Vince Taylor was black leather and chains, the final rocker.

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From the start, Pepsi has been based on a single age-old precept: it's fun to be a freak. And it is, of course. It's fun to get stoned and float on giant cushions, to stay up past your bedtime. And it's fun to visit Hair, to go up on stage and dance with the kids, belonging, and believe that you've had access to secret knowledge, revelations that the straight world doesn't even suspect. It is even fun to be misunderstood, to feel yourself martyred, a rebel and outsider. What isn't much fun, though, is to be punched in the face and thrown into jail. Not at all, it isn't and, therefore, the political and philosophical basis of the movement has been more or less forgotten. In the heart of the Pepsi Rock fan, there lurks a secret shame at the blatancy and vulgarity of the music's past, Elvis in his gold lame suit, Little Richard jumping on the piano and Jerry Lee Lewis so greasy, all those wild and orgiastic exhibitions. Just like the jazz fans of 1960, who preferred Dave Brubeck to John Coltrane, they want it both ways: they want to be hip, to be in the game and yet, in the end, they don't want to get their feet wet.

this whole slew of crude recordings on shoestring labels.

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I had a friend who lived in this flat in west London - a really vile, scruffy, horrible, bloke's flat - but the one thing pristine in this mess was a Dansette in mint condition and a bunch of records on the auto changer. And they were all vintage London records, which he'd bought the first time round. And he wouldn't have parted with them, even though he was dirt poor. So I told him about Ted's stall, less than a minute's walk away. I remember the famous Elvis wallpaper and all these other stalls with their thin dividing walls, selling hippyish jewellery, retro clothing - and there, at the end of the row was a smelly, greasy caff - you'd go past the caff, and Ted had the whole back space, in an L-shape, with the stock behind the counter, belting out rock'n'roll and R&B at full blast.

a hymn to oral sex in the guise of innocent praise for lollipops

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This is all to show the subterranean influence of French filles de la pop on some of the strongest currents of international pop music. The subjects French women dared to sing about in the 1960s were much more adventurous than those chosen by their English or American counterparts: the pleasures of fellatio, stories of bad LSD trips (Gall’s “Teeny Weeny Boppy”), or more generally speaking, sheer enjoyment of the most sullen moments of existence (nearly all of Hardy’s stuff) ... Rather expectedly, “Je T’Aime” was the one that raised passions. It was banned by the BBC, as well as by other radio stations across the world. The Vatican excommunicated the A&R man responsible for having imported the song into Italy. Its official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, claimed the song was “obscene and unlistenable by underage kids.” The publisher was even condemned to a two-month sentence. Fontana agreed to stop pressing it, in accordance with Queen of the Netherlands Juliana’s demand (she was a shareholder in the company). Irish label Major Minor took advantage of the situation and bought the licensing back. In France, Philips sold the rights to Gainsbourg, who then negotiated with label AZ. Such controversy was all the more beneficial for the song: in Italy alone, the single was exchanged for 50,000 liras on the black market, hidden under Maria Callas record covers. The ban had the opposite effect of its intention: the song sold by the ton throughout the world. People were proud to say they had conceived their children to that song.

black music played by white, working class, bad skin bastards

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People might say, "Well, there's no more Knickerbockers, there's no more Count Five and there's no more Hombres, and there's no more Standells out there." Yeah, but there may be a bunch of people who can give you the same emotional feeling if you spent the time on a Tuesday night to go to the clubs and hear music, you'll see. It's still out there. You have to find it again, because you can only recycle these stories so many times; you can only reissue these songs so many times, and eventually everybody's gonna have these records in their homes. You're going to have all the versions of all this stuff on bootlegs and tape and vinyl. After a while though, you're kid's gonna eat them, you're dog's gonna shit on them and your second wife will throw them out. So why don't you guys go form your own bands, or why don't you go find some and then you'll find some dirty bitches and get laid and you'll have a good time.

"That's all well and good but when are you going to get a proper job?"

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Peter [Meaden] introduced me to a different form of nightlife, a different form of life - Soho. Our first port of call was the Scene Club, behind Piccadilly, just off Windmill Street in Ham Yard. The Scene was a smoky, loud haven for the disenfranchised working class, where white-on-black soul was the soundtrack till dawn's harrowing light. Having grown up in the relatively rough district of Edmonton, Peter was attuned and passed for one of this crowd, whilst I stayed close to the edge watching the kids speeding on pills and good music, posing more than dancing, jaws frantically chewing the night away. Three-legged legless mod monsters, pilled to the walls of aurafide stress, bound and bonded by sound and dread of the job on Monday.  We'd move over four blocks left and right to the Flamingo on Wardour Street and a funkier, jazzier crowd. On Saturday the Flamingo was the only Soho venue serving drinks and playing music all night, giving itself up to black R&B, Atlantic, and early Stax-type fare. An exotic mélange of Soho sex and underground sorts, gangsters really, usually crashed in late after disposing of earlier engagements. Rik Gunnell and his brother John ran the late-night Flamingo, so it was very safe, which, when you think of it, is the perfect atmosphere for a club, decadence without the possibility of violence.

"You think I'm Vince Taylor don't you? Well I'm not, I'm the son of God"

 

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Terry Taylor had left England in 1963 to live in Morocco, where he pursued the life of an expatriate beatnik. He returned to London in 1966 and introduced a new strand of thought into Britain’s burgeoning psychedelic culture: magic. Taylor is a fascinating character, about whom little is known. He is noteworthy in the history of LSD in Britain because his 1961 novel Baron’s Court, All Change, featured the first fictional reference to LSD in Britain: “‘Really?’ my junkie friend said, sounding interested, ‘What’s it now? Bennies, L.S.D., or Nems?’” Taylor had been encouraged to take up writing by Colin MacInnes, and became the role model for the hero of MacInnes’ tale of emergent youth culture, Absolute Beginners.

LIKE A HOG A-ROOTIN’ UP UNDER A FENCE

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Directors of the Parent-Teachers Association would have fainted at the sight. It’s a little past one in the morning inside a huge, barn-like nightclub on the Slaton Highway, just outside the usually quiet, sleepy town of Lubbock, Texas … Elvis ‘The Pelvis’ Presley has just finished an undulating show that still has a lot of kids wriggling … ‘Oh, Elvis,’ he hears, ‘wait for me!’ Turning, he watches as a pretty young girl rushes towards him. ‘Would you please autograph me?’ she shrieks. And with that she pulls a sheer blouse off her shoulders, revealing a low-cut bra. Older and wiser entertainers might have hesitated at having a three-quarters-bare bosom thrust at them for a signature. But not Elvis. With a flourish, he hauled out his doll-pointed pen and signed just above the dotted swiss line. Elvis on the righty. Presley on the lefty.

Hellbent teens and sassy girls in tight sweaters

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The Savage Kick -another Savage title. When a book starts with someone waking with a throbbing head and checking under the mattress for a reefer you know you have found a goodie! This is closer to a beat book than a JD item. It’s the story of a bunch of guys & gals into Jazz, Art, Dope and all that stuff, but really into it before it was hip to like it. These kiddies hate the new beats, they rip 'em off, steal their flats and sell them catnip as dope. The characters they rip off are recognisable from "On The Road"& other classics. Highly recommended to those who hate pretentious beat/hippy junk!!

Picture It ... Los Angeles, California 1953 a chopped and channeled '32 hi-boy roadster screamin' neck and neck thru crowded streets with a corvette, a wild-eyed youth strains over the steering wheel egging on his 'bomb on wheels' with his toe to the floor, windshield red with bugs ... this was the real life pastime of the young Vince Taylor. Of course driving a souped up hot rod inevitably led Vince to frequent court appearances for speeding and safety violation and it wasn't too long before his parents threw him out, tired of his association with one of Hollywood's most unruly Hot Rod gangs.