However for someone as outspoken, honest and raw as Garry Bushell, the task of writing an autobiography certainly falls into the former. He has never been afraid to speak his mind, rightly or wrongly, and he certainly does wear his heart on his sleeve. Even though the photo additions are happy family shots, and of Garry with a host of famous and worthy artists like Peter Cook and Bob Monkhouse. You could easily be mistaken in thinking that the book is going to be yarn upon yarn on how wonderful his life is, but the text itself is certainly different from the visual aspect of the book.
Starting like François Truffaut’s classic film about juvenile delinquency 400 Blows, we meet the young Bushell facing the humiliation of teachers, dreary classrooms and the confusion of youth. The book expands into a history about South East London, the unity and the vulnerability of his family, and their devoted support of what is now called ‘old labour’, and reads wonderfully like a classic sixties kitchen sink drama. Even though loving and high spirited, Bushell is open about the conflicts within the household and even the betrayals.
There is a deep passion as Bushell describes his discovery of music especially Motown and Reggae in the sixties, trips to the seaside and the spiritual connection he made at an early age with football, with England and Charlton Athletic. The impact Punk had on him in 1976, all peppered with the mischief of adolescence, as well as the tears of teenager anger.
And Punk certainly did make an impression on him, as he produced a comic fanzine called Pink Tent, which led him to land a job at the Socialist Worker in the late seventies. At which time Bushell was a fervent Socialist, even going so far as to say a Marxist. However The Socialist Worker shattered his young left wing dream, due to their support for the protection of paedophiles and their questionable support of the IRA. Throughout the book, Bushell is constantly debating politics; he seems to favour neither the left nor the right, just a massive feeling of let-down.
Bushell on The Rampage enters into the hedonistic world of rock and roll as he reminisces about his career with Sounds. As Bushell recalls his experience of hanging out with ZZ TOP in Vegas, accidentally taking smack in Bombay (now Mumbai) with Hanoi Rocks. Getting smashed with Lemmy from Motorhead, as well as Ozzy Osbourne. Before getting back to ‘old blighty’ for some heavy and hair rising shenanigans with the likes of Sham 69 and The Cockney Rejects.
Bushell’s insight is second to none, as he lives and breathes with the bands, as they allow him access to all areas, not just a thirty minute interview in a plush hotel to promote their latest album. This is certainly demonstrated when he goes with The Angelic Upstarts to play a gig at a prison, booked by the prison chaplain, believing they are a Christian rock band due to their name. Even though the setting is hostile and aggressive, the story is certainly warm and amusing.
Staying with Punk, Bushell was one of the founder members of the OI movement, which has been labelled a right wing cause. Bushell argues strongly in the book that was never the case, just the pent up anger of frustrated working class teenagers trying to live out Jimmy Pursey’s (Sham 69) dream, of If The Kids Were United. The naivety of youth, and the media probably enhanced the fascist tag, but of one thing for certain, Bushell is not a fascist, just proud to be British.
Due to the break up of his marriage, Bushell left behind the world of music, to enter into the seedy, backstabbing and hard drinking world of tabloid journalism to join The Sun. A career move, helped by Bruce Foxton’s now departed wife Pat, who was a PR executive for CBS in the early eighties.
Bushell is sincere in stating that he might have made the wrong career choice here, because the world of rock had been good to him. Yet he presents a brutal and at times amusing study of life at the Current Bun, on how he always hated Rupert Murdoch, regretted employing Piers Morgan, the daily madness and the Machiavellian politics, which resulted in his sacking from the paper. In which Bushell compares this event to that of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, an interesting if not odd comparison
Bushell’s autobiography does what it says on the tin, it is a rampage into his life. He leaves no stone unturned, defends his political beliefs, admits his love for his friends and family, shows no remorse or regret for the people that he has upset, like Jo Brand and Annie Lennox, who once called him the Bernard Manning of Pop. There is plenty of joy, pain, booze, birds, rock stars, gangsters like The Kray Twins and much more. Yet what makes this autobiography outstanding is not just Bushell’s frankness, but it is a brilliant document of history and popular culture of post war Britain, from a man who has witnessed it from every level and who clearly understands it. Give this book a try, you will not be disappointed.
© Words – Matteo Sedazzari/ZANI Media
