31 Days of Blogging - Day 7

Day 7 – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Messages



By 1980 I had my own music centre. My dad had moved along with the ever advancing progress of technology and splashed out on a brand new music machine.

I inherited his old one but I had to share it with my two sisters. This was bad news.

The good news was that being the eldest child and almost 18 years old, I was allowed to keep it in my bedroom. Sadly, this meant that most of time when I returned home after school or hanging around with friends, I found one or both of my sisters camped out in my bedroom listening to their dreadful nonsense.

Thankfully I was able to take advantage of the times when they weren’t in and hide in my room with the volume turned up loudly playing great songs like Messages, which sounded magnificent.

Also, at around this time, I managed to acquire my first serious girlfriend.

I’m not sure how, to be honest – this is the story of my life really.

I’m one of those people who simply cannot understand women and cannot spot when a woman actually fancies me or really likes me. When I have tried to get a girlfriend in the past, I have poured my heart out them, declared my undying love for them, only to be shot down in flames.

My friend S was a girl magnet. He was my best friend and he always seemed to have a girlfriend. I never understood why. Perhaps it was because he was cool and trendy, had a car and was (so I’m told) very good looking.

I was small, scruffy and looked like a warthog wearing a wig. My hair was long – very long – and also very bushy.

I was a lot more intelligent than S – he left school at sixteen and got a job with his dad who was a builder. He had money and a clapped out old Ford Capri while I was at school with nothing but my books.

I envied him. I wanted to be him.

I also used to chat up women for him. I had no fear as long as I wasn’t doing it for myself. Why did I do it? Because S was very shy and I wasn’t as long as I was doing it for him.

Once, on one of the rare times he was between girlfriends, we were driving along and he spotted a girl who lived at the top of my road, somebody he had fancied for a while. She was divinely gorgeous. He was too scared to stop his car and talk to her. So I wound down the window and shouted,

“Hiya Sexy!!”

I had nothing to lose.

Two days after that I passed her in the street, without S, and she recognised the baboon who had screamed out of the car. I knew S was besotted with her so I said to her, “Would you fancy going out on a date with my mate? “

“Do you mean you or your mate?” she asked.

“My mate,” I confirmed. I wonder what would have happened had I said “ME!!!”

I reckon she would have said “NOOO!!!” and run off screaming.

Instead she said “Yes,” when she knew I was talking about S.

She’d only seen him a couple of times. I arranged a time and a place for them and, of course, S swept her off her feet.

There were times when I hated him.

I was still working in the newsagents at this time because I needed cash, but I had graduated to helping out in the shop, stock-taking etc..

One girl, who also worked there, a sixteen year old who I shall call C, took a real shine to me and hung around with me all the time. I treated her as a mate and had no idea that she was utterly infatuated with me.

Everybody else saw it apart from me.

And then one day, we were sitting down in the back of the shop when something inside her must have snapped. We were talking and she said

“Just shut up!”

I was astounded and said “Why, what have I …”

She grabbed me and gave me a massive kiss.

She later told me that she had been dying to do so from the moment she met me. See what I mean? I was blind to the obvious and I have not learned to read female body language at all since – as you will no doubt discover further in the next few instalments of this blogathon.

Messages brings back vivid memories of that time, reminding me of my first real relationship – although it’s a bit weird referring to it as a “relationship” really when both us were just kids.

Still, it lasted a year before we eventually parted. And when it did, my mum was utterly devastated. I don’t know what she thought might happen but she really liked C, so much so that she actually told me off.

Can you believe that?

My mum still lives in Walsall and has actually seen C a few times in recent years. I haven’t seen her since 1981 – but apparently she still asks about me.

Which is nice.

31 Days of Blogging - Day 6

Day 6 – Jean Michel Jarre - Equinoxe Part V



Oxygene was the first song I heard by Jean Michel Jarre and it was totally different from anything I had heard before. In 1978, he followed it up with another album called Equinoxe that completely absorbed me.

At school, my peers were all extoling the virtues of heavy metal and while I also walked that path, I couldn’t help being fascinated by synthesisers.

I heard Equinoxe Part V on the radio and based solely on that first hearing I rushed out and spent my hard earned paper round money on the album.

Nobody else at school seemed to like it at all and couldn’t understand why I had wasted my money on an instrumental album performed by a Frenchman.

I got home with my new album one Saturday afternoon and put it on my dad’s music centre – it sounded magnificent. It was music especially written to exploit the new technology that was available for playing music.

It was even better listening to it with headphones; it had a haunting quality that carried me away to a place free of the trauma and stress that my hormonally charged body was wrestling with at the time.

Academically, life was very tough. There was immense pressure at school to start taking work seriously because, as the teachers constantly reminded us, exam results were seriously important and would shape the path of our lives from this point onwards.

Sometimes it got too much for me – and may explain the reason why I lashed out so much. Not only was the school cracking the whip in terms of school work, I was expected to make choices that would affect my life in terms of choosing subjects for A levels. My dad encouraged me but even he had his own ideas about what I should become.

My dad always knew that I was clever and made sure that I kept on top of my work. He was totally aware of the importance of exams and almost grounded me when it came to revision, making sure that I didn’t waste my time outside when I really should be working towards a fulfilling career.

We used to fall out a lot at that time.

Coming from a working class background made it more difficult. My mum didn’t see my potential and her expectation was that I get as many exams under my belt as I could so that I could leave school at sixteen and start earning a wage.

That’s what had happened in her experience and that was what she was expecting to happen now.

My dad saw the bigger picture and while he had ideas of his own about what I should do with my life, we at least shared a common goal; I would carry on at school to complete A Levels and then see what happened.

Our expectations diverged at my career path. My dad saw me as a manager working at his place of work. I did not want to do that at all. In fact, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do.

At the time, I thought that the pressure on school kids was too much; not only did we have to work hard to get qualifications that set us up for life, we were expected to make choices that would shape our future – and at the same time had to deal with all of the crap that mother nature threw at us.

It was tough.

I think that some people forget that and the pressure on kids can sometimes be a bit too much. I have tried to remember how I felt at the time and instead of guiding my own children onto a path that I wanted them to follow, I have tried to talk to them about the choices they have.

I hope I’ve helped them and I’ve told them I understand the burden they have, having been there myself – but it is even difficult as an adult because your mind changes and your own outlook on life is wildly different from theirs.

Such was my situation at sixteen. Jean Michel Jarre helped me through that allowing me to escape into my own imagination providing perfect accompaniment on my road trip through my warped mind.

And I think I made the right choices – eventually.

31 Days of Blogging - Day 5

Day 5 – Gerry Rafferty – Baker Street



This song is Gerry Rafferty’s masterpiece. It’s difficult to express how much I love this song. It transcends genres – even my dad liked it. And I’ve even seen the Foo Fighters perform it live on stage in Manchester a couple of years ago.

It is my favourite pop song of the 1970's and that is up against some stiff opposition.

The song is fixed in my mind because it was around at a time when I was changing from a meek little child into a bit of an arse, to be perfectly honest. I was at the age dreaded by parents – fifteen years old and full of hormones and wrath.

I didn’t even know why I was angry – actually I do know.

My school was a grammar school, the only one in Walsall. Some parents desperately wanted their kids to attend because it focussed on “excellence” and “academic achievement”. To qualify for a place, kids had to pass the 11+ exam – I did so with flying colours. If you failed, you had to sit an entrance exam.

It was an all boys’ school (which was a massive disappointment for me) and generally the kids who earned a place came from a more privileged background. I didn’t and it soon became a pain in the arse as kids took the piss out of me for coming from a working class background.

For three or four years, I took abuse from arseholes that called me names like “El Cheapo” and questioned my parents’ wealth, referring to them as “peasants”.

And then something snapped. It was an epiphany for me. I started lashing out at kids and teachers who questioned me. I fought with a bully and made sure he never picked on me again. I started finding myself in detention for calling teachers idiots and refusing to do as I was told.

I actually became a nasty little shit for a while, answering back parents, being very mouthy to teachers and intolerant of all forms of bullying, both verbal and physical. In fact, I started down the road to verbally abusing other kids with no provocation – heading down the road to actually becoming the kind of person I hated.

It was a period of my life when I spent more time in detention than not. I was one of an elite few students who was thrown out of assembly. At the time I was proud of that achievement – I’m not now.

I think I realised what I was becoming when I stepped over the line with my German teacher. He was a really nice guy, one of the teachers who made a real effort. The problem was he was deaf in one ear and he had a bit of a body odour problem – we used to call him Pongo.

I stupidly decided to test a theory I had been postulating – that he couldn’t hear if I screamed in his deaf ear. During the lesson, and urged on by other kids, I screamed at the top of my voice when he passed me, his deaf ear closest to me.

I screamed – “You STINK, Pongo!!”

My theory was partially proved to be correct because my scream was loud enough to echo all around the room, the noise bouncing off all walls and eventually resonating in his good ear. He turned around away from me, thinking that the noise had come from the other side of the class and shouted “WHO DID THAT??”

It was too much – I burst out laughing – and the rest of the class followed. It soon became clear who the culprit was and he turned to me. I expected him to be full of rage and steeled myself for yet another exchange with a teacher where I wouldn’t take any crap at all. I had my arrogant and defiant responses carefully prepared.

But he shocked me.

He wasn’t angry at all.

The look on his face was one of pain and disappointment. He genuinely looked upset. And I was gutted because I liked him.

I meekly said “It was me, sir,” and I got the detention I deserved. After the lesson I stayed behind and apologised. He told me it was okay and that I really ought to stop being an idiot. But I would still have to go to detention.

And I think that was the time I started to change back to being a nicer person. I still held onto the defiance and intolerance of bullies – I needed that – but I chose to use it as a weapon against those people, and not innocent folks like German teachers.

It’s bizarre that a song like Baker Street can evoke the memory of me being a total dickhead back from the depths of my mind – and I wouldn’t really like to associate it with that darkly rebellious period of my life.

Still, it’s good to know that the fifteen year old idiot who almost became a totally rebellious arsehole managed to realise that you get more out of life by being nice to folks.

So maybe the association isn’t so bad after all.

31 Days of Blogging - Day 4

Day 4 – The Electric Light Orchestra – Mr Blue Sky

The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) were my favourite pop band of the 1970s, the first band I was truly obsessed with.

Once I had bought an LP there was no holding me back. It was much more cost effective than buying singles as you got much more music for your money. So I bought Out of the Blue by ELO, a double album that was sheer genius.

It was a bargain and believe me, as a poor child with only paper round money to sustain my greed for music, I needed bargains.

I was addicted.

And thankfully I had a job.

But there was a cost. It’s a bit weird but most people want to read their newspapers first thing in the morning and unfortunately this meant that I used to have to get up at the crack of dawn. While most people were sleeping I was wandering around the house in a complete daze, fuelled by coffee.

The only other people active were milkmen, postmen and birds waiting to wake up the world with their dawn chorus.

Oh – and my dad.

He alternated with his shifts and when it was a 0600 till 1400 shift, he was up and about at 5 am. He was used to it. I wasn’t.

I used to ask him to wake me up and he did so with gusto. I am certain that he got a kick out of it. At 5am he would march into my room and switch on the light.

“Get up!” he would yell.

My reaction? Hide under the covers.

His answer? March back into the bedroom and rip the sheets off the bed and drag me out by my feet.

It was a ritual that worked with the added bonus that he had made me a strong cup of coffee to kick start my day.

I actually enjoyed delivering newspapers in the early hours of the morning. There was virtually no traffic, no people and utter peace. I was a fit young man in those days and jogged around the streets with my bag full of newspapers. It was really nice to see the sun coming up over the horizon and it gave me a sense of total solitude and blissful tranquillity.

And as the sun rose and the black sky gave way to reds, oranges and blues, I would be whistling Mr Blue Sky by ELO; it seemed apt really.

I was at peace.

By way of comparison, I also delivered the local newspaper in the evening and that was a different experience altogether. Rush hour traffic, school kids and others returning home created crowds in the streets and the noise was deafening.

It was a stark contrast to the calm of the morning as the sun rose. I know which I preferred and if it wasn’t for antisocial hours it would have been the perfect experience.

Sadly, I’ve only enjoyed such peaceful beauty once or twice in the intervening years. I enjoy my beauty sleep too much.

And boy do I need it.

31 Days of Blogging - Day 3

Day 3 – Donna Summer – I Feel Love

So here I am, a rock fan citing a massive 1970’s dance song as a nostalgic memory.

I have to say that I very nearly bought I Feel Love as my very first single, such was my love for the song. The year was 1977 and the synthesizer was just making an appearance.

I was fourteen and music was a very important part of my life. I still didn’t own a single record but I had a great mate who I shall call S whose parents gave him pocket money, which he promptly spent on singles.

Sadly, he didn’t like I Feel Love; he simply wouldn’t buy it.

I had to rely once more on Top of the Pops and Radio One. The song was number one and ubiquitous. What did I like about it? The synthesizers – they were a totally new type of music and I was hooked from the second I heard it.

The guy behind the music was Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer’s voice added the icing to the cake.

I was past caring what my dad thought about it to be honest but I do have to thank him for two things when it comes to this record.

First, he was a geek and loved gadgets. Although relatively speaking we didn’t have much money, my dad was very careful and saved up for treats. These treats came in the form of holidays and gadgets. In the 70’s he splashed out on a music centre, a combination record player, radio and cassette player with Dolby (I had no idea what that was). All I know is that the sound of the record player was immense and like nothing I had heard before.

Second, my dad actually said that if I bought my own records he would allow me to play them – when he was out of course.

“I don’t have any cash” I wailed.

“Get a job then,” he replied.

So I did. I walked down to the local newsagent and asked about a paper round.

I still remember when that first payment arrived; I was beside myself with pride and rushed down to Walsall to buy singles. I soon ran out of money.

Sadly, I Feel Love was out of the charts by this time so I was quite gutted to be honest – until I spotted Donna Summer’s Greatest Hits.

Can you imagine my dilemma? I had a small amount of money to spend on singles and one of my favourite songs was there in its full eight minute glory on an LP.

An LP for God’s sake. I couldn’t afford that.

I bit the bullet and bought it anyway. Yes, dear reader – my first LP was Donna Summer’s Greatest Hits.

Me, a heavy metal loving progressive rock monster bought the Queen of Disco’s album in the 70’s.

I don’t care – I loved it.

I still do.

It sounded utterly colossal on my dad’s new music centre and I used to play it full blast – when he was out.

This was the first taste of electronic music I had had and yet another seed had been sewn.

Embarrassingly there was another song on the album called Love To Love You Baby that came in at a cool 13 minutes long. It was a massive anthem and I didn’t quite grasp the significance of it until my parents heard it. Basically it consists of Donna Summer groaning her way through a full 13 minute orgasm to the words "Love to love you baby", urging somebody to “Do it to me again and again”.

You can imagine the look of shock on their faces and the look of sheer discomfiture as Donna Summer feigned having sex for 13 minutes with a guy with more stamina than most.

I Feel Love, sadly, became a massive gay anthem for some reason (not sure why) and, sadly, Marc Almond and Bronski Beat destroyed it in the 80’s mixing it with the aforementioned Love To Love You Baby. It was a shame.

I have nothing against the gay community adopting it but I was bitterly disappointed by their cover version.

I’ll finish off by suggesting that you check out the 13 minute sex marathon that is Love To Love You Baby – just don’t play it in front of your kids.

31 Days of Blogging - Day 2

Day 2 – The Sweet - Blockbuster

Blockbuster was my first real favourite song. I begged my dad to buy the single and when I looked into his eyes all I saw was despair, not only at the state of modern music but also at the fact that his eldest son, the boy who would carry on the family name, had succumbed to the death of music (in his eyes).

He wouldn’t buy it for me so I had to make do with snatches from the radio and the rare opportunities we had to watch Top of the Pops.

My mum was beginning to fall in line with my dad’s opinions too. Both of them hated the fact that the band had long hair and wore make-up – something that was wholly unacceptable in my dad’s eyes.

I distinctly remember him referring to them as a bunch of “men dressed as women”, which I found a little hypocritical because he loved the old form of musical entertainment where men like Danny La Rue really DID dress up as women.

The dawning of this song was the first time my dad realised that he was getting out of touch with the youth of the day and his own youth too.

When the song was released in 1973, he was only 26 years old but life was different then; he had three young children and a full time factory job. My mum didn’t work and money was scarce.

My pleas for music fell on deaf ears and not just because of his hatred of the song.

We didn’t have a car or a telephone and any holidays were limited to day trips to Rhyl or Blackpool on a coach, although later we would actually start going on holiday for a week or two to places like Brighton.

My dad’s only luxury was a tiny Honda 50, a little motorbike that got him to work more quickly and conveniently than the buses. We had to travel everywhere else by bus, which was irritating, particularly in winter.

Other kids I knew seemed to be better off. I went to a Catholic junior school in Walsall and since it was one of only a couple, the other kids who attended came from all walks of life. It was during this time that I began to realise exactly what money could buy. Some kids in my school were as badly off as we were but others were spoilt rotten. You could tell at Christmas when the income gap was at its most noticeable. The last week before the Christmas holiday was always spent playing games brought in by the kids. The richer kids had a massive number of games – they were spoilt for choice. Thankfully they were multiplayer and we could all join in.

Around that time we had a school disco. The teachers told us that we could bring in our own records and we would be allowed to dance to them. I had no records. The rich kids seemed to have loads; Slade, T Rex; even the dreaded Osmonds.

I felt a little hurt and several seeds were sown around this time. I would be able to have enough money to buy what I wanted and, perhaps more importantly, I would not look down on others who didn’t have as much as I did. These seeds would grow in the coming years, particularly when I encountered even bigger income gaps when I went to secondary school.

I look back on Blockbuster with a fair bit of nostalgia. I loved the Glam Rock scene; and another seed was sewn, one that wouldn’t germinate for a few years – a love of rock music.

Not something my dad would look forward to at all.

31 Days of Blogging - Day 1

I’ve set myself a little challenge. I’ve been inspired by a couple of music memes I’ve seen where people post about songs they like or dislike as well as a nasty little bout of writers block.

I’ve decided to select songs that have had significance to me during my 49 years on the planet. However rather than taking about the songs themselves, I’ve opted to write about what the songs mean in terms of my life at and around that point in time.

Some of it may get a little personal – I apologise for that in advance – but I think it is difficult to talk about such songs without letting go of some feelings.

Anyway, I have made two lists of 31 songs – the first list is pure pop – the second is pure rock.

And looking at that list, I feel quite old. I can imagine younger readers saying “Never heard of it.” or “Who?”

I shall press on regardless and start with the pop songs and maybe later in the year move onto the rock songs.

For the next 31 days I shall endeavour to complete this self-imposed task.

I hope you tag along for the ride, dear reader.

Please feel free let me know what you think - and also whether you like the songs.

Day 1 – The Beach Boys – Good Vibrations

I am very opinionated about music. Regular readers may have guessed this already.

Many people think this is a flaw but fail to realise that it is a passion of mine. I can quite literally change my mood when listening to music. If I’m depressed I put on a song that raises my mood.

My dad was the same – I think I must take after him in that respect. Obviously his taste in music was wildly different from mine and as a kid we clashed a lot over the music I liked, particularly as I started standing up to him and declaring my independence as I grew up.

My dad didn’t like Good Vibrations.

I was probably about three or four years old when it was released in 1966. At that time my parents owned a radiogram, a record player and radio built into a shiny wooden cabinet. I guess it must have been the height of technical sophistication and the envy of all who saw it. Today however, it would be regarded as a cumbersome monstrosity occupying valuable space or, perhaps to antique lovers, a valuable heirloom.

Of course I was forced to join my dad when he listened to his record collection. I had to endure the big band sound, jazz, rock and roll, country and western and a variety of crooners. He mostly played Glenn Miller, Lonnie Donegan and rock and roll rebels like Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino and Little Richard.

My dad tried to brainwash me even at that early age. My mum liked to listen to the radio and often had it on as background while she was working in the house and looking after me and to be honest, although she didn’t mean to force the issue, the music she listened to became my favourite. It was she who steered me into the direction I would follow ultimately.

Back in 1966 my mum’s time was therefore spent juggling two kids and housework as well as being pregnant with my second sister. The radio was a source of comfort for her while my dad worked shifts in the factory, alternating between 1400 to 2200 and 0600 to 1400 – not very sociable hours at all are they?

It meant that my mum was stuck all alone with a very annoying three year old (me) and a screaming and demanding one year old (my sister).

The one good thing I guess is that when dad was working it gave her a chance to listen to the radio stations that she liked. And she enjoyed modern music – my dad didn’t. In fact, the first time I went to the cinema was to see a music film; Help! starring the Beatles. I was far too young to remember it, apart from one scene where one of the Fab Four was caught in some kind of contraption – and it scared me half to death and I think for a while my mum regretted taking me.

Still, at least she managed to see the Beatles, which was a good thing for her. My dad never knew what all the fuss was about and would never have gone to the pictures to see a film starring the Fab Four.

Good Vibrations was on the radio a lot and I can distinctly remember hearing it. For some reason it appealed to the four year old Plastic Mancunian, probably because it was a little odd. My mum says I actually tried to sing it but at that age I had no clue what the song was about. I just mumbled to the chorus and my attempts to say the word “vibrations” during these impromptu infant karaoke sessions were probably quite amusing enough for my mum to laugh at.

All of my dad’s attempts to get me to like his music failed – if only he had liked Good Vibrations. To him, the Beach Boys were the antithesis of his musical taste and he wasn’t impressed that I ignored Buddy Holly and Little Richard even though he played them so much that I knew all of the songs off by heart by the age of ten.

I guess that was a small victory for him.