Apologies for repeating myself..but..
Last night in a local boozer, the Earl Haig Social Club in Crouch End, we held a Stylus Stories event.
( Link here….
http://www.stylusstories.co.uk/ )
The deal is you stick a turntable onstage, have a mike or two and people bring their vinyl along, tell a story as to why the song has some significance and then play it.
Last night we heard about a drunken 16 year old necking a half pint of bacardi, tearing up the dance floor to The Beat’s version of ” Tears of a Clown,” delivering Paul Weller’s child followed by “Going Underground, ” a tale of a disreputable dad preceded Mose Allison’s “Parchman Farm,” a childhood longing to become Baloo the bear was followed by Louis Prima’s ” Buono Sera,” along with half a dozen other really top-notch tales and tunes.
I kicked things off with a quick public plug for the wonderful AED records pressings of the Linden albums, by Joe Mcalinden.Two albums of blissful pastoral guitar driven pop.
It’s a very Afterword event and incredibly easy to do in any venue. Works beautifully well with an audience of a certain age and ethanol helps.
Why not try and run one yourself…..
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CGwPC_7XEAEtpez.jpg
Sounds like fun.
My Stylus Story would relate to my copy of The Pogues – If I Should Fall From Grace With God. .
The year is 1989. I was 17, and on one of my first dates with a new chap I was a bit smitten with. When I’d mentioned to him in passing that I wished I’d have known The Pogues were headlining The Reading Festival, he’d declared that it wasn’t too late to go, and had avowed to “get us in by hook or by crook.” Which he did, by ‘renting’ hooky wristbands for a fiver from a crook at the gate. This impressed me no end.
I remember walking through the gate, being hit by the smell of leather jackets and stale sweat, trying to contain my excitement at a) our being smuggled in ‘illegally’ and b) the prospect of spending a music-filled day with a bloke who was not only funny and good-looking, but who seemed to be showing signs of being a bit smitten with me, too. (This was a revelation, I can assure you).
The Pogues were due on. I made the inexplicable decision at that very moment to buy a copy of If I Should Fall From Grace With God from a stall. An LP, not a CD. And I repeat, the Pogues were due on. As we made our way forwards to the general mosh area, I clutched the album (encased in a white carrier bag) to my chest and uttered, defeatedly: “Oh, bugger.” Chalking it down to experience, I stuffed it down the front of my denim jacket, wistfully realising this was probably the last I’d ever see of it, and joined in the roar as Shane and the boys shambled onto the stage. I then jumped around ecstatically for the next hour and a half. The always lively Fiesta was absolute, marvellous mayhem.
When they finished the set, the crowd spat us out, hot, happy, and hoarse. We stood there, battered, grinning, hair damp with sweat, clutching eachother’s hands. He kissed me and I didn’t know where I was anymore, but it was somewhere good.
I recovered myself and remembered my ‘new’ album. Laughing, I fished inside my jacket and pulled out the carrier bag. It looked unexpectedly uncrumpled. I stuck my hand inside and fished out the LP, and we both looked startled. The corners were square, the white of the cover was still white, there were no squashed bits, dents, folds, dirt, or damp. If I could have successfully done an impression of heavenly choirs of angels singing I would have. It was pristine.
I’ve still got it. It’s still in very good nick. Better nick than this lady of easy leisure and her rambling boy of pleasure, if I’m brutally honest, but that’s just the result of too much kalamari and macaroni. No doubt the miraculously surviving LP will get a spin on September 30th on the occasion of our 20th wedding anniversary (where we’ll very likely have bought eachother an album as a present, but will almost certainly not be venturing into any moshpits). Anyone know a Leonardo who plays accordione?
Great idea Nogbad. It looks as though we are going to have a Stylus Stories here right now on the AW.
And Drakey has kicked it off magnificently.
Thanks to both of you.
Sounds like quite an adventure Ms D.
One night I was in the Boogaloo pub near Archway where comrade Macgowan was lodging.
I was trying to get to grips with a video camera which I’d borrowed to record some dire piece of kid’s theatre which one of the nogkids was involved in.
I sat with my nursed half of lager and an instruction book and from a nearby pile of old clothes, fag ends, tobacco droppings and general detritus, arose what may have been a human, albeit one untroubled by the presence of teeth.
With a groan of pain and suffering, the depths of which sounded unfathomable, it sat up, downed what I found out to be a pint of gin and martini, then settled back to resume its slumber.
Couldn’t stand the music tho’ sorry !