‘Roll on death and let’s have a bash at the angels’

– Generation X

When the teen pop magazines eventually picked up on Generation X they turned it into a set of life style tips with The Who, The Birds and The Toggery Five as their models

Huddersfield *Daily Examiner* (December 1, 1964)

After You’ve Gone blog has some background on the term ‘generation x’ [HERE] and on the book itself [HERE]

Before Billy Idol’s mob took the name there were at least two other combos, one in Kent the other in Cornwall, who adopted the name and attempted to breakout of village halls

A Kentish Express columnist looks no further than to her darling boy’s school band, Generation X, for this February 1967 piece.

‘Generation X the title of a paperback which detailed the wild youth of the 1960s: a rock band of the 1970s . . .’ Bolton *Evening News* (December 20, 1977)

Clipped pages from Generation X on the rear of The Clash’s debut single

The 1964 American edition, published by Fawcett, uses a reversed and cropped image of rockers and policemen on a Margate street corner. The original below is reproduced in Johnny Stuart’s essential Rockers! (1987)

The two rockers to the right of the policemen have been given hair enhancements by Fawcett’s photo editor – quiffs are go!

After posting the shot of the ‘Johnnie Burnette’ Tear It Up cover, I went looking for more of Sylvia Pitcher’s images. Lots of her great pix of the Animals and, most impressively photos of The Action I’d not previously seen, can be found in the Getty Images archive here

I like the mirrored images of the fags, left hand right hand.

But as arresting as those images of the boys from Kentish Town are, they’re nothing compared to this pic of hers of a band hitherto unknown to me, Neat Change

The listing dates this circa 1967, my first thought was the skinhead look and pose is more likely 1969, but the shoes are all wrong. What they actually look like is late period The Birds, so I’d say 1966.

45cat lists only one Neat Change 45 , which has a Peter Frampton connection. It’s okay, soft psyche with strings which fits well with their new primped hair. One of the band later helped form Yes (Peter Brockbanks aka Banks). The singer, Jimmy Edwards went on to work with Bruce Foxton after the death of The Jam. Stewart Home gives the lowdown on his career here. I dunno if there are any recordings by the band in their late Mod, proto-skinhead phase ,but I hope they sound like they looked.

Neat Change after a vist to the hairdressers, 1968 (uploaded by freakbeatjames on 45Cat)