The challenge is to identify this group of layabouts, some of whom were very well known or would become so, and some not. What were they up to, and 10 points for each one you can name.
http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i449/charlieboy14/e15c1adf2ac073519a9fd11e9b5f2ae0_zpsans4z9mr.jpg
It has a Hangmans Beautiful Daughter feel to it, but so far (and without my glasses), I can only recognise Viv Stanshall. It would be so tempting to say that they are making Tubular Bells, but the bearded one would never miss a photo-opportunity.
It’s not Viv Stanshall.
But you knew which one I thought was Viv don’t you? Does that put me on minus 10?
I thought it was Viv also at first
Nah, not chunky enough, Viv was quite a big bloke.
Anybody, eg @johnny-concharoo, remember Jeff Dexter? Hippie will-o-the-wisp, permanent fixture djing at UFO, Middle Earth, festivals etc. That’s who he reminds me of.
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g401/mikethep/dexter-iow-350_zps3wxhersm.jpg
Interesting blerk, actually, more to him than I knew. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Dexter
Jeff Dexter was always around, but I never knew the stuff about his early years when he popularised The Twist(!), nor that he later managed and produced the band America
And buying kids’ clothes in Woolies with the bopping elf!
Yes. Under different circumstances that story might come out sounding a little creepy.
Global village trucking company?
Could be. But it isn’t.
Is it something to do with the Oz school kids issue? I think that might be Charles Shaar Murray and Felix Dennis in the back row 4th and 3rd from the right.
Resulting in this single, a song written by John Lennon & Yoko Ono. The video contains a peek into the offending issue in question. The photograph above covered 2 pages.
With this on the B-side:
Good work. Yes it’s the Oz team, Richard Neville in the chair, CSM and Felix Dennis as you say, and Jim Anderson is the Viv Stanshall impersonator on the right.
It was the judge’s description of Felix Dennis as ‘not as bright as the other two’ that spurred him into making himself a multimedia multimillionare.
It resulted in the 1991 drama The Trials of Oz. I still have a VHS recording of this in the house somewhere. I remember it being a hoot when I watched it back then. Time to find it.
Peel was profoundly disturbed by this. For the rest of us it was quite novel, in an age before endless biopics of celebrities starring Michael Sheen putting on a silly voice.
It was broadcast amid a slightly smug air of “Aha, we’ve moved on so much from this kind of thing haven’t we?” even as we were forking out thousands a day to keep Salman Rushdie under 24-hour protection.
Also in 1991: Scotland Yard seized copies of Efil4Zaggin before they could be put on sale.
Richard Neville’s book is a really good read too.
Speaking of Viv Stanshall and Oz magazine. This is part of a circa 1968 Oz photo shoot involving Viv and Germaine Greer.
Germaine was quite a girl in those days, as we can see. In the original shoot Viv was holding a Maton guitar, an Australian brand made in Melbourne.
Maton is still going strong and now use this shot as a present day promo poster. They’ve photo-shopped a current model Maton into the picture, but otherwise the photo is original.
http://i.imgur.com/v3VnzuR.png
I only remember buying one issue of Oz and it featured a scrambled photograph which, when reassembled, featured Germaine wearing nothing but a smile. I will let you google it.
I’ve still got that one!
I’m ashamed to say I cut out the circles and rearranged them in order to see, er, well, let’s just say GG has got her ankles behind her ears in the shot.
I wonder if GG gave permission for this, and if so how much they paid her?
Good point. I assume so because it was on the wall of every Aussie guitar store a few years ago.
I’ve often wondered what a Maton guitar was doing in London in the late 60s. My assumption is that GG or Richard Neville brought it over from Australia with them.
We certainly never used to see them on sale in the UK back then.
And here’s the cover of Oz #19 which contained that Viv & Germaine photo shoot
http://i.imgur.com/zcdijmr.jpg
I read the School Kids’ Issue at school. Didn’t make much sense as a spotty sprog. Other than the Rupert picture, of course.
Yes, the Rupert cartoon is the one that has etched itself on my memory too.
A complete run of the 48 issues of the London edition of Oz sold for £4,800 (inc. premium) at Bonhams in 2010.
“….but why does he have such an enormous organ?” I think was one of the questions asked in court.
Because he’s Rupert, motherf***er!
Was it at any time during the trial pointed out that the comic strip involved was actually one written and drawn originally by Robert Crumb, and that the schoolboy felon had simply pasted a Rupert head on the protagonist’s body?
Then again, would it have made any difference?
Oz was a very rum publication. I don’t think respectable newsagents would stock it and I remember buying copies in an unusual Asian shop on the road between Harrow and Wealdstone. It was a greengrocer’s but there was a room selling second hand LPs at the back. Very enterprising.
The layout was always a nightmare and the articles very difficult to read as the text would always have lurid photos as the backdrop.
Rock music, revolutionary politics, drugs, the karma sutra, journeys to faraway places: exactly the kind of thing to appeal to a bored suburban sixth former.
Yes, it was hard to read with all that red print over black & white photos. There was a lot of stuff and “advice” about unusual sexual practices which seemed much more exciting and fun than the life I was living in a Ladbroke Grove bedsit. But I honestly doubt if they could get away with some of it today.
Used to see Neville on midday shows as a regular , called himself a futurologist or some such.
Maton guitars are pretty good aren’t they ?
I was surprised to see Neville on Aussie daytime TV many years ago. He was pitched as the tame hippie revolutionary, but I seem to remember he’d mellowed out quite a bit by then.
Maton are a very good brand, especially their acoustics. They are pushing their electrics heavily these days, but I think they’ve missed the boat there. I don’t think their export sales are as strong as they could be either,
Germaine Greer now seems to have mellowed as well – the last few times I’ve seen her on TV it’s been on panel shows where she has the character of an eccentric but loveable auntie. She can be pretty funny and doesn’t seem to take herself at all seriously. I think she still courts controversy from time to time as well; she said something recently about transexuals which created a bit of a stir. It was hard to tell if she meant it, or it was just a bit of saying something to keep in the public eye.
Funnily enough I’ve just seen GG on “Would I Lie To You?”.
She’s a bit batty these days but is still as sharp as a knife.
I think she was intentionally winding up the equality for every teeny subset group fraternity.
They get a lot of mentions (as does Tommy Emmanuel, probably most famous Maton player) in Acoustic mag, which I’m pretty sure is a UK mag.
George Harrison briefly used a Maton in the 60s while his Gretsch was in for repair and the company has got a lot of mileage out of that. I wonder how it ended up in UK in 1964?
This is a good summary. Nice to see a Brinsley Shwarz add in the mag!
Even better, I spotted an ad for Jeff Beck’s Truth album too.
Now there’s an album!
The best account of the Oz trial I have read is in Geoffrey Robertson’s book The Justice Game. He was a junior lawyer fresh from Australia when he landed his first trial working under John Mortimer, who led the defence of Neville, Anderson and Dennis. The funniest bit is where George Melly is called to the stand to explain to m’lud some of the more choice language in Oz. The judge asks him “and what is this ‘cunnilinctus'” having misheard thinking it was a cough medicine. Melly proceeded to explain that in his naval days it was referred to as ‘yodelling in the canyon’.
Amazing what a cultural force to be reckoned with those Aussies in London were in the 60s.
GG, the Ozzers and Barry Humphries to name but a few.
There was a TV programme about Aussies who went to London in the 50s/60s and became successful in the arts.
Clive James, GG, Robert Hughes etc
They were intellectuals and rebels and GG in particular was a wild child, very much a part of the rock counter culture
Now, if you go to Sydney Harbour, you’ll walk on this brass plaque set into the ground outside the Opera House.
http://i.imgur.com/uyM0FqI.jpg
…and Barry Humphries of course.
I’m reading Bazza’s autobiography, More Please. Brilliant book, and just as funny as Unreliable Memoirs.
Was Rolf mentioned, or was he airbrushed out?
It only covered the Oxbridge Aussies, so I expect Rolf was considered to be an intellectual lightweight by comparison.
Clive James’ memoir ‘May Week was in June’ gives a view on that world, with a strong flavour of Aussies having a high profile at that time. My father came over from Australia right at the end of the 40s. I think a big driver was that the ambitious in whatever field felt Australia was too small a pond.
The two part TV show I mentioned is called “Brilliant Creatures”. Here’s the trailer, but I expect the whole thing is on YouTube somewhere.
That was a great show, particularly the Robert Hughes episode.
I watched the repeats of Shock of the New last year – Hughes was a total dude. Imagine putting someone that (properly) intelligent and (properly) opinionated on TV these days.
Not to mention (as nobody ever does!) two-sixths of Quintessence…
I thought it was the Smash Hits summer barbecue 1981 before they all ditched their loon pants and became “New Romantics”