Post by Andre JuteSo as not to disturb my family, sleeping on the floors below me, I
took the disc box from the top. It turned out to be my rock'n'roll
collection, which is pretty modest at about 250 discs or sets. Putting
in my hand with closed eyes, taking potluck, grabbing a handful of
British Beat before the Beatles, organized by years, 1956 to 1962
inclusive, EMI compilation issued 1993. My God, there was some raw
talent back then! Alma Cogan, Frankie Vaughan, The Southlanders,
Lonnie Donegan, Humphry Lyttleton, all just off the 1956 disc. The
Beatles, by comparison, are homogenized, sanitized; in retrospect they
remind me of nothing so much as Euro-vegetables: universal, bland, pre-
pureed, the perfect chinese taste (right after you finish listening
you want real music).
Andre Jute
"The noted vacuum tube hi-fi designer, cyclist, music collector and
critic, author, economist, psychologist, soldier and advisor to
statesmen worldwide has made his home in the vicinity for many years."
-- from his hometown's website, contributed by wreck.audio admirers
In about 1962 when the Beatles were seen as the hottest thing,
I thought they were a bunch of sissies who couldn't do any real work,
and were forced into being right gits instead. And with girls's
haircuts.
I never bought a single Beatle recording, and didn't like the girls who
so stoopidly went so crazy over them.
A girl who went crazy over any pop moozic critter definately
was brainless, IMHO, I thought, at that time.
And when local bands in Masonic Halls played Beatle numbers
to the local ppl at the saturday night dances, all the guys here
would be singing along, "I wanna hold yoooour glaaaand."
The girls didn't seen to wake up, poor little naive innocents they
were...
I didn't go to all of the dances that were on but did go to maybe a
dozen,
over a year or two, and there was nothing to show for it.
And in those two last years of high school there were other things that
attracted me.
I hardly liked any pop music. Elvis and Orbison, and Lonnie Donegan and
co
all never registered with me, I thought all were
a bunch of overpaid BS artistes. Lonegan was funny, but sheesh,
like all of them, it wasn't ever worth buying a recording godammit.
My two sisters sneaked home with rock'n'roll muck and my parents told
them to return the records
to the shop for a refund. They accidently tripped over on the drive way,
and scratched side B they didn't like; sorry mum we had an accident, and
can't return the records.
My sisters went on to rebel bigtime against my fuddie duddie parents
attitudes
and the North Shore middleclass platitudes and stultifying mores.
I didn't give a stuff. Joan Baez seemed sexy, very rootable, and brought
life to
folkmusic. I found Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger and the american folk
scene plus much australiana
folkmusic had far more more meaning than the crap of pop. And I learnt
to play a guitar, and sing a bit, and
a friend and I performed at 'folk cafes'.
The Beach Boys also didn't resonate with me. At the magnificent Northern
Sydney beaches near where I grew up, and while aged between 15 and 17,
I needed not the slightest bit of advice about tying to crack onto some
crumpet
from the darn Beach Boys.
The reality of actual beach partying and the beach scene I found would
have been no different
to what went on in Califonia. Basically, not much going on.
Pretty boring really. Girls didn't root, the Pill was still only
experimental,
and whenever you did see a sheila who you didn't think was awkward and
ugly
she was always with some rich guy's son,
or no matter how long you staired at her, she never saw you.
I found the general message about adolescent lerve et all quite
sickening
although I tolerated all this noise coming from the attrocious
systems owned by other ppl of the day.
I did like BSA and Matchless and Norton, oh, and Vincent. They made
music.
Especially The Vincent, and at 166MPH on Conrod Straight at Bathurst.
Away from the beaches, and in older inner Sydney suburbs were girls who
were
working class, and who actually liked excitement, and not the unreal
treacle BS
being dished out in pop music. These sheilas prefered the Stones and
some wakier groups.
I did too, and I could resonate to "I can't get noooo, satis-faction".
Those girls tended to reach out, plug you in, and and give you some real
satisfaction.
They were doers, not stuck up richmen's daughters.
I dallied with Honda, Harley, and ended up with a much better
brand that stayed quiet, and went around corners well, stopped on a zac,
had oodles of oomph, and didn't require a re-build every fortnight.
This Good Woman of a motorcycle was of course a BMW.
Lord knows what German bands were playing back then but maybe I would
have
liked them better than the british and american trash, and the silly
aussies who
copied the OS styles, or screamed so loudly into microphones the 12AX7s
shattered.
I found the folk music of the 60s to be far more entrancing than the
silly muck of the mainstream pop.
AFAIWC, anyone singing something better sing something meaningful,
original, and intelligent, or shut up. I quite enjoyed Dylan. Peter Paul
and Mary were sort of OK,
but my group winged at the rampant commercialisation of folk music.
I didn't go to any big gig concerts.
All a waste of dough. Was I ever likely to spend
half a week's pay on some stoopid git screaming about lerve? No way.
I did go to a couple of Newport Jazz festivals, at Newport Beach,
in Sydney. I quite liked jazz. I still do. And classical, and always
have.
My mother liked Edith Piaf, and so did I. Frank Sinatra was a bit over
the top,
and no, I couldn't handle opera, but then there was no guidance
or any encouragement of artistic development for adolescent boys
in Sydney in 1962. Zilch.
And probably, I was culturally deprived in my formative years,
accentuated by the drowning sea of aural crap called pop music, and
everyone else
being occupied with the suburban existance, and too busy to go to
concerts where Mozart was played, and lazy too,
because they settled for watching TV at night....
Patrick Turner.
