The "British Invasion". A question for you old farts out there.

As sns says... Anyway, before the Beatles went on Ed Sullivan, I was strictly a classical guy, with occasional forays into show tunes thanks to the fact my mother and aunt danced and did bit parts in several 1940’s movie musicals. I hated rock-and-roll. Then the Beatles showed up and turned my taste upside down. As for the Dave Clark Five, they had their share of hype during the first moments of the British Invasion but in hindsight they come off as little more than a Swinging Sixties footnote.

In terms of 1964, this was the group:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxrz00XSOAo

You might have been ostracized from the Beatles crowd when you were in school, but that’s entirely justifiable in anyone’s estimation. Be that as it may, picture this British Invasion tragedy, When I was twelve years old in 1964 my 45rpm of Manfred Mann’s " Do Wah Diddy Diddy" disappeared.

Definitely not one to let matters of such import rest, I revisited this sore subject at a family reunion, aboard a cruise ship no less, some forty or so years later. At this late date my sister Marion laughingly confessed to having traded this prize possession to Theresa McNally for a turtle. She was only four years old at the time, but I threatened to throw her overboard anyway, Actually doing so might have been too harsh. The moral of the story, yes the British Invasion was supremely important, but don’t go overboard with it at this late date.

By the time I got into a music the Beatles had broken up, the Stones were constantly stoned, Hendrix/Morrison/Joplin had over dosed…It was Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, then I discovered Classical and became a snob.

I had the great fortune to experience live The Beatles during their last US tour in '66.  I was hooked on music in general from my earliest youth though.
We had two garage bands during my HS days, of which I played bass and keyboard in the invasion cover group while the other band focused more on US beach music, Beach Boys, Ventures, etc.  Neither group were high quality (as most of us self taught were) but we all enjoyed ourselves immensely!  On the other hand, our front man, Dave Gordon, did turn professional and was highly regarded in the folk genre until his death from cancer in his early 30's.

So, yeah, I guess those were our "cliques", even-though we did think of it much that way back then.  No clique now though, just this group.  Oops!