June 13th – There’s lots of ways to attract attention to
yourself in this world; rob a bank wearing a clown’s outfit and a pair of very
long shoes and still get away from the pursuing police or be the CEO of a bank
and after some serious law-breaking leave with a pension that’s as big as the
GDP of many a small African state (oh, sorry, I seem to have repeated myself);
paint a picture of the queen…sorry, spray-paint a picture of the queen…in a very public place and then turn out to be a
subject of doubtful credence when around children; turn up to collect your OBE
wearing nothing but a strategically positioned halibut and false moustache…the
possibilities are endless.
In the pop/rock industry the feverish
mind of the dreaded promoter has to work overtime in order to get one’s
protégé’s noticed, mainly because most stunts and shock-tactics have already
been used. Dress like a big girl? Bowie
Psychedelia was reaching new heights
of sophistication in 1968. The Beatles had released Lady Madonna, with its subtle references to religion, mortality and
the welfare state, such as it was back then. Status Quo had given us Pictures of Matchstick Men and
introduced us to the stunning and sometime disturbing creations of L. S. Lowry
and the world according to H. G. Wells, Donovan had recorded Hurdy Gurdy Man making folk aware of Eastern
European and ethnic cleansing and Fleetwood Mac had stunned with their
descriptive instrumental, Albatross,
showing us all the beauty of flight, of loneliness and of longing. OK, OK, so
Leapy Lee had set light to the genre with Little
Arrows, and Ohio Express had pissed it out with Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, but there was a real feeling of exploration of
the hidden creative arts, of self analysis and of questioning the status quo
(not Status Quo, we knew what they doing, I'm on about the status quo; the way things were kept because they’d always been
this way) and then, of course, there was setting light to your head.
Arthur Brown, of The Crazy World of... fame seemed to corner the market in this particular
form of exhibitionism when he leapt onto the Top of the Pops stage to sing his
eponymous hit, Fire. The bare chest
(probably where Iggy got his idea from) the make-up (probably where KISS got
their idea from) and the flaming crown (probably where…erm…any takers? No? No,
probably not...) were all part of a stage persona that, I would think, has
haunted him to this day…that reminds me, I can recall one of the bands I was in
back around then and our jaunts into the crazy world of setting fire to things.
It would seem our reputation had preceded us as to our antics concerning
setting fire to cymbals and such (see earlier posts) and this meant we were
headed off at the pass by the management of a dance hall somewhere in Brum and
we were threatened, on pain of death, not to create a conflagration on stage.
At the appointed time in the gig, we set light to just one cymbal (our nod to
health and safety) then our vocalist, the lovely and late lamented Brian,
grabbed the flaming disc and, like a modern-day Olympic torch-bearer, jumped
off the stage and ran through the audience with it. Ultra safe, I’d say,
removing the blaze from performers on stage and transporting it through reams
of polyester and chiffon….excellent. I believe we were banned for life from
there…fuckem’; their loss…
Sorry, off on one again.
As you can imagine, Arthur Brown,
too, has had some pretty close squeaks during his time doing his number,
setting fire to himself, to other people, becoming uninsurable…being kicked off
the Jimi Hendrix tour…?!? Now there’s the pot calling the kettle. Kicked off a
tour where the star attraction poured lighter fuel over his Fender Strat and
set it ablaze…there’s rich; jealousy? Whatever, Arthur Brown continued to run
the gamut of permanent disfigurement until, on this day in 1969, the band split
up.
They did reform in 2000 to grace us
with their presence, though my guess is the rest of the band still viewed
possible death by flames as a pretty high price to pay for their pension tour.
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