Monocled Alchemist

U.F.O. the Flower Power Mecca has closed. Did it die a natural death – or was it murdered? | Published in Melody Maker, 28/10/67

Who Killed Flower Power? | LAST Christmas, illuminated by the gentle shining of Christmas trees all over London, came a U.F.O. an unidentified flying object, and it landed and it opened its doors and lo, the air inside was good.

U.F.O. was a club. More than a club really because it was the first of its kind in Britain. U.F.O. was the London youth movement, the underground, coming up for air.

Joe Boyd pilots U.F.Os: “U.F.O. had a very important function in that it was the kind of shrine or citadel for a lot of beautiful people and that’s probably the biggest shame in its closing really. But then again U.F.O. was just a surface manifestation—like the clothes, the beads, and the bells.”

NEW THINGS

U.F.O. may have closed down but its soul still lives with the beautiful people. Just what did U.F.O. mean? Where did this hippie mecca fit into the pop music world? And if U.F.O. was needed, why, ten calendar months later, has it closed down?

“We don’t have any idea of what’s going to happen next,” smiled Boyd, “but I think when you reflect on what has happened over the last year or so, the changes the scene has gone through have been good.

“U.F.O. was unique, when you realise that it was the only place where you could see groups who were doing new things—things that couldn’t be presented at any other venues.

“The Pink Floyd originally began to work on their act at John Hopkins’ Free School, and when Hoppy and I got U.F.O. going in Tottenham Court Road we opened up with the Floyd, followed by the Soft Machine, and then we had the Smoke booked in, as they were making it with ‘My Friend Jack.’ But they got stuck in Germany or something so I rang up the agency and asked him to get another group as quickly as possible — and he sent down the In Crowd.

“I was pretty nervous, you know, at the thought of some group called the In Crowd—of all the names—playing U.F.O. But when they arrived at the club we were informed they’d changed their name to Tomorrow. And so they played—and so they blew everybody’s minds! It was beautiful. Jimi Hendrix leapt up on stage and played bass and it was all very amazing—and we had them back every three weeks.

GROOVY NIGHT

“Gradually the word started to spread and more and more of the hard pop core began to make it to U.F.O. to see what was going on. The crowds got bigger. One very groovy night was that of the Stones court case when Tomorrow were playing again.

“From twelve to about three o’oclock the club just emptied and went down to Piccadilly to demonstrate about the Stones’ convictions. Eventually everybody went back to the club and at five in the morning it was absolutely jampacked to the ceiling.

“When Tomorrow came on for their last set at this time the atmosphere was incredible. Incredible. Like nothing on earth—there was just so much feeling coming from the audience. And then Twink of Tomorrow started going through the club with a portable microphone singing ‘Revolution now!—Revolution now!’ It was really saying something. That night was the first time Tomorrow played Revolution!‘

“After that a friend put us on to Arthur Brown. Hoppy and I went down to this club in Mayfair, with Suzy Creamcheese I think it was, a motley crew if ever there was, and they didn’t let us in!

“So our friend said he was very sorry and made copious arrangements and we trooped off down to Mayfair again the next night. This time we got in and there, downstairs, was Arthur Brown. We just flipped out and asked him to come to U.F.O.

“But even the U.F.O. crowd took some getting used to Arthur! It wasn’t until about the third week that Arthur really began to get through and get some ridiculously fantastic receptions back from the audience.

RATIO

“Next milestone was two weeks in June when we had the Move and the Pink Floyd booked, and had really huge crowds — unimaginable. And in that fortnight a lot of new people joined and we really began to get a higher ratio of people masquerading as flower people and began to lose a lot of our earlier supporters.

“A lot of people just stopped coming because they couldn’t ever get in — it was far too crowded. So we began to think about looking for a new venue but we wanted to think it out carefully and planned to get a good place.

“In August the News Of The World came out with their ‘orgy’ bit, and the police started to put a lot of pressure on the Irish landlord of the premises U.F.O. was using in Tottenham Court Road.

“So we were given four days notice. I found out on the Tuesday that we were not going to be allowed to open on Friday.

“For a while Brian Epstein invited us to move to the champagne bar of the Saville Theatre! But some lawyers soon decided that the champagne bar of the Saville didn’t really suit a U.F.O. So we found ourselves at the Roundhouse.

“There were some really good nights there. But the Roundhouse has a high rent, the groups were getting more expensive, and were forced to close down — for a while at least.”

Who Killed Flower Power?

With this small stone the London underground made a gentle splash into the pop scene, and the ripples were felt all over the country. U.F.O. was the forerunner of flower power. Flower power, originally, described a new mode of expression, and a freer set of experienced based values for the youth of today. Within weeks British society drew upon the superficial symbols of flower power and made it into a ghastly fad that through some incomprehensible, materialistic and immoral process gave Carnaby Street, the advertising exec, and the like a new gimmick through which he could project his lousy lines.

This instant commercialisation of flower power quickly surrounded the central truth in a heavy fog. Instead of the ideals and messages getting across, the general public just took what they wanted.

“Flower power” was mass produced into a thousand daily paper front page cartoons, stick on body flower transfers, T-shirts, badly made, toneless “hippie” bells, and a million Palladium punch lines.

But “flower power” not only exists on this level. The origins came from a deeper thinking cult.

“The funny thing in England is that the kids tend to categorise things in terms of clothes,” says Boyd. “Thus the whole flower power scene hit much quicker than anyone imagined because it got turned into a clothes fashion. And now, for the same reason everybody is depicting its even quicker demise.

STAGE

“Everybody owned a few kaftans and now they want to get into something else.

“However the simple fact that ‘psychedelic music’ is a major part of the British pop scene nowadays shows that since the Beatles, the scene is now in another stage of its progression.

“In fact I think England is more right for a youth revolution than America is, and I think the effect on British society will end up being more far-reaching because the majority of British kids are treated in much the same way as the American treats the American Negro.

“From the moment you are old enough to understand there is no chance of going to university you have this important period from sixteen to twenty years of age. Unless you’re exceptionally academically minded most kids never get an opportunity to do anything other than what their fathers are doing.

“I think the ways that the young people can use their natural energies and talents are very few and very narrow. As communications get better and better the kids are going to hear more and more about the kind of things they could do in the world which is going to cause more and more unrest about the situation the kids are going to find them-selves in.

“If ever there’s a situation right for a youth revolution, it’s Britain today.”