Does having gone to public school, being a trust-funder etc make you more inclined to listen to 'alternative' music'? Why?

I love it when Robin says "I know what you mean", and then expands to say something where you (=me) completely don't what what HE means? *I* didn't say (or mean) anything about tories *or* aspirational — so it's pretty much projection; the farmers' kids I mainly mean were NOT-rich tenant farmers' kids (daughter = my sister's best friend at school). Anyway, *apart* from 'Part of the Union', does this politics/satire manifest? I just looked them up in Rough Guide, and the LPs I remember seeing were Just a Collection of Antiques and Curios, From the Witchwood, and Grave New World (with Blake's 'A Flea' on the cover, I vaguely recall?) One of them was on eight- track, at least in PE's car, it was.

Sorry: point being that these all predate 'Union' by some years, so ie it wasn't the lead-in hit that got these particular fans into the band.

Actually that raises another point re geography and access. TIMES GOES NOT AT THE SAME SPEED!! At least in the rural west midlands in the mid-70s: the metropolitan sense of cultural turnover was nothing LIKE so present. By the time my sister was a punk, a year or so after me — she was in a PRETEND PUNK BAND!! They didn't play, they just gave themselves funny punky names and decided what they WOULD have played! She was Becky Bondage!! (Another was Lin Bin!) And then that other BB, that celebrity interloper came along and stole Becky's name! She was much cooler than me... — that sense of be-here-now had landed (probably because TV had begun to pick up on being "in touch" with the kids).

Fuck what I said this morning on the '...religious?' thread, I'm off to church. Mark was wrong *again*.

May as well follow the Strawbs thing to the bitter end - turns out that with a bit of futher research ((a) former next door neighbour and (b) wife's work colleague)that The Strawberry Hill Boys were in fact from Hounslow, and Dave Cousins's Dad owned a pub oposite Hounslow bus garage. Seems like adoption of Strawberry Hill may have been a bit of social climbing or an attempt to get closer to the Eel Pie island scene. So the Strawbs should have been called The Houns.

Ah, but Mark, I very often say things that *nobody* understands :). Actually, having always been fascinated with the 70s, I value everything you say on growing up in that period, and wouldn't be without a word of it.

My fascination comes largely from the whole idea of Time Going Not At The Same Speed back then, and I'd always imagined late 77 / early 78 as being a point where this started to break down, so it's wonderful to have it confirmed. There were other factors making pop more central and instant at that time, such as the increase in Radio 1's broadcasting hours from their neo-austerity-imposed mid-70s nadir, and I can see what you mean about TV picking up on down-with-the-kids at that point: that first wave of what would become "yoof" TV formed in the late 70s though it took C4 in 1982 to really push it on. Even watching old clips from shorlty before C4 hit, though, there's an incredible sense of "This Is What Youth Culture Is Like" explained from a paternalistic perspective which has vanished *forever*: anyone who saw the introduction to some feature on the New Romantics on "I Love 1981" (which would obv. have been much better if it were *all* old clips with NOBODY FUCKING TALKING IN BETWEEN) will know exactly what I mean. Compared to some sensationalist scare story about Eminem on Tonight With Trev, it's pure Reithiania.

All Robin's reminiscences remind me of the satire on yoof programming from The Young Ones, Nosin' Around. Does this make anyone go, 'ohhh, SNAP?'

"How would you feel if you were old enough to join the armed forces, yet could not drink in pubs?"

And let us not forget "No Limits": good god that was a fucking bizarre fusion, sped-up version of mainstream travel show and uber- 80s videos ...

no limits = a hideous music show, with Jenny Powell, but completely taken over by the music choice of that obnoxious Jonathan King - all those horrid corporate american/canadian/ brit transatlantic bollox rock bands he use to plug such rubbish as Y & T, The Hooters, Nightranger, Asia, Mr Mister, Baltimora, Huey Lewis & the News, Glass Tiger, The Outfield, Cutting Crew and others of that ilk. Ghastly. Horrible. Vile.

America had Casey Kasem in Britain we had JK. Two prize plonkers who knew/know fuck all about music. These two were living in Room101.

I did not go to public school but when the mainstream radio 1 daytime/ and JK on TV dished up utter shit in 1985/1986 it is not suprising I found an alternative with: Peel 10-12 mon-wed, Annie Nightingale request show, Peter Anthony Alternative show on Radio Luxembourg, Dave Fanning on RTE2 8-10 weekdays, The Tube, Melody Maker and Sounds etc.