..A Hard Day’s
Night.
My brother and I also participated in the Canterbury University (or
Varsity) ‘procesh’* on an Art School float where we rather
unimaginatively masqueraded as the Fab Four miming to songs from the
first Beatles album. I’m pretty sure we weren’t the only
ones.
Perhaps I should start with The Beatles then? Or do I have to go back
even further? Really? Nothing to see here – move along please.
No, seriously, there is so little of dramatic substance I’m
almost embarrassed to think about those early days. Cosy middle class
lives played out in more-English-than-England Christchurch, in the
sense that England had moved on and we antipodean colonials were playing
out a vision of society that had been abandoned for decades in the
home country.
To continue with the digression, things have changed now, of course.
Today New Zealand is very much part of the loose collection of Western
Democracies from which it’s so geographically removed. Silicon
Valley retirees have been quietly buying chunks of the country to
build lavish homes on, (occasionally complete with bunkers) reasoning
that Aotearoa is far enough away from the inevitable Northern Hemisphere
military collisions to survive a nuclear holocaust and so they can
therefore live out their dreamy lives in some obscene comfort in a
temperate paradise.
Yes, things have changed since I was a lad. (You can’t stop
me now). These days you can actually buy real coffee in Christchurch.
Coffee was only a rumour at a couple of European coffee houses in
Christchurch when I was at Art School and I felt quite the adult sipping
the odd cup of plunger coffee at the Stagedoor where my band the Chants
had a two year residency.
New Zealand’s focus was entirely on England in those days and
our middle-class cars were imported all the way from the UK, that
is when we’d accrued enough ‘overseas’ funds. I
think I’ve mentioned in the past that the family car was a reasonably
posh Wolseley 6/90 and that the first car that my brother Richard
and I invested in was (at £30) much more modest than that, more
modest than just about any car that you could conceive of, in fact.
We were incredibly lucky to be given a Mini by our doting Grandmother
when we both used her home as our base when we started Art School
together.
Or did she? Is that just a figment of my imagination? What happened
to the Mini? It seems I shall have to ask my brother about that as
well as a number of other things from that blurry era. Not that would
guarantee anything - my memory is so hazy and I find that my brother
and I remember particular incidents so differently that it’s
hard to establish any sort of objective truth. (I got there in the
end!)
I found the same with Bill. Bill was a great story teller, but inevitably
his and my versions of his most famous stories about the band differed
in a number of essential details, mostly the location. Like with this
story.
Spectrum was playing with/supporting Lobby Loyde’s Coloured
Balls at the Frankston Mechanics Institute Hall. I can’t remember
where Bill thought it was, but he was adamant it wasn’t in Frankston.
Are you sure I haven’t told you this one before? Well, quickly
then.
I can’t remember if it was Spectrum or The Indelible Murtceps
but in any case it was when Ray Arnott was drumming with us so it
would’ve been the early ‘70s. I always found Ray a bit
of an enigma but he was partial to the odd prank and he decided we
should play a trick on Lobby, out front of the Coloured Balls as was
his wont, fag hanging off his bottom lip, dourly dispensing solo after
interminable solo at maximum wattage from his biggest-of-the-range
custom made Strauss amp with two enormous columns of 12” speakers.
The problem for me was that Ray’s prank required Bill’s
and my participation and I’ve never been partial to pranks,
probably because I know that I’m extremely gullible myself.
Ray was brooking no pikers however and asked if he could ‘borrow’
a couple of cigarettes and a light from Bill. Slightly mystified Bill
supplied the requested items and we watched with mounting dread as
Ray installed himself behind Lobby’s amp, lit up both cigarettes
and began puffing up clouds of smoke.
Then it was our turn. As instructed Bill and I tried to gain Lobby’s
attention by yelling as loudly as we could and pointing excitedly
at his amp.
The music was loud and Lobby was in the zone and so he took a lot
rousing, but eventually he turned around to see his amp apparently
on fire.
The cigarette dropped from his bottom lip as he charged back wide-eyed
to his precious amp and turned it off to prevent total conflagration.
Bill and I ran away and it was many years before I could look Lobby
in the eye I felt so ashamed. I wish we’d had a camera though.
The late-ish Jim Keays told me that early on in writing his memoirs
he consulted with former members of the band about certain incidents,
but the heat generated establishing a consensus about the details
of the stories put him off and he ended up just relating what he remembered
without bothering to check with the others.
Anyway, I know that there will be numerous people reading this (dream
on) who will be saying to their partners or imaginary friends, ‘I
told that Mike Rudd he absolutely had to write a book about his life
and times and now it looks like he’s finally going to do just
that! Well, about time too!’
I’ll remind those same people that there are many things I could’ve
and should’ve done over the years and some things that I said
I’d definitely do that were even published in print that have
proved to be just Ruddy thought bubbles. I’ll also remind them
that one should never totally discount somebody’s negative assessment
of themselves and it’s more than likely no book will eventuate.
But it’s nice to have something to talk about isn’t it?
* 'Procesh’
Te
Ara NZ encyclopedia
Processions as part of university graduation ceremonies began at Canterbury
College in 1899 and were quickly adopted by other colleges. The ‘procesh’
was an opportunity for students to engage in high jinks and bawdiness.
It generally consisted of a series of floats satirising politics,
current events, and public figures. Students wore fancy dress and
engaged in stunts.
The ‘essential elements’ of the procesh were ‘topical
satire, drunkenness, transvestism, the exchange of missiles with onlookers
(from flour bombs to sausage strings) and displays on sexual and scatological
themes’.1 In 1912 Auckland students acquired police uniforms.
They held up trams, inspected shops, and made mock arrests.
In the early 1970s student interest in the procesh faded. In many
university towns it was replaced by a formal street parade of graduands. |
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