, naturally.

They took it all back home to London and mixed it up with a dose of sweet soul music which had just arrived from the States.

That’s how the mods came about.

Think of The Beatles arriving in Hamburg and the incredible effect Klaus Voorman and Astrid Kircherr had on them – and the Beatles weren’t even mods.

Next time I’ve got to try to explain how Northern Soul came about and what on earth it is.

     v

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home:  helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

Contact: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com