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I was born in 1962, which made me twelve years old when the first signs of Rollermania were felt in Britain, fourteen when 'Anarchy In The UK' was released and 34 when Simon Garfield published his brilliant oral history of The Wrestling. They're the key influences on Glitter Suits & Platform Boots: a love of 1970s pop, a sense of resentment that it never got the same critical attention as punk did, and a desire to give it the respect that Mr Garfield accorded to the grapple game. Actually, I'd been wanting to write about 1970s British pop for ten years or so, but there were always other things to do. What changed in 1997 was that I came to the end of a three-volume History of British Military Bands that I'd been co-writing (essential reading, march-fans) and had some time to do something else. And Mr Garfield's book suggested a way to approach the subject. So I spent my spare moments over a year or so seeking out the people who made the music of my youth and talking to them about what they did then and what they've been doing since. And it was wonderful. There's not much better in life than sitting around talking about the 70s. This is still evolving, but I've been a bit distracted by other things - mostly trying to pay the mortgage. More recently, I've been putting together my Trash Fiction website, which includes a whole heap of good 1970s stuff. Worth a look, really it is.
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Eddie Amoo | ||