Five thousand (5,000)

Growing up in Suffolk, in my parent’s living room there was the most uncomfortable three piece suite, a sideboard with collection of 60s drinks, VAT 69 et al, the fireplace and bigger than all of the rest was the radiogram.

A radiogram was bigger than the sideboard, was filled with valves and electronics, it had a multi-band radio, mostly shortwave, listing all those fabulous places in Europe you only heard on Eurovision nights, like Hilversum. It also had a record player, that could play records at 33, 45, 78 and even 16 rpm. I never saw a record that played at 16, but I believe these were spoken word?

It had a central spindle, on which you could balance upto ten, maybe more, singles, and at the end of the record it was playing the next on the spindle would drop down. Sound would get poorer, and sometimes a pile of pennies had to be put on the tone arm, but was good for parties, I guess.

And yet I can’t really remember the record player being used that much. I was obsessed with their collection of records which included two Reader’s Digest box sets; one a history of rock and roll and the other the “magic” of James Last. I never understood James Last. I put one of the records on, and it was rubbish. And he wore brightly coloured suits before Michael Portillo made them “popular”.

Hmmm.

We had new neighbours in about 1970, Marion and Keith, and they used to come round some evenings for cocktails and listen to music, a bit on an Abigail’s Party thing going on. I guess it was the desire to appear hip, show off a new recipe learned from Graham Kerr or try out the new coffee perculator.

It didn’t last.

At home, the radio was always on, Radio 1 for the most part, I can remember Jimmy Young being on the morning show. He called it the JY prog, I thought he said frog but never heard it croak, though he had a fake dog, Arnold, which he gave to Tony Blackburn.

Radio 1 had shows at the weekend for children: Junior Choice, and so I used to listen to those every week, a mix of Bay City Rollers, David Cassidy and old favourites like The Laughing Policeman and Camp Grenada, which must have been quite up to date at the time. Imagine a national radio station catering four hours a week to children who did not buy records?

Imagine that.

I suppose we all have aspirations; I know my parents did. We used to watch the Holiday show every year, and fawn over the exotic locations. We did go on a continental holiday in 1973, by coach, staying in Ostend and travelling to Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris. Was very adventurous. But something like a holiday to the US was out of our reach, even with Freddie Laker and Skytrain. That period coincided with a downturn in the family’s finances, and we stayed with friends in Essex for two summers in the mid-70s.

My parents bought records, occasionally. I seem to remember there was a Jim Reeves compilation, a Beach Boys greatest hits, but not much, and none of it was really played that much. The radio was always on to Radio 1, 2 at weekends to listen to Two Way Family Favourites. So, radio became important to me too.

Maybe its because I have no older brothers or sisters, no younger ones either, and no older friends that were into album rock, maybe its that what meant I never really liked albums much. Never did, and still don’t really. I was always listening to the radio to see what was new and happening, be that on the chart shows on Tuesday lunchtimes, or later on, Kid Jensen or John Peel shows. No time to listen to LPs, I might miss something new.

I whisper this now, but even the LPs f Joy Division I only listened to a few times. At times, they’re not an easy listen, which was the point, I suppose. I should like them, and do, I suppose in my own way.

If that’s not bad enough, I can say that I have only ever heard one Beatles album all the way through, and that was because my friend in the US was shocked I hadn’t and insisted I hear Sgt Pepper. It was on the car CD player when we drove to Niagara, I can’t say I remember any of it.

A few years ago, Danny Baker hosted three TV discussions where he and friends listed the best 12 LPs in three categories. I think I had listened to one out of the 36. I was going to put it right, but never did. I was going to create a new blog, and review these classic albums as I heard them for the first time. Never did.

Those albums I did listen to a lot, I love. And they are an odd mix, Hounds of Love by Kate Bush and Don’t Stand me Down by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, I listened to whilst playing on my Commodore 64 computer, and I would have those two records on a constant repeat, on tape.

One Mississippi by Brendan Benson, The Bends by Radiohead and A Few Small Repairs by Shawn Colvin I had on tape when I went down to the Falklands on a four month tour, and became my best friends thanks to my trusty Walkman.

Which brings me to the point of this, the 5,000th blog.

I will be interviewed by two journalists in August as a reward for my support for their podcast, and the final question they ask of all guests is, what is the best record ever made.

This poses some difficult questions for me, as I have to decide what is the definition I would use for the best record ever made, bearing in mind I have heard so little of what you would consider the best LPs, or albums, of all time?

That’s a tough one.

For blog 1,000 I did a list of my desert island discs, using the definition, which eight songs were the most important in my life. Although not necessarily my favourite records or songs of all time. And I could do that now, if I put my mind to it, what tracks do I go back to again and again, and which never let me down. Because, and whisper this too, there are some great sings that I am just too over familiar with, Ever Fallen in Love by the Buzzcocks for one. Great song and all that, but I much prefer What do I Get?

So, lets start with the first album I got: Out of the Blue by the Electric Light Orchestra, who from now on I will call ELO. When I started high school, I struggled, as most do, to find a group to be part of. Well, imagine, going to high school where you are all new guys looking for a group to hang out with? Well, my alma mater, named after local composer, Benjamin Britten, was new in 1978. So new, in fact, only half it was finished and it had no playing fields. Sports lessons were spent walking the grassed, soon to be football and rugby pitches, picking up stones, so when sport did start we did not get badly injured.



The half of the school that was languages, maths and had the canteen, theatre and home economics area opened first, the rest opened a year later, this is where the science and humanities classes would move to.

Anyway, I had many fellow students who had the same classes, so we gravitated together, and the boys, always the boys, bonded over a shared or adopted liking of ELO. At the time, Out of the Blue was out, and every single they released were great, even if the words didn’t bear up to much examination.

So, I must have always been talking about ELO to my parents, they recognized the budding music fan in me, so Mum sent off for two cassettes from a mail order catalogue, A New World Record and Out of the Blue. I should mention that at the time all we had to play them at the time was an old Sanyo mono radio cassette player, whose heads had never been cleaned, so playback sounded like it was under water. My friend Simon, remember him? Well, he had a vinyl copy, an American import on UA label, and so the running order on his LP was different to the cassette.

I fixed this a year later when we went to Germany on an exchange trip in October 1979, and in a daring move, we escaped the care of my exchange partner in the middle of Hannover, and I spent 20% of my spending money for two weeks on a vinyl copy, also an American import.

Out of the Blue isn’t the worst album in the world, but neither is it the best, though if I’m honest, when I played it at the end of last year, it was much better than I remembered, even “The Jungle” and “Birmingham Blues”. There are worse groups to get fixated on, and an appreciation of ELO has lasted a lifetime, and one of their records, from this period, is like meeting an old friend you’d forgotten about, and takes you back to the common room at high school when we would make puns on the members of the group, which we all knew off my heart, including both cello players.

But tastes change, and with their next album, Discovery, my love affair with ELO faded, but that was replaced by someone else.

Record Mirror once described Pat Benatar as “light alloy” rather than heavy metal, which is fair. Was fair, I don’t know what she is doing now, playing the convert circuit with her husband, Neil Gerraldo, I guess. But, how this guy from rural Suffolk came to adore Pat from Brooklyn is maybe not curious, but the fact my friend in New Zealand, Tony, also fell in love with her music at pretty much the same time.

Small world.

Anyway, I was laid up in bed with mumps, and listening to the radio when on Dave Lee Travis’s show, he made Heartbreaker by Pat Benatar, his record of the week, and so played it every day. Anyway, I was hooked, and although as I say above I wasn’t really an album listener, it didn’t stop me buying them. So, I ordered IN the Heat of the Night, her debut record produced by ChinChap, the team behind Blondie’s success.

It took months to arrive, winding its way from the Chrysalis warehouse somewhere in London, on the stagecoach to deepest Suffolk, but it arrived, and had pictures from the sessions that had produced sleeves for the singles, something that might be called “prostitute chic” but that might be harsh. She sits in a hotel room, lit by neon and ruffling her hair in maybe a provocative fashion.

It is, by some way, her best album, or it could be that it is the one I played the most as there was little competition on my turntable at the time. Who knows? But I bought every one of her records between 1980 and 1990, all the UK singles, most of the US singles, several Japanese pressings, coloured vinyls, picture discs, and so on and on. Still have them. And I even play this from time to time.

I came to The Clash late. I mean, any later and there would have been no Clash. Almost. But for some reason, Combat Rock struck a chord. I had liked them since London Calling, but not enough to buy a record, but I liked Combat Rock. I liked the lead off single, Know Your Rights, and the follow up of Rock the Casbah backed with Should I Stay. I bought the album. I have played it off an on then, researched Sean Flynn, and get lost in the melodies of the second side, lost somewhere in south east Asia. They looked so cool on the front cover, standing on a railway line somewhere, probably in Asia, and my copy came with a free poster, a shot of them inside a restaurant, also in Asia, it was like they were the coolest gang in the world, and you wanted to be a member.

More than anything else, the record is about Straight to Hell, the lasting aftermath of the Vietnam War, the war babies left behind, and the political turmoil.

So, to the best records ever made:

Best single.

Singles were more important in the UK, or it seemed to me. Its all radio talked about through the 70s, at least daytime radio. What was a hit, what wasn’t, what went up, what went down, and all the while it was a marketing tool, doubly so at Christmas when Grandparents would buy their grandchildren the Christmas number 1.

My Dad said many times, the best records don’t get to be hits. Not always true, and this was a hit when it came out, although in 1980 I was a different person and getting into NWOBHM. Sad but true. Love Will Tear Us Apart is a perfect pop record, and a perfect independent record too, on the surface it seems to bounce along, driven by frenetic drumming of Stephen Morris, and underpinned by the mournful bass of Peter Hook. But up front and centre is Ian Curtis, is pean to a failed marriage and relationship.

I came to love it listening to Rob Fairclough and James talking about it in the 6th for common room, going over the song, line by line, and marveling at how it says so much in three short verses. It become legend after Ian killed himself at the time it came out, so it is even more shocking to see it written out:

When routine bites hard and ambitions are low
And resentment rides high but emotions won't grow
And we're changing our ways, taking different road.
Why is the bedroom so cold turned away on your side?
Is my timing that flawed, our respect run so dry?
Yet there's still this appeal that we've kept through our lives.
Do you cry out in your sleep, all my failings exposed?
Get a taste in my mouth as desperation takes hold
Is it something so good just can't function no more?
But love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again

Songwriters: Morris / Curtis / Sumner / Hook

Love Will Tear Us Apart lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Ltd., Universal - Polygram International Pub Inc, Universal - Polygram Obo Universal Music Publ. Ltd., Sony/atv Songs Llc Obo Chicago X Softcore Songs.

Best album.

Well, you know, taking the above into account, the one that means most to me, the one I would run into a burning house to save it, this means so much to me.

I read about A Few Small Repairs winning a Grammy, so when leaving Nellis AFB in November 1999, it must have been, though I am thinking it might have been 1996 when it would have been nominated? I don’t know, and matters little.

I picked up a copy at the checkout as we walked to catch the long flight on the C130 back to the UK, I would come to play the CD over and over again in the next few years.

I had already been through one divorce, and was about to get into another. So, A Few Small Repair’s story arc is the ending of a relationship and the glimmer of hope at the other end, when you then ex is trying to drag you down, but you realise “You’ve Got Nothin’ on Me”.

It was my soundtrack through the winter of 1999, and through 2000 as my marriage to Estelle ended in bitterness and hate.

The production and engineering by John Leventhal and Bob Clearmountain give the songs space and air to breathe, and on "Wichita Skyline" conjures up the image of thewide open plains of the Mid-West.

Unlike other albums I have, there is not one track, one note of this I do not love.

This record saved my life.

Well I don't tell jokes
And I don't take notes
You been sayin'
There ain't much hope
You got nothin' on me
I got friends uptown
And they don't talk down
They be keepin' me safe and sound
We got somethin' to be
So in case you hadn't noticed
I'm alright
Not like it was before
Things used to be so hopeless
But not tonight
Tonight I'm walkin' out that door
I'm not gonna cry
When wavin' goodbye
And I know this time
You got nothin' on me
Well it ain't that tough
Just more of the usual stuff
One heartache is more than enough
There ain't nothing to see
Nothing
I got friends uptown
And they still come 'round
They be keepin' me safe and sound…

written by Shawn Colvin and John Leventhal.

Originally, this was to be a blog on the ten best songs you have never heard of, but I prepared one, but then lost track of time and failed to do the other nine.

I listened to just about every John Peel show between 1981 and 1986, so absorbed much that was more than just left of the dal, it was a different waveband altogether. Getting some of the more obscure stuff was all but impossible, but I did manage much.

Patrick were a four piece from Teeside, I think, I wrote to them, including a SAE, but never heard anything back. I am only aware of one of their records, self pressed, so on a white label, bought from the Newcastle branch of HMV in 1986, the final copy they had.

Immigrant is a great record, one for our time, really, about the plight of immigrants to the US, it has a picture from Ellis Island on the cover. If you click on the picture above, it takes you to my Flickr stream, and it has a link to a TV performance by the band.