Hi friends,
Welcome to the new look Glom Of Nit, ported over to an entirely new … thing. For … reasons. There are quite a few new subscribers this month, which is WONDERFUL. Like any new relationship it might feel strange at first, but if you just go with it … it’ll either wind up brilliant or weird and uncomfortable. Both are thrilling, in their own special way. I only do one of these a month unless there’s something super important (or I just forget).
If you’ve got any feedback (apart from pointing out typos, please don’t do that) or just want to say hello, then please please do reply – it’s always nice to chat!
Enjoy!
Marc
In this issue:
Stuff I’ve written this month
Book updates (Pratchett/Manics/Bowie N Bolan)
Monthly musings
Recommendations
Excerpt from The London Boys: The Teenage Dreams of David Bowie and Marc Bolan
Get books and records wot I've done
From this new improved website and online store
Stuff I've written this month
Column: Terry Pratchett and the question of gender identity
Let’s start with an obvious but important point: I don’t know what Terry Pratchett’s view on the gender politics of 2021 would be. No one does. The much-beloved Discworld author died in 2015. Being dead, however, hasn’t stopped Pratchett being drawn into the increasingly vicious row over trans rights, which was supercharged last year when JK Rowling plunged headfirst into the
Heavy Trip takes Black Metal on the road, in a sweet (seriously) music comedy. Marc Burrows jumps into the mosh pit and reviews.
TV review: Masters of the Universe: Revelations ★★★
Masters of the Universe: Revelation Part One is Kevin Smith’s daring reboot of the beloved cartoon. It works, Marc Burrows argues, mostly…
Book updates
The Magic of Terry Pratchett
My award-winning biography of Sir Terry is NOW OUT ON PAPERBACK. A year on from its original release I am still overwhelmed by how much this book has meant to people. The new version has slightly updated text to correct some small errors and bring the story up to date with the latest Pratchett TV projects. I’m now toying with doing some sort of reading or signing in London and some sci-fi convention appearances to help promote it. I’ll be appearing virtually at the Irish Discworld Convention in October. With the paperback out though, my journey with this book is nearly over. I’m very proud of how far this little project has gone, and what it’s done for me.
Manic Street Preachers: Album by Album
My next book is published by White Owl in hardback on October 30, and I’m very pleased to say it’s now finished. The final edits and proofs are now done, the pictures are approved, the typesetting errors that included the notes from the editor in the middle of the text have been fixed and we’re ready to roll. You can pre-order it already, here. As I’ve said before, I’ll be doing a “bonus content” fanzine that will collate together all the writing I’ve done on the band since the year 2000. More details in this previous newsletter.
The band also know this is coming! Have a look at this mention in an interview with Nicky Wire by Dom Gourlay, who also contributed to the book.
I’m planning a launch party for this book that will take the form of …. A MANICS QUIZ! Maybe held in a pub before the Wembley show (I’ve not really thought it through yet). Watch this space.
A mock up of the cover
The London Boys: The Teenage Dreams of David Bowie and Marc Bolan
Things are MOTORING now, and I’m really enjoying the process. I’m trying to write for four hours a day, two before work and two in the evening, and things are progressing nicely. I do have a feeling there’s going to be a lot of editing to do, however – I wrote 1,000 words on the history and relevance of ‘Rock Around The Clock’ a few weeks ago. It’s a hard book to pitch right, as I’ve said before. In some places, it’s more of a biography and in others a social history. The opening chapter reads like a novel. If I can pull it off I think it will be the best thing I’ve ever written. If I get it wrong? Well, hopefully, someone gives me another shot.
There’s another bit of related news to this, which I Just. Can’t. Talk. About. but it did involve going out for one of those industry lunches you hear about to discuss a … let’s call it a related project. I doubt anything will come of it, but it was exciting just to be in the room. There’s an excerpt from the book at the end of the newsletter.
Monthly Musings
Summer lovin’ had me a blast …
It’s been a weird old month and in some ways, actually kind of brilliant – my band, The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, returned to live-action after nineteen months in the wilderness. We hadn’t played together since my wedding reception back in January 2020, a lifetime ago, (a performance which – as it should be – none of us really remember), and though we’ve rehearsed a bit, written some new songs and released a Kinks cover to help save our favourite boozer, we’ve also lost our drummer, Jez, after eleven years of playing together (long story, ask me in the pub one day). We’ve got a temporary replacement in Sion Mason from the band Reprisal who is both lovely and an ABSOLUTE MONSTER behind the kit, and picked up our set super quickly, but it still feels bittersweet to turn around and see a different face. As a bass player, you develop a musical language and telepathy with a drummer, especially having played together for so long, touring all over the world. Playing with someone else is like getting a dramatic new haircut: you know you probably look good, but you keep catching glimpses of yourself in shop windows and thinking … is that me? Still, it’s nice to be moving forward. The gigs, in London, Bristol and Camp Bestival festival in Dorset have been massive amounts of fun, and it’s been an absolute joy to see familiar faces and get the rush of having our words sang back to us. Next thing? A new album, a permanent drummer, and off on tour. It’s good to be back.
The Men That Will Not Br Blamed For Nothing, post show in Camden.
Summer lovin’, happened so fast …
On the other hand, it’s not been a month without incident, and that’s entirely my own fault. In early August a completely pointless argument sprang up around whether Terry Pratchett would have been a supporter of Trans rights, a debate which has become especially toxic in the last couple of years. For the benefit of the doubt I am firmly and vocally pro-trans rights and against the so-called ‘gender critical’ movement which seeks to devalue them, mistakenly thinking opportunities for trans people can come at the expense of cis women, especially gay cis women. I fired off some Tweets about it. It’s what I do. I argued that Terry Pratchett would be, broadly speaking, on the side of the Trans community people, that his writing supported this and, anyway, his daughter said so and she’d know. I ended on a final Tweet saying that, though I felt this horse had now bolted, I was absolutely available to write or talk about stable doors. A few days later an editor at New Statesmen got in touch asking if I’d be interested in exploring why Pratchett had been pulled into the debate, and what his writing tells us about him. I contributed the piece linked early, which the magazine titled ‘The Core message of Terry Pratchett’s Work Was That People Should Think For Themselves’ which was absolutely part of my argument. It wasn’t however, the whole of my argument. I said that Pratchett’s work broadly tended to side with the under-represent and focussed on being allowed to be yourself. I also said, in a line the magazine cut, that if Rhianna Pratchett, his daughter, and friends like Neil Gaiman thought Terry would be against the Gender Critical movement, well, that was good enough for me. I closed out by saying that this was an issue that needed nuance and compassion and that because people bring their own baggage to a piece of writing you can never say for sure what they will take from it. I’m still proud of it as a nuanced piece about a complicated issue.
Unfortunately, I had forgotten that a) Nuance does not go over well on the internet b) This was an extremely emotive issue that makes people fly to the extremes of an argument and c), despite actually including this view in my piece, people bring their own baggage to a piece of writing. At first, the reactions were lovely, people appreciated the affection with which I wrote about Terry and seemed to appreciate the complexities of the issue. At first. That didn’t last long. First of all the gender-critical mob found the piece and started a fairly relentless rant against my inherent misogynistic approach that allowed men to get away with pretending to be women in order to do … whatever. I’m sure you’ve heard the rants. This was tiresome, but not really that bad. I’ve gone hate-viral before. I had very little respect for people that hold these views, so their attacks didn’t really bother me. Then came the other side. The side that felt my (fairly reasonable) point that you can’t put words in the mouth of someone who has been dead for five years meant I was siding against the trans community. Many didn’t seem to have read past the headline. My own side was now coming for me. I muted the thread and tried to stay off Twitter for the rest of the day, but it was hard … partly because I want to retaliate, and partly because they kept finding me. The piece was the most read article on the New Statesman website by quite some distance.
Despite having literally written an article about how people bring their own baggage to a piece of writing I had been entirely taken by surprise when people brought their own baggage to my piece of writing. I work on the internet, I’ve worked with online communities for over a decade. I know how this goes. And yet, still, I was taken by surprise. Even I had underestimated how toxic this particular debate can be, how emotive the subject is, and how much nuance can be lost in the yelling. “I’m just saying you need to approach this issue with nuance and compassion,” I said at one point. “F**k off” came the reply.
The thing is, this was my fault. I didn’t need to write this piece. This was a storm in teacup, the debate was stupid and it shouldn’t have been provided the oxygen needed to explode. I couldn’t resist though. This is a subject I could flex about, I could earn some money, I could stand up for my beliefs, grow my audience and, well, sell some books. So I agreed. A moment thought would have told me what would happen, how miserable it would have been, but my excitement to show off and my keen-ness to roll up my sleeves and join the fight over-rode my good sense. It wasn’t a fun day. I hate it. I do not handle being hated well; which seems a bit of a worrying trait in someone that constantly puts his creative projects out into the world to be reviewed.
The moral of this story? Shut up Marc. In the end I donated the fee I’d received, £150, to the wonderful trans charity Not A Phase. I wanted to be an ally, but I also wanted to benefit from that. It wasn’t worth it.
Recommendations
I can’t not start with this one. My wonderful wife Nicoletta Wylde has just published her debut poetry collection, and it’s absolutely phenomenal. We held the launch party last week, and it’s been getting rave responses. Even better is the companion book, Those Nine Days, which documents her experience finding out she was to be published while a patient a psychiatric hospital. It’s absolutely compelling.
Get The Direction of Greater Courage and Those Nine Days here
Grab your pre-order of the debut poetry collection ‘The Direction of Greater Courage’ NOW! (Out 29/7)
Next up, by best friend and non-binary rock n roll sibling Andrew O'Neill is off on tour. Their latest show is incredible, they have nearly two years of pent up comedy to splurge out, and each show is going to be special. Tickets are available here.
Finally, making what I think will be the last great stab at Album of The Year, the new Self Esteem material is ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. Check out Rebecca’s new song here.
And here it is! My new video HOW CAN I HELP YOU is here. Listen, stream, buy and view here: https://t.co/nklNoA5VBa
Excerpt from THE LONDON BOYS
Please bear in mind that this is a WORK IN PROGRESS. Much of this will change, a lot of it might even go. Please please don’t share it.
Chapter Three: Mod N Art
For both London Boys, the swinging sixties began with Soho, and Soho began with the 2i’s, the most famous of the ‘expresso’ bars scattered across the city, in which young people unable to gain entry to pubs and clubs, could get jacked on tiny coffees, hit the jukebox and watch live music. It was hardly the most salubrious of locations for a youth culture revolution, and yet one happened all the same. The 2i’s, located at 59 Old Compton Street on the site of what is now an upmarket fish and chip restaurant, was shabby. Upstairs was a small bar, wallpapered like your nan’s spare bedroom, the counter itself having space for a coffee machine and some bottles of pop, one side of the room dominated by a jukebox filled with mostly-American 45s. The few stools would be occupied by shifty-looking regulars with names like ‘Tom Football Head’, ‘Iron Foot Jack’ and ‘Jerry the Bat’. Other frequent punters included – genuinely – a pair of out-of-work ex-cons, always looking to be hired as someone’s rhythm section. Once or twice the Kray twins popped in. Lurking behind the bar might be Paul ‘Dr Death’ Lincoln or ‘Rebel’ Ray Hunter, the Australian wrestlers that leased the place from the two Irani brothers, the original managers that had given the cafe its name. The street-level shop was largely irrelevant though. The good stuff happened downstairs, in a tiny basement, scarcely the size of the average terrace house living room. Filling one side of the room was the stage; just boards on milk crates on which bands would cram themselves, singers forcing their voices through the ancient PA system. An electric fan hung down the wall, puttering uselessly. The walls themselves had been painted black by a helpful local songwriter and 2i’s regular called Lionel Bart, who would go on to pen any number of tunes for first-wave British rockers before branching out into musical theatre and hitting pay dirt with Oliver!. Alas, Bart hadn’t put much oom-pah-pah into his painting and decorating: the badly mixed paint rubbed off against anyone who leaned against it, which was inconvenient since the place was usually packed with kids, sweating, smoking and filling the air with their coffee and nicotine breath, which condensed and ran down the already streaky walls. It was fetid. Revolting. And yet, somehow, as the fifties ticked toward the sixties, it was also the most exciting place in the city. The 2i’s was where the skiffle boom and British rock n roll were born. It’s where Tommy Steele, Adam Faith and Cliff Richard were discovered, where Vince Taylor and the Playboys and Johnny Kidd and the Pirates swapped members like trading cards; where managers, agents and pop hopefuls would hang out, eyeing each other suggestively, working out how one could use the other. It was in the 2i’s where Allan Williams, the Beatles first manager, became reacquainted with the talent-scouting proprietor of the Kaiserkeller Club in Hamburg, leading to the deal that sent the future-fab-four to Germany for an essential crash course in amphetamines and late nights. On the door would be the volatile, charismatic bouncer, Peter Grant – later to find infamy as Led Zeppelin’s no-nonsense manager. Acts were mostly paid in coffee and coca-cola. By the time Marc discovered the place in 1958 its reputation was well established as somewhere to be seen, though the only noticeable difference to the facilities and decor was a new sign above the door, proclaiming it to be the ‘home of the stars’; a claim it was still making years later, long after the stars had moved on to clubs like the Marquee and the Flamingo; venues that served beer, had proper stages and didn’t require punters to nip back to the nearest tube station to use the loo.
Young Mark Feld, all of eleven years old, was a lunchtime regular in the 2i’s. By 1958 his mother, Phyllis, was following in her father’s footsteps, working on a fruit and veg stall on Berwick Street market, and would drag her son along to help. Marc, of course, couldn’t be relied upon to do anything as sensible as working on a market stall and doting Phyllis would slip him a few coppers and let him loose to explore Soho. Soho and the surrounding streets, containing the 2i’s, Tin Pan Alley, Carnaby Street, Covent Garden, the Marquee and more, are absolutely essential to the story of the London boys, and it’s worth taking a minute to get our heads around the geography. When people refer to Soho they’re generally talking about the square mile cornered by Oxford Circus tube station in the north east, Tottenham Court Road station to the north west, Leicester Square station to the south west and Picadilly Circus to south east, bordered by four iconic London roads: Oxford Street, Charing Cross Road, Shaftesbury Avenue and Regent Street. Back in the late 50s, just as it is now, Soho was London’s flashiest shop window. It contained most of the theatres, China town, Little Italy, the gay bars of Old Compton Street and sex shops of Wardour Street, the fashion centre of Liberty’s of London department store and nearby Carnaby Street and the movie screening rooms and studio offices of Soho Square itself. Berwick Street had the food stalls and record shops, while stately Regent street housed offices and media companies and the apartments of socialites. Just outside the square mile, across the Charing Cross Road, was Denmark Street, home to innumerable music shops, music publishing companies and recording studios. Until the final nail of gentrification in the mid 2010s, Soho contained numerous legendary live music clubs, though most have now closed. Back in the fifties and sixties Soho was the heart of the UK’s music and movie industries. By the early sixties it had become Marc and David’s personal stalking ground.
The 2i’s was an obvious first target for Marc, who knew its reputation. With characteristic tale-spinning he would later tell journalists of seeing a pre-fame Cliff Richard being thrown from the venue, and attending one of Tommy Steele’s first performances; both of which were probably untrue – it’s far more likely that he discovered those artists at the Hackney Empire when they performed on the Oh Boy! TV show. Mostly Marc was attracted by the jukebox, giving him endless access to the American rock n roll records he loved so much, and which were played all too infrequently on British radio. It further deepened his understanding of music, and gave him a taste for the more authentically Black sounds coming over from the US: Bill Doggett, Ray Charles, the Drifters, the Coasters and more. Often the chubby little boy with the Elvis hair helped serve coffees when he should be helping his mother on the stall, just so he could hear the music. What became clear to Marc was that the 2i’s was somewhere people got discovered. He knew that svengalis like Larry Parnes, the manager of Billy Fury, Tommy Steele, Johnny Gentle and a host more, hung around the bar on the hunt for talent. Even as an eleven-year-old novice he had sufficient charisma to batter the staff into letting him perform, though his mother believed they only let him on to shut him up. At some point in the Autumn of 1958 Marc and his fellow Hula-Hoop Stephen Gould Actually played a short lunchtime gig at the 2i’s under the name ‘Rick and Ellis’ (Marc was ‘Ellis’, naming himself after a local eccentric who lived on a canal boat – the first occasion we know of where Marc developed a separate identity under which to perform.) The two had worked up a short set as they searched endlessly for a fourth chord to learn, and among the songs played that day were Eddie Cochran’s ‘Summertime Blues’ (sang by Marc) and Elvis’s ‘(You’re So Square) Baby I don’t Care’ (sang by Stephen). Alas no-one in the 2i’s that day seemed to see the potential in a be-quiffed eleven-year-old attempting Eddie Cochran’s smoulder. Stephen was thrilled to have simply played the gig, but Marc was devastated that it hadn’t led to anything. That evening he shut himself in his room, livid that his dreams had been foiled. It’s our first glimpse at both the bullish self-confidence and slightly deluded entitlement that would come to define his career. He had genuinely had thought the show was his ticket to rock fame.
© Marc Burrows/ Pen & Sword Books 2021