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Post by franklinmarsh on Oct 20, 2007 13:00:10 GMT
I suppose I had to start this sooner or later. Most of my information is cribbed from various sources , primarily from George Marshall of the (apparently now defunct) Skinhead Times Press. They used to have a website and George's steadfast reprinting of all the 18 Allen novels (The Complete Richard Allen Vol.s 1-6, 3 novels per volume) contained much of the information I'm about to relate. 1970 saw various NEL hacks at a party. One thought they should do a book about the topical subject of 'football agro'. James Moffatt was their writer of choice, being someone with a fast turn around time. Not sure how long he was given but apparently he asked for 3 days extra 'research'. This consisted of him going dahn The East End and finding a couple of members of a relatively new teenage cult. They talked to him, and their stories formed the basis of the first Allen novel Skinhead( Britain's newest teenage cult of violence!). NEL duly published it and ... it stiffed! Sales weren't to go ballistic for a few months. My own personal theory on this is that the opening pages of the book feature middle aged dockers sitting around playing cards moaning about the state of the country. It wasn't until the youth of the day got past this and discovered the hooliganism they were looking for that word of mouth got going and sales skyrocketed. Allen/Moffatt had moved on to Demo ( a truly terrible work about student agitators), but the follow-up to Skinhead, Suedehead was another million seller (truly!) meaning NEL and Allen were well away. The old STP website had a picture of a tankard presented to Skinhead James Moffatt by the boot boys at NEL for Skinhead and Suedehead exceeding a million sales. Although Moffatt dabbled in other genres, he returned as Allen for another 15 potboilers, documenting the changes in British youth throughout the 1970s, apart from Boot Boys, Skinhead Girls and other skinhead sequels, you could read about Smoothies,Sorts, Terrace Terrors,Teeny-Bopper Idol,Glam, Dragon Skins (kung fu!),Knuckle Girls ab=nd even Punk Rock and Mod Rule. My researches have shown very little in the way of attempted cash-ins during this time. George Marshall did attempt to publish some similar works simultaneously with the Allen reissues in the late 90s (Casual by Gavin Anderson, England Belongs To Me by Steve Goodman (Punks and Skins in 77), Saturdays Heroes by Joe Mitchell and One For The Road by Kid Stoker) but these didn't seem to catch on and were superseded by 'proper' writers (Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh, The Football Factory by John King) and then the cottage industry of 'real' hooligan memoirs
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Post by franklinmarsh on Oct 23, 2007 11:32:13 GMT
Suedehead - Richard Allen. NEL Oct 1971 (Reprinted prior to publication Sept 71) - the sequel to the best-selling 'skinhead'. "Joe Hawkins, skinhead had been an uncouth, uneducated lout drifting on a sickening tide of violence, drink, cheap tarts. Joe Hawkins, suedehead was semi-educated, capable of affecting a partially-polished front whilst enjoying the charade of decent citizen even as he battered some innocent's skull to a pulp." It says here! After the (eventual) million selling Skinhead, and the wild miscalculation of Demo Richard Allen roared backed with this bizarre sequel. Containing the first RA editorial rant at the front,slightly to the right of Attilla The Hun and making Dennis Wheatley look like a commie pinko f*g subversive. But after the foul mouthed, ultra-violent, deliriously smutty first volume Suedehead is curiously toned down. Joe is fresh out of prison (for 'doing a copper' during a Hyde Park concert at the end of the previous book) and determined to go up in the world. Blagging some cash from a prisoners aid society he rents a room down Bayswater way (after kicking up a fuss at his first accomodation) and starts to look for a proper job. He fools around with the porn trade in Soho before fluking a place at a Stockbrokers. His weekly pittance can't sustain his desire for flash threads, upmarket dollybirds and ever more expensive flats. Suedes aren't like Skins. They're altogether more sussed and aren't mob minded. But it looks like there's only one way Joe can maintain this kinda lifestyle - crime beckons....not only that, but as a youth with a 'feeling' for violence how long can he keep the lid on his animal lusts? Well not very is the answer. 110 pages of tosh which took me all of an hour and fifteen minutes to reread for the umteenth time. Yup, this was my first exposure to "Allenland" as George Marshall dubbed it, and after the excesses of Edge No 2 : Ten Thousand Dollars American and Angel Challenge this was a major disappointment - apart from the cover - a NEL classic featuring a dodgy geezer in a crombie and bright orange socks. His hair is nowhere near Suede and he looks as hard as painted nails but, like Chopper, he sums up 1971. As you'd expect it's a terrible book but, once you get used to Allen's uniquely lurid awful style its strangelly compelling - like watching an Edward D Wood Jr. film. You know it's dreadful, you're wasting your time, but you can't tear yourself away. Moffatt was Canadian and there are plenty of 'Moffatisms' such as references to Canada - and a mystery explained - "' I like this Scotch. What brand is it?' Lois asked as if the rest of the world did not exist at that precise moment. 'Seagram's Hundred Pipers. Quite new, I understand.' 'Seagram's ... are they the people who make Canadian rye?' If he didn't get a crate for that...
Here's a couple more gems from Suedehead. Take a tip and here what I say - don't take no trip down Soho way - "Dean Street. Frith Street.Old Compton Street.Greek Street. He walked them all; leisurely, alert.He saw the sweating baldheaded ones dart from dirty bookshops with a wrapped parcel clutched feverishly in clammy hands. Saw tarted up birds from Ilford, Battersea, Highbury and a score of other outlying districts scamper between clubs. They were easy to spot. Heavy eye shadow, hungry lean features,shimmering sweaters hoisting up fake breasts. Small make up cases swinging to the beat of their tight, not-fleshed-enough bottoms. He saw the rolling drunks, the pop-eyed 'trippers', the swaggering thugs showing off a new horse blanket made into a suit." Apart from Old Compton Street hasn't changed much has it? " The flat was a junior library. He reckoned there were more than six hundred books in it - every room had its private bookcase; its personalised reading. The kitchen contained volumes on cookery; the lounge Encyclopaedia Britannica, Shakespeare and poetical works with a scattering of Tolstoy,Marx, Hitler, Browning,Byron,Pope,Milton,Macaulay,Burns,Scott, and Hemingway; one bedroom devoted entirely to Chandler, Moffatt,Runyan,Fleming; the master bedroom exclusively reserved for erotica and witchcraft." "He could still drink pints of wallop but he enjoyed putting on the dog and having shorts with soda. And they cost a packet! If he met a dolly-bird she would probably insist on some exotic concoction so ...He fought back the desire to have a beef sandwich with a side salad and settled for a hot sausage on a cocktail stick with Seagram's Hundred Pipers splashed lightly with soda."
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Post by Johnlprobert on Feb 11, 2011 18:59:18 GMT
They talked to him, and their stories formed the basis of the first Allen novel Skinhead( Britain's newest teenage cult of violence!). NEL duly published it and ... it stiffed! Sales weren't to go ballistic for a few months. My own personal theory on this is that the opening pages of the book feature middle aged dockers sitting around playing cards moaning about the state of the country. It wasn't until the youth of the day got past this and discovered the hooliganism they were looking for that word of mouth got going and sales skyrocketed. Could this be why I spotted a tatty NEL 1st edition paperback of 'Skinhead' in the local Oxfam today priced at £19-99
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2011 19:37:57 GMT
There was a beeb documentary about Richard Allen on a few years back. That, and the first three volumes of The Complete Richard Allen, were my introduction to him. The whole thing is up on YouTube in six parts. Here they are in order to save you searching:
I seem to remember the ultimate fate of Joe Hawkins being a particularly anti-climactic nadir for Allen's writing.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 11, 2011 20:31:44 GMT
Could this be why I spotted a tatty NEL 1st edition paperback of 'Skinhead' in the local Oxfam today priced at £19-99 That's outrageous! they're expensive, true enough, but the going rate from a decent DEALER is £15 for a really well preserved copy of the harder-to-find titles, price descending in order of condition. Skinhead was a million-seller within a fortnight of publication. There must be loads of the bastards still in circulation. God help us if Oxfam get their hands on Jackboot Girls!
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Feb 11, 2011 21:27:22 GMT
Could this be why I spotted a tatty NEL 1st edition paperback of 'Skinhead' in the local Oxfam today priced at £19-99 That's outrageous! they're expensive, true enough, but the going rate from a decent DEALER is £15 for a really well preserved copy of the harder-to-find titles, price descending in order of condition. Skinhead was a million-seller within a fortnight of publication. There must be loads of the bastards still in circulation. God help us if Oxfam get their hands on Jackboot Girls! I am in despair. The world changed but I didn't. I'm especially hacked off as I had loads of these long ago.
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Post by killercrab on Feb 11, 2011 21:28:44 GMT
I've yet to read an Allen but I will one day. Great to see some skinhead book talk again.
KC
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Post by fritzmaitland on Aug 20, 2019 7:06:02 GMT
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Post by helrunar on Aug 20, 2019 12:35:15 GMT
Glorioski! I thought that cover had to be someone having fun with photoshop. Then I read Franklin Marsh's helpful, erudite sleeve notes and realized... Nope, it's as real as the DVD box set of The Young Ones.
Hope this rare tome did not cost 19.99 UKP!
cheers, H.
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Post by helrunar on Aug 20, 2019 15:10:43 GMT
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Post by helrunar on Aug 20, 2019 15:17:13 GMT
I have to comment, having read the novel (really more of a novella from what I recall) that the cover for the NEL edition of The Leather Boys by Gillian Freeman REALLY gives the wrong impression of the book's subject matter. But Hell, maybe it made some money for Freeman. I thought she was an excellent writer. Link for Valancourt reprint for anyone who's interested: www.valancourtbooks.com/the-leather-boys-1961.htmlH.
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Post by fritzmaitland on Aug 20, 2019 17:20:33 GMT
Great stuff, H. NEL were dab hands at modernising covers for old classics. I did read Ms Freeman's The Leather Boys with a fab NEL cover. ISTR there was another groovy tome called Black Leather Barbarians that had a 70s biker on the front but the novel dated back to 1965 and owed more to The Wild One than The WIld Angels. 'Goth Bint' was so bang on I had to stick it up here - and then thought Crikey! it's so accurate it must be one of Dem's!
"Denise Scruggs had had enough of parents, school, spotty boys trying it on...but as Vampiretta LaNoir she felt a real woman,gliding in skin-tight black velvet through The Graveyard, Neasden's premier Goth club, where her head was turned by the bulging leather crotch of Iorga Ruthven , lead singer of Weltschmerz, the Goth band to end all Goth bands. Mix in Spivvy Rongun, Weltschmerz's sleazy manager and would-be Soho film maker, plus Lucifer and Arcadia Midnite, Satanic owners of The Graveyard, and searchers for the teenage blood of eternal life, it would take all of Denise's spunk, savvy and violent temper to hang on to her self-respect, and her knickers...don't miss Richard Allen's latest tacky youth cult ripoff...."
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Post by dem bones on Aug 21, 2019 6:05:25 GMT
Great stuff, H. NEL were dab hands at modernising covers for old classics. I did read Ms Freeman's The Leather Boys with a fab NEL cover. ISTR there was another groovy tome called Black Leather Barbarians that had a 70s biker on the front but the novel dated back to 1965 and owed more to The Wild One than The WIld Angels. 'Goth Bint' was so bang on I had to stick it up here - and then thought Crikey! it's so accurate it must be one of Dem's! "Denise Scruggs had had enough of parents, school, spotty boys trying it on...but as Vampiretta LaNoir she felt a real woman,gliding in skin-tight black velvet through The Graveyard, Neasden's premier Goth club, where her head was turned by the bulging leather crotch of Iorga Ruthven , lead singer of Weltschmerz, the Goth band to end all Goth bands. Mix in Spivvy Rongun, Weltschmerz's sleazy manager and would-be Soho film maker, plus Lucifer and Arcadia Midnite, Satanic owners of The Graveyard, and searchers for the teenage blood of eternal life, it would take all of Denise's spunk, savvy and violent temper to hang on to her self-respect, and her knickers...don't miss Richard Allen's latest tacky youth cult ripoff...." Superb spot, Herr Maitland. Must admit, at first I too suspected photoshop jiggery-pokery was at work, but there's no mistaking that logo! The steamy blurb merely confirms authenticity. Incidentally, now that Virago have withdrawn interest, any news on the proposed Oxford Uni Press reissue of the Greg Pendennis back catalogue?
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Post by helrunar on Aug 21, 2019 18:59:15 GMT
Is The Rogering of Lady Amelia Yarbles a real book? I feel naff just asking, nay begging the question. It must be the greatest novel ever written, if so. D. H. Lawrence must be lighting up the halls of Hell with his screaming, lurid diatribes of jealousy.
cheers, H.
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peedeel
Crab On The Rampage
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Post by peedeel on Aug 23, 2019 7:45:25 GMT
Is The Rogering of Lady Amelia Yarbles a real book? I feel naff just asking, nay begging the question. It must be the greatest novel ever written, if so. D. H. Lawrence must be lighting up the halls of Hell with his screaming, lurid diatribes of jealousy. cheers, H. I must confess the only novel-length work of Gregory Pendennis that I’ve read was his BOOK OF LIES which I found heavy going in places; so much so, I ended up scanning through the final hundred odd pages and highlighting the depraved and filthy bits for later consumption. Little detail is known of Mr Pendennis’ life. An early career in journalism was unremarkable, and his time spent in the Paris of expatriates, between the world wars, the time of Joyce, Pound and Hemingway along with a million other would-be bohemians (predominantly Americans), some of whom remember Pendennis as a silent presence with an air of shy superiority. Although I believe it was Fitzgerald in his later memoir of Paris described Pendennis as a pervert! Hemingway one-time challenged Pendennis to a boxing match (according to Gertrude Stein), but Pendennis declined the invitation due to a prior engagement with a notorious Parisian prostitute. It was the Olympia Press publication in 1953/54 of JOHN SILVER’S MEMBER that launched Pendennis’ controversial writing career afresh. Back in London Pendennis continued frequenting prostitutes (an expense he offset as book research against taxes), and providing little supper parties for his four or five close friends which usually consisted of toasted cheese sandwiches and opium. It was while in London he wrote THE THIEVES OF PLEASURE which was banned in England soon after publication. This was quickly followed by THE SEX LIFE OF DONALD, HARRY AND JANE, which was also banned after publication. Undeterred, Mr Pendennis continued to write until the end of his long, lascivious life, turning out another eighty titles, most of which are now, sadly, forgotten.
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