0:00:02 > 0:00:05"Time is a concept by which we measure our pain," said John Lennon.
0:00:05 > 0:00:07And you know what? It is.
0:00:07 > 0:00:10Time is also a concept by which we file our music,
0:00:10 > 0:00:12in decades, to be precise.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14Oh, I know what the smart set say.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17They say decades are a specious concept,
0:00:17 > 0:00:19which is why you won't be hearing from
0:00:19 > 0:00:21any of the smart set on this programme.
0:00:21 > 0:00:25Decades, musically at least, really do exist.
0:00:25 > 0:00:29Over the next three programmes, I and three other rock geologists
0:00:29 > 0:00:32intend to look back over three great rock music decades,
0:00:32 > 0:00:35the '70s, the '80s, and the '90s -
0:00:35 > 0:00:3830 years in which British rock was up there leading the world,
0:00:38 > 0:00:42just like British Steel, British cars, British TV.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46"Five years, that's all we've got," famously shrieked David Bowie.
0:00:46 > 0:00:51Not tonight, Dave, we've got 10, 10 years that shook the world -
0:00:51 > 0:00:52the 1970s.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55MUSIC: "Evil Woman" by ELO
0:01:12 > 0:01:14Trust me, viewers, British rock in the '70s
0:01:14 > 0:01:16was a marvellous, mixed-up, shook-up world.
0:01:16 > 0:01:19Nobody seemed to have a clue what was going on, really.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22Well, I've dragooned some fellow foot soldiers from the '70s
0:01:22 > 0:01:26to better make sense of the decade that shrugged off its 1960s hangover
0:01:26 > 0:01:29to take up with art rockers, heavy rockers, pointy head pixies,
0:01:29 > 0:01:32before having an almighty punch-up with punk.
0:01:32 > 0:01:35# I've got a feeling inside of me... #
0:01:35 > 0:01:37Was that what really happened in the '70s, though?
0:01:37 > 0:01:39The bass player from Joy Division,
0:01:39 > 0:01:41the inspirational guitarist from The Slits,
0:01:41 > 0:01:44and a man who wrote for Rolling Stone, met the Velvet Underground
0:01:44 > 0:01:48and got to number 49 in the UK charts, just might have the answer.
0:01:48 > 0:01:51Joining me on this endeavour are a woman who intimidated me
0:01:51 > 0:01:54the first time I met her and continues to do so.
0:01:54 > 0:01:56It may be a crush! It's too late to say so.
0:01:56 > 0:01:58There's Viv Albertine, formerly of The Slits,
0:01:58 > 0:02:00but a musician all round in her own right,
0:02:00 > 0:02:04on this side, that devil, devil, devil of a Mancunian on bass...
0:02:04 > 0:02:08well, air bass tonight, thankfully, perhaps, Peter Hook,
0:02:08 > 0:02:11and on this side, now formally known as Jet Bronx, but for ever
0:02:11 > 0:02:15in my opinion, rather tragically, the Pete Best of MasterChef.
0:02:15 > 0:02:19There's Loyd Grossman. That's just the bona fides.
0:02:19 > 0:02:21I'd like each of you to start this off.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25Start with you, Viv, tell us the first gig you ever went to
0:02:25 > 0:02:27and I hate the word gig, it's a concert.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30If you can even remember how much you paid for it, what was it?
0:02:30 > 0:02:31I don't remember how much I paid,
0:02:31 > 0:02:34I remember it was the Edgar Broughton Band,
0:02:34 > 0:02:37whose song was Out Demons Out. It was the first live band I'd ever seen.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40I sat in the front row in a little wooden chair, like a church chair.
0:02:40 > 0:02:42It was at the country club in Belsize Park,
0:02:42 > 0:02:44- just behind the tube station.- Wow!
0:02:44 > 0:02:48I was with a couple of older boys. And it was an absolute racket.
0:02:48 > 0:02:50I couldn't differentiate between the sounds
0:02:50 > 0:02:54because I was used to hearing produced music on a record,
0:02:54 > 0:02:56and suddenly, I just had these speakers right in front of me,
0:02:56 > 0:02:59I was in the front row. Couldn't make head nor tail of it.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02Given the glory period five or six years later,
0:03:02 > 0:03:05- they really were anarchic. - They really were a punk band.
0:03:05 > 0:03:07Not in a good way. Peter, the first concert you ever attended.
0:03:07 > 0:03:11The first live band I ever saw were a band called Smithy,
0:03:11 > 0:03:14which was led by Mike Sweeney,
0:03:14 > 0:03:17then they became the Salford Jets once we all got to punk,
0:03:17 > 0:03:22and I paid 30p as part of the youth club that I went to.
0:03:22 > 0:03:26And was it like seeing Elvis Presley in '53 at a Tennessee hayride?
0:03:26 > 0:03:30No, they were glam rock at the time. They were OK.
0:03:30 > 0:03:34It was the first live band I'd ever seen. It was interesting for that.
0:03:34 > 0:03:36Loyd, the first band you saw?
0:03:36 > 0:03:39Well, the first band I saw was Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians,
0:03:39 > 0:03:42in the late 1950s!
0:03:42 > 0:03:46But the first rock gig, as we musos say, I ever went to
0:03:46 > 0:03:51- was The Kingsmen.- Oh, all right. - Of Louie Louie fame.
0:03:51 > 0:03:55- Um...1965?- Wow, well done.
0:03:55 > 0:03:58Yeah, I got in for nothing because I carried someone's amp.
0:03:58 > 0:04:00- And did it change your life? - Yeah!- Yeah.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03I still don't know what the lyrics to Louie Louie mean,
0:04:03 > 0:04:05but, yeah, it changed my life.
0:04:05 > 0:04:07Did he want you to carry his amp, or were you...?
0:04:07 > 0:04:10I was trying to carry it away from the gate!
0:04:10 > 0:04:11I was going to say,
0:04:11 > 0:04:14carrying it in Steve Jones at the Sex Pistols kind of way.
0:04:14 > 0:04:16Time to time travel.
0:04:16 > 0:04:20If the 1960s proved one thing, it was that rock was hugely popular,
0:04:20 > 0:04:22but still shambolic.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25At the turn of the decade, the '70s promised great things,
0:04:25 > 0:04:29however, a global audience now stared at musicians and said,
0:04:29 > 0:04:31"OK, we've heard your pop, we've heard your psychedelia.
0:04:31 > 0:04:33"What else can you do?"
0:04:33 > 0:04:35MUSIC: "Baba O'Riley" by The Who
0:04:37 > 0:04:381970 -
0:04:38 > 0:04:42and as this exciting underground futurescape dawned,
0:04:42 > 0:04:46everyone seemed, well, a little confused.
0:04:46 > 0:04:48After the astonishing decade preceding it,
0:04:48 > 0:04:52you'd expect 1970 to be a vintage year for rock.
0:04:52 > 0:04:55Yet, this was the year the Beatles broke up,
0:04:55 > 0:04:57leaving rock music leaderless...
0:04:59 > 0:05:02..and then Jimi Hendrix choked to death in London,
0:05:02 > 0:05:06not long after headlining the Isle of Wight Festival.
0:05:06 > 0:05:09Meanwhile, music journalists were getting worried that 30
0:05:09 > 0:05:12might be too old to rock.
0:05:12 > 0:05:16So who would be the first new band of the decade to fill the vacuum?
0:05:16 > 0:05:19# In the summertime, when the weather is hot... #
0:05:19 > 0:05:22Answer - jug and banjo-toting Mungo Jerry,
0:05:22 > 0:05:25and, of course, no-one in the group was actually called Jerry, or Mungo!
0:05:25 > 0:05:28# Instant karma's gonna get you... #
0:05:28 > 0:05:30Meanwhile, the former Beatles themselves
0:05:30 > 0:05:32were choosing alternative lifestyles.
0:05:32 > 0:05:35George immersed himself in gnome chic...
0:05:36 > 0:05:39..John was making a statement with his new haircut,
0:05:39 > 0:05:42Paul took up sheep-wrangling in Scotland,
0:05:42 > 0:05:44and Ringo found Jesus.
0:05:44 > 0:05:46Well, the carpentry side, anyway.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50- How long have you been designing furniture now?- About 18 months.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52MUSIC: "Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield
0:05:52 > 0:05:55In the meantime, 2,630,000 Brits
0:05:55 > 0:05:57were still waiting around for 1973,
0:05:57 > 0:06:01and the release of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06Eventually, it was decided that the decade
0:06:06 > 0:06:09had better get its act together, and start.
0:06:10 > 0:06:15In 1971, a torrent of absolutely fantastic albums arrived.
0:06:17 > 0:06:21Sticky Fingers, Hunky Dory, Who's Next, Led Zeppelin IV,
0:06:21 > 0:06:24and John Martyn's Bless The Weather.
0:06:24 > 0:06:26And those were just the British releases.
0:06:28 > 0:06:32Having just turned 14, I took all this booming creativity for granted.
0:06:32 > 0:06:36In fact, I secretly felt partially responsible.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39Dozens of sounds and sights were busy being born.
0:06:39 > 0:06:41Who really knew what was going on?
0:06:41 > 0:06:42Was it panto rock?
0:06:42 > 0:06:45Was it pants rock? Weird beard rock?
0:06:45 > 0:06:48Space rock? Double denim rock?
0:06:48 > 0:06:50Deutsche rock?
0:06:50 > 0:06:53Plus, whatever it was that Bowie had decided to become that week.
0:06:57 > 0:06:59It was clear that the '70s would be defined by
0:06:59 > 0:07:01a wonderfully confusing creative chaos.
0:07:05 > 0:07:08Would this be as good as rock would ever get?
0:07:08 > 0:07:10# Friends say it's fine... #
0:07:10 > 0:07:13People don't believe in decades, per se,
0:07:13 > 0:07:15they think it's a media invention.
0:07:15 > 0:07:17But I think there was a definite feeling
0:07:17 > 0:07:20that coming out of the 1960s, Loyd,
0:07:20 > 0:07:221970 had to prove itself.
0:07:22 > 0:07:24What do you remember about going into that decade, musically?
0:07:24 > 0:07:28Well, I think musically what was most interesting was
0:07:28 > 0:07:31the fact that there was such a great variety of stuff.
0:07:31 > 0:07:33- Right off the bat? - Right off the bat.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36I mean, from the time of the early '60s, for example,
0:07:36 > 0:07:39a lot of American bands were rediscovering country and western music.
0:07:39 > 0:07:41That was really interesting.
0:07:41 > 0:07:44A lot of the British bands were going back to folk roots.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47Psychedelia was still hanging around.
0:07:47 > 0:07:49Prog was just bubbling under.
0:07:49 > 0:07:54And of course, you know, one was overwhelmed by heavy music,
0:07:54 > 0:07:57by Led Zeppelin, by blues-based stuff like Fleetwood Mac.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00So there was a tremendous variety going on.
0:08:00 > 0:08:05And that defies the idea that, you know, 1970s,
0:08:05 > 0:08:08suddenly everything changed, music became very slick and bland
0:08:08 > 0:08:11and then we just waited around for punk, which didn't happen.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14It's an odd thing to think that it was only seven years
0:08:14 > 0:08:17- between Woodstock and the Pistols. - Yeah.
0:08:17 > 0:08:19And plenty happened in that time.
0:08:19 > 0:08:20And it seemed to be...
0:08:20 > 0:08:23there's a lot of talk about being in tribes and stuff.
0:08:23 > 0:08:26I don't remember that, I bought all kinds of stuff. How was it for you?
0:08:26 > 0:08:28Yeah, I think the '70s were very disparate,
0:08:28 > 0:08:31and there were lots of different things going on. People struggling.
0:08:31 > 0:08:36I think what was bad about the early '70s is it was very derivative.
0:08:36 > 0:08:38Especially English music.
0:08:38 > 0:08:41You know, you had the sort of pub rock which I was very involved in
0:08:41 > 0:08:44cos I was working at Dingwalls as a barmaid.
0:08:44 > 0:08:46So there's pub rock, Kilburn And The High Roads,
0:08:46 > 0:08:48Dr Feelgood, who were using the blues.
0:08:48 > 0:08:51And then there was, like, soft soul or white soul,
0:08:51 > 0:08:55and you got The Average White Band, Jess Roden, Kokomo.
0:08:55 > 0:08:56They were all great bands
0:08:56 > 0:09:00but they were not inherently and honestly English.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03They didn't do that thing that needed to be done to make music your own.
0:09:03 > 0:09:05I think in '70 and '71, there was...
0:09:05 > 0:09:09because there were groups, whether it was Yes or Free,
0:09:09 > 0:09:12I hadn't heard anything like that before.
0:09:12 > 0:09:14But what I think is very interesting is Viv's point
0:09:14 > 0:09:18about a lot of the English bands being very, very derivative.
0:09:18 > 0:09:21And very based in a whole American rhythm and blues...
0:09:21 > 0:09:24But I had no idea, I was 13, 14, I had no idea...
0:09:24 > 0:09:26But that's why it's kind of important,
0:09:26 > 0:09:29although we all dismiss the English folk rock scene,
0:09:29 > 0:09:32bands like Fairport Convention...
0:09:32 > 0:09:35- Pentangle.- ..and Pentangle were genuinely trying to find
0:09:35 > 0:09:38an English tradition that they could draw on.
0:09:38 > 0:09:41And if you remember the liner notes for Liege & Lief,
0:09:41 > 0:09:43that wonderful Fairport Convention album,
0:09:43 > 0:09:46it was virtually a history of the English folk tradition.
0:09:46 > 0:09:48And whilst it seems silly in retrospect,
0:09:48 > 0:09:51at the time it was a very important effort to create an English genre.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54It did feel like history. It felt like a lesson to me.
0:09:54 > 0:09:56It was quite didactic.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00I must say, I don't know about you, Hooky, but I was aware that
0:10:00 > 0:10:03I was part of something that hadn't happened before.
0:10:03 > 0:10:07As rock music, British rock music kind of expanded out into the void.
0:10:07 > 0:10:09The interesting thing about us, we sound the same age,
0:10:09 > 0:10:12I was 14 in the '70s when it began.
0:10:12 > 0:10:15I went through the pop phase, as you do, when you're 14.
0:10:15 > 0:10:18By the time I got to 17, when I was getting a bit serious with myself,
0:10:18 > 0:10:20I went through the heavy rock.
0:10:20 > 0:10:22Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple,
0:10:22 > 0:10:25and then just as I was trying to look for
0:10:25 > 0:10:28something else in the world, I got punk. I got the Sex Pistols.
0:10:28 > 0:10:31So for me, it was a wonderful decade, it went
0:10:31 > 0:10:33from the sublime to the ridiculous.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36If you look at '71 particularly, which was pointed out on there,
0:10:36 > 0:10:40it is just about the most fertile year in terms of albums
0:10:40 > 0:10:43that now people presume, you know, have always been around.
0:10:43 > 0:10:47You think, Jeez, Hunky Dory in the same year as Stairway To Heaven
0:10:47 > 0:10:50and all of this, which now, it's hard for me
0:10:50 > 0:10:52to separate from being "classics" and "heritage".
0:10:52 > 0:10:56But I remember being extraordinarily excited by it and not bound by it.
0:10:56 > 0:10:58I bought pop records alongside of it.
0:10:58 > 0:11:01And you ended up at Edgar Broughton, as well as, I'm sure, having...
0:11:01 > 0:11:04Well, I think for me, I was casting around
0:11:04 > 0:11:07because I'd come out of the '60s which had been so full of,
0:11:07 > 0:11:11um...sort of lessons in a good way.
0:11:11 > 0:11:15I'd learnt stuff from the '60s, protest songs, anti-Vietnam songs,
0:11:15 > 0:11:18songs about psychedelic drugs. You took journeys with the musicians.
0:11:18 > 0:11:21Yet, coming into the '70s, that was gone.
0:11:21 > 0:11:26I think what the '70s musicians took from the '60s was experimentation.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30Because you would see a band like Soft Machine alongside
0:11:30 > 0:11:34Pink Floyd, alongside some really commercial band, Third Ear Band or...
0:11:34 > 0:11:36Did you feel that this was something different
0:11:36 > 0:11:38from what your elder sister
0:11:38 > 0:11:41or friends' elder sisters had been listening to?
0:11:41 > 0:11:43It wasn't Woodstock any more.
0:11:43 > 0:11:47Even as early as '70, '71, it felt there was a change.
0:11:47 > 0:11:51- With King Crimson, say, and that kind of band?- Yeah.- No, I didn't.
0:11:51 > 0:11:56It just went on and on building, in a way, the experimentation building.
0:11:56 > 0:11:59I didn't even sort of feel "All hippies are dead,"
0:11:59 > 0:12:03because I was still watching hippies, I was still watching blues,
0:12:03 > 0:12:06I was still watching experimental bands like Henry Cowell.
0:12:06 > 0:12:10- All of them were a big jumble. - That's the key, the big jumble.
0:12:10 > 0:12:12The jumble and the fact that it wasn't,
0:12:12 > 0:12:14as you said, it wasn't tribal.
0:12:14 > 0:12:16We were all listening to all sorts of stuff.
0:12:16 > 0:12:19And the other thing to remember, I think, is as well,
0:12:19 > 0:12:21people presume that it was the culture then.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24Everyone was talking about all these bands. It wasn't.
0:12:24 > 0:12:26And you knew two or three mates who'd got it.
0:12:26 > 0:12:29Didn't exclude your other mates, but if you were going to play
0:12:29 > 0:12:33your records, we all had a majority of mates who said, "What's this?"
0:12:33 > 0:12:35So much of the DNA of rock and pop is American.
0:12:35 > 0:12:38Yet one band, from Birmingham,
0:12:38 > 0:12:41could claim to have created a new kind of rock music
0:12:41 > 0:12:42in the early '70s.
0:12:42 > 0:12:45It was oppressive, it was menacing,
0:12:45 > 0:12:47and it weighed about 20,000 tons.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50MUSIC: "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath
0:12:52 > 0:12:53Let's face it.
0:12:53 > 0:12:56Selling your soul to the devil is pretty much an everyday event
0:12:56 > 0:12:58in the music business.
0:12:58 > 0:13:00But it seems that one band from the Black Country
0:13:00 > 0:13:03took it a bit more seriously than others.
0:13:03 > 0:13:04For their end of the deal,
0:13:04 > 0:13:07Black Sabbath created a brand-new kind of rock.
0:13:07 > 0:13:10Nobody was doing anything remotely as heavy
0:13:10 > 0:13:13as Sabbath did on their first two albums.
0:13:14 > 0:13:16A band so utterly Satanic and evil
0:13:16 > 0:13:18that they all had to sleep in the same room together
0:13:18 > 0:13:20after watching The Exorcist.
0:13:22 > 0:13:26The name "heavy metal" somehow stuck to this strain of mutant music.
0:13:26 > 0:13:31And in a trice, this very gloomy British virus spread.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38Former beat musos were now re-emerging, hairily,
0:13:38 > 0:13:40in bands like Atomic Rooster.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43One glance at their Death Walks Behind You album
0:13:43 > 0:13:47shows we're a long way from the "smile, boys" era.
0:13:47 > 0:13:49# Fire... #
0:13:49 > 0:13:52Doubtless, the Rooster were inspired by their old boss
0:13:52 > 0:13:56and headcase Arthur Brown, whose vocal pyrotechnics offered
0:13:56 > 0:13:59an early prototype for the wilder singer of the '70s.
0:13:59 > 0:14:01MUSIC: "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin
0:14:01 > 0:14:05To this day, arguments can break out in bars
0:14:05 > 0:14:09as to whether certain bands are heavy or hard rock.
0:14:09 > 0:14:13Either way, the constituent elements of both were indisputable -
0:14:13 > 0:14:15the drums that thundered,
0:14:15 > 0:14:18the riffs that pulverised,
0:14:18 > 0:14:23and the vocals that wailed about serious, mysterious stuff...
0:14:23 > 0:14:27# Oooh, yeah... #
0:14:27 > 0:14:31..and above all else, magnificently loud.
0:14:33 > 0:14:371972, a concert by Deep Purple at London's Rainbow got them into
0:14:37 > 0:14:40the Guinness Book Of Records as the loudest band in the world!
0:14:42 > 0:14:44116 dbs,
0:14:44 > 0:14:47still the only concert that could be heard from the moon.
0:14:47 > 0:14:52# As the hours roll by... #
0:14:52 > 0:14:56For sheer heavyweight riffery, you can't beat the '70s.
0:14:56 > 0:14:58In fact, to paraphrase the '60s,
0:14:58 > 0:15:01if you can still hear the '70s, you weren't really there.
0:15:05 > 0:15:08CHEERING
0:15:08 > 0:15:14Heavy rock, heavy metal, a derided term and rightly so in some ways,
0:15:14 > 0:15:16began with Black Sabbath, we're saying,
0:15:16 > 0:15:19because that sound still sounds very different.
0:15:19 > 0:15:20I don't know how they did it,
0:15:20 > 0:15:23whether it was like the Glenn Miller story, one day he broke a string
0:15:23 > 0:15:25and said, "Ooh, it sounds like that."
0:15:25 > 0:15:29It's interesting it could be a recording technique that gives them the different sound,
0:15:29 > 0:15:31but I do remember hearing Black Sabbath the first time.
0:15:31 > 0:15:34A friend from school took me home, he was called Daniel Avin.
0:15:34 > 0:15:36He took me home to play me this record
0:15:36 > 0:15:38and he was playing the record in the living room
0:15:38 > 0:15:40and sort of after about two tracks,
0:15:40 > 0:15:42he just stood up and tried to jump through the window.
0:15:42 > 0:15:47- Did he?- And bounced off! He was only 14.- And the vibes had led him there?
0:15:47 > 0:15:50Yeah, yeah! That's what Black Sabbath did to him,
0:15:50 > 0:15:52made him jump through the window.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55- It was quite shocking.- But had he read that's what Black Sabbath...
0:15:55 > 0:15:57I don't want to analyse the story too much.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00Maybe it put the seed in his mind.
0:16:00 > 0:16:02- Because the test is... - I was very happy he bounced off.
0:16:02 > 0:16:04..to listen to Black Sabbath,
0:16:04 > 0:16:07certainly the first three albums, they're extremely surprising.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10You think they're going to be plodding, and they're not.
0:16:10 > 0:16:13It's a word, and I hesitate, they're quite deft.
0:16:13 > 0:16:15It's almost like they sat down in the studio and said,
0:16:15 > 0:16:17"We can't just hit people over the head."
0:16:17 > 0:16:21And there are little bits and pieces between tracks and during tracks
0:16:21 > 0:16:25where they take the foot off the pedal and say, "We're going to second-guess you."
0:16:25 > 0:16:28The trouble is, people don't go back and listen to them again.
0:16:28 > 0:16:29What would be your relationship,
0:16:29 > 0:16:31given that you've got the Edgar Broughton badge on,
0:16:31 > 0:16:35what would be your relationship to, particularly, Black Sabbath?
0:16:35 > 0:16:37My relationship to Black Sabbath would be,
0:16:37 > 0:16:41I feel completely excluded from that whole thing, as a girl.
0:16:41 > 0:16:44- The posturing, the pouting, the thrusting...- They didn't!
0:16:44 > 0:16:47- Viv, they didn't! - The noise, the swinging the hair.
0:16:47 > 0:16:51- Black Sabbath didn't do that. - The distortion of the guitars.
0:16:51 > 0:16:53- All unattractive.- They gave birth to that but they didn't do it.
0:16:53 > 0:16:57That's the extraordinary thing. I'm not making a case for them,
0:16:57 > 0:17:00it's the idea that the reason that they are revered now
0:17:00 > 0:17:02is because they actually didn't do that.
0:17:02 > 0:17:06If you see Black Sabbath, there's no Robert Plant-ism about them.
0:17:06 > 0:17:10Well, certainly, I wasn't interested at all on any level,
0:17:10 > 0:17:13musically, visually. There was no way in for me as a girl.
0:17:13 > 0:17:16You know what, though, I think... I think
0:17:16 > 0:17:19the closest the Sex Pistols had was Black Sabbath.
0:17:19 > 0:17:22It was the only album I heard after Black Sabbath that had
0:17:22 > 0:17:25not a bone of black music in it. It's true!
0:17:25 > 0:17:29I don't get that analysis at all, actually!
0:17:29 > 0:17:34Because the Pistols as we know were steeped in reggae and black culture.
0:17:34 > 0:17:36But their album couldn't be more rock.
0:17:36 > 0:17:38And the only album before that...
0:17:38 > 0:17:40If you listen to Led Zeppelin, if you listen to Deep Purple,
0:17:40 > 0:17:43there's bits and pieces that are quite funky, even Yes.
0:17:43 > 0:17:46The Pistols and the Sabbath albums
0:17:46 > 0:17:48don't have a single black note in them.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51You can't tell me that EMI or all these things that came later,
0:17:51 > 0:17:55the only black in the Pistols had the word Sabbath after it,
0:17:55 > 0:17:57and I don't mean as a sound, I mean as an experience.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59But I think one of the interesting things
0:17:59 > 0:18:03that was happening in the '70s was the fact that inevitably,
0:18:03 > 0:18:06for technical reasons, and commercial reasons,
0:18:06 > 0:18:08bands were getting louder.
0:18:08 > 0:18:12- Music was getting much louder. You could...- And very male, very male.
0:18:12 > 0:18:15You wanted to play for bigger audiences,
0:18:15 > 0:18:19so in the States you had very, very loud bands. Blue Cheer, MC5.
0:18:19 > 0:18:21- Vanilla Fudge.- Vanilla Fudge.
0:18:21 > 0:18:25What Sabbath did which was so interesting to an American
0:18:25 > 0:18:29is the fact that Sabbath took that sort of aggressive loudness
0:18:29 > 0:18:34and they overlaid this kind of artful, Satanic, you know,
0:18:34 > 0:18:37- this British arty stuff. - But you said it's arty.
0:18:37 > 0:18:39It sounds like the Midlands to me.
0:18:39 > 0:18:41The weird thing about Black Sabbath was, I thought,
0:18:41 > 0:18:44of course America had Iron Butterfly and all these groups,
0:18:44 > 0:18:47but then Black Sabbath came along and surfers in California
0:18:47 > 0:18:51retreated to their bedrooms to try and get closer to West Bromwich.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54That's a frightening thought, that one, isn't it?
0:18:54 > 0:18:58But I tend to think that perhaps too much emphasis is put upon
0:18:58 > 0:19:01the cartoon of heavy rock, which, of course, it became very quickly,
0:19:01 > 0:19:04rather than trying to look at, if you will, the art form of it which,
0:19:04 > 0:19:06I don't think they knew what they were doing
0:19:06 > 0:19:10and how they arrived at that sound, but it should be differentiated
0:19:10 > 0:19:12from all the Def Leppards and everything that came after.
0:19:12 > 0:19:16Deep Purple's an interesting one, I found them very exciting.
0:19:16 > 0:19:18And I know you did.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21I did. I did. I did like Deep Purple, I must admit.
0:19:21 > 0:19:23And I suppose it's one of those interesting things that,
0:19:23 > 0:19:26as you get older and hopefully become a little bit wiser...
0:19:26 > 0:19:29- No! Don't do that! - ..you try and move on but can't.
0:19:29 > 0:19:33It's interesting you saying that Black Sabbath had a lot of subtlety,
0:19:33 > 0:19:37because I suppose with Deep Purple, musically, they did have subtlety,
0:19:37 > 0:19:40in that they had different moods that they did throughout an album.
0:19:40 > 0:19:42You had to have - you couldn't go out like now
0:19:42 > 0:19:44and do one track over two sides,
0:19:44 > 0:19:46the audience said, "Show us something else."
0:19:46 > 0:19:49I must admit, it was one frightening thing
0:19:49 > 0:19:53when we got back together again as New Order, in 2001, 2002,
0:19:53 > 0:19:57we did a French festival and Deep Purple were on before us.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00And Barney and I were laughing, going, "Deep Purple.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03"Oh, man, this is going to be a cakewalk."
0:20:03 > 0:20:07And oh, my God, to go on after them, they were fantastic!
0:20:07 > 0:20:09They blew us off!
0:20:09 > 0:20:14And it was the only time that I've actually been scared to
0:20:14 > 0:20:18- go on stage, because it was after Deep Purple.- That's extraordinary.
0:20:18 > 0:20:19That was unbelievable.
0:20:19 > 0:20:23It doesn't surprise me, because however mature
0:20:23 > 0:20:26and wise we've become in the ways of music, when it goes,
0:20:26 > 0:20:29"UR-UR-URRR, UR-UR-UR-URRR!" there is
0:20:29 > 0:20:33a 15-year-old inside me goes, "I'm home!"
0:20:33 > 0:20:35There's very few riffs, I suppose, but luckily,
0:20:35 > 0:20:37Joy Division got one with Love Will Tear Us Apart,
0:20:37 > 0:20:40that becomes that kind of riff, you know,
0:20:40 > 0:20:43like an iconic riff that you hear throughout your life.
0:20:43 > 0:20:47Those riffs were talking to young boys' penises, I think!
0:20:47 > 0:20:51- And? The problem with that?- That's my excuse for not being into it.
0:20:51 > 0:20:54I guess so, but it can reverberate through the bones.
0:20:54 > 0:20:57A top bonus of something new being born,
0:20:57 > 0:20:59though, is that nobody really knows what's going on.
0:20:59 > 0:21:00And that's a lot of fun.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03So, corporations and money men took a punt on even the wildest,
0:21:03 > 0:21:08wigged-out eccentric, just in case they missed the next David Bowie.
0:21:08 > 0:21:11Speaking of which, just what was the Dame doing at this time?
0:21:11 > 0:21:15MUSIC: "Sound And Vision" by David Bowie
0:21:15 > 0:21:19Misfits, oddballs, mavericks,
0:21:19 > 0:21:22the '70s sure rang the dinner bell for that lot -
0:21:22 > 0:21:25making music you didn't know you liked yet.
0:21:26 > 0:21:30Not content with making some of the greatest albums of the decade,
0:21:30 > 0:21:33the Dame invited a couple of legendary lowlifes to visit
0:21:33 > 0:21:37unsuspecting Blighty, all the better to shake some action.
0:21:37 > 0:21:41In this great Mick Rock shot, he, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop seem
0:21:41 > 0:21:44somehow still wide awake after a night at the Dorchester.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49While the Bowie-produced Raw Power by Iggy and the Stooges sank
0:21:49 > 0:21:55into oblivion, Reed's David-directed Transformer relaunched his career.
0:21:55 > 0:21:58At times in the '70s, it seemed that record companies were
0:21:58 > 0:22:02forming a queue to sign anybody who was certifiably crackers.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07Reed's old mate from the Velvet Underground, John Cale,
0:22:07 > 0:22:10returned to the UK to make a series of great albums,
0:22:10 > 0:22:13which went from the sublime to the demented.
0:22:13 > 0:22:15The fact that he would perform in a hockey mask,
0:22:15 > 0:22:19bite the heads of wildfowl on stage and call his album Guts,
0:22:19 > 0:22:22well, that was just simply licence.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25# Make me a deal and make it straight... #
0:22:25 > 0:22:29This was a time when even being called Brian was no hindrance
0:22:29 > 0:22:33to becoming avant-garde and happening. Thus, when this Brian -
0:22:33 > 0:22:36real name, Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno -
0:22:36 > 0:22:40met former ceramics teacher Bryan Ferry -
0:22:40 > 0:22:45real name, Bryan Ferry - to create Roxy Music, we all rejoiced.
0:22:45 > 0:22:48MUSIC: "Needle In the Camel's Eye" by Brian Eno
0:22:48 > 0:22:53Eno, of course, went on to explore some wonderful sonic avenues.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55And produce Travis.
0:22:55 > 0:22:58MUSIC: "It's a Rainy Day (Sunshine Girl)" by Faust
0:22:58 > 0:23:01Odd to think that that the man behind some of the decade's
0:23:01 > 0:23:04most challenging music was Richard Branson,
0:23:04 > 0:23:08seen here getting a taste for a future life at altitude.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10His fledgling Virgin label gave us
0:23:10 > 0:23:12such bundles of fun as Slapp Happy...
0:23:12 > 0:23:15Henry Cow...
0:23:15 > 0:23:18and let it be noted, our bearded balloonist friend
0:23:18 > 0:23:22succeeded in selling 100,000 copies of The Faust Tapes.
0:23:22 > 0:23:25MUSIC: "I Want More" by Can
0:23:25 > 0:23:28He even managed to get Cologne anarcho-disco merchants Can
0:23:28 > 0:23:31on Top Of The Pops!
0:23:31 > 0:23:35MUSIC: "Angel's Egg" by Gong
0:23:35 > 0:23:39Perhaps best of all, he launched Gong, a band of wild-eyed,
0:23:39 > 0:23:41pot-headed pixies who regaled us
0:23:41 > 0:23:45with songs about teapots that flew and...stuff like that.
0:23:45 > 0:23:46# The light gets stronger
0:23:46 > 0:23:50# And all our eyes look yonder to see what's going on... #
0:23:52 > 0:23:55Viv, could you connect any more with, let's say,
0:23:55 > 0:23:58the fringe groups, by the definition they were fringe,
0:23:58 > 0:24:00that you could with heavy metal or anything?
0:24:00 > 0:24:04I could, but to be honest, I couldn't really understand
0:24:04 > 0:24:07the music of Henry Cow and Third Ear Band, it was way over my head,
0:24:07 > 0:24:11but I understood the premise, which was they were sort of questioning
0:24:11 > 0:24:15the rules of rock, and I don't know why that mattered to me,
0:24:15 > 0:24:19but somewhere deep inside me, it mattered that they were challenging
0:24:19 > 0:24:21those rules and undermining them and going against them.
0:24:21 > 0:24:24Even though when I listened to them, and I saw them a lot,
0:24:24 > 0:24:25because they played a lot of free concerts,
0:24:25 > 0:24:29like the Parliament Hill free concerts, Hyde Park, you know,
0:24:29 > 0:24:33- Third Ear Band opened for the Stones at Hyde Park...- Yes, of course.
0:24:33 > 0:24:37You know, so you would see these bands quite easily, and free,
0:24:37 > 0:24:39but they were hard to listen to.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41But I liked that they were undermining, and often
0:24:41 > 0:24:44they had a few girls in them, that's the first time I saw girls on stage!
0:24:44 > 0:24:47I still couldn't relate to them, because they were
0:24:47 > 0:24:50classical musicians, playing oboe, bassoon, things like that,
0:24:50 > 0:24:52but it was the first time I saw girls on stage.
0:24:52 > 0:24:55Someone like Gong would have this whole travelling theatre behind,
0:24:55 > 0:24:57but it was very much the Earth Mother thing going on,
0:24:57 > 0:25:00they would walk around with the sheepdog and the babies
0:25:00 > 0:25:01while the fellas wigged out on stage.
0:25:01 > 0:25:05You know, for a girl, it was kind of appealing, in a way, just to see women around.
0:25:05 > 0:25:07I used to try and connect with bands,
0:25:07 > 0:25:10I would look at record covers and see, who are the girls' names?
0:25:10 > 0:25:12Were they dedicated to girlfriends?
0:25:12 > 0:25:16Was there a picture of a girl on the back, you know, sitting around the table with them?
0:25:16 > 0:25:18That was my only way in, through the girlfriends.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21Yeah, and Peter, the idea of being outsiders, of course,
0:25:21 > 0:25:23very much identified later with punk,
0:25:23 > 0:25:28but it seemed, between '70 and '76 even, record companies put money
0:25:28 > 0:25:32in and made album after album with people who had no hope.
0:25:32 > 0:25:36- Even they had some worth now, but... - They've always done that, mate, they've always done that.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39They went broke, even someone like Kevin Ayers,
0:25:39 > 0:25:41who people love now, you know, NOW people like it,
0:25:41 > 0:25:44but at the time, they weren't popular.
0:25:44 > 0:25:46And they were in all the second-hand bins everywhere.
0:25:46 > 0:25:50Did you like groups just because they were weird ever?
0:25:50 > 0:25:54I went through probably quite manly stages, I suppose you'd have to say.
0:25:54 > 0:25:58Once I got into heavy rock, it became all-enveloping.
0:25:58 > 0:26:01And the wonderful thing about LPs, as we see here,
0:26:01 > 0:26:04is that walking around with them was like that badge, wasn't it,
0:26:04 > 0:26:07the tribe that you belonged to?
0:26:07 > 0:26:09And you were always searching for something.
0:26:09 > 0:26:12I mean, walking around with a Henry Cow LP, or a Gong LP,
0:26:12 > 0:26:15was not really going to get you anywhere, not in Salford, anyway!
0:26:15 > 0:26:19But I did tread quite a normal path, musically.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22And I must say,
0:26:22 > 0:26:27not being a musician does enable you to enjoy music a lot more than
0:26:27 > 0:26:30when you become a musician, because as soon as I became
0:26:30 > 0:26:35a musician at 21, in 1977, everything changed.
0:26:35 > 0:26:40- Really, you lose the enjoyment. - Why did it change?- You are critical.
0:26:40 > 0:26:43You're always, yeah, hypercritical.
0:26:43 > 0:26:48And always, the competition is what then drives you, and I must
0:26:48 > 0:26:53admit, as I've got older, it's never left me, that competition.
0:26:53 > 0:26:55- Groups are insanely competitive. - Yeah.
0:26:55 > 0:26:59Who would you say is the furthest limb you went out on?
0:26:59 > 0:27:00Is there any one you liked that...?
0:27:00 > 0:27:05The furthest limb that I went was Can, Faust. Krautrock.
0:27:05 > 0:27:08Then into Kraftwerk, and that was through Ian Curtis,
0:27:08 > 0:27:11who introduced us to it, and Steve Morris as well.
0:27:11 > 0:27:13But even those bands, you know, they had songs,
0:27:13 > 0:27:16they would be on Top Of The Pops. Kevin Ayers had fantastic songs.
0:27:16 > 0:27:19You know, Kraftwerk did, Can had a few.
0:27:19 > 0:27:22And the thing is that they weren't...
0:27:22 > 0:27:25They were fringe groups, but they weren't deliberately subversive.
0:27:25 > 0:27:29You know, the economics of the business, in those days,
0:27:29 > 0:27:32record companies were making tons of money.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35They never knew what the next big thing was going to be,
0:27:35 > 0:27:39so they would sign anyone, there was the money there to sign loads
0:27:39 > 0:27:40and loads of bands.
0:27:40 > 0:27:42I think it's the other way round - I think
0:27:42 > 0:27:46the record companies in those days were driven by people that
0:27:46 > 0:27:49loved music, I think now, it seems to be about money, and you find
0:27:49 > 0:27:53that a lot of the svengalis behind did love music, even the managers.
0:27:53 > 0:27:56When you look at someone like Peter Grant or whatever, you would look
0:27:56 > 0:27:59at them and go, "Oh, God, they're breadheads, just after money."
0:27:59 > 0:28:02But they weren't, they believed in the bands, and they loved music.
0:28:02 > 0:28:04What would you say was your obscure object of desire?
0:28:04 > 0:28:08Was there anything you thought, "Well, I seem to like it, nobody else does?"
0:28:08 > 0:28:10I grew up on music that had a message,
0:28:10 > 0:28:12and I didn't know that I missed that
0:28:12 > 0:28:15until something came along again that had a message, that had a whole...
0:28:15 > 0:28:19that had art, that had philosophy, all wrapped up in it.
0:28:19 > 0:28:22It wasn't just about this good song, or that funny-looking clothes,
0:28:22 > 0:28:24or that loud guitar - it had to have a whole concept.
0:28:24 > 0:28:27- Ducks Deluxe will only take you so far!- Yeah.
0:28:27 > 0:28:30I haven't asked you, Loyd, you sighed
0:28:30 > 0:28:32when Viv Stanshall came on, why?
0:28:32 > 0:28:34Because I loved the Bonzos.
0:28:34 > 0:28:38The Bonzos, to me, were such a sort of inventive band,
0:28:38 > 0:28:40they were genuinely...
0:28:40 > 0:28:43They were very subversive, they were really subversive.
0:28:43 > 0:28:45They wrote fabulous lyrics, great musicians,
0:28:45 > 0:28:49and they were really, really English.
0:28:49 > 0:28:51They were very distinctively English,
0:28:51 > 0:28:53coming out of that whole art school tradition.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56Extremely anarchic and brave to say,
0:28:56 > 0:28:59"Rock music, pretty funny, ain't it?" Nobody said that at the time!
0:28:59 > 0:29:02Well, this is the bit I've been looking forward to.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05Either fall to your knees or run for your lives.
0:29:05 > 0:29:09We are talking about the 1970s, we are talking about rock music, yes?
0:29:09 > 0:29:14Therefore, no ducking the big one. Prog rock, God, I love it so!
0:29:14 > 0:29:18MUSIC: "Yours Is No Disgrace" by Yes
0:29:18 > 0:29:21Uncompromising, mad and brilliant.
0:29:21 > 0:29:25Has any form of rock ever been more '70s than prog?
0:29:25 > 0:29:29A world of arcane knowledge, of Mellotrons, Moogs
0:29:29 > 0:29:32and triple albums with Roger Dean's artwork,
0:29:32 > 0:29:35and costumes as testing as the chord progressions.
0:29:35 > 0:29:39# I know what I like... #
0:29:39 > 0:29:41This was rock that had been through college,
0:29:41 > 0:29:44operating at a level above the common or garden boogie,
0:29:44 > 0:29:47unafraid to mix in a little jazz or classical,
0:29:47 > 0:29:50with a shovelful of bubbling bombast.
0:29:50 > 0:29:53MUSIC: "Fanfare For The Common Man" by Emerson, Lake and Palmer
0:29:53 > 0:29:57And the masters of this domain - Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
0:29:57 > 0:29:59Just a band of wandering minstrels,
0:29:59 > 0:30:03travelling the open road with a few basic requirements.
0:30:03 > 0:30:04MUSIC: "Red" by King Crimson
0:30:04 > 0:30:07These were men - and they were mainly men -
0:30:07 > 0:30:10who saw their guitars and keyboards as scientific instruments
0:30:10 > 0:30:15and not just large props to impress the ladies.
0:30:15 > 0:30:18MUSIC: "On The Run" by Pink Floyd
0:30:18 > 0:30:20Whilst often impenetrable to the outside world,
0:30:20 > 0:30:25Planet Prog itself was bestrode by such visionary colossi
0:30:25 > 0:30:31as Van Der Graaf Generator, King Crimson and the mighty Jethro Tull.
0:30:31 > 0:30:33# A poor man, a beggar man, a thief... #
0:30:33 > 0:30:36For me, it was Tull,
0:30:36 > 0:30:39who after creating a medieval flute that could sow seeds, went on to
0:30:39 > 0:30:43create some of the most magnificent prog albums known to man,
0:30:43 > 0:30:45and it was mainly men.
0:30:45 > 0:30:48# Out on the wily, windy moors... #
0:30:48 > 0:30:51Indeed, I will argue that with all her magic,
0:30:51 > 0:30:55mime and songs of Old Albion, Kate Bush was the true
0:30:55 > 0:30:59inheritor of all that was best and probing in prog.
0:31:03 > 0:31:05Following albums like The Six Wives Of Henry VIII
0:31:05 > 0:31:09and Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, Rick Wakeman's LP
0:31:09 > 0:31:13The Myths And Legends Of King Arthur sold 12 million copies.
0:31:13 > 0:31:16And then, he performed it live. On ice!
0:31:19 > 0:31:21MUSIC: "Roundabout" by Yes
0:31:21 > 0:31:23And do you know? It's back!
0:31:23 > 0:31:25I never thought I'd live so long where once again,
0:31:25 > 0:31:31young folk are saying, "Boogie's dead, Dad, long live the prog!"
0:31:31 > 0:31:34I had every one of the albums discussed there,
0:31:34 > 0:31:37and I found them a hard listen at the time to varying degrees,
0:31:37 > 0:31:41but one of the gooder little pieces of information we may be able to bring to you is,
0:31:41 > 0:31:45if you've got a copy of The Six Wives Of Henry VIII, Rick Wakeman himself pointed out that
0:31:45 > 0:31:47when they did the cover shoot in Madame Tussauds,
0:31:47 > 0:31:49the flash was a little too powerful, and have a look,
0:31:49 > 0:31:52plain as the nose on your face, there is Richard Nixon,
0:31:52 > 0:31:56standing behind, possibly, Catherine of Aragon, I don't know.
0:31:56 > 0:31:58Something you probably never noticed, even though
0:31:58 > 0:32:01you've played the albums, like you, Hooky, a million times.
0:32:01 > 0:32:04- A live Richard Nixon?- That would have been a live Richard Nixon, yes!
0:32:04 > 0:32:07Dropping in on it. Here's the thing with prog.
0:32:07 > 0:32:09Back, back, back, it's been a long time now,
0:32:09 > 0:32:13and stripped of the first time experience of it,
0:32:13 > 0:32:15I know my son and his friends listen to me and go, "You know what?
0:32:15 > 0:32:17"This is good. It's nuts!"
0:32:17 > 0:32:19It's not a revival of anything.
0:32:19 > 0:32:23And like you said earlier about everything basically coming up
0:32:23 > 0:32:26from the Mississippi or, you know, over from Europe,
0:32:26 > 0:32:30prog wasn't, and whatever the opinions on it, it flourished,
0:32:30 > 0:32:32it was difficult, until it got too difficult,
0:32:32 > 0:32:34but something like the Yes album...
0:32:34 > 0:32:38It's indulgence, though, isn't it? Is it too indulgent?
0:32:38 > 0:32:39As opposed to what?
0:32:39 > 0:32:43It's just that thing about, "Me, me, me, look at me doing this!"
0:32:43 > 0:32:45I went to see Emerson, Lake and Palmer,
0:32:45 > 0:32:48and he was doing all that with the keyboard,
0:32:48 > 0:32:51then he got a knife out, which I thought was quite interesting,
0:32:51 > 0:32:54and started attacking the keyboard. But that was the best bit of the whole concert!
0:32:54 > 0:32:57That's an old bit of stagecraft - The Nice, in the '60s,
0:32:57 > 0:33:00used to do it, it was a very dynamic piece of stagecraft.
0:33:00 > 0:33:03Keith Emerson, for a relatively small guy,
0:33:03 > 0:33:06could drag a B3 around a stage like nobody's business!
0:33:06 > 0:33:10But what I thought was so ridiculous about prog rock is,
0:33:10 > 0:33:13they were trying to prove a point that didn't have to be proved,
0:33:13 > 0:33:16namely, "Hey, rock 'n' roll is actually serious music!"
0:33:16 > 0:33:18I thought it was so pretentious -
0:33:18 > 0:33:22why couldn't they just play stuff that we wanted to listen to?
0:33:22 > 0:33:24Well, I wanted to listen to Yours Is No Disgrace,
0:33:24 > 0:33:26and have done over and over and over again!
0:33:26 > 0:33:31It's an extremely funky song, and it just is! The idea that...
0:33:31 > 0:33:34Of course, it got a tipping point, like anything else,
0:33:34 > 0:33:37it's like when you hear people say, "Oh, I was into punk rock,
0:33:37 > 0:33:39"I went to see The Ruts once."
0:33:39 > 0:33:41You think, "Well, there's degrees of it."
0:33:41 > 0:33:45And I find that just the very idea that you would just go crazy
0:33:45 > 0:33:46and say, "You know what?
0:33:46 > 0:33:49"This is a whole side of a record." And it wasn't just one tune...
0:33:49 > 0:33:52- Mountain, innit, Nantucket Sleighride.- Mountain!
0:33:52 > 0:33:55But you know, I agree with Pete's
0:33:55 > 0:33:57analysis about the self-indulgence and, you know,
0:33:57 > 0:34:01prog rock is five guys on stage, having a great time
0:34:01 > 0:34:04- and 1,000 people being miserable, listening to it!- No, it's not!
0:34:04 > 0:34:06- That's prog rock.- It isn't!
0:34:06 > 0:34:09- I'm going to come out on the side of prog rock here.- Oh, thank you, Viv!
0:34:09 > 0:34:13- Why?- I think there were some great songs and great melodies in there.
0:34:13 > 0:34:18It was intimidating in terms of their prowess, their musicality was
0:34:18 > 0:34:23shown off, but I really did really love The Court Of The Kingson Crim...
0:34:23 > 0:34:26In The Court Of The Crimson King...
0:34:26 > 0:34:28An Observation By King Crimson.
0:34:28 > 0:34:31Genesis, there were some amazing songs in there.
0:34:31 > 0:34:35And I think I felt there was more of a way in than there was for heavy metal, for me.
0:34:35 > 0:34:38But again, the one thing I hope that these discussions,
0:34:38 > 0:34:42and we are all friends here, say is that it's not the received wisdom.
0:34:42 > 0:34:45The received wisdom is it's all done on a slide rule or a logarithm,
0:34:45 > 0:34:46about how great I can play the guitar.
0:34:46 > 0:34:48They are actually not, they are ensemble pieces,
0:34:48 > 0:34:52for the main part, between '70 and '73, then it's over.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55Then it's over, and thank God, you might say.
0:34:55 > 0:34:57Because they started believing just what you're talking about.
0:34:57 > 0:35:00But I think something like Tarkus by Emerson, Lake and Palmer,
0:35:00 > 0:35:03the time... I don't know what musicians' time theme's like,
0:35:03 > 0:35:05but it's something like 14/17! God love it.
0:35:05 > 0:35:09Then it goes slow, it's a lot of songs stuck together,
0:35:09 > 0:35:13but I'd rather that than perhaps a lot of riffing by Wishbone Ash.
0:35:13 > 0:35:16Oh, I love a lot of riffing by Wishbone Ash!
0:35:16 > 0:35:20I didn't know I was listening to different time signatures,
0:35:20 > 0:35:22I was just completely open as a non-musician to what
0:35:22 > 0:35:24I was hearing, and then when I came to make music myself
0:35:24 > 0:35:28that was in my head and The Slits did all different time signatures
0:35:28 > 0:35:32completely unaware, but just from having heard, I think, prog rock.
0:35:32 > 0:35:35And the guy who taught me guitar, Keith Levene,
0:35:35 > 0:35:38was taught guitar by the guitarist of Yes.
0:35:38 > 0:35:42- Well, thank God. Steve Howe. - Steve Howe, the great Steve Howe.
0:35:42 > 0:35:45So, Steve Howe taught Keith Levene, Keith Levene taught me. So, there is a way...
0:35:45 > 0:35:47Well, I would urge the two gentlemen here to go
0:35:47 > 0:35:51and listen to something like Survival, and certainly Fragile,
0:35:51 > 0:35:54with Roundabout - they are very fun, swinging...
0:35:54 > 0:35:58- That is a great song, Roundabout. - Roundabout is fabulous, and I have to admit...- Oh, here we go, now!
0:35:58 > 0:36:00I've got to admit...
0:36:00 > 0:36:03Look, you're talking to someone who owns a Quatermass album!
0:36:03 > 0:36:08At one stage, I went through this very bad period, you know
0:36:08 > 0:36:10how we all have bad moments in our lives?
0:36:10 > 0:36:12I went through this very bad period where
0:36:12 > 0:36:15I would buy any album that had a cover designed by Hipgnosis.
0:36:15 > 0:36:18- All right.- I've never done that, I must admit.
0:36:18 > 0:36:22- Peter Saville, maybe, but no... - As I say, prog...
0:36:22 > 0:36:26An audience, now, took a couple of palate-cleansing generations
0:36:26 > 0:36:30to say, what's wrong with this? It's insane! Not all of it.
0:36:30 > 0:36:34How many albums do you play both sides and think it's all great?
0:36:34 > 0:36:35But certainly, when it's on its game...
0:36:35 > 0:36:40- Would Mike Oldfield be prog rock, then?- Yeah.- Tubular Bells.
0:36:40 > 0:36:43Hergest Ridge is beautiful... Not Hergest Ridge - Ommadawn.
0:36:43 > 0:36:46Hergest Ridge was a misstep. Ommadawn is lovely in its own right.
0:36:46 > 0:36:50- And it's taken a very long time to listen to it again. - And of course, the Floyd.
0:36:50 > 0:36:54Pink Floyd, the gods of prog rock,
0:36:54 > 0:36:57still one of the most significant rock bands ever.
0:36:57 > 0:37:00I suppose now, it's quite revolutionary again,
0:37:00 > 0:37:02though, because the thing is, nowadays, music tends to be
0:37:02 > 0:37:06based on singles, very vocal led, very traditional length,
0:37:06 > 0:37:09three minutes, four minutes, nobody gets longer than that,
0:37:09 > 0:37:12your Tinie Tempahs, your Disclosures, Skrillex,
0:37:12 > 0:37:16they all have to be very strict formatted, in that thing. So I suppose, really, it is a revolution,
0:37:16 > 0:37:19when you look at it, when you look back at something like that.
0:37:19 > 0:37:24People didn't say, "Ah, prog rock." It became prog rock, but at the time, for a record company to say,
0:37:24 > 0:37:26"What is it?" And we said, "We're not sure,
0:37:26 > 0:37:29"but it's 19 minutes long." And yes, there were misfires, but
0:37:29 > 0:37:32something like Caravan doing In The Land Of Grey And Pink was pretty...
0:37:32 > 0:37:36- And Meddle by Pink Floyd, Echoes on that is a beautiful piece of music. - Fantastic.
0:37:36 > 0:37:38And it was against commercialism in a way,
0:37:38 > 0:37:40it was a sort of two fingers up at the radio,
0:37:40 > 0:37:46because it couldn't be played on the radio, it relied on, you know, people buying it, just word of mouth.
0:37:46 > 0:37:50As I say, I'm glad if I could have just rekindled some interest
0:37:50 > 0:37:51and go back and just to say that a couple...
0:37:51 > 0:37:54We'll be going home and digging out these records now!
0:37:54 > 0:37:57- Quatermass is going back on the turntable!- There you go.
0:37:57 > 0:38:00I'm going to draw the line at Quatermass, if you don't mind!
0:38:00 > 0:38:03But if you're going to talk about prog, you've got to talk about punk.
0:38:03 > 0:38:06Because punk came to rescue us from prog...didn't it?
0:38:06 > 0:38:09The mid-'70s, they were boring!
0:38:09 > 0:38:11Weren't they? Well, how about this?
0:38:11 > 0:38:14Received wisdom is boring, and truth,
0:38:14 > 0:38:17ironically in this instance, is far more anarchic.
0:38:17 > 0:38:20MUSIC: "Sailing" by Rod Stewart
0:38:22 > 0:38:271975, the year before punk, and the music scene is a desert,
0:38:27 > 0:38:32populated only by prog poltroons and aloof, spent old rockers.
0:38:32 > 0:38:37MUSIC: "Roxette" by Dr Feelgood
0:38:37 > 0:38:38Hang on. Hold on.
0:38:38 > 0:38:42Let me get out my rock album almanac and check against...
0:38:42 > 0:38:45What are they called? The facts? Oh, yeah. Hmm.
0:38:45 > 0:38:47The sprightly Dr Feelgood had just written their first
0:38:47 > 0:38:50prescription, Down By The Jetty.
0:38:50 > 0:38:52Bob Dylan was staggering on with a little thing called
0:38:52 > 0:38:54Blood On The Tracks.
0:38:54 > 0:38:58MUSIC: "Born To Run" by Bruce Springsteen
0:38:58 > 0:39:02While the new Bob Dylan, some fellow called Bruce Springsteen,
0:39:02 > 0:39:04was slaying 'em at the Hammersmith Odeon in London,
0:39:04 > 0:39:08in support of an album called Born To Run,
0:39:08 > 0:39:11and then there was... Let's see. Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here,
0:39:11 > 0:39:14Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti,
0:39:14 > 0:39:17Elton John's Captain Fantastic,
0:39:17 > 0:39:19King Crimson's Red...
0:39:19 > 0:39:21# I shot the sheriff... #
0:39:21 > 0:39:26..and Bob Marley with his now legendary Live At The Lyceum album.
0:39:28 > 0:39:30Whatever way you slice it,
0:39:30 > 0:39:33it really doesn't seem like much of a pre-punk drought.
0:39:33 > 0:39:38MUSIC: "Down Down" by Status Quo
0:39:38 > 0:39:41All this and - don't laugh at the back - those three-chord wonders,
0:39:41 > 0:39:45Status Quo, had just landed on the level at number one.
0:39:45 > 0:39:47# Deeper and down... #
0:39:47 > 0:39:50I always think if Quo had worn leather instead of denim,
0:39:50 > 0:39:52they'd have been as critically lauded
0:39:52 > 0:39:54as their New York soul mates, The Ramones.
0:39:54 > 0:39:57# Do you know how to twist?
0:39:57 > 0:39:59# Well, it goes like this... #
0:39:59 > 0:40:01And another thing - hadn't those pesky Americans
0:40:01 > 0:40:04already invented punk rock by 1975 with the likes of Patti Smith,
0:40:04 > 0:40:07The Heartbreakers, Television
0:40:07 > 0:40:11and the frankly rubbish Wayne, later Jane, County?
0:40:11 > 0:40:15MUSIC: "Anarchy In The UK" by The Sex Pistols
0:40:16 > 0:40:20Right...now!
0:40:20 > 0:40:21Ha-ha-ha!
0:40:21 > 0:40:25And then, of course, everything went Rotten.
0:40:25 > 0:40:28It's an interesting point, because the received wisdom is,
0:40:28 > 0:40:30"Oh, we were all so bored."
0:40:30 > 0:40:33I don't remember being bored, and I think that's kind of been
0:40:33 > 0:40:36grafted on by a lot of people saying, "Oh, prog!"
0:40:36 > 0:40:38Prog was over by '73, it don't add up.
0:40:38 > 0:40:42What was happening in '75 and probably responsible
0:40:42 > 0:40:45was things now that are untouchable -
0:40:45 > 0:40:46ELO, ABBA, things like that.
0:40:46 > 0:40:50And I think people suddenly thought, "That's what we don't like,"
0:40:50 > 0:40:53because what usually gets the blame was over by then,
0:40:53 > 0:40:54and '75 wasn't a bad year.
0:40:54 > 0:40:57But you probably weren't bored cos you were a couple of years younger
0:40:57 > 0:41:00and still at home, but if you were a couple of years older and hanging out
0:41:00 > 0:41:04on the corner or at a petrol station, we were bored, we were really bored.
0:41:04 > 0:41:07We were in between, I was probably 17,
0:41:07 > 0:41:10a couple of years older than you, and we were deathly bored.
0:41:10 > 0:41:13I just remember the pavements and no phone, I had no phone,
0:41:13 > 0:41:17couldn't call anyone, take a bus, which would take ages to come,
0:41:17 > 0:41:20to get anywhere, the whole pace of life was so slow...
0:41:20 > 0:41:22But were you aware of that?
0:41:22 > 0:41:25Did you think, "Here I am in 1975, bored"?
0:41:25 > 0:41:27- I was bored. I was so bored. - Yeah?
0:41:27 > 0:41:30Yeah. And I was going to art school, I worked at Dingwalls
0:41:30 > 0:41:34and left there to go to art school and art school was boring, as well.
0:41:34 > 0:41:38Did you necessarily look towards rock music or whatever to cure this?
0:41:38 > 0:41:40No, actually I was looking more towards films, strangely.
0:41:40 > 0:41:43Films were really exciting in the '70s and I was looking towards,
0:41:43 > 0:41:45you know, Scorsese and Coppola,
0:41:45 > 0:41:48and interesting films and interesting soundtracks
0:41:48 > 0:41:50almost meant more to me than rock music then.
0:41:50 > 0:41:52But it was there if you want,
0:41:52 > 0:41:55and whatever you feel about the selection there,
0:41:55 > 0:41:58and there's plenty more, without the American albums in there.
0:41:58 > 0:42:02Yeah, I worked at Dingwalls and the DJ would play Wailers
0:42:02 > 0:42:05and Dr Feelgood would play almost every week,
0:42:05 > 0:42:08Kilburn And The High Roads, Wilko -
0:42:08 > 0:42:11there was nothing that took hold of you and elevated you,
0:42:11 > 0:42:14or took you out of yourself, which is what I thought rock music used to do.
0:42:14 > 0:42:16Nothing that took me out of myself.
0:42:16 > 0:42:19Yeah, The Wailers were great, jig around to that on a dance floor,
0:42:19 > 0:42:22Wilko's funny, isn't he brilliant? Get down the front, watch Wilko.
0:42:22 > 0:42:25But there was nothing that elevated me until punk,
0:42:25 > 0:42:27until I saw the Sex Pistols.
0:42:27 > 0:42:30- Did you have a normal job, as well, during the day?- No.
0:42:30 > 0:42:32I've never had a normal job.
0:42:32 > 0:42:35I think that is what scared me when I left school at 16
0:42:35 > 0:42:38and went to work thinking it was going to be this exciting world,
0:42:38 > 0:42:40and then I ended up with a job at Manchester Town Hall,
0:42:40 > 0:42:44and you were with a load of disgruntled, grumpy old blokes,
0:42:44 > 0:42:47and you're looking round, thinking, "Oh, my God."
0:42:47 > 0:42:49They'd been there for years and years and years,
0:42:49 > 0:42:54and that was scary, thinking, "Is my life going to be like this?"
0:42:54 > 0:42:56I think that's what punk gave me.
0:42:56 > 0:42:59It showed me something that I didn't have to conform
0:42:59 > 0:43:02and do what everybody else was doing. It showed me a way out.
0:43:02 > 0:43:04Of course, you join a band
0:43:04 > 0:43:07and then you end up with a bunch of disgruntled,
0:43:07 > 0:43:10- grumpy old blokes! - LAUGHTER
0:43:10 > 0:43:12THEY TALK OVER EACH OTHER
0:43:12 > 0:43:15Well, the thing is that I think that there was a lot
0:43:15 > 0:43:18of fabulously interesting music going on in the mid-'70s,
0:43:18 > 0:43:22there's no question about that, but I feel it had all become
0:43:22 > 0:43:24rather remote, it was very virtuoso.
0:43:24 > 0:43:26There were very high production values.
0:43:26 > 0:43:28And one of the things about pop music,
0:43:28 > 0:43:30one of the things that makes rock 'n' roll
0:43:30 > 0:43:34is the feeling that the audience should always be able to say,
0:43:34 > 0:43:37"I can do that, I can try it, I can have a go at it."
0:43:37 > 0:43:40- I disagree. I disagree. - I think it's absolutely essential.
0:43:40 > 0:43:43I don't think there's any chance of looking at Emerson, Lake and Palmer
0:43:43 > 0:43:45- and thinking, "I could do that." - Exactly, you can't.
0:43:45 > 0:43:48David Bowie in '75 made Station To Station, you know.
0:43:48 > 0:43:50- Which was wonderful. - And I didn't think, "I can't..."
0:43:50 > 0:43:54I wanted him to do it, I want great artists to do it. I can't do that.
0:43:54 > 0:43:55But he was kind of...
0:43:55 > 0:44:00I think that, still, the rock stars, the rock gods had become too remote
0:44:00 > 0:44:03and too divorced from the audience and too virtuoso,
0:44:03 > 0:44:07and there was something so thrilling about punk,
0:44:07 > 0:44:11and even now, the great testimony to the Sex Pistols
0:44:11 > 0:44:14is the fact that you put on Anarchy In The UK,
0:44:14 > 0:44:16it sounds as if it was made this morning.
0:44:16 > 0:44:20It is the freshest, most exciting single that you can imagine.
0:44:20 > 0:44:23But my argument, if it is an argument at all,
0:44:23 > 0:44:24is not that it's...
0:44:24 > 0:44:27it's always pitted against previous musics.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30And I think it's very much a full stop, rather than beginning,
0:44:30 > 0:44:33because everyone I knew involved at that time
0:44:33 > 0:44:35had all the same albums, whether they admitted to them or not.
0:44:35 > 0:44:38They'd all - that crowd I mentioned earlier
0:44:38 > 0:44:40who were into music - had these albums.
0:44:40 > 0:44:42After punk, I don't know.
0:44:42 > 0:44:44There was a couple of free years and all of this
0:44:44 > 0:44:46and it gets into maybe U2 and everything else,
0:44:46 > 0:44:49but I can see that seven years between Woodstock,
0:44:49 > 0:44:52or indeed the ten years between Sgt Pepper and '77,
0:44:52 > 0:44:54the year of punk, being all of a piece,
0:44:54 > 0:44:57but the idea that it came along divorced from all that,
0:44:57 > 0:44:59to burn away all that, it's lovely rhetoric...
0:44:59 > 0:45:02Yeah, and it is rhetoric. We were all shouting our mouths off,
0:45:02 > 0:45:05- we wanted to destroy everything that went before.- Exactly!
0:45:05 > 0:45:07You know, no-one was going to listen to us.
0:45:07 > 0:45:10When I first saw Johnny Rotten on stage, I thought,
0:45:10 > 0:45:13"My God, how can a boy from a North London council flat..." -
0:45:13 > 0:45:15and I was a girl from a North London council flat -
0:45:15 > 0:45:18"..think he can stand on stage and be listened to?"
0:45:18 > 0:45:21It was beyond belief, and that clicked something in my brain
0:45:21 > 0:45:24for the first time that I could do that.
0:45:24 > 0:45:26But to be daring enough to do that,
0:45:26 > 0:45:28to be revolutionary enough to have that thought,
0:45:28 > 0:45:30cos revolution starts in there,
0:45:30 > 0:45:34you have to trounce everything that went before.
0:45:34 > 0:45:36Of course, yes.
0:45:36 > 0:45:40Surely the thing about the Pistols, when I saw them,
0:45:40 > 0:45:42was they sounded awful.
0:45:42 > 0:45:44It was just the fact that they were so shocking,
0:45:44 > 0:45:46because he was just screaming, "Eff off!"
0:45:46 > 0:45:49- They didn't sound awful to me. - No, I loved them.
0:45:49 > 0:45:53I saw them, I've got a bootleg of that night, and it's great.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56The bootleg's great, but on the night they just sounded awful.
0:45:56 > 0:45:59Again you got that thought, you could do it,
0:45:59 > 0:46:01"I could do that. I'm the same."
0:46:01 > 0:46:04But while you might not listen to very many punk albums now,
0:46:04 > 0:46:08there's no question that all the various tropes and themes
0:46:08 > 0:46:12of punk insinuated themselves into all sorts of other types of music.
0:46:12 > 0:46:14It was a DIY culture, the fact that you can do it yourself,
0:46:14 > 0:46:18that inspired a lot of people to form record companies,
0:46:18 > 0:46:21to handle their own affairs, to not get sucked into the machine.
0:46:21 > 0:46:23I think we can all agree it was a tremendous amount of fun,
0:46:23 > 0:46:26very liberating, wonderful to go through.
0:46:26 > 0:46:29But a lot of the people who claim what it was about
0:46:29 > 0:46:31are sucking the life out of it, what it was all about,
0:46:31 > 0:46:34because I didn't have a road map, I didn't know anyone else who had
0:46:34 > 0:46:37a road map when we were doing our fanzine and going to all the things.
0:46:37 > 0:46:39Glad it happened, but I was happy for other people to do the...
0:46:39 > 0:46:42It was a situationist thing and all of that.
0:46:42 > 0:46:43Maybe, I don't know.
0:46:43 > 0:46:46All revolutions ultimately end in the sort of banality
0:46:46 > 0:46:47of a disco ball, don't they?
0:46:47 > 0:46:50You know, the French Revolution produced Napoleon.
0:46:50 > 0:46:52Inevitably, the punk revolution was going to end
0:46:52 > 0:46:55- in very slick, corporate music. - You see, I'm still doing it -
0:46:55 > 0:46:58agreeing with people when I don't know what they're talking about.
0:46:58 > 0:47:01You know, people who worry themselves about such things
0:47:01 > 0:47:03call the period following punk "post-punk".
0:47:03 > 0:47:05Fair enough, no harm in that.
0:47:05 > 0:47:06Although as someone who was there,
0:47:06 > 0:47:09I remember we had a much catchier name for it.
0:47:09 > 0:47:11We called it "1978".
0:47:17 > 0:47:211978. Punk and the Pistols are history.
0:47:21 > 0:47:23Right, what's next?
0:47:26 > 0:47:30Well, from punk's lurid compost mushroomed a whole array
0:47:30 > 0:47:32of bands who would write the style guide
0:47:32 > 0:47:35for much of the alternative music of the 1980s.
0:47:35 > 0:47:38# You never listen to a word that I say
0:47:38 > 0:47:41# You only see me for the clothes I wear... #
0:47:41 > 0:47:44A reenergised John Lydon led the way
0:47:44 > 0:47:48with his cynically-titled new group, Public Image Ltd.
0:47:48 > 0:47:51Boasting sheet noise, dub-influenced baselines
0:47:51 > 0:47:56and ranting, PIL were regarded as either astonishingly new
0:47:56 > 0:47:57or just a bit of a nuisance.
0:47:57 > 0:48:02Now we're facing a cheapskate, comedy interrogation act,
0:48:02 > 0:48:04and it just ain't on, pal.
0:48:04 > 0:48:08# We are only making plans for Nigel... #
0:48:08 > 0:48:11Some of the previously part-time punks had rather spoiled the joke
0:48:11 > 0:48:14by learning to play a few more than three chords.
0:48:15 > 0:48:19Now they were creating music so off-kilter and angular
0:48:19 > 0:48:22that, properly harnessed, it could perform delicate eye surgery.
0:48:22 > 0:48:24MUSIC: "Transmission" by Joy Division
0:48:24 > 0:48:26And others, at last,
0:48:26 > 0:48:30were writing songs that people could actually dance to.
0:48:30 > 0:48:33And while reggae remained as hip as ever,
0:48:33 > 0:48:36in the relatively unhip world of disco and funk
0:48:36 > 0:48:38some were making history.
0:48:38 > 0:48:42# I want your love... #
0:48:43 > 0:48:46MUSIC: "Heart Of Glass" by Blondie
0:48:46 > 0:48:49Frankly, nobody really knew what they were any more.
0:48:49 > 0:48:52In fact, categories became wonderfully blurred.
0:48:52 > 0:48:54# Once I had a love and it was a gas... #
0:48:54 > 0:48:59Former punks Blondie came to London and went disco - and global -
0:48:59 > 0:49:01with their hit, Heart Of Glass.
0:49:01 > 0:49:04MUSIC: "What A Waste" by Ian Dury and The Blockheads
0:49:04 > 0:49:07Post-punk also meant you didn't have to be handsome,
0:49:07 > 0:49:09just musically brilliant.
0:49:09 > 0:49:12The dogs were having their day, and nothing summed this up better
0:49:12 > 0:49:15than the spectacular break-out of Ian Dury and The Blockheads.
0:49:15 > 0:49:18# I could be a poet I wouldn't need to worry
0:49:18 > 0:49:21# I could be a teacher in a classroom full of scholars... #
0:49:21 > 0:49:23As the decade neared its end, it now seemed
0:49:23 > 0:49:26that nothing mattered and anything was possible.
0:49:26 > 0:49:29# What a waste
0:49:29 > 0:49:31# What a waste... #
0:49:31 > 0:49:34Post-punk. I'm looking at you now, Peter Hook.
0:49:34 > 0:49:37First, when were you aware you were post-punk?
0:49:37 > 0:49:41And how do the last couple of years of the '70s look for you now?
0:49:41 > 0:49:43What was going on in your life?
0:49:43 > 0:49:44Well, I mean, my life
0:49:44 > 0:49:45was completely different.
0:49:45 > 0:49:46It was revolutionised,
0:49:46 > 0:49:48I suppose you'd say,
0:49:48 > 0:49:50but I never thought I was post-punk,
0:49:50 > 0:49:51I still felt very much punk.
0:49:51 > 0:49:56And post-punk was something journalists, erm...said?
0:49:56 > 0:49:58So it didn't really bother me, I was very, very,...
0:49:58 > 0:50:01I mean, the strange thing about forming a group -
0:50:01 > 0:50:05once you're in it, it becomes a 24-hour full-time occupation
0:50:05 > 0:50:07to the exclusion of everything else.
0:50:07 > 0:50:12Literally, we lived and breathed Joy Division, Factory Records,
0:50:12 > 0:50:15and that was it, you know. The next...
0:50:15 > 0:50:18The only thing you cared about was your next gig,
0:50:18 > 0:50:20- or when you wrote your next record. - Did that come as a shock to you?
0:50:20 > 0:50:22Did you think it was going to be a lark?
0:50:22 > 0:50:26Well, I was 21 and it was very difficult right from the start.
0:50:26 > 0:50:28I mean, getting a gig was just impossible.
0:50:28 > 0:50:31Getting a support gig was so difficult.
0:50:31 > 0:50:34I suppose, in a funny way, it makes you want to fight more,
0:50:34 > 0:50:38and the inspiration you took was that punk did seem a fight.
0:50:38 > 0:50:40Everybody seem to be fighting - fighting to get heard,
0:50:40 > 0:50:45fighting to get gigs, fighting to get, you know, your music heard.
0:50:45 > 0:50:47It's true of all the '70s.
0:50:47 > 0:50:49It was a very marginalised world
0:50:49 > 0:50:52that, other than the NME and a few papers,
0:50:52 > 0:50:53you didn't see it in the dailies,
0:50:53 > 0:50:56- you didn't see it on television, not really.- No.
0:50:56 > 0:50:58It was an alien landscape.
0:50:58 > 0:51:00Yeah, you were sort of on your own in it
0:51:00 > 0:51:03and, like Peter said, in your own little world travelling around,
0:51:03 > 0:51:05trying to break down a few barriers, literally,
0:51:05 > 0:51:07by, you know, travelling to this country,
0:51:07 > 0:51:11doing your little gigs and hoping a couple of hundred people turned up.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14But, I don't know, it did feel it was almost over
0:51:14 > 0:51:16before it began, actually.
0:51:16 > 0:51:19For me, it was great when we were all not in bands, really,
0:51:19 > 0:51:21we were just going round each other's houses,
0:51:21 > 0:51:25rehearsing in basements, but as soon as everyone got in their band
0:51:25 > 0:51:28and went off on their little careerist trajectories,
0:51:28 > 0:51:30it was a bore. You know, you didn't see anyone
0:51:30 > 0:51:33any more, you went to a club and no-one was there
0:51:33 > 0:51:35because they were off gigging, all your mates...
0:51:35 > 0:51:39And in music, all of a sudden, Blondie are doing pop music
0:51:39 > 0:51:40and they were a punk band,
0:51:40 > 0:51:43and everyone's getting their three-minute wonders in,
0:51:43 > 0:51:45and the music business is at last saying,
0:51:45 > 0:51:47"Oh, we get it. You CAN have hits with this."
0:51:47 > 0:51:50And you never particularly wanted hits and stuff, I presume.
0:51:50 > 0:51:53- Did you?- No, we didn't want hits, we wanted to hang onto
0:51:53 > 0:51:55what we thought of as the original premise of punk,
0:51:55 > 0:51:58which was to break down all barriers and to be as honest as possible.
0:51:58 > 0:52:01So you're honest in your lyrics, in how you dress, how you speak,
0:52:01 > 0:52:04you don't put on an American accent or little girly voices,
0:52:04 > 0:52:07and in our actual rhythms we didn't want to follow
0:52:07 > 0:52:1012 bar blues progressions, we wanted to, you know...
0:52:10 > 0:52:13So we did the funny timings, we did what came naturally,
0:52:13 > 0:52:16and, of course, we were never commercial because of that.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19Punk evolved, and even though Blondie became a big,
0:52:19 > 0:52:24commercially successful band, punk was in their bloodstream.
0:52:24 > 0:52:27Just as the Rolling Stones, no matter how successful they became,
0:52:27 > 0:52:29were always basically a blues band.
0:52:29 > 0:52:33You know, Blondie were out of that New York punk tradition.
0:52:33 > 0:52:35Yeah, and they went on to conquer the world
0:52:35 > 0:52:37and kind of lead into the whole '80s,
0:52:37 > 0:52:40saying, "Oh, instead of beating you up in the street
0:52:40 > 0:52:42"for looking like that, do you want to buy the outfit?"
0:52:42 > 0:52:45I think a lot of fun, as well, of being that age
0:52:45 > 0:52:49and being into that kind of music is the idea that it wasn't accepted,
0:52:49 > 0:52:52and even though we moan and say, "Society was like this,"
0:52:52 > 0:52:55having to creep out while someone behind you says
0:52:55 > 0:52:58"You're not going out like that," that's kind of disappeared.
0:52:58 > 0:53:00The lasting legacy of punk for me
0:53:00 > 0:53:02is it still doesn't matter if you can't play.
0:53:02 > 0:53:04It's all right for the first time, Eno says it,
0:53:04 > 0:53:06all sorts of people say, "I'm not a musician."
0:53:06 > 0:53:08It's the first time you could say, "I'm not a musician,"
0:53:08 > 0:53:10and it would be a cool thing to say,
0:53:10 > 0:53:13and I think that's still all right now to say that, because of punk.
0:53:13 > 0:53:15It has long been wired into all old rockers
0:53:15 > 0:53:19that nostalgia is the greatest sin, however, let's indulge in it
0:53:19 > 0:53:22a little before we all shuffle off - in all kinds of ways -
0:53:22 > 0:53:26and just to say we stand by the old decade of the '70s -
0:53:26 > 0:53:30yes, Groundhogs and all, Third Ear Band in some cases -
0:53:30 > 0:53:32we're going to bring on the flight case to the future
0:53:32 > 0:53:36to do a little bit of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, the '70s version.
0:53:36 > 0:53:38I asked everyone here to bring along an album
0:53:38 > 0:53:40and a piece of the '70s they wish to be included.
0:53:40 > 0:53:42What have you brought, Loyd?
0:53:42 > 0:53:45The Low Spark Of High-heeled Boys by Traffic.
0:53:45 > 0:53:46A very underrated band these days.
0:53:46 > 0:53:50Stevie Winwood, one of Britain's best ever pop musicians.
0:53:50 > 0:53:53There's a wonderful song about being a rock star
0:53:53 > 0:53:56called Rock 'N' Roll Stew, which is particularly exciting
0:53:56 > 0:54:00- because it has absolutely zero irony at all.- Good for him.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03It's so sort of serious, but a great bit of music.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06And my bit of kit is a Gretsch,
0:54:06 > 0:54:10a 1962 Gretsch Duojet guitar.
0:54:10 > 0:54:13I saw Humble Pie at one of their first American appearances,
0:54:13 > 0:54:16and both Frampton and Marriott were playing these guitars.
0:54:16 > 0:54:18I said, "I've got to get one!"
0:54:18 > 0:54:20So I went out and got one, it was a wreck,
0:54:20 > 0:54:23and then, in a fascinating footnote to rock history,
0:54:23 > 0:54:25- it was restored by Skunk Baxter... - Oh!
0:54:25 > 0:54:28- ..lead guitarist of Steely Dan. - The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan,
0:54:28 > 0:54:32and now one of the great right-wing firebrands of the world.
0:54:32 > 0:54:34We've all lived so long. Beautiful.
0:54:34 > 0:54:37Viv, what album have you brought and what piece of memorabilia?
0:54:37 > 0:54:41- OK, my album is Kokomo.- Well done. - Not so much because of the music.
0:54:41 > 0:54:42The two reasons it resonates with me -
0:54:42 > 0:54:45one, I saw them at Dingwalls when I was a barmaid there,
0:54:45 > 0:54:49and there was a girl on stage called Jody Linscott, playing percussion.
0:54:49 > 0:54:53First time I'd seen a girl on stage and someone behind the bar said,
0:54:53 > 0:54:55"She can't play, she's not a proper musician."
0:54:55 > 0:54:58And that set a little fire burning in my head.
0:54:58 > 0:55:01So, thank you Jody Linscott for that. And it was produced by Chris Thomas,
0:55:01 > 0:55:04who went on to produce the Sex Pistols, which is quite unusual.
0:55:04 > 0:55:07Yes, and a couple or three members of the Joe Cocker Grease Band.
0:55:07 > 0:55:09Yeah, a couple of links there.
0:55:09 > 0:55:11- And my piece of memorabilia is... - Go on.
0:55:11 > 0:55:13..this doll from Christmas '76.
0:55:13 > 0:55:16Johnny Rotten gave this doll to Sid Vicious as a Christmas present.
0:55:16 > 0:55:18She was done up to look like Soo Catwoman.
0:55:18 > 0:55:21She was all dyed, I mean, that's 30 years ago.
0:55:21 > 0:55:25And when you pull down her knickers, it says "Soo" with a little arrow,
0:55:25 > 0:55:27- Sid, down to her vagina.- Oh!
0:55:27 > 0:55:30And it was an amazing Christmas with all us punks
0:55:30 > 0:55:32at Caroline Coon, the artist's house.
0:55:32 > 0:55:35And the turkey ended up down the bog.
0:55:35 > 0:55:36Oh, beautiful!
0:55:36 > 0:55:39- Excuse me while I wipe away a tear at that lovely story.- So sweet!
0:55:39 > 0:55:42Peter, what have you brought and what's your memorabilia?
0:55:42 > 0:55:43- I want that. - We're all looking at that.
0:55:43 > 0:55:46My LP is Euroman Cometh by Jean Jacques Burnel.
0:55:46 > 0:55:50He's my hero, I suppose you'd have to say, my inspiration.
0:55:50 > 0:55:55And as I got voted least likely to ever make a solo LP by Sounds
0:55:55 > 0:55:57one year, and then Jean Jacques managed it,
0:55:57 > 0:56:01I thought, "I can do it," and I used that as the template for Freebass,
0:56:01 > 0:56:03which didn't exactly go according to plan,
0:56:03 > 0:56:05but that's my...
0:56:05 > 0:56:09Great record, actually, that one. And Sex Pistols again, you see?
0:56:09 > 0:56:11This is my ticket to the Sex Pistols,
0:56:11 > 0:56:15which was sold to me by Malcolm McLaren for 50p.
0:56:15 > 0:56:17And he was all dressed in leather
0:56:17 > 0:56:19and even that, before I went in,
0:56:19 > 0:56:22I knew I was entering something very, very different.
0:56:22 > 0:56:25And then the wonderful thing was I went to see them
0:56:25 > 0:56:30when they reformed, which was wild, and I got Row A, Seat 1.
0:56:30 > 0:56:32- Oh!- How about that?
0:56:32 > 0:56:35- How much?- As you should. - Well, it was free.
0:56:35 > 0:56:38I knew the promoter, what can I say?
0:56:38 > 0:56:41Rock aristocracy! They don't have to pay!
0:56:41 > 0:56:44I tell you what, it wasn't far away, was it? Free - 50p! Pretty close.
0:56:44 > 0:56:47The album I brought is, of course, a prog rock album,
0:56:47 > 0:56:51but it's one that only I liked, so it's even more difficult.
0:56:51 > 0:56:55And you can't play it to anyone, which is half the beauty
0:56:55 > 0:56:57of the secret world of prog as it was.
0:56:57 > 0:57:01It's Pete Sinfield, the King Crimson lyricist's album, Still.
0:57:01 > 0:57:03It's...it's hogwash.
0:57:03 > 0:57:07It's very, very difficult to listen to but, God, I played this a lot,
0:57:07 > 0:57:10and all of my mates said, "You're nuts, you are, Baker, what's that?"
0:57:10 > 0:57:14And so Pete Sinfield's Still, by some distance not the greatest
0:57:14 > 0:57:15album of the period, but it's personal.
0:57:15 > 0:57:17That's what they used to say to me about that!
0:57:17 > 0:57:20- That's the key to a lot of it. - That's the great thing.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23Look at this. This is my memorabilia, another record.
0:57:23 > 0:57:25But I worked in a record shop and Marc Bolan used to come in a lot
0:57:25 > 0:57:28and one day when he came in - he was friends with the manager -
0:57:28 > 0:57:31and said, "I'm going off to America, darling, for a long time."
0:57:31 > 0:57:33And John was going out to dinner with him, I said,
0:57:33 > 0:57:35"Quick, give me a record, get him to sign that for us."
0:57:35 > 0:57:37Next day, John comes in. I said, "Did you get it signed?"
0:57:37 > 0:57:40John went, "Oh, yeah, I've left it at home, I'll bring it in tomorrow."
0:57:40 > 0:57:44I thought he didn't. John had very particular writing, spidery.
0:57:44 > 0:57:45When he eventually brought it in,
0:57:45 > 0:57:48I recognised this red on red thing here.
0:57:48 > 0:57:51It says, "Hello, Danny, be good, love Marc Bolan." I thought, "OK."
0:57:51 > 0:57:5530-odd years later I was on eBay, I saw a Marc Bolan autograph -
0:57:55 > 0:57:57that's what he wrote like, as well.
0:57:57 > 0:57:59And I nearly chucked this away so many times,
0:57:59 > 0:58:02but there it is, a real Marc Bolan autograph, and God love him.
0:58:02 > 0:58:05It only strikes me now this is quite appropriate, as well.
0:58:05 > 0:58:08It's Whatever Happened To The Teenage Dream?
0:58:08 > 0:58:11Well, back on your heads, everybody, back to the future.
0:58:11 > 0:58:14Tremendous thanks over there to Peter Hook,
0:58:14 > 0:58:16Viv Albertine and Loyd Grossman.
0:58:16 > 0:58:19Well done, everyone, we acquitted the old generation well, I think.
0:58:19 > 0:58:22So we began with a John Lennon quote, and here's the book-end.
0:58:22 > 0:58:25"I don't believe in Elvis, I don't believe in Zimmermann,
0:58:25 > 0:58:27"I don't believe in Beatles."
0:58:27 > 0:58:30That was John in 1970, closing the book on the past.
0:58:30 > 0:58:33He probably didn't believe in decades, either, but we do,
0:58:33 > 0:58:36and in our next programme we look towards
0:58:36 > 0:58:39that difficult era that followed - the 1980s,
0:58:39 > 0:58:43which, of course, was tragically an era that didn't believe in John.
0:58:43 > 0:58:44Good night.
0:58:44 > 0:58:50# We're playing those mind games together
0:58:52 > 0:58:54# Pushing the barriers
0:58:56 > 0:58:58# Planting seeds
0:58:59 > 0:59:06# Playing the mind guerrilla
0:59:07 > 0:59:10# Chanting the mantra
0:59:10 > 0:59:12# Peace on earth... #