It was a storm in a tea cup really and one that unnecessarily reignited extreme wariness, if not undisguised animosity towards the band. ‘Rock Goes To College’ was a BBC music programme that ran from 1978 to 1981. Over the course of its existence it was responsible for the broadcast of an eclectic tally of gigs. The idea was simple enough. A band was booked to play a gig for an hour or do of which 30-40 minutes would be broadcast. The venues, unsurprisingly considering the name of the series, were selected from the many halls associated with British academic institutions. Thus selected bands would play a fairly intimate gig to maybe 1,500 punters. Some of these earlier broadcasts were simultaneously broadcast on BBC Radio 1, in recognition of the limitations of television technology to broadcast such events in stereo.
The Stranglers were lined up to appear on the fourth episode of the show, with a ‘homecoming’ gig at the University of Surry in Guildford on 19th October 1978. Problems emerged when it came to ticket allocation. Seemingly as part of the agreement, a proportion of the tickets would be made available to people out side of the university (i.e. non-students). To me it has always been rather unclear as to the extent that this arrangement was either honoured or ignored. Either way, in the hall on that day there was certainly a mix of students and non-students. In the assessment of the stunt that appeared in the XX October issue of Record Mirror, Tim Lott makes a valid point ‘at what point did they know….. walk away from the gig’. Why indeed wait until the cameras were rolling before unveiling this latest Stranglers as bad boys wheeze? This leads on to another consideration, the role that academic institutions and their associated event venues played in the evolution of rock and pop music from the 1960’s onwards. For so many bands, such venues have been pivotal to the live music circuit. Just take a look at the Stranglers’ gig listings for 1976 and 1977 and it is clear that university/college venues were pretty much as ubiquitous as the pub venues. This being the case, it should also be remembered that when bands played gigs within academic institutions some degree of access control was the norm. I remember NUS rules requiring me to sign in friends for the few on-campus gigs that I attended at Brunel University.
Another point that Tim Lott takes issue with is the idea that attendance at the University of Surrey and being a fan of The Stranglers were mutually exclusive. Again, the band’s early gig history completely debunks the idea that students could and would not be into The Stranglers. The idea that all students were corduroy and scarf wearing hippies with a complete collection of Genesis (Gabriel era of course) and King Crimson records is just lazy stereotyping. Punk interest in the late ‘70s was not strictly limited to those living in the shadow of the Westway. For every Tony Parsons there was a Jon Savage (Classics graduate, Magdalene College, Cambridge!).
Ticket allocation misdeeds aside, this highly visible act of petulance rather backfired on the band. Whilst the band had finally got to play London the previous month after a protracted dispute with the Greater London Council, certain organisations and venues still baulked at the Stranglers name and by extension the name of Burnel. The bass player struggled with venues willing to host his ‘Euroman’ tour and it may very well be that this latest ‘incident’ with the BBC contributed to the unwillingness of venues to book him. In this way, it may be that the repercussions of the band’s dressing down of ‘elitist audiences’ in Guildford in October 1978 actually negatively impacted non-student fans access to the band.
From my point of view I now see the outburst in terms of a loss of documentary footage of a band at the height of their powers. I know that the BFI have the footage, but this could have been 12 or 13 song set…. Later to be rebroadcast on BBC Four in a state of pristine quality.
Anyway, presented below is Tim Lott’s opinion on the issue followed by the Record Mirror’s responses published a couple of weeks later. As I said at the top of this post, all told this was a storm in a teacup. It did not go on to damage the band’s relationship with Record Mirror, a rare example of a publication supportive of The Stranglers. Come February 1979, the paper’s Barry Cain was jetting off to Japan to cover the band’s first tour of the country. Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, Tim Lott was never on the receiving end of the anticipated kicking from a slighted Jean Jacques Burnel.
Record Mirror (21st October 1978)
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