Like time travel, clicking on the suggestion was irresistible. The Swinging London period, the rise of new popular culture in the UK in the mid-1960s. Pop Gear (on Netflix) is a 1965 film that brings together two dozen performances by an unrepeatable generation of bands on British television. Among them the Beatles, also a good handful of groups who wanted to resemble the Beatles, at least aesthetically, but others with a lot of personality of their own. It wasn’t just in London that things were bubbling: the British invasion was also unleashed, the landing in the USA that changed the rules of show business. This invasion used the weapons of the invaders as these English artists were inspired by the great early American music, with a great influence from the black community, some sounds that came to England on ships and jumped onto the radios. And which the British had given a twist, a twist of their own, until they became a mass phenomenon that overwhelmed the true pioneers of rock ‘n’ roll.
The trip also serves to understand how an up-and-coming company worked at the time. In its day, this film had the privilege of showing the bands’ performances in color, which required going to the cinema to see, as the BBC didn’t move beyond black and white until 1969. It’s presented from the start as a compilation of the greatest hits of 1964. Presenter Jimmy Savile (how does that name sound to me?) briefly introduces the artists one at a time, making room for their most popular song. Later they will repeat the same bands with another song, but now in one go and without comment.
The Beatles perform at the beginning and end, but there’s a catch: the two songs (She Loves You and Twist and Shout) are from a concert in Manchester in 1963, part of another film called The Beatles Come To Town , one of the few color shots of the newly created Fab Four to star. By the time Pop Gear was released two years later, the band had already evolved and were working on more mature albums like Help! and Rubber Soul. Everything else in the film is honest lip syncing in the studio: there are no microphones and the musicians’ guitars are unplugged; there was no attempt to disguise it. And there are also scenes, very sixties, dance.
Of these studio performances, Eric Burdon’s band The Animals stand out, one of the ones that best showcased the blues that came to the islands from America. Another big name with similar influences is The Spencer Davis Group with great keyboards by Steve Winwood. The instrumental band Sounds Incorporated is one of the most varied, supported by two powerful saxophones. Vocalist Susan Maughan is the only female presence (along with Honey Lantree, wealthy drummer from The Honeycombs, and not counting the dancers) and ensures a high level. Others who paraded shared their glory moments and left interesting songs, but they are not remembered that way. Their names are The Four Pennies, The Nashville Teens, Tommy Quickly and the Remo Four, Matt Monro, Herman’s Hermits, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, and Peter and Gordon.
How does that name sound to me, Jimmy Savile? Here he appears dressed in different outfits, smoking a cigar or making comical gestures, in very brief interventions. Let’s document ourselves: he was a radio and television star and one of the country’s first DJs; hosted Top of the Pops on the BBC, a show that did much to bring pop to a mass audience. Knowing what happened to Savile comes the downer: he was a great communicator and charitable promoter, he held the title of Sirs after being decorated as a national hero and dying in 2011. But later it turned out he was a monster, a sexual predator who, according to police, committed more than 200 assaults on at least 70 women and girls, at least because half a thousand testimonies were collected against him. Knowing that the film is indigestible. Not even the best music covers this horror.
Savile’s ghost didn’t just disappear. The BBC has just removed a presenter for buying sex tapes from a teenager who was paid around €40,000 over three years that the boy had spent on crack. It took weeks for the chain to respond to his mother’s complaint and withheld the suspect’s identity. This raised suspicion among all the employees in the chain. Until it came out, by the will of his wife, who this time was the satyr: none other than Huw Edwards, the face that told the British of Elizabeth II’s death. The best houses hide terrible things.
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