Stone Age Attitudes I

I wish I hadn't bothered to watch part two of the BBC2's Seven Ages of Rock through to the end. I knew in advance that it was going to be a predictable cobbling together of archive footage, soundbites from the ageing (yet mostly well-preserved) stars, and authentication from bought-in consultants, all smeared together with a voice-over narration that veered between self-evident truth to blatant hype. And I wasn't wrong.

The basic ploy was to see a 'dialectic' created by Pink Floyd and The Velvet Underground producing a third term: David Bowie. Bowie, in turn, bequeathing Roxy Music and the Peter Gabriel-phase Genesis.

I suppose the justification was to present the theatricalism of late 60s early 70s rock - and that any 60 minute programme was going to have be selective. However, what was left utterly unquestioned was the motivation of the development. Thus, David Bowie's craving for "success" was legitimation for the posturing and glam antics. Thus, Roger Waters' embittered feelings towards rock stadium audiences justified the gradual ossification of Floyd's music and eventual disappearance behind a wall - both literal and metaphoric. Thus, Bryan Ferry happening to have been taught by Richard Hamilton at art college meant Roxy Music had to be experimental.

What needed to be examined was the sheer egotism of these performers. Scrape away the blarney and you find some pretty basic motives: i) I/we want to be famous (whatever that really means); ii) I/we want to have plenty of sex/drugs/alcohol; iii) I/we want to be very rich indeed. At no point did any of the commentators or the voice over question Floyd's lyrics on 'Money'. How could Waters or Gilmour really sing their lines with a straight face as their bank balances soared into millions and millions of pounds? And as for The Wall, wouldn't it have been easier to simply sack the roadies and cut the equipment budget and play a few clubs? Waters might have found that a crowd of thirty genuine fans might not have been so repellent to his fastidious taste.

I was especially annoyed by the predictable treatment of Syd Barrett - simultaneously glorified and patronised. Words such as "madness" and "lunacy" were bandied around as tokens of artistic authenticity. That Syd went "mad" proved he was a "genius". I doubt he saw it that way. Furthemore, to then argue that 'Jugband Blues' was total chaos and evidence of his mental collapse, doesn't really stand up. Listen to it, see the performance, and you realise that he's being very shrewd indeed. Unlike Waters whose knee-jerk reaction to rock stardom was to become vitriolic and to devise even more absurdly inflated spectacles, Barrett took the contradictions into himself. The deadpan manner, the deliberate non-cooperation, the artistic suicide were all - conscious or unconscious - responses to the massive commodification of rock, the hook-up (one could argue perversion) of a genuine libertarian musical energy to a capitalist machine intent on channeling the creativity into product. Without wishing to sound glib, Barrett was perhaps the one 'healthy' member of the Floyd - although you get the impression Rick Wright has always felt uncomfortable on his piano stool*.

No mention was made of what Barrett was intending to do with the Floyd - by all accounts return it to an experimental 'underground' group. (This doesn't sound "mad" to me). No mention was made of Barrett's (and the early Floyd's) connections to groups such as Soft Machine or their work with Delia Derbysire (ex-Cambridge music student and BBC Radiophonic experimenter). Why? Because this would trouble the seemingly self-evident 'progress' (I use the word ironically) of small-time psychedelia to big venue stadium rock. Or, to put it more cynically, music which was exciting, was part of a scene shared by musicians and audience but didn't pay to music which was laboured, regurgitated night after night to an audience who were 'there for the beer' and which translated into Big Money and Share Portfolios and Property Speculation and Private Jets and Alimony to Pay Off First Wives ... Well, which would you choose, eh?

(to be continued)

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* Wright is on record stating his passion for Bill Evans. His own tunes - to my ears - always suggest a hankering for the intimacy of a jazz club. Pink Floyd Live at the Village Vanguard, now there's an idea...