Decentralisation
The Devil looks after
Hymn Number Dinky Do
The Expert
Post mortem
Tete a tete
Fine, fine, fine
Fame and fortune
Mars, they're making eyes

After my Hate, Hate, Hate in 1968 for what the past year has meant to the world in general, I can only trust that 1969 will be better. How wonderful it would be if we could go through this coming year without the incessant guilt being laid on our relatively innocent shoulders for starving children, genocidal maniacs, xenophobic Welshmen, export–hungry political gun–runners and just plain non–thinking idiots! So please let us all be relieved of all this during the next 12 months so as to enable us all to get down to the business of living a full, worthwhile type of existence for a change. How nice it would be if all the energies dissipated in making people’s lives hell on earth were to be channelled into making them happy.

As entertainers, it might be a good idea for us to try and steer away from the viciousness that has crept into music and even humour. I am not saying that we should be ostriches and bury our minds in the sands of smugness. We must never forget that man can be monstrous. It is my belief that if we spend our lives pointing out to one another the obvious inhumanities we will be likely to forget than mankind has also the power to be compassionate. So let’s have happy music for a change.

What the Dickens!
 I am amazed and somewhat uneasy at the apparent success of that Weirdie of Weirdies, Tiny Tim. If he is the first of more to come I can only say, God help us all, every one of us.

Molochs to you
 Anyone who has ever observed pop groups in action couldn’t help being impressed by the amount of space they occupy. There may be only four, five or six of them, but by the time they have all their gear set up, they take up as much room as a 16–piece band. The main occupier of space is the fantastic amplification system. Giant black monoliths, containing the speakers, stand there like an imitation Stonehenge.

The Druids, shaggy of hair and bedecked in multi–coloured robes, gyrate within the free space. The incantations foretell of the mishaps that can, and most likely will, beset mankind–or else relate tales of prowess with Vestal Virgins. The only part of the ritual missing is the human sacrifice, Or is it? The price one pays for worshipping such musical Molochs is the sacrificing of our children’s minds and maybe their virginity.

Worry not, fair Britons, the Romans are on their way . . , I trust!

To the greater glory
If It hadn’t been for the church’s need of music to promote its wares, contemporary secular music could not have existed. For this I am truly thankful. What I regret is that some people within the music business appear to be using this format in reverse. I don’t wish to accuse anybody of insincerity, but I can’t help thinking that the God–botherin’ thing is used sometimes to take on some respectability–and also to get more air time.

They’ve got music taped
One of my pet hates is the flamboyant extrovert who, by interviewing people of real talent, becomes a TV Star. What really knocks me silly is when a great show of plastic opulence is shattered by the taped theme getting suddenly distorted by a wow or flutter when the sound engineers gets his with–it medallion caught in the tape spool.

PLASTIC SKULL AWARDS, 1969

To the music moguls who have got ‘the business’ so well tied–up they the strangling the very life out of it.
To Jimmy Young for not taking the slightest bit of notice of my last award.
To this society of ours that has driven some of my colleagues to opt out of life much too soon.
To John Lennon for revealing the bare facts of his success.
To Ron Simmonds for reminding me of periods in my life I prefer to forget.
To the scientist who discovered that a taut steel string allowed to vibrate within an electromagnetic field can be amplified to the threshold of pain by the turn of a knob.
To the innovator of office and works Xmas parties in pubs and the out–of–tune humour (sic) and music (sicker) that goes with ‘em.
To all those writers who were so surprised when Stan Tracey blew up such a storm when playing opposite Basie.
To the publishers of Bill Russo’s book on arranging for pricing it so that only successful arrangers can afford it.

 Copyright © 1968, Kenny Graham. All Rights Reserved