…and oh, how the girls flocked to hear those Wishbone Ash, Uriah Heep and Groundhogs albums…

Marr College, Troon, early 1970s: if you were into music, the thing was to ostentatiously (yet also somehow displaying a certain coolness) bring an album to school, holding it with one hand under your shoulder as a kind of 12-inch identity badge.

Why did you bring them to school? To swop (temporarily or permanently) with a classmate, or to play, daringly at a music lesson. or just to display ownership. though why Brian wanted to show everyone his Neil Diamond albums (Hot August Night and Tap Root Manuscript; I know. I borrowed them). I’m not sure. At that stage I didn’t know Neil had written I’m a Believer. For pop knowledge we (boys; girls didn’t know anything about proper music) had NME, Sounds and Melody Maker. For us, pop had no history. Rory Gallagher was playing at the Caley in Ayr. Greenslade at Troon Town Hall. It was all hair as long as we could get away with. And it was now. In a wee Ayrshire coastal town, with its own groovy headshop, somewhat scary Speed Records in West Portland Street.

Only one of the music teachers allowed the playing of pupils’ discs. The head of music, George Murray, was ferociously contemptuous of pop and rock. Wagner, Gilbert and Sullivan and (I suspect) Salvation Army brass bands were his passions as I recall. Same thing really…

I remember someone bringing Jethro Tull’s Aqualung to a fifth year class with a teacher whose determination to connect with surly students was matched only by his evident bafflement at sleazy, sordid prog. When the opening Anderson lyrical blast of the title emerged from the music room’s Hacker record player, the stylus was quickly removed…

Sitting on a park bench

Eyeing little girls with bad intent

Snot’s running down his nose

Greasy fingers, smearing shabby clothes…

Good grief. I managed to get hold of a very second-hand copy of Led Zeppelin II, with a cover so worn I hand-painted the back of the gatefold in what I considered Fauvist yellow…no-one was impressed. Like many of my albums, it was scratched and jumped so that for years, indeed right up to today, I feel somehow cheated when Whole Lotta Love doesn’t skip during the Plant moaning/screaming episode.

Uriah Heep’s Salisbury, Wishbone Ash’s Argus, Electric Ladyland (original cover, instantly confiscated; I can just imagine the scenes in the Men’s Staffroom) and especially, the strange optical monochrome of the Groundhogs’s Split, which I always found disturbing. In a Woolworth’s cut-out import rack, I found a Big Joe Williams album which, along with the wonderful Island compilation This Is Blues, kicked off my love for that musical genre. The sleevenotes, erudite and deep, on the Williams record were by Tony TS McPhee. I couldn’t believe someone who appeared so disheveled and threatening on his own album covers could be this….academic. Those sideburns. That beard. And he was going bald. 

In sixth year, I remember one pupil, younger than we progheads and blues aficionados,  being roundly sneered at for his own under-arm album display. T Rex’s Electric Warrior. Pop music, we muttered with contempt. How pathetic.

And yet somehow, Peter always seemed to be surrounded by the most attractive girls… 

The Beatcroft anti-social is on Mixcloud and 60 North Radio

https://www.mixcloud.com/tom-morton2/tom-mortons-not-particularly-sociable-beatcroft-audioletter/

Scar Quilse — Slippin’

Simple Minds — Premonition

Tom Verlaine — Kingdom Come

Martha Ffion — The Man

Groundhogs — No More Doggin’

Tom Waits — Jersey Girl

Richard Thompson — Wall of Death

Human League — Empire State Human

Another Pretty Face — Whatever Happened to the West

Freda Leask — Another Coat of Black

Japan — Gentlemen Take Polaroids

Echo and the Bunnymen — Ocean Rain

Caroline Says — I Think I’m Alone Now

John Lee Hooker, Groundhogs — I Cover the Waterfront

Simple Minds — The American

Scar Quilse — Slippin’ (Pt 2)