So Here It Is - Dave Hill

 SO HERE IT IS - DAVE HILL

You've got to wonder though, haven't you? What must it be like being Dave Hill of Slade? Pretty surreal, I imagine. I mean, he was always more Ziggy than Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars put together. An ultimate Man Who Fell To Earth. Stranger in a strange land but completely unaware of the fact. The haircut, the boots, the outfits, the teeth, the accent. What the fuck? So yes, being Dave Hill must be a pretty hectic affair. At the same time, however, it's also been pretty obvious he was always a good soul possessed of a solid, working class heart of gold.

There was a time in their early days when Slade's publicist cast them as a skinhead group - all boots and braces and shaved heads - but this was but an aberration of management. For a start, skinheads back then tended to be called Masher, Bruiser, Psycho or Mongo but never Noddy. Apart from this, Dave Hill was always the Glam Pop-God in waiting, not some caricature on the back of a Weetabix box. He was the council estate boy from the Black Country destined to be a British pop culture icon.

So Here It Is, is Dave Hill's autobiography and an interesting thing about it is that it's not like how you might imagine it's going to be at all. At peak-fame during the early 1970s, Slade were all about being loud and entertaining on all levels, and whilst there are tales of mansions and Rolls Royces being bought there's no pop star ultra-decadence or tales of sex and drugs to be found here. In fact, quite the opposite. The book is totally grounded in Hill's working class background and the mental health problems of his mother and it's for this that it's very heartwarming, inducing much respect for him more so as a person rather than for him as a pop star.

The pop star stuff, however, is why anyone would be here of course, and Hill delivers it accordingly. Slade were massive in the early 1970s but unless you were there it's probably going to be hard to fully comprehend this. They were a part and parcel of the British cultural landscape during a time before the Internet when there were only two music programmes on the three available television channels. Top Of The Pops on a Thursday evening was where they ruled, and from where they would cast their light upon the nation. Slade were a good-time band acting as an antidote to the direness of the news and the economic gloom that held sway.

Their manager, Chas Chandler, always knew however, that the mega-fame and the mega-money was to be found in America so in 1975 Slade relocated there so as to be able to tour there more easily as they strove to crack the American market. Essentially, it was a failure and Hill offers some interesting explanations as to why - mostly all cultural ones. On returning to England, Slade then realised that musically everything had changed. Glam Rock was out and Disco was in, whilst on the horizon something called Punk Rock was looming.

Rather than using a ghostwriter, Dave Hill has written his autobiography himself, which is always a good thing in my eyes. Whilst his writing is nothing exceptional, it does the job and tells the story. It's unclear how Glam Rock is actually viewed these days as in whether it's with fondness, incredulity or derision. One thing almost for certain is that it's not really taken seriously but to counter that, it's clear that a band like Slade once played a big part in people's lives. For this reason alone, though So Here It Is doesn't necessarily need to be read, it definitely needed to be written.

John Serpico