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.

There will be no Friday 7 this week as I'm up at Belladrum for the next few days. Normal service will resume next week