The school I went to was a little village school in Stenderup with 7 classes’ and about100 kids from mainly Stenderup and two other minor villages, and from the farms in the surrounding countryside.
My family and I lived in a village called Bråskov about 5 kilometers away. In the summertime we had to ride our bikes to get to school, and had to struggle with 5 hills and the protective dogs from the houses and farms alongside the road.It was quiet around there and smelled mostly like cow and pig. Being a kid and upcoming teenager there, there wasn’t much influence from the big world outside, so we all did the same things and listened to the same music, like millions of teenagers around all of Europe at that time; and it was the Glam rock area with bands like “The Sweet”, “Slade” or whatever they were called.
Mostly it was my bigger brother who provided my sister and me with all information around these band, as one of his mates often got a copy of a famous German teenager magazine called “Bravo”, in which there was loads of stories and nice shiny colour posters to take out and put onto the wall, to make every teenager room a dream.
There weren’t many Danish magazines of that kind, the most popular one was called “Vi Unge” (We Youngsters), but this weren’t as shiny and absolute pop like the German pendant, and mainly the articles in there was serious and good researched subjects like social and cultural matters for youngsters. I wasn’t very interested in stuff like that; the only thing I would like to see was big shiny photos and posters of my heroes in their long high-heeled silver boots and tight golden or whatever costumes, so I could see who a real man should look.
Once a week there was a top 20-radio show, and we were all excited and sat around our transistor radio with the cassette recorder of my brother and a microphone, ready to record our favorites.
For me with my curly hair it wasn’t that easy though. I wanted to look like Brian Connolly from the Sweet, with his long straight blond hair, so I guess I used hours and hours of combing my curly hair to make it look as straight and flat to my head as possible.
My parents wasn’t very pleased with this influence from the UK, as they still thought that long hair was for girls, and they continuously denied buying me tight leather pants with ultra wide legs and long high heeled boots, which, of course, made me call them for old fashioned, and I guess I could be a bit of a challenge some times, but I guess that is just the teenager thing; to be a complete alien for the surroundings.
But my parents accepted the fact that this was the style of the times, and at least they –our idols- seemed to be hygienic and clean and looked kind of sober and didn’t do –to many- scandals, and the live appearances on German television showed them acting surrounded by a well behaved and happy crowd, so more and more they got used to their 3 long haired youngsters at their table.
And so I lived in this world of Glam rock, and was convinced to have found the everlasting truth, and nothing would ever going to change, the world would continue as a Glam rock world, and everybody would sooner or later realize that and join in.
Sometimes I was helping out at the local grocery shop, and one day in one of the newspapers I saw a headline saying; “Chaos and riot after Punk concert in London”.
Punk; what the f… was that, so I started to read the article about this new youth movement from Britain and a concert with somebody called; “The Sex Pistols”, had ended in big chaos and fights, and the lead singer had been vomiting and spitting at the audience. Then there was some photos of some of these; “punks” who hate’s everything and sticks safety pins through their flesh and give a damn for hair style and good looks –as long as it looks scruffy-, and play a kind of music so fast &dynamic and sings hate texts against society.
I was convinced this was just a one of thing, and they –the British youth- would soon again see the light and turn back to Glam rock and long flat hair, as this was just to crazy.
As time went by, the Punk didn’t go away, it became more and more, and even I started to listen to some of the many new bands coming up, so this is what really confused my youth; from polished Glam rock to the influence of give the f… to every thing, I became kind of an strange in-between the two, a little mix of this and of that.
Being a teenager is very confusing, even then.
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