Wacko

I was always too much of a punky rocker to "get" Michael Jackson. Now, like Abba, I can dance at a party to a few tunes but it's no more than nursery songs. Inoffensive, sure. But I don't get this idea of him as King of Pop (a title he insisted upon). You want a Pop star? Marc Bolan, back in the day, worked for me fine. Jacko's videos were BIG and that helped spread the fame but, really, how many of the 70 million people who bought "Thriller" actually listen to it? It's entertaining enough but without the video would it have been so huge? So, cheesy pop in itself isn't a crime. Just doesn't rock my boat. And then there's all the kiddy fiddling, surgery, Scientology etc. Yeah, yeah, he had a shit childhood, but all that squeaky, high-voice whining on shows like Oprah hid the fact he was a 50 year old man. He knew what he was doing. I'm not saying he's Gary Glitter but there was something not quite right there...

Sixties Photo Exhibition

John “Hoppy” Hopkins, Idea Generation Gallery, London, June 2009.

Hoppy’s the biggest hippy you’ve never heard of. His is not the Daily Mail version of the Sixties with minis, Twiggy and World Cup ’66. He pretty much started the counter-culture in Sixties London. Now, he’d be called a social entrepreneur. Then, he was a face about town. Making things happen. He knew everybody. He set up Europe’s first underground newspaper (International Times) and psychedelic club (UFO). He gave out copies of a groovy address book: sheets of Gestetnered paper, stapled together with names of cool folk for like-minded souls, like a lo-fi Internet. He set up the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream at Ally Pally, the UK’s own version of the Acid Tests. He was busted and sent to jail on the day Sgt Pepper was released. The judge called him, “a menace to Society”.

He also took photos that paid his way in the early days. Some are well known (Beatles, Stones, usual suspects) but others are street scenes, a drug deal, prostitutes, tattooist, bikers, CND demos, Jazzmen. The subculture, before it was called that.

His eye was great. Hoppy says it was all intuition and instinct. He’s a Cambridge physics and maths graduate so the tech-y bit was easy. The basics, like composition, are there too. It’s his ease with the snapshot moment that impresses. Shapes and faces look as fresh as when he hit the shutter. But also, timeless. Grey, dirty, bombed out, early Sixties London looks almost Victorian and strangely “now”. Perhaps it’s because we don’t normally see pictures like that from the Sixties. It wasn’t all a swirly-coloured Love-in.

Familiar places and faces you think you know appear different. They startle. Compared to the routinely rolled out stock images of the period, their unfamiliarity makes us see things anew. The Jazz pictures are glorious. Close-ups of Monk’s hands. Ornette Coleman blowing blissfully. (Coleman stayed with Hoppy on his first UK tour in 1965 and by coincidence is in town for Meltdown). The Stones at Ally Pally in 1964 look gorgeous: Brian Jones with his back to the crowd and light breaking through the huge circular window. Ringo staring blankly; John smoking a fag. Marriane smiling. Martin Luther King, close-up, thinking.

It’s all here. The Idea Generation have done a great job hanging and getting the word out. This collection and Hoppy’s archive are an untapped source of wonder. His version of events goes much deeper than received wisdom.

The Sixties will exert a much bigger pull as decades go by. Everything “normal’ today kicked off then. And, sadly, it’ll be a while before the sheer joy and innocence and innovation of that era roams the planet again, if ever. Until then, work like Hoppy’s gives us, and future generations, a beautiful glimpse into that Time and Place. Far out.