70's
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Also known as the 1970s, the '70s were a popular beat combo formed in 1963 by Brian Jones, later shocked to find that he had the same name as ill-fated Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones, he changed it immediately to Arthur Skruggs. The 1970s played virtually every small nightclub in England, Wales, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark and Hong Kong during the 1964 to 1965 period, never catching the attention of anyone important, and consequently never reaching the level of fame of similar British beat acts such as The Kinks, The Small Faces, The Who and Nine Inch Nails.
The lineup[edit | edit source]
The band was originally formed by Arthur Skuggs (née Brian Jones) of Wapping, who formed the band with his high school chum Geordie McGlumpher, the son of a Scottish welder called Tam. They recruited the able assistance of drummer Mickey Spoons from Poplar, already arrested for drunken and disorderly behaviour nine times by the age of seventeen. They also teamed up with the irreverent and foul mouthed Alf Wagnott (bass guitar) and the standoffish but smartly dressed Oliver Weasley (Hammond organ), both of them students at the time.
The Band's Career[edit | edit source]
The band had a very short lived musical career. after they started playing in 1965, their rise to fame and stardom was somewhat less immediate than they had at first imagined it would be. In 1966, Alf Waggott contracted a severe case of tonsilitis and ended up immobile for fur crucial weeks of their touring schedule. Skuggs had to play the bass guitar with his feet for four weeks in order for the band to perform. This incident alone might have been enough to completely scupper their chances of being signed to a major record label anywhere in continental Europe. Then in 1967 it became apparent that Weasley had fallen in love with a young Bavarian nobleman he had met whilst on tour. He left the band soon after and a few sad weeks into 1968 the band came to a dead halt. The band never survived long enough to see the decade it had been named for.
The 1998 Reunion[edit | edit source]
In 1998, more than thirty years after their untimely demise, The surviving members of the 70s were back for one last tour, a gift to their longtime fans. The tour lasted nine days and covered the whole of Northern Europe (except for Poland, Denmark, Switzerland and Scandinavia. The original line up had remained unchanged except for Oliver Weasley, who had become wheelchair bound as the result of a particularly nasty ingrown toenail, Geordie McGlumpher (who had started his own building firm and had no interest in a blatant last ditch money making effort, thank you very much) and Arthur Skuggs himself, who had uncharacteristically died at the wheel while apparently in the act of snorting cocaine through two straws off the dashboard. He also had six bottles of whisky in the glove compartment and had stuffed his pockets full with marijuana leaves. It is not clear whether he had already died as a result of the cocaine when his car collided at 97 miles per hour with a roadside cafeteria, wounding seven, killing three and frightening a small French poodle so much that she ran away to forge a new life somewhere nice and quiet and was never seen again. As such the touring band were linked to the band's 1960s incarnation by their rock solid backbeat combo, Micky. Their final (and I mean final) concert was held in Palm Springs in a casino stage room for 500 (mostly old people).
See also[edit | edit source]