I have mentioned before that I felt threatened by the Punk movement of 1977/78 as I was 17/18 years old and just old enough to start going to gigs and live music events on my own, and having grown up listening to my brother Ken’s record collection of classic Rock bands I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to see some of these great bands.
The reality was different as although there was a lot of hype most Punk gigs took place in small venues and Colleges/ Universities and in fact some of the biggest selling Rock albums of all time and some of the biggest Festivals took place at this time. For me Hammersmith Odeon as it was known then was an oasis of great live music at the time and relatively easy to get to from my hometown of Windsor by Train, Bus or Car and I was lucky enough to experience some great live music.
Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush – 3rd December 1977
Other than listening to my brothers record collection, recommendations from friends and listening to the Radio one of the main ways to discover new music was reading Music Magazines which were really quite big at the time with the main ones for me being Melody Maker, New Music Express and later on Sounds. These magazines were so influential that some of the journalists had celebrity status in their own right.
One of the stories we read was concerning Canadian guitarist Frank Marino from the Band Mahogany Rush, which told the story of how Frank took some bad Acid which put him in a coma, whilst he was in the coma he was visited by Jimi Hendrix who taught him how to play guitar just like him. When me and my mates read this we instantly brought tickets to see them perform at Hammersmith Odeon. Of course the story was rubbish but he did sound just like Hendrix and we weren’t the only one fooled as the venue was full on the night. Support band for this show was Welsh Heavy Metal Band Lone Star.
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