For the record…

Throbbing Gristle, Oliver Sacks and discs I've known and loved

David and I have been talking about records – he’s working on a follow up to an LP he made with people with dementia.

He’s just posted about the original Trebus Project album, described by the Guardian as a mashup of Throbbing Gristle and Oliver sacks. It’s an amazing piece of work. Please read about it here…

Some of the memories our conversations have prompted…

I bought my first record in 1974. I’d like to say it was something cool like Autobahn or Diamond Dogs (both out that year) but it was actually Ma, He’s Making Eyes At Me by Lena Zavaroni. I’d seen Lena (whose middle name is Hilda, just in case there are any pub-quiz question setters reading this) on Opportunity Knocks and probably felt that she was living a life I’d like for myself. There’s a heart-breaking documentary about her (Lena Zavaroni: The Forgotten Child Star) currently on iPlayer.

I got my first album the same year – Music Explosion. Whatever happened to Stephanie de Sykes?

My twin sister Wendy would often sit in ‘the bar’ – the family name for our second living room (which I’ve written about before because it had an actual payphone in it – post here) – listening to records on our giant stereo while wearing headphones and singing along. A favourite of hers was Congratulations by Cliff Richard. My older sister Tracy and I would amuse ourselves by sneaking into the room and turning the volume up to full causing Wendy to jump violently.

I had a battery-operated portable record player that could also be plugged into a shaver socket so I listened to music when having a bath. The record I most associate with the record player is Who Dares Wins – a live album by Theatre of Hate, whose lo-fi recording quality must have really shone on my tinny little player.

Down Memory Lane was a junk shop in Harrow that my friends and I used to like. I still have a metal trunk I bought from there 45 years ago. One day they had a box of white label 12-inch singles. They cost £1 – I had £2 in my pocket that. I wanted to buy Kick in the Eye by Bauhaus and Ghost Town by The Specials but had to choose between them as there was also a record that my mum really liked at the time in the box. I wonder if The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Tight Fit is now as valuable as the Specials one. I suspect Bauhaus might have ended up in the skip my mum had when she moved out of London, into which Tracy and threw most of our vinyl.

I first started smoking when I was 14, around the same time as I started experimenting with hair dye and makeup (which I’ll write about in a couple of weeks). After school I would change from my hated uniform into my latest jumble-sale finds – a cardigan or grandad shirt – and jeans that had been modified into drain pipes by my nan. I would then walk around the block flicking the fringe of my wedge (daringly dyed with Toners, Shaders or Hint of a Tint) while smoking a single Consulate menthol fag. I would then stagger upstairs to my bedroom and listen to Eat To The Beat (LP) by Blondie while lying on the bed while the room spun thanks to a nicotine rush.

My parents had an eclectic record collection which, I think, explains why I like lots of different kinds of music. In the cupboard under the record player were country and western LPs (Johnny Cash and Tammy Wynette were favourites), Stones and Beatles as well as recent stuff like Blondie, Bee Gees and Carpenters. Dad also had a lot of flamenco guitar albums which he would try and play along to on his own guitar. I had guitar lessons for at least two years at junior school and once had a class with John Williams – I was sure I must have made this up but have had it confirmed by schoolfriends.

I think the last vinyl record I bought was a load of Blondie remixes when I was living in Spain. Do you still have records?