and fumbled opportunities. A pretty, moon-faced Welsh girl named Ann - one of my student co-tenants at the dorm - latched on to me and wasted no time in inviting me to share her bed. God bless you, Ann, if you happen to read this. You set me free to roam freely in the world of adult pleasure and promiscuity-a great place to take up squatter’s rights in when you’re still only nineteen. I received a better life education from being in your carnal caress than I ever did from attending any lectures.
The only problem I had as a student was the actual course I’d
enrolled in: linguistics, or the study of the English language. For some reason I’d envisioned reading and discussing mostly modern literature and so was deeply underwhelmed when I discovered I had to decipher the original texts of Geoffrey Chaucer instead. Chaucer is rightly renowned as one of England’s first book-writers but that doesn’t automatically mean he’s one of the best too. His original Canterbury Tales is like a bad Carry On script written by a halfwit and having to translate it into a modern-language idiom was a task I couldn’t work up the remotest inkling of a desire to pursue. When we weren’t focusing on Chaucer’s silly texts, we were getting bombarded by lecturers hopelessly in thrall to the ancient words and thoughts of my old pal John Milton. One old biddy who taught us would even occasionally break down and weep when discussing his timeless magnificence. Meanwhile, I was weeping invisible tears of utter stultifying boredom.
Soon enough I stopped turning up to these lectures altogether and spent my time instead furtively exploring current London-based culture. The city had some great live venues like Finsbury Park’s Rainbow Theatre and Camden Town’s Roundhouse: Sunday afternoons at the latter were a real poseur’s paradise. The artsy cinemas had special late-night showings that were always instructive to attend and the hip bookshops regularly put on literary happenings and poetry readings: I saw Patti Smith boldly reciting some early texts of hers without the aid of musical accompaniment - her first-ever public performance in Europe, I believe - that winter to an audience of no more than fifteen people. I knew there and then she’d go on to become one of the decade’s creative players. I’d already been impressed by her work because her poetry had lately been published in a Michigan-based
periodical called Creem which you could only buy here in the UK from one source: Camden Town’s Compendium bookshop. One issue I bought that year featured a review by staff writer Dave Marsh of a Question Mark and the Mysterians reunion concert in which the term ‘punk rock’ was first coined. A new genre was making its first tottering baby steps courtesy of the international rock press.
Meanwhile, Creem ’s rival Rolling Stone was going from strength to strength - like its namesakes, the journal enjoyed its all-time creative peak throughout 1971. That year, Hunter S. Thompson’s seminal gonzo screed Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas got published in its pages, months before it appeared in book form. John Lennon laid his soul bare to editor Jann Wenner in an extraordinary two-part interview. A freelancer named Grover Lewis - assigned to cover the Allman Bros. on a draining US tour - almost got beaten up by the group and retaliated by writing a wonderfully observed warts-and-all exposé of their charmless lives and nasty habits. And another freelancer, Tom Nolan, turned in a mesmerising extra-length feature on Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, the first article ever to pull back the curtain on the madness and dysfunctionalism that reigned behind their rugged all-American image. This was new journalism at its very best. The writers weren’t blandly observing their subjects from a respectful distance any more, they were right there in the scrum as wilful participants soaking up the essence and then channelling it into an art form of their own.
The only problem I had as a student was the actual course I’d
enrolled in: linguistics, or the study of the English language. For some reason I’d envisioned reading and discussing mostly modern literature and so was deeply underwhelmed when I discovered I had to decipher the original texts of Geoffrey Chaucer instead. Chaucer is rightly renowned as one of England’s first book-writers but that doesn’t automatically mean he’s one of the best too. His original Canterbury Tales is like a bad Carry On script written by a halfwit and having to translate it into a modern-language idiom was a task I couldn’t work up the remotest inkling of a desire to pursue. When we weren’t focusing on Chaucer’s silly texts, we were getting bombarded by lecturers hopelessly in thrall to the ancient words and thoughts of my old pal John Milton. One old biddy who taught us would even occasionally break down and weep when discussing his timeless magnificence. Meanwhile, I was weeping invisible tears of utter stultifying boredom.
Soon enough I stopped turning up to these lectures altogether and spent my time instead furtively exploring current London-based culture. The city had some great live venues like Finsbury Park’s Rainbow Theatre and Camden Town’s Roundhouse: Sunday afternoons at the latter were a real poseur’s paradise. The artsy cinemas had special late-night showings that were always instructive to attend and the hip bookshops regularly put on literary happenings and poetry readings: I saw Patti Smith boldly reciting some early texts of hers without the aid of musical accompaniment - her first-ever public performance in Europe, I believe - that winter to an audience of no more than fifteen people. I knew there and then she’d go on to become one of the decade’s creative players. I’d already been impressed by her work because her poetry had lately been published in a Michigan-based
periodical called Creem which you could only buy here in the UK from one source: Camden Town’s Compendium bookshop. One issue I bought that year featured a review by staff writer Dave Marsh of a Question Mark and the Mysterians reunion concert in which the term ‘punk rock’ was first coined. A new genre was making its first tottering baby steps courtesy of the international rock press.
Meanwhile, Creem ’s rival Rolling Stone was going from strength to strength - like its namesakes, the journal enjoyed its all-time creative peak throughout 1971. That year, Hunter S. Thompson’s seminal gonzo screed Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas got published in its pages, months before it appeared in book form. John Lennon laid his soul bare to editor Jann Wenner in an extraordinary two-part interview. A freelancer named Grover Lewis - assigned to cover the Allman Bros. on a draining US tour - almost got beaten up by the group and retaliated by writing a wonderfully observed warts-and-all exposé of their charmless lives and nasty habits. And another freelancer, Tom Nolan, turned in a mesmerising extra-length feature on Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, the first article ever to pull back the curtain on the madness and dysfunctionalism that reigned behind their rugged all-American image. This was new journalism at its very best. The writers weren’t blandly observing their subjects from a respectful distance any more, they were right there in the scrum as wilful participants soaking up the essence and then channelling it into an art form of their own.
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