7 Teen seconds

I found myself feeling all unexpectedly soppy and fondly reminiscent about something on telly the other day.  I was watching one of those repeats of old Top of the Pops episodes being aired by BBC Four, this particular one being from 7th February 1980.  The line-up encapsulated the period perfectly - an eclectic mixture including The Selecter and The Specials alongside Queen and Cliff Richard, *AC/DC, The Chords and The Tourists.  What a delightful pot-pourri of pop, with a couple of exposed hairy chests, some pork pie hats and a peculiar horsetail (?) head-dress thrown in for good measure (I leave you to work out who wore what), but the act that really did it for me - and I was surprised at the effect they had all these years later - was The Regents, performing '7 Teen'.

Ah... what a time.  It was the year I was going to turn 7teen too, so there was that connection, and I really did like the song - just not quite enough to buy it.  But the thing that really got me on seeing it now was the reminder that it was a time when you could be the lead vocalist in a band and go on-stage on a TV show wearing a non-descript red sweatshirt type top and tape a couple of home-made 'pad' things onto your shoulders.  Like epaulettes.  But stuck on with white gaffer tape.  And your two backing vocalists were fresh-looking and un-self conscious, having the time of their lives, ramping up the silliness with their unpretentious charm, as if they were just playing around in front of a bedroom mirror.  I could imagine going to college with them - I love the thought that we could've been mates and found myself envisioning them rehearsing in the lunch-hour; the  naive, swaying back-and-forth, side-to-side dancing that we all did - getting the giggles.  Oh!  I want to be in The Regents!

You also have to love a song which includes the words "she's a beautiful mutation" (so new wave!) and if they could only have got away with it I wish they could have performed it with its original mention of "a permanent erection".  That was how it was first released in 1979 but (of course) an alternative censored version needed to be issued to ensure its radio play (and subsequent hit status) so we lost the erection to a permanent reaction...  All good, though.  

Anyway, I do like it when you've forgotten or pretty much dismissed something from the past and then it sneaks up and surprises you in the sweetest of ways.  When it takes you back and makes you smile and reminisce affectionately, even though it also reminds you that that particular time is never to return.  And when it makes you just want to watch it and hear it again...

The Regents: 7 Teen

*Special mention must also go to a particular line in AC/DC's 'Touch Too Much' which was shown in this episode:

"She had the face of an angel, smiling with sin, the body of Venus with arms"  With arms.

Magritte for the masses - the cover art of the art cover, part 3. Includes substance abuse.

My chosen theme for an important Art exam is one of the finest examples of futuristic technology in existence.  It’s interactive, revolutionary, progressive.  I’ve picked something ultra-modern, a reflection of the fast-moving times we’re in. 

I’ve decided to portray a Space Invaders machine.   It is 1980, after all.  Space Invaders are taking over the world, or at least the pubs of the world.

And I’m going to draw it in oil pastels.

Only, trying to draw a stupid Space Invaders machine  in a stupid hot studio at college, with no previous experience of these stupid smudgy colour sticks I’ve bought is a bit like trying to paint the Sistine Chapel with lipstick.  We’re up against the clock too, this being an exam.  I keep having to leave the room to spray it with fixative which is a right pain, and gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “getting a fix” – or perhaps not.   The fixative smells like hairspray mixed with nail varnish, Evostik and vodka.  It can kill 30,000 brain cells in one sniff, or something like that, and if we knew all about CFCs and the ozone layer it would be banned, but we don’t - at least not for another nine years or so.

Anyway, every time I go out into the college corridor to sniff the fixative, Kirk is already there, sniffing his.  Kirk is one of my best friends.  He is tall, skinny, geeky, excruciatingly shy, a Sci-Fi fan with a dry, caustic wit, and he looks a bit like a young Catweazel, if you can imagine that.  I swear he eats nothing but cream buns and he wears those Cornish Pasty shoes.  He is also super-talented, an incredible young artist.  On a large piece of card he is portraying a wonderfully bizarre view from a window, abstract and full of dreamlike atmosphere, and it is a masterpiece - skillfully, expertly rendered – in oil pastels.  Even after several sniffs of fixative spray I think we can safely say he still has a lot more brain cells than me.

When the exam is over, Kirk has produced a piece of art good enough to hang in the Louvre.  Me, I’ve produced a piece of shit not even good enough to hang in the loo.

 I scrape by with a ‘C’  in my ‘A’ Level Art for a stupid smudgy picture of a stupid arcade machine being played by my disembodied hands; the whole thing looks more like a patterned jumper knitted by Aunt Ada after the malfunctioning sausage machine incident of '74.  However,  I’m very happy to say that Kirk is awarded an ‘A’ for his magnum opus.  Not only is it a brilliant piece in its own right, but it’s also an homage to another fantastic artist, René Magritte.

As you may know from the first part of this series, Magritte is one of my favourites, so this is where the cover art theme comes in, as it turns out that there are an awful lot more examples of Magritte's inspiration than Kirk's 'A' Level Art triumph and a Jackson Browne album sleeve.

Such as this…

Styx: The Grand Illusion

...and this…

Roger Daltrey: One Of The Boys

...this too.

Funeral For A Friend: Casually Dressed And Deep In Conversation

Some are slightly less derivative, but still clearly inspired by Magritte...

Heart: Greatest Hits

Gary Numan: The Pleasure Principle

There are also the covers which simply use original Magritte artwork, like these

Gladys Knight & The Pips: Visions

Jeff Beck: Beck-Ola

Alan Hull & Radiator

How brilliant and influential is Magritte?!  Far too many examples to compare and contrast this time, I'm sure you'll agree.  Mind you, I wish I could see Kirk's 'A' Level picture again and show it to you here; I have no doubt that it could still be a favourite...

... a bit like this was in 1980:

Space Invaders game

Playing along with the art school boys, part three

Much as I would love to claim to be the artist behind this poster, all credit must go to Simon, who was in the year above me at college and designed and drew this for a party in 1980. (If you should happen to stumble upon this, Simon, then I hope you won't mind me reproducing it here. I also hope you're still drawing!)   I think it's a great piece of graphic illustration, especially considering he was only 18 when he created it.

I've kept it for the last 34 years because, much to my great surprise at the time, a good friend and I were immortalised in it. That's me, apparently, top centre, wearing fishnets and brandishing a cutlass, showing more feistiness (and flesh) than I think I ever did in real life. My beautiful college mate is nearby looking suitably sultry in a Cleopatra get-up. There are one or two others in the crowd which are wonderful caricatures of our fellow students, and I like the fact that Bowie and Jordan (the original) have made a guest appearance in the pic; sadly they never made one at college. All in all it kind of sums up 1980 art school life for me.

Even though I didn't make it to the actual party (I can't remember why), I can probably tell you fairly accurately what would have been played there. Musically 1980 had some interesting things to offer. A quick look at the year's indie charts reveals that the best-selling bands included acts as diverse as Dead Kennedys, Spizzenergi, Joy Division and Crass (I owned them all!) but in December's UK Top 40 you could hear Abba one minute and AC/DC the next (I owned neither!), not forgetting singles by ELO, Kate Bush, Clash, Madness, Spandau Ballet, oh and... St Winifred's School Choir... what an odd mixture.  That month, John Peel aired sessions by the Raincoats, Theatre of Hate and Red Beat.

The murder of John Lennon just a couple of weeks before this party was shocking but, you know, I remember it didn't really touch me in any significant way at the time – unlike the deaths of Malcolm Owen and Ian Curtis earlier that same year.

A great dubby track from Red Beat.