Fashion Music
Tom Sloan
Burton Mail, 30 October 2004
A hippy from a village near Burton will be appearing on Radio Four soon to talk about the music and fashion of the era he loves. Alan Hadley, from Alrewas, will appear on a programme - along with Mail reporter and psychedelic music fan Tom Sloan - to discuss the golden age of psychedelia and the Summer of Love.
Top radio producer Alan Hall, 41, who has a long list of credits during his 20 years in music criticism and programme making, had the idea to take a closer look at the world of music culture. He is making a five-programme series to be aired next month investigating the link between different styles of music and the culture they are associated with. As well as the programme on psychedelia, Alan Hall is making programmes on ska, heavy metal, country and western, and one on a 'Durani' - a fan of eighties hitmeisters Duran Duran.
"They are throwaway programmes, in a sense," he said. "But there is a serious point to them – they investigate the link between music, fashion, politics and culture." Alan Hall has worked as a freelance producer since 1998, having previously worked at the BBC. He has also lectured on radio production.
Psychedelic music, heavily linked with the use of cannabis and LSD, is a music form which expands the possibilities of sound, creating the effect of altered perceptions and intense sensory experiences. Although it is produced to this day, the widely-recognised golden age of the music, and the culture associated with it, was between 1966 and 1969.
Alan Hadley, 57, is one of Britain's original psychedelic children. Now a computer programmer, he was 20 during the summer of 1967 - widely seen as the peak of psychedelia and the peace and love movement across the world. Originally from Birmingham, he was living in London at the time and was involved in the many 'happenings' which took place across the city that summer. "It was love and peace," he said. "It was a natural progression of peace and love until the yippies got hold of it. I came into psychedelia listening to the Perfumed Garden - John Peel's programme. He played music from a wide variety of styles. "It was nice listening to Frank Zappa, The Doors and Love. It was 1966 then."
During 1967, Alan was involved in the incredible music scene in London. While living in Soho's Greek Street, he set up light shows for some of the era's seminal gatherings, including the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream, where the likes of Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, The Nice and Tomorrow took to the stage. He said: "I was involved in the light shows at the UFO club and saw Jimi Hendrix there. While I lived in Greek Street, the wife of the couple I lived with made clothes for me out of grass. It was fantastic to walk around in something no-one else had."
Alan still dresses in Grateful Dead T-shirts, orange trousers, and bright purple boots, much to the chagrin of wife Pat, and feels like he has not changed inside since the end of psychedelia. He still listens a lot to the music of the era, some of which he missed first time around, talking enthusiastically about the crazy sounds of Frank Zappa, HP Lovecraft, The Ultimate Spinach and Jefferson Airplane. He said: "I am definitely still 17 inside. Psychedelia ended when it became too commercial. When you could go into Carnaby Street and buy all your clothes, it was over. "More and more weekend hippies came along. They wore business suits in the week and hippy clothes at weekends. The death of psychedelia really came at the Altamont Festival in the United States when a hippy got murdered."
Tom, 25, developed his taste in psychedelic music while he was at university and was asked to appear on the programme because of his continuing interest in the music and culture of the 60s era. The psychedelic radio show, which has yet to be given a name, will be aired on Radio Four, 92.7FM, on Wednesday, November 24, at 3.45pm. It will last 15 minutes and feature some of the top psychedelic music of the era. The other shows which have been recorded will be shown at the same time on the four other working days that week.
