29. hair trigger
During that final term at Oxford, in the midst of the revision we had to do, the Atrocious Les Milkins Band were still rehearsing. Because that's all we had left. After the spring break, we came back to an uncertain future.
The gig at St Peter's had gone OK, just about, but it didn't prompt a stampede of other colleges slavering to hire us. The residency at a pub had lasted a week. There was a chance of the odd party when students let their hair down at the end of the scholastic year - but nothing definite. The diary was empty.
But we practised anyway. Partly to be ready just in case, but mainly because it took our minds off schoolwork and was fun to do. Rehearsals became our gigs. We were each other's audience.
And not just the five of us. We had a surprise guest. A surprise to Bernie and me, and maybe Bill - but Pat and Harry had planned it.
We were still using the music room at University College. One day we're joined by a girl. Someone decided we needed backing vocals after all.
It hadn't been an issue since the morning of the first gig. But here she was, a slim blonde with very long hair. Bernie thinks Bill knew she might be there, because he turned up in a trilby and fake fur coat! Personally I don't know that he was dressing to impress (his drumming and looks would've done that); he just liked to gussy up sometimes.
Anyway, our guest singer starts to sing. I remember her trying the chorus to Honky Tonk Women - holding the notes while I did my staccato bit - with a hand behind her ear. She didn't look comfortable and I couldn't see it working. I kept it to myself, but I was right. She never came back.
Bernie thought this was our guitarists attempting to improve the vocals, but I suspect it was just their way of meeting women. I said you had to be creative about that at Oxford. I'd broken up with mine, so I knew how it was.
Pat and Harry had put up ads somewhere, but this was the only girl who answered them - though we eventually met a couple more who nearly did. They liked Bill more than the music!
*
After one of the sessions in the music room, we had a picture taken.
The five of us in a University College doorway. Three of us squatting. Not sure why, but it lets you see more of the dark space under the archway. The sun's in our faces, which makes us all squint.
Harry's borrowed Martin Neubert's cream leather jacket, the sort of thing that made our german friend look smarter than us. Bernie's in a blue jacket over a pale polo neck sweater.
All his suits and jackets came from Austin Reed, 'the only company stupid enough to give me a credit card.' Classic Cook: 'They used to give me a huge discount on condition that I never stood outside their shop wearing any of their goods.'
In that photo, the three of us not standing up are wearing denim somewhere or other: Bill in jeans, me a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, Patrick a shirt with sleeves left down. His collar's long and rounded, a fashion at the time, like his dark dungarees. Bill's got a patterned shirt.
Bernie's hair is pretty long by now, and mine's getting there. At the time, I thought we looked like any group of twentysomethings, not a rock band. It's true we didn't wear stage gear for rehearsals - but even so, a new image might be in order.
The hair will have to go. And Bernie I'll have that jacket you're throwing out.
Get off. It's way too small for you.
I know. Let me try it anyway.
*
We weren't allowed long hair at school, so you grew it as much as you could until the barber came round. Never got much further than a Beatles pudding bowl, though the nigerians would scuff up an afro when they weren't in class.
We all wanted hair as long as rock stars (check out Ian Gillan from Deep Purple), so we let it grow when we left school. I went further than anyone by leaving it for four years.
Because my hair's what they call 'fine', it grew straight down, a classic hippy look and not a good one. When I hadn't cut it for a year or so, it looked OK and girls said so, not quite shoulder length, but as it got longer it was out of fashion by several years.
When I got to Worcester College, there was only one other guy with hair as long as mine. We'd bump into each other in the lodge and nod or smile, like drivers of a Morgan might hoot in passing. At the start of the second year, I still had the long locks but he'd cut his. I said Hey, he said Yep. I never knew his name and we never talked, but I should've cut mine when he cut his.
Instead I kept it long throughout the second year, then in Rome, where people openly stared. Just before I finally had it cut, I went into a booth to get my passport picture taken. By then it was so long that when I threw the back of it forwards it covered my whole face.
I'd washed my hair first, so it fluffed up. And I leaned to my right slightly, so the bottom of the hair on that side went off the end of the frame. A few weeks later, I had it cut, but this was my passport photo for the next ten years! Officials would always do a double take.
We simply had fewer haircuts in those days. They cost money and long hair softened your features. In the 2020s, every young male did the opposite. Shaved his temples and the area above the ears, whatever he did with the top and back (see Olivier Giroud before and after) - even though most of them didn't have the face for it. Looked almost like a religion thing. As for the movember spate, men sprouting lumberjack beards: look back and wince, guys.
There's not a man in the world who doesn't look better with slightly longer hair.
But you can overdo it.
By the time I went to a barber's in '76, my barnet was so tangled he couldn't get a comb through it, even one of those big wooden ones black people use. So I had to have it cut shorter than I expected.
He asked if I wanted it layered. I had a feeling I didn't. Layering was what Rod Stewart had. Brian Connolly from Sweet, teenagers in Reading. When I was commissioned to write a book about footballers' bad haircuts, a lot of photos were from the 70s.
Even though I wasn't sure what layering was, I said yeh alright. Luckily it turned out to be impossible. All he could do was hack his way through the jungle. When the girlfriend met me at Paddington Station, she couldn't stop grinning. She'd never seen me with shorter hair and she liked it. I looked like a cross between Cat Stevens and Freddie Mercury, but you can get used to anything.
Here in April 1976, I didn't want it that length again. It had to be shorter. And I didn't need a hairdresser for that.
*
I'd been hearing more and more about punks and their music, and I knew they had short hair. Apparently they used KY to shape it, but I'd never heard of that because I didn’t need it for other things. So I just stood in front of a mirror with a pair of scissors. When Harry came to the door, he was almost as impassive as ever but not quite.
Ah. No.
Good, isn't it?
No.
Well, punky anyway.
Eh, no.
I took it as a good sign.
He'd driven up to Headington to pick me up for a trip to the cinema. Godard's film about the making of Sympathy for the Devil. Interesting to see Keith take over on bass from Bill Wyman, who plays the shekere instead, while poor Brian Jones sits on the floor with an acoustic guitar to give him something to do.
While we're waiting to go in, Harry starts pointing me out to the rest of the queue, calling out 'Punk!' to people's amusement.
Something similar when I went back to the Corn Dolly one night, with Bernie again.
I'm tall, so you can see me coming through the crowd. When we approach the bar, a geezer stares at me and says 'Punk!' Fuck me, it's catching.
It's not in fun this time, he's giving me a 'want some?' glare. But I don't mind. At that age, maybe all your life, there's a couple of things you can't help doing. Imagine sex with every woman you see. And size up every man you meet, even if it's not that kind of situation. I knew I was in no bother here.
He's in my way but I'm not going to sidestep anyone. I just smile in his face as we brush past. I get a few looks from other men with layered hair, but that's alright too: Bernie's shorter than me, but I know he's handy. I'm making it sound like a Wild West saloon, but it wasn't even handbags.
Still, all it took was a short haircut. That's enough for people in Oxford to think you're a punk, and one of them to get a bit cross about it. All very silly.
But it's exactly the sort of reaction I was hoping for. The Milkins were never going to be a punk band. We didn't know what punks were exactly and didn't want to be one. But if we looked like that kind of band, even just the singer, it would set us apart.
Worth a go - because we were about to play live again and it would be good to stand out. Not a paid gig or student party - something bigger than that. Time to take Bernie's jacket and get busy with safety pins and razorblades.