Did I ever tell you the one about what was,
until recently (see
here), my second best
ever car-boot sale find?* It was ridiculously
early one Sunday morning in 1991, in a shady
corner of a car park, adjacent to Ipswich
Town football ground and as I ambled along a
row of tightly packed wallpapering tables,
bowing under the weight of a thousand unloved
nick-nacks, I spied a cardboard box on the
ground, pushed back beneath a table and
almost out of sight. I pulled the heavy box
forwards and lifted the flaps to discover a
pile of magazines, topped by a vintage copy
of the Radio Times. Nothing too exciting
here, I thought. Delving a little deeper,
though, beneath several more old TV listing
guides, lay 24 random issues of Beat
Instrumental Magazine from the late 1960s and very early 1970s. I got the whole box for a quid.
During that period, Beat Instrumental was a publication
where Clodagh Rodgers rubbed shoulders with
King Crimson and an interview with Glen
Campbell jostled for position with Viv
Stanshall's latest column. I had hours of fun
ploughing through the magazines, reading about
'underground' band Tyrannosaurus Rex
shortening their name to T.Rex, Jimmy Page
unveiling the line-up of The 'New' Yardbirds
and The Trogg's adventures on a package tour
with a new young band called The Jimi Hendrix
Experience. Towards the end of the 1990s,
with finances a little tight, I sold all 24
of the magazines for an amount that, at the
time, it would've been silly to turn down.
The only reason I mention this fairly
uninteresting little tale, is that at the
weekend I stumbled, in not totally dissimilar
circumstances, upon another batch of Beat
Instrumentals. The weird thing is that, once
again, there were 24 of them in the box. Not
consecutive issues, but 24 random ones. I
picked them up 50 miles from the location of
that initial haul 23 years ago and 120 miles
from where I later sold them, so I doubt
they're the same magazines, returning like a
group of long lost homing pigeons (though I've yet to totally rule this out), but why 24
again? Why not 5 or 10 or 50? Perhaps people only dispose of them in lots of 24 - I did. Perhaps 24 is
my lucky number. Maybe it's time I did the
lottery. Either way, my spare time reading material for the immediate future just took a turn for the better.
Here's Coxsone Dodd's house band, The Sound
Dimension, with a killer Studio One
instrumental entitled 'Heavy Beat'. You see
what I did there? Instrumental.....Beat.....
Oh, please yourself!
(*My number one best ever car-boot sale find? I really
must share that, one of these days.)
Just a few hours ago, in a charity shop some
40 miles from here, I speculatively handed over 50 of my hard earned pennies in exchange for an LP entitled 'South of the Border', by Brazilia 70 & the Chico Lopez All-Stars. In spite of the long-winded moniker, it's a rather anonymous affair, containing precious little additional information regarding the personnel involved. After listening to the first few tracks, however, it quickly became clear that both the quality of the playing and the production values are far superior to what you'd expect from a 1970 release on a budget record label.
As the house lights dim, Nic Jones appears
from the side curtain, puts down his walking
stick and makes his way unsteadily across the
stage, pausing to wave and bow to the
cheering and already emotional audience.
Behind him, Joe, rake thin, jet black hair,
steps to the microphone to affectionately address his Dad. 'What
are you bowing for? You haven't done anything
yet!' Later, Nic introduces Bill Worsfold's,
'I Only Spoke Portuguese', by explaining that
it's the true story of a couple, neither of
whom spoke the other's language, who were
therefore unable to speak directly to each
other throughout their long marriage. Joe,
busy re-tuning his guitar, looks up for long
enough to mutter, 'Yes, I expect Mum would've
quite liked that...' Badum tish!
