From George Melly, Revolt Into Style

(1962)

“Band followed band from 9.30 PM until 7.30 AM the next morning. The audience were dressed almost without exception in ‘rave gear’. As the essence of ‘rave gear’ is a stylised shabbiness, the general effect was of a crowd scene from a biblical epic. To describe an individual couple, the boy was wearing a top hat with ‘Acker’ painted on it, a shift made out of a sugar sack with a CND symbol painted on the back, jeans, and no shoes. The girl, a bowler hat with a CND symbol on it, a man’s shirt worn outside her black woollen tights.”

This is a great book. I have lost the address of the kind person who sent it to me, unfortunately. There is a paragraph a page later where Melly (somewhat shamefacedly) quotes some old reviews of his comparing Bernard Cribbins records to New Wave Cinema. Top man!