DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME?

January 1989. 12 years old. My first pocket money. Only a couple of quid a week, but enough to go to the local record shop and buy a 7" single. At this point, i'd had records for birthdays and Christmas, and my collection consisted of three Various Artists compilations (HITS Album 7, NOW 12 & 13), and the breakthrough album by electro-poppers Erasure, The Innocents, which was constantly on my brand new stereo that i'd been given for Christmas '88 - i can't remember the make, a Matsui i think -, and a couple of singles. So to finally go out and buy a record myself was a big deal for me. I remember walking into the local record shop, Frank Sissons. Sissons was a local independent store that primarily sold electronic goods - tvs', stereos, radios - but like many similar shops had realised there was money to be made in selling records. They had a flip-through display of cassette albums, a few racks of vinyl, and on the wall, that weeks Top 75 singles and album charts. All the singles and the vinyl for the albums were kept in the back. My mate and i stood looking at the singles charts for ages. I had several current favourites, and picking out just one was proving difficult! After much deliberation, i finally handed over my pocket money: the single was "Wait!", by Robert Howard & Kym Mazelle, a blend of house rhythms and blue-eyed soul. I'd seen them on Top Of The Pops the Thursday before, and recognised Howard as the singer from The Blow Monkeys, a soul-pop band who'd had a top 5 hit a couple of years back with "It Doesn't Have To Be That Way". It's a song i still have a certain affection for: i remember carrying it home in the paper bag with the shops' logo on the front, that smell of vinyl and dusty shelves, the sleeve. We went back to my mates house, where we played both our purchases over and over, b-sides as well (he picked "Wild Thing/Loc'ed After Dark", by American Hip Hop artist Tone Loc, a song that hadn't actually entered the Top 40 at the time). I was a regular visitor to that shop for many years after, until it sadly closed. Many local people have fond memories of the place, and it's probably where most of them bought their first records.