The age of isms

The last century or so seems to have been utterly dominated by isms.

Marxism, Nazism, socialism, conservatism, monetarism, capitalism, nationalism, secularism, modernism, expressionism, symbolism…

In practice, while each purports to be a useful way of seeing the world, they each become elephant traps, where beliefs turn into straitjackets, blocking the intrusion of fresh thinking.

When I played with the Idle Hands at the Witches Cauldron in the 1960s, I got to know the sage of the clientele. He was older than me – mid-20s perhaps. I asked him: “What’s at the source of your beliefs.”

“I’m a nihilist,” he proudly announced.

I wonder whether he ever escaped?

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?