The "British Invasion". A question for you old farts out there.


In school as a young teen ager, we has two groups....the Beatles fans and the Dave Clark Five fans, which I was one of.  In your youth did you have different cliques (I am thinking high school) based on what bands/singers they liked?  I was also in the minority by being a Del Shannon fan.  (yes, I am a dinosaur! ).  Thankfully I aged into Jazz and Classical for the most part, but did enjoy some popular music in the 80s.   And you?
    




jusam
You might have been ostracized from the Beatles crowd when you were in school, but that’s entirely justifiable in anyone’s estimation. Be that as it may, picture this British Invasion tragedy, When I was twelve years old in 1964 my 45rpm of Manfred Mann’s " Do Wah Diddy Diddy" disappeared.

Definitely not one to let matters of such import rest, I revisited this sore subject at a family reunion, aboard a cruise ship no less, some forty or so years later. At this late date my sister Marion laughingly confessed to having traded this prize possession to Theresa McNally for a turtle. She was only four years old at the time, but I threatened to throw her overboard anyway, Actually doing so might have been too harsh. The moral of the story, yes the British Invasion was supremely important, but don’t go overboard with it at this late date.
By the time I got into a music the Beatles had broken up, the Stones were constantly stoned, Hendrix/Morrison/Joplin had over dosed…It was Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, then I discovered Classical and became a snob.
I had the great fortune to experience live The Beatles during their last US tour in '66.  I was hooked on music in general from my earliest youth though.
We had two garage bands during my HS days, of which I played bass and keyboard in the invasion cover group while the other band focused more on US beach music, Beach Boys, Ventures, etc.  Neither group were high quality (as most of us self taught were) but we all enjoyed ourselves immensely!  On the other hand, our front man, Dave Gordon, did turn professional and was highly regarded in the folk genre until his death from cancer in his early 30's.

So, yeah, I guess those were our "cliques", even-though we did think of it much that way back then.  No clique now though, just this group.  Oops!