We'll Give All We've Got to Give

What's the oddest, most out of context music you've heard being piped into the supermarket ether as you do your weekly shop? I mentioned my own company's somewhat limited offerings in a previous post, though I'm pleased to report that they've upped their game a little in the interim. Every now and then a random Bowie song will drop into the mix and a couple of months back several Bob Marley songs entered the playlist rotation and still occasionally pop up to delight me when I least expect it. These are very welcome additions to the rather limited selection of tracks that have formed the basis of my working soundtrack for the past couple of years. Every now and then however, complete one-offs appear from nowhere, play once and disappear forever. While dragging a cage full of cakes from the warehouse in the summer, I was surprised to hear 'Turning Japanese' by The Vapours jumping out of the speakers and on another day the reasonably obscure 'One Step Up' by Bruce Springsteen got an airing, neither of them to be heard again. Nothing prepared me for what I found myself  involuntarily singing along to a couple of weeks ago though. I made it, word perfectly, through the first verse, before I fully cottoned-on to what was playing over the music system of a bustling supermarket in the Autumn of 2021. I was gobsmacked, though disappointed that I couldn't find anyone else my age on-shift, with whom to share my bewilderment. Whose idea was it to put this on the playlist?

55 From 55 - 1979

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far. 

One of the guys at the office rented a large house just off Christchurch Park, a pretty nice part of Ipswich. He took the biggest room and sub-let the rest to friends and co-workers. I'm not sure how legal the sub-letting actually was, now I come to think about it. When one of his 'tenants' gave notice, he made it known at work that he was looking to fill the room. Without thinking too much about it, I said I'd take it and that evening, told Mum and Dad I was leaving home. I'm utterly appalled at my younger self for the way I dropped this bombshell on my parents. They knew the day would come, but were clearly hurt at the blunt way I broke the news, something my immaturity couldn't comprehend, yet to their immense credit they still helped me considerably when the day of the move came.

Don't say I didn't warn you about the 'tache! 1979

It was at the end of 1979 that I started working in a record shop. I wrote about those early days on the other side of the counter a couple of years ago (here). Earlier in the year, around the time I was leaving home, I bought 'Telegram' by The Monitors, a glorious, jangly little thing that I love dearly. I loved it so much that I also bought it again a couple of months later, when the single was reissued on a major label. Over the years, when times have been hard and money short, I've reluctantly exchanged bits of my record collection for cold hard cash - and usually regretted it. But I've never regretted anything quite as much as selling my original Monitunes copy of 'Telegram'. What a fool I was.

55 From 55 - 1978

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far. 

Two hugely pivotal events in my musical life, occurred in 1978 - within the space of 24 hours. On Friday July 14th I traveled to Bury St Edmunds and finally saw The Clash in concert for the first time. As I've reluctantly admitted previously, on this monumental night I was wearing both flares and a moustache - ouch. Flares were ditched from my wardrobe not long after, though the ill-advised moustache remained resolutely above my top lip for a further 18 months. What was I thinking? The gig came towards the end of the 'Out on Parole' tour, where at the early shows, Suicide occupied the support slot. By the time The Clash rolled into Suffolk they had a new opening act, The (Coventry) Specials.

Just prior to the appearance of the dreaded moustache. April 1978.

I couldn't hang around for too long after The Clash had completed their set, as I had an prompt start arranged for the following day. Bright and early the next morning, a hired minibus, driven by the hippy husband of a woman I worked with, pulled up outside my house. I got in. We were off to see Bob Dylan at Blackbushe. From a few hundred people at the Bury St Edmunds Corn Exchange, to 200,000 in a Surrey aerodrome within the space of 24 hours.

Souvenirs of Blackbushe.

I'll no doubt write in a bit more detail about these two massively important gigs one day, but for now I'm just marveling at the ongoing ramifications of that 24 hour period. Over the next 6 years I saw The Clash a further 21 times. And Bob? So far I'm on around 56 shows - and of course I'm still hoping to add to that tally, next time he comes to town.

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One of the self-imposed rules for this series is to exclude my all-time favourite artists, so no Bob or Clash tunes today. Instead, here's 'Where Were You?' by The Mekons, one of the truly great singles of the period and another song introduced to me by the late great Johnny P.

55 From 55 - 1977

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far. 

In 1977, finally, a year later than practically all my friends, I got my first job. I also purchased my first ever suit, a mandatory requirement at the office. I arrived home from work at the end of the long first day, head throbbing from all the new information I'd absorbed and feet throbbing from my new leather shoes that weren't yet worn-in, and immediately ran upstairs to change into the comfortable familiarity of jeans and t-shirt. Mum was horrified. She'd been thrilled that morning, to see me dressed smartly for the first time in living memory and had been poised with a camera, awaiting my return, in order to document the moment. Before she would hand over any dinner, she made me go upstairs, change back into my new threads and pose for a photo-shoot outside the front door. This was the result.

At the end of the month, I received my first pay slip - £92! At lunch time, a friend took me to the bank and showed me how to cash a cheque, I hadn't got a clue. I took out £10 and headed straight to the record shop to purchase 'Live! In the Air Age' by Be Bop Deluxe - after which I still had £7.50 to spare. So began the lunchtime ritual of propping up the counter at the record shop, which would ultimately result in me getting a job there. Hidden under the counter was a 'Punk' singles box, available to peruse upon request. After hearing The Only Ones' debut single, 'Lovers of Today', on John Peel's programme one evening in the Summer of '77, I rushed into the shop the following lunchtime with the title scribbled on a scrap of paper, asked for the box, rifled through and found it. How great is this?

55 From 55 - 1976

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far. 

I mentioned in the last post that at the time of our move to Ipswich in 1975, Dad had no job to go to and I had to get stuck in at my new school pretty quickly to stand a chance of having any success in my forthcoming O-Level exams. In the event Dad was quickly taken on by Debenhams as their new warehouse manager, while in 1976 I unfortunately flunked most of my O-Levels, eventually staying on for an extra year in an attempt to salvage something from the wreckage of my education.

 An ill-advised early attempt at a moustache. 1976

In London, Punk was starting to happen. Meanwhile, in Ipswich I was busy catching every band that came to town, regardless of musical genre. So while the Pistols & co were causing chaos in the capitol, I was grooving to Brand X and Isotope, headbanging to Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Uriah Heep and Widowmaker, stroking my chin to Barclay James Harvest and Fruupp and tapping my foot politely to Andy Fairweather-Low and Kiki Dee.

 Concert ephemera from the period. (Click to enlarge)

The changing musical times were making their mark on my record buying habits though. The fantastic 'Live at the Marquee' EP by Eddie and the Hot Rods, for instance, was rarely far from my turntable in the Summer of '76. Today you get two tunes for the price of one.

55 From 55 - 1975

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far. 

We moved from Walthamstow to Ipswich on May 3rd 1975. It was a brave move on the part of my parents, Dad had no new job to go to and I had to settle into a new school just 12 months shy of my O-Levels. I quickly gravitated towards the fellow music lovers in my class. One of those I met during my first day at the school and would go on to share many musical adventures with, is still my best mate today. I'm also Godfather to one of his children.

Exploring the wide open spaces of Ipswich in 1975.

Ipswich was on the national gig circuit, with a major live venue little more than a mile from my house. Before long I joined my new pal in checking out virtually any touring band that came to town. We saw a lot of shows, not all good, though I soon realised how fundamental live music was going to become for me in the future.

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Those of a similar vintage to me will no doubt remember the Sounds weekly music paper and may even recall its 'rock' corespondent Geoff Barton. Barton was almost single-handedly responsible for pushing the awful American band Kiss onto an unsuspecting UK public, thanks to his incessant promotion of the risible double LP, 'Kiss Alive'. 'Greatest album of all time' my arse! He also shares the blame for the rise of the appalling NWOBHM. It's not all bad news though. In 1975 Geoff Barton introduced me to Mr Big's debut LP, 'Sweet Silence'. (No, not that Mr Big!) It's a real mixed bag, where metal meets cockney knees-up and glam meets noodley prog. It doesn't all stand the test of time, but when it's good, it's very good indeed.

55 From 55 - 1974

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far. 

By 1974 we'd all enjoyed singles by Dave and Ansel Collins, The Pioneers, Bob and Marcia, Greyhound, Dandy Livingstone and several other reggae performers. I'm pretty sure that no-one in my circle of friends had heard anything quite like 'Ire Feelings' though. The song literally reverberated around the school playground, everyone was talking about it or singing along to it.

Suddenly shooting up again in 1974.

Producer Rupie Edwards used the rhythm and some vocal elements from Johnny Clarke's 'Everyday Wondering' to create a remarkable dubwise mash-up, with an unforgettable refrain. You'll be singing this for the rest of the day.

55 From 55 - 1973

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far. 

At school, we'd all got to that stage of personalisng our exercise books, in my case with T.Rex song lyrics. One afternoon in geography our teacher, the wonderfully named Mr Milton-Polly, holding a pile of marked homework, was shouting out names and passing comments on the quality of each individual student's work as we trundled to the front of the class to collect it. He got to my exercise book, called out my name and while I walked down between the desks with all eyes on me, Mr Milton-Polly looked at the cover and sighed heavily. He'd spotted the lyrics to the current T.Rex single scrawled boldly in felt tip pen by yours truly. As he handed the exercise book back to me he boomed, 'I don't care if you are a Groover honey, please don't...........' I didn't catch the rest of his sentence to be honest, drowned out as it was by the gales of laughter from my classmates. It was a very long walk back to my seat.

In 1973, Walthamstow had a selection of record shops in which to hang out, good, bad and indifferent, but invariably independent. Right at the very top of the market though, in Hoe Street, was a modest sized HMV. Back then HMV wasn't the massive corporation it would become, but it was noticeably more formal (and organised I suppose) than its indie counterparts. One thing HMV did have over its rivals was space for window displays. One Saturday, I summoned up the courage and asked if I could have a poster from the current window display when they had finished with it. The sales assistant told me to come back the following week and he'd see what he could do. So it was that seven days later, I walked the mile from HMV to my house with a 3½ft tall cardboard centrepiece of Marc Bolan, astride a tiger, tucked under my arm. And, 42 years later, I still have it.

My musical horizons were expanding rapidly throughout 1973. I remember buying Led Zeppelin's 'Houses of the Holy' on the Saturday after its release, The Stooges' 'Raw Power' too. Tangerine Dream's 'Atem' was a blissed out favourite as was Fripp & Eno's 'No Pussyfooting'. And the wait between Emerson Lake & Palmer's 'Trilogy' in 1972 and 1973's 'Brain Salad Surgery' felt like an eternity. One Saturday afternoon, I was round at my mate John's house, admiring a new poster on his wall. It was a photo of a group of pyramids. I asked him where he got it and he explained that it had come free with a new LP, which he then dug out and played for me. That was the first time I heard 'Dark Side of the Moon'.

'Frankenstein', a single by The Edgar Winter Group, was a big favourite with me and my pals.

A later appearance by the band on the Old Grey Whistle Test, found me crouched in front of the telly, microphone in hand, desperately shushing my parents, as I recorded the frankly astounding performance on Dad's reel to reel tape recorder. Even Whispering Bob was quite excited by the end of it.

55 From 55 - 1972

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far.

So at the very end of 1970 I was given a record player, then for my birthday in 1971 I received one of those new fangled cassette tape recorders. It felt like I'd achieved almost total independence - could life get any better? Meanwhile, in 1972, a ridiculous amount of great records were being released, some became the soundtrack of my life then ('Virginia Plain', 'Silver Machine', 'Take Me Bak 'ome', 'I Can See Clearly Now', 'Rocket Man', 'School's Out', 'John I'm Only Dancing', 'American Pie', 'All the Young Dudes', 'Mother & Child Reunion', 'Walk on the Wild Side', 'You Wear It Well' and many more), while others I discovered retrospectively, the following year or even later. In fact I'm still bumping into great music that I've never heard before, from 1971, 1972 and 1973. It was a rich period.

And of course, in 1972 there was T.Rex. Read about my first LP, 'The Slider' (here) and memories of my first gig (here), (here) and (here).

Let's leave music momentarily though, to discuss the thorny subject of my waistline. The eagle eyed amongst you might have noticed from the photo in the previous post, that by 1971 I had started to fill out a little, but by 1972 my growth spurt had temporarily stopped, erm, spurting - in an upwardly direction at least. I continued to grow in an outwards direction though - just look at this black and white Polaroid, taken in November 1972! Count those chins!

So as I'm spoiled for choice when it comes to selecting a song to represent this pivotal year, I thought I'd throw in a bit of a curveball. In addition to being a big year for several of the names I've already mentioned, 1972 was a massive year for Donny Osmond. 20 years later, I met Donny Osmond and i'll tell that tale one day, but for now I'm not focusing on the mawkish monster solo hits, but his parallel career as a member of The Osmonds. The Brothers had a run of three rockin' singles during this period, which made me and my pals briefly sit up and take notice. The third was 'Goin' Home', issued in 1973. In the middle is the one we all know, 'Crazy Horses' from October 1972. The first of the run, 'Hold Her Tight', came out in the Summer of '72 and, though I didn't know it at the time, tips its hat very strongly towards Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song'. Ignore the date on this brilliant clip, it's definitely 1972 all the way.

55 From 55 - 1971

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far.

Our story actually begins a few days before the start of 1971, on Christmas Day 1970, when I received this from my Parents!

No other single present in my whole life had the same seismic effect as that one. Freedom. The freedom to listen to what I wanted, when I wanted. To begin with, I spirited away some of Dad's records to play in my room, along with the small handful I'd been given as presents here and there. But I soon became anxious for more.

Filling out. All dressed up for 'Big School'. 1971

Do you remember the days when all kinds of different places sold records? In Walthamstow High Street everyone was at it. Market stalls, clothes shops, newsagents, junk stores - look in the corner, there'd be a rack of LP's or a cardboard box full of singles. And that's not even counting the half dozen legitimate record shops within walking distance of home. I started at 'Big' School' in 1971 and opposite the school gate was a little parade of shops comprising a newsagent, a hairdressers, a chippy (very popular at lunchtimes) and an electrical shop*. Looking through the window of the electrical shop one day, I spotted a box of singles on the counter and ten minutes later, after a quick rummage and at the cost of just a few pence, I walked out clutching this.

* Remarkably, the electrical shop is still there. I'm sure the business must have changed hands at some point over the past 44 years, but looking at the exterior on a photo I found online, it appears that the decor is frozen in time (see here).  I wonder if there's still a box of singles on the counter?

55 From 55 - 1970

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far. 

This was the last year that my tastes were almost totally informed by the music Dad played around the house. For Christmas, I was given my own mono record player - freedom! Meanwhile, earlier in 1970, Dad continued to bring home reel to reel tapes of LP's that he'd recorded at work. 'Bridge over Troubled Water' by Simon and Garfunkel proved very popular with him and was followed a couple of years later by a tape of their 'Greatest Hits' LP. He liked that one so much that he actually bought the record, which I still have.

At ten years old I wasn't too struck with the ballads on 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', preferring the tunes with a bit more of a kick, none more so than 'Cecilia'. 40 years later, during a TV documentary on Simon and Garfunkel, I learned the origin of the looped rhythm track that forms the spine of the song. If you haven't heard the story, the clip is here.

We Have Lift Off

In the 1970s we took our pop music on the telly wherever we could get it, be it via groups appearing in guest slots on 'The Basil Brush Show', 'Crackerjack' (all together, Crackerjack!), 'Magpie' or any one of a handful of other tea-time TV favourites. Meanwhile, producing 8 series between November 1969 and December 1974, 'Lift Off With Ayshea' was a long running example of a purely pop music show, broadcasting a total of 144 episodes. Tragically, today only 3 of those 144 episodes survive in the ITV archives.

The host, Ayshea Brough, herself an accomplished pop singer, introduced us to everyone who was anyone during those pivotal years, including The Sweet, David Bowie, T.Rex, Slade and Roy Wood, in both his Move and Wizzard guises. A firm friendship appears to have developed between Brough and Wood during this time, with Ayshea featuring on a number of Wizzard's Top of the Pops appearances. Roy repaid the compliment by writing and producing a single, 'Farewell', for Ayshea in 1973. It's a fantastically bonkers, everything-thrown-in-bar-the-kitchen-sink production, sounding exactly like a contemporary Wizzard number with Wood's vocals lifted out and Ayshea's dropped in.

(I'm a Wizzard fan, but no completest. Is there a Roy Wood voiced version of 'Farewell' out there? If there is, I'd love to hear it.)