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.
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