Eel Pie Island... BBC Documentary on the History of UK Rock ...

[Dad3353]

I receive a regular newsletter from my old school; this latest issue has a link to this BBC documentary, in which several of the school pupils and ex-pupils feature. Here's the link (BBC iPlayer needed...)...

Rock'n'Roll Island: Where Legends Were Born...

Disappointed, though; no mention of me in there. 

[Kevsy71]

I need to watch that - I grew up in Twickenham and we'd occasionally run over the old bridge to Eel Pie island. Too young for the club though!

[Len_derby]

A very enjoyable film indeed. Although I’m a bit too young to have seen it in its heyday, (born ‘58), a lot of later acts were in my era.

The most interesting bit of the film for me however concerned the owner of the hotel, a Mr Snapper, who had an antiques shop in London. I’m friends with a family named Snapper who live in Nottingham. Intrigued by the coincidence of an usual name I rang them up.

”Oh yes, that was uncle Micheal. Quite a character, kept a pet lion in his shop at one point. The footbridge is called Snapper’s bridge as Michael paid for it to be built”.

A small world, and all that.

[Kevsy71]

18 minutes ago, Len_derby said:

"The footbridge is called Snapper’s bridge as Michael paid for it to be built”.

 

Thanks, I was trying to remember the name! As I recall it got hit by a boat and was either fully or partially rebuilt some years ag, after I moved,  but I certainly crossed over the original :)

[Dad3353]

I remember seeing Genesis there, in 1970 or thereabouts. Happy days. Memories, too, of the RikiTik, Hounslow (pronounced 'Arnsler', with a snarl...), but went more to the Marquee 'up-town'. 

[taunton-hobbit]

I gigged at the Original (Wardour Street) Marquee -

did a short residency there with  David Bowie & The Buzz...........

😎

[chris_b]

I never went to The Island but I know a few who did. I lived in the Ricky Tick (originally called the Zambezi club), as well as the gigs at Isleworth Poly and the Starlight Ballroom Sudbury Town.

 

[taunton-hobbit]

6 minutes ago, chris_b said:

I never went to The Island but I know a few who did. I lived in the Ricky Tick (originally called the Zambezi club), as well as the gigs at Isleworth Poly and the Starlight Ballroom Sudbury Town.

 

That would be the Hounslow Tik, not the one in Windsor ?

😎

[SpondonBassed]

My mum and dad lived in Twickenham for a few years and I learned of some of the island's history from that.  Trevor Baylis (of the clockwork radio) lived on the island at the time.

[chris_b]

28 minutes ago, taunton-hobbit said:

That would be the Hounslow Tik, not the one in Windsor ?

😎

Yep. Hounslow. Opposite the bus station

[Leonard Smalls]

I saw this a few weeks ago... Enjoyable enough and all very nice and nostalgic, but there was nothing that hadn't been shown in plenty of BBC4 music docs - it's all well-known history of all the mainstream British pub rock bands.

It would be nice if they explored some more recent music, or more obscure music, or some jazz! Frinstance, I've never seen any docs on the Liverpool scene from 1977 on. Or the goth scene, or UK jazz funk... There's been nowt (that I've seen, at least!) on any sort of improvised jazz, or Industrial, or even on the dance scene in the late 80s on. So rather than yet another documentary on the Stones, Faces etc let's see something on Throbbing Gristle, Mutoid Waste Company and the Ozrics!

Or even what The Kids are doing nowadays - or perhaps BBC4 think they're all hunched over their phones sexting each other?

[Guest]

5 hours ago, SpondonBassed said:

My mum and dad lived in Twickenham for a few years and I learned of some of the island's history from that.  Trevor Baylis (of the clockwork radio) lived on the island at the time.

A good friend of mine knew Tremvor well and took me took meet him on the island.   Nice chap, but he made a sheet cup of tea.

[Dad3353]

3 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

... let's see something on Throbbing Gristle, Mutoid Waste Company and the Ozrics!...

But none of those beggars went to Hampton Grammar School, you see; that's their error. 

[Leonard Smalls]

11 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

But none of those beggars went to Hampton Grammar School, you see; that's their error.

Indeed, and why would anyone make a music programme aimed at people who didn't go to Hampton Grammar School!

[bassace]

It was good to see a doc going back to the fifties/sixties, including a bit of Trad, which kicked it all off. A lot of the young pundits of today think Pop started in the eighties.