Early days

Do you remember Radio Luxenbourg? In the early 60s I was given a transistor radio for Christmas. It was similar to this model
(picture from here:
http://www.roadtrip62.com/Post061311.htm
- which, incidentally, is a good read)

Radio Luxenbourg was to be found right at the end of the dial, on 208 metres on the Medium Wave. AM radio has some strange characteristics in that the signal travels further at night than by day-
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AM_broadcasting)
Radio Luxembourg took advantage of this and only transmitted in the evenings and at night. The signal used to fade in and out and I, (like countless thousands no doubt) would lie in bed under the covers and listen to the radio as they played the latest records. But not all of the record...

For some strange reason, they'd only play the first two minutes of a song, then run an advert. I suppose they thought that this would make people go out and but the record. When the Animals released their version of "The House of the Rising Sun" there was uproar because it was about 5 minutes long and Luxembourg refused to play it in its entirety. It's one thing to play Adam Faith's "What do you want" in its entirety- at just 100 seconds (1min 41 secs to be exact) it must be one of the shortest records ever, but 5 minutes?



As an aside, the idea of the three minute pop song came about because of the limitations of the new fangled phongraph disc at the beginning of the twentieth century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_%28music%29

As well as the Animals "Rising Sun" single, Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" was over 6 minutes long and CBS put it over two sides of the record, causing uproar from his fans, who demanded that the record company put it on one side of the disc in its entirety. They also badgered the radio stations and demanded that they play all of the song. This was in the US of course. In the UK we had the BBC Light Programme or Luxembourg.

Happy days. These days music pervades every aspect of life. I can remember a radio dj a few years ago describing his/her show as the "soundtrack to your life". Every TV shoe is stuffed full of incidental music that bears no resemblance to the subject. Daytime TV is the worst. The presenter mentions going to the Isle of Wight and the Beatles "Ticket to Ride" (geddit?) starts playing. My life is not a movie (although Andrew Loog Oldham in his excellent book "Stoned" described his life as such a thing).I do not want a music soundtrack to my everyday life thank you very much. God save us from this.

It's hard to imagine a time when the only pop music on radio was the two hour Sunday afternoon "Pick of the Pops" with Alan "Fluff" Freeman, plus a couple of hours on a Saturday morning with bands playing live in the studio.(Saturday Club with Brian Matthew)

24 hour non-stop music? No chance.

Pirate Radio changed all that. If you tuned your transistor radio from 208 down the dial, there were a couple of pirate radio stations in the 190s. They broadcast during the day as well, and they tended to play the less well known records. I heard Johnny Cash singing Dylan's "It ain't me babe" on Wonderful Radio London.(The Big L) I don't recall hearing him on the BBC Light Programme ever.

We moved from Cornwall to London in 1962. I was 13 that Christmas. I wanted a bike but my parents were concerned about the level of traffic (which was a fraction of what it is today btw) and persuaded me that a guitar was a better option.

I received a guitar that Christmas. The strings were very heavy and about an inch off the fingerboard. It was impossible to hold down a chord. For the next few years I learned the Shadows walk, the Pete Townsend arm windmill and how to strum. The tuning was arbitrary. Most of the time I couldn't afford strings. To give you an idea- in 1965/6 I was getting ten shillings a week pocket money (50p). One week I bought a leather belt- two inches wide and with a solid brass buckle. It cost me 9/11d (49 and a half pence) and I wore it for ten years. It was great value.
The cheapest set of guitar strings at that time were Cathedral brand. They cost just under £1- two weeks pocket money. No wonder I kept the strings on until they rotted away.
It's hard to comprehend how expensive musical intruments were back then. My cheapo guitar cost £4/12/6d, a lot of money. When I started work five years later in 1967 I was earning ten pounds a week. Assume an average wage of £200 a week, that cheapo acoustic guitar, unplayable as it was, cost the equivalent of £100!
These days you can get a perfectly playable acoustic guitar for about £70-80, and a cheap electric guitar for not a lot more. What's more, they're playable, and even the youngest smallest boy can play them.
I was sixteen or seventeen before my fingers were strong enough to hold down a chord on my guitar.

Here's a confession. I was shamed into learning to play the guitar. In the months before I left school one of my classmates brought his guitar in to school. It was a Martin Colletti like this one. My guitar was an inferior version of this.

He could play and I couldn't. I didn't like him much and it hurt. I was stung into action. I swallowed my pride and asked him for the chords to "house of the rising sun". (it's surprising how many guitarists of my generation started off by learning that song)
I managed to buy some strings and got my battered old guitar in tune(ish) and set to work. My fingers bled. The skin stripped off and was replaced by callouses. I practised and practised. After three weeks I could play it backwards and forwards. In doing so I discovered something. By using different combinations of the chords I'd learned, I could play loads of songs- dozens of songs! Hundreds of songs!

I was on my way. I'd left school by then, so never had a chance to show my rival that I could now play better than him. He'd kicked sand in my face, and I never had the chance to kick it back.

Revenge is a powerful motivator. It fuelled my desire for years.