Whatever happened to the teenage dream...

Me, a 12 year old wannabe Mod

My first ever attempt at a blog. It's taken me until the ripe old age of 66 to try it but let's have a go. I'm trying it as an alternative to social media, something I've never been keen on, Too intrusive and dominant in lives if, like me, you become addicted to it. I've always felt somewhat under pressure to post something, usually related to The Who, on both Facebook and Instagram or to keep up with my photographic peers. I'm hoping that by doing a blog instead it will at least let me be in control a bit more about what I post and on what subjects. I've also appeared on a few podcasts recently, which I have really enjoyed and I'm considering starting one myself, to talk about music and photography, if I can persuade a few guests to join me.

When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s the nearest we had to social media was gossiping on a football pitch or at school. We could never dream of how the world would change so much in our lifetimes. Then we would wait for the weekly music papers, Sounds, NME and Melody Maker to come out to see what bands were gigging and when. They were our lifelines to the world. TV news after school in the evening would bring us the latest grisly headlines from around the world. Now of course everything is brought to us instantaneously, so quick that the story emphasis change every hour, every minute. It's intense. Along with that intensity comes the struggle to find the truth. We're fed information and misinformation by media barons, conglomerates and Governments at such an alarming rate it is almost impossible to sort out what is real and what is fake. I would hate to be growing up as a teenager in these times. The science-fiction books and films of my childhood and become science-fact, only much worse. The stuff written by Orwell and Huxley now seem to be ideas to aspire to. We appear to have lost our humanity in many areas. War, famine, genocide, racism, poverty, nuclear proliferation, climate change, greed and crime are fed into our eyes and ears on a minute by minute basis but they all appear the norm these days. Acceptable click bait which just lead us to adverts to buy the latest throw away, child produced piece of fashion, or an electronic upgrade to your phone that adds another worthless app.

It seemed so much simpler when I was a kid. Yes, we had all those same problems I mention above but we were somewhat shielded from it. We had our own dreams and plans which we could hope for without the constant peer pressure and temptations there is today. For me music was my release. The anticipation of buying a record on the day it was released and rushing home to play it was fantastic. No streaming or advance teaser tracks, you just had the single, album, tour cycle and it was great. Once the album was out you had the tickets for shows to get, either by queuing for them or sending away for them, usually enclosing (in the UK anyway) a stamped postal order and self addressed envelope, in the hope that it only got returned with the prized tickets inside. No monotonously trying to fight off bots on the internet and having to pay monstrous booking fees for the privilege of doing that. The fun has gone out of it.

When I was at secondary school, teenage dreams were often killed dead before they had a chance to flourish by so called Careers teachers. I grew up in a very working class part of London. We were poor but never seemed to go without. I remember kids coming into school who looked like they hadn't had a hot meal in days. So maybe my dreams were considered above my station. I wanted to be a graphic artist. I wanted to learn to type, but was told that wasn't something boys did. My careers teacher said I should look to work in a bank or follow my brother into working at the local Council, which is what I eventually did (and still do). It was never what I wanted to do. I wanted to be arty-farty but it was considered that someone from my neck of the wood could never be that.

In 1975, I was lucky enough to go to the premiere of the Tommy movie in Leicester Square. I was blown away by the occasion. The flashing lights of the photographers and the pure spectacle of all the gathered celebrities just took me to another world. I had been following The Who for four or five years by then and when I came out of the theatre I said to my brother "I'm going to work for The Who". A lot of you will know that I did end up working for Pete Townshend of the band - it took a further 28 years after the premiere but it happened. I moved into arty-farty. I also wrote and had published a couple of books, something else my careers teacher and, more to the point, my English teacher would turn in their graves at the thought. I did pretty well I think for a kid from South-East London. In my younger years there was always an optimism that things would improve, even when times seemed harder. The older I get though I fear for what lies in the future. Things that scared me as a kid have now become normalised. We accept that the new scary world is the new norm. We are no longer outraged by right wing thugs, politicians acting like dictators and the killing of children. It not only seems acceptable it almost seems encouraged in the race for ratings and votes. When I was younger we would go out and protest, not always peacefully. sometimes, I believe that that is necessary. Today we have old age pensioners being forcefully arrested for peaceful protest. Free speech, a tenet of a democratic society is being eroded so quickly. History often repeats itself but there are some chapters of history that never should be repeated but unfortunately the politicians and media, most of whom who are in someone's pocket on one side or the other, are just turning a blind eye to worldwide atrocities. One can only guess what is being plotted in the background if the newsworthy stories are so despairingly awful. What are the stories and plots that they don't want us to know about?

Well, that turned into a dark place didn't it? It wasn't my intentions, i just flowed like that. I'll make the next posts (if there are any after this one!!!) more structured and not so gloomy. I am currently writing another book and may post some pieces here from that. I don't expect to get many 'reads' on here but fell free to comment - good, bad or indifferent - if the mood takes you. I'll try and post something weekly, probably music or photography related, perhaps both, with the occasional rant.

Have a good weekend.