A musical journey in the grooves of a 33rpm...
National Album Day slipped quietly across our radar last week.
I no longer own any vinyl or a turntable, but, at one stage, records consumed a huge part of my life. My musical youth could be found in the grooves of 33rpms, and double album with magnificent gatefold sleeves.
National Album Day sparked memories of my own journey from Music For Pleasure sound-a-like albums and K-Tel compilations to the era of punk and onwards.
Like many kids I started out buying records in Woolies. If I remember correctly the store on Princes Street - now that grim, soulless Apple store - had albums and pick & mix pretty close to each other. It knew its market ...
Back in the 70s, all the songs you heard came via Top Of The Pops and the Sunday chart show on Radio1, so my first purchases were those terrible MFP albums where session musicians drained the life out of the latest hits - Bowie's Laughing Gnome and Mungo Jerry’s In The Summertime were probably among the first.
I suspect the Music For Pleasure label survived largely because of the sexist pin-ups on the covers - usually a pneumatic woman in a welder’s vest or something equally irrelevant to the actual music.
It was a short hop from there to the K-Tel range where Mud, Showaddywaddy, The Rubettes, Wizard and Suzi Quatro had their latest hits pressed into compilations which, from memory, sold with a 49p sticker. Or maybe 99p…
Woolies gave way to John Menzies and Boots which had decent record departments back in the day. I knew things were changing when I went into Boots and got a horrified look from a young sales girl when I asked for a needle ...
So, the jump into proper, grown up music and real record stores co-incided with the arrival of Virgin on Princes Street, HMV and discovering treasure troves such as the The Last Record Shop, the Other Record Shop, Bruce’s, The Record Shack on Clerk Street and Vinyl Villains down Elm Row.
I think it was GI which was down Cockburn Street too, but the go-to place remained the Ezy Rider Record Exchange up in Forrest Road. I spent so many hours thumbing through the poly bagged covers I’d emerge with manky fingers and a stack of new vinyl.
Secondary school was where I studied music - formally (got an ‘O’ grade ‘y’know for studying the Russian Five and 16th century English madrigals) and informally. The latter was probably more fun.
Heavy rock albums dominated my weekend buys - everything from Purple to Zep to Rush, Rainbow, Gillan, Quo, Nazareth, Sabbath, and then into the ‘New Wave of British Heavy Metal’ courtesy of Iron Maiden and Tygers of Pan Tang.
But there was still room for deep dives into the 60s, encounters with a host of singer-songwriters, and some full blown weirdness - everything from Iron Butterfly to Captain Beefheart, The Residents, and a short dalliance with Frank Zappa.
Albums were things of beauty, to be poured over.
We’d devour the sleeve notes, the lyric sheets and be thrilled if some extra insets dropped out as we first took the vinyl out of its cover. Even better if the vinyl had a picture on it or a was a different colour from black.
Sammy Hagar’s ‘Red’ album came in red vinyl, while I had ELO’s Out Of The Blue double album on blue vinyl until an ill conceived playground swap saw it exchanged for a 12-inch version of Ronnie Biggs and the Sex Pistols’ A Punk Prayer.
Back then, Queen albums also carried the proud boast “no synths” - ‘News Of The World’ was my entry point to the band’s catalogue - and mates’ older brothers’ collections were rifled for some choice collections.
Without doubt, the album with the biggest single impact on us was Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Its sleeve alone fuelled many playground discussions. It took me 40 years to finally see it live and it was worth the wait.
Punk brought everything from Elvis Costello to Tom Robinson and the brilliant Ian Dury & The Blockheads, and then the early 80s delivered the brilliant world of Go! Discs with Billy Bragg and the Housemartins. By then I was working in newspapers, and a regular supply of review copies landed on my desk - a bonus. Well, apart from the Go West albums ...
Tom Waits ended up on my radar courtesy of the soundtrack to One From The Heart, and I found myself swapping albums such as Closing Time and Heartattack And Vine with a councillor, Dave Snellor, who went on to someone big in COSLA, while covering finance meetings.
I ended up with around 1000 albums which were tied up and transported around umpteen houses, a few garages and one spare room before finally being sold as a job lot for 75 quid to a dealer.
I still buy CDs today rather than stream anything - there’s just nothing to beat the feel of an album in your hand, even if I now need specs to make out the small writing in the sleeve notes.
Vinyl has made a heck of a comeback too, but it’s a pricey hobby now. I see albums going for £20 or more and think how many poly bags I could have filled at the Ezy Rider Record Exchange where no receipts were given - you were handed the album and carried out that vital inspection for any scratches or marks that may impair the sound.
I hope today’s vinyl junkies get the same thrill I got when dropping an album on to the turntable for the very first time, and then sliding it into its proper place in their collection, organised alphabetically and in chronological order of release.
Is there any other way ...?
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