Reups by requests : Manchester 1982.

Apollo 82.

Paul Weller on Bowie's LP "Low" (Saturday Times). A Brigthon wiz info.

I got into Bowie around the same time that most people of my age did which was around the time of the Ziggy Stardust album, when I was about 15, 16. That was one of those albums that one of your pals bought and was passed around from mate to mate. Then I backtracked and bought Hunky Dory and Man Who Sold The World. In fact, I bought them all up until Lodger. It was an incredible run of albums that were all groundbreaking. Low is my all time favourite. I liked Bowie but wasn’t a big Bowie freak like all my friends at school but I loved the song writing and the fact that he did his own thing. As far as for leading things and inventing new style and musical genres you have to put him up there with the Beatles. I also like his Mod phase, there’s a great song he made around 1965/66 called Can’t Help Thinking About Me, which is kind of Who sounding but in terms of lyrics and subject matter is really advanced and then there’s London Boys, which I also really like. I like some of the whimsical Anthony Newley period although Laughing Gnome is not a favourite.

By the time, Station to Station came out I was into a different thing. I was into rock bands and the Mod stuff, but I still went to the local disco in Woking and would see all my mates from when we were skinheads or suede heads in the early-1970s wearing the plastic sandals, the peg trousers and the Hawaiian and bowling shirts with the wedge haircuts. They danced to Philly stuff but you’d also hear TVC 15 and Young Americans amongst it all. Our drummer played Station to Station endlessly on the tour bus in those days and I still love Wild is the Wind – the vocal is superb. Stay is another great song. It is a great album.

The Untouchable and Ultimate Mod, Steve Marriott (Translation part 2).

(So Steve is back in London, penniless) He collected Chartbusters and live at the Fillmore has been a worldwide success…Suddenly he had to steal empty and returnable bottles to pay the ciggies… Soon he also had to eat his little horse, Petite Visage (Small Face in French). He could afford the horse when it was happy times, times of the Marriott’s wigs sold in Carnaby Street and times of the Sue Oliver romance.

Uniform was still compulsory when the sixties began. Young Stephen Marriott was full of promises as an actor after his first steps on stage in “Oliver”, inspired by Dickens. His parents were absolutely happy, east end people. The salt of the earth actually, simple, austere. His father was a pub musician.

Grey Mohair, Paisley lining, trousers’ crease with soap (Wet soap in the trousers crease before iron it), another mod secret. 7 inches slits, buttons covered with cloth, and ticket pocket. A NICE suit! Steve Marriott went to school with that suit! With that dream suit. Of course, he’s been sent off, no discussion…immediate sanction! Without any shilly-shallying. So the head master told him… “So what? You know it could only last for one single day! So what’s the point?” Stephen Marriott answered: “A day? Yes, but what a day.”! And so he quit the school and never came back. The year before, he burn it, to let the people know who he was!

But School… Marriott is only 16, he’s already a young talented actor in theater or cinema, it’s enough to pay the suits and the singles. Steve has a real purpose in life: preach the mod words! The black music alphabet, the rhythm and blues. He idolizes Inez and Charlie Foxx, Brook Benton and the other ones. He released a single yet, Imaginary love, which testifies his deep love for Buddy Holly like all the members of his generation. He worked on the original soundtrack of Oliver Twist. With the Frantics. And he begins to tour with the Moments. And he has a secret to share. He is a Mod.

Mod is only an underground culture at that time. Can’t hear black music but at the merry go round’s carnival. Or in a few night clubs which open and evolve in Soho like The Flamingo. There’s also the Coffee shops. The last cool thing is to drink some cappuccinos full of chocolate. It looks like Italia. It looks like freedom. A few name began to be heard, the first mod’s heroes. Georgie Fame gets an unanimous vote, Ronnie Scott, the jazzman who’s dressed like his idols et got the eponymous club, John Stephen or Cecil Gee the first tailors. Mod is cult born of the coll jazz which is also fed by the European elegance, Italian or French, as it can be seen on cinemas’ screen. In the “Nouvelle Vague” movie as an example? Some mods, who don’t speak French, walk around with French newspapers France Soir under an arm, and other mods try to speak like Jean Paul Belmondo. We are in 1962/63 maybe. At that time, wearing white trousers or pink shirt was still an incredible challenge.

But the times are changing. Military obligation has been suppressed. There’s no unemployed people. At the BBC, the “That was the week that was” broadcast is open to all that new energy. War, hard times, privations, it’s still in everyone’s mind. It was only 15 years ago. Adults are still in that era, for life. And in 1963, there’s that massive earthquake suddenly. Completely unexpected in a way. Beatles triumph. Buddy Holly and the Marvelettes. Beatles have many things to share with the mods but actually, in 1963, mods don’t like the Beatles. Like soon, and for the same reason, they won’t like the Rolling Stones… These young people give to everyone the sacred language, and give to everyone the wonderful secrets of Arthur Alexander or of the Cookies.

At last the Beatles give some fresh air to the movement. Mods were in the shadow, a secret army. They became really quick the center of the world, under the full spotlights. The Swinging London and its miracle was very close. Suddenly, it’s Ready Steady Go! Broadcast, British beat invasion. From nowhere and everywhere, thousands of gifted students are hatching and opening…Steve Marriott is a bit younger than the young Ray Davies, Burdon, Winwood, Clapton, Jimmy Page or Jones. Two or three years… An eternity. There’s no time to lose. He creates the Moments, and tour with them for a while, they’ll even try to nick Kinks “You really got me” to have a massive success in the USA. No way. And then, he’ll meet his alter ego, Ronnie Plonk Lane, The Small Faces…

The Untouchable and Ultimate Mod, Steve Marriott, rough translation, part one.

(I know it's not perfect and I'd like to be a better and faster translator, Patrick Eudeline has his own style, a very nice style, so it's not very easy to read in French. So I sweat a lot to translate it! Some words are weird, as in the french version...)

He was the ultimate mod with the Small Faces, heavy rock eulogist with Humble Pie, Marriott is the epitome of the swinging London. Patrick Eudeline tells us the story of his unlucky and deceased role model... It probably happened in “The Bubble” or the “Malibu Club”. The nightclub was cool in the mid seventies, not so far from the Contrescarpe. Humble pie was there in the end, after His Olympia opening for Lynyrd Skynyrd. I hated those Yankees, perfect rednecks but I would have missed humble pie for nothing in the whole world. Even if, I didn’t like Humble Pie neither, well, not really, but “inside” there was Steve Marriott…

So the Bubble. I sat very near Steve Marriott, a few meters and of his roadies, perfect lads, dangerous et keen for a fight. He was there, with something in the eyes which has no name, something terrible which never went out. Actually, Marriott was becoming schizophrenic and no one knew it. More and more often, Melvin came to haunt him. Melvin the bald Wrestler. A Hate ball who only thought to destroy. Himself and the others. Doc’s, suedehead, braces, nothing left of the fantastic and numinous Small Faces cover boy. A hazy mod aura… Skinhead tour actually. The Melvin cockney vibe had won already. Even if it was, that night, his first appearance…

Everybody said at this time than Humble Pie couldn’t split up, then they were racketed by the Mafia, via Dee Anthony, their manager, than the band was completely exhausted by never ending tour, than they stood up still using huge quantity of cocaine and the amazing and supernatural energy of Steve Marriott. On his table, Marriott was drawing unbelievable coke lines he was sniffing frenetically between two Southern Comfort glassfull…He was ready to break everything in the night club. Battle with the Lynyrd Skynyrd roadies. Melvin Loved the taste of blood in the very early morning.

He looked like his band, what his band became. The Rhythm and Blues repertoire, which was his life, I don’t need no doctor, Walked on gilded splinters, The Pie was given from now on some amazing versions, inhuman, stiff, scummy, 20 minutes horse rides. On the fast Lane… It was hard rock epitome, Marriott, the best singer of his generation was only screaming. But with the Pie, like Grand Funk, they had a very big success. For the second time of his life, Marriott was reaching the top of the world’s roof…

But his band, his life, was a jail, was hell. Soon, he’ll break it, leave America and his managers like a thief. He will be back in London, penniless… To be continued…