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As time grows short there is much left to say. I sometimes waste whole hours and minutes, but I try not to waste a whole day.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Chapter Sixteen - Between Rock and a Hard Place


The sixties continued to confound all predictions as the decade accelerated toward its inevitable conclusion. Gerry watched spellbound on the new colour television as George Best confounded the Benfica defence and the hopes of its widely-loved centre-forward Eusebio - who experienced, not for the first time, utter misery under the Wembley floodlights - as his team was dismantled by the mercurial Irishman and his Manchester United team-mates. As they raised aloft the European cup - a trophy, the single-minded pursuit of which had seen the virtual destruction of ‘Busby’s babes’ on the wreckage strewn runway at Munich the year Gerry was born - the emotion written in the face of Bobby Charlton impressed itself upon a nation that continued to enjoy outrageously good fortune. ‘You’ve never had it so good’ intoned the Yorkshire drone of the pipe-smoking, philandering premier, Harold Wilson, in between glad-handing Soviet Prime-Minister Kosygin in his Astrakhan hat outside Downing Street’s famed portal, and for the Hood’s this simple truth transcended even Bill and Alf Garnett’s attempts to warn of darker days ahead under the loathsome lothario’s leadership.

Gerry was himself confounded to discover, on returning home from school one afternoon, to discover the sound of a guitar playing something very similar to a song then popular on the nation’s airwaves, Radio having itself developed well beyond Family Favourites and Pick of the Pops during the rapidly advancing decade with Pirate Radio now in its heyday. The family’s trusty old valve radio, sat atop the old television table in the now door less dining room. The dining room, until recently fitted with the innovative ‘swing door’ had been removed following the latest finger-trapping incident which had rendered the boys’ little sister Angela screaming and almost requiring the amputation of several digits during its last savage guillotining of one or other of the kids’ hands. The dining room, which remained ‘open-plan’ thereafter contained a sideboard - in which were stored the miscellaneous items of all families existences such as wool and knitting needles and patterns, jigsaw puzzles, table-cloths, broken and never- to-be-mended domestic items - also contained Gerry’s father’s personal items in a drawer with its own ostentatiously-carved front. This, his exclusive territory, they were forbidden to even inspect though Gerry had discovered both his father’s and great-uncle’s war medals in there. These he played with furtively, until the day the ribbons of his deceased relative’s military decorations unfurled themselves and, discovering in his panic his inability to re-arrange them satisfactorily, Gerry stuffed the offending articles deep beneath old ledgers and photographs in an attempt to hide his meddling from almost certain discovery.

The room’s main feature however was a sad and extremely kitsch frieze of two sets of castañets - gifts from his pioneering Aunty Laura who had intrepidly visited one of the first Spanish resorts of the time (built in a swamp, the cine films for which would reveal a profound paucity of imagination on behalf of their hosts which extended only to piñatas, drinking gourds and Cuba libres) - and the long-since forgotten Russian-made guitar, which hung suspended from its black and white silken rope in imitation of some fantasised flamenco cave-dwelling. Except it was no longer suspended in its animation but now sat, rather too comfortably across his brother’s thigh who was caressing it, rather too expertly, into life. As the entirely recognisable strains of Tyrannosaurus Rex’s Ride a White Swan spilled from its sound hole Gerry felt both admiration and envy at his brother’s newly-discovered talent and though not wishing to bring it to a premature end Gerry felt bound to re-assert ownership of the until-recently long neglected instrument.
“That’s my guitar!” he needlessly exclaimed and, at the first glance of his brother’s mockingly impatient glare he tried to forcibly reclaim it, seizing hold of the neck with both hands and beginning a tug-of-war which Gerry’s mother was required to intervene in to end.
“Your brother was playing it very nicely, what’s wrong with that?”
“It’s mine, I want to play it!” Gerry protested indignantly.
“Well you can’t, you don’t know how to” Glenn pointed-out rather too matter-of-factly.
“How am I ever going to learn when you’re hogging it?” Gerry spat back, realising suddenly that his protests might lead him into similar territory to Mrs. Restall’s ill-fated swimming try-outs and adding “I suppose he can borrow it - occasionally” the last word hastily added in case his own musical epiphany should arrive, like his brother’s, with puberty.
The uneasy truce persisted until Glenn, realising the limitations of this crudely constructed instrument was able to persuade his parents of his need of something better which arrived in the form of a classical guitar, a bargain purchase from a friend who had unwisely purchased it themselves without waiting for the auspicious muse to arrive first. As Glenn’s technique and knowledge grew Gerry’s envy - the product of both sibling-rivalry and his own long-held frustration at being unable to return his father’s faith in his musical gift - reached malignant proportions. Unable now to arrest his own brother’s progress Gerry took to fumbling about in self-induced darkness, mindful that his elder brother would not thereby be able to gain any credit should Gerry himself suddenly and unaccountably burst into song. It was to prove a slow and painful process as his soft and weak hands blistered and bled on the rusted and corroded strings of his own vanity and obstinacy whilst his brother flourished, quite literally, on the superior instrument now in his sole possession.

Once-a-week the boys pleaded with their father to be allowed to watch Top-of-the-Pops, a newly announced and wildly popular feast of contemporary music, mimed under lights to a compliant audience - concerned only with their own appearance on prime-time television displaying the new and shocking modes of the day and presided over by the now famous disc-jockeys of the day. Luminaries such as Simon Dee, Jimmy Saville, Tony Blackburn and Diddy-David Hamilton would declaim their enthusiasm for groups whose long hair and Carnaby Street clothes would outrage Bill to the extent that he almost choked on his dinner. Bill Hood evinced disapproval from beginning to end of the show which he dismissed each week with his rhetorical “what do you want to watch that bloody load-of-rubbish for?” Bill however somehow always contained and suspended his disgust noticeably for the appearance of the lithe and scantily-clad dancers, one of whom would become Gerry’s own personal tissue-maiden as his own testosterone levels surged off the scale every time the lissom brunette appeared on camera. Pan’s People as they were to become, launched many a youth’s weekly fantasies and everyone had their own favourite. Their somewhat absurd interpretations of the nation’s favourite tunes were largely irrelevant to their panting lascivious male audience and Gerry could not have cared less about the often inane melodies that played as they gyrated and swivelled their nearly naked bodies for the two-and-a-half precious minutes of unadulterated voyeurism their performance afforded.

The corrupted strings of Gerry’s guitar continued to thwart his attempts to emulate his brother’s prowess and stolen moments on his brother’s instrument simply confirmed to Gerry that his was an uphill task and he was losing sight of his brother as he disappeared ahead of him over the mountain’s crest and into musical competence. It was a series of accidents that was to re-arrange fate in Gerry’s favour.

First the top two, thinnest and most corroded strings on Gerry’s guitar gave way under his persistent attempt to retune them into something that resembled a chord. Four strings, Gerry concluded, were going to have to suffice, at least until some new source of income was forthcoming. He hated asking his father for ‘pocket-money’ accompanied as the request always was by the interrogative question “What have you done to deserve it?”. In any case, if Gerry were to spend money, it would be on an instrument such as his brother’s which he had already been counselled would not be forthcoming ‘until you’re a bit older’.
It was with great excitement that Glenn announced to the family that, according to information he had gleaned from his latest copy of Melody Maker confirmed in his friend’s copy of New Musical Express - the contents of which both boys would read from cover-to-cover in preference to any homework - T. Rex were coming to perform in Lindon! Marc Bolan, the latest stellar incumbent to the world of Rock Music would be strutting his stuff, with his incredibly popular band on the stage of the local ABC cinema that November and Glenn wanted his parents permission to be there. The same venue had in the past hosted the Beatles and this factual addendum was offered as an appeal to the boys’ dubious parents who, having just recovered from their former allegiance to the ‘fab four’, expressed the doubt about where the glitter-wearing scion of Glam-Rock, with his corkscrew hair, flared trousers and pouting lips might ultimately be leading their children. Gerry wasn’t to know the extent of his brother’s charm campaign which resulted in them being dropped-off at the front entrance of the cinema, outside which queues of hysterical girls teemed into the road and from within the Lincoln Continental limousine emerged the prince of pop himself, a good six inches shorter than the astonished Glenn, but radiating charisma like a super nova.

The concert, the first on their Electric Warrior tour was truly electrifying. Having transformed himself and his new band from an acoustic duo, Bolan rocked the audience into a frenzy of screaming above which his strangled and fey tones cut through the much heavier backing of what Gerry learned from his brother was a very ‘tight’ band. Gerry wasn’t quite as advanced with the parlance of music but he could see and hear that everyone on stage was having a very good time and when he noticed the long-haired guitarist who (along with the drummer) seemed to share the duties for producing a pounding rhythmic-feel had only four strings he was compelled to ask his older sibling “What’s he doing?”.
“”Oh, that’s just the bass-player” his brother responded matter-of-factly. He just holds down the rhythm and plays the root note.”.
Gerry looked on at the strutting Bolan as he shook his tousled hair and wrestled with what he had now learned was a Fender Stratocaster, or variously a Gibson Les Paul Custom guitar, squeezing high pitched and very sustained notes from its neck and warbling at the hysterical crowd. Somehow, he felt, he wasn’t fated to emulate this masterful exhibition of the centre of the audiences focus, but looking again at the long-limbed bass-player, who seemed a very vital part of the ensemble, Gerry imagined himself to be in his place, pumping out regular unmistakeably long resonant notes that seemed to play an equal part in animating the audience to such a peak of excitement. ‘I could do that’ Gerry thought quietly to himself, and so it was resolved, Gerry would learn to play the bass, the beginnings to which could already be found in his crude Russian guitar and his already silently plucking hands.

The boys saw Bolan once more, as he left the auditorium and clambered back into his awaiting limo, but awed as they were by his presence, they didn’t dare ask for an autograph from a man they had already elevated to God-like status in their worshipful minds. Having no record player and rediscovering the demise of the tape-recorder, the boys were only able to listen to their heroes at the house of another boy who they befriended simply to experience the joys of the precious album. This he would place carefully upon his record-player, a small speaker-fronted cabinet which contained a turntable, a record changer - which allowed one, unwisely, to place one’s precious platters in a pile, and watch as they spilled onto the rubber mat as the tone arm jerked back and forth (not unlike the world war one planes that fired between the propeller and Windy Miller’s windmill entrance) until it descended with a crunch before starting the static crackle that would herald the opening drumbeats of Jeepster, a rather dismal tune but which led to the real ‘meat’ of the album; songs such as Life’s a Gas and Get it On. The insistence of their ‘friend of convenience’ on wearing flared-trousers - jeans that had had the first six-inches of their seam opened up, and into which had then been inserted old curtain fabric with paisley patterns, whilst irritating to the boys’ sense of aesthetics, was tolerated on the simple grounds of his ownership and therefore the means of access to his record collection, a single LP and EP of their heroes’ collected works.

‘Barm’ as the boy was ubiquitously known, had a small collection of records, no fashion-sense whatsoever, and was inclined to sulk when teased, sometimes exploding into bouts of violence, but none of this mattered to his now regular companions who would have worn the grooves off his records had the boys mother not occasionally intervened by sending them out to play - or smoke and talk about music, as was now their sole preference. As homework deadline after deadline passed, resulting in not infrequent detentions at school, the boys strummed and plucked and listened their way into ever deepening turpitude, just as their father might have predicted, and with it came their new, never-ending clamour for electric guitars of their own. Bill, finding himself increasingly beleaguered by their incessant requests, and with his own ambiguous musical leanings, found himself firmly between Rock and a hard place, and as his resolve melted like a discarded ice-cream cone his acquiescence was obtained and the local newspaper scoured, nightly, for second-hand instruments to placate the relentless demands of the two would-be rock stars.

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