A Lesson Learned
Dear Joe,
Great to find your site - a fine effort! I'm hitting the record shop tomorrow. Here's a personal memory....
Back in the early 70s when I was at college, we had a Social Studies class: Tutor: "OK, we're going to talk about the way that women are discriminated against in modern Britain -- Andy what do you think?"
Me: "Well I really can't see any problem, I mean, they get the same treatment as we do don't they?" (Hey, come on, I was 17, ok?) Snorts of derision from half the class, "Yeah" from the other.
Now that evening I went to see the All-Star Band somewhere in Bristol. After "Sexist Pig," I was starting to think; after "Coulene Ann," I was feeling a real berk. The reconstruction started there....
It doesn't quite end there: sometime ago, we were watching Top of the Pops (UK chart show) -- The Spice Girls were just hitting. I've got 2 daughters & the youngest (7) pipes up: "Dad, girls only sing in bands don't they?" We come back with Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Chrissie Hynde etc., but she still looked unconvinced.
At the Bristol gig all those years ago, I'd asked the drummer (Anna Rizzo?) for one of her broken sticks as a memento -- she gave me a pair. (Flash forward.) I dug the sticks out and showed the kids the split stick and all the bruising & dents (they're heavy sticks too) & told them how this female drummer had beat the @*&% out of the kit. Voila! another shift in perception!
Sorry about rambling on, but I thought you might like to know how you touched 2 generations in some small way. I'll shut up now.
Love and peace
Andy Paxton <a.paxton@uea.ac.uk>
Norwich, UK
Arridge wrote me this postscript to the above story:
Hi Joe, amazed to read on your amazing stories of a guy who was at your gig in Bristol, England in the 70s.I hitched down from Oxford to catch it, in fact you were supported by local Oxford heroes "The Global Village Trucking Company." Remember you played the Hokie Cokie for an encore after a set that incuded most of the Paris sessions album. You might like to check out a book written by my former landlady, sociologist, & ex band leader of the Mistakes & Jane Goes Shopping. It's called Frock Rock by Mavis Bayton & it's published by Oxford University Press. Thanks for many years of great music, intelligence & humour ... Richard.