7. GenesisFoxtrot
I think the ones with Gabriel are all great. This one’s got the epic ‘Supper’s Ready’ on it, which is twenty-two minutes of, well… it’s all over the place really. I love the artwork again. I mean it’s just, spooky looking, you know? Gabriel used to dress up in a dress and wear a fox’s head on stage and all that. Back then it was wacky and disturbing. And that’s what these records are. I know they’re posh toffs but they made disturbing music. These records were definitely about taking your mind somewhere else.
There is a weirdness about the seventies, isn’t there? From its literature and art, that bled into everyday life.
And a lot of that feeling comes from the underground press, Oz and International Times and the like. My brother was into all that. He went to London early on. He used to have this great t-shirt. Everyone was wearing these scoop neck t-shirts and my brother had one with red flared sleeves with Clara Bow, the IT girl, printed all over them. It had a mystique, this underground scene in London, with the Pink Fairies and all the squats in Ladbroke Grove. And to a kid like me it was this whole mysterious, interesting, other existence; it was unobtainable. I went to see my brother in London. And coming from the council estate where I lived outside Liverpool, everywhere seemed so clean. It was tidy and all the houses were nice. And there were parks everywhere with swings that weren’t battered, they worked; you know what I mean? I remember it was all a dead groovy scene. My brother lived in Pinner which was a nice area, and full of hippies. It seemed to me back then that everything was possible in London. There were people playing tennis in the park. I mean, fucking hell! I’d never seen anyone playing tennis. That was only on telly.
