Today is Day Two of the four-day Rebellion Punk Festival in Blackpool and I wouldn't have minded going but, bloody hell, as much as I love punk music I don't think even I could stand four solid days of it. That's ok though 'cos, tomorrow, I'm going to see The Tubes, on their .. wait for it .. Fortieth Anniversary Tour! Yes, I think it's definitely true to say my musical taste is well and truly rooted in the past. I think I've reached a point in my life where all the music I'll ever know and love is filed - alphabetically, of course - on the shelves in my music room. Don't get me wrong, I'd dearly love some new band or breakthrough sound to blow me away but, from the heady heights of 55 - my birthday's on Tuesday should you wish to send chocolate or Jack Daniel's - all I hear is derivations of the music I loved the first time around. Well, derivations and utter crap! I've written before how it depresses me that a 20 year old today would think Sam Smith or Ella Henderson are 'good' music and I want to slap 'em with a wet haddock and ram some UK Subs or Jeff Buckley down their earoles..
Still, each to their own and anyway, I can't hear your protestations with my speakers turned up this high. I'll just leave you with a shot from my old press photography cuttings. I saw this geezer at a gig back in the early 90s, when the sight of a mohican was almost as much of a shock as it was the first time around. I loved the needles of hair, spiked up with flour and God knows what, and imagined him tending to it with a comb like this! The chap - Lionel, by the way! - was only too happy to go along with my idea and I would like to think that, as with me and The Tubes tomorrow, he and his spikes will be pogoing like buggery at Rebellion..
The past! It's the future ..
