Glitter before it all went wrong.
Everyone has something that's synonymous with Christmas. For some, it's the rustle of wrapping or the smell of pinecones. But for me it wasn't a man who clambered down the chimney bearing presents or pulled up with his reindeer. It was another larger-than-life creature that appeared on our television screens wrapped in BacoFoil and asked us if we wanted to be in his Gang. His name was, of course, Gary Glitter.
Even now, I tend to track my childhood festive seasons by Glitter singles. Christmas 1973 - I Love You Love Me Love, the first single I ever bought (Bell Records 7", shiny silver label). The following year round at Andy Wormald's house listening to Hello, Hello I'm Back Again. Much later there were the televised live Gang Shows and, of course, Another Rock'n'Roll Christmas. If only Gary were - as the song put it - remembered this way.
Nowadays, because of What Gary Has Done, the same songs are pop's pariahs, songs you never hear on the radio, which have been airbrushed from pop history in the same way as Glitter - who had one of the longest chart runs of any singer in the 70s - has been excluded from rock biographies and more or less scrubbed out of pop history.
This year, facing yet another Glitter-free Christmas, I've found myself downloading those old songs from iTunes and even in the process, somehow feeling seedy. Which is weird, because in other areas of culture, artists' work has not been so tainted by personal failings, however grave.
Wagner's anti-semitism was an influence on Hitler but the composer's music is still performed around the world. Goya made wonderfully disturbed etchings but you wouldn't want him round for lunch. Roman Polanski admitted sex with a minor but people still watch his films. So why is Glitter so vilified? Because he's taken over Myra Hindley's old role as monster of choice for the News of the World?
My belief - and I'd really like your views on this - is that art should not be confused with the artist, and that pop fans of any generation should not be denied the genius of Rock'n'Roll Part 1 (one of the great pop records about pop - "Can you still recall in the jukebox hall when the music played/And the world span round to a brand new sound in those far off days?").
The famous Glitter beat is a staple part of music from bands as diverse as Marilyn Manson and Kasabian, yet we are being denied the original singles, many of which ironically cast Glitter in the role of shunned outsider (I Love You Love Me Love - "They tried to tell you I was not the boy for you"). Even now I struggle to hear any really dark sexual frisson beyond the saucy postcard tease of Do You Wanna Touch Me (although, thanks Gary, but I'll pass on that and no, I don't want to be in your gang).
Nobody is saying it's time to forgive the former Paul Gadd for paedophilia - crime and punishment or rehabilitation is a matter for the judicial process. But surely it's time for a clemency for his records and, at Christmas, to blare them out as I will be doing (with the curtains closed, if necessary) and say, Hello, hello, come back, again.
