Birth of Rock Brian Pern: A Life in Rock

This programme contains strong language

Over 40 years, I've been making and playing music

to audiences all over the world.

Both as lead singer of Thotch and as a solo artist.

I invented world music.

HE SINGS IN SPANISH

I was the first musician to use Plasticine in videos.

The first magician to record with animals.

My last album had the lowest bass line ever recorded.

VERY LOW NOTE PLAYS

Long before Bob Geldof and Bono,

I was staging charity concerts

and writing songs to raise awareness for the helpless and the hopeless.

# Why no Black folk in Jersey?

# Why no Black folk in Sark?

# Why no Black folk in Guernsey?

# Are they having a lark? #

This is the Life Of Rock, with me Brian Pern.

MIDDLE EASTERN MUSIC PLAYS

But what always fascinates me is where it all began.

What is the meaning of this life we call rock'n'roll?

To find out, you have to go right back to the dawn of time,

to the birth of man and the birth of music.

Hello, I'm here with Mr Dan Cruickshank,

one of the world's foremost historians.

We're deep underground in a cave in the Middle East.

There's been a pretty amazing discovery. Dan.

Right, well, here it is.

These wall paintings date from about 70,000 years ago.

As far as we know,

this is the earliest depiction of homo sapiens making music.

This chap here, as you can see,

is playing some sort of wind instrument.

Here, this rather Neanderthal-looking fellow on percussion -

the drummer.

Here, this man, is playing the stringed instrument.

What sort of music would they have played?

We had no idea

until recently, archaeologists found this sequence of symbols.

-Here they are.

-Wow.

One assumes they are musical notes.

Only yesterday, scientists at the Shazam Institute in USA

developed software to transcribe the sequence.

My gosh. What's that over there?

Oh, that's a bloody Banksy.

That clown gets absolutely everywhere.

By the time I arrived back in London,

the chaps at Shazam had completed their findings

and sent them through to one of our greatest pianists.

He would be playing these musical notes for the very first time.

PIANO PLAYS

OK, can you stop that?

-Sorry.

-Thanks.

-Sorry.

Ready?

OK, so these are the actual notes that were transcribed

from the cave illustrations we found in Oman - over 70,000 years old.

I have Mr Jools Holland here.

Julian Holland.

Jools, I'd like you to play that for us the best you can.

I'd love to try and play this.

You know, of course, there are...

This is 70,000-year-old transcription. There is a...

The oldest recording on Earth is Roman,

it's not known by a lot of people.

The Roman potters would sign the inside of their vases

with a needle as the pot was being rotated.

When these shattered vases, taken from the British Museum,

are reconstructed and put on the right equipment,

which I think the Russians have done now,

you can hear the crackling, ancient sounds of the market.

There's no music. It's just the "For sale" and things like this.

I don't know if you were aware of that.

No. Let's do this now.

-Just play this?

-Yeah.

-OK.

Hang on.

Oh.

HE PLAYS EASTENDERS THEME TUNE

Is that a bit like EastEnders, isn't it?

DOOF DOOF

For thousands of years, rock lay dormant within man.

Humans got their kicks out of what we now know as classical music.

It wasn't until the 20th century when all that changed.

Meet the parents of rock - folk, jazz and blues.

The Mississippi.

It is amazing to think this primordial swamp

gave birth to the 12-bar blues -

the nucleus of rock'n'roll as we know it.

Basically, white people heard the blues

created in the Deep South on their radios and copied it,

made it slightly worse, then cashed in big time.

# All we've got... #

The great-grandfather of the blues movement was

Toddy 'Biscuit Barrel" Burnett.

# I don't want to run, babe

# I'm hunted

# I'm hunted

# I'm missing my wife... #

Toddy's one of the great originators.

I think without him, music wouldn't be quite the same as it is today.

My, oh, my.

This is Toddy 'Biscuit Barrel' Burnett...

..who was essentially the guy that taught all the guys,

all the top blues guys.

Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Johnson, Bo Diddley.

This guy taught them the rudiments of blues guitar.

Now he's destitute, he's homeless.

Toddy, it's Brian Pern here. I e-mailed you.

I didn't get any reply.

How do you feel about bands like the Rolling Stones stealing your music?

Then there was jazz.

HE SCATS

When jazz and blues were mixed together,

it created a whole new melting pot -

a kind of rhythm and blues rock ratatouille.

All sorts of new genres were served up.

There was the traditional jazz, there was the modern jazz,

then there was the beebop.

Little wop, big wop, do-wop. Trad-de-wop.

You had the skiffle music, there was even skaffle.

Skoffle.

-Tofu.

-Trad, skoffle beat. Skaffle, falafel.

-Trad tofu.

Piffle-poddle, widdle.

We did quite a lot of widdling, actually.

But the most thoughtful and simplistic

of the three fathers of rock was folk.

Folk was a back-to-basics musical strata.

All you needed was an acoustic guitar,

some vaguely left-wing views and unkempt pubic hair.

Folk musicians smoked Boar's Head tobacco,

and they drank real ales

like Parson's Punnet, Dog Bolter and Bench.

DOG HOWLS

HOWLING CONTINUES

Bob Dylan, or Robert Zimmerman, is without doubt

probably the greatest singer-songwriter of all time.

Mind you, I saw him last year in London

and it sounded like somebody had thrown a hairdryer in the bath.

When Dylan plugged in, we plugged out.

-SLURRING:

-I remember him.

-Yes, you do.

-He went electric.

He was gas before that.

At these festivals, as people plugged in,

they also plugged on to something else -

LSD.

But for every up, there came a down.

HE SCREAMS

I can't stand the confusion in my mind!

My first tab of LSD - I dropped it.

I picked it up.

It was almost as if the children of jazz, blues and folk had an orgy,

and an incestuous offspring was born into the world.

That offspring was rock music.

As rock music grew,

like a teenager it became more aware of its appearance

and no longer wanted to resemble what it had come from.

Suddenly, it was all about image.

# There's a star man

# Waiting in the sky... #

Star Man? I played piano on that.

Well, course David Bowie came on on Star Man.

Maybe it should have gone a bit more like this.

In his myriad guises, he took stagecraft to new limits -

borrowing from Marcel Marceau, Lindsay Kemp, Nosferatu,

Popeye and Sally Gunnell.

Put simply - he's one of the greats.

But in the old days, he would go down your pockets

and steal your fags.

Although David Bowie may have pioneered glam rock,

others were hot on his high heels.

# What's her name, Virginia Plain? #

Virginia Plain? I played piano on that.

Virginia Plain was another legendary record,

but maybe it should have gone a bit more like this.

Then, of course, there was Thotch.

-Thotch.

-Thotch.

-Thotch.

-Thotch.

-Thotch.

-Thotch.

-The Thotch.

-Thotch.

-- Thotch.

-Thotch.

-Thotch.

-Yes, I'd agree. Thotch.

-Thotch.

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Anglesey Pavilion.

While we're just tuning up between the songs,

I'd like to introduce you to Thotch the band.

First of all on double-necked guitar, Mr Pat Quid.

I was very unfortunate in that I was born to very wealthy

and very loving parents. I never wanted for anything.

I think that's held me back.

I wish, to some extent, that I'd had a more difficult upbringing

involving abuse, lack of love and penury.

On bass, we have John. On Drums we have Dave.

Mike.

Whilst at Stowe, I had the good fortune to meet two chaps

who'd had the similar misfortune as I'd had growing up,

in that they both had unconditional love

and wanted for nothing financially.

That was Brian Pern and Tony PebblE or Pebble as he was then.

On keyboards we have Mr Tony PebblE.

It's PebblE with an acute, you know...Huguenots.

16th century Protestant France. Doesn't matter, bollocks.

Anyway, it's PebblE.

I remember going to Putney to see The Yardbirds and Long John Baldry.

You just couldn't move for twat.

I don't remember anything about the music.

I just remember all those beautiful birds.

I went home and I started practising.

Thotch was always complicated.

We were part of a wave of public school bands.

That's a bit embarrassing.

We wrote about our environment, which was largely bucolic,

pastoral, dark side.

# We ran, we flew

# We danced, we laughed

# We drive, we jumped... #

The pretentiousness of that band, yeah, used to make me want to...

I can't even say.

Thotch weren't that intelligent.

They weren't as intelligent as we were.

Brian did build his guitar out of a fireplace.

John built his guitar out of a large fireplace.

Freddie built his piano out of a fireplace.

I built my drums out of a fireplace. You know.

They weren't that intelligent.

Grown men. Grown fucking men singing songs about worms and fairies.

Oh, do me a favour, will you, mate? For God's sake.

While the band are tuning up, I'd like to just tell you a quick story.

Once upon a time there was a fox.

He was being chased by a pack of hounds along a dry riverbed....

I used to get very bored at some of those gigs.

Brian would enlarge on a theme and really go off piste.

Christ, he could babble on for 25 minutes, more.

I would nip out for a fag and get my knob polished.

Oi!

And the hounds were terrified.

This song is called Onion Divorce.

The costumes came about by accident.

You have to remember this was the peak of prog rock.

The Oyster Catcher's Owl, for example, was six sides long.

It featured a five minute bass pedal solo alone.

Brian would come on, prancing around in whatever had taken his fancy,

a feathery thing. To make it more interesting.

I felt it detracted from the music

and lost sight of the nuances of the solo.

It caused a lot of friction.

We were very serious, dedicated musicians.

We weren't interested in a visual representation of what we were.

We thought the music spoke for itself.

HE WAILS

Brian obviously didn't.

HE WAILS

WAILING CONTINUES

Brian was obsessed with dressing up. Even at Stowe -

any excuse to shove an animal on his head. He'd just do it. Bosh.

WAILING

For Brian it was about prosthetic claws, noses, beaks,

teeth, ears, feathers.

Every single costume from the '70s come from here, from me.

It was all me. Brian had a lot of...

A lot of looks, a lot of different birds he liked to put on his head.

So I knew this poacher who could get me some really, really good stuff.

When he was sort of time, I'd ring him up, we'd go down London Zoo

and he'd...one of the...

I mean, don't tell him. Stuff with stuffing and we'd put it on his head.

These days you couldn't do that.

We killed a panda once.

As musicians became more sophisticated,

so did the production values.

Producers became just as innovative as their subjects.

Phil Spector created his Wall of Sound.

George Martin created his Wall of Beatle.

Ray Thomas created his Multi-track Shenanigans.

DISTORTED MUSIC

This is actually a little hard for me right now,

because obviously I've worked a lot in music - a lot of headphones.

I'm now 97% deaf. I don't hear all the tone, but...

LOUD SYNTHESISED CHOIR

You have a very special way of recording.

-How did you get that sound?

-Ah, well, interesting.

So we started with a high-hat.

If you come over here.

We'll augment that with some toms,

which are just here.

Two toms. Then, if you come over here, we'll have another cymbal.

We'll have a side cymbal.

-Have we got another chair?

-Actually, I'll...

Can you? I took one tom down. That was what I did.

Then I doubled this tom.

That's not actually a tom-tom sound though.

CHICKEN CLUCKS

-Isn't it?

-No, it's mislabelled.

And you can also here an egg,

which actually doesn't really make a sound,

but we still put up a mic to an egg.

SILENCE

Pretty good.

If folk and progressive rock

were the thoughtful and intelligent children of jazz and blues,

the one that sat about in the bedroom smoking dope all day

was reggae.

Although people claimed that Bob Marley, Aswad or Ace Of Base

were pioneers of this form, I wouldn't be so sure.

There was a man who tipped reggae on its head by being the first

White reggae artist to have a number one record in Jamaica,

and changed the face of music for ever.

That man was Judge Dread.

# With her knickers all tattered and torn...

# Uh-huh, uh-huh

# Uh-huh, uh-huh

# Ride up

# Here we go

# Tiki-taka, tiki-taka, tiki-taka

# Up higher, pussy catch on fire

# Yeah

# Uh-huh, uh-huh

# Uh-huh, uh-huh

# Uh-huh, uh-huh

# Yeah. #

From the 1970s as rock became big business

and bands became more intelligent,

it gave birth to a new form of big bucks, no nonsense,

abrasive managers like Don Arden and Peter Grant.

After we saw the swindles perpetuated

on the Stones, Beatles and Elvis,

artists of my generation were determined to keep their mitts

on the purse strings and retain creative control over the work.

Rock was tired of being bullied

and needed someone to fight their corner.

The man who made all this possible for me was John Farrow.

Eavis can fuck off.

I don't care what stage he's on, what tent he's under, what field he's in.

He's not coming. Tell them to fuck off.

Well, look, I'm a lawyer. What the fuck do I know about music?

I know about contracts. That's why they come to me.

Tell Mendez to fuck off. It's busy.

I mean managers back then were terrifying. Some were downright evil.

Thotch at that time were being managed by Big Basil Steel.

Big Basil Steel was a 6'3 ex-lion tamer.

Basil also had a reputation for cornering artists in his office

with a chair and a whip.

So they asked me to get him out, which I did.

I'm going to try and keep them. I'm a bit pushed for money.

It's cost me my job.

So if all the animal lovers, if they can put a few donations

towards me and the lion, cos we're hungry.

I am there to protect the interests of the artists and,

very often, the artists from themselves.

It is my job to say, "No," when they want to tour some ridiculous

country where people can't afford yoghurt let alone concert tickets,

or they want to put on some pretentious rock opera

starring the cast of Sherlock or something.

Get Gordon Ramsay on the phone. Tell him to fuck off, would you?

Cos I don't like him.

Right, Brian.

Wouldn't you know Eavis has called about you doing Glastonbury?

-It's all right, don't worry, I said no for you.

-Well, what night?

-Saturday, closing.

-What stage?

-Pyramid.

Anyway, you don't want to be doing that, making a fool of yourself.

You're 62, you'd look like an idiot. And...

Yeah, you were asked to play a private concert

for the Qatar Royal family. One night only.

-You, Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, Gary Barlow and UB42.

-Who's that?

UB42. It's UB40 with Mark King from Level 42 on bass.

-It was such an obscene amount of money I turned it down for you.

-Why?

You've got to think about your reputation.

Yeah, but you managed Gary Barlow.

Yeah, but he doesn't care about his reputation.

Being the former frontman of a progressive rock band,

you'd think I would despise the next generation of rockers

who were determined to overthrow rock royalty.

On the contrary, these guys were a breath of not so much fresh

air bit feted air, with songs about abortion, anarchy and boredom.

They were, of course, The Wurzels.

# I am a cider drinker

# I drinks it all of the day... #

Then, of course, came the Sex Pistols,

who would change the face of music for ever...

Well, for a couple of years.

The trousers changed. Hairstyles changed. The venues change.

The promoters change.

Everyone had this attitude - no respect for the music.

-No respect for the...

-What are you talking about?

No respect for the guile of the mandolin.

-No respect for the violin, the viola, the clarinet.

-The woodwind.

Punk came about because the music industry became too indulgent.

You had producers, like me,

who were making this kind of overblown crap, you know,

that said nothing to the kids.

Then someone would come along, like me,

to really liven it up again.

We went to see... In disguise, obviously, because we'd be mobbed.

..the Sex Pistols in Middlesbrough, do you remember, in the Rock Garden?

Couldn't play a fucking note.

All my friends were punk rockers.

I listened to the Sex Pistols on John Peel.

I backcombed my hair, ripped up a T-shirt and all that kind of stuff.

Then a mate of mine played me the second Thotch album - Onion Divorce.

I was just hooked.

That meant that from about 1977 to 1981,

I was beaten up almost every day.

Punk made it fashionable to be badly behaved.

Before long, all rock stars were at it,

even those old enough to know better.

Back in the 1980s, I fronted a programme called Pop Quiz.

It was frothy, it was fun, it was good natured.

But, to be honest,

behind the scenes it was a heck of a lot darker than that.

Hello, welcome to a special Pop Quiz.

On this one, the teams are skippered by Leo Sayer.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Guitar hero from Status Quo, Rick Parfitt.

It was a dodgy one, really, because we assumed, you know,

two people, they'd get on, it'd be OK. It really wasn't...

It was like a couple of heavyweights slugging it out.

There was a real problem between them.

We kick off with an individual round about this year's hits.

Leo, let's see how you do.

MUSIC: "Rocking All Over The World" by Status Quo

BUZZER SOUNDS

# Oh, here we are and here we are

# And here we go

# All aboard and we're hitting the road

# Here we go

# Rocking all over the world... #

Was that The Monkeys?

It wasn't.

It wasn't The Monkeys. AUDIENCE GROANS

It was Rick Parfitt.

-No, really?

-It was.

It was a battle of the perms, really.

It was, you know, curlers, tongs at dawn.

Actually, I know him, cos he goes to my hairdresser.

I don't know whether Leo was being extra dry or not,

but Rick was absolutely livid.

I'll let you off if you can impersonate him.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

That's it. That's all you have to do.

Go on, go for it.

Yeah, things actually took a turn for the worst during the recording break.

Leo said something like, "You've got a fat nan."

Cut to the end of the show.

We're there in the green room, Parfitt, he's had a few.

Quite clearly, he went crazy.

Sayer, you bastard. No-one says I've got a fat nan.

He was foaming at the mouth. He was like a rabid goat.

I am the Parfitt.

No-one says I've got a fat nan,

you strange little man.

So, my friends, this is how Rock was born -

from jazz and blues to prog and punk.

But as rock itself grew older,

a midlife crisis was around the corner.

Question was, would it survive?

Find out next time on The Life Of Rock, with I, Brian Pern.

-I haven't told him about the cameras.

-What?

-I haven't...

-Here he is, here he is.

-What's this for?

Oh, it's a Making Of for the DVD.

Nobody buys DVDs any more. Get out.

It's also going to be on the red button.

Nobody watches the red button stuff. Get out.

It's also going to go on the iPlayer, so...

It goes on the end of the actual episode or we don't do this thing.

And we get final cut and approval.

-I'll have to talk to someone about that.

-No, you won't, no, you won't.

-It's done or this is over. Brian?

-Yes.

-Do you agree?

Well, I did give the guy 24/7 access.

I think it's important for my fans to see how my brain works, you know?

The life of an artist.

Right. Christ.

-What are you doing?

-Just building a zoo.

I just bought a hippo enclosure.

-Oh, my daughter's got that game.

-Oh, no, it's not a game.

I really am building a zoo just outside Frankfurt.

Thotch is still going on. We are Thotch.

Well, we wanted to keep the name going.

But Brian took us to court, and so we had to change the name to Thotch II.

But Pat didn't like that, so we had to change the name to Thotch III.

Then Tony didn't like Thotch III,

so we had to change it to Thotch IV.

Then John didn't like Thotch IV,

so now we're Thotch 5.0.

Which I quite like.

Tangerine Dream.

Yeah, when I was young, I dreamt the fucking tangerines,

because you couldn't get them in fucking Belfast

because there was a war on.

All right? Give me all your fucking gatefold sleeve shite.

I swear to sweet Jesus, man,

my arm would not get tired punching that twat.

Are you doing any Hootenannies?

The Hootenanny? Yeah. We do that once a year.

It's turned into the main show.

The great thing for me and the orchestra

is that we've had everybody....

It's been such an honour in my career to have all

the greatest stars, the greatest names.

Everybody who is anybody has come an performed with us.

We really have had absolutely everyone.

I don't think there's anybody who's kind of a great star,

that hasn't been with us. That's the great thing about it.

-You haven't been on, have we? Have we ever asked you?

-No.

No. No. Well...

Yeah.

It's a bit loud.

It's a bit loud.

You want it loud, do you?

Can you hear what I'm saying?

It won't go any louder.

You'll bust my eardrums. I don't want to end up like you.

What? What?

It's too loud.

What?

We're deep underground in a cave...

-Sorry. Sorry.

-This is ridiculous.

Listen, we couldn't go to the actual place, but it looks fine on camera.

Oh, come off it.

# My love is a window And yours is a pane

# My love is uncertain Yours is a drain

# My love is a toaster Yours is a grill

# My love is healthy While yours is ill

# My love is a star buck Yours is a gut

# I want a snack But your fridge door is shut

# My love is modern Than yours is old

# My love is hot And yours is cold. #