The 1970's: Part One - The Decade That Style Forgot

It's become something of a cliché to dub the 1970's as The Decade That Style Forgot, but the truth is, it was.

For some reason, there are people who look back at the 1970's as some sort of Golden Age in England. But for all that the 1970's produced some great music, it was a decade that style forgot when it came to fashion, and it was a decade probably best remembered for the Winter of Discontent, rampant inflation, unparalleled industrial strife, IRA atrocities, and Britain being dubbed 'The Sick Man of Europe.' It was the decade of my teenage years, and although there is much to look back on with fondness, there was much about the 1970's that was a struggle and not all that pleasant.

The 1970's - Guilty of crimes against good taste

 

In 1970 I was twelve years old and at secondary school. I had passed my Eleven Plus and went to North Romford Comprehensive School, in Lodge Lane, Collier Row. During my time there it changed name to Forest Lodge School; it is long since closed. Academically I leaned heavily towards the humanities; English, geography, and history were my strengths, I was less adept at maths and the sciences. When it came to practical subjects like woodwork, metalwork and technical drawing then frankly I was a waste of space. I didn't excel at sports either, although I was adequate at most. Football was my passion - whether watching my beloved Romford FC or playing - and although my enthusiasm was greater than my talent, I did manage to get into my House and school teams a few times. I was realistic about my ability, realising from an early age that I would never be good enough to play professionally. Fortunately, this realisation came sometime before my Mother broke it to me that she didn't think I was good enough either - thanks Mum!

My school badge. Picture: Chris Pat Ellis via Facebook

School was something I enjoyed and dreaded in equal parts. I enjoyed lessons for the most part, but despite having a number of very good friends, there were some of my peers with whom I had an uneasy relationship to say the least. I will say no more; no doubt you get the gist. In 1974 I took eight O-levels, I passed seven but failed abysmally at French. This was no great surprise as I had no aptitude for nor interest in the subject and figured that even if I revised for nothing else I would be lucky to scrape a pass, therefore I didn't bother, concentrating on the subjects I could get a pass in. Unlike today when A* grades at GCSE are all that people are interested in (grades are now 9 down to 1 rather than A* to G), passing four O-levels was considered a decent achievement in 1974 (well, it was at my school), so long as two of them were Maths and English. The majority of my year group left school at sixteen, and four O-level passes were then sufficient to get any number of jobs, even though the recession of 1973-75 meant that unemployment rates were rising. I stayed on in the Sixth Form, despite some misgivings from my Mother, who would really have liked another wage coming into the household, and studied English Literature, Geography, and Economics. While English was my favourite subject, Geography was my strongest, something my younger daughter seems to have inherited from me, while Economics made up the numbers (no pun intended). I had wanted to take History instead, but if my memory is correct, it clashed with Geography on the timetable. In hindsight, the two subjects would probably have been too heavy a workload in any case.

North Romford Comprehensive School. Picture: Michael Hall via Facebook

The school did have a decent swimming pool. Picture: Gary Nott via Facebook

As with GCSE's, today's A-level students seem expected to pass all of their exams with top grades, but the 1970's student was considered a success just passing them. Passing three A-levels (regardless of grade) was cause for celebration; even passing one out of three was pretty damned good. My years in the Sixth Form were my most enjoyable at school. We were generally treated as adults by our teachers, we no longer had to wear a uniform, and we had a separate Sixth Form block where some (but not all) lessons took place and where we ate, our lunches being wheeled over from the main buildings. In 1975 I went on a joint Geography/Biology field trip to Cornwall. It was the first time I had ever been away with without my parents, and although there was a good deal of work involved, it was quite a decent social occasion too.

Geography/Biology Field Trip to Cornwall, 1975. I'm at the back on the right, looking left, in a fetching orange fleece. Picture: Mary Redbourn via Facebook

Some of my pictures from Cornwall.

By early 1976, however our thoughts were as much on what we would do after the exams as on the exams themselves. I well remember sitting, with four others, at lunch one day when one of the Sixth Form tutors, Mr Davis (known to one and all as Basil, even though his given name was Brian), approached us; "Job, job, job, job, job" was all he said, pointing to us each in turn. Clearly it was time to start applying for jobs. The idea of going to university only ever briefly entered my head; to be honest I don't think that my parents would have entertained the notion, and from my point of view, moving away from home study would have meant not being able to go to football. That in itself was enough to make the idea a non-starter. Applying for jobs meant the prospect of interviews, which meant having to have the clothes to look the part. Clothes were not something that particularly interested me then. Up to the age of fourteen I'd been in school uniform during the week, and at weekends it was a pair of casual trousers and a small number of t-shirts and jumpers. My mother bought my clothes for me, and like many teenagers at the time, what I wore was very similar to what my Dad wore.

I had a very similar shirt and tie combo, but in shades of blue.

I had two jackets for school that I wore in rotation; one in blue Crimplene, the other brown, which I paired with blue checked and brown checked trousers respectively. Since neither of these outfits would be suitable for interviews or work, I bought a suit from Burtons (well, my Mum bought it actually). It was a two-button grey check suit, with lapels the size of an aircraft carrier's flight deck, and trousers with flares so wide that the colour of my shoes would have been a mystery to anyone looking at me while I stood still.[1] With it, I wore a tie so wide that only the collar of my shirt was visible. If it sounds terrible now, there was worse. For my birthday one year I received a matching shirt and tie set. Both garments were Bri-Nylon monstrosities; the shirt had enormous collars and the tie was yards wide. Both were pale blue with a royal blue paisley pattern. Looking back, they were hideous, but then they were all the rage. Paired with the Burton suit and a pair of black and burgundy slip-on shoes, this outfit would be laughable now; then it was completely unexceptional.

My interview outfit was by no means the worst of the atrocities committed against good taste during the 1970's - you ought to have seen my 'casual' attire - but since everyone was wearing similar, the materials, the designs, and the styles were totally unremarkable.

The next part of this 1970's retrospective will consider strikes, shortages and substitutes.

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[1] The earliest outing for the suit is recounted in my blog https://rulesfoolsandwisemen.blogspot.com/2016/03/a-midland-odyssey-part-seven-interview.html

Sin Bins and Dressing Rooms

My Twitter feed is often dominated by matters related to football, and especially non-League football. Recently there have been two themes that have stood out, namely sin bins and dressing rooms. I'll come to dressing rooms later, but first, sin bins.

A number of sports have used sin bins (or temporary dismissals - different sports may have different terms for the same thing) for many years; chief among these sports are ice hockey, rugby (both codes, league and union). The principle of the temporary dismissal is that a player misses a period of play after committing an offence deemed not serious enough to warrant outright dismissal from the game. Football is gradually coming round to the idea of sin bins, and they have been trialled in England over the last year.

In May 2017 it was announced that sin bins would be trialled in grassroots football, that is to say in Sunday leagues and in some Step 7 leagues (that is seven steps below the English Football League, the eleventh tier in English football)[1]. The International Football Association Board (IFAB) offered two different versions of the temporary dismissal system for football associations to use. Under System A, all cautions are handled using temporary dismissal; System B allows the use of sin-bins for some, but not all, yellow card offences. The English Football Association opted for System B and further limited it to the offence of dissent, for which - instead of issuing a caution - referees would send the offender to the sidelines for ten minutes.[2]

Over the years I have been as guilty as anyone in looking at changes like 3G pitches,  goal-line technology and VAR (Video Assistant Referee) and seeing only the pitfalls. When the sin bin trial as announced, I admit to having my reservations, somewhat along the lines of those being made by many on Twitter now, that this idea was unworkable in a level of football where neutral assistants are rare (not all clubs are able to provide an assistant either), that referees would not be able to cope and that games would descend into chaos. The results of the trial suggest otherwise, however, and I now think that the experiment is worth continuing with, and expanding. A News Release from the Football Association in July 2018 announced the following findings from the 31 leagues where sin bins had been trialled:

• 25 leagues showed an overall reduction in dissent
• 38% reduction in dissent across all leagues
• 72% of players wanted to continue with the scheme
• 77% of managers and/or coaches wanted to continue with the scheme
• 84% of referees wanted to continue with the scheme

Next season (2019-20) sin bins will be mandatory for all Step Seven leagues and below if the approval figures are similar, and dissent is shown to be reduced by a comparable rate, then the likelihood is that sin bins will be applied across all of English football eventually.

The Football Association frequently come under attack for being seen to be out of touch with football below the highest levels, for being intransigent and inflexible in applying and interpreting their own rules, and for generally treating non-League clubs in a much stricter and heavy-handed fashion than they do their Premier League counterparts. Recently, a number of people have taken to Twitter to criticise the FA over their 'new' rules about dressing room size. From the start of next season, clubs above Step 5 must have dressing rooms for players of a minimum of 18 square metres (an increase from the current minimum of 12 square metres), while dressing rooms for officials must be a minimum of 6 square metres. The change was driven by the need to accommodate increased squad sizes and to provide a better environment for players. Clubs that are not compliant by the end of March 2019 will not be eligible for promotion, or to take part in the play-offs. Non-compliant clubs then have to provide written evidence that the work would be completed by the end of July 2019, but even having supplied such documentation, failure to complete the work would mean closure of the club's ground for the 2019-20 season; failure to then complete the work by July 2020 would see the club relegated to Step 5.

A recent article in The Non-League Paper revealed that clubs had begun receiving letters
warning of the consequence of non-compliance with new regulations on dressing room size.

According to The Non-League Paper, 95% of the 228 clubs at Steps 3 and 4 are compliant, which by my calculations leaves eleven or twelve clubs still having work to do to avoid being sanctioned. One club who have concluded that they will not be able to comply are Aylesbury FC. Although the club almost meet the requirements on dressing room size for players, the officials' dressing room comes up considerably short according to a statement issued by the club,[3] and with no prospect of the work being completed by the deadline, they have accepted that they will be relegated at the end of the season.

Aylesbury FC's statement on their likely relegation due to the size of their dressing rooms.

The criticism that the FA have had, on Twitter and elsewhere, over the strict application of these 'new' rules, needs to be tempered by the fact that these are not 'new' rules at all. The fact is that these rules were announced in 2014, giving clubs five years to make sure that they were compliant. I can appreciate that for some clubs - like Aylesbury, and I'm sure there are others - completing the work to bring changing rooms up to minimum size may not be easy even if they can afford to undertake the work, although it should not be forgotten that clubs can claim up to 70% of the cost from The Football Stadia Improvement Fund, but five years seems to me to have been ample warning. Some clubs who will fail to comply may well have adopted a 'heads in the sand' approach, hoping that either exceptions would be made or that the deadline would be extended, or even that the rule would be abandoned.

The officials' changing room at Aylesbury FC. Picture by Ollie Bayliss,
Presenter of The Non-League Show on BBC Three Counties Radio via Twitter

Potters Bar Town are short a few seats and will be
relegated if they cannot find the cash to install more.

Come the end of March there will be a number of clubs in non-League football who may find that ground grading considerations - whether it be the size of the referee's changing room or the amount of covered accommodation for spectators - has as much bearing on what league they will be playing in next season as does what position they finish in the table. Over the years some clubs in Steps Three and Four may have prioritised their playing budgets overspending on ground improvements; if they have, and if they fail to comply with the necessary changes, they are likely to find themselves sin binned to Step Five for a while.

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[1] For a detailed description of football in Steps 1 to 7 (the levels below the English Football League), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_League_System

[2] IFAB's Guidelines for Temporary Dismissals can be found here http://www.theifab.com/laws/modifications-to-the-laws/chapters/guidelines-for-temporary-dismissals-sin-bins

[3] For the club's full statement, see http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/aylesburyfc/news/club-statement-2386347.html#.XEAc7An1m_U.twitter

The Rule of Three

The number three is pretty special. In the Bible it is a symbol of completeness; God's attributes are three-fold; omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. Chinese tradition considers three a lucky number, and in 2004 a man in Beijing paid $215,000 for the lucky mobile phone number 133-3333-3333, and in Latin "omne trium perfectum"  means everything that comes in threes is perfect. The idea that good things (or bad things for that matter) come in threes is perhaps a fallacy. Our minds recognise triplets easily, and after two similar events we are on the lookout for a third; when it doesn't, we forget, but we remember when it does, reinforcing our belief.

For writers, there is the Rule of Three, which can refer to a collection of three words, phrases, chapters, or even books. Just think of the power of three-fold expressions like "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,"  from the American Declaration of Independence, or "Liberté, égalité, fraternité", the slogan of the old French Republic, and "Veni, vidi, vici" -I came, I saw, I conquered - attributed to Julius Caesar. And in law, witnesses are asked, on oath, to tell "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," or more prosaically there is, " A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play."

In films, the trilogy is common, popular, ubiquitous almost. Think of The Godfather, Back To The Future, Star Wars (a trilogy of trilogies there). Similarly, in books we have The Lord Of The Rings, The Foundation Trilogy, and Gormenghast to name but three. Like the Three Bears' chairs, their porridge, and their beds, some trilogies are too long, some too short, and some just right - and it is all matter of personal taste as to which fits in which pigeonhole. Take Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings; I know that it is highly regarded, I know that for some people it is sacrilege to criticise it, but for my money it is about two-and-a-half books too long. Then there are Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books. Books one and two - Titus Groan, and Gormenghast - are among my favourites, and I revisit them from time to time (I'm a bit overdue, it must be at least ten years), but the third, Titus Alone, I struggled with and have never re-read.

Currently I'm on a bit of a nostalgia kick (musically I've been reacquiring some old 1980's albums, with varying degrees of delight and disappointment), and am re-reading Michael Moorcock's trio of novels, The Warlord Of The Air, The Land Leviathan, and The Steel Tsar (collectively, The Nomad of The Time Streams). Comparisons with HG Wells are inevitable as the stories - the first two at least - inhabit similar eras and ideas, and the writing is stylistically not dissimilar to that of Herbert George, while the use of technology out of its timeline was an early example of steampunk, a genre that to all intents and purposes was kick-started by these books.[1]  Moorcock managed to condense his whole trilogy into a concise 442 pages, or about the same length as most single novels today. Which is where many novels being written and published today, and especially trilogies, weary me. Too often I pick up a weighty paperback - running to perhaps 600 pages or more - catch sight of a phrase on the cover that goes tells me that this doorstop is just the first in a trilogy - or worse a quartet, or even a quintet - and I return it to its place on the shelf, disheartened by the prospect of feeling obliged to wade through nearly two thousand pages, at least half of which will be filler, padding, and general dross.

I don't know when the trend for such long novels began;  I suspect that Arthur Hailey had something to do with it, although his books tended to be largely plot driven with less padding than most. The so-called airport novels (and one of  Hailey's novels is called Airport, which spawned a film of the same name and three sequels), are generally fast-paced, considered to be of little literary merit, and usually very long. Nowadays it seems that you will be hard pushed to find a novel that comes in at less than five hundred pages.

Despite my aversion to trilogies, and especially trilogies that run to thousands of pages, there are exceptions. Take Robert Jackson Bennett's trilogy, The Divine Cities.[2] In some ways they are the antithesis of the sort of books I usually read, fantasies in which man battles with divinities, and running to over 450 pages in each volume. But the ideas piqued my interest, there is minimal padding, the writing style is fluid and rewarding, and the characters - especially the female ones - are interesting, engaging and realistic. The three books are sufficiently different to avoid boredom through repetition, and although I confess to flagging a tad towards the end of book three, I was glad that I persevered.

I cannot leave the subject of trilogies without mentioning - and recommending - Paul M Calvert's trio of Imperium novels.[3] I have to declare an interest here, as I've known Paul since we first worked together back in the 1980's, and we've been friends ever since (I trust nothing I write here jeopardises that!) I was privileged to be one of the proof-readers of the first part of the saga, and even contributed to the description you'll read of the first novel on Amazon. The Imperium trilogy (Betrayal, Revelation, and Coda) are the author's first novels, and a more sure-footed debut you couldn't wish to read. With science fiction, there is a fine line to be drawn between bewildering the reader with unexplained technology, civilisations and peoples, and boring them rigid with long-winded descriptions. Fortunately, Paul avoids these pitfalls, including such explanations as are necessary without compromising the momentum of the story, but with appendices for readers keen to immerse themselves further in the universe, civilisation and technologies that he has imagined.

Even if science fiction isn't normally your thing, or trilogies for that matter, I'd still recommend that you read Imperium: Revelation, the second in the set, which moves seamlessly between England in both the 1940's and the present day, and distant universes. It is far from your normal science fiction story, and the development of the character of Adam as he matures from the hedonistic and callow youth we are introduced to in the first novel, towards the statesman we can see he will become by the end of the third, is outstanding. I'm fairly confident that having read it, you'll want to read the other two books. It might be a cliché to say of a book that one couldn't put it down, but there's no book I've read recently of which that description could be more apt.

[1] Mervyn Peake's third novel in the Gormenghast trilogy, Titus Alone, is regarded by some as perhaps the first novel of the genre.

[2] City of Stairs, City of Blades, and City of Miracles.

[3] Available on Amazon, see https://www.amazon.co.uk/Imperium-Betrayal-Book-One-Trilogy/dp/1521575754/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Lost In Music Again

At the beginning of 2018 I wrote a blog about the music I'd been to see during 2017 (see Lost In Music). I noted that having seen twenty-one shows or events in 2017, the New Year was looking " slightly less frantic...(with) just five gigs in the diary." I also said that an artist I'd love to see - but thought that I never would - was Nile Rodgers. All of which proves how lousy I am at predictions, since in 2018 I went to 27 music shows, gigs, or events, and saw nearly fifty bands, artists, ensembles, etc one of whom was - you guessed it - Nile Rodgers.

What a night at The O2 as Nile Rodgers and Chic fill the stage for their final song

One of the acts I was looking forward to seeing in 2018 was Lifesigns, and although I got to see them twice in the end, neither was at a venue I'd expected to see them at. Originally I had a ticket for their show at The Half Moon in Putney, but that was cancelled when singer John Young went down with flu. No problem, I thought, accepting a ticket for the rescheduled show in May at the same venue. Except my daughter was unwell that day and we spent the afternoon and early evening at Barnet General Hospital, so I missed that too. But as luck would have it, I saw they were playing at The Electric Theatre in Guildford, so got a ticket for that, but in the meantime, I had a free Saturday in September and saw them play Resonate 2018 at The O2 Islington, along with five other bands. Apart from finally seeing Lifesigns for the first time, also got to see Jump, fronted by John Dexter Jones, who were so good I went to the merchandise stand to buy one of their albums the minute they finished their set.

Lifesigns in Guildford

Jump, led by John Dexter Jones at Resonate 2018

That's one of the things about festivals, you may go with the express intention of seeing one particular band, and end up being knocked out by someone you'd either not previously heard of, or who you weren't expecting to be so damned good. I went to the Stone Free festival at The O2 principally to see the Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman (ARW) version of Yes, but was completely blown away by Supertramp's Roger Hodgson, whose set was nigh on perfect. And Joanne Shaw Taylor, who I was vaguely aware of previously, but whose material I hadn't heard, took me by surprise with a great act even though her music is not normally the genre I listen to. Talking about Yes, I saw both versions of the band in 2017 and marginally preferred the ARW incarnation, then saw them both again in 2018, and thought that the Steve Howe led band were better.

Roger Hodgson at the Stone Free Festival

Yes at the London Palladium

Apart from Nile Rodgers and Chic, there were a couple of other acts I saw in 2018 who I suppose I could saw were on my bucket list of bands to see play live, namely Queen, and Pet Shop Boys. I never got to see Queen with Freddie Mercury and was a little unsure about seeing them with Adam Lambert in possession of the mic, but I needn't have worried, they were sensational. Oh, and if you've not seen Bohemian Rhapsody, then I thoroughly recommend that too, so long as you're not expecting anything other than a rather fictionalised version of the band's history up to Live Aid. And while you've doubtless heard that Rami Malek does a bang-up job as Freddie, Gwilym Lee as Brian May is... well he is Brian May! Pet Shop Boys reprising their Inner Sanctum show at the Royal Opera House was a fun evening, and the band, who when they first started releasing records looked unlikely - or unwilling - to perform live, put on one of the most memorable stage shows I've ever seen.

Queen

 

Pet Shop Boys

But as good as Pet Shop Boys were, the live show of the year was - for my money -  David Byrne, although don't just take my word for it, NME said that the " ‘American Utopia’ tour may just be the best live show of all time." Byrne sits alone at a table on an otherwise bare stage at the start of the show, holding a plastic brain (yes, really). He is then joined by a twelve piece band who roam the stage, their instruments round their necks and on their hips. The only fly in the ointment on a night when the music was as close to perfection as it can be, was the view from the arena floor at The O2. Marooned in section B3, I found myself peering over the heads of those in front of me and watching much of the action on the big screens. Fortunately, at the Nile Rodgers concert I was somewhat further forward, but that said the view did not detract from a fabulous night's entertainment from the former Talking Heads frontman.

David Byrne's show at The O2 was sensational - shame about the view.

Another artist I doubted I would ever see is Gary Numan, but I was there when he played the Royal Albert Hall, and for all that a lot of the material he played was unfamiliar to me - I haven't bought one of his albums since Telekon in 1980 - it was no less enjoyable for that. Since I've been to so many gigs in the last couple of years, I've given up any pretence of trying to work out in advance what bands will play and familiarise myself with it. A band I'd only seen once before - and the best part of forty years ago at that - were Fischer-Z, who overcame technical problems that saw their keyboard player unable to take to the stage to deliver a great set. They were supported by The Newtown Neurotics, a punk band whose show proved that that style of music was much less dangerous and more melodic than we thought in 1979. It does seem sad, however, to see a band of mostly late-middle-aged men singing anti-Thatcher songs in 2018.

Gary Numan at the Royal Albert Hall

Big Big Train, Riverside, Rick Wakeman and Steven Wilson were other highlights of the year, although to be honest, I had great expectations given the calibre of those acts, and they all delivered.

Top: Rick Wakeman, middle Riverside, bottom Steven Wilson

As in 2017, a highlight was Fish at the Islington Assembly Hall, performing new songs (from the upcoming album, Weltschmerz) and the whole of the 1987 Marillion album, Clutching At Straws - support again came from the incomparable Doris Brendel.

Doris Brendel (top picture) again provided brilliant support (and backing vocals) for Fish

 

Of course not every show I saw in 2018 was brilliant; most were at least very good but there was one that stood out above (or perhaps that should be below) all others and for all the wrong reasons. In 2017 I saw Tubular Bells For Two, a live performance of Mike Oldfield's seminal work rendered by two manic Australians, which was superb, so when I saw that a band led by someone by the name of Phil Toms was performing Tubular Bells and some other pieces by Mike Oldfield, I thought I'd give it a go. It was, I'm afraid one of the worst things I've seen - or heard - a rather enthusiastic, but amateurish rendition that might have passed muster if delivered by a school band, but not by a group of musicians that included one who had actually played with Mike Oldfield, and whom the audience had paid to see.

Still, one duff show out of nearly thirty is not a bad record, and I have eleven shows in the diary for 2019, although after last year, I somehow doubt that will be the final number.

The full list of 2018's events was:

January

BBC Concert Orchestra - Britten & Holst Meet The American Songbook - Watford Colosseum For BBC Radio 3

T-Rexstasy - Palace Theatre, Southend

March

Yes - London Palladium

Steven Wilson - Royal Albert Hall

April

Charlotte Hatherley, Arcane Roots, Lonely Robot - Indigo at TheO2

Lonely Robot

May

Fischer-Z at The O2 Islington - Support from The Newtown Neurotics

Fischer-Z

June

Tubular Bells Live - Phil Toms and band - Civic Theatre, Chelmsford

Stone Free Festival at The O2: Tyketto, anathema, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Roger Hodgson, Yes featuring Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman

July

Queen + Adam Lambert - Wembley Arena

Big Big Train - The Anvil, Basingstoke. Support from The Beatrix Players

Falstaff - The Royal Opera House

Pet Shop Boys - The Royal Opera House

September

Resonate 2018 at The O2 Islington: Jump, Verbal Delirium, Comedy of Errors, The Gift, Son of Man, Lifesigns

October

Steve Hackett (and orchestra) - Royal Festival Hall

Steve Hackett (and orchestra) - London Palladium

David Live (David Bowie Tribute) - RUSSC Club, Romford

David Byrne - The O2. Support from Benjamin Clementine

Steve Hackett at the London Palladium

November

Riverside - Electric Ballroom, Camden. Support from Mechanism

Gary Numan With The Skaparis Orchestra - Royal Albert Hall. Support from Chris Payne

Lifesigns - The Electric Theatre, Guildford

IQ

December

Carmen - Royal Opera House

Fish - Islington Assembly Hall. Support from Doris Brendel

The Flower Kings and Spock's Beard - Islington Assembly Hall

BBC Symphony Orchestra -Works by  Linberg, Kabelvsky, and Bartok - BBC Maida Vale, for Radio 3

IQ - Islington Assembly Hall

Rick Wakeman - Union Chapel, Islington. Support from Triple Cream

Nile Rodgers & Chic - The O2. Support from Mistajam, Cosha, and Franc Moody

Spock's Beard

Silencing His Master's Voice

It was recently announced that HMV had gone into administration for the second time in six years, and in some small way, I feel partly responsible. Years ago I liked nothing more than browsing in record shops - and as names like Harlequin,  Our Price Records, and Virgin disappeared from our High Streets - HMV became just about the only one left. But even as I was still browsing, I was buying less from them. Gradually I found myself walking through their doors less and less. In fact my only visits to HMV would either be at Christmas (generally to buy a CD or DVD as a gift that I had left it too late to buy online), or while on a visit to Lakeside or Bluewater when, not having the patience to follow my wife around a store she wanted to visit, I would mooch around the displays in HMV.

On such visits to HMV, I usually gravitate to the racks featuring bands I like and more often than not find myself comparing the prices that HMV charge and the price I paid online. That is, of course, if HMV stock these artists anyway. It may be an unsupported belief on my part, but HMV has always struck me as a bit expensive, although that said my most recent purchase from them, Steve Winwood's 1980 album, Arc Of A Diver, was no cheaper on Amazon.

But even if they have been competitive on price, HMV's business has been vulnerable for a while, thanks to a general change in our shopping habits, and a change specific to the way in which we consume HMV's two main product lines, music and video.[1] When I was in HMV in Romford just before Christmas it was noticeable that the number of shoppers queuing at the tills was much smaller than I've seen in the past; downloads and streaming have meant fewer people wanting to buy physical media, and those who do increasingly buy it online.

In the wake of the news about HMV, Guardian journalist Penny Anderson wrote a piece about the chain's demise and why we don't need them any more (Thank you for the music, HMV, but we don’t need you any more) which I - and many others if my Twitter feed is anything to go by - found to be a rather unnecessary hatchet job on the retailer. " You wouldn’t expect to find knowledgeable advice," Anderson wrote, which was not my experience. She described HMV as " the first port of call for beginners and general music consumers," as if this was a bad thing. By definition, beginners have to start somewhere, and where better than a store like HMV that stocks a huge and diverse range of artists? And where better for your maiden aunt, or grandmother, with no understanding of your musical taste beyond the name of a band you like, and no access to online shopping, to go buy you a CD for your birthday?

Streaming and downloads have done for HMV's business what online shopping has done for others, and although I'm not a fan of streaming or downloading music - I'd much rather have a CD - I admit that I'm increasingly less likely to buy DVDs these days, preferring to stream them since I'm likely to watch films and TV programmes just once, and of course since my internet connection is now up to the task. I do occasionally download music, but only if a physical CD of the material is not available -  and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes this can be because the album in question is old or because the band have only released it in mp3 format. This latter reason is due to the fact that many of the bands I like are either not signed up to major labels and therefore release their music through companies like Bandcamp as downloads only - like The Swan Chorus - or whose CDs HMV don't stock - Lifesigns, or Doris Brendel for example - or IQ, whose back catalogue of eleven studio albums,  eight live albums and four compilations is represented at HMV by just one, the 25th anniversary remix of Ever.

The internet has made the world a radically different place to what it was when I first started buying records, and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to browse through the racks in HMV, Virgin et al, over the years. In the future, it looks like the supermarkets are going to be one of the few options for people who want to go out and buy a CD or DVD, which will only be OK if you want something from the top twenty of either.

HMV's Bluewater store, one of the stores likely to go the same way as Harlequin Records.

One of the HMV stores likely to close is my local one in Romford, and if the list of others set to close is right, then it's possible that I'll never set foot in one of their stores again, even if the chain does survive.[2] While this is an inevitable consequence of the way the world of retail is changing, that is as much my fault as anyones.

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[1] Note: I'm using video as a convenient coverall for DVD and Blu-ray, movies and TV programmes.

[2] A full list of stores that will probably close can be found here: https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/full-list-hmv-stores-risk-13785534