Video killed the radio star?

At a recent interview in Hampstead, writer and broadcaster Melvyn Bragg (above) was asked what he thought was the future for printed books in the age of the ebook.

“There is this strange idea that when something new comes along it knocks everything else on the head,” he responded. “When film came it was supposed to kill theatre; it didn’t. When television came it was supposed to kill film; well, it didn’t. Television was supposed to kill radio; it didn’t.”

How that intriguing list could be extended: aircraft vs ships, the promised paperless office…

The worldwide CEO OF Saatchi & Saatchi, Kevin Roberts, recently wrote: “I am amazed at the resilience of television. For fifteen years the cool kids have been trying to kill it. But TV thrives in a world of choices.”

Of course, there are genuine casualties of innovation. For example, who now uses the fax machine?

Did video really kill the radio star?

On not being Eric Clapton

Playing with the Idle Hands in the mid-1960s was an exciting and joyful experience. We had plenty of work. Much was around our north London base (Hampstead, Highgate, Golders Green…), where we played well-paid birthdays, weddings, bar mitzvahs and so on for the offspring of wealthy parents. Quite frequently, it seemed, the police would show up in the early hours of the morning following complaints from neighbours about the noise level. Not surprising, I guess, given that we often played in a marquee in daddy’s garden.

The rest consisted of regular (but miserably compensated) club gigs – mostly the Witches Cauldron of blessed memory in Belsize Park, and the wonderful Marquee in Wardour Street, Soho. Alongside the slave-labour wages in those clubs, there was always the chance that we might get spotted and be given fabulous recording contracts.

One evening, after our set at the Marquee, I settled down with a beer to listen to the headline act – John Mayall’s Blues Breakers. As usual, good, I thought. But not especially so. The Idle Hands was a pretty good band too.

Then, in the middle of their set, on slouched a young guy with longer hair, shoulders hunched, back to the audience. He plugged in, twiddled a bit, turned round, and took off.

It was Clapton. Eric. Slowhand. God.

This was a kind of virtuosity so far out of my league that it persuaded me that I should no longer be dedicating my life to becoming a career rock-musician.

Maybe there was some other way in which I might excel. But what?

Starting out at Grand Hotel

Quite often I get asked about playing as a rock musician at the start of my working life.

Of course I did have a day job as well – as a mailboy at 40 Berkeley Square in the middle of London’s Mayfair district, the home of the leading ad agency in Britain at that time, J Walter Thompson. Coming as I did from a Midland town, I thought Mayfair was clearly the epicentre of the universe. These were the early days of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Mary Quant and all that.

Initially I played in a not-so-great band on the South Coast. I was nineteen years old and the most memorable thing about it was that over weekends I would stay with the manager of our band, also nineteen, who just happened to be the son of the manager of the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne. So of a Saturday and Sunday morning, following a gig, we would eat a sumptuous late breakfast, served by the head butler. Then I would take a leisurely morning by the pool, chatting with whichever celebrity guests happened to be staying at the Grand. These were the first celebs I ever met. They must have been thrilled.

Later I was invited to play with a much better outfit, The Idle Hands, based nearer home in London – in heavenly Hampstead. But that’s another story.

There is no doubt that I learned three big things from those early performing experiences: the paramount importance of good product, constantly evolving; the value of good presentation; and the need to negotiate what the market will bear. Not more, not less.

What was your first job and what did you learn from it?