Snob Value I
NAN ERA MARKED BOTH BY THE peak of rock ’n’ roll productivity and the regular intersection of the worlds of showbiz, cabaret and beat music, the
early ’60s was undoubtedly the golden age of that most sadly overlooked of rock tropes – the cheap gimmick.
Yes, at a time when many rock managers had cut their teeth on the all-in wrestling circuit, some chose to kit their charges out with hastily-thrown together matching outfits and send them out onto the regional Corn Exchange circuit with scarcely a thought for their personal dignity.
Just take The Snobs. Although they produced two singles of winningly English- sounding rock ’n’ roll that have lived on through the occasional compilation appearance on the likes of AIP’s English Freakbeat series, it’s unlikely that the band’s broad South London accents and gritty guitars would be talked about quite as fondly were it not for their manager’s decision to dress them in sort of beat- era approximations of 18th Century dandies – complete with buckled shoes, flouncy cravats and powdered periwigs.
The roots of The Snobs lie in Thornton Heath in suburban Croydon – eight miles from the centre of London – where teenage school friends Colin Sandland, Pete Yerrell and John Boulden got together with drummer Eddy Gilbert to form a Shadows-style rock band called The Apostles. “We played at weddings and school hall dances,” remembers Eddy Gilbert today. “But my all-time favourite gig was as the warm up for the kids at Saturday Morning
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Pictures at The Odeon in Thornton Heath Pond. Forget The Hollywood Bowl, this was the best reception any band ever got anywhere.”
It was while playing a wedding reception at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls that the band met Ivor Spencer. A former chef, Spencer now made a living acting as toastmaster at society functions and spotted a business opportunity with The Apostles. He agreed to act as their manager; booking them gigs at events he was
clip has found its way onto
MCing as the musical entertainment. “What we were doing was cabaret,” says Gilbert. “20 minute performances at up-market functions for the rich and famous. OK, maybe not the rich and famous, but certainly the rich. Rock and roll was a novelty for these people so we were always very well received.”
Spencer changed the band’s name to The
YouTube and shows both the band and Spencer performing for a group of stunningly arrhythmic black tie-clad toffs. Complete with typically tweedy commentary (“we’ve had a singing nun up among the Top Pops, but the monks who used to live in this 13th Century Abbey never heard sounds like this”), the film is a charming relic of one of the odder footnotes in British musical history.
Donning regency wigs, velvet suits and partaking of snuff and balloons of brandy on-stage, THE SNOBS remain one of the most unusual acts to emerge from the beat group era. PAT LONG summons his horse and carriage and ventures into their weird world.
Snobs and masterminded their new image, which was unveiled at a gig at Quaglino’s restaurant in Soho. Taking the Snob theme to its most ridiculous conclusion, Spencer even employed a butler for the band. Emerging onstage with an air freshener before they arrived, he would also hand them their guitars, snuff and balloons of brandy while they played. “Pretty soon afterwards we started getting newspaper publicity,” says Gilbert, “and through Ivor’s effort we got an agent and a recording contract with Decca.”
In late 1963 the four Snobs were sent up to North London to record at Decca’s Hampstead studios. The atmosphere there sounds ramshackle, to say the least. “I was playing my own drumkit,” laughs Eddy, “so my ride cymbal had enough sticking plaster holding it together to deal with a train wreck and there was a fag packet taped to the snare drum”. Neither the band nor Decca were particularly satisfied with the results, so they took the unusual decision to record some tracks live. Further displaying his genius for promotion, Ivor Spencer decided that this would be done at a function he was MCing at in the old Medmenham Abbey in Buckinghamshire, notorious as the 18th Century haunt of the Hellfire Club. Inviting a newsreel film crew from Pathé to film proceedings was Spencer’s final stroke of genius - as usual the
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