September 13th and the fat cats are stirring. Bolan has strained his hip, Bowie has surrounded himself with camera-smashing heavies, Jesus Christ is playing the Palace and "Darling David" had the teenies screaming from the roof-tops for a week. Slade is Britain's Number One Group and Noddy Holder still lives at home with his mother and father. It's Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich time. Motto for the month: bend it.

I've moved from the north to the midlands. No skins here, but Slade-heads. They all wear: plaid trousers held up by skinny braces, tam-o-shanters, striped jumpers, red and yellow clogs that echo. Coventry City are one of the shittiest football teams ever, so the local sport is in the precinct — grabbing ass, snickering, staring. I hurry past but no refuge in the pubs or discos — they're so fucking huge. As the local Mecca has it:

Gentlemen wear jackets, collars and ties. No jeans or leathers.

No nonsense in the midlands. They hate wogs and pooves and they love money. Midlands rock is hard, flash and successful. Guess who drives the fastest

cars. Yeah, the Zeppelin, the Move, Black Sabbath. Evan when they go soft in the head like the Moody Blues, they hang on to their money.

There's only one thing money can't buy, And that's... poverty. (Little Richard among others.)

What they know round here is that making hit records is a good way of making money and who wants to make

mud-pies or ninety foot pictures of the Pope's ass? Slade left school in Wolver-hampton as lunks. "Rubbish" it said in their reports. Their hobby now is driving round the school in their Jensens, sticking out their tongues and shouting abuse.

What would you like to do when you leave school?

1. Footballer

2. Pop star

3. IRA killer

So you wanna be a star? OK, here's how.

Best begin in some little place. Like Andover. Rock'n' roll arrived through Young Farmers' Club dances and the lads, the real lads, the ones who'd been screwing sheep since the age of 8, used to hire a coach and go up to the Marquee to see the Stones. Ronnie Bond was so inspired that he bought some drums on h.p., joined a group and learned to play "Needles and Pins" just like the Searchers. Reg couldn't do much but, hell he knew someone who'd lend him a bass and he was in too.

The Troggs, dum-dedum.

Reg learned three notes, put on dak glasses to hide his terror, and they joind the 10 pound village hop circuit. That week's top ten for three hours, then, when people were too pissed to notice, the real thing, r & b just like they played in the city. Carrying bricks by day, carring amps by night, dreaming all the time. The Troggs even had a group van. It held together with string, needed eight hands on the streering wheel, seldom did more than 20. But, yum, it squeezed in the farmers' daughters four abreast, It was enough.

Alright so far.

Next it's knowing people. A little hustling. Auditions, which are how the big halls get free gigs. Meeting someone in the post-office who went to school with Mickey Most's baby-sister's sister. The Troggs got adopted by a local builder who knew people who knew people in London. Wow! Publishers who might just have that number one song that every other group had missed. Larry Page who managed the Kinks. Someone who knew about making demos. The Troggs did it. They got a song! They made a demo!! They sent it to Larry Page!! He listened to it!! He sent for them!!!! Too much!!!!

Cautionary Tale

Page's office was locked, the building was quiet. No sign of anyone. The Troggs hung around a while, but eventually, depressed, decided to leave. As they were going a head was stuck out of a second floor window. Dave Davies glowered at them:

" Fuck off pricks. We're the stars here."

The group split.

They usually do. I meet them in record stores going through the oldies. "Hey man, I used to be in a group you know. Yeah. Played with Nice once. Yeah. Funny people you know. Yeah. We were going to sign with Chrysalis, you know. The drummer put a drill through his foot. Yeah." Yeah.

The next stage is the crucial one. It requires true rock madness and nice guys don't make it. Reg and Bonnie joined up with Chris Britton and Pete Staples (whose own group has just bust) and they were the only four kids left in Andover who belived in rock. They starved for it, stole for it, kicked their own grannies for it.

When my luck is down

And I can't think of a thing,

I just go to bed,

Lay my hands on my head, and I sing

(Reg Presley)

All great rock 'n' roll comes out of this time in the rock career. It's obvious why. During the day the Troggs were crumb-bums. Begging money from mum, letting some snot order them around at work, hiding from the h.p. collector, fawning on Larry Page. By night they were the nazz. Strutting the stage, power in their fingers, chicks at their feet. Their music was their revenge and their defiance. It was magnificent.

Biding time.

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 24.

The Moment

Reg was working on the building site one day, half way up a wall on the scaffolding. Radio blabbing: “And now the number 14 sound. It’s the Troggs and .. . WILD THING!” Bopping away and another guy shouts across: “Fuckin’ great group that.” But Reg is already halfway down the ladder, looking for the foreman. Very dignified: “I’m fuckin’ off. You can keep my tools.”

And that’s the peak, folks. It don’t seem like much, but your career will be a steady down after that. The buzz lasts a while. The first picture in NME. Appearing in Ready Steady Go in the same program as the Stones. Getting out of Andover forever. The Mecca circuit, a new van, more women. It’s all a bit commonplace.

The trouble is that successful rock madness has to carry a bunch of supersane people. Like that casual piece of paper — “Oh just sign this before you go, will you boys” — turned out to give the Troggs recording rights to Larry Page and their publishing rights to Dick James and all for a measly 2% of the take. And the 100 pound a night road deal they now had on gigs (less 35% commission to Page, less the roadies’ fees, less travelling expenses) had been sold to some guy who did nothing but resell it for 400 pounds. Creeping out of the woodwork came tailors and photographers and press men and pluggers and Dick James’ Cheshire Cat smile hung in the air after every number one.

Groups have a choice here. They become either comfortable or paranoid. The deep down untrustworthy groups become comfortable. You can follow them round the cabarets. All of England’s pop history is there, from Billy Fury and Cliff Richard, through the Searchers, Hollies, Nashville Teens, etc., to the Tremeloes and the Sweet. The paranoid groups become superstars, obsessed, like the Stones, with money.

The Troggs were righteously screwed. They’ve had a court case, changed management twice, had their record company ignore their discs for two years. Dick James’ claws kept their firm hold and they’re down to playing South Africa and RAF bases in Germany. They’re walking the tight rope between madness and respectability. The music is still as obsessed and raunchy as the

years that inspired it, but they’re a bit plump. I don’t think Reg would starve for a number one anymore, however much he says he wants it. No suicide, no jive.

Rock and films are the only mass media where commerce and art don’t pussy foot around each other. The reason is that in order to get together any sort of career as a film actor or musician you have to have a quality of self-obsession, an intensity of ambition, that can survive whatever crassness the businessmen put it through. Looking for Lana Turners in drug stores might have seemed a, crazy way to cast a movie, but I would define' “star quality” as the quality that enabled the Lanas to make it through the hassles and onto the screen. Movie stars and rock records don’t come easy.

Not afterwards, either. I just went to see the film of Evel , Knievel and he could stand symbol of the whole glorious, paranoiac process. I once saw a documentary about the life on the road of Simon Dupree and his Big Sound, a mildly successful English group in the mid-sixties. There was this one scene where he came out of the hall and toward the van and suddenly saw this huge, strapping wench waiting for him, lust oozing from every paw. And for one moment, before he started the avoiding action, you saw the terror in his eyes and you just knew he wasn’t ever going to make it as a rock star. And you knew too that Jagger or Robert Plant or Reg Presley would have swept that lady into the van without thinking.

Noddy Holder I’m still not sure about.

Tit-bits

Jonathan King, master of commercial schlock, has produced his finest single yet: “Donna” by I.O.c.c.

Equally splendid: Toots and the Maytals’ reggae version of “Louie Louie.”

John (Speedy) Keen(e) has a new single — “Old Fashioned Girl” — which sounds like Thunderclap Newman, to me.

Turnups for the book: Steve Ellis, who was singer for Love Affair, the most boring teeny-bopper group ever, has just launched a fine group and album — Ellis. Meanwhile, Brinsley Schwarz, who were themselves launched in a notorious con trick, have become the second most hard-working group in England. I’ve never been to a free or political gig at which they weren’t playing. Their new album is delicious and I can’t think what you people are doing buying Yes and ELP. Or maybe you should buy even more and then they’d stop plaguing us.