A November 1979 article by Dr Pepper in TAGG Magazine
Doctor Pepper... "Standing here in the morning rain sometimes I feel so uninspired" sang the Divine Aretha some years ago and truth to tell sometimes your old medico-cum-soothsayer feels the same way boys and girls. Often girding his loins against disappointment and despair he sallies forth, rain lashing his ever-cheerful bedside-manner face, to yet another smoky room, dim lit den and rock pit only to surface seconds later, ears streaming with tears (from the smoky haze or from another let down he will not say) to slowly drag his weary self home, drained, inconsolable, bereft of joy, oh bleak of brain, all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo.
Ah but just now and then he sees something that fills his old heart with warmth and satisfaction and he positively glows as his teeth move in that interminable phantom chewing that signals his contentment. This week my little ones he tasted both of the above and he fell down and gave thanks for that delightful duality of existence that makes life so liveable and so god damn awful. Now read on.
The doctor commenced the week with a full scale tilt at a number of venues but was dis-appointed by all of them - at the Crystal Ballroom a number of spikey-haired individuals sat on the floor in a kind of composite lack of awareness/ boredom watching some band and your confrere did not feel a part of them and thus left, feeling weary, old and alone.
At Bombay Rock a Python-esque band by the name of the Alienswent through some kind of tribal rite involving up-swinging of chords and out-of-time leaps into the air and made the Doctor glad that CC's and coke had saved him from the burden of seeing them twice - he left Bombay again shattered and counting grey hairs and lines on hisancient head.
Where to go? What to do? Who to picket? Who to fight? Then at the last gasp a reprieve! For at the Central Club hotel your almost rigormortised scribe saw the utterly delightful Johnny Topper and the Hepsters. Ah this was music, this was life - the Hepsters spun out a marvellous tapestry of folk, blues, trad and just old mouldy tunes that lit up the night with feelings of friendship and harmony.
Unlike the Bombay where the records in between the bands were louder than the bands (oh the cacophony of it all) here one could TALK between the sets and indeed the Doctor was charged to find young Alostrael at hand with (Ed: It appears some copy fell from the artwork here on the way to shoot the new negs...doh!)Thus once more good music prevailed and perhaps the Hepsters lived happily ever after. Go see them you weary, aged and infirm of the earth for they will give you succour and wrap you up in daydreams and dream all your troubles away maximum delight and maximum R&B - the Devils own favourite mix!
But later more joy was to come upstairs at the Subterranean Record Shop (run by some unscrupulous exploiter) the Doctor saw and heard the magnificent CYBATRON electronic wizards supreme. Now it has always amazed your trusted and true confidant the lack of interest in musical aggregations that play modern electronic music in this town. Lord knows overseas it is all the rage and people are even calling it the music of the future! Well my dear ones you can see the music of the future now with just a short visit to CYBATRON land.Geoff Green and Ian Mc Farlane, with the aid of a bank of sound equipment sufficient to get all the planes down safely at LA International Airport, play music that goes straight to the mind and has no need of the body or heart to communicate whom one could always dial delightfully and delightedly, its pristine light.
Their music shimmers, swells, sweeps and psychedelics its way to your heart via your head and their harmonies come from the spheres to your cars. It's a gorgeous experience to hear them and they don’t play all that often, more’s the pity but when they do give them a chance they won't let you down.
The doctor commenced the week with a full scale tilt at a number of venues but was dis-appointed by all of them - at the Crystal Ballroom a number of spikey-haired individuals sat on the floor in a kind of composite lack of awareness/ boredom watching some band and your confrere did not feel a part of them and thus left, feeling weary, old and alone.
At Bombay Rock a Python-esque band by the name of the Alienswent through some kind of tribal rite involving up-swinging of chords and out-of-time leaps into the air and made the Doctor glad that CC's and coke had saved him from the burden of seeing them twice - he left Bombay again shattered and counting grey hairs and lines on hisancient head.
Where to go? What to do? Who to picket? Who to fight? Then at the last gasp a reprieve! For at the Central Club hotel your almost rigormortised scribe saw the utterly delightful Johnny Topper and the Hepsters. Ah this was music, this was life - the Hepsters spun out a marvellous tapestry of folk, blues, trad and just old mouldy tunes that lit up the night with feelings of friendship and harmony.
Unlike the Bombay where the records in between the bands were louder than the bands (oh the cacophony of it all) here one could TALK between the sets and indeed the Doctor was charged to find young Alostrael at hand with (Ed: It appears some copy fell from the artwork here on the way to shoot the new negs...doh!)
But later more joy was to come upstairs at the Subterranean Record Shop (run by some unscrupulous exploiter) the Doctor saw and heard the magnificent CYBATRON electronic wizards supreme. Now it has always amazed your trusted and true confidant the lack of interest in musical aggregations that play modern electronic music in this town. Lord knows overseas it is all the rage and people are even calling it the music of the future! Well my dear ones you can see the music of the future now with just a short visit to CYBATRON land.
Their music shimmers, swells, sweeps and psychedelics its way to your heart via your head and their harmonies come from the spheres to your cars. It's a gorgeous experience to hear them and they don’t play all that often, more’s the pity but when they do give them a chance they won't let you down.
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