This band might not be one that a newer rock fan has heard of, but with as many as eight studio albums released between 1969 and 1982 + a number of live albums, there’s a lot to explore here for those curious about listening to music other than what everyone else is listening to. Give them a chance. Besides, it’s a delightful interview to read.
Read on!
Roll up Roll up – the Broughton circus is coming to town
Richard Green talks to “uncle” Edgar
Freddie and the Dreamers and groups of that ilk make a good living entertaining kiddies a lot of the time, while at the other end of the scale Frank Zappa´s audience tends to consist of what are frequently termed “head.” Edgar Broughton´s followers most definitely fall into the latter category but this isn´t going to deter him from having a crack at the former.
Not that this indicates a sell-out or an attempt to indoctrinate the next generation by any means. His plans, if they prove successful, stand a good chance of putting him in the “social worker” class. Which hardly sounds like Broughton.
To explain in detail what he has in mind, he met me in his publicist’s London office fittingly located behind the Shaftesbury Theatre where “Hair” is playing. He presented a somewhat intimidating figure, his plump frame topped by a Struwelpeter coiffure, and chose to sit on the floor with his back resting against a wall and his plim-soiled feet stretching across the carpet.
“I remember getting bored in the summer holidays and people in poorer areas must get even more bored as there’s less to do,” he began in his Warwick accent. “We plan to do some concerts for kids in those areas through the local authorities and play groups. We hope it will be different from a straight concert — games and that kind of thing. We can cope with any age group, we don’t know if we’ll appeal to them.”
And at the same time that he’s entertaining the younger set he plans to travel round the coast with his band on another venture.
“I’ve written to fifty towns right round the coast, except Scotland, and we hope to do ten concerts off the back of a lorry at the height of the season,” he revealed. “We’ve already been offered a site in Morecambe, and Redcar has shown interest.
“Somebody phoned up our manager the other day and virtually said ‘What’s the catch?’ but there is no catch, we’re not into catches. The band wants to expand in every way and we thought it would be very nice to put into practice a lot of what we say.
Image
“It’s not an attempt to change our image because we’re not into images — you don’t shout at kids ‘Yankee bases out’ or whatever it is these days.”
The summer concerts will almost certainly turn out to be a lot more peaceful than many of the gigs the band has played, especially on the Continent where Broughton is thought of in some circles as the revolutionaries’ Messiah. Tales of unrest and upheaval at his concerts are wide-spread and I asked him what were the drawbacks of such a reputation.
“The drawbacks are other people’s inefficiency and inability to understand the roots of what we’re trying to do,” he replied simply. “We’re not trying to convert people… I suppose you could describe us as the court jesters of the underground revolution or whatever. We’re not a political party, we feel we have an insight into what’s going to happen.”
But what about the riots and people getting hurt? Doesn’t he feel guilty?
“People have never got hurt at any of our concerts to my knowledge,” he countered. “In Berlin once, though, the equipment was totally inadequate and we just couldn’t use it and ours hadn’t arrived so I had to go out and face the audience and tell them they’d have to wait. They just went outside and started fighting police and that’s when the trouble started.
“I don’t think we aggravate or incite violence at all, people have tried to lay that on us several times. It’s just a matter of controlling the audience.”
Slowly, he hauled himself on to all fours and began crawling across the floor in my direction. Maybe I was about to be given a method of control? But he altered course and moved instead to the coffee table where he reached for a cigarette and returned peacefully to his self-appointed place by the wall.
It’s worth pointing out that, never having met him before, I had fears of Broughton being a wild man of Borneo character liable to prove at least surly and at worst touchy. But he was neither. Throughout the interview he listened politely to the questions and answered them openly without recourse to the oaths and curses that many of his contemporaries deem necessary to project a heavy image.
Ladybirds
An album titled simply “The Edgar Broughton Band” is trickling out of the factories after some trouble with the final sound — something about which Broughton is plainly and understandably annoyed and the blame for which he lays firmly on the delicate head of his record company. One of the more interesting features of the recording is the inclusion on certain tracks of the Ladybirds.
“We thought we’d have some other voices but the keys were out of our range a bit and we wanted to do it quickly,” he remarked.
“We didn’t know about the session bit and people told us about the Ladybirds so we got them in. I think they were a bit puzzled about the lyrics but they were very nice and lovely. The album is finished now and over with and that’s it.
“We have some sort of idea how the next one is going to sound but by the time we’re half-way through it we’ll have things happening to us and we’ll be experiencing things that will determine how it’s going to sound… so we know, but we don’t know.”
This album cost £10,000 to make but that doesn’t bother Broughton.
“It is a lot of money but then again it’s not a lot of money at all,” was his comment. “I’m told that £10,000 is so big” — he described a package with his hands — “but I’ve never seen it so I don’t care. I got a cheque for £400 the other day and I’ve never had that much so I didn’t even cash it.
“I think the reason so-called pop stars spend so much money is they get a lot and think ‘What have I done to deserve this? I’d better spend it before someone else gets hold of it.”
Broughton is an exponent of free concerts and this attitude has landed him in hot water a number of times. Why, ask the critics, if he’s so pro free concerts does he ask a fee for appearances?
“Free music to me is an ideology, it’s anti this sort of society,” he explained. “I enjoy playing at free concerts much more than gigs. People niggle about us charging bread but they’re not prepared to organise anything else.
“People want everything packaged and laid out in legible type and we’re not into that, we are what we are and if people can’t understand that it’s too bad — we can just try and be more articulate. We get misunderstood at times. We haven’t found the answer to people’s problems.”
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