Originally posted 2023-06-23 18:41:22.
Hawkwind, Bedhopping and Hippy Chicks. London in 1973, to a young lad fresh from the sticks, was something else. It certainly wasn’t the London of today.
I lived in a squat (much to my mother’s horror) with a bunch of other young people. I was seventeen. Yes, we were hippies. What classified the hippies, as far as we could see, was that we were all resolutely middle-class, smoked pot and followed an ‘alternative’ lifestyle. Hippy guys wore their hair long, past their shoulders, with jeans and maybe tie-dyed tee-shirts and hippy chicks tended to go for floral print dresses and that ethereal look. They also had a penchant for Patchouli Oil!
We read Oz magazine and Time Out — though we rarely actually went out, on account of being broke most of the time. There was no Internet and we rarely had access to a television, so listening to music was our main entertainment. And I do have to say, some pub landlords were very hostile towards us, even though, if we went to a pub, we were always very quiet and polite. I don’t recall anyone ever getting into a fight, not even over a chick. (Hippy chicks came in two variants: the ones who stuck with one guy like glue and those who liked to spread their love; the latter could cause tensions.)
Hippy Chicks and bedhopping.
This piece describes going to see Hawkwind perform under the arches in Ladbroke Grove, on a Saturday. I met Michael Moorcock, who was a hero of mine (still is.) I also met the famous Lemmy Kilmister, RIP, who was then the bass player with Hawkwind, before going on to form Motorhead, which was far more his thin. It goes on to discuss ‘bedhopping’, which was indulged in by nominally homeless hippy chicks and life as it was lived in a squat with no electricity or water! (We were very adventurous.)
We were all very young; I think the oldest of us was twenty-two; I crave forgiveness for our youthful excesses.
