June 15th 1974 (Part 1)

“Went up Tims in evening for a music session – did a take of Jelly Baby”

OK, confession time. 

When I advised people to Google the hit single “Biffo the Bear” a few days ago, I did so tongue very much planted in the side of my cheek. 

I’d actually forgotten – as much of this diary project appears to prove – about ‘my band’ 

It was a trio actually. Consisting of me, Tim B and his younger brother, whose name I can’t recall. 

We composed and rehearsed “potential number ones” in the dining room of his parent’s country house in Fair Oak. 

Most songs turned out to actually be “number twos” 

The only way our album would’ve shifted off the shelves at Asda’s is if the store was hit by a massive tornado. 

I ‘played’ piano. I use the word ‘play’ in the loosest possible sense. As Eric Morecambe once said “I hit all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order”. I had NO idea how to play a piano, just as Tim had NO idea how to play an acoustic guitar or his brother a tiny drum kit or their Dad’s bongo. Yes, our trio sported a bongo. 

I like to think of us as ‘avant garde’ musicians, long before it became trendy to be utterly inept at playing instruments. (Think Talking Heads’ Tina Weymouth) 

My handcrafted Matinée Idol logo, saved from 1976. Hardly Barney Bubbles is it?

Did our band have a name? No it didn’t. See, now that’s what is weird… give me a few years beyond 1974 and the superficial necessity for exactly the right name would have been my absolute primary concern. Glam and Punk rock taught me a lot about ‘style over substance’ 

(I did have a name for a band I pretended to be in – and based an art project around – a few years later. A name which I thought was GREAT and quite Roxy Music-esque… Matinée Idol… which, sadly, now sounds like a Simon Cowell TV show about discovering a new soap opera performer!) 

Do thought-lost recordings (a la Dylan’s “Basement Tapes”) of our power-poop trio exist? Sadly, no. Although I did take my little tape recorder along to our ‘sessions’ and small elements were recorded, it was actually used to create noise effects from the piano. I call it my Brian Eno phase. 

However, in the process of full EFA70sTRO disclosure I’ll embarrassingly admit that I have held onto a couple of the band’s erm…. ‘unique’… lyrics composed back in 1974. One is handwritten and one has been diligently typed. I don’t suppose anyone would want to see them, would they? 

Really? OK, they’re in the next post.

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March 8th 1973

“In table tennis bt Rick 21-16 and only just lost to Pete 23-21” / “Got new glasses – real posy” / “had haircut (which one?)”

A winning game in table tennis!

I’ll warrant that what I considered “real posy” in glasses design in 1973 would now have people rolling on the floor in abject hysterics in 2009.

You have to remember that ‘designer’ frames did not really exist – at least for us suburban children – in 1973, so all spectacles were based on one of just three or four basics.

I doubt I had progressed to John Lennon ‘chic’ just yet and was probably saddled with something similar to that shown. I refer to it as my “Eric Morecambe” period.