Barnet Eye Weekly Round up : Why Jehovahs Witnesses hate Cliff Richards and other musical musings

I was checking my weekly traffic stats on Statcounter and I saw that there was a link to my blog from http://www.jehovahs-witness.net I thought to myself, this is a rather strange site to link to The Barnet Eye so I thought I'd investigate further. The actual link came from a bulletin board and the topic of discussion was "Why do JW's hate Cliff Richards so much?". Now this was news to me. Sadly I don't have any JW's in my close circle of friends to ask. Not for any reason other than I've never got to know any. I hadn't realised the JW's had issued a Fatwa (or whatever their term for it is) on Sir Cliff. Although I'm not a big fan, he's hardly someone I'd expect to attract the loathing of an entire religion. The only JW I've ever discussed music with was Hank Marvin, who's son Paul was the drummer in my band for a while. I actually asked Hank what he thought of Cliff and as I recall he responded "We've worked together on and off for years". I didn't detect any seething hatred then, although to be fair I didn't directly say "do you hate Sir Cliff". Anyway a quick trawl through the messages was rather disappointing. There doesn't actually seem to be much loathing of Sir Cliff. A couple of people say he looked at the religion many years ago and decided it wasn't for him. I suppose to a swivel eyed JW zealot this may be grounds for  a Fatwa, but to the calmer more run of the mill members, I guess they just say "Oh well" and move on. I once got given a copy of a Jehovahs Witness magazine because I said I was a musician. The rather sweet old lady who gave it to me told me that explained how records were made and I'd be shocked. There was an illustrated story of the recording process. This was something I'm familiar with, having worked in studios since 1979. The last bit came as a surprise. It said that once the "Rock music song" had been completed it was put into a special machine called a "Satanizer". This machine implanted secret Satanic messages into the music, inaudible to the ear, but recognisable by the brain. Special "brainwave frrequencies" were also put on which would make young people love the music and buy it by the millions, getting hopelessly hooked. It then explained how youngsters would innocently gather to listen to the records and get satanized. These gatherings would turn into lewd and corrupt orgies. I wonder if Cliff Richards records have been "satanized"? I kept the magazine for years and used to show friends in bands and who owned studios the story. Amid the myrth, the question always came back "Hey if it makes you sell millions of records, where can you get one?". Sadly no one has tracked this down.

Which lead me onto the question - Could I think of any Satanized records? I suppose that the criteria must be that I've listened to a record I wouldn't normally like and then had an orgy with a group of righteous and upstanding girls who I normally wouldn't fancy. Sadly I couldn't think of any such incidents. A few ex girlfriends told me that I inflicted music on them that they'd not normally listen to, but I suspect that, like the rest of us,  they were more corrupted by cider and cheap wine than "Aga Du" or "Pretty Vacant". I did have one girlfriend who used to like to play "The planets" by Gustav Holst when she felt romantically inclined. Whilst I'm not a lover of classical music, I must confess I developed a soft spot for this record as a result. Maybe it had been Satanised. When we met I told her I didn't like classical music and so she told me she'd educate me. I must confess that she'd always ask me in post coital bliss if I had changed my mind about the particular record on the turntable and I'd always so "I hadn't realised how good it was up until now". I have to say that I still believe that is really the only way to enjoy classical music.

So you may ask, what piece of music changed my life? Well that was easy. I can even give you the date. 6th June 1977, The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm. That was the first time I saw "The Ramones". Had the Ramones been "Satanized". I often wondered. How could any band take such minimalist beats, 3 chords thrashes, 28 minute sets and be so absolutely brilliant. I went into the gig not really liking music and walked out a punk rocker. Until that moment I hadn't known what I wanted to do with my life. That changed. I wanted to be in a band. A few weeks later I started "The False Dots" with Pete Conway. Pete left, but the False Dots are still going strong. If you want to see us play live, we're at The Market Bar (above Jonguelers), Lock 17, Camden Town on Monday 15th Feb. We are on at around 10pm. Entrance is free. If you want to see what we look like and sound like and the full story of the band, check us here - http://www.myspace.com/falsedots

Sorry to say that Cliff, Hank and the boys won't be joining us. In case your worried I don't think I've been Satanized either !