"Family came on in brilliant form. The lead singer, with his stoned, haunted, Trotskyite eyes, smashed his tambourine mid-way through the second number and then set upon the microphone, hurling it about the stage.”
This graphic description of Leicester band Family supporting The Rolling Stones in Hyde Park in July 1969 comes from Richard Neville’s book, Playpower. Published the following year, it explains how frontman Roger Chapman came to be the face of the band, even though they were at pains to operate as a democratic outfit. And we haven’t even mentioned his vibrato-soaked howl, a visceral sound that remains unique to this day.
“I suppose I was the sound of Family because I apparently had a weird voice!” he cackles. “That’s really what people put it down to: ‘Oh, yeah, that’s Family because it’s Roger Chapman.’ I never wanted to be the star: we were just a bunch of musicians trying to make good music.” As for the tambourine-bashing and mike-stand throwing, “I can’t stop myself doing what I do onstage, that’s what I am. I get led away by this feeling and off I go…”
Fast-forward half a century and both Chappo and the Stones are still at it. “I’m proud to be mentioned in the same breath as them,” he confesses from his south-west London home, “because they’ve turned into a fantastic band through all the years. I first met them in the early 60s, and I was pleased to work with Bill [Wyman] for a few shows [with his Rhythm Kings in 2004]. The Stones came along with Georgie Fame, and that, for me, was my first real intimation that I was interested in British music. Not jazz so much, but the R&B side.”
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Paperback Blighters - The books every record collector should read.
The books every record collector should read. Vinyl, you may have heard, has made a big comeback. In 2022, sales of vinyl albums surpassed compact discs (CDs) for the first time in more than three decades in terms of global revenue, racking up more than $1.2bn.
"Beware the Savage Lure/of 1984..." - David Bowie is one of the most venerated musicians ever. But even he had his bad periods.
David Bowie is one of the most venerated musicians ever. But even he had his bad periods. For many, 1984 remains the nadir of his Phil Collins” phase; an artistic/sartonial/tonsorial disaster area. But was it really that awful? Forty years on, Matt Phillips explores Bowie's so-called annus horribilis.
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Someone needs to come and empty the bins behind the Lloyds Bank branch in Kingston-upon-Thames. It’s been raining and flattened cardboard slumps next to a flytipped air conditioning unit and a rusting clothes rack. There are two signs at head height on the red brick wall. One warns that you’ll be clamped if you park here; the other, a stainless-steel plaque, marks Nipper’s 100th birthday. Nipper, the dog at the heart of the HMV and RCA Victor logos, was a white terrier with chocolate brown ears, maybe a Jack Russell, Smooth Fox, or Bull Terrier, more likely a mix. This is his final resting place. He was buried under a mulberry tree but, you know, urban sprawl, progress, etc. The plaque was unveiled by the Chairman of HMV Stores on 15 August 1984, while Captain Sensible, Janice Long, and a Nipper doppelganger looked on. Round the corner, at HMV and Our Price, George Michael’s Careless Whisper was flying off the shelves, and every copy turned at 45 RPM.
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MOD ALMIGHTY
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ANARCHISTS IN THE UK
EXACTLY 45 YEARS AGO, CRASS, THE ANARCHIST ACTIVIST COLLECTIVE, WERE FINISHING PIVOTAL SECOND ALBUM, STATIONS OF THE CRASS.
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There's little sign of slowing down from the 19-year-old Pete Townshend. Currently on the go: multi-media project The Age Of Anxiety; a dance production of Quadrophenia; and Pete Townshend Live In Concert 1985-2001, a 14-disc boxset of his solo in-concert recordings. Not, he admits, that his every whim and fancy are worth deeper exploration. \"Some of them are good ideas, some of them are pretty dumb,\"
