You can change things when you sing

Pete Seeger has died.

You have to have some feeling of loss – another one being shuffled off this mortal coil.  I’m currently living in very difficult times. In times when class action is no reaction to the plights and slights we’re struggling with.  I was listening to report on the radio (on the radio) about The Queen not being able to repair all her houses and that. And it was suggested that the review could have suggested a reduction in the number castles and palaces that she owns. But the interviewee – some Dame or other -  nearly choked at the suggestion – and it was only a question – that that sort of thing had never crossed the review team’s mind.

Typical really. I’m living in Boris’ London and Cameron’s Britain. Both of those are fucked.  But these conditions are unlikely to produce a Pete.  That man’s from another century.  I can’t see anyone making that sort of fuss these days – well not with an acoustic guitar or a banjo.

But Pete had a point.

If he’d had a hammer and not a guitar who knows what wreckage would have commenced – but his guitar did a fair amount of damage. As you know I’ve never trusted a hippy and folk music don’t always get me – but as I get older my tastes there are a changin’.  Yet there’s something in recognising what Pete Seeger stood for.  It’s about struggle in our times. 

So this got me thinking about the ‘protest song’ (you can sing along if you like). If you stop and think about it – there’s been a whole heap of protest in our lives and lots of times we could sing about it. My earliest memory of protest numbers is most likely Dylan being played somewhere and at some time on the radio. But I guess that wasn’t my protest – I was just a child – not yet my own maaaan. So to pinpoint the protest is much harder – I mean what was I rebelling against as a misguided youth – well what you got? But surely over the course of those teenage years – those formative times – with teachers and mates – parents and jobs – I amassed a whole compilation tapes worth. Not that I made a tape though.

So what to focus on? The Crass seven-inch of ‘Big A Little A’ lent by a friend across the road and played on heavy rotation on the Kingston Road soundsystem. You know the system might have got you – but it won’t get me. Or The Pistols – God Save the Queen – anger as energy writ large with guitar riffs. Through the ghost town of The Specials and all incarnations to free Mandela – to tell you the truth I always liked the anti Sun City track by Steve Van Zandt. I used to rail against all those eighties arses who jetted of to eat granny smith apples in the sun – Queen anyone? Didn’t they do Live Aid though? Aren’t they worthy – not in my house and hopefully not in yours.

Then there was the dreadlock rasta of Marley and associated reggae injustice. All around was war as we made our way through the eighties of Reaganomics and Thatcher’s tub thumping – and what has war ever been good for? So Buffalo Springfield crept in with helicopter montages and napalm bombs – for what it was worth. Brother, brother there’s far too many of you dying Gaye told us as we learnt about that commie threat from the east – in history books and war films. It seems like that decade was one long awakening to horrors of humans and their political will. I’m not forgetting Nena – I’m just ignoring it.

And hip hop reminded us of the police and their unjust ways when you rocked a look that incorporated a gold chain and a kangol hat.  That’s not forgetting Public Enemy and I attempting to fight the power – because – you know most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamp – me and Chuck D have a lot in common.  Whilst closer to home LKJ skanked through the streets where the skinhead mentality still lingered and any dissent manifested itself in police brutality and prejudice.  Then lectures at Goldsmiths’ with Paul Robeson as the soundtrack to discontent.

But to get right back to Pete – to find that line of humility and anger – softly spoken words with bite and resistance – then Curtis Mayfield is my protest singer. There’s something in that falsetto matched with the incessant groove of positive vibes. Positive change – you know positive energy activates constant elevation. I’ll write about Curtis properly someday – but today I’m focussing on that message encapsulated in this neo-gospel grower. You can dance and change things – brother. You can change things by just moving your feet – people need to get ready for that.

Now I know our politics differ from the US – we’re built on different struggles. I always felt the left in America represented our liberal party – but Pete was a red. Enough said. And Pete’s dead. 

The class struggle will grind on and on.

We shall overcome. 

The ever popular Denim

Not many people write about Denim as they do about Felt. These are bands by the way – not fabrics. I haven’t changed the nature of the writing. It’s still about music. Lawrence – as it simply is - gets all fawned over for the Felt beauty whilst the throbbing and bubbling glam stomping pure rock n roll of Denim is seen as an aberration – a record that poured scorn on the sensitivity and style of Felt. Saying that it’s not as if Felt get written about a lot. Although recent ‘media’ interest in a film with Lawrence (of Belgravia) made a few headlines in the back pages of music magazines. This is of course not true because music magazines don’t put those sort of things in the back of the papers. And if I’m honest I don’t read music magazines – or as they were called in my day – the music press – the papers as avidly anymore. So I may have missed a six page feature on the Rise and Fall of Lawrence. I somehow feel that I haven’t – but you never can tell.

Paul and me used to buy the music papers – you know - read it in the press.

There was a lot of them back when we wore donkey jackets to protect us from the cold on our walk into town. Broke and on the dole. Just hanging around. Uptown. We would buy nearly all the music papers every week – there was writing in there. Lots of words about records and that - it was relevant and irreverent.

We would only buy Sounds if we had too. It was a bit metal in the eighties. We weren’t metal. But each to his own. Paul did once own an Iron Maiden picture disc and I bought Gillian’s New Orleans on 7 inch in Boots. In the precinct – just down from WH Smiths – I think you can say that made us ‘metal’ for a week or so. But I never could take to the clothes. You need creases in your trousers – give it an iron and that – and the denim is so faded – I like mine dark.

I couldn’t get enough of Denim when I first heard them. The excitement had been building for months in our Scunthorpe bedroom - as Paul (my brother) and I read of Lawrence’s plans to form this group, this rocking behemoth of a band. Two drummers. Synthesizers and guitars and Lawrence’s studied coolness. Denim were so much more Britpop than any of that unnecessary nonsense that came out in the nineties. They were British and they made pop music. Not eccentric or located in the past. Pop music for the day which referenced their youth. Arppeggiated synthesizers and theme tune melodies wrapped in a disdain for the eighties – beautiful really. And again if I’m being honest - sounding so much better than Felt.

I had a wonderful friend at university – who loved Felt. You know - felt Felt – if you get me. I admired his patience – his integrity. You either get it or you don’t. He formed a wonderful band – part in his head – part in real life – Bellevue – they would have been brilliant. They had a master plan – like Felt did.

Except theirs and Felt’s never came off.

Saying that I wanted Denim to be huge – but it wasn’t to be.

If I remember rightly – and I seldom do. So I’m told. We ventured to town – along Ashby Road – past The Beefeater and over Howden’s Hill to Record Village. The home of ‘smart. music – this wasn’t their slogan – I just made it up. But you get my drift – you could buy those alternative sounds of the underground there. You could find good music (if you liked good music – do you like good music?) And we wanted to buy the long player by Denim all bright blue and 70s fonts.

It was the song title ‘I’m against the eighties’ that had chimed with us all. It was everything we had felt in this disposed decade – Thatcher’s ruin. The running down of every public service and any act of collectivism – of organising and protesting – was the norm. You know you’re a teenager and you’re growing up feeling fairly hopeless. Just as she had wanted. Because you can be crushed then – and we are now. This was being left out in the cold and Lawrence channelled all of that into a fix of pop. I took a look around there was nothing going down in the ‘80s. As I have stated previously – music cannot change the world but it can chime with a thought and a feeling. I’m sick of winklepicker kids - mary chain debris. Lawrence achieved that on Back in Denim – this reflection on things past as ‘Robin’s Nest’ synths bubbled and squelched and guitars riffed. Or Middle of the Road that challenged all that coolness and being hip.

I hate to be hip – I want to be square. So there.

I wish I could have seen them perform live. I remember video tapes at the ready for a performance on ‘Later’. They were wonderful. This was what Denim had sounded like in my head. They were making glam rock for a modern age – they were taking a bit of care. This was a band that signed to Boy’s Own at the time. Taking the idea that they were a dance band – rock music was finished – this was about doing it differently. You need different strokes for different folks.

Yet Back in Denim cost so much to make that Boy's Own went bankrupt. Or so they say. Denim were never going to hit big. That was until EMI said they would sign Denim if Lawrence came up with hit material. I mean imagine that – the band already had an album’s worth and here were these A&R fuckers asking for the hits. So he gave them one – a bubblegum pop called Summer Smash.

EMI loved it. It was Radio 1's single of the week.

"It was all set to come out on a Monday," remembers Lawrence. "Then Princess Di died on the Sunday before. EMI melted all the singles down."

Cursed – some might say.Lawrence would go on to form Go Kart Mozart. They're brilliant too. Lawrence tends to add that touch of magic.

So here’s to a Denim revival. It’s 2012. Let’s all have a bit of Lawrence in our lives.

Oh and stick with the clip – I think the beginnings some programme on Spanish television but suddenly Lawrence appears. You can look up the recorded version on line – if you like the beauty and soul in this performance.