Monday 23 March 2015

55 From 55 - 1990

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

The dream was to own a record shop with an attached small label and put out singles by local bands. I seriously looked into it at one point, but in reality I was never going to have the available dosh to fund such a venture. I promoted a couple of small local gigs (including the early psyche-pop era Shamen), but the town was simply too small to truly allow that idea to flourish. Instead I established contacts at several East Anglian venues and organised coach trips to concerts. This was quite popular for a while at the end of the 1980's and the early 1990's. We ran coaches to The Wedding Present, Waterboys, Wonderstuff, My Bloody Valentine, Sugarcubes and The Happy Mondays and more. The Stone Roses at the Norwich Arts Centre was a particularly memorable evening. After the gig a bunch of us spent half an hour chatting with the band, much to the waiting coach driver's annoyance. I also ran trips to both of Nirvana's Norwich gigs, a minibus to the Arts Centre in 1989 and a mid-sized coach to The Waterfront in 1990. I usually went to every show I sold tickets for, but those two were extremely popular even then, so I let others go in my place - d'oh!

Today's musical selection is the brilliant Weatherall & Farley mix of 'Abandon' by That Petrol Emotion. Shoot me down in flames if you like, but give me this over 'Loaded' any day of the week.



7 comments:

drew said...

It is good, but I have too many great memories attached to Loaded to ever be able to consider this better.

C said...

Mr Cool!

Brian said...

I grew up in the middle of nowhere. It would have been really nice to have a shop that sponsored trips like that. How far/long were these bus rides? Were these trips pretty raucous? Were these your regular customers on these trips?

Brian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

A human chameleon! How is it that one person can transform so much from one picture to the next? Kinda spooky, Mr. S! ;-) It was really good of you to give up your space on the bus to other fans - though you must have been conflicted.

Anonymous said...

One of my favourite of your years so far. The coach trips sound fun. I got some from liverpool (uni) to he Hacienda in roughly the same period. Having left Manchester i kept going back. I'm with Drew on the music... good but not Loaded
Swiss Adam

The Swede said...

Drew. I knew it'd prove a controversial remark!

C. Ha! In his dodgy 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' promotional shirt!

Brian. The trips were generally between 40 and 60 miles each way, carrying a revolving cast of characters. The most raucous I remember was for The Waterboys, which was a slightly older age group and therefore significantly more drunk on the way home!

Marie. Do I really look that different? You just wait....

Swiss Adam. The coach trips were fun for a few years until the ticket booking system became automated and I lost my phone contacts. A maximum of 4 tickets per person was no good to me.

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