Your favorite James Bond tends to be the one you saw first. I saw Sean Connery first in a double bill of Thunderball and You Only Live Twice, at the Astoria Cinema, Edinburgh. This was soon followed by Diamonds are Forever at the Playhouse. Of course, Connery being Scots means I am probably biased, but his Bond had what made the series work best - sophistication, humor and thrills.

If it came to a second choice? Well, Moore never seemed sure if he was playing Simon Templar or Lord Brett Sinclair, and by Octopussy, he was cast as a sub-Flashman character in a dismal script by Flashman author, George MacDonald Fraser. Timothy Dalton was too dull and way too serious, perhaps he should have played it more like Simon Skinner, a slightly unhinged secret service man with a license to kill. Pierce Brosnan was good but deserved far better scripts - his Bond should have eliminated the scriptwriters. And as for Daniel Craig - started well, but he looks like he’s in a different film franchise.

For me George Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the only possible second choice. He tried to make his Bond more humane, and kept much what was best in Connery’s interpretation. He was also assisted by a cracking script by Richard Maibaum (additional dialog by Simon “the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel” Raven); an excellent supporting of Diana Rigg as Countess Tracy di Vicenzo, and Telly Savalas as Ernst Stavro Blofeld; and one of the best opening theme tunes (and a glorious song sung by Louis Armstrong) of the series by John Barry.

Yet no matter what Lazenby did, or how good the film, he faced the momentous task of filling a role made by Sean Connery, and he was damned by a lot of critics for it. In this rarely seen interview, George Lazenby talks about the difficulties faced in making On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the rumors, the on-set niggles and why he was banned for growing a beard. First broadcast on the BBC, February 4th, 1970.
 

 
With thanks to Nellym
 

 
Roughly 6 months after their first gig (where they were billed as ‘The Yardbirds med Jimmy Page’) this is Led Zeppelin giving a hint as to why they will dominate venues and stadia across the world during the 1970s.

Recorded at the Gladsaxe Teen Club, Denmark, for TV Byen / Danmarks Radio on March 17, 1969, Led Zeppelin perform “Communication Breakdown”, “Dazed and Confused”, “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”, and “How Many More Times”. Impressive and tight, this was what I considered as “grown-up Rock ‘n’ Roll” when I was young - the kind of music you studied after achieving good grades in Bowie and Bolan - and forty-three years on, it is still a cracking masterclass.
 

 
Established by James East in the 1950s, Burgess Hill School (aka the Beat School) in Hertfordshire, England, allowed its pupils to do what they wanted, in the belief this was the best way for youngsters to learn. Rules were frowned upon, and “Tradition,” it was claimed, “was clinging to the dead past.” Even smoking in class was tolerated, for as Headmaster East explained to Time Magazine in 1962:

“Kids always smoke, and I’d rather know about it than have it done in secret.”

Such openness encouraged the young uns to fulfill their potential, and find happiness in doing so, which is how it should be.

Like the best of the British Pathe clips, this short clip on Burgess Hill Beat School leaves you wanting to know more. What happened to the school? Did the experiment of a Beat School work? What did these children grow up to do? Where are they now? It would make for an interesting documentary on BBC 4, and one hopes a dozen researchers are penning such a proposal right now.

A longer 4 minutes clip is viewable here.
 

 
In June 2004, Dave Davies suffered a stroke as he was exiting a lift, in BBC’s Broadcasting House.

Suddenly the right hand side of my body seized up and I couldn’t move my arm or leg. Although I didn’t lose consciousness, I couldn’t speak. Luckily my son Christian and my publicist were there, so they carried me outside and called an ambulance.

Though he had warnings signs - waking up one morning to find he couldn’t move his right hand or speak when he opened his mouth - and was examined by a doctor, nothing indicated the imminence of his stroke. As Dave later wrote in the Daily Mail in 2006:

I was told I’d had a stroke - or, in medical terms, a cerebral infraction. An ‘infarct’ is an area of dead tissue and there was a patch of it on the left side of my brain - the bit that controls movement on the right side.

The doctors told me I had high blood pressure and that this was what had caused the stroke. They thought I’d probably had high blood pressure for at least ten years….

...Two weeks after my stroke, I finally plucked the courage to pick up my guitar. I held it across my lap, pressing on the strings. I could feel everything but the hand itself was virtually immobile.

I knew I was going to have to work very hard if I was to get better, and I started using meditation and visualisation. I thought if I could visualise myself running, walking and playing the guitar, it might prompt my brain to remember how I used to be.

It took Dave 18 months of physio, determination and hard work, to get “about 85 per cent back to normal”.

I believe my stroke was meant to happen to slow me down. I’d like to write and male films and start a foundation where I can help people be more spiritual…

...For now I appreciate my slower pace of life. I feel I have discovered an inner strength which I know will see me through any adversity.

Made in 2011, Julien Temple’s pastoral documentary Kinkdom Come is a touching portrait of the other half of The Kinks, Dave Davies.

Opening with Davies in the wilds of Exmoor, where he revels in the desolation and the quiet, Temple’s film moves through Dave’s life story, examining key moments in his childhood, his career as guitarist with The Kinks, his openness about sexuality, his (some would say torturous) relationship with his brother Ray, and the damagingly high cost of that all of his fame, success and position as “iconic Sixties figure” has cost him.

Throughout, Dave comes across as an honest, gentle soul, slightly lost, beautifully innocent, almost ethereal, as if he is a visitor from some other galaxy.
 

 
In May 1968, The Small Faces caused outrage by promoting their latest album Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake with a parody of the Lord’s Prayer:

Small Faces
Which were in the studios
Hallowed by thy name
Thy music come
Thy songs be sung
On this album as they came from your heads
We give you this day our daily bread
Give us thy album in a round cover as we give thee 37/9d.,
Lead us into the record stores.
And deliver us Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake
For nice is the music
The sleeve and the story
For ever and ever, Immediate.

The English press were filled with banner headlines and letters from Angry of Milton Keynes, and Slough, and Lower Perineum. Guitarist and lead singer, Steve Marriott blamed the mad men who’d devised the campaign:

“We didn’t know a thing about the ad. until we saw it in the music papers. And frankly we got the horrors at first. We realise that it could be taken as a serious knock against religion. But on thinking it over, we don’t feel it is particularly good or bad. It’s just another form of advertising. We’re not all that concerned about it. We’re more concerned in writing our music and producing our records”

It was not as damaging as John Lennon’s bigger than Christ quote, but that was probably because The Small Faces never really cracked America - though they left fingerprints with “Itchycoo Park”. The failure to crack America was a major shame, for out of all the bands that came out of that sixties pop revolution, The Small Faces were amongst the best, most accomplished and fun.

The following month on Friday June 21st, The Small Faces appeared on the BBC arts series Colour Me Pop - a fore-runner to The Old Gray Whistle Test - where they performed (mimed) most of their album. This and performances by The Move and The Moody blues are all that remains of the interesting catalogue of artists (from Zappa and The Mothers, The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Free and even Gene Pitney), that appeared on Colour Me Pop, which were all wiped on the say-so of high level BBC intelligence.

Here then is The Small Faces, Steve Marriott - vocals, guitar, Ronnie Lane - backing vocals, bass guitar, Kenney Jones - drums, Ian McLagan - keyboards with guest Stanley Unwin performing extracts form their classic album Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake, on Colour Me Pop.

01. “Song of a Baker”
02. “Lazy Sunday”
03. “Happiness Stan”
04. “Rollin’ Over”
05. “The Hungry Intruder”
06. “The Journey”
07. “Mad John”
08. “Happy Days Toy Town”
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

If You Think You’re Groovy: The Amazing Soul Rock Sound of P. P. Arnold

 
Pop Goes the Easel was Ken Russell’s first full-length documentary for the BBC’s arts series Monitor. It focused on 4 British Pop Artists - Peter Blake, Peter Philips, Pauline Boty and Derek Boshier.

Russell was revolutionary in his approach to making this film, he developed a whole range of new techniques to capture and reflect the excitement and energy of these young artists, which was cutting edge back in 1962, but are now part of the very heart of documentary-making (you’ll may also note clues to some of Russell’s later works). It’s a beautiful wee film that captures these artists, their work and the start of the swinging sixties perfectly - though I only wish it was in color.
 

 
Sometimes there are groups that need no introduction.

But for the record:

The Bonzo Dog Band explain “Noises for the Leg”  to Jimmy Savile, BBC December 28, 1969. Take one - lovely.
 

 
With thanks to the bi-ped Nellym!
 

 
The Rolling Stones hanging out at Brian Jones’ Courtfield Road apartment for an Italian news item, in January 1967. Jones tickles the ivories, Jagger smokes, and Richard lies in bed strumming his guitar. The Stones were about to release Between the Buttons, their 5th U.K. and 7th U.S. studio album, and the last produced by Andrew Loog Oldham. As was the practice back then, the U.S. version differed from the U.K. release with tracks replaced with the singles “Ruby Tuesday”, and “Let’s Spend the Night Together”. The album was a glorious pop masterpiece, and contains the first hint of psychedelia (“Yesterday’s Papers”), which The Stones would focus on with the next album Their Satanic Majesties Request, and Keith Richard’s first lead vocal on “Something Happened to Me Yesterday”.

Though this clip has been over-dubbed, it doesn’t take away from its cultural importance, as it captures The Stones in a relaxed mood at the start of what would be one of their more difficult and controversial years. Within the year, Jagger and Richard were arrested, tried and sent to prison for drug possession. Jones suffered a similar fate, though escaped jail. Where their experience strengthened the bond between Jagger and Richard, it left the fragile Jones broken. Interesting then, to see from this clip, that Jones was the main focus and appeared to be the group’s leader, what a difference 12 months would make.
 

 
With thanks to Simon Wells!
 

 
This is rather delightful: “A Glossary of Television Terms” illustrated by John Alcorn, under the art direction of Lou Dorfsman, as an advertisement for CBS Television, published in the New York Times February 10th 1964. The ad amusingly explains such terms as:

Juic’er. Any television electrician who is especially trained and equipped to work with heavy power lines.

And,

Lock’jaw. (a) A performer who delivers lines without expression (b) A vocalist who lacks inspiration.

As well as,

Drop. Scenery which is suspended from metal frame-work or grid near the studio roof and is not framed.

Originally posted by somuchpileup and a larger version can be found here on thecuriousbrain.
 
With thanks to Maria Salavessa Hormigo Guimil
 

 
Chris Jagger presents a short film on Michael Joseph and his famous photo-shoot of The Rolling Stones’, for their Beggars Banquet album at Swarkestone Hall Pavilion, in 1968. Though Joseph’s photographs are now considered “among the best ever” taken of The Stones, a dispute between the band and their record label saw a plain R.S.V.P. invitation card used for the cover, which was later replaced by the infamous photograph of a graffiti-covered toilet.

A selection of Michael Joseph‘s Rolling Stones photos can be viewed here.
 

 
With thanks to Simon Wells
 

 
Holy vocal chords! Batman sings! Adam West gets all matey on the poop deck while charming (shurely hams? - ed.) his way through “This Is The LIfe”, from The Milton Berle Show. But first pop fiends Mr. West gives his rendition (shurely torture? - ed.) of a darling little heartfelt ditty “You Only See Her” found on the wonderful site Lord of the Boot Sale.
 

Adam West - “You Only See Her”
 

Bonus - Adam West sings “Miranda”
 
With thanks to Neil McDonald

 
Looking like an advert for Swinging London, Joe Massot’s 1965 short Reflections on Love mixes pop documentary with scenes devised by writer Derek Marlowe and (apparently) an uncredited, Larry Kramer. Though everything looks rather beautiful, it is such a terribly straight film, and considering the talent involved, and doesn’t really offer much love for the audience to reflect on. Then, this was the Sixties, when everything was new and exciting, and getting hitched in a registry office was daring and rad. O, how innocent it all seems. Massot went on to direct George Harrison’s Wonderwall and later, Led Zeppelin’s concert film The Song Remains the Same. Kramer went on to script Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1967), and Ken Russell’s Women in Love (1969), before writing his novel Faggots in 1978. As for Marlowe, he wrote the classic double-agent spy thriller, A Dandy in Aspic, and followed this up with a series of idiosyncratic and stylish novels (from crime to Voodoo to Lord Byron), which are all shamefully out-of-print, and not even available as e-books - publishers please note.

The original version was twenty-one minutes long, and this is the revamped, re-scored (by Kula Shaker), re-edited (12 minutes) re-release from 1999, and still watchable pop-candy.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
The Fab Two, John Lennon and Yoko Ono gave their first interview together on the David Frost show Frost on Saturday, August 24 1968. On it they discussed how they met, their personal and artistic philosophies, and explained some of the ideas behind their shared exhibition You Are Here:

Frost: Yes, you gave me one of these badges beforehand. Now, what, this is really the basis of what you’re talking about isn’t it, You Are Here.

Lennon: It’s that show, yeah.

Frost: Now what exactly does it mean, You Are Here?

Lennon: Well, er, You, are, here.

Ono: Usually people think in vicarious terms, they think ‘Somebody’s there,’ ‘John Lennon’s there,’ or somebody. But it’s not that. YOU are the one who’s here, and so in art, usually art gives something that’s an object and says ‘This is art,’ you know, but instead of that, art exists in people. It’s people’s art, and so we don’t believe in just making something and completing it and giving it to people, we like people to participate. All the pieces are unfinished and they have to be finished by people.

As part of the interview, two audience members tried out Yoko’s Hammer and Nail Piece, where they hammered nails into a block of wood. Both found the experience “satisfying” and “unbelievable”. When Lennon encouraged Frost to have a go, the “bubonic plagiarist” said he felt like “a man hammering in a nail”, to which Lennon countered, “I felt like one hammering it in on TV”.

The interview over-ran, and ends with Lennon conducting the audience to sing-a-long on “Hey Jude”, as the closing titles played out.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

John and Yoko: The Dentist Interview 1968

 
This is The Beach Boys’ so called lost concert from March 1964. The line-up includes Brian Wilson, and in a 20 minute set, The Beach Boys rip through a selection of 9 superb songs, including tracks from their freshly released album, Shut Down Vol 2.

These are: “Fun Fun Fun”, “Long Tall Texan”, “Little Deuce Coupe”, “Surfer Girl”, “Surfin’ USA”, “Shut Down”, “In My Room”, “Papa Oom-Mow-Mow”, and “Hawaii”.
 

 
It’s a myth still perpetuated by lazy BBC producers and bourgeois Guardianista’s that the 1960s in Britain was a golden decade of freedom, wealth, happiness and health. This may have been so if you were young, white, male, middle class and living in London, but for the majority of Brits, the swinging sixties was a decidedly average decade, where very little changed.

Sex meant marriage. Money was debt. Drugs came from the pharmacy. And revolution was the ticking of the second hand around the clock face towards aged obsolescence. As for housing, this was the small concrete blocks built indifferently up towards the sky.

This short documentary, No One Cares , on the destruction of Liverpool’s working class communities, gives a good idea of what the Swinging Sixties was like for those living beyond the suburbs of north London.