1966 and 1967 were years of high camp for young people in their teens. American TV was full of women like Julie Newmar, Melody Patterson, Elizabeth Montgomery,Barbara Eden, Joanne Worley, Tina Louise, Dawn Wells, Donna Douglas, Barbara Feldon, Marlo Thomas, and more. I was 10 years old and I wanted hair like The Ronettes, The Shangri Las, Martha and The Vandellas. My siblings and I had magazines like Mad, 16 and Hit Parader along with top 40 radio and dopey sixties sitcoms. This was our entertainment. You can tell from miles away it was this sort of thing which shaped the sensibilities of Patsy and Edina on Absolutely Fabulous. Many people aren't aware that the comportment and costumerie of The British Invasion Bands (and The Garage Bands from the USA and Canada) was more or less taken from the imaginations of LGBT, managers, publicists, hairdressers, music publishers, clothing designers, record producers and grafted onto the bands. That's why those bands came out of the dressing room looking the way they did first in 1962 in the UK/Europe,then later in early 1964 in North America. I'm talking about oddities like puffy sleeves,turtlenecks,hair grown long,combed forward and over the ears and collar,uniforms,matching suits,matching shirts,scarves,Casey Jones caps,pointy toed shoes and boots,skin tight Levi dress slacks(drainies), permed hair, bell bottoms,beads and earrings. The bands were straight! They cooperated with these people because it got them good paying ballroom and auditorium gigs and increased their chance of getting a recording contract. The LGBT business people were creating kind of an Edwardian fantasy about young men in their teens and twenties and they were attempting to sell the whole package to teenage girls in the UK/Europe and North America. America was still in Vitalis and crewcuts before The British Invasion came along. German Television's Beat Beat Beat was a classic example of the new comportment and costumier at work. This article is intended just for fun. Anyone is more than welcome to read it. I'm just right at my 58th birthday and I'm sure there are many of us who thought the universe of Fizzies, Firestone tires and The Speigel catalog would go on uninterrupted forever. The article doesn't have a deep philosophical or intellectual message. Take it in the same way you'd sit down to a Zero bar at a Walmart lobby bench. Let's have some fun. We'll take a look at the show's history and review some prime Beat Beat Beat shows. Brylcreem and Vitalis are many years behind us. Thanks to those intrepid LGBT people who marketed the entertainment package known as British Invasion rock and roll or "beat music". We can now talk about this in safety! And thanks to The Beatles,The Rolling Stones,The Yardbirds,The Kinks,The Animals,The Searchers and many others who created that great music. The music would've made it big sooner or later anyway. But that entertainment package took our imaginations to "Knightsbridge" "Merseyside" "Brighton Beach",etc.. I am NOT talking about the general time frame of 1969 to 1974 when I say "the sixties". I am talking about the years going from 1962 in England when The Beatles first did "Love Me Do" on Parlophone Records and the four lads appeared on Ed Sullivan stateside in 1964. Up until approximately 1968 when the mid-sixties ended,and everything that had been happening for like 4 or 5 years became officially uncool. I'll start out by saying I'm not an oldies freak,nostalgia buff or a sixties person. When vynil records began to disapear from the stores as the 80s came to a close,I started to collect video. I own about 150 DVDs and VHS tapes. I sold off most of my 60s and 70s vinyl records over the years. I do think it could need to be understood the MTV/VH1 video artists and The Rappers are extremely popular with people who are in their teens and their twenties. They have been for 25 years or more. We all remember when Aunt Rachel and Uncle Harold smoked at the Thanksgiving table. They lectured us about "Gershwin" and "Cole Porter" and "The Fabulous Hits of The Forties". So let's all try not to be a drag,Okay!? Germany and a couple other of the European countries were way ahead of everybody else in live rock and roll on TV in the mid-sixties with such shows as Beat Club,Beat Aus London and Beat Beat Beat. Beat Club was the most popular of all those shows. And it was probably the one most German teenagers watched. Beat Beat Beat was unusual. It featured legendary British Invasion,Eurorock, American Soul music, Folk rock, and garage bands all performing drop dead live! The shows feature very good sound quality by the standard of the times and they are in excellent black and white. There are almost no live recordings either audio or video of many mid-sixties acts. That's because of the screaming that went on at concerts such as The Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Most of the time you couldn't hear so much as one song! This screaming was still going on at Michael Jackson concerts and it had started with Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. Beat Beat Beat was exceptional because it was sort of a Fillmore West of Zombies and Mindbenders-ism. If The Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead had The Fillmores and Woodstock then Kapp, Fontana,London, Mercury, Pye and EMI had Beat Beat Beat, I promise.There was very little of the screaming. So that way you can assess your 45 rpm heroes of the mid-sixties from a musical standpoint and all of them pass with flying colors. It's incredible. If you were to ask me I'd say I think rock is supposed to be fun! And it shouldn't be last hour algebra! Or a bassoon lesson! It should be brought to you by Dippety Do and Clearasil!

Beat Beat Beat was broadcast live from The Stadhalle in Offenbach(Hamburg)and various locations in Frankfurt. The show was a production of The Hessischen Rundfunk corporation of Frankfurt. Ekkehard Bohmer directed the 1966 shows. Gero Erhard directed the 1967 shows. Beat Beat Beat had a radio simulcast on The Armed Forces Network(AFN). Mal Sondock MC'd the 1966 shows and Charlie Hickman MC'd the 1967 shows. They were both American top 40 deejays who got famous in German TV and Radio. They both spoke German fluently and manuevered back and forth between German and English with ease. There were at least two other guys who MC'd a few of the shows. One was Ray Billings,an American deejay like Mal and Charlie. Ray MC'd one 1966 show and a later 1968 show. The other was an unanounced German sportscaster who MC'd in German only. The very first three or four Beat Beat Beat shows were productions of Fernsehen und Horfunk. Cheri Waner and Don Storer were the show's German Mom and Pop house band. Cheri played a massive electric organ like in a skating rink. Her small dog often sat by her on the organ bench and would fall asleep as the music played. The camera crews in the studio sometimes got shots of this in the broadcast. Don played Jazz drums and once in awhile he sang in a gravelly kind of voice. Very adept musically, Cheri and Don got their start over in England as house band for the "Oh Boy" rock music TV show in the UK circa 1960-1961. Together they kept the momentum going on Beat Beat Beat with "The Girl From Ipanema",etc.and visa versa. The Beat Beat Beat audience consisted of German teenagers and American teenagers. The Americans were the sons and daughters of servicemen stationed in Germany at that time. There was a dancefloor and a bandstand with hockey arena tier styled seating. An average Beat Beat Beat studio audience consisted of 1200 German and American teenagers. This show has been called "a nightmare parallel universe where everything is in black and white".

Beat Beat Beat's stock in trade was killer live performances by The Searchers,the Easybeats, P.P. Arnold, The Kinks, Manfred Mann, Helen Shapiro, The Rattles,The Creation, Spencer Davis Group, Sandie Shaw, Chris Farlowe, Cat Stevens,The Small Faces, Julie Driscol with Brian Auger and The Trinity,The Move,The Untamed, Jimi Hendrix Experience,Dave Dee, Dozy,Beaky, Mick and Tich, The Troggs, Eric Burdon and The New Animals, P.J. Proby, Los Bravos, Peter and Gordon,Freddie and The Dreamers,Sam and Dave,The Smoke,The Equals,The Tremeloes,Whistling Jack Smith,Carol Friday,The Monks,Tom Jones,Lee Dorsey, Sue and Sunny,The Hollies, Herman's Hermits,Tawney Reed,Alan Price,Paul Jones,The Mindbenders,Sten and Stanley,Georgie Fame,Dave Davies,Tony Sheridan,The Lords,Barry Monroe,Madeline Bell,The Yardbirds,Adam and Eve,Beryl Marsden with Johnny B.Great and the Quotations,The Foundations,Chris Andrews,Simon Dupree and The Big Sound,The Fingers,Arther Conley,Elisabeth List,Graham Bonney,Casey Jones and The Governers,Geno Washington and The Ram Jam Band,The Oberlanders. It was usually shown on Sundays and broadcast in increments of 45 minutes to an hour. The show was on German TV channels which featured no commercial interruptions. The programs were lengthy and music packed. Beat Beat Beat was probably a local show in Frankfurt or Hamburg in it's first handfull of broadcasts. From The beginning Beat Beat Beat had an armed forces radio simulcast. It expanded to a bigger television market not long afterward. Beat Beat Beat signed on with a frantic pretaped show featuring the Kinks as headliners in January 1966. It went off the air with Julie Driscol and P.J. Proby in January 1969. Bootleg lists have been full of Beat Beat Beat items for years,both audio and video. The show comes back periodically in half hour compiles and full length original episodes on European and German TV.

Let's go back to 1966 and 1967 with Mom and Dad's black and white Motorola set so we can morbidly zero in on a few Beat Beat Beat shows from back in the days of Julie Newmar as Catwoman and Joanne Worley on Laugh-in. Those days of Phyllis Diller and Lee Grant. One interesting show is from September 1966 and it features The Creation, Peter and Gordon, Barry Monroe, Shapes, Koobas, Adam and Eve. It's MC'd by Mal Sondock and of course,it features the house band of Cheri Waner and Don Storer. Peter and Gordon lip synch to "Just To Show I Love You" and Simon and Garfunkel's "Homeward Bound". P&G came from Cornwall to London in early '64. Peter's sister was Paul McCartney's girlfreind. They were the recipient of Paul McCartney demos like "World Without Love" and "Nobody I Know". The Koobas had been on the show before and they were a raunchy British garage band who wore matching suits and uniforms. They performed songs like "Daddy Rolling Stone". Shapes seemed to use chords and songs which sounded like the New Colony Six or The Thirteenth Floor Elevators. I'm sure that Shapes came from Germany. Both groups were great. The 1963-ish Barry Monroe was a great singer. He lip synched to a powerful Phil Spector styled production number called "Baby,Think Before You Act". Then Mal introduces The Creation who at that time consisted of Kenny Pickett(vocal),Eddie Phillips(Guitar),Bob Garner(Bass),Jack Jones(drums). The Creation were big in London's club scene. Most of their audience consisted of young mods. They've been compared to The Kinks,The Small Faces,The Who and The Yardbirds. In their early days Tony Stratton-Smith had them in uniforms or matching shirts. And Tony certainly encouraged them in their Psychadelic aspects. Stratton-Smith was gay. His roster of artists included such performers as Beryl Marsden, Genesis, Lindesfarne,The Nice. Tony was a cross between a Westchester-ish,Oxford-ish Englishman and a Valley of the Dolls psychadelic guru. Several paperbacks have been written about Tony, The Creation and other artists he managed. You can get 'em from Amazon.com. Mal sort of clowns around like the way Lloyd Thaxton used to. Meanwhile The Creation launch into an overpowering version of Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley's "I'm A Man". Eddie Phillips starts playing his guitar with a violin bow and with the help of a little distortion and reverb that auditorium is full of otherworldly sounds. the kids don't know if they should keep dancing or not and some of them are turning their heads and looking at the bandstand in disbeleif as The Creation continue to play. They played two more songs and it's enough to show everybody who's boss. Later,Mal introduces an interesting German Sonny and Cher takeoff called Adam and Eve. Adam has shoulder length hair and Eve is a beautiful young woman of probably 20 years old. She has long blonde hair. They sing their hit "Look At Us And Laugh". They are wearing bell bottums which were just starting to come off the runways in 1966. Bell bottums were a bit slow to catch on. Most people didn't wear them until the seventies. Then everybody started wearing them all the time. Until they abruptly went out of style in 1979. They've been reintroduced in recent years as women's wear. Look,I plan to buy some bell bottums to go with some blazers and tunics,OK? Yes,for me! With a pair of pumps or a pair of canvas shoes with transparent plastic orange soles. Anyhow,The Creation played Beat Beat Beat again with an equally awesome performance in August 1967.

Another great Beat Beat Beat show took place in February 1967. It was almost too good to be true. On the bill that night were The Hollies,The Easybeats,Paul Jones,The Thoughts and Carol Friday. Cheri and Don were house band and Charlie Hickman MC'd. The 5 peice Thoughts from London started the show playing two killer songs which showed themselves up as a very loud and ballsy but tight ensemble. Carol Friday was a good looking 22 year old English woman who sang two haunting songs which I remember from AM radio in the sixties. Carol Friday had good success for a long time after this TV broadcast,beyond that I don't have anymore news about her. Paul Jones was Manfred Mann's Lead singer from 1962 to 1966. He did two romantic ballads in this Beat Beat Beat show after a breif Charlie Hickman interview. The TV cameras emphasized the grandeur of The Stadhalle in the camera angles as Jones sang. Paul Jones was a teen heartthrob in 1964 and has been hailed as gallant and heroic. He is a very good blues harmonica player and he is currently in a band with some ex-Manfred Mann guys. Charlie introduces The Easybeats. Going from German to English and back and forth he explains they're from Sydney,Australia. He introduces them each one by name and steps out of the way for ball busting versions of "River Deep,Mountain High", "Made My Bed(Gonna Lie In It)" , "Lovin' Machine", "Friday on My Mind". The performance is absolutely incredible! Later in the show Charlie Hickman introduces the "King Midas" Hollies. A fan couldn't ask for anything more. They're decked out in their "Midlands Gentleman" and "Jamestown Settler" get ups. Graham Nash is sporting his Rembrandt,Rubens and Renoir goatee,mustache and Bobby Eliot is typically wearing one of his hats. The guys launch into "Stop Stop Stop" "Carousel" "Bus Stop" and "Offenbach Blues".

An August 1967 show brought The Creation,P.P.Arnold,The Move,The Warriors,Graham Bonney,Don and Dotty along with Cheri and Don. Charlie Hickman MC's P.P.Arnold grew up in LA and got her start with Ike and Tina Turner. She got famous in England and Europe. She slowly traipses down a Stadhalle high carpeted stairway singing the Geoff "Cat Stevens" Stephanopoulus composition "First Cut Is The Deepest". The song was produced by Mick Jagger,Andrew Loog Oldham and Mike Hurst(also called Mike Leander). It's downright thrilling TV stuff. The song was used once in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous. Graham Bonney was on the show once before with The Troggs and the Animals. His stock in trade,it seems,was rehashing electric banana hits. These were hit songs that had actually been more popular in the USA. The arrangements were 90% the same as the original records but Graham was a very good singer with a recognizable style. He waded into the crowd with a microphone and sang Bruce Johnston's "Thank You Baby" and The Turtles'"Happy Together". Don and Dotty sang Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood's "Summer Wine" with backing from Cheri Waner and Don Storer. Don and Dotty were both good singers but you really notice Dotty's mini-dress and her very nice blonde wig! The Warriors were a garage band from Liverpool's Twin City of Manchester. They were a great band with their own style. They did two songs. The Warriors were decked out in strange jackets and hats. They seemed almost eerie. As if they were trying to make a weird statement of some sort. You can tell from the level of distortion on the sound of their instruments at suburban living room volume they were playing very loud there at the Stadhalle. You've probably heard of the Move! The Move were important in rock's transgender manifestations and still would be. Guitarist Roy Wood had a Peg Bundy top knot and all of the guys in the band seemed to have slightly tinted hair and makeup. The Move broke into "Walk Upon the Water" and played three killer songs. Jeff Lynne was a member of the Move. The Move did two albums which are still played on AOR radio. They did lots of singles in the UK/Europe. I mentioned The Creation before. They came toward the end of the show and they seem to be playing super loud. They're done up in permed hair,makeup and nehru shirts. The guys in the Creation were straight but Tony Stratton-Smith and certain people connected with the group had an influence on how they looked onstage and in publicity stills. on this show Bob Garner has replaced Kenny Pickett on lead vocals and Kim Gardner is the new bass player. Jack Jones is still the drummer. The Creation were very big in Germany and Europe although they came from Enfield,Middlesex,England. Creation Lead Guitarist Eddie Phillips hauled out the violin bow for "Painter Man" (an October 1966 hit record for the group)and the guys continued to play as the credits rolled.

It was truly that junk TV, junk radio and those magazines I mentioned earlier which were among the really cool things about the mid-sixties. Both teenagers and grade school kids would lose themselves to an entire universe of top 40 radio,along with magazines like 16 and hit parader for hours. Some parents probably didn't approve of all this,but I think many didn't notice or didn't care. There are two separate popular culture trends people are talking about when they mention the sixties. One of them is that of groups like Santana,CSNY,Jefferson Airplane and Cream having AM radio hits around 1968,exploding into stuff like the Woodstock festival in 1969. Although this collegium or whatever you want to call it began in the late sixies,it became very big in the seventies. You hear the results of all this on the radio when you hear "Stairway To Heaven" "Layla" "Take It Easy" "Won't Get Fooled Again" "For What It's Worth" "Touch of Grey" "Start Me Up" "Woodstock" "Horse With No Name" "Freebird" "Band on The Run" being played over and over again. The other trend or tradition comes out of that junk TV and Junk radio which existed mainly from 1964 to 1970. This movement was characterized by stuff like beer,fast cars and garage rock. It mimic'd the hippies in a few respects but it was less counterculture in nature. Publications like Creem, Bomp, Gulcher Culture and Cavalier championed garage rock,bubble gum music and bands like The MC5,The Stooges,Patti Smith,The Flamin' Groovies and The Velvet Underground. Writers such as Lester Bangs and Dave Marsh described "punk rock". Bangs praised people like Sky Saxon,Lou Reed,Count Five and The MC5. These publications wrote about Jayne County and The New York Dolls extensively. I was 16 and I was knocked out to find out about The Dolls and Jayne! People like Marsh and Bangs served as alternative for those of us who thought the Woodstock culture and it's music was overtly serious and at times,overbearing. As the sixties came to a close,smile buttons and lava lamps ruled. it became very uncool to like the Top 40,45 rpm vinyl records and fanzines like 16,Tiger Beat,Datebook. It was passe to support the older,"commercial" mid-sixties music scene.

Of the more notable British Invasion group managers,Giorgio Gomelsky,Andrew Loog Oldham,Chris Stamp,Tito Burns,Peter Grant,Chas Chandler,Peter Meaden were straight guys with a sincere interest in good rock and roll music. Yet they were competing in the same market as the gay cartel and they weren't averse to utilizing it's bag of tricks and gimmicks. Brian Epstein,Simon Napier-Bell,Kenneth Pitt,Tony Stratton-Smith,Kit Lambert,Robert Stigwood,Larry Page were gay and along with hundreds of others working in various capacities in London,these people orchestrated British Invasion Rock and Roll as kind of a lifestyle in magazines and bubblegum cards. And of course it goes without saying the groups provided the talent! I'm trying to illustrate it was no accident beat music appeared on the horizon in 1962 and 1963. And the way the bands looked was no accident. The idea was to present a kind of gently acceptable transgenderism which would hopefully appeal to kids of junior high and high school age and be heterosexual all at the same time. Beat Beat Beat featured American acts in most of the shows and Euro-rock acts,too. But it was probably cheaper to contract British Invasion groups because they were only a short ferry ride away from Offenbach or Frankfurt. All the groups in these shows are great but Beat Beat Beat is the best showcase of mid-sixties British Invasion rock and roll I've seen! Study the hair,clothes and stage makeup of all the longhaired groups in these shows and realize to go onstage money was spent for hairdressers,makeup artists and tailors with a slant towards androgyny and boutiquey opulance. Study these 1966 and 1967 women. You've never seen anything quite like it.

There was a cool psychedelic Beat Beat Beat show in October 1967, Emceed by Charlie Hickman in a Flower Power shirt. The show had lots of Headliners. Madeline Bell was an American Soul and R&B singer who looked great in a mini-dress and sang in that Stax/Volt and Motown style lots of us grew up with. Whistling Jack Smith mimed and lip synched to his big record called "I was Kaisar Bill's Batman". It was a whistling anthem based on a WWI melody. Kaisar Bill's Batman was a big hit record in The USA! Episode Six were a good electric banana pop group who passed themselves off as emissaries of Flower Power. They sent out roadies and friends into their audiences to pass out flowers and burn incense. Charlie Hickman and much of the Beat Beat Beat audience seemed to take it all seriously! The lovely Emma Rede performed "Just Like A Man". So anyway,there had been Bob Dylan's "Just Like A Woman" one year earlier. So it only follows there should be "Just Like A Man" one year later. Knut Keisewetter was big in the German and European Market. His music was surprisingly good. Sorry,but I don't have any info on Knut. Red Squares came from Scandinavia and they had two lead singers(like the Nashville Teens). Their clothes were very Brian Jones foppish. There were six guys in the group. They played good. Yet they emphasized their vocals and they even managed a couple of Beach Boys songs. The entire show climaxed with London's The Smoke who had been banned from the BBC's rock and roll programming because of the blatant sex and dope references in their songs! The Smoke played three very rocking songs and kept playing on,as The credits rolled and Charlie Hickman said "bye bye and see you next time on Beat Beat Beat"!

October 1966 brought a fast-paced and exciting show on Beat Beat Beat MC'd by Mal Sondock("your dock jiscey"). This time it was The Small Faces(original 1965-1966 group with Steve Marriot on Lead Vocals),Tony Sheridan,The Untamed and The Rangers or "Los Bravos". Los Bravos/The Rangers played two incredible songs including their 1966 hit "Black is Black". There is concert hall echo even in the video tape soundtrack and sweat dripping off the walls. The band has a guest lead singer on one of their songs and he sounds a whole lot like John Lennon. The Untamed were a great band sounding like The Animals meet Barry and The Remains. Tony Sheridan played two songs. One was a ballad and the other was a Rocker. Sheridan was a fine performer and he played his own lead guitar! Yes,it's the same Tony Sheridan who was on those 12 or 13 "Stu and Pete" Beatles songs recorded in Hamburg. The Small Faces played four blockbuster songs. Mal heads a breif Q&A session with the kids asking the band questions. The show ends with a medley of "Whatcha Gonna Do" and "Sha La La La Lee". It's a powerful performance. The Small Faces were a "Mod" group and were often publicized as The Who's "rivals". Actually,the two bands were freinds with each other. Small Faces drummer Kenny Jones substituted for Keith Moon in The Who from 1978 to 1984 after Moon passed away. Yet in the early days in England,The Who and The Small Faces were publicized as each other's rivals!

The Beat Beat Beat Rock and Roll Music TV program was at it's zenith with shows like the following from May 1967. The Show featured Sandie Shaw,Ernestine Anderson,The Jimi Hendrix Experience,Simon Dupree and The Big Sound,Dave Dee,Dozy,Beaky,Mick and Tich,and the house band of Cheri Waner and Don Storer. Charlie Hickman was the MC. Ernestine Anderson sang two great songs with backing from Cheri and Don. The newly formed Jimi Hendrix Experience had released a couple of singles and were big in the club scene in London. They were only a week or two away from releasing their debut album "Are You Experienced"and from playing the Monterey Pop Festival in California. This Beat Beat Beat appearance is a rare example of Jimi,Mitch and Noel laying down the "Are You Experienced" sound live in concert. It's incredible! The Experience plays extensive versions of "Stone Free", "Purple Haze", "Hey Joe". All this is Live! The band's appearance is interesting. Long Afros. Regent street went all out. It's the incredible Jimi Hendrix Experience live in concert! Simon Dupree and The Big Sound were an earlier incarnation of Gentle Giant. They did great garage band renditions of "I See The Light' and "Each and Every Day". The camera angles on Simon Dupree and The Big Sound were exciting and they had a good stage act. Dave Dee,Dozy,Beaky,Mick and Tich were foppish(like the Small Faces,The Move or Philadelphia's Nazz)but they were decidedly commercial. They didn't have that Rolling Stones and Yardbirds hard edge in their sound like those other bands. Instead they had delicate harmonies,precise backing,great songs. The lead guitarist owned one of the first fuzz tones in the UK. They played 4 songs in the show. The best thing that was in the entire show was a song called "Bend It". The lead guitarist played a Balalika. Sandie Shaw had two very big records in the USA in late 1964 called "Girl Don't Come" and "There's Always Something There To Remind Me". She had a few more near hits in the USA like "Long Live Love" and "Tell The Boys". She was far more prolific in the UK and Europe where she had a slew of number 1 hit records. She was struggling in the late seventies. In circumstances somewhat like in a rags to riches story she was rediscovered by Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde in 1978. Sandie is still in the music business at age 65 and still going strong. She is as lovely as ever. A recent tour of the British Isles and Australia which covered over 50 live dates was a big success for Sandie. Sandie is exquisite to look at in person and they say photos don't capture the half of it. She's 5'10 and very captivating with her makeup,hairstyle and clothes. Sandie performs barefoot and along with her Vidal Sassoon hair and mini skirts,this is her signature trademark. Sandra Goodrich was 17 years old in Dagenham,England and she was discovered by Adam Faith at a talent show. She was hooked up with manager Eve Taylor and producer/songwriter Chris Andrews. They were expert at their jobs. Eve Taylor was a legend and Chris Andrews was a producer,arranger and songwriter extraordinaire. Chris started out as a producer in the days of Adam Faith,Tommy Steele,Billy Fury and Cliff Richard. He tried his hand at some vynil releases of his own from time to time. He appeared on a January 1967 Beat Beat Beat performing two songs on the bill with Eric Burdon and The New Animals and The Troggs. Of course,the assertive Sandie Shaw sometimes wrote and produced her own records.Anyway,Taylor and Andrews took Sandra Goodrich and created Sandie Shaw! She performs three songs on Beat Beat Beat and Charlie Hickman presents her with a "Madame of Beat" award. Sandie had won the "Eurovision" female singers award a few days earlier and I guess Beat Beat Beat's producers weren't to be outdone.

One of the most watched(and bootlegged)Beat Beat Beat shows is from November 1966 featuring Manfred Mann, Chris Farlowe. The Monks, Les Knack. Les Knack were a European garage rock band who could easily fit into any North American Happy Hour lounge or any 1965-1966 big city discotheque. They knocked out music for drinking and dancing and they do a great job. Chris Farlowe is an R&B singer who started out in the early sixties greater London blues boom. He has a husky Eric Burdon-ish kind of voice. He fronted a band called The Thunderbirds. Chris was a protege of The Rolling Stones. He did several records in the mid-sixties on Immediate. These were produced by the likes of Jagger,Leander,Oldham. Chris has recorded on and off over the years and he's still in the music business backed up by The Thunderbirds. He lip synch's to "Ride On Baby" and "Out of time". They must've been big records in Europe in 1966, Mal Sondock seems delighted. As an aside,those who've been personally associated with them will tell what a surprise it is to meet all of The Rolling Stones for the first time sitting around in a green room or a snack bar. They say the first thing you notice is how little and peewee they all are. They mentored Chris Farlowe on and off in the sixties and Chris appears to be about 5'5 tall. Chris is still famous in England and Europe. The Monks were a 5 piece group consisting of American servicemen stationed in Germany. Like Ernest L. Kagle they were Beatles debunkers. They employed strange instruments like an amplified banjo and an electronic the ramin keyboard. They were interesting and they were pretty good,musically. Their fake shaved head and string tie outfits were a cool bizarre touch. Manfred Mann appear absolutely live with excellent sound and picture quality. Those Shindig appearances are great but this is more up close and personal. It's extraordinary. This is the "second" Manfred Mann group(Up The Junction!). It includes Manfred Mann(Piano,Organ),Mike Hugg(Drums),Tom Mcguiness(Lead Guitar),Klaus Voorman(Bass Guitar)and Mike D'abo(Lead Vocals). So you see it's the Fontana years and after a few breif bits of business the group is going to let loose and blast out some of those UK/Europe singles in person. The guys have stopped wearing matching suits a couple of years back. Manfred has his trademark Abe Lincoln beard and black plastic glasses. Such touches were encouraged by Kenneth Pitt who was virtually responsible for Manfred Mann's entire public image. Kenneth Pitt was gay and drummer Mike Hugg said in an interview in the 90's that Pitt single handedly created the entire Manfred Mann image! Pitt was connected up with Manfred Mann in 1963 by gay record producer John Burgess who was trying to sell a few 45's by an early version of the group. This group was a large jazz and R&B review in Portsmouth,England fronted by Manfred and Mike Hugg. Ken Pitt formatted them into the group that became famous(Paul Jones,etc.). Hard work paid off. "Do Wah Diddy Diddy"(July 1964)and "Sha La La"(October 1964)came eventually and Manfred Mann were stars in the USA! Mal interviews Manfred and Klaus. Mal is a bilingual American and he's very pleased Klaus is German. Manfred points out that he(Manfred)isn't German,he's South African and came to England in 1961. Mal leads a Q&A with Manfred Mann and a girl named Ingrid asks Manfred and Klaus who sews their "costumes". In certain regional German dialects a "costume" is simply your daily suit or work clothes. Manfred and Klaus caught on right away and replied they got their costumes in a London antique market. The five group members take the stage while Mal announces the next song as "Semi-detached Suburban Mister Jones". Really,that's "Semi-detached Suburban Mister James" and this is a real fan's moment. Normally,I've always been a bit skeptical about doing songs "exactly like the record" for those of you who've listened to Manfred Mann's Fontana output this is irresistable! You'll want to crank up the volume.

The Yardbirds played Beat Beat Beat in March 1967. Beat Beat Beat audiences were often nonplused by the astounding classic live performances they witnessed. Tonight they are a little more lively in their applause and reactions. Especially when Charlie Hickman announces "The Yardbirds" as the evening's headliner. So it was Cheri Waner and Don Storer,The Poor Things,The Tages,Ebony Keyes and The Yardbirds. The Poor Things were a rather good garage band who played two songs. I don't know if they were from The UK or Europe. They played and sang nicely. The Tages were a five peice group with incredible Yellow Balloon meets The Left Banke meets The Beach boys harmonies. They were sort of Leaves-ish with stuff like tambourines and electric 12- string. As near as I can tell,Ebony Keyes were German guys doing blue eyed soul covers of stuff like the Righteous Brothers through phonetic transcription! It's cool to watch them do it. It's March of 1967, mustaches and beards are getting popular and a couple of the Ebony Keyes guys have got mustaches. OK,Charlie points out each Yardbird by name one at a time and breifly interviews Keith Relf on camera. It's Keith Relf(vocal,harp),Chris Dreja(bass),Jimmy Page(guitar) and Jim McCarty(drums). Jimmy Page is the lead guitar player at this point. The group plays intense and very live versions of "Shapes Of Things" "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" "Over Under Sideways Down" "I'm A Man". The sound is very reminiscent of The group's "Live Yardbirds With Jimmy Page" album recorded at NYC's Anderson Theatre in 1968 and released after The Yardbirds broke up. There's lots of Keith Relf harmonica on "I'm A Man". Jimmy Page hauls out the violin bow for some feedback and strange sounds. You've probably noticed the glitch that happens as the band goes into the last verse of "I'm A Man" on bootleg VHS tapes and DVDs. In the original Hessischen Rundfunk broadcast there's a Charlie Hickman interruption. It's something like "goodnight folks and we'll see you next time on Beat Beat Beat". Then Charlie goes on for about 30 to 45 seconds with TV schedule announcements and promo stuff in German. Fortunately the microphones and cameras get back to The Yardbirds who keep playing then they end the song as the closing credits start to roll. They exit the stage. The audience is very pleased with their Yardbirds concert! In 1965 and 1966 The Yardbirds were managed by Simon Napier-Bell who was gay. When the group did "For Your Love" and "Heart Full of Soul" Simon got them booked as major headliners in the USA. He got them on Top 40 radio and lined up a lot of publicity for them. Simon Napier-Bell got slack. In 1966 he started going for long periods of time without contacting the group members either on the phone or in person. The Yardbirds got pissed off and fired him. Simon Napier-Bell then turned his energies to managing a certain Bobby Sherman/Terry Jacks styled balladeer called Jeff "Cat Stevens" Stephanopoulus. Perhaps Simon Napier-Bell deserves some apreciation. He was in the British music business before The Beatles and the Stones back in the days of Adam Faith,Tommy Steele,Billy Fury and Cliff Richard. But he was opportunistic. He is given a co-production credit on many of The Yardbirds' 1965-1966 record lables and jackets. This is bogus. Bass player Paul SamwellSmith produced The groups records for a long time until he split in June of 1966. Mickey Most(who was gay)was assigned to The Yardbirds as their new producer in the summer of 1966 due to strange stipulations and clauses in their UK contract. Mickey is incredibly successful. Still,he wasn't the best producer for the Yardbirds. Simon Napier-Bell was fired by the group in the fall of 1966 and former exhibition wrestler Peter Grant was quickly brought in to replace him. Grant was straight with a wife and kids. He was definately on hand when The Yardbirds morphed into Led Zeppelin at the close of 1968.

I beleive Rock and Roll should be fun. Not textbook and doctrinaire. I like many of the "established" heavy groups and superstars of the seventies and eighties up to the present. But I do get bored with many of them and I don't accept they were heaven sent to teach moralistic lessons. Anyhow,watching 3 or 4 of the Beat Beat Beat shows are a hell of a lot of fun for a weekend evening. About fourteen complete 1966 and 1967 shows are legally available. You can buy them in DVD from The Videobeat.com and a scattering of even more of the shows are sometimes sold in TV.com. I'm hoping more of the shows will surface in time. You tube has practically all of the individual clips of groups and singers' appearances on Beat Beat Beat including from all 26 shows which have survived. Some of the You tube clips are mistakenly credited to Beat Club. you'll have to conduct meticulous searches to find what you want. A precursory list of American TV shows in the 1964-1968 era featuring rock and roll bands would surely include: Shindig,Hullabaloo,Ed Sullivan,Lloyd Thaxton,Action,Bandstand,Happening,The Monkees,Upbeat,Shivaree,The !!!!Beat,Hollywood Au Go Go,The Smothers Brothers,Danny Kay,Red Skelton,Hollywood Palace,Playboy after Dark. Towns from Corpus Christi to Minneapolis/St.Paul had TV shows with bands. This listing is by no means complete. There weren't any 24/7 video networks in those days but almost everyday there was afternoon and evening TV shows with rock bands and singers.

The Beat Beat Beat shows are the best music TV shows from the mid-sixties I know of. Dewey Phillips' Pop Shop(local TV,Memphis,TN.1957),Swinging Time With Robin Seymour(mid-sixties Detroit/Windsor),Whole Scene Going On(mid-sixties,ATV independant television,UK) Detroit Tube Works(1971-1974,early prototype of Cable TV-local Detroit, St.Louis, Los Angeles),The Monkees(NBC,1966-1967)The !!!!Beat(This show featured live blues and soul music circa 1965-1966 BEFORE the big 1968 hippie/ blues rediscovery),Upbeat(started in '66 Upbeat was a garage rock and bubblegum music showcase)are also quite extraordinary. Beat Beat Beat is NOT to be confused with "the sixties" in the context of the post-1967 Woodstock years on into the seventies. A few Beat Beat Beat shows were made in 1968. Perhaps 5 or 6. Most of the shows were done in 1966-1967. Beat Beat Beat started out in January 1966 with the Kinks tearing the place up and continued until one last show in 1969 with the iconic Julie Driscoll and P.J.Proby. All performances throughout all of the shows except in situations where horns and strings couldn't be provided in time are absolutely,incredibly live. Beat Beat Beat is not to be confused with the fine Beat Club shows,also on German TV. We've all heard "King Midas" "Introducing The Troggs" " "Evolution" "Soul of Mann" "Are You Experienced" "The Mighty Quinn" "We Are Painter Men" "Falling Off The Edge of The World" "There Are But Four Small Faces" "Here Come The Tremeloes" "Live Yardbirds Featuring Jimmy Page" "The Live Kinks" "I'm A Man And Other Hits" "Searchers #4" "Something Else By The Kinks" "The Twain Shall Meet" and you wonder just what was it all like on stage?! Well ,I won't spoil it for you by giving away everything ahead of time.

As I mentioned,I used to watch shows like Shindig and Hullabaloo when I was 10 and I wanted to look like the female performers. Later on,in the seventies I had my own shoulder length hair which I did in sixties B-52s with rollers,a dryer,bobby pins and tons of Aqua Net hairspray. Even though it was the seventies, I mimic'd sixties styles and one of my favorites was the Gloria Steinem/Peg Bundy(actually a sixties style). I did updos,boofoos and behives. Through trial and error I figured out how to give myself a beehive. And I dyed my hair incessantly with Miss Clairol and Frost'n'Tip. I finally had to stop all this because I was burning my hair to shreds with dye. Strands of my hair turned green and orange. A freind of mine told me I could lose my hair. I was young and in my twenties. So I stopped dying my hair and for years now I've been doing wigs. Really,it was those British Invasion and Garage Rock Bands with their Carl Perkins and Muddy Waters songs who provided great moments in 2 minute bursts on Top 40 radio. Yet it was the Gay Cartel who brought them to us as an entertainment package. Without them,this probably would've never happened. LGBT and Transgender people have made tremendous contributions to the world. This particular facade of PR image combined with rock and roll was ingenious. Very few fans knew what was going on. It was 1968 and 1969 before people were discussing these things openly. Excellent black and white video tape of 26 Beat Beat Beat shows definately exists. Sound is crystal clear studio quality Mono. VH1's UK subsidiary bought the rights and aired a very nice series of special clips from the show in 1997. Mark Ellen MC'd. 36 Beat Beat Beat shows were produced altogether if you include lost episodes featuring Gerry and the Pacemakers,Cilla Black,Dusty Springfield,The Who,Marvin Gaye,Them,Marianne Faithful,The Walker Brothers,The Moody Blues,The Zombies. I'm pretty sure these lost episodes did actually go into production because I met a transexual who was an AFN sound engineer on some of them. She was an 19 year old army guy in 1967. I exchanged a couple of emails with someone who was in the audience at all of the Beat Beat Beat shows. The video tape of the lost shows probably got erased accidentally! As I said before,You can buy DVD's of the shows from and . A European corporation sells "best of" compiles of the shows featuring acts such as Spencer Davis or The Yardbirds. You can get 'em for about 10 bucks from Amazon.com. I think the central reason why Joe Hasifatz placed us all here is to have a good time. And so it should be with rock and roll. For granted,times change. It's a different generation and subculture every 3 to 5 years. So all you AbFab people remember-"The age of Sondock and Hickman will overcome the days of Sullivan and O'Neil". Keep saying Beat Beat Beat!