BLACK VINYL WHITE POWDER

Current mood: KENNY
Category: KENNY Music

So, I'm reading this book called Black Vinyl White Powder. It's Simon Napier-Bells account of the music business from the 60s onwards. Mr Napier- Bell was the manager of, amongst other acts, The Yardbirds and Wham...

Mr Napier-Bell maintains that there were two things that were central to the development and importance of pop music and pop culture: Homosexuality and Drugs..

As always with this kind of a book, the reader is left to belive or not, depending on their own ideas and the level of trust put into the author.

I'm a gullible twat and I believe everything I'm told. I'm therefore lapping up the stories, which if they aren't true - certainly should be...

Yes boss, so entertaining and informative is this book, that I'm going to quote it happy...

I started last week with that Liuta Roza story about How Much is that Doggy in the Window..

Next up it's this...

In May 1966, I sat and watched the NME Poll-winners Concert at Wembley Arena. On the bill that day were The Kinks, The Who, The Yardbirds, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles - probably the best line-up of acts ever dreamed of, but these big concerts were not as good as people nowadays think they were. In fact, most of them were downright terrible. There was insufficient amplification and far too much screaming. Groups were unable to hear themselves play.

There was no way of balancing the sound at live concerts the way it's done today with a mixing desk. The size of the venue - medium for Hammersmith Odeon, large for Wembley Arena, gigantic for Shea Stadium. The amplification of the guitars and the keyboards had to be built up to match it, so amps were piled on top of one the other in a towering stack. Then you couldn't hear the drums.

Kenny Lynch toured with The Beatles at the time they got their first hit. 'Nobody cared about bad sound because everyone was acreaming. As soon as the audience heard the first chord of a hit record, in their minds they then heard the record. the screaming was deafening. There was no point doing a soundcheck because when the gig started no-one could hear anyway. besides, our voices were completely wrecked'

(C) Simon Napier-Bell 2001 Pub Ebury Press

Currently listening : Chosen Lords By Aphex Twin Release date: By 18 April, 2006

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