THE WHO - Single File

Small children love things that spin around and this explains the fate of the last decent turntable I had, a Pioneer that had served me well since I lived in NY, along with matching amp and cassette deck. This all happened around 1997 and, truth to tell, I wasn’t as annoyed as I should have been, partly because I loved my kids but also because I was switching over to full-time CDs anyway by then. The vinyl – about 3,000 LPs – was all upstairs in a closet and, when we next moved house, it went under the stairs, unseen but not unloved. Then, when we next moved, most of it went to a charity shop in Acton, some of it was sold to a collector, and the rest stuck with me – all my Who records, of course, and about 50 other LPs I hung on to for old time’s sake. There was also a big pile of singles, again lots of Who, but also Beatles and lots of other stuff from 1960 to about 1975, and around a dozen seven-inch EPs in picture sleeves, most of them dating back to the sixties. I whittled the singles down too but still have a pile that’s about a foot high.

         The reason I’m telling you all this now is that an old metal storage shed at the bottom of our garden was partially destroyed by gales the last time the weather attacked Surrey, and only last week did we get around to having it dismantled and carted away. Everything that was in it had been there since we moved to this house nine years ago, and among this stuff was an old-style record player, cheap, compact, single plays only, bought by me on a whim years ago after the turntable bit the dust just in case I desperately wanted to play a vinyl record that I didn’t have on CD. 

         So last Saturday I dusted it off and plugged it in. The turntable went round and the needle felt like it was still sharp to the touch so what do we play? How about a 7” single, 45 rpm, maybe this one with silver writing on a matt black label, Brunswick 05926 ℗1965 by a bloke called Townsend (sic) that’s on the top of the pile I just retrieved from a shelf in the spare bedroom? There a few crackles and then… crikey! I haven’t heard a guitar that sharp since I foolishly sold off my old Vox AC30 valve amp with its treble channel in 1971, and the vocals are cutting through the drums and guitar like a chain saw, a bit slurred like they always were but on key and dynamic, even the back up. And as for the drums, it’s like someone is battering them to death, driving this whole souped-up charabanc downhill as hard as it can go, punctuating the gaps and matching the guitar in every way. It sounds fantastic. Whether it’s true or not I don’t know but someone once told me that The Who asked their cutting engineer to space the grooves apart and cut them as deep as possible. This way they’d sound louder on the pirate stations. The same theory explains why 12” singles played by DJs sound as good as they do. Either way there’s no doubt out it – there’s something about playing an old single on a deck like this that you don’t get on the CDs I’ve been listening to for the last 20 years.

        

I bought ‘I Can’t Explain’ sometime in early 1965 at Philips record shop in Skipton, and the disc I’ve scanned above is the same old copy in its original sleeve, not really mint condition but still more than a match for all those digital versions I have on CDs galore. The centre was lost, along with the centres of many more of my Who singles, when Mrs C, meaning well but not knowing any better, handed them all over to a man from whom we hired a juke-box to help celebrate my 50^th birthday in 1997. This man ought to have known better, or at least queried the situation when he was given a complete set of UK Who singles from the sixties – ‘Explain’ to ‘Pinball’, all present and correct – which had their centres intact. Surely he, a juke-box specialist, should have realised that their owner was a collector who might not have wanted them mutilated in this way.

         I didn’t buy them all as they were released, just the respectable hits, maybe seven or eight, in the sixties. I wasn’t consciously ‘collecting’ Who singles in those days, just adding them to the pile, but the rest, the ones that Talmy released to counter The Who’s preferred singles, the alternative ‘Substitutes’ and the misses like ‘Dogs’, I picked up later, mostly in the early eighties from record fairs or a shop in Chiswick called the Spinning Disc. By then I wanted a full set and it wasn’t that hard to put together. So I filled in the gaps with those from the seventies and later that I didn’t have and now I have 52 Who singles from ‘Explain’ to the present day, some duplicates, some US ones too.

         The most unusual ones are a couple of acetates sent out to reviewers in the seventies that I half-inched from the reviews pile on Melody Maker. These would probably have been the same as advance copies sent to the members of the band. ‘WGFA’ is on an Apple label, cut no doubt by the famous George ‘Porky’ Peckham, the best cutting engineer in the business, who in those days worked out of Apple’s studio in the basement of their building at Savile Row. ‘Join Together’, actually an 8", was obviously cut at Trident. I had a third acetate, ‘Let’s See Action’, also cut at Apple, that I gave to a fellow Who collector on his 50^th birthday. 'WGFA' and 'JT' are below.

Now back to that record player… Brunswsick 09535 looks tempting.

ABBA - Fab Reception in Melbourne

In this second extract from Bright Lights Dark Shadows, Abba fly from Sydney to Melbourne where the elements are kinder to them but the fans are just as passionate. In many ways Abba’s arrival in the capital of Victoria mirrored The Beatles’ visit to the same city in June 1964.

On Saturday, March 5, Abba boarded their chartered Boeing 707 and flew to Melbourne to continue the tour. The airport reception was somewhat quieter than in Sydney – only about 100 fans greeted Abba this time, but it turned out to be the calm before the storm, for once they had reached the city a truly amazing welcome awaited them.

At 12.30pm Abba were scheduled to attend a Lord Mayor’s reception in the Melbourne Town Hall. The event had been announced in the media well in advance, which explained the absence of fans at the airport – they knew where the real fun was going to happen. When Abba arrived at the town hall in their Rolls Royces, an estimated 6,000 people stood cheering and screaming at them, many having waited for the group for several hours. “First, when you drive out from the airport and you see the street actually lined up all the way from the airport to the city, you don’t even believe your eyes,” recalled Frida. “And then you understand, ‘This is actually a reception for us, nobody else. It’s not the president coming’.”

The Abba entourage stepped out of their cars, entered the building and climbed the stairs to the balcony to greet the crowd. Excited radio reporters were covering the event live on the air, blow by blow: “Here they come now. I can see them! They’re inside. They’re just about to come on their way out. They’re coming out onto the balcony now … It should be in two to three seconds … And here they are!”

When Abba finally stepped out on the balcony, the crowd erupted. All the group had to do was to stand there and wave. During the five minutes they appeared on the balcony, the screaming never died down. The scenes outside Melbourne Town Hall constituted irrefutable proof that Abba’s popularity had exploded far beyond ordinary fame. In Australia, if not quite elsewhere in the world, it was clearly on a par with The Beatles during 1964, when they too had appeared, Popelike, on that same Melbourne Town Hall balcony to greet streets full of frenzied fans.

Afterwards, although the group was meant to stay and mingle with guests at the reception, they were too exhausted and were escorted back to their Rolls Royces. But when they got to the cars there were no drivers – the group wasn’t expected back for another 20 minutes. Hemmed in by watching crowds gripped by fever-pitch excitement that could bubble over into a riot at any moment, Abba had to wait in the cars for five very long minutes before the drivers returned. In the meantime, they were more or less forced to chat to the media and sign a few autographs.

In the evening, 14,500 people watched Abba’s performance at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl while a further 16,000 tried to listen outside the fenced-off concert area. The whole area was full to bursting several hours in advance. Two sections of fencing were knocked down by the crush of fans when the gates were opened. Those without tickets were climbing on cars or anything they could find to try to catch a glimpse of Abba. A teenage boy, who’d made his way up to the top of a tree to watch the concert, fell and had to be taken to hospital with suspected head and internal injuries. Otherwise, the audience was well-behaved: as ever when Abba played, the age span stretched from six to 60 – and beyond.

During one of the shows in Melbourne, this wholesome, family-friendly group actually managed to cause the kind of stir more associated with rebellious rock bands, if only for a second or two. Throughout the tour the group were criticised for their between-song banter, which appeared stilted and “rehearsed”. Infinitely small variations from night to night proved that it had in fact been pretty much pre-written, though proceedings were enlivened one evening in Melbourne when Björn made an unfortunate improvisation, jokingly calling Benny “you bastard”, an expression considered far too strong for Australian family audiences. More than two decades later, Björn still recalled the shocked roar of the audience and the embarrassment of his inadvertent faux pas: “I only meant to say, ‘You silly man’.”

Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser attended the first Melbourne show together with his wife, two daughters and a son. When Abba’s schedule didn’t allow for any trips to Canberra, Fraser had to bite the bullet and travel to meet up with the group himself, the political prestige of being photographed with such a popular act being just too good an opportunity to miss. Fraser was not especially popular with the general public at this stage of his tenure, however. When his entrance was announced at the Music Bowl, he was roundly booed by the audience.

In another eerie reflection of The Beatles in 1964, further evidence of the insanity of Abba’s popularity was afforded by the fate of their bed linen from the Old Melbourne Motor Inn. After they left, the hotel manager cut up the sheets Abba had slept on, stamped them with a special commemorative message and distributed them through the newspaper the Sunday Observer. Incredibly, the offer, presented under the somewhat tacky headline “Sleep with ABBA!”, was made public while the group were still staying at the hotel. No-one had taken the trouble to ask the group how they felt about it all – they were just confronted with the situation and had no say in the matter.

ABBA - Their Biggest Ever Show

Today is the 38^th anniversary of the biggest concert that Abba ever performed, at the Sydney showground in 1977. The coverage of the group’s 1977 mayhem-filled Australian tour and this extraordinary show is my favourite chapter in Carl Magnus Palm’s Abba biography Bright Lights And Dark Shadows, so to commemorate the show, here is the relevant extract, in two parts.

All the planning and preparation, the excitement and the chaos, reached a climax on Thursday, March 3, the date of Abba’s first live performance on Australian soil. Alas, the Gods were against them and their first concert at the Sydney Showground, in front of more than 20,000 people, was engulfed in disaster, heaving rains having reduced the grounds to a virtual quagmire. There was even concern that the venue would be destroyed after being tramped down by a mass audience

The weather also upset Abba’s rehearsal schedule, their early arrival in Australia having been partly motivated by the need to rehearse with the new crew, including the string section. The persistent rain, however, left them with no opportunity to do so. “We hardly had time for a sound check, so we were just praying to God that everything would work,” said Benny. “It was a bit [stressful].” RCA Promotions Manager Annie Wright, who travelled with Abba during the tour, remembers frantically ringing up TV news shows to get regular updates on the weather, praying that the rain was going to stop.

The seats weren’t numbered, and fans anxious to get a good seat for Abba’s Australian début had been queuing for 24 hours. Despite the constant rain, the atmosphere was electric as the hours ticked away before Abba’s arrival on stage. Fans were playing transistor radios, and every third song played seemed to be by Abba, which added greatly to the anticipation. When the gates finally opened at 4.30 p.m. there was a mad rush for the best seats – followed by another wet four-hour wait.

The group and their close associates were astonished that the crowd could wait so patiently in such dreadful conditions. “Can you believe that?” an agitated Stig Anderson asked a radio reporter. “We never saw that in our lives! … How can people love them that madly? How can they be here not only for two hours, because that’s the concert, but for, three, four, five and six – and more?”

Backstage, Stig had other matters on his mind beyond the fans’ discomfort. As the rain poured relentlessly down, Abba were forced to consider cancelling the show. What everyone anticipated would be an explosive meeting between the band and their ecstatic fans was in danger of turning into a damp squib. Tour promoter Paul Dainty had never produced anything on this scale before and to this day remembers the feeling of desperation. “All the build-up, all the hype, the mania surrounding the merchandising sales, at every level – every publication, every magazine, every newspaper, every TV broadcast, every news broadcast: Abba, Abba, Abba. And then we come to the reason they’re here, the show, and they couldn’t do the show? You didn’t even want to think about it.”

But think about it they had to do. The stage was drenched, making the floor exceptionally slippery, and there was also the danger of electrocution. “They were at risk, being a lightning storm with all that equipment, and everyone was panicked,” recalls Annie Wright. But Abba’s itinerary was too cramped to allow for any rescheduling – the concert had to go ahead. Besides, to cancel would have meant too many logistical and financial problems, not to mention disappointing this immensely loyal and fervent audience. Still, some backstage observers were amazed at the turn of events. “It was extraordinary that they went on under those circumstances,” says Annie Wright.

Shortly after the scheduled starting time of 8.30pm, the show finally commenced. Abba’s very first live concert in the country that had taken them to their hearts more than any other began with the long thunderous drum, bass and guitar intro to ‘Tiger’. When the group rushed out on the stage, it was as if every single person in that audience of more than 20,000 joined together in one deafening shriek of ecstasy. “We have probably never received such a rapturous reception anywhere,” Agnetha recalled. “It seemed the ovation would never end.”

Stagehands were constantly running across the stage, trying in vain to mop the floor, and throwing out towels. “Even Stig was crawling around on all fours on the floor, mopping up the water,” recalls Michael Tretow, who watched the diligent efforts of the Polar Music Managing Director on a monitor in the mobile studio bus.

The group members also had to do their utmost to keep the stage and themselves free from water – Frida cleverly incorporated her towel in the routine when she and Björn performed ‘Why Did It Have To Be Me’. The only serious mishap occurred in the third song, ‘Waterloo’, when Frida slipped and fell over, bruising her hip and injuring two fingers. Although she was in pain there was nothing else to do but to pick herself up, smile and keep up a brave front: the show must go on.

 Frida slips on the stage.

“We were terrified,” said Björn afterwards. “We could have been electrocuted … But we were determined to play because the people had waited for hours in the rain.” Somewhat inadvisedly, Björn jocularly promised the audience that as a thank you, Abba would shake the hands of everybody attending the concert backstage afterwards. When the crowd cheered with delight he had to tell them that it was a joke, to the great disappointment of many a naïvely innocent fan.

As Abba performed their hits, the chaos continued. Those in the front rows stood on their chairs to get a better view, blocking the view for those behind. All the umbrellas exacerbated the sight-lines problem. A young man selling drinks slipped on the steps and had to be taken to hospital with back injuries. Lasse Hallström thought the dramatic qualities of the event would enhance his movie, and rubbed his hands together in glee. “We will get some fantastic scenes from that rain disaster concert,” he said after shooting was completed. He had yet to discover that the rain had leaked into the film canisters, destroying much of the footage from this first concert. In the film, the opening number from the Sydney premiere had to be spliced together with sequences from at least one other concert.

As the show progressed, the rain only let up intermittently, and when it did the group was faced with another kind of problem. The white costumes and white-on-white stage, illuminated by 120,000 watts of overhead light, attracted thousands of flying bugs. Benny’s white piano was turning all black, covered by large insects, as was the floor. “It was pretty nasty,” recalled Agnetha. “We were doing ‘SOS’ when suddenly I saw this swarm coming towards us – black, huge things. I thought, ‘What on earth is that?’ They hit our faces and legs, and were all over us. Benny and I are just as scared of insects, and I saw him going all stiff at the piano.”

One of the bugs crawled down into Agnetha’s décolletage just as she was struggling with her solo parts on ‘SOS’. “I thought, ‘I have to get rid of this creature in some way’. I actually panicked a little. I turned my back to the audience, put my hand inside, got it out, and finished the song.” After completing ‘SOS’, there was a short break so that the bugs could be swept off stage.

As the showers began again, water flowed into the sound system, wreaking havoc with amplification equipment and blowing out speakers. Reportedly, the sound was dreadful during the first hour, with vocals disappearing intermittently. Yet despite these appalling conditions, it was as if the rain and the sound problems mattered not one iota for the majority of the audience that night: they simply adored Abba and loved the show unreservedly. Perhaps the adverse conditions and the determination on the part of both Abba and their audience to make it all work just made the concert that bit more special. Paul Dainty recalls the show as “magical. It was something amazing, just because it was raining and the people just got into it. They didn’t care.”

In hindsight there seems to be an accord among all those involved that the concert at the Sydney Showground on March 3, 1977, stands above all else as the emotional highpoint of Abba’s entire career, and in the years that have passed since that rain-soaked night Björn, Benny, Agnetha and Frida have all remained deeply touched by the loyalty of their Australian fans. “Imagine 25,000 people standing outdoors in the pouring rain, holding 25,000 umbrellas, and then, when you step out onto the stage pandemonium breaks loose!” said Björn. “It almost makes your heart burst. You wonder what you’ve done to deserve this. I can’t describe the feeling.” Says Lasse Hallström, “The cheer from that audience, in the rain, that was quite something. And that gave me goose-bumps when it happened.”

The event wasn’t without its share of nay-sayers, however. A few thousand rain-soaked fans elected to leave before the show was over, and several complaints were lodged, leading to the Minister for Consumer Affairs stating his department was investigating ways of protecting the public. Several journalists, as well as promoter Paul Dainty, pointed out that the real problem was that a city the size of Sydney didn’t have an indoor venue that could hold an audience on that scale. Abba’s concerts had already been split from the originally planned single performance for 40,000 people, into two 20,000 shows.*

Reviewers also had a few issues with the show, jumping on Agnetha’s tendencies towards singing off-key, a problem that would follow her for the remainder of Abba’s live career. The two women’s dance routines and overall stage movements led one critic to comment that “a good choreographer wouldn’t go astray”. One infamous headline after the first show read “Agnetha’s Bottom Tops Dull Show”. The comment referred to Agnetha’s habit of repeatedly turning her back to the audience, displaying her famous rear end. When the newspaper was held up in a scene in the movie, the word “dull” was conveniently blocked out by Benny’s thumb.

Frida was extolled as the life of the performance, while Agnetha, by her own admission, came across as more restrained. “You watch yourself [on film] with very critical eyes: ‘Why didn’t you do it like that instead? Why didn’t you move a little more there?’” she reflected a few years later. Agnetha was seemingly never able to feel truly comfortable on stage, and called her own appearance “unimaginative”. “One thing I particularly noticed in Australia was that it makes no difference whether there are 5,000 or 50,000 in the crowd: I was still just as stressed and nervous,” she noted in her memoirs.

The enormity of the 1977 tour only alienated her more. “It seems the greater your success the greater the audiences’ expectations and impatience, while at the same time you demand more and more of yourself. The machinery that surrounds you becomes incredibly complicated, with more and more people involved – people you never really get acquainted with or even learn to recognise.”

No-one could fault the musical tightness of Abba’s performance, however. There had been much speculation and rumours along the lines of the group being “manufactured” – the old theory that Frida and Agnetha were only miming was still alive and well. They were not a “real” rock group and, therefore, they wouldn’t be able to cut it live. But faced with the show as it actually was, even the most suspicious reviewers had to acknowledge the group’s musical prowess. Also, contrary to most of their attempts in the studio, on stage Abba really knew how to rock. Their live sound was vividly energetic and rumbling, with many extra, half-improvised piano riffs from Benny and on-the-spot vocal ad-libs courtesy of Frida. By the time Abba’s live recordings reached movie screens, television sets or record players, however, they had often been polished and corrected into sterility. The discrepancy between the loose feeling of the original performance jarred against their attempts to somehow “upgrade” it into a studio recording.

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* In actual fact, thousands more attended each concert.

CBGBs - A Report from the Front Line, Part 3

Part 3 of my look at the New York underground rock scene in 1976.

A certain rivalry exists between CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City, where underground acts now appear regularly in the top room. The rivalry has occasionally taken on ugly proportions with clubs vying for acts on the same weekend and deliberately promoting rival bands on the same night to see where the fans’ loyalty lies. Some bands remain loyal to one club but others, especially high steppers like the Ramones, are obviously welcome at both clubs.

         “There’s a natural rivalry in a sense of competitiveness,” admits Kristal. “We have tried to get together on this but we can’t because we each have to do our own thing. I know that Peter Crawley (booker at Max’s) hasn’t wanted to book bands that have played at CBGBs a week before, I think the bands don’t realise, this...that we have to run these places to make a profit and over-exposure will kill that.”

         Leee Childers, who until recently did publicity for Max’s and who now manages The Heartbreakers, confirmed that at one time there had been a vicious rivalry between the two clubs.

         “When Max’s decided to go rock and roll, they had a meeting with Hilly Kristal and decided to co-operate by not booking conflicting bands on the same night, but Max’s were only offering one night’s work compared to CBGBs three. As soon as Max’s booked a band for Friday night, CBGBs would turn around and offer the band three nights. Obviously they’d prefer three nights’ work so Max’s suffered,” Childers told me.

         “At one time there was an unwritten rule that if a band played CBGBs, they couldn’t play Max’s, but that’s cooling down a bit now. Most bands can play both clubs. Except of course, The Dictators who will never play Max’s.”

         The latter remark stems from a physical confrontation that took place between Wayne County, the rock female impersonator, who is strictly a Max’s artist, and ‘Handsome’ Dick Manitoba, the burly lead singer of The Dictators. It occurred during a Dictators set at CBGBs and has resulted in bad blood between these two acts ever since.

         At both clubs the bands earn whatever is taken on the door minus a sum for the supporting act. At CBGBs The Ramones hold the record for a single night’s takings – slightly over $2,000 – though The Runaways almost beat them on their first and only visit to the city.

         According to Childers, bands can earn more in a single night at Max’s (Max’s is bigger than CBGBs) but they prefer the three-night policy of CBGBs not only because they enjoy playing as much as possible but because three nights means more money in the long run.

         “At the end of a three-day run, we always make about $2,500 at CBGBs,” said Childers, referring to The Heartbreakers. “It’s not bad money really... we’re not starving at all despite what people think.”

         Kristal says Television are his most consistent big draw. “After three nights, playing two sets a night, any one of about half-a-dozen of the top groups would take away between $3,000 and $3,500... maybe a little less if things are quiet.”

         Kristal does have a problem, though, with industry types and other musicians who don’t want to fork out their $3 or $4 entry fee. “We can get up to 150 people who are in bands and who don’t want to pay and if that prevents the groups from making money, then I have to put a foot down somewhere.

         “That’s why I have this three-night policy, putting bands on for Friday, Saturday and Sunday or Thursday, Friday and Saturday. If other musicians want to see the group they can come in on the Thursdays or the Sundays when it’s slower.”

         Aside from CBGBs and Max’s, three other clubs are now presenting underground bands. Club 82, at the corner of 2nd Avenue and 4th Street, still presents bands on an occasional basis, although most nights it is a disco. The 82 was among the first to offer opportunities to unsigned acts, opening its doors immediately after the Mercer Arts Centre (where Patti Smith and the Dolls played their initial gigs) burned down. Opened in the early fifties as a gay club catering to females, it still attracts its fair share of transvestites and is staffed by women in men’s suits, shirts and ties, with cropped hair.

         Two weeks ago a new club called On The Rocks opened at Bleeker and Broadway, presenting acts on as many nights a week as they can book them. The Dolls played opening night and The Heartbreakers are due there this week. Like CBGBs they are attempting a three-night policy, though they haven’t quite established themselves yet.

         Lastly, the former owner of Max’s, Micky Ruskin, has presented selected underground bands at his Lower Manhattan Ocean club way downtown on Spring Street. Current policy at the Ocean, which opened in May, is to have live music on Monday and Tuesday only, commencing at midnight, and they attempt to cater to a rather more sophisticated (older) audience than that attending CBGBs or Max’s.

         Among the bands appearing there are Talking Heads, The Miamis, Black Eagle (a NY-based reggae band) and John Cale (who put together a scratch band for a one-off appearance earlier this summer). Elsewhere Manhattan offers little in the way of venues for the underground bands.

         Even so the bands continue to multiply at alarming proportions. Recently CBGBs showcased half-a-dozen unsigned bands from Boston during a special “best of Boston underground” weekend, and two outfits, Ready Teddy and Willy Loco, impressed the locals.

         “It’s not getting overpopulated,” emphasises Danny Fields when I suggested that matters were getting out of hand. Fields, who manages The Ramones and who has fashioned a career out of promoting punk rock from The Doors to the MC5 to Iggy Pop, is a firm believer in “the more the merrier” attitude.

         “I don’t object to the number of bands increasing each week,” he says. “This year the record companies have realised that there is something real happening in the New York underground, and bands are being recognised at last as having something worthwhile to offer.

         “Of the bands that I am familiar with, there is no common factor in the music or the output, and there’s an audience out there for all the different types of music that these bands are creating. New York has always been a centre for talented people in all facets of the arts and now it is becoming a centre for rock as well.”

CBGBs - A Report from the Front Line, Part 2

Here’s the second part of the long story I wrote for MM in 1976 about CBGBs and the downtown New York rock scene.

With the possible exception of Lou Reed, CBGBs’ manager Hilly Kristal can justifiably claim to have done more to promote the New York underground scene than any other individual. Reed may have provided the inspiration (several bands seem to emulate the Velvet Underground with uncanny accuracy), but Kristal provided a base for them to operate.

         CBGBs, at the junction of Bleeker Street and the Bowery, lies in the seediest section of the Village Eastside. Before Kristal took the place over two years ago, it was a hang-out for Hell’s Angels. It was – and still is – flanked by “hotels” that offer a bed for the night at ridiculously cheap rates. The catch is that you share a room with half a dozen others whose sense of personal hygiene is, perhaps, not in tune with the national average.

         Kristal is a large, quiet man of the strong but silent mode. With his red-and-black check shirts, burly physique and curly beard he looks more like a lumberjack from the Canadian forests than a patron of the arts.

         He’s made it his business to look after his charges like a family patriarch, encouraging them to develop their own musical policy whether he personally likes it or not. One of the rules for bands playing at CBGBs is that they must play original material or, if they do offer a non-original, they must have worked out a creative arrangement of their own.

         There’s a spirit of unity among the bands that play CBGBs that keeps the bandwagon rolling and, in early days, assured everyone of a reasonable audience. On any given night members of various bands will drop by to watch their friends, not just to size up the competition but to share in the universal uphill struggle of which they are all a part.

         It’s a long, narrow bar with a ludicrously small stage at one end. Neon beer signs flicker down on the audience – 300 or so at the most – and waitresses fight between tables to deliver beer in cramped conditions. A juke box plays mainly British Sixties music between sets (and sometimes during, though no-one notices) and when a band starts the din is often so loud that glasses tremble on the table tops.

         Kristal hopes to enlarge his emporium soon. “I’m gonna knock down the washrooms and put the stage further back. We’ll put the washrooms in the cellar and get another hundred people in by next February,” he told me proudly last week.

         “I felt that it was important that we put it out because we had the momentum going at that time,” he said, referring to the recently released CBGBs album. “We felt it would encourage others to do a similar thing. Jim Delehant (an Atlantic A&R man) seemed to be the keenest record company man so I went with him when he proposed the idea, but I’d have put it out myself either way.

“They have first option on the bands, but they haven’t exercised that because their first concern was this album and the idea behind it. They felt that a lot of the groups might make it, but that wasn’t the prime concern. I think that a lot of the people who have reviewed the album have taken the wrong attitude... it’s the idea of the album that is important. The idea is to document what’s happening.

         “I don’t think reviewers realise that the album is live. We didn’t go over and over tracks polishing them up, I just picked what I thought was a representative thing. People have said to me that it doesn’t represent the underground rock in New York because it didn’t have Television or the Talking Heads, but I just took what was available.”

         Originally Kristal pressed 5,000 copies of the album and advertised it by mail order in local papers. Many orders (including one for 2,000 from Paris) came from Europe, but once it became known that Atlantic had taken it over, the orders fell off. Kristal still has about 1,000 originals left which he sells as collectors’ items.

         The album has not made a profit. “It cost $17,000 (or £10,000) to make the album and that’s just my expenses in making the master tape before the actual pressing. The bands haven’t started to earn their money from it yet, but they could use the money so we’ll be attending to the publishing of it all in two or three weeks.”

         Following the release of the album, all eight bands – the Shirts, Mink De Ville, Laughing Dogs, the Miami’s, Sun, Manster, Tuff Darts and Stuart’s Hammer – went off on a “tour” together, supervised by Kristal, an administrative headache of alarming proportions since the entourage numbered over 50.

         Billed as the CBGBs Road Show, the bands took over Boston’s Rat Club for a whole week. Some only played one or two sets, but others stayed the week and gave up to a dozen performances. Kristal’s plans for the future involve taking “his” bands all around the East Coast. As yet, of course, none save the more established acts like Patti Smith and the Ramones have travelled very far.

         “After the first two weeks the sales figures on the album reached about 12,000 which isn’t too bad. Atlantic thought it would sell in New York, but they didn’t realise we could sell in Cleveland, St. Louis and even California. I think that sales will pick up after Christmas because we can’t really compete with all the big acts releasing albums right now.”

         Curiously Kristal had no intention of creating an underground rock palace when he took over the Bowery club. CBGBs, in fact, stands for Country, Bluegrass and Blues which is the type of music he originally envisaged promoting. “There just wasn’t enough talent around playing that kind of music, and it turned out that there were a lot of rock bands rehearsing all over with nowhere to play.

         “What I felt was that they had to develop character in their own music. I didn’t tell them what to play, but they can’t play copy music. Original doesn’t have to be only their own stuff. If a band can interpret something and make it really their own, then that’s better than writing their own music that copies things others have done.”