I think it’s accepted on here that, amongst other things, we’re all music nerds. All of us will have spent loads of time, and most of our money, trawling through second hand record shops and car boot sales, looking for the excitement of finding that record we’ve been searching for. And many of us will have started over when CDs took over from vinyl (I imagine I’m not the only one who shudders to think how much our vinyl collection would be worth now, had we not flogged it all to buy CDs!). A hobby that seemed to disappear overnight with the rise of eBay and demise of record shops. But how did it begin?
When I was little I had a dansette and a handful of multi-coloured records with nursery rhymes and the like. I used to love the Bay City Rollers and my mum even made me a little tartan trimmed Rollers outfit. My first memory of watching TOTP is when David Essex (now a friend of my mum’s, weirdly!) was in the charts with Gonna Make You a Star. I then moved from the Rollers to Showaddywaddy, Darts and the Barron Knights and started getting their records for birthday and Christmas presents, along with the latest K-Tel album, like Disco Fever, which had Silver Lady by David Soul on it, which is still one of my favourite songs today.
My dad is 7 years older than my mum, so whilst we didn’t have many records (ooh, we were poor, etc) there was a nice mix of late 50s rock and roll and sixties beat groups. Along with my dad’s western albums (we’ve talked on here before about the joy of Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads) and a smattering of easy listening that I have no idea which of parents was responsible for. I started playing their records, mainly the singles, as Blue Hawaii and Elvis’ Golden Records aside, the albums were pretty ropey. Eventually they bought a few Music For Pleasure compilations by the likes of The Monkees and Mamas and the Papas, which were fab.
But I played the singles to death. They only had one Beatles single, but it was possibly their best, I Want To Hold Your Hand. I didn’t like the B-side, This Boy, until I got into The Beatles properly, several years later. I recently made a playlist on iTunes of the box of singles they had. A few Elvis ones, my favourites being Rock-a-Hula and The Girl of My Best Friend, a couple of Billy Fury ones, some Hollies (my mum’s favourite band – I Can’t Let Go is probably the single I played the most and I still love that track), some Roy Orbison, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Dave Clark Five, that kind of thing.
My dad would sit and tell me about all the songs/artists and it’s probably the clearest memory I have of my dad from that time. We’d listen to Jimmy Savile’s Old Record Club on a Sunday lunchtime and my dad would tell me about the songs on there. It’s odd, because my dad doesn’t have strong music tastes or a strong musical knowledge, but whatever he said helped build up my enthusiasm for music. My dad’s poor musical taste is best demonstrated by an album he had that he didn’t know he had. It shows how often he played his records, but there was one of those Top of the Pops style knock offs, with a session singer and band covering loads of Elvis songs, but when we went to put it on the sleeve contained Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake. My dad was disappointed cos he said the Elvis covers was a good album. He said it must have got mixed up at a party, I just pity the person who went to listen to Small Faces, but got a pub singer version of Elvis songs! Anyway, I had more enthusiasm than my dad for Small Faces!
A couple of uncles passed me down some records. Again, there was a ten year age difference, so one box contained some older records, including the Buddy Holly Story, which I adored, whilst the other uncle gave me a box of albums from the late 60s and early 70s, including the first Tim Buckley album and Ummagumma, which set the 11 or 12 year old me on the path to becoming big fans of both.
Back a few years though, in the late 70s, my mum used to buy cheap ex-juke box singles. She never asked me and my sister what we liked, so it really was pot luck. Some of them were horrible, like Boney M, some were ace, like Dr. Feelgood, whilst some I thought were horrible, but actually were ace, I just didn’t know it yet, like I Want Your Love by Chic. As the centre was punched out you sometimes couldn’t read the song titles properly, which led to embarrassment when I played the B-side of Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick.
In 1979, me and all my mates decided to buy our first single. Only we decided it could only be one of two singles – Dance Away by Roxy Music or Pop Musik by M. Thus the latter became the first single that I dragged my mum into town to buy me. From then on I started buying less sweets and football stickers with any money I was given and started buying records. The next three singles I bought, all ex juke box, were Walking on the Moon by The Police (although I really wanted Message in a Bottle), It’s Different For Girls by Joe Jackson and Echo Beach by Martha and the Muffins.
From then on I was a young record collector. The first thing I did when I visited anybody was look through their records. My Nan’s records were all classical, easy listening (of the rubbish variety – not stuff like Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra, which I liked) and show tunes, but for some inexplicable reason she had the Beatles Red Album. We spent a fortnight at my Nan’s (she lived at the seaside in Robin Hood’s Bay) and I played it constantly. So much so that it left with me. That must have been around 82, just as the singles in the charts had started to go rubbish, after a few great years. As I wasn’t yet old enough to have started reading the NME or Melody Maker, the music from that period that I now love had completely passed me by. So I went headlong into a Beatles obsession and thus started my serious record collecting.
I got the stick at school mercilessly for loving the Beatles. Probably by the same kids who were buying their records 12 years later when Oasis told them to. But I didn’t care. In the pre-internet days I somehow managed to discover loads of other great artists, probably by hearing them on radio shows or reading about them in books. I’d read in a Beatles book that they got into Dylan when he released Bringing It All Back Home (still my favourite Dylan album) and I heard Like a Rolling Stone at the same time, so Father Christmas brought me BIABH and his Greatest Hits, so Dylan quickly became a big favourite, as did 60s girl bands, the Bonzos, Ricky Nelson and all sorts. Apart from Frankie Goes To Hollywood I really wasn’t interested in much chart music. It took the emergence of Pet Shop Boys, The Dream Academy and Stephen Duffy to change that.
By now, almost all my money was being spent on second hand records. My parents had split up and my mum had moved to Sheffield, whilst I remained in Barnsley with my dad, so whilst I never really strayed from those two places, there were loads of shops and market stalls to keep me going. The Tuesday second hand market in Barnsley was fantastic. You could even buy bootlegs there, which was terribly exciting! My one regret is that I didn’t have the money to go and see bands, but I joined the St John Ambulance in Sheffield, so I saw loads of bands that way, including some of my favourites, like The Blow Monkeys and Lloyd Cole. The first concert I covered was Elton John, which wasn’t a bad place to start. Probably the best was Springsteen at Bramall Lane, as we got to watch from the side of the stage, when not helping revive all those who had fainted at the front.
My dad had started buying books at car boot sales to sell on to a dealer and those were goldmines in the 80s. I got some great records there. The best ones were at Stockton and Sedgefield racecourses. They were massive. But I remember coming across a bloke selling singles in perfect condition for 50p each when I was down to my last £1.50. Trying to choose was impossible, because there were so many good ones. I ended up choosing the first two Cure singles and another, but 35 years later I still wish I’d had £20 with me, because it was the best box of bargains I’d ever seen.
When I was 19, in 1988, I moved to Liverpool to do my nurse training. It was just a coincidence that I moved there, as there were only a couple of places offering a combined general/paediatrics course. By then my Beatles obsession had died down a little (or I’d grown up a bit, one or the other!), but if you’d have told me 6 or 7 years earlier I would be moving to Liverpool I would have passed out, especially as I started seeing a lass who went to Quarrybank and lived round the corner from Mendips. Despite it’s rich musical history, Liverpool was a bit of a let down for second hand record shops though, so every payday I used to trek over to Manchester, which had loads of places to spend my meagre student nurse wages. That’s when the record collection started to get out of hand, although my obsession with music and CD buying has actually been bigger than ever these past few years. It’s the one upside of having to stop working and being in constant. But everything started back in the 70s, listening to my parents’ records and my dad telling me all about them.
Anybody else care to share their stories of their musical youth and what set them on the path that ended up with us debating the merits of the latest Bond theme song on here? I get rather jealous of those a bit older than myself who grew up when the great records of the 50s and 60s were coming out. It must have been so exciting. An old friend used to like rubbing it in that he had been to see Buddy Holly! I suppose I’m also a little annoyed with myself for drifting away from rap music after buying the early Run-DMC, Beastie Boys and LL Cool J records, as I had the chance there to see all those artists and listen to the records as they came out, rather than getting into the music when the artists were all (okay, not all, but a fair amount of them!) dead!
But I’d be interested in hearing your stories. Hopefully I’m not the only one who started off a Rollers fan…
Briefly,
ABBA
Punk/New wave …oh alright..just New Wave
Metal, NWOBHM wooooargh!
Indie Schmindie guitary bands
Guitary bands.,.oh alright…the Church.
Miss the excitement of finding new bands and music. Great OP by the way…,all very familiar.
Very few records at home growing up – a couple of ABBA, Carpenters and Barry Manilow. That Beatles Red album was there too (before it found it’s way to my bedroom, and remains in the vinyl collection today).
Dave Edmund’s singing Girls Talk is my first clear memory of Top Of The Pops.
My interest in 7″ discs of plastic was piqued by my cousins records, and my first record player (a 1960s Dansette type box) arrived soon after.
Shakin Stevens and Barron Knights were the first 2 albums I was given. Human League and Madness the first singles.
All birthday, Christmas, and pocket money was directed to record shops.
And then paper rounds increased income … and the floodgates opened.
There was a Facebook thing recently – 10 albums of influence.
I tried to put some chronology to it, and arrived at this:
https://rigiddigithasissues.blogspot.com/2020/02/albums-of-influence.html
Enjoyed reading that, thanks. Just a thought, you do know that the Beatles Red and Blue albums only included their own compositions? It’s something that never dawned on me until someone pointed it out, many years later – some Beatles fan! It accounts for the absence of songs like Twist and Shout and Please Mr Postman. It was the absence of the former that made Please Please Me my joint second Beatles album, along with the Blue one. My parents actually tried to warn me off the Blue album because they had “gone weird” by then.
I just had a go at picking 10 key albums of influence from the pre-CD years and couldn’t get it below 13 without it feeling incomplete. I’ve never been good at moderation! It’s difficult not to just list your favourite albums, isn’t it, but I think this just about plots my way from 78 to 90. Not much ‘old’ though, to say I spent a lot of time trawling back through the 50s and 60s, and it all looks a bit typical 80s, so maybe I was more normal than I thought? The first was my first album as a present, the second my first album proper and the third the start of the obsession. The Charlatans pointed the way to the 90s and Jordan: The Comeback was the last album I bought before buying a CD player, so the album went back a few days later and was swapped for the CD.
The Barron Knights – Night Gallery
Madness – One Step Beyond
The Beatles – The Red Album
Bob Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Welcome To The Pleasuredome
The Dream Academy – The Dream Academy
Stephen Duffy – The Ups And Downs
Pet Shop Boys – Please
New Order – Substance
The Cure – Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me
Pink Floyd – The Wall
The Charlatans – Some Friendly
Prefab Sprout – Jordan: The Comeback
It is a different thing to Favourite albums. Influence albums are he ones that make you go searching in new directions, Favourites are the ones that stick with you.
Admittedly, a couple of my favourites are in there, but most peoples favourites lists do not include compilations (so often my gateway to a new (old) band), and whilst The Cult is a very good album, I not sure it would make my Top 50. But there it is – pointing me in a new direction in 1987
Another shout out for The Dream Academy debut album.
A true classic.
I played my copy so often I’m surprised the stylus didn’t go through to the other side. The only vinyl collections I kept were those of Stephen Duffy and The Dream Academy. Took me ages to track everything down. Their debut is criminally underrated.
As I may have mentioned before, TDA’s oboe-ist Kate St John is the wife of the friend of a friend. She’s lovely.
If you’d told me that in 1985, my head would have exploded.
It were all 78s round our way when I were a lad…Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, not to mention my treasured 78s of Elton Hayes singing The Owl and the Pussycat and The Quangle Wangle’s Hat etc to a small guitar. My dad had whole operas on 78 in big fat albums. He also, unusually, had an Elizabethan tape recorder (that was a brand, not a description) and he used to record stuff off the Third Programme. He had no idea he was killing music, mind. But occasionally he would let me record Goon Shows.
Then, randomly, he started bringing 45s home for me to listen to from school – he taught French at the local grammar. I’ve no idea where they came from, or what the story was (music master maybe?), but he would turn up with singles by the Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, Eddie Cochran, Little Richard, Buddy Holly et al, as well as lesser lights like Pat Boone and Paul Anka. I could only keep them for a few days and then he had to take them back, but in the mean time I played the shit out of them, A sides and B sides both. This would have been 1956/57, and to this day London American singles with triangular centres give me a Proustian rush. I’ve no idea if he even knew he was giving me a musical education, but he certainly was. He certainly seemed to have no liking for popular music, and it wasn’t until near the end of his life that I discovered that the sound of Glenn Miller would make him go weak at the knees.
1960 was my annus mirabilis for pop music…that was the year I turned 13 and the music came pouring in. Cathy’s Clown, Alley-Oop, El Paso, Only the Lonely, Walk Don’t Run, Apache, Good Timin’, Because They’re Young, Stay, Sweet Nothins, Running Bear, Tell Laura I Love Her. All magical, all heard fleetingly on the Light Programme and Radio Luxembourg. I still occasionally fire up a 1960 playlist on Spotify if I’m feeling sentimental. That was also the year of Margaret Sparks in her Girls Life Brigade uniform on a Friday night.
Later there was Gilberts, the music shop in the town centre where you could go and play records to your heart’s content and never buy them. We used to study the lists of new London American releases in NME so we knew what to ask for. And the proto-Arthur Daley in a pork pie hat and his stall down an alleyway where he sold juke box records with punched-out centres and the adaptors so you could play them. I’ve still got a couple I bought from him I think, including, shamingly, Craig Douglas’s version of Only Sixteen – unless they finally went in the last big clearout.
And then, suddenly, it was 1962 and Love Me Do…I was 15. The perfect age.
(Stentorian bellow) “Sopwith minor! Come here at once boy.”
*S. minor ambles across, worried and frowning, something concealed behind his back*
“Give. That. To. Me. Boy”
*S. minor reveals Eddie Cochran single, clutched in shaking hands, hands it over.*
(Dripping with disdain, reads from the label:) “Sittin’ in the Balcony. (Sighs) American rubbish. Dreadful lack of attention to spelling.”
*S. minor looks at his shoes, knows what’s coming next*
“This (holds 7 inch single up by tips of thumb and forefinger, as if radioactive) will stay in the staff room until the end of the week. You may NOT bring trash like this into the school, as you know only too well. Write out 66 lines for me: “I will not bring dreadful American records onto the school premises.” Have them done by first period tomorrow or it will mean a detention, you wretched boy.”
*S. minor mentally calculates how many centuries there are between now and the end of the week*
“Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir.”
Two hours later, mike gets the chance to play the new Eddie Cochran single, over and over again.
I think you might have put your finger on it…though the consistency of supply suggests that S. minor was remarkably stupid.
My ‘musical journey’ closely mirrors yours, @mikethep. I even think our reel to reel tape recorder was an Elizabethan.
My Dad had a big old brown Alba radiogram and lots of classical and light orchestral 78s but also quite a few Spike Jones 78s, which made a big impression on me. There was also the odd jazz record and even pop (Frankie Vaughan’s ‘Green Door’).
My first record, bought with birthday money, was a version of ‘Jailhouse Rock’ by Hal Munro on Woolworth’s Embassy label. How hip is that? I eventually acquired 45s – Craig Douglas’s ‘Only Sixteen’, Lonnie Donegan’s ‘Battle of New Orleans’, The Shadows’ ‘Apache’ etc. When Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five’ single came out that’s when my head was turned. I still bought pop singles and loved the early Beatles and Stones records but increasingly I was drawn to blues, then jazz. Our local record library (Southwark) was a huge influence on me as they had a great selection of blues, modern jazz and even American comedy like Mort Sahl, Shelly Berman and Lenny Bruce. I simply devoured it all and it formed the basis of my musical tastes for ever more. Perhaps we should have a thread about the value of record libraries in our pop culture education?
From then on it was jazz all the way, probably 62 to 66. To such an extent that I am not familiar at all with the Beatles ‘middle’ albums – Help, Rubber Soul, Beatles for Sale – only getting back into them and rock in general with Revolver and the onset of Flower Power. My musical taste hasn’t changed too much since then, except for an increasing love of soul and funk and a brief flirtation with prog.
Ah, Embassy! The David Ross who gave us Diana and Wake Up Little Susie for the label was none other than Ross McManus, father of EC.
Take Five had pretty much the same effect on me, @jazzjet – before that the only jazz that bothered the charts was Trad, although Johnny Dankworth’s African Waltz was pretty groovy. For some reason I came back from a school trip to France with a 45 of Dizzy Gillespie’s Groovin’ High – pretty advanced for a 14-year-old, you must admit. My equivalent to your record library was my art master, who steered me into blues and jazz – he lent me a Lightnin’ Hopkins LP to start me off. Another enlightened teacher was my English master. who lent me 78s by the likes of Bennie Goodman and Artie Shaw, which weren’t really my cup of tea – even then I think I felt that Miles and Coltrane were where it was at. Reading Melody Maker would do that to you. Rather embarrassingly, I’ve still got those 78s – wonder if he wants them back?
Fat chance that my teachers at school would have lent me any LP that contained music less than 200 years old! I was away at boarding school from 11 onwards and from about 14 I managed to buy some of those marvellous old CBS Realm LPs, the Charlie Parker Memorial series plus things like Muddy Waters at Newport etc. My friends were more into the Animals, Stones, Who etc so it was a bit difficult getting time on the record player. I still enjoyed pop singles though and had my record player confiscated as a result of playing the Stones’ ‘The Last Time’ too loudly.
I perservered however, and managed to get an evening release to see the Modern Jazz Quartet at the Victoria Odeon.
Apart from the radio, the only music I had as a young lad was a mono record player inherited from my Dad who died just before I was born and two LPs. The soundtrack to Oliver! and The Country Side Of Jim Reeves, the latter of which was also my Dads. I used to play both albums at 45 rpm because I didn’t know any better.
As a young impressionable teenager a cool boy I played football with told me about Led Zeppelin and they sounded cool so I became a Led Zeppelin fan without knowing much of the music. Someone gave me a tape player and two cassettes for a long car journey to keep me occupied – Jailbreak by Thin Lizzie and Dancehall Sweethearts by Horslips. I played them to death and still love the Horslips album.
Then, around ’77 I got really interested in music but without any platform or proper knowledge. ‘Heroes’ was out and I’d been always impressed by Bowie on the radio – Space Oddity / Life On Mars / Knock On Wood / Golden Years – without knowing any of the albums. I got talking to a guy at school who seemed to know a lot about Bowie and he lived near me so told me to call up…turns out he shared a bedroom with 3 older brothers and every available space was packed with vinyl. They all adored Bowie – he was the centre of the Venn diagram – but their individual tastes shot out in all directions from that central spot. The oldest was into a bit of classical, some Jazz and some trad and also had the big prog albums. Next guy was a big fan of Grin, funny enough, so I got into Nils long before I got into Bruce or Neil, though they were also available. Another was into Joe Jackson, Cars, Blondie and other classy New Wave acts. After a while, when they knew I could be trusted, I was allowed to take home albums and that room became my free music library where I was introduced to John Martyn, RT, Joni, Jackson Browne, and many more. Once I started working I was able to start on my own collection but that chance encounter gave me a good basis to start from…
Lovely post, Paul. How great to have an internet site like this where we can all get nostalgic about our formative musical experiences without having to bore our nearest and dearest! (Speak for yourself Arthur – ed).
I’m not that much younger than you. Born in the early seventies. I remember a huge, spine-tingling thrill from certain pop records at the end of that decade: Money Money Money, Rasputin, Wuthering Heights… And all through the eighties certain records just hit my spot: The Reflex, Need You Tonight, Stand and Deliver. Strangely, I NEVER bought records (until later – will get to that in a minute)…. I was a shy, retiring type, and I always thought buying records was the domain of far cooler, more popular people than myself. (I stuck to my Dungeons & Dragons and Superman comics).
Even stranger was that my dad was the one buying pop records at this time. He was a youth club DJ up until the mid-eighties, and would regularly buy up all the records in the top ten. (He later gave away his massive box of 7″s).
The record player was HIS thing. I wasn’t banned from touching it or anything of the sort, but I just set myself a weird psychological boundary that still baffles me today. By rights I should really have been a music collector from a young age, but for some reason I just denied myself that journey, even though music thrilled me so much.
I totally loved music. It used to transport me into a different world. My mum and dad’s L.P. collection was typical for a couple of school teachers who came of age in the late sixties: a couple of Beatles and Dylan, David Gates, Cat Stevens, Carly Simon, Paul Simon and Don MacLean. One song totally etched into my brain is American Pie (we had it in a tape in the car) – I used to think it was a story and I kept trying to follow it and losing track. Same with Tangled Up In Blue.
The most vivid musical experience of my life was hearing Tubular Bells as a child. I remember it was one quiet afternoon and my dad stuck it on while I was staring out the window in the front living room. Everything just stopped and the whole world seemed to synchronise itself to the music. I’d never heard anything like it and I couldn’t believe one song could go on for so long. I just thought it wasn’t allowed.
And then later something happened. As usual with teenagers, the whole world seems to revolve around you and little things take on life-changing consequences. At the age of seventeen I was given a little portable tape recorder for Christmas, so I thought I had better start taping some records to listen to. I still have that feeling that I can draw a big black line at that moment, before and after, because it definitely felt like a rebirth. I started raiding my dad’s L.P. collection and I was suddenly the music geek I am today. I grew my hair long and got a guitar. And if I’d been braver and less shy I would almost certainly have explored drugs as well.
I also totally capsized my, until then, academically successful life. Up until my musical epiphany, I was a decent academic success, and a talented artist who was on a course for art school. All of a sudden I totally dropped out and wasn’t interested. My parents must have despaired. Music can be a dangerous thing, kids.
I still think of my personal holy trinity as The Beatles, The Stones and Mike Oldfield, the three acts I had on in constant rotation. Conveniently forgetting, obviously, that I loved Queen and Enya just as much in those days.
It was all “old” music though (apart from Enya), and it was a very solitary journey as no one else seemed to be on the same channel as me. My pallet widened to Yes, Floyd and Hendrix, then into such far flung delights as Stevie Wonder and Procol Harum. It was only a bit later, with Primal Scream, then Portishead, trip hop etc, that my tastes started getting a bit more up to date.
Anyway, that’s me! Phew, that was therapeutic.
What are you lot going to talk about on a 1-2-1 podcast?
Really great post…thanks
Earliest singjex I remember in the general part of the house (and therefore accessible to the tot version of me) were very damaged copies of The Wombling Song, Telstar and Sugar Sugar. Taping from the radio was common – Fox on the Run, Singke Bed, January, This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us and Street Life.
At the age of 9 I remember listening to the chart rundown in the back of the family car and really concentrating on cmmiting Space Oddity to memory.
My father had no interest in music whatsoever. I don’t think he owned a singie record. He had a cheerful disposition and whistled freely – but nothing with a discernable tune. My mother was a fan of Stevie Wonder, Neil Diamond and, erm, Julio Iglesias. Very influenced by Terry Wogan.
The older brothers I mentioned in the Yes thread were 16-19 (three of them) and owned many prog/rock platters. I love looking through their records when they were out. Never dared play them. The one I remember most is The Who Sell Out. A lot of long hair, a lot of guitar playing and a lot of determined, serious watching of the Old Grey Whistle Test. Sometimes nice girlfriends wearing kaftans joined us for dinner but they never, ever stayed the night. At about 7 years old I’d stay up for as long as I was allowed and attempt to join in with their conversations. If a girl was there, my brothers were nicer and more tolerant.
I first took some interest in music around 1971-2 when I was 9 or 10. Was aware of artists like Jackson 5, T Rex, Bowie, Osmonds, Gary Glitter, Slade etc being in the charts. However I didn’t really start becoming a big fan until I was 14 when there was a Beatles revival in 76 (all singles re-released, films on TV throughout the summer). We didn’t have anything to play music on in the house until about that point, my dad loved classical music, but was only able to afford a stereo after an accident in work, the compensation paid for a Sony cassette deck, receiver and speakers. I started taping stuff from friends, and my dad showed up with cassettes taped from people at work, namely Beatles 67-70 (I can still remember first time I heard Strawberry Fields Forever) and Wings Over America. Later we got a turntable and I picked up Abbey Road. We were also listening to Max Boyce stuff at that time!
From friends at school I got into the Stones, Dylan, The Who, Springsteen etc. The first contemporary release I bought was Outlandos D’Amour by The Police. Then got into The Jam and various other post punk stuff like Joy Division, Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes. The latter stuff coming mainly from listening to Kid Jenson and John Peel. Probably because of The Beatles I decided to go to Liverpool University and gradually started spending more and more money on records and cassettes. Often picking up discount ones in WH Smiths that didn’t have covers. Also started going to lots of live gigs, first at the university and local places in Liverpool, then venturing further afield to see big acts like The Who, Springsteen, Stones, Morrison and Bob Dylan.
And so it has remained, yesterday getting very excited to hear that New Order (last saw them in 83) and the Pet Shop Boys (2005) are doing a joint North American tour together in Sept. First show in Toronto!
Yes, I was very disappointed to see that it’s just a North American tour. I’ve loved New Order since I was a teenager, but for some reason I have never got round to seeing them. I think it’s my aversion to big venues (see also Pink Floyd, as I have no idea why I have never relaxed my aversion to either catch the full band, or Waters or Gilmour solo – I would have loved to have been at Live 8 just for their bit).
You mentioned your dad’s accident being responsible for you getting a Hi-Fi. My dad was a labourer (until Thatcher made almost everybody in Barnsley unemployed in 1983-84), on next to nothing, but an accident and a couple of broken ribs later we got more money than we’d ever seen before – £700!! £500 got blown on a video recorder and the rest on a tumble dryer that never got used once my parents learned how expensive it was to run! But the video recorder, in 1981, was amazing. The first night we rented a cartoon for my younger sister and for the 11 year old me and my dad, Driller Killer! We watched all the horror films that subsequently got banned over and over, along with films like the Lemon Popsicle ones. Honestly, there’s no way my wife would let me show the kids the things I watched at that age. Fortunately, I didn’t grow into being a mad axe maniac, just a horror movie fanatic. My daughter is now following suit, although I cannot get her to watch anything older than The Exorcist.
And talking of moving to Liverpool. I had my interview for the nursing course in the summer of 87. They only took around 14 people, three times per year, so with me being male too there was no guarantee of me getting accepted (thankfully the hundreds of hours of voluntary work with St John Ambulance and on the kids ward at the local hospital swayed it), so I thought that as I had gone to Liverpool for the interview I might as well make the most of it. I went over on Sunday afternoon, as I was staying the night there for an early start (it was a long interview process).
As soon as I got there I found the tourist office, booked myself on a tour for that evening, got the bus to the hospital to get my keys and drop things off and then back into town for the tour. I was the only English person on the tour, but it was brill. It took in pretty much everywhere you’d want to see and it was all so familiar from the dozens of books I had read. I was hoping it would end at the Casbah, as that was close to the hospital, but no such luck. Of course, it ended back at the office, where they flogged us Beatles related stuff. That proved to be a mistake though, as they never told us there was a Beatles Shop in town! So I didn’t have much money left to spend in there, whilst waiting for my train.
So I left Liverpool, thinking at least if I didn’t get offered the place on the course, at least I’ve seen pretty much everything a Beatles fan would want to see. I was also thinking that if I did get offered a place on the course I need a crash course in Scouse, as I couldn’t understand a word a few of them said!
NO are doing one UK gig in 2020, at the O2.
I’m not going.
NO-O2? No 😉
The show in Toronto is in a huge “barn”, a partially enclosed amphitheatre at the lake. Holds 16-20,000 depending on how many lawn “seats” they sell. Not to everybody’s taste, but on a beautiful summer’s evening can be pretty amazing with a great view of the night time skyline and as “The Ex” will still be on next door, then it will be spectacular views everywhere you look if your vantage point is high up.
https://theex.com/
Hey @dai, I’ve been given a code for the advance ticket sales (I was a PSB fan club member before it closed!) for Toronto, if you want it. It’s UNIFIED and the tickets are available on pre-sale now, before going on general sale at 10pm your time on Thursday.
Thanks @Paul-Wad ! I actually found that code on a New Order discussion forum, after the usual one didn’t work. Got a standing ticket right in front of the stage. Pretty good!
Hurrumph, jealous!
Surely a couple of Electronic numbers are nailed on. Wonder if Johnny Marr has any plans to be near Toronto?
That’s a coincidence. My dad fell off a ladder at work (steelworks), injuring his back badly, think he was off for a couple of months at least. When I moved to Liverpool in 1980, 2 months before Lennon’s death, there was basically zero Beatles tourism. There was the shop that you mentioned that was on Mathew St, which I visited fairly often, a bit overpriced I always thought.
(In answer to Tiggs, I am most unlikely to have a Twang 1:2: 1)
Largely a music free zone at home as a boy, my parents tastes being Kenneth McKellar and Harry Secombe (Pa) and Jim Reeves (Ma), with them spending little time indulging that, it was through my sister that I became obsessed. She badgered my parents, in about 1965, to buy a Dansette, which came with a stack of singles provided: this would include lots of old 60s pre-Beatles fodder, Bobby’s Darin and Dee, some Elvis and Hippy Hippy Shake by the Swinging Blue Jeans. She also had the radio on incessantly, and my favourite early song was the Byrds version of tambourine Man, a song I still love. Early Beatles figured large, obviously, to the extent I joined a band at primary school, the Walnuts, and we sang either Beatles songs or our own near copies thereof. Air guitars and drums, but not half bad, getting a command performance in the Headmistresses study, such was our virtuosity.
I was packed off to boarding school at much the same time, and, in that deeply competitive arena of 7 years olds,music snobbery was rife. A couple of brothers, the Bayliss’s, were my leaders, the one getting Disc (&Musical Echo), the other Record Mirror. I was immediately obsessed, and early BeeGees my next gig, I recalling singing I Gotta Get A Message To You* into my hairbrush, standing on my bed in the dormitory. (I know, it was Robin Gibb solo, in his brief absence from his family band, the story of which I recall following in those nascent inkies.)
Big school at 13, and the pressure was on, Deep Purple in Rock, Sabbath’s eponymous and Atom Heart Mother all the rage. Be there or be square, and I was there. ELP became my next obsession, in the running war with the Yes-ites, evenif I conceded the Yes Album was fabulous. I never took to Wakeman, tho’, as he was Emmo’s main rival for the eagerly awaited readers polls of best musicians. Yes, I was now prime demographic for NME and MM, preferring then the latter, thinking Chris Welch an admirable arbiter of taste. Gradually I widened my horizons: in the era of carrying around albums, the weirder the more wonderful. Cass Music, the record shop we could spend hours headphoning all the arcane West Coast stuff in, whilst rifling through the selection, was my mecca. Ridiculously precocious, me and my chums were debating Zappa versus Beefheart, Airplane versus the Dead from about age 15, even if, possibly secretly, preferring something simpler. My quest for cool took me, via the Byrds, to the Burritos, and, via Fairport, to all things Folk Rock. Hard work that paid off, as I grew to love those genres and stil do.
6th form and I was sharing a study with a guy with far more disposable than any teenager ought, he introducing me to Van Morrison, Audience, AWB, ahead of then, in another study, someone who played incessant Herbie Hancock, whilst my next room neighbour was lapping up the Eagles and the Manson era Beach Boys. I was well and truly spoilt, building up my own record collection: ELP, the Doors, Albion Country Band. NME had overtaken MM in my reading preference, and the tide of pubrock was starting. I loved Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers, and was old enoughto get a pass to local concerts at the Winter Ballroom inEastbourne. So I caught the Naughty Rhythns tour as my 2nd live gig, Kokomo, DrFeelgood and the Willis. Wonderful, and my love of live was cemented. (First gig had been Procol Harum at the Dome Brighton).
Of to uni at 18, 1975, with the punk bubble beginning to fill, and I was able to indulge my fascination: the Stranglers at the Roundhouse, Elvis at the RAR gig in Victoria(?) park, whislt still hunting out the roads less well travelled: Albion Band, Rockin’ Dopsie. I was like apig in muck, records still being my main purchase.
It has never stopped. Even now I love the excitement of new and the comfort of old. I belatedly “got” soul music in about 1978, having earlier hated all that Motown stuff: that was courtesy Linda Ronstadts version of Tracks of My Tears, making me able to see that country and soul were one and the same language, divided by different instrumentation. Dance music: techno, I only got about 20 years ago, and that , as it has morphed into classictronica has become a demanding pointer of flow for me. Jazz was also a late aquisition, maybe 15 years ago as I realised it was, too, just dance music, if with more complicated tunes.
I spend far more than I should on music, but tend to buy more and more 2nd hand now. I used e music to the hilt when it was good and, yes, sorry, I also peruse the web based eel-markets for otherwise unavailable product.
Is there anything I don’t like? I have to say, once a rock-snob, always a rock-snob, I dislike the Queens, the ELOs and the ABBAs of this world. In my book the love of the civilian masses can be no good thing, to the extent I believe my prejudices as gospel.
It’s been a great journey. Long may it last. Have one festival lined up so far for the summer, and another long London w/e of concerts, to go with my recorded needs.
Yes, loads of stuff I want (including underground hip hop, etc) is impossible or extremely expensive to get hold of, so the online eel markets have been essential. To ease the guilty conscience I subscribe to Prime, Spotify and Apple Music, which enable you to download anyway. I only ever use the streaming bit of Apple Music to audition any potential new purchases/downloads. At last count I had gone on to buy around 250+ of the albums I had downloaded, because CDs sound so much better. The wife wasn’t impressed when I spent £40 on an East Village CD that I already had on download, but she just doesn’t get it.
@paul-wad
£40 for Drop Out? You could have had my copy for a tenner, reckon I’ve only played it once. Loved the singles but the album was a bit dull.
I’ve a feeling it may get rereleased soon, cos they’ve just rereleased a compilation of their early singles, albeit on vinyl only. I emailed the label, but no plans for a CD release.
Elvis Costello at Rock Against Racism was September 1978 at Brockwell Park.
Aswad and Stiff Little Fingers played too.
The RAR gig at Victoria Park in April 1978 had The Clash, Steel Pulse, Tom Robinson Band and X-Ray Spex
Brockwell; thanks
Apart from very early pleasures taken from music heard on TV such as Top of the Pops, The Banana Splits and Lift Off with Ayesha, my earliest memories of hearing music at home was via a small cassette player my parents had. They only had a couple of tapes though, pre-recorded ones, Motown Chartbusters (possibly Volume 4) and another one whose name escapes me, although I am now intrigued and will have to have a rummage for next time I’m visiting. Did a LOT of taping off the radio as well, for about a ten year period.
One day my Dad brought home a tape, recorded at home by one of his workmates, with Sgt Pepper on one side and Elton John’s Greatest Hits on the other. I guess this was about 1975 or 76, so I would have been about 8 or 9. I loved both sides. To this day I wouldn’t call myself a fan but Elton John’s 1970-74 songs evoke happy childhood memories. Sgt Pepper was something else though, literally a technicolour dream. Still love it.
Didn’t get our first turntable, a sideboard radiogram thing that had to warm up, until 78 (I remember it because the Argentina World Cup was on) and I slowly started to buy some of the cheapo ex-jukebox singles that cluttered up a shelf in my local newsagent. Blondie, Yellow Dog (I didn’t really discriminate then!) The Jam, anything that I’d seen and liked on TOTP, I’d probably buy it.
Progressed from there onto post punk and then some indie via the occasional bit of funk and disco.
The 70’s was a great time to get into music…
I love this post @Paul-Wad. Fascinating to hear fellow posters introductions into music. I am a little older than you – same age as @Niallb and @retropath2 but not as old as that curmudgeon @Baron-Harkonnen.
Anyway here is my two penneth worth. I was I guess 8 or 9 and returned home from school to find that my mum had bought a radiogram – a big fuck off unit that to an 8 year seemed about 10 long but I guess maybe 5ft. She had also bought ma shiny lp to play on it. It was Beatles songs but played by a Liverpool group called Billy Pepper and the Pepperpots. It mattered not a jot to me that they were covers – I had not yet developed that snobbish streak so beloved of us music nerds. Anyway one of the songs was I saw her standing there. IAt remains to this day my favourite Beatles song.
Maybe the first Christmas after purchase of said Radiogram I got two eps. One was a 4 song Val Doonican ep featuring Paddy McGinty’s goat and also Delaney’s Donkey. The other was a 4 track Beatles EP that from memory had Can’t Buy me love and She loves you. I can’t remember the other two songs. By this time music was becoming important in my life. An elder cousing gave me his collection of mainly Shadows and Rolling Stones singles – I Loved 19th nervous breakdown, Paint it black and The rise and fall of Flingel Blunt.
The first two singles I bought with my own money were Yardbirds Shapes of Things and Spencer Davis Group Keep on running both of which I still love to this day. Yardbirds b’side You’re a better man than I was later covered by I think Linda Ronstadt and brought the memories flooding back.
As a teen my obsession blossomed with live concerts by Deep Purple and Free within a matter of months of each other. Around this time I also saw Captain Beefheart as a matinee performance at Birmingham Town hall. It was strange coming out of a gig in broad daylight. He was supported that day by Foghat – strangely massive in the USA but didn’t do shit here.
In my mid teens reefer madness dictated that we listened to the likes of Pink Fairies, Groundhogs, Edgar Broughton band and The Amboy Dukes featuring tED nugget before he was a dickhead or perhaps he has always been a dickhead.
Around this time too were Moody Blues, Quicksilver Messenger Service,Stray, Its a beautiful Day, Jefferson Airplane and Arlo Guthrie and of course Dylan, Donovan, Melanie and other assorted folkies.
When I started work a girl I worked with started dating a Jamaican guy. We got invited to lots of Blue parties in Handsworth. Loud reggae, more reefers and goat curry was the order of the day.
Joni Mitchell and CSNY at Wembley, Pink Floyd and Steve Miller Band at Knebworth.
Early 20’s Dire Straits, Ian Dury, Clash, Costello but never the hardcore punk.
30’s the start of a love affair with Americana coinciding with a 2 year stint living in Miami.
Steve Earle, Emmylou, Lucinda, Hank, Townes and loads of others. 3 visits to SXSW, my first visit to Cambridge Folk last year – the fire continues to burn inside me and I spend more money now fuelling that passion than I ever have.
One strange event that sticks in my mind – some neighbours of my mum were emigrating to Australia and she bought their collection of old 78’s. Mostly a pile of junk to my young ears but there were 2 that stuck out in my mind. For the purposes of this post I took a cursory search to find the artists but without ny success. They were both instrumental tunes I guess from late 50’s or early 60’s – In a Persian Garden and Desert Patrol. Anyone throw any light on these?
I had meant to add the pop music that I liked in the 60’s that although I never bought is still regarded fondly. Downtown, the Carnival is over, I’m the Pied Piper. Lynne Anderson’s version of I never promised you a Rose Garden. Can’t you see the witch, Lily the pink. Endless stuff that formed my childhood years and now I remember with great affection.
My dad once convinced the young me that Ireland had changed their national anthem to Paddy McGinty’s Goat. Then again, he also convinced me and my sister that the Queen had once been to ours for Sunday dinner and loved the roast potatoes. His heinous trick worked, as we both ate ours up once we heard that my mum’s rock hard, dry roasties had the royal seal of approval.
A kid down our street convinced me that Franz Beckenbauer once, in the ultimate show of dissent, took a knife out of his shorts and stabbed the referee in his heart, but that was just to win the argument that his choice of Johan Cruyff as the best football laiker (translation from Barnsley to English: player) in the world was more deserving than my choice of Der Kaiser. I was a very gullible child.
Interesting fact: the Yorkshire dialogue word “to laik” (play) is has the same etymological derivation (from old Norse) as the modern Swedish word ‘leka’, meaning to play.
We moved back to Barnsley from London 12 years ago, when our daughter was 2. Our son is now 9. My wife is Scottish, whereas I left Barnsley at 19 and have lived around the country until we came back up here. My Barnsley dialect was knocked out of me really by my Nan, who said I’d never get anywhere in life talking like I’ve just been dragged out of the pit. So, whereas you’d tell I was from Yorkshire, you may not necessarily say Barnsley (trust me, I can spot a Barnsley accent a mile off).
As we live in the, ahem, nicer part of town, with loads of families who don’t originate from round here, the kids haven’t picked up the Barnsley dialect, so it’s funny when my brother’s kids are round, as my kids can’t understand what they are saying at times, and they only live 5 miles away (albeit with two parents who never left Barnsley).
Desert Patrol might well have been this disc’s B side tune?
https://www.discogs.com/Jimmy-Leach-Basin-Street-Ball/release/13327546
The Persian one – hmmmm – In A Persian Garden is a song rather than an instrumental piece, but there’s also a tune called In A Persian Market, which is I think more widely known – it’s orchestral with a choir part. Here’s one performance:
@Vulpes-Vulpes thanks mate that is exactly the piece.Could have sworn it was In a Persian Garden but your detective work is spot on.
Now to check out Desert Patrol.
I think my record collecting/music obsession really started when Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever was released in early 1967. I just turned 8. Both my parents were musical. My dad played semi-pro in Glasgow in the 50s with Alex Harvey, as did his brother Billy. Bobby had his own band and minor success in the 60s. My mum was an amateur opera singer and I remember having to listen to her singing along to John Shirley Quirke on Sunday mornings. However, my dad’s record collection, although extensive, was 99% classical. I do remember a Chris Barber album and The Beatles ‘Please Please Me’ on pre-recorded open reel tape amongst the collection.
Anyway, PL/SFF were constantly on the radio in early ‘67, and the radio was always on in those days, and I sometimes got told off for turning up the volume too much every time ‘Penny Lane’ came on. On one occasion, my dad told me that if I liked the song that much, I could go to the record shop and use my pocket money to buy my own copy, and then I could play it whenever I wanted. That was a revelation! From then on, all birthday and Christmas present requests were for record tokens.
Fast forward to 1971, and I was making the huge investment into albums, with ‘Electric Warrior’ being my first and ‘Slayed’ being my second (is it odd that I can still remember buying ‘Slayed’ at The Spinning Disc on Chiswick High Road for £1.85?). When the punk thing happened in the late 70s, I was spending just about all of my disposable income on records, the music weeklies (NME & Sounds), beer and fags. Great days.
I reckon I’ve spent around 50% of my lifetime’s income on music. The rest I’ve just squandered.
Seconded. You’re not the only one round here, I’m sure.
I’ve spent the other 50% on books.
Interesting thread. You can hear my experience on the latest AW podcast!
What a brilliant OP and thread. Thanks Paul.
I was born in September ’56 so I was 6/7 in 1963. This is significant. My Dad was 38 and my Mum 28 by 1963 (that just freaked me out, calculating that) and we had a big wooden radiogram in the corner of the lounge. Mono, of course, it had the big valve radio in the cabinet and a turntable in the top. My Dad had some light classical 78’s, some opera and a good smattering from his Irish roots – some great Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem records – he also had a ’78 by an light opera singer called Owen Brannigan, the only time I had ever seen our name written down, outside of our family. I was glued to the Clancy brothers records and still love them to this day.
Dad worked for EMI. No, wait, don’t get too excited. EMI had a Defense Division which did a lot of Government work. Dad had come out of the Navy in the early ’50’s and had joined EMI because he had a good working knowledge of early radar. He worked on radar and guidance systems, ending up on a six-week trip to Woomera, Australia, to witness the launch of The Blue Streak rocket, which had his work inside it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Streak_(missile)
The significance of his employer and 1963 is that, every Friday, there would be Staff Sales at the factory in Feltham, Middlesex, where he worked. He came home with the first Beatles single, Love Me Do, the week before it was released. I asked him, years later, what made him pick that out of the dozens of new EMI releases, that week. He had no idea.
My 9 year old brother and I played it to death (Kev had to put it on as I wasn’t allowed to touch the stylus) and we loved it.
Then, in fairly quick succession, we had Please Please Me, From Me To You, She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand – all pre-release. I have distinct memories of Kev, me and Phil (5 years old) “being” The Beatles, with tennis rackets (Kev was John, I had to be Paul because I persuaded Phil that my tennis racket was left handed, so Phil had to be George.)
And that was it. I was a Beatles nut – still am. It is also wonderful that Phil & I ended up in a band together in the mid ’70’s (Phil is still a stunning guitarist and piano player) and Kev became my most important musical influence because we shared a bedroom, so his music collection had a huge effect on me.)
By the late ’60’s Mum was buying Carpenters albums and all through the ’60’s she would have the radio on, especially on Sunday mornings, whilst cooking Sunday lunch. Two Way Family Favourites was the show and it was there, in our kitchen, while I helped to peel spuds, that I first heard Wichita Lineman and Galveston by Glen Campbell. My love of Jimmy Webb has never wavered. I remember seeing Mum wipe a tear once, as she gazed out of the window, as we listened to Wichita Lineman. Was there an aching to travel, a yearning to break free of the apron strings? Obviously, I wasn’t thinking that at the time but, after Dad died in ’81, Mum had a second life. Once the youngest of her family of six had fled the nest, she travelled, (yes, Wichita and Galveston – not impressed with either,) across the States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, France, Singapore and Austria. She passed away soon after a trip to San Francisco to see her niece, in 2007. We rang Diane a week into the trip (Mum was 75 years old by now) and asked how Mum was. Diane said she only stayed three days and then took herself off. It turns out she went to Monument Valley because she had always wanted to see an American Native rear up on a horse (one duly obliged as part of an organised trip,) then she did the helicopter flight through the Grand Canyon, got a flight to New York, did a helicopter flight through the skyscrapers and flew home. She passed away in her sleep, 10 days later.
The first single I bought with my own money was The Hollies, I Can’t Tell The Bottom From The Top in early ’70, when I was 13. Incredibly, within 18 months, I was regularly going to gigs at Guildford Civic Hall, and my record collection was growing fast – Mott The Hoople, Wishbone Ash, Genesis, Supertramp, etc.
Looking back, I realise that the radio had a profound effect on me. My love of great ’60’s pop singles comes from that time and, although I was only 8, 9 and 10, I could sing all of those great songs in later years. I began to collect original copies of some classic 45’s of Righteous Brothers, Small Faces, Motown, Stax, The Hollies and dozens of others. In the ’70’s it was DJ’s like Roger Scott, Bob Harris, Fluff Freeman and Johnnie Walker who fuelled my record collection.
Unfortunately, the vinyl went when I had to downsize after the divorce but my CD collection seems to have taken over our tiny house. I still buy more ‘physical product’ than I download and should really cut back.
But I can’t.
Great story, even though you nearly had me in tears!
I used “left-handed” raquet as my excuse for being rubbish at tennis (I’m right-handed and my lad is a lefty). And “left-handed” sticks for being rubbish at the drums. Truth is, I have no talent at either, and he does, lucky little sod that he is.
Wonder if I can get away with saying I’m a left handed singer, cos I’m rubbish at that as well.
It’a strange, but I recognise quite a lot of those early years experiences and influences. My parents had shared, but also different musical likes, so while my dad liked Marty Robbins and Shirley Bassey, and mam liked Jim Reeves and Slim Whitman, they both loved loads of other 50 and 60s stuff, so there were lots of compilations and things floating round, including a surprising amount of classical albums. It’s where I first heard things like Eddie Cochran, and Dion. They played records and the radio a lot, because when I was very young they ditched the TV for a while, saying they thought it would be bad influence on my developing language skills. They needn’t have worried, as it turned out because I had what turned out to be fairly rarefied watching tastes (documentaries, Python, Innes, Q, The Goodies). I was a funny kid, but nothing’s changed. But I did have the Bay City Rollers tartan clothes, and loved watching the music stuff on the TV, even if I was only 6 or 7 at the time.
It meant I would happily listen to chart music, but other stuff too, so airway on I wasn’t a musical snob – I just liked what I liked, abut when I did I really LIKED it. And Middlesbrough wasn’t a bad place to find music, with places like Hamiltons, and Fearnley’s. So I bought early singles like Amii Stewart’s Knock On Wood (which I think was first), Making Plans fo rNigel, BA Robertson’s Bang Bang. My parents were fairly liberal in their taste, but drew the line at Never Mind The Bollocks, which was fair enough considering gI was still in primary school. And I had an uncle I really got on with who introduced me to Cat Stevens, and ELO (beardy Jeff is still a fave). And computers, but that’s for another time.
I got to secondary school just as Adam and the Ants and the art synth wave was hitting in 1981, so I had to sit there sit there while girls dibbled on insanely about Duran Duran and Spandau, though I did actually like the Duran song. I had a mate who was a massive Prince fan, and while I wasn’t as struck as him, I could see the attraction. As a teenager, I rode a golden wave, Thriller, Frankie, Madonna, Live Aid. All of it in my school years.
But the first obsessing was Half Man Half Biscuit. A mate lent me a cassette and I had to go out and buy everything I could (which admittedly wasn’t much at that point, but I didn’t have much cash either, so that worked out in the end). I still love them to this day. In fact, the principal highlight of a sixth form trip for me to London was being able to get a copy of Back Again in the DHSS from the HMV on Oxford Street – sophistication!
Another influence was a guy who’s no longer with us, sadly. One August night in 1986, suggested I watch a programme with him on BBC2 as he thought I might like it, being a space/astro geek. He was right – I adored Rendez Vous Houston and my obsession with Jean Michel Jarre, and other electronic music, began there. In fact, the docklands gig was in my first week as a student. Of course I was there, on the Saturday night.
But I had other mates who were more into metal I started to pick up Zappa, Steve Vai, Van Halen, ZZ Top, and a whole bunch of other stuff from that route. And none of it was cooler, or worse than anything else. I just loved it all.
But university was brilliant. Durham’s small but it still had places to find music, and Newcastle was only a short train ride away – and Newcastle was fabulous. It opened up a while load of stuff I’d either only heard fitfully, and exposed me to other people’s taste. So that’s where I got into guitar properly, and massively into Pink Floyd (what a cliche, eh?). And of course, my student years were the baggy/madchester ones, so I caught all of that, though most dance music didn’t much appeal to me (mostly because I hated the actual dancing part). Except the KLF. Student bops back then were a gumbo of the weird and wonderful, and I loved it, except of course the actual dancing.
I didn’t really enjoy the Stone Roses until the second album arrived, and because it was clear John Squire has been listening to Led Zep. I saw them at Bridligton Spa in 1995 and they made a frankly awesome (and I don’t use the word lightly) noise that night, whatever happened later on. And at that time, a girl I was in a relationship with opened up my taste in other ways, so I learned to unironically like hair metal like Poison and Motley Crue. She was also a big Queen fan, which meant that when I first heard ’39 I had the weird moment of saying aloud – “hang on, this is a song about relativity and time dilation” (still the science nerd). Uniquely, this may be one of the few times in history a line like that ever worked as an aphrodisiac with a woman.
So those are the formative things. Afterwards, it’s mostly been like I was, just more of the same As time has gone on, I’ve just managed to amass our end more stuff, though not excessive, as there’s only so much space. One of the great things about the digital ages is being able to listen to stuff, but not have to store it! But I still have plenty on the shelves. I tend to go with the peel(ish) philosophy of try anything once, you might like it. I’m surprised how often I still do.
I won’t bore you all with my babysitting aunt or the arrival of our first record player when I was thirteen. Thinking back, I didn’t really buy that many LPs. I had a group of friends, all with special interests, but enough in common to share our listening. Cassette mix tapes were lifesavers. In fact, when I left home in 1977 I no longer had a record player. Still, I went to a gig almost every week and, somehow, the vinyl accumulated.
In 1985, I fully embraced CDs. They were a revelation, robust and sounding brilliant on cheap kit. I was free from the tyranny of the record shop keeper turning his nose up at the concept that an LP he sold might possibly skip. By 1988, work and the arrival of children had put paid to gig-going and CD purchases accelerated. In 1989, I gave up smoking. As a treat for myself, I bought a CD per week and still saved money. Now, I have thousands. However, I wouldn’t describe myself as a collector. I’m not at all completist. I’m happier buying something physical in the belief that the artist is remunerated better that way. I may be wrong. They bring me so much pleasure, I feel they deserve my appreciation.
As for musical progression: Mowtown/girl groups/The Beatles pre school, then T.Rex/Roxy Music/Bowie aged 12/13, then Al Green/Marvin Gaye/Steely Dan/Little Feat 13-15, then Bob Marley/Reggae/Dub 14 onwards, then Pub Rock/New Wave/Disco/Kraftwerk 17 onwards with Jazz and Orchestral music bubbling along in the background. The second gig I went to was an ‘industrial’ orchestral concert and a Fats Waller compilation and Songs For Swinging Lovers were the LPs my father owned that led me into Jazz.
@Vulpes-Vulpes thanks mate that is exactly the piece.Could have sworn it was In a Persian Garden but your detective work is spot on.
Now to check out Desert Patrol.
The year is 1986. England are still seething after being the victims of Diego Maradona’s ‘hand of God’ in the Football World Cup. Eighties Heartthrob, Chris de Burgh is riding high at the top of the music charts with ‘The Lady in Red’. Madonna’s third studio album, True Blue sits at the top of the Album Charts. Somewhere in the middle of England a baby wails (presumably a stray dog howls, also).
My mother and father are children of the 1960s and 70s. Dad’s first love will always be Glam Rock, the glitter and theatrics appealing to his teenage self. He’d admit to preferring Slade and Sweet to Bowie and Bolan. I couldn’t name my Mum’s favourite band if my life depended on it, she has never been that bothered about music.
By the time I first became aware of music in the early-mid 90s, the vinyl had been put away/sold and the family’s CD collection consisted of one shelf within an alcove next to the fireplace. There are a few albums I remember being present – Queen’s Greatest Hits I, a 10cc Best Of, a Christmas compilation with the usual suspects, plus ‘December Will Be Magic’ by Kate Bush and a 1993 Dance compilation CD with, amongst other contemporary hits, ‘No Limit’, ‘Book Shake The Room’ and ‘Mr Vain’.
It is the first of these three dance songs that I remember loving in 1993, a year before Top of the Pops appears on my radar. Manchester United are the first number one I remember, with their FA Cup offering, ‘Come on you Reds’. Over the next few years, I would religiously watch TOTP every Thursday at 7pm, and later on every Friday at 7.30pm. Thanks to the BBC, I am exposed to Britpop, Girl Power and Boy Bands aplenty. The first album ever gifted to me is Now That’s What I Call Music 31, released in the Summer of 1995. Over the next two years I would receive the latest edition for each birthday and Christmas. Thirty years later I would find myself on Music Magpie acquiring as many Now compilations from the main series as possible in a (still unaccomplished) attempt to complete the collection up to and including Now 100. As I sit here on the couch, I can see them taking up two of the lowest tows of my CD shelving.
My early loves were the quintessential Britpop bands: Oasis, Blur, Pulp and Supergrass. I only ever knew the singles though, and it would be a number of years before I bought any of their albums. By that time, Britpop had been consigned to the charity bins of history. Replaced by Coldplay, Travis and the Stereophonics.
I confess, I have never been that bothered about buying singles, and reckon I’ve only ever owned up to five – of which ‘Three Lions’ (1996) and ‘… Baby One More Time’ (1998) were the first two. I bought my first two albums in late 1999 or early 2000, Travis’s The Man Who and Synkronized by Jamiroquai. I know Travis had released all four of the singles from The Man Who by the time I bought it, because I remember liking only those songs on my first listen.
In Christmas 2000 I received The Beatles 1, and an obsession began. Soon afterwards I added Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper to my collection. The next few years would be spent completing my Beatles collection. In 2009 the albums would be replaced by the Stereo and Mono box sets.
By the time I reached sixth-form, most of my hard-earned cash was spent on buying CDs from either HMV or Virgin Megastore. They were both situated within a few hundred feet of each other, so it was easy to compare prices. Of course, it is impossible to remember the circumstances behind every purchase, but I can certainly remember buying The Coral’s self-titled album on the strength of a review in Q, having not heard a note of their music at the time. They are still one of my favourite bands.
If I couldn’t afford to buy a CD, or hadn’t the time to take the thirty-minute bus ride into the town centre, I would borrow CDs from the village library. Everything Must Go and This is My Truth Tell Me Yours were first copied from the library in this time, as was Blur’s Best Of released at the turn of the millennium.
Being young has its benefits and I find myself discovering ‘new’ music all the time. Bob Dylan was new to me when I decided to buy his Greatest Hits on a whim one afternoon (no doubt influenced by his connection to the Beatles). By the time I’d heard ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, I was hooked. Dark Side of the Moon was first heard during a teenage house party, and I immediately got it. Other albums took longer to sink in, but the love is no weaker.
University was spent in Liverpool, where I half-heartedly dreamt of become someone important without having the courage or wherewithal to make a difference. I started going to gigs frequently, not only in Liverpool, but also in Manchester and Sheffield. Usually with friends met at university but occasionally on my own. The three years were sound-tracked by, perhaps the last great wave of indie bands – led by Franz Ferdinand and the Arctic Monkeys.
I found myself working at HMV in my early twenties and benefited from it’s 30% staff discount to get anniversary editions of Blur’s back catalogue for under £2 each. Conscious of the lack of diversity in my collection, I made an effort to explore albums and artists that weren’t in my ‘indie/alternative’ comfort zone. All manner of music, from Elgar to Ella Fitzgerald, from PJ Harvey to Public Enemy, and from Half Man Half Biscuit to the Housemartins was heard in that period and loved.
Not every purchase has been worth the money, but I love the fact I can fall in love with a band or album forty years after the initial event. Music is timeless and has been the one constant passion in my life since 1995.
That’s a really fascinating post Tony. The bands you talk about during your childhood were the ones that provided the soundtrack to my young adult life. Truth is, by the time Britpop came around I was pushing 30 and felt a little long in the tooth to get swept up in a ‘scene’.
At times I might babble on about my childhood fave bands like Sparks, TRex, Roxy Music in a similar way and other AW readers would be viewing ME as the whippersnapper.
But as you say, they lead to other things. When so many bands I like talked about (say) Kraftwerk and Bowie in interviews, it felt natural to go back and pick up on that stuff. And of course The Beatles back catalogue. Libraries were great too – the ability to borrow a tape and give it a go for a week. This led me to Jean Michel Jarre, Siouxsie, Stranglers and early UB40, early Simple Minds – things I wouldn’t have invested in if it wasn’t for the library.
Which brings to mind this. In the mid-90s I was playing pool in a North London pub one sunny Saturday afternoon. There was a pleasingly loud jukebox bashing out the hits of the day. A friend put on the recently-released A Design for Life by the Manics. My God that’s a powerful song. By then you’ve heard it a few times, enough to know you like it – but to hear it at such a powerful volume was magical. Everything sounded weedy after that.
I used to captain a pool team that were the resident team at Kings Cross snooker club for 7 or 8 years in the late 90s/early 00s. They had a decent jukebox in there and we found we gravitated towards the same songs until one bright spark decided we should each have a theme song. The idea was to try to time your song coming on to when you were at the table. If we timed it right it seemed to give us that extra boost and we’d often win our frame. My song was North Country Boy by The Charlatans, because I am one (a north country boy, not a charlatan).
As I was captain I’d have to name our team first, with us being the home team. We tended to have the same bloke play first every game, cos he rarely lost, and I’d tend to stick myself in at 2 or 3, so I had a decent chance of timing my song to my match. However, we had an eccentric old chap in our team who was in his 70s at that point (he sadly died recently and we shared dozens of stories of his escapades – seriously, they could have got a sitcom out of him) and his games tended to be drawn out tactical battles. He could bring anybody down to his game. And it wasn’t unusual for his one frame to last up to an hour. The lads from the Southampton team used to leave the pool hall when his frames started and have half an hour in the Flying Scotsman, as watching some ropey old strippers was far more appealing than watching Gerry make his opponent lose the will to live.
All this, of course, meant that the lads who were down to play after him had next to no chance of predicting when they should be putting their song on the jukebox. Often you’d hear one of the songs come on 2 or 3 times, as one of the lads kept putting their money in, in the hope that Gerry or his opponent might accidentally pot the black, whilst trying to outwit each other. Good fun though.
hi
music nerd-dom 1971 – 1977
born january 1964
random memories of hearing tunes as a toddler on what may have been radio 2 – guantamera by the sand pipers and morningtown ride still give me warm comfortig proustian rush when i hear them – killer melodies too.
next memory – liking a couple of songs in the early 70s when i heard them on the radio – american pie and metal guru – i liked the word guru – didn’t know what it meant.
i saw the david bowie starman performance on totp – and it spoke to me – i liked the short hair, the cheekbones and being a second generation immigrant – something about the alienation, space man vibe seemed to speak to me.
my family got a record player in autumn 1972 – a ‘portable’ dansette. not sure where i got the money from but first purchase was jean genie single just before xmas. first album – would have ziggy stardust early 1973 probably with birthday money. second album alladin sane the day it came out – and i joined the fan club.
next few years – i got diamond dogs but mostly the occasional single – roxy music street life, mungo jerry long legged woman, candle in the wind, give me peace on earth. nothing really had the impact of bowie and i didn’t get young americans – however i bought golden years which i thought was a great return to form.
i think in 75 i was feeling the pre -punk lack of excitement – i bought myself meaty big and bouncy in early 1976 and went half on two purchases with my sister bob marley live – and frampton comes alive – i thought the single ‘show me the way’ was exciting but the album was dull dull dull.
i saw the sex pistols on so it goes – it was broadcast late saturday night in my region – i’d heard the name as i occasionally saw an nme around that time – and immediately felt the excitement – creeping menance – and kind of slightly feminine, somewhat disturbing sense of controlled violence. my sisters boyfriend gave me a copy of anarchy in the uk which he got for 39p in the woolies remainder bin.
early 1977 i started buying the nme at the tender age of 13 and was introduced to a whole new world – in those days long article on nuclear disarnament, hitch-hiking, beat poetry – and of course punk rock/new wave.
my sister – 4 years older – went to see the strangles in march 1977 at at our local gig venue – night club – capacity not much more than 150 i would wager – and came back having a damascene conversation. i picked up her enthusiasm and got myself rattus norvegicus which rarely left the turntable.
and my sister started dragging me along to punk gigs. i had previously seen georgie fame and the blue flames – 1975, rod stewart – olympia 1976 and my first new wave gig was the jam june 1977 – fucking exciting, breathtaking – still one of my top ten gigs.
that’s it – 43 years later – i’m still buying music – admittedly working my way through the older canon- mid 60s to mid 90s being the mother lode i reckon. all the usual suspects – cohen, young, mitchell, bowie, morrison probably being the top 5 and still a soft spot for the best of 70s new wave, post punk and 80’s original indie living room/falcon scene.
i played in the original rockingbirds peddling ahead of our time country indie pop to the grungey late 80s london north london toilet circuit.
and i’m now going to more gigs than at any time in the since the late 80s – last week girl ray and daddy long legs, next week porridge radio and coming up – nick cave, patti smith and the kraftwerk/iggy thing in london.
Kudos due for the Rockingbirds – I played ‘Gradually Learning’ only last night.
Loved the ‘Birds: caught both shows, the one billed and the extra squeezed in one, at Glastonbury about 93. Hooked. Last years ‘More Rockingbirds’ still good and on my top 20 for 2019