the friday 7 8 November 2008

It's been a funny week musically for me, two nights DJing, two gigs, one of which was on Saturday lunchtime and was a jazz band. Now I detest jazz, but the lady I was seeing them with loves it, and on a date the lady gets what the lady wants. So I headed down to the Birmingham Symphony Hall for the weekly Sax In The City event with a massive hangover and the inability to eat anything. Drinking fresh orange and having to stand on wobbly legs because the chairs had gone to the large crowd that I wasn't expecting, me and the lady watched the session, and I actually enjoyed it. None of the rambling sax solos, none of the bu-ba-bi-bah dah vocals, just good easy listening played live in a really relaxed environment with an appreciative audience, though how many were in there to avoid the horrific rainstorm and how many went specifically for it we'll never know. Compared to the act I saw on Wednesday, it was a gig of extremes. Here's this week's 7

The Wonderstuff - Unbearable

I went to see the Stuffies last Thursday with my old mate Andrew Pack,my boss and a bloke from work, doing the Eight Legged Groove Machine 20th Anniversary tour, and it reminded me of how great a band they were. With Miles Hunt swigging from a bottle of red wine, two really long encores and a special aftershow performance with an extra four songs it was one of the best reunion gigs I've been to, which gives me hope for the Carter gig later this month. Here's an old one that they played on the night, and like all the best songs it's about hating people




Jesus Jones - Info Freako
The support act I missed at the Wonderstuff, they were always a more commercial version of Pop Will Eat Itself, but still always worth a look and listen. The pioneers of Stupid Hat Indie, they had a few hits then vanished, and like Shed 7 became the joke band of their scene




Rage Against the Machine - Renegades of Funk

I play this every week, and it's great fun, with RATM covering Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force. Not what you'd expect and you'd probably think it wouldn't work, but it does and it breathes a different life into the old hip hop classic




Kunt and the Gang - Men With Beards (what are they hiding?)
The act I saw on Wednesday, and possibly the cleanest of his songs. K&TG are a comedy song writer with a penchant for Carol Vorderman, as seen on his song Carol Vorderman where he explains how he'd defile the dodgy loan selling maths genius, and Alleged Jill Dando Killer Who Was Innocent Barry George. Childish, puerile and very funny live when put in content.




Beastie Boys - Sabotage

The best thing that they ever made was Ill Communication, and that's scientific fact, proven by scientists and all that. Matched with the Spike Jonez 70s cop homage, the guitars and bass rip through you like a bullet through Kurt Cobain's bonce. Forget the early frat boys era Beasties and the free Tibet preachy version and listen to what is just a great song.







The Cure - Why Can't I Be You?

There's a common known fact about me, and that is I love nutters. Proper nutters, and here's the nutter I liked most as a teenager, Robert Smith, doing his best Bobcat Goldthwaite impression in one of the great pop songs of the last century.





Glam Chops - Are You Ready Eddie?

All hail the leaders of Nu Glam, the supergroup of cult indie bands including Art Brut and David Devant and his Spirit Wife. This has nothing to do with the Emerson Lake and Palmer song of the same name, but is a Sweet style stompathon about a man who sleeps in the park. All done in classic Eddie Argos style, including getting the words to your own song wrong..

the friday 7 1st november 2008

So we hit November and where's the year gone? It's about eight weeks to 2009, but forget that, last night was Halloween and that meant a big party at the pub I DJ at, including some dodgy make up, me being seen in a bow tie and of course some rather splendid music. I played a lot more rocky stuff than usual which I really enjoyed, so here are the seven songs from last night that I really enjoyed, and rarely play.

Guns and Roses Welcome to the Jungle

I'm wrong alright. I always thought of this as the shit that Bill and Ted types listen to and should be locked up for. Cock Rock always belonged to the other kids at college. It had no heart and soul to it, it was just about doing as many bitches and drugs. I was listening to James and Blur at the time, wearing my cardigan and Bretton fisherman's jumper, reading Salinger and drawing with a twig dipped in ink. I was a twat, this is ace. And I was proved to be a twat last night when I had a pub full of people dancing like spaz's. It's ace.




Def Leppard Let's Get Rocked

Sheffield has given us some great bands, and for some reason I always forget about the Lep. It's really tongue in cheek cock rock, but you know the lad's would rather have a brew and a bag of chips than groupies and coke. And like most of Sheffield, it has the subtlty of a kick in the knackers by Big Daddy, if he was still alive.





Hole Celebrity Skin


It's wrong, I know. It's very wrong, but loathed as I am to give Courtney Love any publicity, I play this every week for Sarah the barmaid who loves Angry Woman Rock (TM), and it is ace, but the only time I want to mention her is when she admits she killed her husband and faked his suicide. Alledgedly.




Atreyu You Give Love A Bad Name


Fans of the Jovi might want to look away now as this is is a bit of a change from the original. Screamo replaces poodle rock and purists may not like it, but I think it's great. It's what a cover should be like, noticably different yet instantly recognisable.




Spunge Kicking Pigeons

I like kicking pigeons, it should be a demonstration sport in the 2012 olympics. I'd win and finally make my mum proud. This however is a great skanking tune, and a regular crowd pleaser, even if it has my natural nemesis - the false ending. Why do they do that. Spunge are on of those strange bands who are good fun but go nowhere. Their cover of Centrefold is great, as is the skanking version of Ray Parker Jr's Ghostbusters, but they seem to be penned up in the novelty act section. Anyhoo, enjoy.



The Mighty Mighty Bosstones The Impression That I Get

Play it every week because of one reason, it's bloody great. Do you need anymore?






Tenacious D Tribute



Because if you're playing a rock set, there's nothing better to finish with than a wig out song about selling your soul to the devil.

thefriday7: 24th October 2008

I'm doing this early this week which is a suprise to both you and me, whoever you may be. And by early I mean on the actual day it's meant to be done on. After the lengthy trek through My Life In Music, we get back to normal business with the friday 7, well sort of as this week we plug in the headphones for a trip through the last week's playlist of Dave. One track a day from the mp3 player of life.

Friday
Mansun: Being A Girl

I used to really hate Mansun, but over the years I've warmed to them like broad beans. Being a Girl is them at their best, and any song that comes in two parts, an two so very different parts is alright by me. It's not great, and it won't change the world, but it's intersting and I'd rather have something interesting rather than something average. The video featured a young Danny Mockney Twat Dyer, but don't hold that against them, and instead of giving space to him, here's a live version instead



Saturday
The Saturdays: If This Is Love

Is that Yazoo being sampled there by the latest new Girls Aloud? I think it is, and if it's not it's pretty damn close. Here's both to listen to and compare. Even so, it's a blinking good piece of pop and the nubile young lady singers make it better than it probably is. Two of them were in S Club Juniors. God I feel old.






Sunday
Stereolab: French Disco
This always reminds me of better times, of summers spent by the res drinking cider and dancing like a loon in dodgy clubs in Bradford. Pan European Electroindie that made me think of being an astronaut and heading off into space, even though I was in my twenties lived in Lancashire, existed off of egg and chips and booze, and stood no bloody chance. Still we can dream.




Monday
Richard X vs Liberty X: Being Nobody
I love bastard pop, and I really thought Liberty X were underrated in the pop stakes. This was one of the first commercially successful bastard pop mash ups, with the X's cover of the Chaka Kahn classic mixed in with Human League's Being Boiled to great effect. Not too sure about the afro though...





Tuesday
The Kaiser Chiefs: Never Miss A Beat
The album is rank, the single is a bit Kaisers by numbers and the record label have disabled the video on Youtube so you'll have to watch it to decide for yourself. God I want to kill Mark Ronson.

Wednesday
Prince & Sheena Easton: U Got The Look
Was doing the Dj thing last night when this girl came up with requests.
"Got any Metalica?"
"No"
"Got any Slipknot?"
"Yeah, play you some. Anything else?"
"Got any Prince?"

It was this or either Purple Rain or Sign O' The Times. This is much better. I'd forgotten how good Prince was.



Thursday
Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames: Somebody Stole My Thunder
Georgie was one of those artist who you knew by music and not by name. I remember hearing bits and pieces of his growing up, and found this on a bizarre compilation disk. Big style 60s arrangement horns and bass, and Georgies trademark laid back, understated vocal. It's one of those get up and dance songs that I absolutely love

My Life In Music: The Contenders

Once I had finished the odyssey through my life in music I looked over the list and found some glaring omissions. Albums I had a fling with rather than a love affair. Long Players that made a short term impression on me that come back into my life every so often then go back into storage or stuff that meant so much to me at a point in time but have faded into the background for years. There were even a few that had missed out only on a couple of plays because I had a massive obsession with an attractive lady singer or two and played them to death.

Here are the seven that could have been contenders. Could have been top of the world, ma.

1978: Specials - Specials


Although growing up I was well into my 2Tone I only got into Specials a couple of years ago. This debut album, which is made up of a lot of covers as well as original tracks has been on my playlist pretty much weekly for the last year. Being in the Midlands I've manged to catch Neville Staples Specials many a time, but here's Gangsters for your skanking pleasure.



1979: The B52s - The B52s


Apparently John Lennon claimed this to be his favourite album of all time.Which would normally make me hate it, but it's aces The Athens New Wavers eponymous debut, it's a marmite album from a marmite band, but I still play the odd track here and there, most notably 52 Girls which Fatboy Slim nicked, sorry sampled



1987: Strangeways Here We Come - The Smiths


The final nail in the coffin and The Smiths' greatest album. This was the toughest choice to make, and excluding it was tough. This is the sound of friends and bands splitting up, the sound of cynicism and spite. And I love it, however under the rules they would always be beaten by Debbie Gibson.





1999: A Tune A Day - The Supernaturals

One of the bands that every one's heard of but nobody seems to know, The Supernaturals were one of the forgotten bands of Britpop. After their first album It Doesn't Matter Anymore was Mobyd and practically on every advert going I thought they'd be dropped and resigned to doing a mix and match second album, but ATAD may have carried the sound of the first album, but was very much different. Country Music, their tribute to the genre was an upbeat pop classic, and album closer Everest is a ballad of epic proportions that even makes cynical men shed a tear. One more album followed before the band split.

2005: Bang Bang Rock N Roll - Art Brut


The last album I became really obsessed with, and it's still playing even though I love the follow up album. There's something about Art Brut that I really love, it could be the tales of still being in love with your first teenage girlfriend or the hatred of buying albums in Tesco. It might even be the self referential thing about the way Eddie Argos sings or the obsession with Top Of The Pops, whatever it is it's stuck with me for the best part of three years and I love it. Even the eyebrows and the pencil tache that sport Eddies face. A contender for album of the decade, but we'll just have to see what comes along in the next couple of years.

My Life In Music: 2000 - 2007

And so we come to the end of the trawl through the wreckage of my life in music, where I have revealed that I have very little taste and what taste I do have is terrible. We've had crusty, indie, gay pop, and, according to some people (well, Rol) an unnatural liking for New Order.

And here we are, a new millennium. I'm living the student life in Sheffield, and the Y2K bug is scaring people. Will planes drop out of the sky? Will all our computerised systems crash at midnight 31st December 1999 as the chimes of Big Ben finish? Will I lose all my essays on the structure of gender in some daft film by some stroppy young maverick? Will I get some to see in the new year, or will everything just carry on as normal answering a big no to all these questions? Lets find out...

2000: Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia - Dandy Warhols

It should have been The Magic Treehouse by Ooberman as I listened to the tape of that for most of the year, but that had been released the previous year, and as ever I was slightly late getting into something I loved. However when I got into them I hit the Warhols with a passion. I loved the second album, and this their third made me love them even more. A year later I would be in a dank cellar dressing room interviewing them while the Courtney Taylor scratched his balls all way through. This had only two singles on it, including their multi-ad featured Bohemian Like You, but also has the much better Get Off on it. Resentful at times and at others gloriously up beat.

In the spring I get elected to run the Student Union magazine. Apparently it's a part time job with a bit of extra meeting time. However I also end up designing and writing a lot of it so I spend the summer of 2000 in a windowless office in the middle of Sheffield city centre. I also start to gig massively for free, including at one point doing three gigs in one night at different venues. All for my art. I'm a martyr. I'm doing the best part of sixty hours a week in various jobs and 8 at uni. No wonder I fail my video production unit with a record 3% and spend a week redoing everything and resitting an exam. Through the mode of doing as little as necessary to scrape through I pass half my year. I really should have put the effort in.

2001: Gorillaz - Gorillaz

I had loved Blur, and I was a massive Jamie Hewlett fan. Combine them and I was in heaven. This was the first time in years I got really excited about multi media stuff, where imagery and music were as important as each other and I fell hook line and sinker. I wanted more Blur, I wanted more Modern Life Is Rubbish and Great Escape era Blur. I wasn't going to get it and I was happy because of the glory of Gorrillaz.

I meet Mo Mowlam and she gives me cheese and branston sandwiches. I end up with pickle down my tie. She was great, funny and sincere. I miss her.

2002: The Beginning Stages of the Polyphonic Spree - Polyphonic Spree

Once in a while something so different comes along and you just have to watch, like rubbernecking at a car wreck. The Spree were one of those acts. I saw them about three times in a month and each time I was embroiled in a show. How the hell they managed it I don't know, but the almost cult like sway of Tim De Laughter and co grabbed me. The album is a whole broken down into bits, the tracks are labelled as sections and is a big uplifting pop call for positivity and revelling in the glory of life, and I revelled.

Uni ends, I finish with a 3rd as I had been downgraded. My work on the magazine is awarded with Guardian Media Award nominations, but we lose out to Nottingham all the time. I meet June Sarpong and ask her how she became successful when she is annoying and talentless. I also meet Charles Kennedy and think he's actually very funny.

2003: Elephant - The White Stripes

Dur Du Du Du Du Dur Dur. That bassline on the opening track 7 Nation Army got me hooked. I wasn't really a fan, but Elephant got me, and the lead single had me held in a state of good old rock'n'roll ecstasy. Nothing they'd done before or after had the same place in my heart or on my turntable.

I'm bumming about doing gig security. I see Def Leppard at The Doncaster Dome and I'm struck by how much I enjoy it. My indie credentials are blown so I do Download and Creamfields that year and find I'm actually liking it. I'm still in the same job.

2004: You Are The Quarry - Morrissey

How do I get my indie credentials back? Am I doomed to Def Leppard and Timo Mass? God saw me struggle and he sent my saviour back to me. This was what we needed, The Mozfather back with a new album and it's a belter. A mature comparison to the old days, with a stomping attitude and a stomping sound. I see him live in Bradford at St George's Hall with Mr Rol and even though I miss the coach, have to pay for the train and then wait an hour and a half for a coach home I don't care. I've seen Moz playing like he wants to, performing only how he can and he is truly great. I'd seen him several times before including a few years before at the much missed Leeds T&C and this was by far the greatest gig I'd been to in yonks.

I move back home and start working in Leeds as a graphic designer for a small printer. It's quite an archaic set up and is almost Dickensian. I love it, but not the commute.

2005: The Alternative to Love - Brendan Benson


A find by Mr Hirst, Brendan Benson is like Tanya Donnely, one minute calm and sensitive, the next chugging his guitar and making you want to wig out. His role in The Raconteurs is as vital as Jack White's but his solo stuff is genius. Cold Hands Warm Heart is a perfect pop song with great lyrics performed over a simple melody and a strange hook.


I end the year by moving to Birmingham to design adverts for Yellow Pages. I'm still in Birmingham, but the job lasts a few months before downsizing puts most of us out of a job. I get depressed and play XBox a lot to relieve the frustration.

2006: The Life Pursuit - Belle and Sebastian

I was always in two minds about B&S, either art school whiney bollocks or genius pop makers. I found them to be a band who can make even the most ardent of their fans turn away for a bit, but with TLP I finally found an album of theirs I liked all the way through and could stomach putting on repeat. It seemed they had decided that they didn't have to be a cool band anymore and were happy to bash out really good song after really good pop song. And they were all the much better for it.

2007: Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem

So we finish off with a suprise, and it was a suprise to me too. The most listened to album of last year at Chez Dave wasn't one I expected to have even bought, let alone listened to loads. Then I looked at what I'd got, and most of it was shit, so the award goes to LCD Soundsystem, a band I'd previously only known though Daft Punk Are Playing At My House, which was an aces single, but could they do it with an album? Well, yes they could, and they could pull it off like a one armed fluffer. Download North American Scum or watch it here and you'll see why. And I was the only one of the guys at work who watched them live and thought "You know what? They're actually rather good..."

In real life I became adjusted to who I was, where I was in life and where I was going to. It din't look too good for a while, but I pulled it back and got on with it.

And so we come to the end of My Life In Music. It's probably only been of any interest to three people in the world, but I've enjoyed the trip through memory lane. And I also wonder what would come about if the rules allowed compilations and best ofs to be in there. It's been great, and normal service will be resumed next week. Hopefully.

But what about 2008? That's for another 7 years time, but at the minute I'm guessing it's the latest Kings Of Leon album.

My Life In Music Part 4:1993 - 1999

So, after a bit of a break we're back to my life in music, the self indulgent ride through time that possibly only I could get any enjoyment from. And we're up to 1993, so let's crack on with it

1993: Last Splash - The Breeders
Only God could put this band together, well, God and Kim Deal, and with their second album we see the definitive line up form to produce their definitive album. Lead single Cannonball is great, but it's the marvelous Saints and Driving on 9 that really make the album. Twin girls with guitars is always gonna do it for me, but with the catalogue to back it up, it's excellent. Only one thing was missing from the album, Tanya Donnelly, who'd left the band to do Belly, but more about her later.

Happy birthday me, I'm 21, I've got the key to the door. I spend it in Bradford before we go to London for the Sunday, forgetting there's a thing happening called the London Marathon. We can't park, and end up in Camden where signs read "Happy Hour, Heineken £2.50 a pint." I also move to the shitty Lancashire town of Barnoldswick, and the first signs of my problem with depression rears it's head when I lock myself away for days on end. On the plus side I start releasing my own comics, and meet some like minded people I'm still friends with 15 years later.

1994: Showbiz - Cud

The second major label outing for Leeds' finest and it turned out to be the one that killed them. A&M didn't know what to do with them so we get washed out Cud, chart friendly mass appeal cud. However it has Neurotica on it which is fucking aces, and the beautiful balladry of Once Again are enough to knock both Vauxhall and I and His 'n' Hers into silver and bronze positions.

My depression comes back and it's worse. I'm working in a shit pub, dealing with knobs and constantly pissed off. Along with my mates Tiff and Franky I discover Ecstasy, it helps. I rediscover Snakebite and Black which doesn't.

1995: Different Class - Pulp

And so they finally made it, after many albums on many labels by many line ups, Pulp finally hit the big time. Suddenly we are swamped with Jarvis-alikes who wouldn't have a clue. But the music is so good. And what a year to make it as we also have massive favourites from Radiohead, Belly, Elastica, Sleeper, Supergass, Moz and Blur. However Live Bed Show tips the hat to the Sheffers

Meanwhile I'm banged up at her Majesty's pleasure for 4 weeks due to Poll Tax Evasion. Thatcher had taken away the milk form the kids, the work from the Miners and my freedom for believing in a principle. Thankfully I'm not bumfucked in the potting shed, or koshed with a pool ball in a sock.

I also pack my bags and leave the North for the sights and sounds of Southsea as I bunk on a mates floor for a while and decide to stay for the next few years,but in a house, not on his floor, to clear my head and sort out my life. It kind of works

1996: Golden Mile - My Life Story

Glam pop becomes a big thing for me and MLS are one of the main exponents of it. A brilliant mix of guitars,bass and orchestra, Jake Shillingford puts on a showman's masterpiece of pomp and bluster that he manages to take to the live show. It may appear to be art school nonsense and rich kids' toys, but it's bleeding good and brings the fun back to music.

1997: Work Lovelife Miscellaneous - David Devant & His Spirit Wife / Lovesongs for Underdogs - Tanya Donnelly

No way to separate these two. DD&HSW continue in the art glam pop vein with tongue stuck so far in cheek it makes them look like the Rocky guy from Mask. Big favourites of TVs The OZone, they produced bloody good pop songs. Pity they burnt so brightly.
Miss Donnelly on the other hand was coming off the back of Belly with her solo album, and it was a mix of indie pop and rockier stuff, however the song Mysteries of the Unexplained is so haunting it stuck with me for years after the rest of the album disappeared. However, they don't have it on YouTube, so make do with this aces track Bright Lights



1998: This Is Hardcore - Pulp

The best thing they've done as a whole, and nobody got it. people were expecting another Different Class, and instead they got the dark, sleazy side of showbiz. Deliberately slower, seedier and by far better than Different Class, with fewer singles - Party Hard being the most blatant, it is their masterpiece of an album. It's seen by some as Jarvis sticking two fingers up at the world, and if it is, it's a victory because we get this




And what do you do for an encore, Jarvis?

I pack up and move back North to a flat in Bradford and a job with the Bradford and Bingley Building Society. Wonder what's happened with them, I haven't heard much recently.


1999: Much Against Everyone's Advice - Soulwax


So we round of the century and the millennium with music from Belgium. And that's surprising but this is the band that I've seen live the most, the band that I fell for seeing them supporting The Wannadies before they took on world domination in various forms. Musicians, producers, djs, remixers, tv hosts, there is little the brothers Dewale took on that they didn't succeed in, and before fucking off to be 2Many DJs they made rock pop into an art form and they did it live too. I got so many people turned on to this band that my place in Heaven is surely fixed, with St Peter chauffeuring me to my cloud come the day of reckoning.



Being late with everything I finally go to university in Sheffield. I'm ten years older than most of the people on my course, and I'm living with two hot chicks and a gay guy. But I'm gigging like a motherfucker and I'm seeing bands I'd fall in love with and others that I'd detest. It's the start of a new era but will I be blown up by the end of the year? Find out next time on My Life In Music*





*Well obviously the answer is no.

My Life In Music part 3: 1986 - 1992

So we're up to the mid 80s and taste has given up hope to be replaced by gaudy, neon bilge. On the side of cultural superiority Moonlighting has been on a year and we see Bruce Willis can act, and does comedy very well, which is a shame because he goes on to appear in Blind Date which is shit to say the least.


Myself, now in the third form was developing an eclectic taste in music as we shall see as we venture into the past that we like to call Metcalfe: the Gay Disco Years


1986: Disco - Pet Shop Boys


I was a latecomer to the PSB, around the time of release my mum and sister loved them, I wasn't too sure, but a few years later I would get a tape of Disco and it was never out of my Saisho personal tape player. At only 6 tracks it's short, and it's a remix album - NOT a compilation but interpretations of songs from Please and B-Sides. Now if you're gonna get shirty about the rules, I've put another album below for the year so be happy.

It starts in fine style with In The Night remixed by the genius Arthur Baker who was doing great things with New Order, as was Shep Pettibone who turns up on Love Comes Quickly and West End Girls, but the album is shit hot for the genius Paninaro and Opportunities, which was great in the first place, but the remix just kicks it out of orbit.

And for those of you being moody about the rules:


1986: The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths

Because no matter how hard you try you can't beat There Is A Light That Never Goes Out as the perfect pop song, and Moz gets funny with Vicar In A Tutu and the title track. Still prefer Strangeways... though.

This was the year I discovered I wasn't doing O-levels but some new fangled GCSE thing. I wasn't too impressed.

1987: Out Of The Blue - Debbie Gibson

I had a massive crush on Debbie Gibson at a time when it was De rigour to fancy Tiffany. I was always an odd one, but Gibbo seemed to have it all, she wrote and produced her own stuff, she wasn't a yank and she seemed quite attainable in the great scheme of things.

And I was convinced Shake Your Love was about wanking.

Meanwhile I was getting into Gay Disco and HiNRG music, a field where classics are ten a penny, but rarely good. With The Circus Erasure took the mantel from The Communards and Bronski Beat with catchy tunes and political-lite lyrics, but it's bloody ace and the start of my last year at school was soundtracked by these two albums at a new school as we moved to Shipley. Down to Nab Wood Grammar for me and my sister on a continental time system but there was one thing more important than claret school jumpers - I was educated with girls - 16 year old girls. Blimey!

1988: Viva Hate - Morrissey


And so Moz goes solo and produces a classic first single with Suedehead and a classic first album with Viva Hate. The bleak world view is still there, and someone started to notice a predilection with Asian culture that would later start the first claims that he had slightly racist tendencies to be blown up by the NME twice. Still, Everyday Is Like Sunday is a piece of genius and he would only better it on the next album .

It's the second summer of love and we move back home to Skipton, meaning I have to resit my fifth form, and not with sixteen year old girls. It was, to my hormonal sixteen year old self, the equivalent of being in Hiroshima the day the bomb dropped.

1989: Technique - New Order

And so New Order go to Ibiza, get fucked up and become pioneers of guitar/dance fusion long before Prodigy. The comeback album was a diamond, and the track Run2 pissed off John Denver enough to sue. Here's the relaunch single Fine Time with it's rambling on about girls with teeth to an Italio house tune

And so I start work in the rates office of the local council. Hated it but went clubbing and learnt to play crown green bowls. It was also the year I went on strike with the union. The first of several.

1990: Leggy Mambo - Cud

Along with The Wedding Present and Ooberman Cud were the pinnacle of West Yorkshire Indie before the likes of Kaiser Chiefs and The Cribs came along. Leggy Mambo was their second album, following on from the indie opera concept album When In Rome, Kill Me. This was the album that got me addicted to the band, and they were the first band I started to obsess over buying 7", 12", remixes, cassingle, CD, and every version of their stuff. Saw the tour last year in Birmingham Barfly and they were still as good a show as they were in 1990.

I've become a man. Happy 18th to me. I'm working in accounts. Boo.

1991: 30 Something -Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine

Crusty hit the world of pop, and Carter USM twat Schofield on the Smash Hits awards. I loved the word play in CUSM songs, and the political message was sometimes corrupted by the puns worthy of Whitley on Countdown. But it was a great time and a great album.

I head off to art college in Bradford and discover the glories of life drawing and 60p a pint nights at Tumblers. I also fall big time for Janet Clegg but never tell her. Tosser.

1992 - Bricks Are Heavy - L7
Barnoldswick/Colne on the Lancs border, I'm working pubs, living off yogurt and baked beans (not together and listening to indie when I discover Faith No More. I then discover L7 and I'm in love. Girls who don't look like they've washed suddenly become very attractive. Then I se them on The Word and dirty takes on a different meaning. Great album, angry as fuck and they look like they'd rip your nads off than look at you. Fan-tastic.

My Life in Music 1979 - 1985

Back again, and we're at the point when I was beginning to tape the Top 40 off of the radio on cheap cassettes that would last two plays before being eaten by the tape deck in the family sterogram. It's weird that about 24 years later I would be playing music on a stereogram again in a flat in Sheffield after finally going to Uni as my flatmate, 70s furniture freak and musical genius Robin owned one.

Memories included too. I have little recollection of my childhood, then again I don't often remember last Tuesday. Maybe I need regression therapy.

1979: Replicas - Gary Numan + Tubeway Army

Gary Numan's greatest album, features a theme of a sci-fi dystopia. This was the first of his machine phase albums and is the only one I still listen to on a regular basis. Has the classic Are 'Friends' Electric? but is surpassed by this little classic about robots raping people in council run gardens.

Numan's songs of androgyny and machine-man metamorphosis was based on a book Numan hoped to finish writing, set in a not-too-distant future metropolis where Machmen - robots with cloned human skin- and other machines keep the general public cowed on orders from the Grey Men (shadowy officials).

Young Dave, who was discovering his love of acting with a role in the school play, as Alan A Dale in Robin Hood. He didn't get the role of Joseph at Christmas which pissed him off.

1980: Absolutely - Madness


This was a tough one between this, Closer by Joy Division and Boys Don't Cry by The Cure, which was a US version of Three Imaginary Boys so lost out on a technicality and lets be honest, Closer isn't really that good an album, and if we're being honest, I'd listen to the Nutty Boys before Joy Division any day of the week. Madness was the first band I was really into. About this time I was flirting with Adam and the Ants and Kim Wilde, but they were the first band I'd adopted as my own enough to start wearing clothes like them and taking on a very strange way of speaking learnt through listening to Baggy Trousers and Embarrassment

1981: Dare - The Human League

And then Dave, discovered Electro with the album of his pre-teen years.

One of the reasons I love music so much is Dare. It's inventive, experimental, accessible and bloody good. It's the first of the albums with the known line up of Oakey, Catherall and Sully, and it's damn fine pop. I've played this so much I've had to buy replacement copies. And what's best about it is that it brought people to the band by releasing the worst song off the album and it being a number one smash hit.

This year the 8 year old me was rewarded with a proper role in the school play where he was General Stores, leader of the troops in Greatwood Primary School's production of Sir Spence and a Dragon Called Horace. He got told off for improvising a comedy limp by Mrs Waddington.

While not on Dare, here's the League with their greatest track - Being Boiled which you may know from Liberty X's Being Somebody.



1982: The Lexicon of Love - ABC

And here starts my obsession with bands from Sheffield. A few years after glam rock died ABC created glampop where image and music combined to a gold suited crescendo. Powerful synths, guitars and brass get together to belt out big pop tunes. While the League were forgetting people play instruments and using sequencers, samplers, ABC were very much the opposite with their open and approachable hits.

Lil' Dave hits double figures and gets his first acting snog as King Louis in the musical version of the The Marvellous Montgolfier Brothers - hit song Electric Smoke never troubled the charts. I was pissed off with the casting of the Queen, because it went to Rachel Tosney and I'd hoped for Amanda Jerger, cos she was the class hotty. I also remember the snow being really bad and we got time of school to play in it.

1983: Power, Corruption & Lies - New Order

The second New Order album was an odd bag. I really got into them six years later when I went mad buying vinyl and tape versions of albums - the tapes of NO albums used to come in big fabric boxes with postcards and strange stuff inside.

At times sounding like Joy Division, at others like Siouxsie and the Banshees, the early NO were very different to what we know of them today. Gillian Gilbert was a guitarist rather than a synth player, but on tracks like Age of Consent you can hear the foundations of what was to come.

And so I leave the beauty of Greatwood Primary and head to the other side of town to Ermysteds Boys Grammar for my secondary education. Away from most of my mates, and never to school with my brother or sister again, the 11 year old me had to play rugby and learn latin instead of making a desk tidy out of wood and blue varnish.

1984: The Smiths - The Smiths



We all love a bit of despondency don't we? And when combined with note perfect guitars it's even better. The Smiths grew up to be the album I lived by, one that was rarely off the stereo. In fact a finer debut would be hard to find for a good ten years or so. There's problems with it, but nothing is perfect, the production's a bit poor and there's no This Charming Man until the US and WEA versions, but in one album I discovered the true beauty of the Morrissey/Marr combination.

And so I discovered my language abilities in the classroom and my lack of prowess on the pitch as September came and year 2 started with a disappointment. The choice of rugby or cross country were simple, and right as we got every third week in the sports centre where I discovered I was all right at badminton and shit hot at ping pong. However not everything was good in the north with the miners strike. Luckily we lived in an area dependant on farming rather than the pits. We had to wait for our times of crisis as it would be another decade or so until foot and mouth and mad cow disease.

1985: Low Life - New Order/Meat is Murder - The Smiths


A tough one to choose a winner, so had to settle on a tie with Manchester's finest taking joint honours with... well, Manchester's finest. Low Life is where NO finally got it right all through the album. Starting with Love Vigilantes and it's mouth piano hook making a bold entrance followed by the star number The Perfect Kiss, there's not a bogus track on the album. It's around this time they discover Arthur Baker and electro disco, his influence is blatantly obvious on the 12" mixes and the next album Brootherhood. Hooky also seems to take his bass to another level from deep and dark to tuneful and vital. The band also seem to become multi instrumentalists as Hooky takes on synth drums and Steve Morris synths.

Here's the video of The Perfect Kiss directed by Jonathon Demme

My taste in women was highly defined at this time as the girls from Tight Fit and Jay Aston were replaced by Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy and Gillian Gilbert. I started to notice that the less conventionally pretty tended to be the most interesting and fun to hang out with.

Moz and Marr learn from the debut and draft in Stephen Street for production duties. It's a more diverse, and Marr hits his form running, but the mix of genres is a little offputting at times and the subtle as a brick title track lets the album down big time. However I'm playing by the rules so it's in, and it does contain How Soon Is Now? so it gets it's props.

Next time on My Life In Music:
Dave doubts himself as he develops a love of gay pop!
The Pixies enter my life and I fall madly for Kim Deal!
And will The Smiths and New Order get back on the list as I discover the genius of Lovebug Starsky?
Find out next week, same place same channel

My Life In Music - 1972 - 1978

Old Rol Hirst started me on this over at his Blog, but rather than doing the ages of man (boy, teen, 20s etc) I'm doing this in weekly 7 year installments. Although 36 doesn't divide by 7, I just thought it pointless doing two weekly blogs on music.

The rules are simple - the albums that have either had the most effect or the most time on the stereo for each year since you bungee jumped out of the old dears womb.

Now the early years are based on my mum's record collection. I didn't have disposable income in the 70s, and if I did it was spent on Panini football stickers and comics. And without further ado, here we go

1972 : HOT AUGUST NIGHTS - NEIL DIAMOND

My mum had about ten albums we used to play on the stereogram, along with a few single. My hatred of Queen comes from listening to We Are The Champions every time we put records on. Neil Diamond is her favourite, closely followed apparently by David Soul and Bread. I went through a phase of hating Neil, mainly after hearing Bumble Bee Boogie. HAN gets the tip of the hat for the three heavy hitters Solitary Man, Chery Cherry and the fabulous Girl You'll Be A Woman Soon. I still listen to all three.

Dave himself popped out 4 weeks early and barely weighed 4lbs. How things have changed.

1973: BAND ON THE RUN - WINGS

I never really liked Paul in the Beatles, and most of his solo stuff is wank to say the least. Ignore anything that Linda had any involvement in and you are left with very little. However the title track is a classic and this has one of his best songs post Lennon/McCartney in the form of Jet.

As for me, I was very quiet as a child and I probably yelped a wail of delight as along came my kid sister Deborah.

1974: AUTOBAHN - KRAFTWERK

Years later I would develop a fascination with electro and androgeny. I got big into Gary Numan and Tubeway Army, Human League and synths. Around the same time I got Kraftwerk. I like bonkers folks, that's probably where my love of Sparks comes from.

1975: PHYSICAL GRAFFITI - LED ZEPPLIN

Big hair rock never really bothered me growing up, neither did prog and ten minute guitar solos. When I was 18 I worked at a printers as an accounts assistant. The Estimator and I used to hang out at the Burnley and he'd play this driving to matches. Every home game for a couple of years involved me freaking out to Kashmir. Still do.

Nursery school beckoned, and it was here I made my two best friends, Pinky the one eyed teddy bear, and Darren who I would spend the next 19 years being stupid with and losing badly at snooker and darts to.

1976: FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE - PETER FRAMPTON

I learnt who Frampton was through the film of Sgt Pepper. I decided he was a twat. However I also listened to this for the best part of a year rather than Menswear. I liked the voice box, even though it was only on two tracks. The only other record Ive ever owned from 76 was Agents Of Fortune by Blue Oyster Cult. It wasn't that good. Neither was me missing the hot hot heat of summer 76 by being in traction for the best part of 4 months after falling badly. I'm left with the legacy of having feet that stick out at a strange angle and dodgy ankles. I'd have to wait about 20 years for another scorcher.

1977: THE IDIOT - IGGY POP

Iggy's first solo album after The Stooges and it's a belter. Him and Bowie made two albums that year together released as solo artists, and this features the original China Girl and the song that got me into the album Nightclubbing(on the Trainspotting soundtrack.) Iggy had always been a facinating figure to me - a walking advert for good drugs although his face and scrotum look identical. I was into Bowie years before Pop, but when I found this was part of the Low collaboration I went out and picked it up and fell in love with it. I was attending a progressive primary school up in the Dales that had pretend weddings and taught yoga instead of assembly. I suddenly saw what it was like to walk down the aisle.

1978: PARALLEL LINES - BLONDIE

And who didn't have a crush on Debbie Harry? The hits are here, including Sunday Girl and Hanging On The Telephone. At the time I was discovering feelings towards girls by playing Kisschase and Knicker Tig. I'd known what boys and girls did because I grew up on farms but that was always a bit sterile because I'd seen so much of it. This was also the year my parents split up for the final time. My contact with my dad would be minimal for the next 15 years, and we went to live with my "Auntie" Mary. I slept on a sofa as the only male in the house with 6 females. I also started at Greatwood School, I think this was my fourth primary, and where I met up with my nursery school chum Darren. We moved into the only house I have lasted more than five years in, in Skipton.