1. FlintlockHot from the Lock
Few names are less likely to generate images of avant-garde creativity than Chalfont St Peter in Buckinghamshire. An enclave of dull conservatism that lacked any semblance of edginess. Unless you count being pursued by the Chalfont Rucking Machine. The CRM. Formally known as the Chalfont (W)recking Machine until it was pointed out that Wrecking was spelt with a ‘W’ and thus all local graffiti would have to be altered to reflect the fact. This band of angry desperadoes were our local street gang, much like a home counties version of The Warriors but with wedge hairdos and espadrilles. Before them had come various iterations of youth cult with more prosaic names; Gerrard’s Cross Mods, Chalfont Skins, GX punks (few can forget the outrage caused by their ‘Sid Vicious for pope’ graffiti on the railway bridge). I watched them with interest from the window of my Mum’s mini. Chalfont was a village of bucolic tedium but close enough to London that the tides of culture occasionally stained its shores. A frustrating place to be young, but not so isolated as to be without a degree of inspiration for a pre-teen pathfinder.
I could see something was happening. Parents huffing at the Pistols on Grundy. Older kids with food dye in their recently shorn hair. Music in the air. As I grew older, action man undertook his final mission, and my ‘mucking about’ clothes took on a more counter cultural thread. I wore a beret and an old combat jacket. I wanted in on the youth explosion but had no idea what ‘in’ might look like. I knew it involved being angry and being against most things. I descended Gold Hill on my three-speed racing bicycle into Chalfont St Peter precinct shouting ‘power to the people’ with my proud fist aloft. I parked up outside NSS news agents with my pocket money jangling in my pocket and entered a palace of delights.
At this point, it’s a question of honesty or a way cooler fabrication of events. Ach, this was how it really went down. So, Facing the meagre rack of vinyl that NSS carried, I was forced to make a brutal calculation with scant knowledge to aid me. Limited funds. Limited information. But with a burning desire for rock and roll and the carefree life it entailed. I scanned the faces on the covers, they looked the part. I guess? But the price tag that came with their good looks was too great if I was to purchase my first record and the curly wurley bar needed to sustain me on my trip home. Thus, it was that I ended up, not for the last time, in the sale section. Flintlock, Hot From The Lock was my prize, I even had enough change for a fruit salad chew.
Life is punctuated by frustrating setbacks; it’s how you deal with them that defines the sort of person you are. After several attempts to get into ‘Hot from the Lock’, the lightweight pop rock of Flintlock had only made me feel sad and frustrated at the injustice of all things. This was not the revolutionary noise I was seeking. Had it all been a lie? A chimera of cool forever beyond my grasp. I was despondent. But nothing a bit of lawn mowing, leaf cleaning and a fresh pocket full of change could not solve. There would be no more curly wurley’s, just the endless dimensions of sound that a solid investment in research (smash hits morphing into the NME) and the pricier end of NSS vinyl rack would reveal.
