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culture in which process BBC radio and TV played a pivotal role. The preservation
of The Arts as a rarefied pleasure reserved for those of noble birth couldn’t
be sustained and so the definition of culture had to be broadened, and broadened
in such a way as to include and respect the way of life of the working classes.
Dramatically opposing views about culture and The Arts were being promulgated
and debated. I can remember the furore about
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
as a teenager and the case being brought against Penguin Books in the UK in
1960 – which they ultimately won, of course. I seem to remember it only
just been released for sale in Australia when I came over to these shores in
1966.
The arguments between philosophers and philosophies were one thing, but the
lengths to which the establishment and its agents were prepared to go to preserve
the status quo were glimpsed in the attempts to make an example of the Rolling
Stones with constant harassment and police raids ending in Jagger and Richards’
arrest and subsequent appearance in court on drugs charges.
The Stones were themselves proselytising blues music which oddly enough had
already been largely eclipsed on the ‘race charts’ in its native
United States and only achieved cultural status when it was reintroduced to
the States by English bands like the Stones and their ilk.
Incidentally, it’s been suggested that Mick Jagger as an educated middle
class Londoner adopted his rather strident cockney accent as part of a stratagem
which has been interpreted as some sort of inverted snobbery - and while it
is revealing to listen to his early interviews when his responses are made in
a well-modulated London accent, my own band experience tells me that being in
a small group of similarly inclined people will significantly influence the
way you speak, so I’m not sure if the inverted snobbery thing stands close
scrutiny.
Anyway, I arrived in Melbourne at a time when Victoria, as represented by the
notoriously regressive Sir Arthur Rylah, was possibly the most prurient of all
the Aussie states. Mind you, coming from Christchurch, which considered itself
an outpost of English decency and morality, I was used to a certain degree of
intolerance, but I was nonetheless quite shocked at the level of discrimination
still being exercised by businesses in Melbourne. Not that I applied for many
jobs myself, but my wife Helen did, and one of the questions she inevitably
was asked, whether officially or by discreet inquiry, was whether she was Roman
or Proddy. Needless to say I was utterly bewildered by the self-righteous political
rants of Bob Santamaria on the telly.
In this context it was no real surprise that Ross Wilson’s
Party Machine
Song Book was seized by the Victorian Vice Squad from the Go-Set offices
in Carlton in 1969. The book was reportedly declared to be ‘obscene and
seditious’. (Obscene was expected – seditious troubled Ross though.
Surely ‘salacious’ would have been more appropriate?)
Over the two years I was with The Party Machine the quota of Ross’ songs
had expanded to nearly 100% of the repertoire and that was the inspiration for
me to form my own ‘original’ band when The Party Machine folded
that same year after Ross was invited to join Melbourne ‘super-group’
Procession in the UK. I’d written a couple of tunes for TPM, nothing serious,
(Little Red Jeep doesn’t sound
too serious), but it gave
me a taste for the process at least and the sense that it was possible.
I recently was asked to make a short speech at the John Pinder memorial. I recounted
a couple of anecdotes before resorting to an
acapella rendition of
I’ll Be Gone, but as I sat down (amidst thunderous applause)
I remembered another Pinder anecdote that was as revealing of me at the time
as it was of John.
It was not long after the release of Ariel’s first album
A Strange
Fantastic Dream and an edict from FARB* had been sent to radio stations
round Australia banning certain tracks from the album from airplay and proffering
reasons for their decision.
Channel 7 sensed there was a story and invited me to appear on whatever the
current affairs show might’ve been called hosted by David Johnston. I
was nervous about it and John offered to appear with me, along with fellow Let
It Be agent, Peter Andrew.
Remarkably I hadn’t considered the implications of some of the more sensationalist
songs that I’d written and had nothing to say in my defence. I hadn’t
thought about it because they were just songs to me, songs written under the
pressure of putting a band together quickly and trying to come up with a totally
new repertoire in a very short time and songs written in that zone, that bubble
of self-involvement.
I can look at a song like
Confessions of a Psychopathic Cowpoke now
and see what I was trying to do and that it was, to some extent anyway, an artistic
statement. However, as I say, I hadn’t even thought it about it then,
so fortunately John Pinder, sensing, as he so uniquely did, a potential commercial
opportunity, rallied to my defence and brought up all those things that had
been going on in with the redefinition of Art in the sixties, no doubt invoking
the Oz trial and probably
Lady Chatterley as well and I didn’t
have to utter a word.
That pop music is included in the ambit of Art and therefore culture is manifestly
obvious today. It wasn’t always so although there are interesting anomalies
that spring to mind, usually born of stinginess strangely enough. The Christchurch
Press couldn’t be bothered hiring another music reviewer to review pop
acts that were appearing in town, so my old choirmaster and organist Charles
Foster Browne dutifully attended the Beach Boys concert and gave them the sort
of critique he might’ve afforded a visiting Viennese string quartet. I
was strangely proud of the fact they came out of it rather well too.
* Federation of Australian Broadcasters