Benny Hill – Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)
When we were kids we’d often spend family Saturday nights at the bowling alley, located at The Mayfair at The Wheatsheaf in Sunderland (for years I thought this area of Sunderland was actually called The Wear Chief for some reason). Progress dictates that this venue has now been demolished and replaced by a Renault Garage. It wasn’t the bowling that sticks in my mind, although obviously I still have a soft spot for the shoes, but my first encounter with a Jukebox. Boy did we love that Jukebox, and of course my brother Andrew and me weren’t of the age where we wanted to listen to the varied musical styles that were on offer. Quite the opposite; we knew what we liked and we wanted the same records played every week. For me was Benny Hill’s tragic ode to an amorous milkman and his love rival Ted. For Andrew it was Melanie’s ‘Brand New Key’. How the other bowlers must’ve loved us.
The Carpenters – Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft
In the mid 1970s my Dad had a Rover with an 8-track cartridge player and a limited library of cartridges including Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, Olivia Newton John, ABBA, Simon and Garfunkel and, of course, The Carpenters. We knew every track on every one of these albums by heart, including the places where some of the tunes stopped part way through before resuming after a brief pause while the player swopped to another of its 8 ‘tracks’. The only one I can ever remember my Dad buying new was ABBA’s ‘Arrival’, the others simply seemed to have always existed. This is where my love of cheesy, mainstream pop music started and continues to this day. Most remarkable and most memorable of all was The Carpenter’s ‘Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft’, a haunting tale of reaching out to extra-terrestrials, performed by the chirpiest looking brother and sister act ever seen. I’m a lot older and possibly slightly wiser now, at least enough to know that they weren’t quite as chirpy as they appeared.
ABBA – The Name Of The Game
From what now seems like a dangerously young age I used to walk from our house into Sunderland town centre, meet up with friends and spend Saturday looking around the shops of Sunderland. Sometimes I even had money to spend, and of course as everyone knows that was the only way to ensure admittance to Josephs’ toy shop. If you didn’t have any money to spend you simply weren’t allowed to idly browse the wonders on the first floor (it was boring sportswear on the ground floor) regardless of the amount you’d spent last week on a new Subbuteo team or a John Player Special in black and gold for your small oval of Scalextric track. Then, one particular Saturday in 1977, something significant happened. We wandered down windswept Walworth Way (the bleakest environment outside the Arctic Circle) and instead of spending my pocket money on sweets or toys I made a bee-line for that most independent and cutting edge of music retailers, WH Smith and handed over my hard-earned for a copy of ABBA’s ‘The Name Of The Game’. My first single. Orange Epic label, orange paper sleeve. My second single was ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’, but there are no prizes in this list for second place.
Electric Light Orchestra – Sweet Talkin’ Woman
Now a fully fledged record buyer I found it hard to resist the pull of a record shop. Still do. So when I went to Scout camp at Sandsend on the North Yorkshire coast the following year I had only one thing one my mind – where could I get my hands on vinyl? A planned walk to the bright lights of Whitby turned out to be just the ticket, and it was in a record shop in that most haunted of coastal resorts that I spotted the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, a copy of ‘Sweet Talkin’ Woman’ on translucent purple vinyl. I bought it on the spot, and just like ‘The Name Of The Game’, I still have it. Of course because we were at Scout camp I had to wait almost a week before I got home and finally had the chance to play it on our radiogram.
The Human League – Empire State Human
After sitting my ‘O’ levels and before the results were known (spoiler – I got them all, unlike my ‘A’ levels) I went to stay for a fortnight with my uncle in Nottingham. He had the best record deck I’ve ever seen, a collection of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin on vinyl (which I hardly touched having been warned off the stuff by many a punk luminary) and an Alfasud, which if not already cool enough, had an oil gauge marked ‘olio’. The real excitement of that Nottingham break lay in doing whatever I wanted and in spending most days in Virgin Records. I’d never seen a Virgin Records store at the time, this was a few years before Richard’s store arrived in Newcastle. It seemed like it was light years away from the familiarity of stuffy old HMV (although in hindsight it was almost exactly the same). At this stage every last penny of my pocket money was being spent on music and I must’ve spent a lot of my limited funds in the Nottingham branch of Virgin. One single I bought XTC’s ‘Towers Of London’, remains a favourite to this day, but the other was the one that turned me on to alternative electronic music forever, and that was ‘Empire State Human’. After this I hunted down everything that Phil, Martyn and the boys had recorded (still got it all!), and then, as obsessive music fans do, I hunted down most of their influences too. Not many people did it in this order, but I did.
Spizzenergi – Soldier soldier
At the height of what was then known as the era of the ‘New Romantics’ we would go downstairs into Heroes in Sunderland and listen to the best vinyl that it was possible for the DJ to lay his hands on. Most notably the more danceable stuff by The B-52’s (Planet Claire, Give Me Back My Man and Dirty Back Road), the glorious, unique, downright grubbiness of Cabaret Voltaire’s Nag Nag Nag and things like ‘Tar’ by Visage that sounded lost on an album but totally at home in a dark pub or club when played loud. But the standout record from this period was Spizzenergi’s ‘Soldier Soldier’ probably because this was the only place (other than on my own record player) that I’ve ever heard it played.
Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin – It’s My Party
The first record we ever danced to. It doesn’t get much more significant than that.
Angelo Badalamenti – Theme From Twin Peaks
In the latter part of 1990 and the early part of 1991 we were pretty much broke. With a baby on the way we abandoned our living room and moved into the smaller dining room, because it was easier to heat with the old open fire that was in there. There was room for one settee, the telly and my entire record collection in two cupboards in the alcoves at either side of the fire. In this withdrawn and almost hallucinogenic state we discovered Twin Peaks. If everyone who claims to have watched this series when originally broadcast had actually done so then it would have run to at least seven or eight seasons. It was menacing and spooky and completely inexplicable for the most part, and, as you won’t realise if you’ve only seen the cleaned up remastered versions, apparently shot with a dirty sock draped over the camera lens. We were addicted. I’m not entirely sure I’m looking forward to a new series.
Teenage Fanclub – Don’t Look Back
It has to be said that leaving a job purely on a matter of principle might not always feel like a wise move, but, for a brief moment, before the ‘God, what have I done?’ worry sets in, it feels wonderfully liberating. I wasn’t completely irresponsible mind (I don’t think I ever have been!) because I had another job lined up. And a monumental day, such as the start of a new job or the first drive of a new car, requires monumental music and in the 1990s and on discerning record decks/tape decks/CD players/MP3 players since, monumental music very often means Teenage Fanclub. For this particular day I chose ‘Grand Prix’ without really realising that part way through my first journey to my new job up would pop ‘Don’t Look Back’. Perfect.
The Sleepy Jackson – Morning Bird
While we were waiting for the arrival of our granddaughter I put together a playlist of tunes on an MP3 player for my daughter to listen to while in hospital. Just the usual preparing for a baby mixtape with a mixture of great stuff (‘This Love’ by Craig Armstrong) and relevant stuff (‘Waiting For Baby’ by BMX Bandits) and stuff that just felt like it belonged on there, like ‘Morning Bird’ by The Sleepy Jackson which will always remind me of the time before and after the arrival of Eve.
Please don't forget that you can download and read 'The Great Cassette Experiment' and 'Writing About Music' from Amazon and Google Play Books.
