Cool Talk From The Casuals

Article published in RAVE magazine, October 1968

Pop’s new sophisticates demonstrate their brand of cool to Kate Joseph

EVER met a proficient treacle bender, a four-hour-wonder glass blower, a pheasant plucker and a professional jazz musician? Well, I’m not sure that I have, although the Casuals profess to have had these unbelievable jobs before they formed the group nearly three years ago.

Their name, you might suppose, came from their being pretty cool and casual, but in fact it came from a pair of trousers! Howard Newcomb saw a pair of Glen Ford Casuals and liked them. Then, seeing as he knew no one by the name of Glen Ford, took Casuals instead and the name stuck.

John Tebb and Howard Newcomb have been together for nine years now, but that doesn’t mean that they’re about to draw their old age pension; merely that they started playing together at the age of thirteen.

The Riot Squad

In fact, both claim to be teeny boppers! Three years ago Alan Taylor and Bob O’Brien, who used to be a member of the Riot Squad, joined the group, all of them then bombing off to Italy to try to make a bit of money. “Don’t think that we’re just in this business to make lolly,” they answered.

“Of course, it’s great that we do, but at the same time we do love the life. We went off to Italy with about two shillings between us, and within two days of arriving in Milan we’d been sign-ed to play at the Milan Pipers Club for a month. In actual fact we stayed on at the club for two months.

“The clubs in Italy are completely different, aside from the fact that you play under the stars and sometimes the rain, the audiences are all of different ages. None of us spoke a word of Italian before we went there, but now we’re all pretty fluent.

We lived in separate houses over there. We couldn’t live together because I don’t think we could stand the strain!”

The Casuals’ first record, “Adios Amor” didn’t make any great impact on the charts, but since “Jesamine” was released, things have really been happening, and it looks as though they’ll be commuting a lot between Italy and Britain.

Cool Talk From The Casuals

What made the Casuals go to Italy in the first place? “Well, the scene over here three years ago wasn’t much good, things were pretty static and we thought we’d try somewhere else,” said Howard. “We decided to make a fresh start, so off we went.

“Anyway, we were different from other groups who make it over here then go away. We decided to do things the other way round. We all love travelling and would love to go all over the place.”

Just then a pitiful wail came from John: “I want to go to Australia to see my Mum and Dad. They emigrated there a few years ago and I haven’t managed to see them since.”

Cars were a sore point with the Casuals when I spoke to them, because apparently they had just had a harrowing experience. They were playing the Paris Theatre and were mobbed by thousands of fans when their show finished.

They made a dramatic and heroic escape, and rushed towards their van which they’d left at the back of the theatre. But when they got there they found that it had been dragged off to the car pound by the police.

Cool Talk From The Casuals

The funny thing was that their manager had been watching at the time, and had seen the van being towed away. He’d laughed and thought how funny it was, not realizing that it belonged to his group!

In Italy instead of having photos to hand out to fans the Casuals have posters. As a result, when the group is playing a club the walls are usually completely covered by their own posters.

On stage, the Casuals wear exactly what they like, there’s no set uniform. It could be anything from a roll-neck sweater to a tight-fitting lace shirt, rather resembling antique lace curtains.

“When we’re in Britain we have to have a completely different stage act,” said Alan. “In Italy the audiences are generally more sophisticated and so we cater for their tastes, but over here audiences like to see a group leaping around the stage. Some people even think that movement is more important than the sound you create.”

The Casuals’ taste in music ranges from P. P. Arnold and Knuckles O’Toole (Alan assured me there is such a person) to Olive Oyl and Popeye. “We don’t like playing Jazz, we only do it for the money,” Bob assured me. “We much prefer Rock and Roll.”

Which is very curious—the exact opposite, in fact, to what most groups say, and the Casuals know it.