Whatever other fortunes or misfortunes might have befallen my funny life, I'm grateful to have been born when I was. I came into a world when the Beatles were just starting to make their mark and the world was changing at a hitherto unprecedented pace. I come from a relatively large family over a wide age difference and I have the warmest memories of two of my brothers (the Twins) coming home from their Saturday morning jobs, arms piled high with 45s and the occasional long player.
Much to the chagrin of my father (the Old Man), Saturday afternoons and Sundays were filled with the Beatles, Roy Orbison, Desmond Dekker, The Easybeats, The Bee Gees, The Kinks, The Small Faces, Kaleidoscope (and Fairfield Parlour), The Pioneers and other early reggae acts, Elvis, Little Eva, Frankie Lymon, Little Anthony and the Imperials, The Byrds, The Monkees and countless others. Not too much later another brother (the Favourite One) would turn me on to WEIRD. Frank Zappa and his proteges Alice Cooper, Iron Butterfly, Uriah Heep, early Pink Floyd, King Crimson and the not so very weird Creedence Clearwater Revival. My eldest sister would bring David Bowie into the fold eventually and my youngest sister would give me the age of the singer-songwriter. So it all comes as no surprise that to this day my heart skips a beat when I hear Sean Bonniwell's growl. Or Eric Burdon's pissed off white boy soul. Or the sheer level of quality in the harmonies back then.
But the one thing those early years instilled in me was a boundless curiosity to look further afield. Mercifully, by my late teens I was drowning in the company of friends who shared similar sensibilities and we'd sit around with whatever drugs and alcohol we could buy, steal or borrow and listen to Dantalion's Chariot, The Music Machine, The Litter, some Bob Dylan, The 13th Floor Elevators - basically anything that had fuzz guitar and/or some early skying/flanging/phasing across the instruments or vocals (Itchycoo Park, anyone?).
Besides serving to let it be known that I am an unrelenting name dropper, all of the above is essentially a hopefully-less-than-maudlin farewell to Mark Loomis, the guitarist for the Chocolate Watch Band who was a crucial part of the melange and the soundtrack of our lives.
To date, I have so few regrets but one will be never getting the chance to compile a fanboi biography on the likes of Mark or Sean Bonniwell or the guys from We The People or The Golden Cups. I cannot begin to express how grateful I am to all of these people for radically altering my internal compass, only ever for the better.
Who knows, maybe one days I'll suck up to the members of Talking Heads or The Jam or The Pretenders or The Plastics and at least partially fulfill the dream but the most important thing that all of those musicians taught me was that without curiosity, we are all the lesser for it. As people. As call and response organisms. As spirits. I hear that spirit still in the likes of London Grammar, Daughter, Jamie T and a whole bunch of stuff coming out of Australia, The States, Europe, Africa, South East Asia and Africa.
And that's why if you ever hear me utter, "I just don't get the shit that they play today", you have my permission to punch my fucking lights out.
Remain intrigued.
If you've made it this far, here are some links to life-changing goodness.
Masculine Intuition - The Music Machine
The Smell of Incense - Southwest FOB
Follow me - Lyme and Cybelle
Action Woman - The Litter
Don't need your lovin' - The Chocolate Watch Band
New York Mining Disaster 1942 - The Bee Gees.
Hey Joe - The Golden Cups.
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