Record of the week: Generation X – Friday’s Angel Highest entry: The Knack – My Sharona – 24
14th May 2022 – My Sharona is still in the cultural zeitgeist, though maybe only for another generation. Friday’s Angel I don’t even recall myself. Let me check it out again. Seeing the cover, I may have even owned this 7″ at some point. Looks familiar. A re-listen is not winning me over these days.
8th July 1979 Not meant for today but the Sex Pistols are great. 2p 12p^
14th May 2022 – Not meant for today? What does that even mean, 11-year-old me? Perhaps just filling up diary space when having no recollection of what I actually did on that day. I wish I could go back and tell myself to write down as much as possible, to tell Hayden to do the same. Tell your kids to keep a diary, even better, a journal. No need to get all Kerouac about it but your future self will be grateful to you.
9th July 1979 Had chalkie today Great stuff Chalkie = Hard and White = Arden White 2p 14p^
14th May 2022 – Well, I’ve searched but Arden White remains a mystery. Some kind of candy, chocolate or beverage, maybe? Already enjoying playing with language. It is something that I still admire as part of my Englishness. Not to say that language games don’t exist in other languages or that English is better, just that I enjoy the learning, practising and knowing of it.
10th July 1979 Graeme brought a Rubber Johnny to school and I’ve got the instructions 2p 16p^
14th May 2022 – Damn, this would’ve been a playground coup and kids would’ve gathered around to see this forbidden item. I was obviously proud to be the owner of the instructions! Even with them, I wouldn’t have known what to do with the thing! I feel sure Graeme would’ve given it a go though.
11th July 1979 called the 2p
14th May 2022 – As if my writing wasn’t hard enough to read already, I obviously wanted this piece partially obscured
12th July 1979 1. Tubeway Army – Are Friends Electric? 2. Janet Kay – Silly Games 3. Sex Pistols – C’mon Everybody 4. Squeeze – Up The Junction 5. Amii Stewart – Light My Fire 6. Gerry Rafferty – Night Owl 7. Ruts – Babylon’s Burning 2p 2p 20p^
14th May 2022 – Extended to a top 7 so that I could include the Ruts. It’s amazing to remember a time when a song like this was in the charts.
13th July 1979 Gra Johnny’s number is 0425 42800 24p^
14th May 2022 – In the punk tradition Graeme and I changed our names though I forget what mine was. So Graeme was Johnny, implying that he was the Johnny Rotten of us two potential punks. I don’t believe I ever went by the name of Sid but it wouldn’t be long before that was the name older kids called me to make fun of me. And by this time I was the only punk in the school.
14th July 1979 No news to write about Ipswich this week 26p ^
14th May 2022 – That’s how to write about Ipswich every week, even when there was nothing to write. I could’ve been a journalist, I tells ya!
Record of the week: C’mon Everybody – Sex Pistols Highest entry: Chic – Good Times – 22 (What crap!)
7th May 2022 – Well, I’m going to take my word for it and not even going to bother checking out the Chic song again. Could C’mon Everybody really be by the Sex Pistols? Were the Pistols the Pistols without John Lydon? Obviously, moneymakers thought they could use the name but when it comes to the actual ‘real’ band, they only really had about 18 songs in their catalogue. For a band that had such a great impact on musical culture (culture in general, really) it seems an incredibly small recorded legacy. Are there other bands with such a minuscule recorded output that was such a huge influence?
The video has Sid riding his motorbike without a helmet, which was SO punk rock to 11-year-old me. I couldn’t understand how he was allowed to do that, to get away with it! I’m going to watch it again in a minute but the footage I remember is of him riding through English country lanes and that takes me back to the time of doing the same, pushbikes and then motorbikes (with helmet, of course!), about 5 or 6 years later.
I went on a bike ride this morning, around a lot of country lanes here in Chiang Rai and despite the different types of foliage, it’s quite a similar experience. As I was riding I was thinking about going back to the UK and hitting up Rupert and Jeremy, hiring some 50cc mopeds and hooning around our old haunts.
1st July 1979 Yesterday I was in bed all the time because of me leg (see Friday 24th June) 2p
2nd July 1979 POP DAY Making out my pop records that I’m playing 2p
3rd July 1979 Used a spud to make C L A S H, you know, cut-outs. 2p 2p^ not in debt
7th July 2022 – My love of the Clash was getting creative. I also made some tiny bread buns of those letters and at school made them out of wood whenever there was free bits leftover from making….whatever we were supposed to be making. I was never handy with tools and soon gave up on woodwork and metalwork classes.
4th July 1979 I’m actually saving money If you look back to Feb 9, the middle statement has become false 2p 4p^
5th July 1979 1. Tubeway Army – Are Friends Electric? 2. Squeeze – Up The Junction 3. Janet Kay – Silly Games (what crap!) 4. Anita Ward – Ring My Bell 5. Gerry Rafferty – Night Owl 9. Sex Pistols – C’mon Everybody 2p 6p^
6th July 1979 Sports Day This year Last year Long Jump 1 1 75m 1 1 150m 1 1 Cricket Ball 1 1 Relay 1 2 2p 8p^
7th May 2022 – I could’ve been a contender, I suppose. There wasn’t much support for a dumb kid from the backwaters of England and there wasn’t enough internal motivation. I didn’t believe in myself, no one else believed in me and so it goes.
7th July 1979 Borg vs Tanner 6-7 6-1 3-6 6-3 6-4 Ipswich’s last 3 seasons places 6.3.6 2p 10p^
7th May 2022 – I liked Bjorn Borg for some reason. He seemed humble.
6th May 2022 – The cashing in on the Sex Pistols and punk. I didn’t know it at the time, I was just thrilled with it all. Promoting songs like C’mon Everybody really just shows that punk was founded in the roots of rock, which was founded on….etc etc… All those people outraged by this ugly phenomenon – do they think they won a battle for decency or realise that the rebellion was not that dangerous after all.
24th June 1979 Them lot’s coming 2 Dunnos, 1 Forgottens, 1 Not much happened 2p 2p
25th June 1979 Middle of the year 2 Don’t know, 2 Boring days, 2 Same as yesterday, 1 Not much happened, 1 Nothing much Won the relay. Came fourth in 75m and 150m heats at District Sport 2p
6th May 2022 – This would have been a good lesson to show that teamwork beats individualism. To someone who thought about it more at the time!
26th June 1979 I’m in the cricket ball bungin’. Chucked 42 metres. By the way, Clash are great.
6th May 2022 – 42 metres seems a fair distance. I should be proud. I guess I was. Yesterday I played football with a couple of students in the school playground. I prefer goalkeeping these days as it’s less running around. But when the ball goes past me, then I have to chase around for it and I was doing well for a little while. I think I ended up playing for about twenty minutes, enjoying the exercise and camaraderie with these kids, before starting to feel dizzy and sweating too much. I’m quite proud these days of my stamina, even though I feel sad that I can no longer just keep going and going. Could I? If I really wanted to?
27th June 1979 Dunno 2p
28th June 1979 1. Tubeway Army – Are Friends Electric? 2. Anita Ward – Ring My Bell 3. Squeeze – Up The Junction 4. Earth Wind and Fire – Boogie Wonderland 5. Quantum Jump – The Lone Ranger 2p
6th May 2022 – Reminding myself of the Lone Ranger – that’s a fun song. And who knew it was banned by the BBC initially due to its drug and homosexual references!? Really? I’ll have to give it a closer listen but I think sometimes people just seek to be offended!
29th June 1979 Done me leg in, on the knee Matthew’s coming down Leg’s KILLING ME 2p
6th May 2022 – Days when injuries couldn’t stop you from still doing things. My leg, obviously, didn’t kill me!
30th June 1979 Mick Mills appears on the same page as my birthday (27th Oct) 2p 10p 14p 4p
Record of the week: Squeeze – Up The Junction Highest entry: Amii Stewart – Light My Fire
3rd May 2022 – What the world never needed. A disco version of Light My Fire. At least it’s not got Jim Morrison singing it, I suppose! Squeeze – when New Wave still had potential. Great storytelling songwriting performance. It’s hard to comprehend the deep meaning songs like this held, as part of our cultural growth, the collective zeitgeist for those exposed to it and how, now, it’s forgotten and meaningless. Or it feels that way at least. But maybe I’m just in a funny mood.
I think about the impact I might’ve had on some of the people I’ve come across in my life and some days it feels like that moment may have disappeared forever, ineffective, meaningless. Then on other days, I consider how every little bit counts, that they may not be specifically recalled but one’s actions always have an effect, no matter how trivial and small.
I guess I’m projecting what I’ve been reading today back onto this time and a song by Squeeze!
17th June 1979 Dunno 2p 2p
18th June 1979 Rubbish day – really crap! 2p
3rd May 2022 – If I could go back in time, I would slap myself and tell myself to write more detail!
19th June 1979 Boiling hot, as it has been recently But there’s a LOW coming 2p
3rd May 2022 – I was watching some video recently about the foibles of the English and one point was that we always talk about the weather, not just as small talk but as main conversation points. Of course, you can analyse all the possible reasons for this but my main thought was that this doesn’t seem to be an idiosyncrasy peculiar to the English.
20th June 1979 Er.Hum.Er.Yes.Er.Erm.Um.In one word Dunno 2p 11p
3rd May 2022 – I can hear this only spoken in an English accent. Imagine Basil Fawlty. I feel comfortable enough to make this stereotype.
21st June 1979 1. Anita Ward – Ring My Bell 2. Tubeway Army – Are Friends Electric? 3. Roxy Music – Dance Away 4. Blondie – Sunday Girl 5. Earth Wind and Fire – Boogie Wonderland 2p
22nd June 1979 Seemed pretty long and hot. Went t’ chiropodist got another pad 2p 2p
23rd June 1979 1 year, 1 month, 17 days since Ipswich won the cup. 2p 30p*
3rd May 2022 – My ongoing effort to write something about Ipswich every Saturday. I was already finding ways to cheat the system.
Record of the week: Tubeway Army – Are Friends Electric? Highest entry: Eddie Grant – Living on the Frontline What crap!
27th Apr 2022 – Well, it seems I wasn’t keen on Eddie Grant. Not even sure I can recall this tune. It’s vaguely in the data bank at the back left somewhere, though I may be confusing it with ‘Electric Avenue’. I think the Tubeway Army song and video was just a curiosity at the time, I soon came to detest Gary Numan. Compared with much modern music though it has become interesting to me again. I think I like a few Tubeway Army album tracks in the last 5 years or so that I went out searching.
10th June 1979 Dunno. Utterly boring. My dunno’s must be driving you MAD! 0 2p
27th Apr 2022 – The day was boring and scored zero. These days a boring day may score a 10! Interesting that I was writing to an audience (in my head) and indeed, I am the audience. I do wish I had written more but there were some years I didn’t write anything at all.
11th June 1979 Dunno 8 2p
12th June 1979 Can I go to Athletics today? Yes, and I came 4th in Cricket Ball. 8 2p
13th June 1979 An OK day 8 2p
14th June 1979 1. Anita Ward – Ring My Bell 2. Blondie – Sunday Girl 3. Roxy Music – Dance Away 4. Earth Wind and Fire – Boogie Wonderland 5. McFadden and Whitehead – Ain’t No Stopping Us Now Got the Clash and Skids records (Cost of Living EP and Masquerade) 10 2p
27th Apr 2022 – A lot of The Clash singles I bought well after their release date and they didn’t have picture covers but the Cost of Living had a great fold-out picture cover and four great tracks. I spent a long time listening and pouring over the artwork and details of the cover. All those ideas were folding and reforming in my mind. Groovy Times had a jump in the grooves that became an endearing memory and I always expect it whenever I still listen.
The Skids haven’t fared so well in my memory though I think I do have a Best Of in my collection somewhere. Their singles were always pretty great though. I should go listen to them again.
15th June 1979 Going to stop playing Banana Splits every day (maybe) Started playing the Clash every day now. 9 2p 1p
27th Apr 2022 – I can’t imagine listening to the same music over and over again now – but, I should. I recently picked up a High Back Chairs CD that didn’t grab me on first listen but decided to give it another go the following day and, with the aid of extra volume, a couple of tunes wormed their way into the brainium and I listened ago a couple of days later. Now the disc is sitting there, with dark attractors pulling at me, vying along with the other piles of discs I wish to listen to, either right now, or over the coming fortnight. Time is fluid.
16th June 1979 Ipswich made a record in 76-77 by going fifteen games unbeaten. Only a record for the season. 8 2p 55p*
Record of the week: M – M Factor Highest entry: Squeeze – Up The Junction
20th Apr 2022 – M Factor was the b-side of Pop Muzik and is a preferable listen these days as Pop Muzik became too successful and familiar. Squeeze’s Up The Junction is another classic pop tune that makes me want to go and seek out more of their music though I have a feeling I may have done this in the past and been disappointed to discover that they were just a great singles band.
3rd June 1979 Since I bought Banana Splits, I’ve never not played it 6 2p
20th Apr 2022 – Music obsession was forming fast this year. Of course, at the time it was much more difficult to hear new music and there were far fewer options for entertainment. This really focused interest on whatever it was that caught your attention.
4th June 1979 Average day First day back at school 7 2p
5th June 1979 Qualified for everything except High Jump and Long Jump in Athletics 10 2p 2p
20th Apr 2022 – As well as being in the football team I was good at sprinting and other field events. I eventually got good at Long Jump and High Jump too. In the last couple of years, an old school friend posted on Facebook about how I seemed to be nonchalantly unconcerned about these events and that it seems I was just very casually good (or better than other participants at the time) at them. I was quite proud of myself but when moving up to high school later, the competition got much stronger. I still did fairly well though.
6th June 1979 Find out whether I get into the top four in Athletics (June 5th) I know I got into the Sprint and cricket bungin’ I don’t know about Long Jump Gotta sore throat 7 2p 78p*
20th Apr 2022 – We didn’t often play cricket in PE but at this time we were too young to be trusted with javelins so there was an event to see who could throw a cricket ball the furthest. I loved this and I was very good at it. One time, balls were being returned from the field and Jonathan Duncan wasn’t paying attention. A ball came flying at speed and smacked him right on the temple, with an echoing clunk. His eyes rolled and his legs crumpled as he dropped to the grass. He soon got back up and went to the sick bay for a while but earned his deserved reputation as a ‘tough nut’.
7th June 1979 1. Blondie – Sunday Girl 2. Roxy Music – Dance Away 3. Anita Ward – Ring My Bell 4. Earth Wind And Fire – Boogie Wonderland 5. Peaches and Herb – Reunited 6. ELO Not at school got bad throat 7 2p
20th Apr 2022 – Sick again. I wonder if I was really sick, or I probably was a little but not really that bad. Well, that habit certainly continued for the following 40 years or so. Lucky that I always had a set wage. As I learn about and see different parts of the world I realise how much I have taken for granted in my life.
8th June 1979 Off school again Matthew came down. I found out that I’m not in Long Jump. 8 2p
20th Apr 2022 – Not so sick that friends couldn’t come and play! And likely I was making a healthy recovery by lunchtime when it would be too late to bother going to school. As kids, we already know how to play the game.
9th June 1979 Arnold Muhren is Ipswich’s Player of the Year 8 2p 2p
20th Apr 2022 – Arnold Muhren and Franz Thiessen were the first players (of note at least) from abroad to play in the English League. It was a big discussion point at the time. In the following 20 years, things moved along to the point that it seemed as if some teams had NO English players.
Football feels fully biased towards the teams with the most money and spending power so that there are very few exceptions to the same 6-10 teams winning every year. Although somewhat floored, I like the systems in place in Australia to try and balance things out as much as they can.
52
20th Apr 2022 – 52 out of 70 seems pretty good for a week I was supposedly sick.
Record of the week: Ian Dury – What the Dickens Inbetweenies Highest entry: Anita Ward – Ring My Bell
12th Apr 2022 – For a favourite tune of the time I don’t remember how this Ian Dury song goes but I do remember the annoying Anita Ward tune. It’s not bad. Just annoying.
27th May 1979 Dunno Them lot came round staying all today and tomorrow 0 2p
12th Apr 2022 – An obvious connection between ‘them lot’ staying and the score for the day.
12th Apr 2022 – 28?! What the hell? How does that work? Rangers were my Scottish team of choice due to their wearing blue. Stranraer was my second Scottish team for the same reason and that they never did well. I don’t think they ever made it out of the second division whilst I followed them. Another example of rooting for the underdog.
29th May 1979 From yesterday I’ll be giving marks on the day. They’ll be out of ten and will be totalled up at the end of the week for a mark out of 70. 60 this week 8
12th Apr 2022 – A reasonable (yet meaningless) statistical indicator.
I recently used the FutureMe online application where you write an email (to yourself but can include others) scheduled to be delivered in the future. Writing up these diary entries offers a similar proposition even if they are quite non-specific. A vague reminder of a time and place that often feels like it belonged to someone else. In a way, I guess it did.
30th May 1979 European Cup Final Forest 1-0 Malmo FC 4 Malmo should’ve won
12th Apr 2022 – I hated Nottingham Forest and Brian Clough, possibly for the only reason that they wore red.
I watched some old football highlights from 1973 yesterday and it was weird to see the style of play back then. And the haircuts. With less money influencing the sport it felt a lot more real. The players looked like they all went out for a beer after the game. They just looked like your regular Peters and Pauls. They just happened to be footballers. There probably was still a cult of personality about them but not to the extremes of today’s standards. The stands were jam-packed with people and no stadiums had seating. Even the shitty TV quality is super nostalgic though I don’t have any desire to return to that.
31st May 1979 1. Blondie – Sunday Girl 2. Roxy Music – Dance Away 3. M – Pop Muzik 4. Peaches and Herb – Reunited 5. Earth Wind And Fire – Boogie Wonderland 7 2p
1st June 1979 Got a watch By the way, the watch is NEW Very sunny Got Pop Muzik 10 2p
12th Apr 2022 – This watch may have a green LED, one of the first of its time though this technology soon got overrun by LCD. As I highlight the watch being new I guess all my previous watches had been second hand and I thought that was terrific. I stopped wearing watches as a teenager, testing myself to quantify time and pay attention to ways to find the time without having to ask people for it. I finally got the Pop Muzik 7″, though disappointingly with no picture sleeve.
2nd June 1979 Got an Ipswich hat yesterday. It’s the real one, not just an ordinary un. 8 2p
12th Apr 2022 – Again, wanting to highlight the fact that this was the expensive option item, buying from the club and not from the market. Maybe I felt like I needed to advance my station?
46
12th Apr 2022 – Trevor Francis went to Nottingham Forest for one million pounds this year – the first-ever one million pound player. It was a big deal. In my mind, the end of an era for football (looking back at least).
Record of the week: Lene Lovich – Say When Highest entry: Mcfadden And Whitehead – Ain’t No Stopping Us Now
4th Apr 2022 – Lene Lovich was a character. I don’t remember this song, even after listening to it a couple of months ago and listening now triggers no memories. It does remind me a lot of Hayzie Fantayzee but they came later, maybe owing a debt to Ms Lovich. McFadden and Whitehead though, one-hit wonders perhaps, this song is catchy but generic pop garbage of the time. Maybe still played in retro soul clubs?
20th May 1979 Clear out under sofa, that’s where I’m writing to you from 2p 120p*
4th Apr 2022 – A pivotal time for me. My first move to break away from my mum, albeit, just to be laying under the sofa whilst she was sitting above!
Mum kept a lot of junk under the sofa but I convinced her it was time to sort it out, clear it out and I would lay under there to watch TV or whatever. It would be MY place to own. Our sofa was like a converted park bench so there was plenty of space under there for a skinny 11-year-old.
It was soon after that I got mum to clean out under the bureau too so that I could use that space as a race space for my collection of Matchbox cars.
I would keep a logbook of my racing league, with daily races. I was mad on charts and tracking, and a little, by extension, on statistics. My favourite, Ford Capri, always came first, even though I convinced myself I gave it the same amount of push as the Maseratis and Lamborghinis I had.
It was during this time I discovered the pleasurable feeling of rubbing my squashed knob on the floor. I tied together, in my mind, using a pen on paper and rubbing myself on the ground by moving my hips rhythmically so that I soon began to just colour in letters with fastidious intensity.
I don’t know when was the first time I orgasmed doing this and the first ejaculation, because the tip of my penis was squashed between the foreskin, I never actually ejaculated, trapping any discharge inside. This had both positives and negatives. I could rub myself to orgasm like this many times over, and not really ejaculate. This was useful later when I was having real sex. Any leaking liquid would follow a minute or two after orgasm.
Over time my sensitivity moved from the penis head to the base where even now I can still experience deep orgasmic pleasure by squeezing the tube at the base to stop ejaculation.
The downside of all this was that I don’t know what damage I was doing. Also, I could never spurt a fountain, and the joke ‘he makes love like a footballer, he dribbles before he shoots’ has always remained in memory for the past 40 years since I first heard it. Multiple orgasms seemed like a reasonable trade-off at the time.
Another part of the pleasure was holding my breath whilst doing this, but I had to be really careful not to burst out a big gulp of air at climax as my mum would be reading her book quietly sitting just a few inches above me. At this time I wasn’t yet thinking about girls or imagining what sex was like, that would develop in the next year or two. Although thinking about it, perhaps I was imagining Debbie Harry in some form or another.
21st May 1979 Cripes, Coronation Street is getting so dramatic 2p 2p 98p* 9
4th Apr 2022 – So, having written all that above, I’m wondering if the ‘9’ entry here is the number of times I orgasmed that day!
The sofa had a kind of curtain to hide whatever was underneath and I would tuck it up so that I could watch TV on our boxy white Sony Trinitron, which my mum was very proud of owning.
Mum and I enjoyed the Northern trappings of Coronation Street, with which we were still somewhat familiar from living in Whitehaven. It’s odd now to consider how wildly accents can change in relatively short distances in England. My own accent adapted from Cumbrian to Devonish to a middle non-descript plain English by this time.
We tried other shows like Emmerdale and Crossroads but they didn’t stick like Cory and then I dropped that later when East Enders came on the scene though I think mum stuck with it a bit longer.
22nd May 1979 Dunno Glad Sunday Girl’s at No. 1 Scotland 1-0 Northern Ireland Scotland should have won the Championship 2p
4th Apr 2022 – Finally a half-decent song at number one. Going for Scotland – always support the team in blue.
23rd May 1979 Today went quite fast UEFA Cup Final (2nd Leg) Borussia Munchengladbach 1-0 Red Star Belgrade England 0-0 Wales 2p 2p
24th May 1979 1. Blondie – Sunday Girl 2. Roxy Music – Dance Away 3. M – Pop Muzik 4. Abba – Does Your Mother Know 5. Peaches and Herb – Reunited Andrew’s birthday 2p
4th Apr 2022 – I can only think this must have been Andrew Farmer who I was still friends with at this time. I was invited to party at his house which was up on the Heath. A big house that cemented their status in my mind as being rich and a little hoity-toity, helped by the fact Andrew’s mum was the deputy headmaster at school. In the following year, his family built and opened the Elim Pentecostal Church on Leigh Road to which we were all invited for the opening week, and during the one time I actually went, I enjoyed pogoing with Keith ‘Fog’ Forward during one of the more uptempo songs. Besides that, it was boring as fuck.
Anyway, at this party we walked around the woods in the beautiful sunshine, exploring places I never bothered to go again, shooting our fake guns and caps. Back at their house, they had a mini (kids) pool table set up in an attic room and here Andrew got into an argument with his younger brother Steven which ended with one or the other whacking the other across the back with a pool queue. I left soon after and as their family continued on their religious trajectory, I was off on my anti-establishment one and we didn’t remain friends. I don’t know if that random act of violence made me pause for thought or if there were other factors involved too but I felt like he was becoming too much of a goody-two-shoes in general.
25th May 1979 Northern Ireland 1-1 Wales Championship Table England 2 1 0 5 1 5 Wales 1 2 0 4 1 4 Scotland 1 0 2 2 6 2 N. Ireland 0 1 2 1 4 1 2p
26th May 1979 England 3-1 Scotland Every Saturday I’m going to try and say something about Ipswich Look at August 12 2p
Record of the week: Roxy Music – Dance Away Highest entry: Blondie – Sunday Girl – 10
24th Mar 2022 – When I saw this Roxy Music song here, the tune popped into my head and I thought, I hate this song! Something about it must have caught my interest. I was still into Blondie though I didn’t explore their releases after Parallel Lines. It got a bit too slick, though Union City Blue was ok.
13th May 1979 Feel sick Found out what was at number 1
14th May 1979 Still feel sick
15th May 1979 Don’t feel as sick as yesterday Rangers 0-0 Hibs 2p 123p
24th Mar 2002 – Such a sickly boy. Ipswich were my main team but in the Scottish League, I supported Rangers, because they also wore blue. Scottish games were never shown on TV so I could only follow them by watching out for the results on TV on Saturdays or perhaps reading results in my grandparent’s newspaper.
16th May 1979 I wish Bright Eyes would budge now European Cup Winners Cup Final Barcelona 4-3 Fortuna Dusseldorf
24th Mar 2022 – I really wanted Pop Muzik to get to number one. It almost seems inconceivable these days that a song could keep selling more copies week after week. I think Pop Muzik is more likely to be heard than Bright Eyes, in other contexts now, such as movies, soundtracks or TV shows – if I may be allowed to reduce cultural attache like that. Bright Eyes was a real downer of a song.
17th May 1979 1. Art Garfunkel – Bright Eyes 2. M – Pop Muzik 3. Boney M – Holiday 4. Abba – Does Your Mother Know 5. Peaches and Herb – Reunited 2p
18th May 1979 More drama in Soap 2p
19th May 1979 Found out that Ipswich are in Europe
24th Mar 2022 – This current wonder of the internet tells me that Ipswich came 6th in the league which means they would play in the UEFA Cup the following season.
Record of the week: Dickies – Banana Splits Highest entry: Damned – Love Song – 26
21st Mar 2022 – Seeing the Dickies play Banana Splits on Top of the Pops – it was a video, not in the studio – was amazing. I’d never seen music played so fast before. It was thrilling and exciting. And Love Song – it was a time of great music, but look at the top of the charts and it was not so good. However, it provided the balance to kick against. It’s hard to put yourself back in the position of the context of the past.
6th May 1979 Dunno, quite a good day wasn’t it Exactly one year since Ipswich won the cup
21st Mar 2022 – This was a great period of time to be an Ipswich Town fan and I was annoyed when Bobby Robson was eventually enticed away to manage the England team. They never got the mojo back after that.
7th May 1979 Carey Camp starts Nothing much 2p
21st Mar 2022 – Hmm – a couple of hundred kids camping for 5 days. Was that a good idea? As a teacher now, I think I would refuse to be part of that! But then, when I think about the teachers at the time they were probably all in their twenties and thirties and still full of enthusiasm. As a kid though, as a student, this was an interesting week, that did eventually get out of control.
For the most part, we were sleeping in tents of 8 and I don’t recall any shenanigans. The teachers were probably smart enough to pick which kids were in which tents and we weren’t yet brave enough to go against the rules sent down for us.
Image from Carey Camp Facebook page
8th May 1979 Went to Old Harry God were my legs killing me 2p
21st Mar 2022 – Again, probably a good adult tactic was to wear us the fuck out so that we would get back to camp and just sleep. I found out that on Friday we would be going to Swanage and I was desperate to find a record shop so that I could the Pop Muzik 7″. It was all I could talk about. Pun intended.
9th May 1979 My legs weren’t as bad as yesterday UEFA Cup Final (1st Leg) Borussia Muchengladbach 1-1 Red Star Belgrade 2p
10th May 1979 1. Art Garfunkel – Bright Eyes 2. M – Pop Muzik 3. Boney M – Holiday 4. Abba – Does Your Mother Know 5. Racey – Some Girls 2p
21st Mar 2022 – On this night several of us got to sleep in a different field in two-man tents and this was a cause for shenanigans as the teachers were not around. Also, longer summer nights made for a long period of twilight and so we screamed and shouted whilst roasting food on campfires and generally causing the kind of mayhem that 11-year-olds can – which really isn’t that much. But eventually, the teachers in the faraway field came and told us to pipe down. They noticed that there was a big smear of butter down the side of one tent and were very upset about it. Matthew owned up that it was him who threw the butter and we expected him to be led off in disgrace but instead, we all got punished and sent back to join the others.
I was worried about the ramifications because I really wanted to go to Swanage the next day. That was all I could think about.
Image from Carey Camp Facebook page
11th May 1979 Sick at camp Wish I knew what was at No 1 QPR 0-4 Ipswich 2p
21st Mar 2022 – And so fate intervened as I started vomiting up dodgy food as the sun rose in the early morning and I felt sick as a dog. Someone else had suffered the same fate and we got put in a room at the camp for the rest of the day. Not to be outdone, I gave my money to one of the teachers in the vague hope that they would pass a record store and could be the single for me.
But I was to be disappointed and frustrated, feeling sure that they probably didn’t even bother to find a record shop, because my request was obviously far more important than whatever else it was that the teachers had planned.
I had recovered my dodgy stomach throughout the day, enough to enjoy the final night of festivities, where everyone sat around a huge bonfire singing songs. No doubt Kumbaya was in there.
Some of the kids had prepared a short skit, which I’m sure was initiated by the teachers. It involved a girl standing by a tree and another person came along. The girl said – oh I like your shoes, where did you get them? To which the traveller replied ‘John Lewis’ (a famous clothing store). Another person comes along – oh I like your socks, where did you get them? ‘John Lewis’ again. Another person – trousers – ‘John Lewis’. Another – shirt – ‘John Lewis’. Another – hat – ‘John Lewis. And finally, (I can picture the boy but don’t recall his name, he was a bit of a class clown) a boy comes along in his underpants and the girl says Who are you? to which he replies ‘I’m John Lewis.’ We all cracked up and thought it was very daring.
12th May 1979 Carey Camp ends FA Cup Final Arsenal 3-2 Man Utd Rangers 0-0 Hibs 2p
THE DICKIES were Leonard Grayes Phillips on vocals, Stan Lee (aka Stan Sobel) on lead guitar, Chuck Wagon (aka Bob) on keyboards and sax, Karlos Kaballero on drums, and Billy Club on bass, a year zero punk outfit that emerged from a San Fernando garage in late 1977.
Within a matter of weeks, they’d been given a spot at the Whisky on the Sunset Strip.
“We just came out of nowhere,” said bassist Billy Club. “We’d been together about a week when Rodney Bigenheimer (L.A. man-about-town) came out to the garage we were in. We had about eight songs. He booked us at the Whisky.”
The Dickies were based just outside L.A. and all agreed that the radio was “an outrage – all that disco shi t. We’ve been hearing the same thing on it for the past five years”. But acting on their anti-disco manifesto had to wait until punk reared its head in the form of the Sex Pistols crossing the Atlantic and passing through the States.
“We played the Whisky – like, it was a Tuesday night, no one was there, but we got a cult following, and we started headlining the Whisky weekends and playing the Starwood,” explained Stan. “It was a joke, then all of a sudden: Dickiemania.”
A typical description of a Dickies live show went something like this: “…The lead singer wears a plaster leg cast, while guitar player Stan adorns womens’ lace panties on his head. The bassist wears a flasher’s yellow raincoat with black polka dots…It’s party-time.”
As for the music, a Los Angeles Times writer called it “primarily punkoid in structure and delivery, but pop elements to set them apart from the blunt, primitive school”. After much debate, “Easy listening punk” appeared to be the band’s favourite. Time would see their catchy melodic sound labelled “pop-punk” or “bubble-gum punk”.
Their songs were covers – ‘Paranoid’, The ‘Tra La La Song’ (from the Banana Splits cartoon show) and brilliantly odd picks like ‘Sound Of Silence’, plus a growing number of originals.
Notably, The Dickies achieved a series of firsts: the first California punk band to appear on network television, the first California punk band to be signed to a major (A&M Records) and the first U.S. punk outfit to tour Europe. By 1979, they‘d won over a lot of British fans.
