I don’t remember being unaware of music, there must have
always been music in my home as far as I could tell. I don’t remember a time before around late
1974 when I would have been three years old; I’d lived in Emsworth and Plymouth
when I was younger than this but have no recollection of either so my earliest
memories are of living in Gosport, near Portsmouth. My father was in the Royal
Navy and thus not always around though I don’t actually recall not noticing
him. My younger brother was a baby and my older sisters both seemed to be at
something called “school” most of the time.
I heard this as “stool”. I
imagined they had to sit on a high, uncomfortable stool and be talked at. I remember the television, particularly on
one occasion when my mother called me from the kitchen to change the channel
and I managed to break the set, to this day I don’t know how. But I don’t
remember music at all. I think my father played music much more often than my mother
so the television of the early 70s sticks in my mind more. I have memories of watching Barnaby the Bear,
Andy Pandy, Captain Pugwash, Rainbow and I think Trumpton or one of its
variants but I don’t recall any music, even television theme tunes.
Sometime in 1975 we moved to Southbourne in West Sussex as
by then my father had left the navy and our previous home had been forces
married quarters. With my father being around more there was an increase of the
amount of music I had in my ears. The earliest songs I remember were by Elvis
Presley or Peter Sarstedt, particularly the latter’s 1969 eponymous album
featuring the “No More Lollipops For You” track, which I found hilarious on
account of its speeded up vocal mix at the end. The Elvis tracks my father preferred were the
songs from his movies or the more country and western themed numbers. There
were also various country artists that to this day all blurred in to one with
the exception of Johnny Cash, memorable to me at this time for the giggle-inducing
“A Boy Named Sue” which had been recorded at his 1969 San Quentin gig. Finally, a smattering of old rock and roll
artists made it in to my father’s collection; Adam Faith, Buddy Holly and Roy
Orbison were all artists I don’t remember not knowing so I must have picked them
up in my consciousness around this time.
In September 1975 I started school and music suddenly had a
whole new dimension to it; singing. I
distinctly recall when my mother was dragging me by the hand to the infant
school open day my major fear was not being separated from her; surprisingly,
considering my reluctance to attend play school; but the prospect of being made
to sing. I can only assume my sisters,
who had already transferred to the Junior School, had been teasing me about what
would be expected from me when I started the educational regime. Of course singing did not turn out to be the
ordeal I’d dreaded and in fact I quite enjoyed it. The singing in school assembly at that age was
generally quasi-religious rather than full on hymns. The songs I remember most
of all were “Morning Has Broken”, which though a Christian hymn had been
popularised in the years preceding my educational beginnings by the then Cat
Stevenson his 1971 album “Teaser and the Firecat”, and “Lord of the Dance”,
ostensibly a Christian song but with pagan folk undertones. Unbeknown to me the
song was at that time less than ten years old, having been written in 1967 by
Sydney Carter.
By 1975 my eldest sister was 11 years old and showing an
interest in popular music so this also began to have some impact on my
listening ears. I would imagine I
watched Top of the Pops with my sisters and possibly other pop music themed shows but
memories of this era are vague. 1977 saw
the Queen’s Silver Jubilee which I recall mainly for the infant school picnic
which I recall mainly for the fact that neither of my parents attended as they
were both working and I had to sit with another family. The Sex Pistol’s input to this joyous
occasion passed me by completely. The
other major musical event that marked me this year was the death on August 16th
of Elvis Presley. Even with my tender
years this was a massive shock, it did not seem possible that somebody so well-known
and so young could just die like that. I learned of his death from a copy of The
Sun left on the dining table and read the articles avidly, bewildered and
enthralled all at once. Neither parent
seemed overly upset or even surprised so perhaps this was normal for pop stars
(it was years later that I learned of the untimely deaths of Jimi Hendrix,
Janice Joplin, Bryan Jones, Jim Morrison et cetera which even my unhip parents
must have been aware of and desensitised by). Around the end of the year “Mull
of Kintyre” was number one and hence played at the end of Top of the Pops for
around three years, or so it seemed to my 6 year old self.
The most personal music landmark in 1978 was my first 7”
single which was bought for me by my Auntie Joan. She was visiting us from her home town of
Salisbury and bought for me “The Smurf Song” by Father Abraham and The Smurfs
and for my younger brother “You’re the one that I want” By John Travolta and
Olivia Newton John. Yes, I got the novelty single and my brother got the song
from the teen focussed Grease soundtrack. It was many years later I realised
that The Smurf Song was also kept from number one by the single my brother was
given, which was quite prophetic in a way.
I do remember watching the clips from Grease on Top of the Pops while it
and at least one other song from the movie was number one which is my only
specific memory of the show around this time.
The next song to really make a mark on me despite having
never owned it in any capacity was “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor in 1979. I
must have heard it many times but I have a distinct memory of hearing it in a
car; which must have been a hire car as our family never owned one until the mid-eighties;
probably on a summer day coming back from a daytrip out. The song would go on to be a karaoke staple
for recently dumped women of little originality but when performed by Gloria
Gaynor it truly makes the hairs on my neck get up and dance. It probably has
more to do with the associated memory than the song itself but nevertheless
this was my first favourite song. I have vague recollections of the Abba in
Switzerland special on the BBC around 1979 as well but as it was some
considerable time before I could admit to my camp fondness for that particular
act I will gloss over that happening just now. But I can say that by the end of
1979 I was very much a regular viewer of TOTP and the Pink Floyd video for
Another Brick In The Wall which was the last number one of the seventies, I’m
pretty sure at this time it was the animated sequences by Gerald Scarfe in the
video that held my attention the most and brilliance of Pink Floyd’s music
would continue to elude me for some considerable time.
In 1979 I had started Junior School in Southbourne and music
started to be noticed more and more. A
friend got what would be called a crew-cut these days but coming off the back
of the seventies we all thought of it as a skinhead, knowing nothing of the
right wing connotations that has attached itself to such a look by this time.
The 1980 release of “Baggy Trousers” by Madness made a huge impact on most of
the boys in my year, a few of whom started to wear Harrington jackets but of
course my parents were not that cool. My
own personal tastes that year were forged largely by my sisters’ interest in
Adam Ant who was finding success with his “Kings of the Wild Frontier” album
and the singles thereof and my own young loins were starting to stir but not
really knowing why when confronted with the delectable Toyah Wilcox and her
hits “It’s a Mystery” (from Four from Toyah), “I want to break free” and “Thunder
in the Mountains” in 1981. Presumably the rock’n’roll side of my tastes were
the reason for my strange fondness around this time for Shakin’ Stevens who had
a string of hits in ’81 and ’82. My
sisters’ would let me have the Shakin’ Stevens and Toyah posters from their
Smash Hits and Jackie magazines. Around this time I also bought my first record: A 12" vinyl album, The Best of Bond, which actually covered music from the first three Connery Bond films. I seem to recall it was 20p at a jumble sale.
The rock’n’roll influences didn’t end there. One of my best
friends around this time, a chubby, short lad called Matty Stringer, had older
brothers who were Teddy Boys. I knew
very little of Teds, Mods, Punks, Skins et cetera at such a young age and I
certainly didn’t know that the older Stringer boys often would themselves in
scrapes for their look. By this time
Teddy Boys were certainly not that fashionable, what with Skins, Rude Boys and
Girls, post-punks and the beginnings of New Romantic starting to shine
through. Anyway, Matt’s brothers held
Elvis parties which my younger brother and I were sometimes invited to. They were held in their long back garden on
warm summer evenings and we drank pop, listened to Elvis and tapped our feet in
a way that we had been taught to as Teds.
Fashionable or not I have very fond memories of these nights.
Further recollections of my time at Junior School are
largely filled with TV shows and less to do with pop music. Much as I watched Top of the Pops, not much
made a deep impression on me and I was just as likely to see music on either
Tizwas or Number 73 so unless the kids at school were talking about it. Thus my mixed memories’ of the time leading
up to September 1983 and in no particular order include Musical Youth’s Pass
the Dutchie, The Kids From Fame, The Jam splitting up (There is no way I’d have
been cool enough to have noticed this if I hadn’t heard the announcement on
Radio 1when I was sick in bed), Eddy Grant, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Captain
Sensible (his connection with The Damned completely unknown to us), Bucks Fizz
winning the Eurovision song contest, The Human League, Gary Numan, John Lennon
getting shot and the headmaster announcing it in assembly, David Bowie’s Let’s
dance video, Men At Works Down Under and Trio’s Da Da Da.
In September 1983 I went to The Bourne Community School in
Southbourne, West Sussex. I was not
quite 12 years old but this, figuratively, is where my teens began. The first number one single of my time at
secondary school was Red Red Wine by UB40.
I grew to hate UB40 in time but I am jumping ahead.
As I progressed in to my teens I started to develop my own
interests in music. I was by now
influenced by the tastes of my sister, Cathrynn, who had a record player and
the teen girls interest in music which varied enormously. Having grown out of Adam Ant, along with the
rest of the English speaking world, she owned albums by The Beat and Haircut
100 which I used to listen to but the one she made me a copy of on cassette was
Construction Time Again by Depeche Mode.
The austere industrial sounds they employed had a profound effect on my
and I developed an interest in anything electronic sounding. I still didn’t have my own equipment to play
music on, my younger brother had a radio-cassette player made by Ingersoll, on
which I’d record songs from the radio, and he also had a “walkman” (with a
small “w” because it wasn’t a Walkman ©, it was a personal stereo made by
someone like Alba).
With the Depeche Mode influence now upon me I started to
record songs like New Order’s Blue Monday, The Art of Noise’s Close To The Edit
and Paul Hardcastle’s Nineteen. Anything
with a sampler and keyboards were game.
One evening my parents came home from a night out having won some albums
from the DJ, one of which was the Who’s Afraid Of The Art Of Noise album, which
kinda blew my mind at the time being largely experimental and not very
commercial at all, unlike their later dalliances with Max Headroom, Tom Jones
and Duane Eddy. I also had an interest
in Electro hip-hop, largely forged by peer pressure but helped along by the
likes of Doug E Fresh sampling the Inspector Gadget music for their single The
Show. Eventually I got my own stereo, a
Toshiba with a single tape deck, which was annoying as I couldn’t copy tapes
myself but had to ask my friend Mark to do it.
The first cassettes I got that year were Madonna’s Like A
Virgin (a teen crush that had started with Live Aid, a pivotal music moment),
Depeche Mode’s Singles 81-85 and Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love. By the Christmas of 1987 I’d added Fleetwood
Mac’s Tango In The Night, The Pretenders Singles, Alison Moyet’s Alf and pretty
much everything Simple Minds and U2 had done up to that point.
I’d been aware of Simple Minds, I’d recorded songs like
Alive and Kicking, Sanctify Yourself and Don’t You Forget About Me from the
radio but oddly enough it was the weakest single from the Once Upon A Time
album, Ghostdancing, which really grabbed me.
Ghostdancing was little more than a jam with meaningless, ad-libbed
lyrics that had gotten too big for its boots but it had a killer riff and I
decided that they were my new favourite band and set about collecting their
back catalogue. I started with Once Upon
A Time, an obvious choice but for my next few choices price dictated what I bought
so the mini album Sister Feelings Call (1981) and the early effort Real to Real
Cacophony (1979), both of which were some way from the later pompous and
commercial stadium sound that had attracted me in the first place. Real to Real in particular had an art-rock
sound unlike anything I’d ever come across before and the first stirrings of
pretentious git were rousing in me.
I
had also been very much influenced by Mark’s fondness for The Pet Shop Boys and
hadn’t completely given up on Pop so the likes of Erasure also had me
listening. Eventually though my tastes
were changing from those of Smash Hits though I continued reading for most of
my school days. My fondness for Simple
Minds and U2 was in full swing, Mark had a mutual interest in U2 and more money
so while I had the albums he’d have all the 12” singles, imports and
bootlegs. Then my loins moved me on to
the next stage. I had a massive crush on
a girl called Lucy and through her got in to The Cure. There was little effort involved here; the eclectic
and often irreverent style they employed in their poppier efforts appealed to
me and as I grew older the more melancholy aspects of their back catalogue
meant more and more to me. I went out
with Lucy for a bit, not for long because I discovered alcohol and did
something bad whilst drunk which she found out about. Shame, lovely girl she was.
And so it was that in 1988 when I started college I turned
up on day one with back-combed hair, black jeans, a black blazer and great big,
white Hi-Tech trainers with the tongue sticking out, a la Robert Smith. Being a “Cure fan” characterized me all the
way through college and to a lesser extent, all the way through life.
