White Ladder by David Gray.
I wasn’t a big fan at the time but my wife was. We used to listen to it a lot when she was pregnant with my first born.
When we got my son home from hospital, the first time we gave him a bath, this was playing in the background. I was suddenly overwhelmed by the sheer enormity and responsibility of raising this little life and to this day, can’t listen to This Year’s Love without a tear in my eye.
It will always remind me of him. I usually find myself listening to it every time he goes back to University.
If you like White Ladder, the Australian film Samson And Delilah uses Nightblindness to awesome effect. Tear jerker.
Never Mind the Bollocks was the first album that really blew me away.
Imagine how crushing it is to have that as such a huge part of your life then John Lyndon turns out to be such a colossal prick.
Ziggy Stardust, Tubular bells and Kimono My House all bought within 2 weeks using my milkboy money
First albums I chose rather than listen to elder brothers
I think I might have misunderstood the brief? I took it to be what were you listening too in 1987 but perhaps its what you listened when you first left home?
It's a forum and any musical discussion is fair game in my book (although some of the ones that descend into lists of people you've never heard of do pass my by a bit)
But if it is 'my thread my rules' the intent was; it was 35 years to the day that George Best was released. I was already a fan from the Peel influence, so the release was eagerly awaited and of course was 1/ on vinyl (or cassette - basically physical media, not a download); 2/ from a record shop, no subscribe in advance and it drops through your letterbox on the day. The anticipation as I walked back through the streets of Durham, to my room - i'd been up there about 10 days by then and was starting to have the best time of my life.
And so it's not just whether the album is any good or not (it is, but I'll freely admit it's not the best album ever made, it's not even THEIR best album - prob not even top three!) but the feeling, the way that music can take you back in an instant to those memories and feelings.
The actual date's not important, or the occasion. It might be university for you. It might be like tenfoot, birth of kids. It might (sad) be the music you used to listen to with your parents who might not be here now. It might be the lads trip to Pas de la Casa ski-ing (Prodigy, Outer Space FWIW) But what are the songs or albums that flick the switch and make the memories flood back (and what are the memories)
As informed by Radcliffe and Maconie it's 40 years ago (today) since 1999 was released. I feel old!
vxaero
Full Member
On the topic of cost, Camembert Electrique by Gong was always the cheapest album on sale
Planet Gong, Fantasy Shift, Theatre and All Over The Show.
Followed Here And Now live since I was 14.
Still the best live band going.
See also Blyth Power, Hawkwind, Ozrics, Subhumans/Culture Shock/Citizen Fish, The Mob, The Astronauts etc.....
Freak Power!
Now we are talking! Saw Blyth Power earlier this year (and just finished reading Joseph Porter's autobiography). Culture Shock are by a long way my favourite of Dick's bands, so glad that they are active again.
Thinking about the question again, every time I play Starving Children I am taken back to the first time I dipped my toe into the world of anarcho...something about that mid 80's sound that took the crispiness of Crass but added a bit of joy that I still love to this day. I am 2 releases from completing my Agit-Prop collection and play them all regularly (Thatcher on Acid the other day)
Excellent stuff!
A Little Touch Of Harry In The Night is available on CD and YouTube now. I chucked my totally worn out cassette version earlier this year, which was a wrench, but kept the booklet that came with it oh so many years ago.......the sticker disappeared somewhere though.
YouTube has some other gems too, a short documentary on Welwyn Garden City by Mark Astronaut and a new version of Another Day, Another Death by The Mob being personal highlights.
And yes to Culture Shock probably being Dick's best band. Still fantastic.....remember bumping into him years ago in Manchester at a Here And Now gig, he was sitting peacefully on the floor and denying who he was to a random stream of spotty young Punks who kept bothering him. Sorry Dick. 🙂
Still love Subhumans though, I'm having Word Factory as the last tune at my funeral. Appropriate somehow.....
Any idea where I can find the biography btw?
Ta!
The songs that probably date me and really remind me of going to ‘uni’ (except it was Plymouth Poly) are Kayleigh, She Sells Sanctuary and A Sort of Homecoming as they were played in rotation on the Union jukebox every day while we were hanging out between lectures. If I hear them I am transported back to 1985… which is an increasingly weird feeling.
I picked mine up from a gig, but they still have them on their website
http://blythpower.co.uk/merchandise/index.htm
Genesis to Revolutions - from growing up in Somerset to the end of Zounds (interspersed with future bits of Blyth Power memories). I was left wanting a sequel, he writes exactly how you would expect him to and I was reading it in his voice.
Thank you.
Probably New Values, its the earliest album I remember buying myself. Me and my schoolmate used to fancy this older woman in the upstairs record department in Rumbelows, so used to skulk about in there every chance we got. We got talking to Rose and she used to recommend stuff to us. I bought this on her advice and it got me into a whole world of music. This is that very copy (what a fab sleeve!)
Hard to imagine the lovely Rose from Rumbelows is now in her mid-late 60s!
Love TWP and George Best. Gedge makes my love life look nigh on successful in comparison.
Hell is for Heroes - The Neon Handshake was a cracking debut album. Obviously, The Stone Roses is up there. Electric Soft Parade - Holes in the Wall. Doves - Lost Souls. Soulwax - Much against everyone's advice. Portishead - Dummy. Teenage Fanclub - A Catholic education.
So many more.
