Hi again aj, original copies of the Melody Maker from the mid-seventies onwards are in the British Library.

Copies of the NME start about '78 I think, which is a bit late for the era I was looking at. The British Library have recently added the ProQuest database which has scanned copies of the music press pages from the 60s onwards - MM mostly (whatever happened to Sounds etc?)

The copy is readable on the computer by magnifying it up - but getting printouts of the pages aren't practicable - the print is either too small, or when printed out on a larger font unreadable (the letters, erm, break up into formless blobs). Pity.

I could type up the main ones and share them on here if you bear with me for a little while. They are of there time, of course. Not that I was looking for them, but I haven't found any 'controversial' articles.... perhaps they are all in the absent copies of the NME?

I think the worst thing I came across were some disparaging remarks Steve made about finding himself in the same chart as The Wombles in '74, which brought about a wry smile, to think that within 10 years the same hot youth would be singing a Mike Batt song himself.

Hi GedKen,

Forgive the late reply,

If you do get time to share some of these I'm sure everyone will enjoy reading them. That's an interesting thing about the Wombles - funny how things turn out.

Hi aj,

I might even have that Wombles piece somewhere at home. I'II brew up a tea and have a look around. It was part of an article where each of the band were interviewed individually for MM.

Nope, its not at home. However here it is in all it's unalloyed glory. The grammar is of its time I guess. From June 1974...now don't go shooting the messenger

“Judy Teen” for Steve Harley, means that first and foremost Cockney Rebel can now reach a far wider audience.

“That’s all that matters to me. People expect me to be all exciting about the single being in the charts but what does it mean to me to be in the company of the Wombles or Barry Blue? I can live without that! To succeed where they’ve succeeded is no great achievement.”

But Steve will not allow a follow-up single to be made, even though the band have set themselves the task of making one, and succeeding with their first try.

“The candid truth is that being in the company of the Wombles is embarrassing, and to be in apparent competition with them is degrading and unfair. Also to sell a record beyond No. 28, in this country you’re obliged to do Top of the Pops, and doing that was probably the most degrading, embarrassing experience in the band’s history”

With Steve, instinct and ambition are the same thing. He has an obsessive will to succeed, a rare driving force that hurls the band onwards and upwards. He comes from East London where his father taught him to be individual and single-minded, he worked as a newspaper reporter but soon found that wasn’t the road to fulfilment. As a child he suffered from polio and that brought him low. Afterwards there was no time to be wasted – he tasted pain and confusion.

“A lot of time has been spent – we’ve given up now – trying to convince people we weren’t manufactured bubblegum just because we wore pretty clothes. We are five guys with some musical substance and, more importantly with integrity. I came along and said we’re not gonna compete with those morons on electric guitars, we’re gonna bypass that. If people are still into Woodstock they’d better go elsewhere. I always said we were gonna get to the top. It wasn’t bragging, it wasn’t bigheadedness. I was purely saying look, I feel like God’s touched me and said ‘here’s a mission and someone’s gotta do it.’ Now for Chrisakes, that’s not bigheaded, that’s just saying I’m telling the truth, and the truth is that we are lucky enough to possess the ingredients to start making changes in the set-up of rock. We don’t want to be part of the club. We don’t even know other musicians. I don’t wanna socialise with ‘em – that way you turn out sounding just like ‘em. We’re not part of that. That’s why some people love us and, for the same reason, others hate us.”

As for potential, Steve says that neither ‘The Human Menagerie’ or ‘The Psychomodo’ stretched the band’s abilities, they found the albums simple to make, even.

Thanks GedKen for taking the time to put this text up. An interesting piece of history.

Pleasure aj,

did everybody take rock so earnestly in the early 70s? This piece makes me laugh - it must have been done tongue in cheek surely?

Poor old Wombles... at least Steve outlasted them!