Now this really gets me at it of a Friday night.
I first saw this on a night of rare “punk” footage at the King’s Cross Scala hosted by Clinton Heylin in the early 90s; there were a couple of hundred of us huddled there – including such fans as Alan McGee + Bobby Gillespie – for that opportunity.
Everything we saw that night is freely available on Youtube these days.
This compilation of scenes from 1989 raves is proof positive of the nutso-bongo atmosphere of such events, and that tracks such as Street Tuff still prompt a shake of the leg (and other limbs).
NAME: Jeff Dexter
RESIDES: North London
OCCUPATION: Man about town
Trace the progress of popular culture over the last six decades and you’ll find Jeff Dexter at some of its crucial stages of development: demonstrating the twist to modernists at The Lyceum Ballroom and advising the Beatles on which boots to wear in the early 60s; DJing for the noonday underground at Tiles a few years later and then moving into London’s counter-cultural underground as a mainman at Middle Earth and The Roundhouse, where his Implosion nights set the scene for the rise of such friends as Marc Bolan and David Bowie.
There’s Jeff hanging out at Hung On You, booking bands for the first Glastonbury and Isle Of Wight festivals, managing chart-topping America, announcing The Clash at one of their early gigs and DJing for Paul Weller at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire a couple of years back as part of the Island 50 celebrations.
And now he’s answered the Blokes Of Britain questionnaire:
Hi Jeff. What’s with your look these days?
Eclectic and vintage. I mix anything from the past, from another culture, with the standard look which has been ingrained in me since childhood. I looked at some photos today and realised I’ve been doing this since 1968!
You can’t beat Iggy for range: balletic posturing, arrhythmic shape-throwing, hand-held-high swaying (with mic lead clamped between teeth), the imploring bit on the knees and all-out floor-grovelling, they’re all here in this clip from 1977.
30 seconds into this clip, Humphrey Ocean is called on stage to perform one of his amazing dances with the stars of the Stiff 1977 tour.
Come Friday night I like a bit of a cavort, complete with elaborate flourishes and exhibitionist tendencies.
One of my ambitions is to dance alongside self-styled attention whore/gig irritant Beatle Bob.
Watch him go with Roky Erickson to Don’t Shake Me Lucifer:
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