My British Invasion

by Harold Bronson

  As I continued walking, I heard them before I saw them: bells jangling and voices chanting. I wondered if they were the same Hare Krishnas who regularly accosted passengers at the Los Angeles airport. Here they only added to the street ambiance. At the corner of Royal Avenue stood the modern façade of the Chelsea Drug Store, known to me from The Rolling Stones’ song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” At this point, three years later, there is no intrigue, just a plethora of concessioners.

  Here in the King’s Road, shopping had a soundtrack, as pop music spilled out of the clothing stores: “Metal Guru” by T. Rex, “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” by Slade, “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper, “Standing in the Road” by Blackfoot Sue, “You Wear It Well” by Rod Stewart. Sometimes a nearby shop was playing the same record as one I’d just passed. It made walking down the street fun.

  The flashy clothes of the sixties were out of fashion. I couldn’t even find the short, tight jackets with the puffy shoulders favored by Rod Stewart and the Faces. I bought a blue velvet suit, just like the one Bee Gee Barry Gibb wore in a promotional photo. The salesman at Take 6 was Indian, but spoke like a native Brit. He inquired if I were related to Charles Bronson, a question nobody had ever asked me before. And it happened twice more during my stay. Bronson, whose real surname was Buchinski, was a much bigger movie star in Europe than in the States. The salesman also asked me if I wanted “turnips” with my suit. Turnips? “Turn-ups” were trouser cuffs, and I declined. The trousers were fashionably wide, but not to the ludicrous extent of the “loon pants” popularized by David Bowie.

  Let It Rock catered to English rockers, or Teddy Boys, as they were called. It was not an authentic 1950s look (at least not an American fifties look), because it was also influenced by Edwardian fashion (hence the Teddy nickname). The style included long “drape” jackets, “drainpipe” trousers or tight jeans, thick crepe-soled shoes (called brothel creepers), swept-back hairstyles and long sideburns (called sideboards). A few times during my stay I saw older guys dressed in this manner. Elements of fifties style were apparent in a number of those glitter rock stars of the day, like T. Rex and Gary Glitter, who catered to a young teen audience.

  On Saturday the sixteenth, I went to an all-day rock festival at the Oval Cricket Ground. The opening acts weren’t that impressive: Biggles and Sam Apple Pie, who had opened for Wizzard days before. Man, Wales’ answer to the Grateful Dead, played well, but like the Dead, they lacked strong material and vocals. My main reason for going was to see Jeff Beck’s new group, billed as Beck, Bogart & Appice. Beck was my favorite guitarist. I had seen him perform the previous October, but he now had a different group. Years before, Beck had fallen in love with Tim Bogart’s bass playing and Carmine Appice’s drumming when they were in Vanilla Fudge, but it had taken him until 1972 to form a band with them. This was their first public performance. There weren’t that many people in attendance, about fifteen thousand, so I was able to stand close to the stage. Beck played great, but Bogart was bombastic.

  Frank Zappa’s new group, the Grand Wazoo, was up next. I waited a while, but I could see that it was going to take them much longer to complete their setup. It was damp and so bitterly cold that, much as I would have liked to have stayed—Linda Lewis and Hawkwind were following Zappa—I had to leave.

  On Sunday, it rained. At that time in London, owing to the Sunday Trading Restriction Act of 1936, all the stores were closed on Sundays. Museums opened at noon. What could I do? I took a tube to the St. John’s Wood station. Mick Jagger referenced the area in “Play With Fire,” so I was curious. I walked a rectangle in the rain and noted that it was an upscale neighborhood. London was so gloomy, I thought of the government launching an artificial sun to cheer everybody up. That, and what would happen when the real sun appeared, infused the lyrics of “Artificial Sun,” the song I wrote that afternoon.

  More rain. On Monday morning the eighteenth, I walked a mile from the Tube station to the Imperial War Museum. Manfred Mann’s excellent cover of Bob Dylan’s anti-war-themed “With God On Our Side” played in my head. In a few hours I was scheduled to interview Paul Jones, the original lead singer of the group. None of the museums in Los Angeles had World War I or II artifacts. This one was chock full of them. As much as I was impressed with the collection, the reminder of the brutality of war combined with the rain outside cast a pallor over my spirits. (In rock history, the museum is where Jeff Beck asked Rod Stewart to join his band in January 1967.)

  I met Paul at the office of Noel Gay Artists, his theatrical agent, and felt excited to be in his presence. Although Paul’s face was marred from the acne he had as a teenager, he was still handsome. Most of our discussion was about his starring role in Privilege, a prescient film about the manipulation of a pop idol. A film buff, Paul was a scintillating conversationalist who came across more as a graduate film student than a rock ’n’ roller. His last album had been released about a year before, and hadn’t made much of an impression. To his dismay, his record company declined to issue the one he had just finished recording, claiming the jazz influence made it uncommercial.

  Paul had written “The One in the Middle,” among his favorite Manfred Mann songs, about being the singer in the band. He didn’t know that the Leaves—a Los Angeles based band best known for the definitive rock version of “Hey Joe”—had recorded it. When I got back home, I mailed him my copy of their second album.

  “Hey, Joey, it’s that guy again.” Joey Molland’s American girlfriend Kathie turned away from the phone and handed him the receiver. It was the second time I had called the Badfinger house to get the cassette they had offered me, a copy of the original recordings George Harrison had produced for the Straight Up album, songs that producer Todd Rundgren had rerecorded with them. They thought Harrison’s were better. Joey was cagey. I figured I’d cut my losses and not waste any more money on the payphone.

  I’d been forewarned about the low quality of food at the Wimpy Bar chain of restaurants. In an issue of Melody Maker Pete Townshend talked about the group’s frequent patronage: “The food is atrocious and the chefs are carefully trained in the art of self-defense.” But the lure of a budget price, and a fondness for the Popeye comic strip proved too great. Unlike whatever the name promised, the interior was simple and charmless. There was one item on the menu, a Bender, which was like a hamburger except the meat was a sliced frankfurter sausage. I had the regular burger, but it wasn’t even up to McDonald’s standard.

  I was a big fan of The Hollies, but they’d never performed publicly in Los Angeles. I tracked down their recently departed lead singer, Allan Clarke, and met him as he was recording his second solo album at AIR Studios, located in London’s busiest shopping district, at 214 Oxford Street. As the better-known recording studios in Los Angeles were on the ground floors, it felt odd taking the elevator (“lift”) to the fourth floor in an office building. His first album, My Real Name Is ’arold (because he was born Harold Allan Clarke) had been released earlier in the year, and failed to make the charts.

  Clarke and the other musicians shared a smoke, but it wasn’t a marijuana cigarette, which was prevalent among rock musicians in the States. He explained that in Britain marijuana was uncommon. The counterpart, hashish, was also from the cannabis plant, but more potent. It was smuggled in from North Africa. The Brits usually smoked it mixed with tobacco.

  We adjourned to a nearby pub’s billiard room, where a game was in progress. As we ate sandwiches and drank pints of beer, Clarke was candid about the recent state of The Hollies, why he left, and his feelings about Graham Nash. I was surprised that on our walk to and from the pub, and lunching in a public place, nobody approached the lead singer of The Hollies. When we returned to the studio, I asked him about an album that was propped up in the control room window. He said the 1966 Hollies’ LP, For Certain Because … was displayed for inspiration. As it hadn’t been released in the States I wasn’t familiar with it. He ga
ve it to me upon my departure.

  On Wednesday, September 20, I took in a set by Rab Noakes at the Marquee. A Scottish folksinger, his name was familiar to me from his credit on Gerry Rafferty’s Can I Have My Money Back? I had reviewed the album in Rolling Stone. I quite liked him and picked up his album on A&M.

  I had had a couple of articles published in Melody Maker, “the world’s best selling weekly music paper,” so the editor, Ray Coleman, invited me to meet with him at the publication’s offices. I thought he was a nice man. He was curious about my impressions of London, but wasn’t interested in any of the subjects on my radar. He assigned me to track down Hilton Valentine, The Animals’ original guitarist, when I returned to Los Angeles, as “House of the Rising Sun” was creeping its way back up the charts.

  For the next few days Mark Leviton occupied the even smaller room adjacent to mine, and we were able to explore London together. We went to a United Artists–sponsored night in North London, in Chalk Farm, as a showcase for Brinsley Schwarz to perform songs from their new album, Nervous On the Road. Brinsley Schwarz and support act Help Yourself were influenced by country & western, and were part of the new “pub rock” movement of groups that built followings playing in pubs. The venue, the Roundhouse, had historical significance to us as most of the top rock groups of the sixties had played there. The building was made circular so train engines could be redirected on a large, circular turntable, before the increased size of train engines made that purpose obsolete. It wasn’t that noteworthy inside, except for the novelty of curved walls.

  For Mark and me, meeting The Troggs gave us a thrill similar to an archaeologist uncovering a hidden treasure. As The Troggs had never played in Los Angeles, I tracked them down and set up an interview. Sitting in their management office, it felt almost surreal: the three original members, Reg Presley, Ronnie Bond and Chris Britton; and Tony Murray, their bass player of four years. They were friendly, and offered cigarettes all around. Neither Mark nor I smoked. They were managed by Peter Walsh, an old-school manager. His representative, Barry Perkins, greeted us when we arrived. His name was familiar to us. A copy of a letter he wrote in 1965 as a talent agent was among the reject notices in The Who’s Live at Leeds album.

  The Troggs were best known for “Wild Thing” and “Love is All Around,” two of their eight Top 20 British hits, but hadn’t had a hit in almost five years. That didn’t mean that they weren’t still releasing new records, or that they weren’t good, as we soon found out. Although the group dressed fashionably in the sixties, they were never good-looking, and were showing their age on this late-summer day. As they had never been musically proficient, they weren’t well considered. But for us, it was like meeting legends. Lead singer Reg Presley looked, spoke, and laughed more like a lumpy leprechaun than a rock singer. They recalled with glee the thick sandwiches served in New York. Having experienced the poor excuse for a sandwich in Britain, I had to laugh.

  In the States, we hadn’t heard their most recent records. They played us the B-side of their latest single, “Feels Like a Woman.” It was a revelation: the same, simple Troggs’ sound, but a couple of steps toward the heaviness of Led Zeppelin, courtesy of Black Sabbath’s ex-producer Roger Bain. They recounted the band’s history, and the success they’d had despite the parsimony of their manager Larry Page.

  Although they performed mostly on the cabaret circuit, they made a point that they played the same way they had in the sixties. As I expressed a strong desire to see them live, they invited me to ride with them in the van on Friday to their next engagement, in Liverpool.

  Thursday night we went to see Status Quo at Sundown Mile End. The group had had a hit in May 1968 with the psychedelic “Pictures of Matchstick Men.” Four years later, we didn’t know what to expect. Their sound was now that of a boogie blues band. The chugging rhythm section was tight, but their vocals were lacking, and they played much too loud. Mark and I preferred the support band, Stray, who were more melodic. Adding to our bewilderment was the enthusiastic response for both acts from the mostly male crowd, around two thousand by my estimate.

  Mid-morning on Friday, I interviewed Mickie Most, Britain’s most successful record producer. Early on, I mentioned that he was the producer of records I bought, primarily by Herman’s Hermits, The Animals, and Donovan. In 1969 Most had formed his own record company, RAK Records, and continued having hits in Britain. I met him at his office, at 2 Charles Street in Mayfair. With a baby face crowned by wavy, orange-tinted hair, Mickie looked much younger than a man of his accomplishments and age (thirty-four years).

  As rock groups progressed musically and sales of LPs increased, those who looked upon themselves as “artists” were indulged, wasting hours of expensive studio time until they found inspiration. Record producers like Mickie Most, who preferred more disciplined approaches, were considered passé by many rock groups. After Jeff Beck left The Yardbirds, Mickie established him as a solo artist by producing a handful of hit singles and his first two albums. Still, Beck criticized him for his regimented way of recording. Until I spoke with Mickie, I would have taken Beck’s side.

  Maybe Mickie hadn’t given an in-depth interview in a while because it was slightly intense, almost like a therapy session. I was caught off guard at his candor about how unappreciative his artists had been.

  “All that work with Jeff Beck and Led Zeppelin, all that work with Donovan and him saying, ‘I can do it better without you,’ working my balls off making Lulu the number one international female vocalist, and reading in the papers how she’s looking for a new producer—I just went, ‘I’ve had enough of these people.’ Most of the artists are slags: they use you, vacation on your yacht, borrow money and never give it back, and then don’t have the decency to tell you to your face.”

  When Mickie told me that family was the most important thing to him, and that his goal was to finish in the studio in time to have dinner with them, I had a renewed respect for his approach to recording. That’s one of the reasons he had turned down producing The Rolling Stones, because they were undisciplined and liked to start recording at midnight.

  He readily admitted his strength, finding and/or picking material to be released as singles. Unlike others in his position, he had the confidence to reveal his shortcomings. He said that he wasn’t interested in getting the sounds of the instruments, leaving that to his recording engineer, nor in arranging the songs, preferring to hire an arranger such as John Paul Jones, whom he used extensively before Jones joined Led Zeppelin.

  In the two years since Most started RAK, allowing others to helm the productions, he’d accumulated twenty-seven hit records, a good many of which earned sales awards that lined the walls of his office. For someone who didn’t reveal a sense of humor, I liked him because he was frank and responsive.

  I returned to The Troggs’ management office Friday afternoon. They weren’t quite ready, so I sat and waited. Over the next hour I learned that the door to their van had come loose, and they were trying to find someone who could fix it. When that proved an impossibility that afternoon, I overheard a discussion about getting a doctor’s note to indicate that Reg had a sore throat, and couldn’t sing than night, so they wouldn’t be penalized for cancelling the appearance for non-medical reasons. I was obviously disappointed. Only later did I think about the discomfort I would have experienced riding four hours in the back of a windowless van two hundred miles to Liverpool.

  Had I been knowledgeable enough to have sought a more centralized living accommodation, I would have never experienced the two jewels I discovered nearby. Goldie Oldies was a record collector’s dream. The selection was excellent, but the prices were high for my budget. I bought an early Manfred Mann single, “5-4-3-2-1,” two latter Herman’s Hermits’ singles, “Lady Barbara” and “Bet Yer Life I Do,” The New Vaudeville Band’s “Green Street Green,” and Small Faces’ “My Mind’s Eye,” a French release with a colorful cover. I bought these r
ecords without having heard them. They had all been hits in England, but hadn’t been released in the States. Unit 4 + 2 had had a hit in England and the US with “Concrete and Clay,” and I had their album. I didn’t know that they had recorded a second one, and when I saw that in the bin, I snatched it up. I also bought a series of Teen Beat Annual books that had fabulous photos of the pop stars of the sixties.

  The Thomas A Becket pub at 320 Old Kent Road had historical significance in boxing, but I didn’t care about that because Blunderbuss was the weekend entertainment—and the best overall unsigned band I’ve ever seen. They were decent musically and vocally, but projected a rare sense of humor, and their repertoire was excellent. I saw them play three nights.

  The lead singer, with long, flat hair and wire-rim glasses over an aquiline nose, looked like a cross between John Lennon and The Lovin’ Spoonful’s John Sebastian, and acted like The Spoonful’s Zal Yanovsky with his swaying and mugging. Their set included recent English hits: Elton John’s “Rocket Man,” Roxy Music’s “Virginia Plain,” Mott the Hoople’s “All the Young Dudes,” David Bowie’s “Starman,” and The Move’s “California Man.” There was one song that Mark and I had never heard before, a picaresque bolero titled “Jackie.” When I asked the singer, Laurie Beazley, about it, he told me that it had been a hit by Scott Walker in the sixties.

  We were also introduced to the drinking customs of the English public house. In the States we might order “a beer,” here it would be “a pint of ale,” or just “a pint.” We also drank a shandy, which is a beer mixed with a lemonade soda. Sweet.