Dag 535 - music was my first love

and coming up with crap blog headings was my second.
OK, normally my titles are pretty reasonable, but as I thought I would ramble on about some of the key albums I have bought over the years, and I couldn't think of anything better, I thought I might go for something really cheesy instead. In fact you could almost say this is the story of my life through music.

So I began my life musically deprived as my parents didn't have a record player. This was eventually rectified when they sent off for one from an advert in a newspaper. I can't remember how much it cost, but I know it was cheap and I remember thinking it looked really cheap and nasty when it arrived. It was stereo, but it had very thin speakers and the record deck itself was very plasticy. Also all the wires were firmly attached, there were no connectors here.

The first lp records I remember having were a tuffty club lp and the soundtrack of chitty chitty bang bang. I also had some Thomas the tank engine singles with stories read by Johnny Morris (at least I think that was his name - he used to do the voices on animal magic). I used to listen to chitty chitty bang bang a lot (of course in those days there were no videos or dvds, so you only got to see films when they were shown on TV or at the cinema). Nowadays I hate musicals in all forms so would rather eat my own feet than listen to anything like that again.

So, up to now I had had limited exposure to any music, and what music I did have was pretty dire - so what happened to get me on the right path?

I remember one day my Dad came home from work saying he had been at Leeds University sorting out some scaffolding requirements for the stage there for a concert by David Bowie. It seems he had met with Mr Bowie to discuss what was needed and had been asked if he wanted any free tickets for the show. He asked me if I wanted him to take me to it and my reply was along the lines of "why would I want to go and see him, isn't he the pop star that wears make up?". So I didn't go and see it - I guess you can imagine how many times I have kicked my self since.
Anyway once the concert had passed David Bowie kept popping up, not in person, but I kept hearing him on the radio and remember seeing lost of posters of him in shops and started noticing his records in record shops.
I also began to start liking other pop records I heard on the radio and I started saving up my pocket money to buy singles. I can't remember the first one I bought, but I know I had Tiger Feet by Mud, Ballroom Blitz by Sweet and various singles by Wizard, David Bowie, Status Quo and others.
I then noticed the album Hunky Dory in my local record shop so I decided to save up for that. I finally bought it for the sum of 3 pounds and 60 pence which was a huge sum in those days. I thought it was fantastic and started listening to more and more of that type of music (my chitty chitty bang bang record was put to the back of the pile, never to be played again).
I used to play Hunky Dory a lot and I remember our neighbour telling my parents that their daughter you to listen to it when I played it by holding a glass up to the wall between our houses.
I remember buying seeing and album for not much more than the price of a single which contained loads of songs that I liked including Jean Jeannie by David Bowie so I bought it with my hard saved pocket money only to feel completely ripped off when I played it because the songs didn't sound right - they were played by different people! I could not believe that it was possible for some group to make an album of other peoples songs - I felt I had been ripped off and never played it again.
I came across this phenomenon on a number of other occasions because various relatives knew I liked pop music and bought me Top of the Pops albums for my birthday and Christmas presents. They never got played, and if I had them now they would probably be worth a bit.
So I couldn't really afford many albums so I spent most of my pocket money on singles and when I was alone I would get my trusty tennis racket and tie a bit of cotton to it and then tie the other end to an electric plug and hay presto I had an electric guitar which I could use to strum along to all my records.
When I bought the single of Dance with the Devil by cozy Powell my electric tennis racket just wouldn't do, so I got a pair of my Mums thickest knitting needles and used these on the sofa. In the end I could play the sofa just as well as cozy Powell could play the drums.

I started having piano lessons at school at some point and I liked Life on Mars so much that I was determined to learn how to play it on the piano. I even went as far as inviting someone who was really good at the piano from school around to my house so he could work out how to play it and teach it to me. He came round but once he knew what I wanted from him he became completely uninterested. He had never listened to any David Bowie before and had no interntion of starting at my request.

I'm unsure of the exact dates and even order of events, but this was all based around the early 1970s.
The only reference I can find to a gig at Leeds University was June 2nd 1973, so that would have made me 9 years old, so I must have been 9 or 10 when I bought Hunky Dory (for some reason I'd always thought I was 7 when I bought it). I suppose it is always possible that my memory is so hazy that I had already bought it before my Dad asked if I wanted to go to that gig. Also according to David Bowies website the Leeds University gig was cancelled, so I guess I wouldn't have got to see it even if I had wanted to.

My next stage in my musical apreciation was around 1976. I had spent a fair bit of time with my uncle who was into music in a big way and I remember him having albums by King Crimson, Genesis and John call, amused others. I heard a song by Genesis called A Trick of the Tale and this sounded, in some way, much more advanced than what I had been listening to so I remember shortly after getting a portable tape recorder for my birthday I bought the cassette of A Trick of the Tale. This was played constantly and I remember my Dad telling me to turn the music off many times. Because it was portable I would take it round with me from room to room.
I remember visiting a friends house whose Dad was playing an ABBA album. I thought that was great so I thought I would tape it on my new tape recorder. When he had left the room I put the record on, pressed record on the tape recorder and sat in silence while it taped. I remember he came back in the room after a few songs and I put my finger to my mouth in the hope he wouldn't say anything, but he asked why he needed to be quiet. I told him I was taping the record and he then showed me that with the use of a certain type of cable you could tape an lp over the cable and therefore you could talk while you taped it. It also had the added advantage that the recording would be much higher quality.
I never did learn how to play Life on Mars on the piano, but the Dad who taught me about recording also taught me how to play Sailing by Rod Stewart on the piano. I never really liked that song, but I feel like I am better at the piano that I really am when I play it, so it still gets blasted out from time to time.
By now I had also started buying NME and Melody maker every week and had also bought myself a cheap second hand electric guitar complete with buzzing frets and was spending my time listening to David Bowie, Abba and Genesis. I should stress that at no time had I bought the song that shares the title with this blog entry.

This is enough for now, so part 2 will follow in the near future.