Nostalgia gets gloomier day by dav The first rock loser I ever Qay’ of a coffin and neither his shriek* ™ the green filters could Mde thfw^ dripping down the walls of a half empty cinema The girl sitting in front of me was knitting baby socks.

Last week he was still at it - leading naked women up Downing Street and into a Black Maria, publicising yet another Grand Spectacular Rock’n’Roll Revival Show. I went as expected. Gary Glitter played for eighteen hours. Little Richard was booed. Seven different groups claimed to be the original Coasters or Drifters or both. Elvis didn’t show. Soggy memories and Jonathan King said it - bubble rock is here to stay. Only Chuck Berry was as wonderful as ever.

I’m used enough to being a rock parasite — I was too feeble to make it even as a roadie. What scares me is the idea of being a rock maggot, picking over dead bones. We’re in the grip of manic revivalism. Donny Osmond’s “Puppy Love” and the Partridge Family’s “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” in the top twenty not to speak of the originals of “My Guy,” “The Locomotion” and “Nut Rocker.” Bobby Vee is on tour and my faith is beginning to waver. The case for rock as revolution has never been proved in England and it’s looking increasingly unlikely. I’ve been reading Rolling Stone on McGovern and CREEM’s apocalyptic visions and I envy your certainties. All those dramatic things going down and rock is there, center stage even. Ralph Gleason has prodown wi OU,!f 80t an up wing and a borino e were sfhl stuck with

vear nir? ^ and right. Our eighteen of HTf V°te has not made a happorth nnl “erence to anyone. The only lS3*1, cfmpaign that’s ever been at the youth/rock vote was for commercial radio. The Tories liked it

IX uran?,J[t s almost on us. Giving The lie What It Wants and it ain’t going to be anything upsetting. Twenty four nours a day of old rock’n’roll probably, take yer mind off Ireland.

The thing that most amazes me about Northern Ireland is that they get the same radio programmes as we do. On the news it’s like a foreign country, the war looks like it’s taking place twenty years ago. But listening to some housewife’s radio programme like Johnny Walker’s there’s suddenly a request from Belfast, for mum and dad and all at number 7. It’s a jolt. When the sun’s out' Slade mingles with the heavy tread of armoured cars. Presumably all the kids — army, Catholic, Protestant — listen to the same music, for what it’s worth. The few groups that have had the courage to do live gigs there (Stackridge, Rory Gallagher) have played in the emotional atmosphere of a temporary truce, like the Christmas football games in the trenches of the first world war. A hint of something else from the outside, soon forgotten for more serious affairs. Apart from, vitally, giving pleasure to sad people, rock hasn’t had much relevance for Ireland. The direct records have all been crummy, avoiding any thought, ignoring ^ realityIt’s a three way fight. The English government (American too) would be happy to see a united Ireland -it would be more efficient. Shit, in economic terms we already exploit the south more effectively than the north. A united Ireland would be good for business, record business too.

The IRA are fighting for something else. History, religion, a culture that isn’t ours and certainly isn’t much to do with youth and counter-culture and all that crap. Fuck off John Lennon. A girl suspected of pill pushing was summarily tarred and feathered. Doing the IRA hop which isn’t John Sinclair’s. It’s difficult to work up the correct fervour of support. I keep expecting to see Mayor Daley at an IRA press conference.

And the settlers dig in their heels. A recent IT carried the first Communique of the Freaks for Ulster Campaign (“We’ll not give up the blue skies of Ulster for the grey mists of Eire”). After all the necessary dope/sex/ecology/ peace bits it concluded:

We are the true sons of William Prince of Orange, and of the glorious revolution and we pledge ourselves to maintain and defend the Ulster Orange way of life for which our forefathers fought and died.

Blue skies, green grass and happy trips.

Yeah. Colour me green.

Meanwhile, this summer’s record has been “School’s Out.” I love it and I’ve been out of school for nearly ten years. How to put the two together?

Part of it is that rock fans don’t age very well (all the nostalgia) but more of it is that rock musicians age even worse. They get nostalgic too or, worse, they mellow and I can’t take all that sweetness and light. We’re having a rough summer and we aren’t wearing it well. Not just Ireland but also (old fashioned?) class conflict and the police moving against picket lines. We’ve got our own conspiracy trials - Peter Hain, the “Angry Brigade,” the Welsh Language Society. School really is out for the summer. For the last week black/white gang fights have been raging in Liverpool, last night a lad was killed by skins in Wakefield. We need rough music and I’d take Alice Cooper over Rod Stewart any day.

The left in England have never been sure about rock. They tend to have the wrong expectations, wanting messages, quotations to write on the wall. But rock’s never had much to say — what mattered is how it’s said it. An epigrammatic writer like Bob Dylan has been responsible for far more mindlessness than Grand Funk. No one expects the latter to summarise The American Condition and, despite Ralph Gleason, politics is not a matter of knowing all the great quotations. We have to make specific choices in specific situations and rock provides some of the energy, exhiliration, and (this summer) heat we need. I’m with the young dudes:

CONTINUED ON PAGE 72.

And my brother’s back at home With his Beatles and his Stones,

We never got it off On that revolution stuff,

What a drag.

What a drag - that’s this summer all right but, sung like that, buoyant. Of the old rockers only Chuck Berry still carries this charge. Bad times, good music. Marching in the streets music, maybe.

Tit-bits

If you don’t already know Mott the Hoople’s “All the Young Dudes’ is a stunning single and Peter Frampton’s is a passing fair album. Otherwise sweet fuck all has happened. The football season opened and the summer Great Western Festival closed. I just heard a man on the radio say that this year’s song of the hump-backed whales isn’t as pretty as the ones they were singing back in 1963-4. Ah well.