Joe Boyd's White Bicycles.

 

As a weekend hippy who got high on very good music, cheap Canadian Clubs and ginger (and no stronger chemicals), I remember the times pretty well. The ability to slip into the action at weekends and then do a day job to pay for the records, the gigs and then slip into next weekend's action. Or most Wednesday evenings do a trip to Tolworth's Toby Jug, to see the likes of Timebox (soon to become Patto, and with Ollie Hassell doing a Keith Moon destruction job on his vibraphone), Fleetwood Mac (a half crown for this, and Albatross had just left the No. 1 singles spot), King Crimson (first Uk tour - but terrible venue for the band), Led Zeppelin (1st tour and the audience only warmed to them in the second hour of playing), Edgar Broughton (audience only just in double figures, but still a great show), a classic line-up with Jeff Beck (the classic line up of Nicky Hopkins, Ron Wood, Tony Newman and Rod Stewart), and the Groundhogs backing John Lee Hooker. And indeed get disillusioned about the hippy ethos at the end of Traffic's Oz Benefit concert at Central Middlesex Poly one summer's evening, when I discovered I'd been sit on the floor (of that canteen, Traffic welcome us to)  immediately in front of Oz-man-in-chief Richard Neville; when I  accidently trod on his cloak he mouthed f*** off' retrieving a portable cassette player concealed there, on which he was making a bootleg recording of a band - who were doing him a huge favour.

 

This is not the first book to describe this period of radical musical change and social upheaval. Several books have been written by some of the protagonists of the London scene - e.g.  Richard Neville (him again) now a rich b***** back in Oz, Mick Farren about The Social Deviants (and Pink Fairies) and International Times, Lost In the Woods a biography of Syd Barrett and the rise of Pink Floyd, Out-Bloody-Rageous Machine's biography and the hippy scene from the mid 60's. Now here Anglo-American record producer Joe Boyd has come up with a most readable gem of an autobiography, concentrating largely on the period 1964 to 1971. Book title White Bicycles, refers to the white bicycles frequently seen then in the Netherlands, (which were for anybody to use - echoing the intended freedom to share 'each other's goods, plough each other's earth', part of that hippy ethos), and of course the hit by one of the first bands he managed, Tomorrow.

 

Boyd relates how he fell into the music business, discovering a long forgotten blues singer was happy to do a gig in a Harvard Uni student hall for 25 dollars (as long as he got a ride to the show), so Boyd had a whip round (a dollar each from everybody who attended) - and was able to give the musician a 75 dollars bonus. Then the summer jobs working for record labels. Or acting as goffer at the Newport Jazz & Folk Festival in 1965, when he claims rock came about i.e. when Dylan brought his electric folk band on stage with Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper in that line-up, so shocking the folk purists such as Pete Seeger, who walked out of the Festival at that point. Then road managing ancient blues singers touring Europe. Then the love affair with the UK, when Boyd talked himself into scouting for talent for Elektra Records, here for example claiming how close he was to grabbing Floyd for that label. Discovering Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention, and then getting Denny into the band. Being stunned by Nick Drake's demos and then being stunned that nobody bought Nick Drake's records when they were first released - although when John Cale asked Boyd who was new, on hearing a work-in-progress tape for 5 Leaves Left,  Cale went straight round to Drake's digs, sorted out a couple of tunes, then they  recorded these together the following Monday. The rise and fall of the Incredible String Band.

 

What works here for me is Boyd's style of writing with its constant shift of time and location between neighbouring chapters. That is a powerful echo for me of the 60's: strong memories but not necessarily in true chronological order and so much there that it wasn't possible to concentrate on all at the same time. One page you are in Boston mid 60's, the next negiotating with Island Records' Chris Blackwell, the sale of rights to the recording licenses of Witch Season signings in 1970. The casual decision to start UFO in London's Tottenham Court Road, the bands that appeared there, the drugs sold to which  Boyd turned a blind eye until the police forced the club's closure.

 

A good book which I strongly recommend to all, giving some insight into the original London underground scene, which in part  lead to  progressive music/rock and the somewhat amateur wheeler dealing associated with it.

 

Thanks, got a great enthusiasm for the book  because it is one of the best things I've read this year -  I have been finding many of the 33 & Third  publications, (got about 10 in a book shop sale for 50p to a pound each) specialising in mini-books each dealing with a classic rock album, increasingly turgid/dull reads. White Bicycles at over 4 times the length of any one of these, flows and alas  it is over before you know it.

 

Amazon.UK are doing it cheap at the moment - always thought there should be some agreement between Amazon USA and and daughter company Amazon.UK for these sort of things.