British public school musicians/bands who aren't insufferable shits

[Rayge]

Not wishing to derail Yves' thread about Coldplay and Radiohead any further, I wonder if anyone* can come up with any names of bands formed by public schoolboys, or indeed any public schoolboy musician or singer who in any way added to the sum of Raygean happiness - i.e. participated a record I have found worth listening to** (I can think of one, Strummer, but you couldn't accuse any other members of the Clash of being middle class).
I know this sounds like a wind-up, but I'd be genuinely interested to know and promise not to get all biley about any and all well-meant suggestions.

Épate le bourgeois!




*except the body parts on ignore - you know who you are

**So, no regressive rock, opera, DWEMshit generally, or whatever the fuck it is that Coldplay, Radiohead and Mumford and Son clog the bowl with

[Minnie the Minx]

Just for boys, this one?

[Rayge]

Just for boys, this one?

Not at all, Min, it's just that the original barney was about a couple of boy bands. I'll see what I can do about fitting an equal opportunities title into the box. If there are rockers from Roedean or balladeers from Bedales, lets be having them

[Minnie the Minx]

I wasn’t being arsey for a change. I had gone and looked at schoolgirls and they all seemed to be involved in abominations, so it’s not like I had a fecking list for you!

[Deebank]

Erm, Joe Strummer

Jerry Dammers

Or does it have to be a whole band of them?

[bobzilla77]

What am I, the registrar's office? I don't know what fucking school they went to. You're on your own here.

[Jeemo]

Why differentiate public schools? Because they're fee paying? Because they're selective?

Curious to know, why the animosity

[Rayge]

Erm, Joe Strummer

Jerry Dammers

Or does it have to be a whole band of them?

Dammers is good - I mentioned Strummer in the OP

[John aka Josh]

Henry Priestman, sadly mainly known for his work with The Christians rather than the excellent Yachts went to Leighton Park School, Reading.



Did you ever enjoy any of the work of Tom Robinson? Like Henry Priestman he went to an independent Quaker school, his being Friend's School, Saffron Walden. He later went to Finchden Manor, a school for troubled youth, the status of which I don't know. If it was a public school of sorts it was also a home to Alexis Korner, whose music I doubt you enjoyed though you might have enjoyed some of the artists he promoted.

[Hightea]

someone please explain
Don't you all go to either public or private school? what other option is there and wouldn't the problem be private school kids?
Also thought the issue was going to college not school prior to college?

[Rayge]

Why differentiate public schools? Because they're fee paying? Because they're selective?

Curious to know, why the animosity

Not animosity (well, a bit of residual class warfare ) so much as a theory I developed back in the late ’60s early ’70s that a lot of the English bands coming through that I particularly disliked (what later got to be called prog) were part of a second wave of the mid-60s bourgeois backlash against rock and roll, recasting it after the success of the Beatles as something that could be tamed, made 'classier', by adding things from classical music, like that Moody Blues stereo demonstration record. And this second wave often featured academically trained musicians who brought more of that DWEM stuff in (I should point out that I'm talking about how I felt then - I actively hated classical music when at school, and learned nothing in the music lessons that I ducked out of as soon as possible, largely because I was told I would grow out the music I loved, which made me angry as hell. They were right though, it just took half a century or more than they thought ). And a fair few of those musicians had learned at schools, which by the very nature of having music departments were either grammars or public schools, or new comprehensives, but in all cases they were taught in the classical tradition. And they felt the need to progress, and that stuck in my craw.

I grew to hate the tendency, I thought it was a direct personal attack, I guess. I was just coming out of my teens at this time, was rudderless after losing my father a couple of years before and about to meet the bad crowd who would get me into psychedelics and put me on the road to the self-actualized hurricane of cordiality and creative energy that entertains us all today. So that probably coloured things, too.

Of course, none of this really exercise me any more, save for hyperbolic choleric purposes in the persona of Rayge, but I still retain a residual curiosity about the notion that a private education, and the opportunity afforded by the time, curriculum and facilities of the average fee-paying private school might have replaced the art colleges that were the ferment of the bands of the 1960s, and thus changed the course of popular music by applying a different aesthetic. I was looking for examples to test the theory, really.

Cheers
Ray

[ever/never]

a theory I developed back in the late ’60s early ’70s that a lot of the English bands coming through that I particularly disliked (what later got to be called prog) were part of a second wave of the mid-60s bourgeois backlash against rock and roll, recasting it after the success of the Beatles as something that could be tamed, made 'classier', by adding things from classical music, like that Moody Blues stereo demonstration record.

Ray makes a lot of sense when you strip away all the excess.

He should listen to more punk.

[Rayge]

a theory I developed back in the late ’60s early ’70s that a lot of the English bands coming through that I particularly disliked (what later got to be called prog) were part of a second wave of the mid-60s bourgeois backlash against rock and roll, recasting it after the success of the Beatles as something that could be tamed, made 'classier', by adding things from classical music, like that Moody Blues stereo demonstration record.

Ray makes a lot of sense when you strip away all the excess.

He should listen to more punk.

More than I already do??

[ever/never]

Lessons in economy may not have been learned

[Rayge]

Lessons in economy may not have been learned

Ah, gotcha. That was the sort of thing I had to write for a living. I can do it, with facility, when the occasion demands, or someone gives me money , but my writing style was forged by Phil Spector. it's the wall of words. No kitchen sink (nor parenthetical interjection) left unlobbed, and Hal Blaine on 'tubs'.

[ever/never]

The wall of words! Wonderful.

[The Red Heifer]

someone please explain
Don't you all go to either public or private school? what other option is there and wouldn't the problem be private school kids?

You see these English idiots, for some reason I'm yet to be arsed finding out, called private schools "public" schools. In Australia the fee paying schools are "private" and the Govt run ones are "public".

[Rayge]

Henry Priestman, sadly mainly known for his work with The Christians rather than the excellent Yachts went to Leighton Park School, Reading.
Did you ever enjoy any of the work of Tom Robinson? Like Henry Priestman he went to an independent Quaker school, his being Friend's School, Saffron Walden. He later went to Finchden Manor, a school for troubled youth, the status of which I don't know. If it was a public school of sorts it was also a home to Alexis Korner, whose music I doubt you enjoyed though you might have enjoyed some of the artists he promoted.

Ah Henry Priestman is a good shout, a decent pop sensibility and a definite way with a word or three. The Yachts wer a fabulous band, as I may have mentioned before, but I was also came across one of his solo albums on CD (sadly all packed away pending the move so I can't check) and he seems to have carried that on well into middle age. Tom Robinson was all right, yes, another good shout, although I'm not sure whether Finchden Manor had the sort of facilities I imagine the founders of Genesis had at Charterhouse (don't know if you've seen my response to Jeemo, where I explained my theory in a more sedate manner than I usually adopt, although I could not resist adding the odd curlicue).
Incidentally, the music teacher I mentioned in that same post, who told me I would grow out of pop music, was also a Quaker, a Mr Dolling. He was a lovely man, my form teacher in the 6th, and also my A level French literature teacher. And I suppose I also have him to thank for forming my exquisite taste in music.

[Hightea]

someone please explain
Don't you all go to either public or private school? what other option is there and wouldn't the problem be private school kids?

You see these English idiots, for some reason I'm yet to be arsed finding out, called private schools "public" schools. In Australia the fee paying schools are "private" and the Govt run ones are "public".

yeah its the same thing here. Had a feeling it was backwards in the Uk.
thanks


Then we nominate John Cale! although I'm guessing Rayge doesn't like them anyway

[Rayge]

You see these English idiots, for some reason I'm yet to be arsed finding out, called private schools "public" schools.

You may not be arsed, but I'm going to tell you anyway, because I happen to know, and love to show off.
It was because, in the Middle Ages, before Australia was invented, education of any kind beyond the most elementary level was a monopoly of the Church, and more specifically the monasteries, and largely restricted to those taking holy orders. The first 'public' schools were open to any and all members of the public who could pay for their children's education, as the government, which at that time largely consisted of warring and scheming French, Welsh, Scots, German and occasionally English nobility, was not inclined to put any money into helping peasants read. Even after the Reformation, local free schools, where they existed at all, were linked with non-conformist religious organizations, perhaps the Church of England, or a parish. Free, or freeish schooling for all in state schools funded by the government – was only introduced in the 19th century in the big industrial cities, but the old 'public' schools continued to charge fees and provide a slicker route for the better-off into the older universities and the elites then forming.