THIS IS A JOURNEY INTO SOUND

I've written before about my recent return to collecting Vinyl, and my collection continues to grow sporadically, through the occasional trip to second hand record shops in Notts, and the occasional find in local charity shops. I haven't purchased much in the way of new vinyl, mainly due to the prices (there will be a shopping spree in the run up to Christmas though!) so used it is. A couple of weeks ago i was given a box of used 7" singles by a mate, by way of a peace offering, and although a good half of it was knackered through poor storage and water damage (my mate got it off ebay i think), there were still plenty of gems hidden in amongst the rest. 3 Stranglers singles, a couple of Visage, and quite a few 80's pop gems from my early teens. This picture doesn't include them all, just a small selection. There were two older 7"s in there that sparked a nostalgic feeling, namely one that reminded me of a childhood spent listening to my parents' re

Although i'd seen Madness live four or five times by the mid-90's, i hadn't been to any other gigs, despite the proximity of Nottinghams' Rock City venue, regularly voted one of the best on the gig circuit. This was partly down to lack of friends or aquaintences to go with, and i didn't really have the confidence to go on my own. On December 17th 1996, that was to change, as my best pal John and i were quite into quirky Scouse pop band Space. We'd both got their debut album, Spiders, and seen them (miming) when Radio 1 brought their roadshow to Nottingham earlier that summer, when their single "Female Of The Species" was on its way into the Top 20. So when they came to town we decided we had to see them. Although this was nearly 20 years ago, i still remember stepping into the main room at Rock City, and being surprised how small it seemed, and how sticky the floor was. I'd only been to arenas and outdoor gigs before, so the atmosphere was di

1997, and i was stuck in a pretty boring warehouse job, my only distraction being Radio 1 playing, much to the annoyance of some colleagues who wanted commercial radio on because it "played nice music". R1 at the time had a very indie-biased playlist, playing new and interesting music, and dj's like Mark & Lard (who occupied the breakfast show for a time, to my delight but not that of many others), with their quirky humour kept me entertained. They would also influence me on my second broadcast month on the local RSL station W.H.A.M, although this didn't quite work out as i'd hoped. My weekly wages went on nights out in the local pubs and clubs, and my music obsession. I bought more singles and albums that year than any since i started my collection, and my tastes reflected the changing face of the charts: Britpop was on the wane, with most of its biggest bands either changing their style, splitting up, or going to ground. The bands who survive the fallout wou

When i first started buying records, music was undergoing a revolution. Electronic dance music known as House had crossed the Atlantic in the mid-80's and slowly built an underground following, before infiltrating the charts in the form of hits like Steve "Silk" Hurleys' number one "Jack Your Body", M/A/R/R/S "Pump Up The Volume" and Lil' Louis' "French Kiss". Illegal raves were held in fields and abandoned warehouses up and down the country where young people would take ecstacy and dance all night in a frenzy of glowsticks, psychedelic colours, and the squelching beats of the Roland TB-303 synthesiser-sequencer. Outside the watch of the mainstream music industry, dozens of acts released 12" singles of music that most of them had recorded in their bedrooms, and the phenomenon known as Acid House took hold. The second summer of love was under way. As someone barely into his teens, illegal all-night raving was way out of my

If you're a fan - no, a lover - of Jamaican music in all its different guises, then the news on September the 8th 2016 that one of the most important figures in the birth of Ska had passed away would have stopped you in your tracks. I'm talking of course about Prince Buster. The man born Cecil Bustamente Campbell started out working on the soundsystems that were the dominant entertainment in Jamaica from the late 50's onwards, as a bouncer, ticket collector and more importantly, someone who could find new tunes for his boss, the legendary Clement Coxsone Dodd, to play and get one over on his rivals. Eventually he started his own soundsystem, The Voice Of The People, but decided to record his own music after he was unable to gain entry to the U.S - the music played in those early days was R&B, Jazz, Soul, as homegrown music was not taken seriously - and became one of the key figures in the creation of Ska, recording with Rastafari drummers on The Folkes Brothers "Oh

After being made redundant from first job at 17, i collected my final wages and headed into Nottingham. At the time, i didn't have many albums in my collection, and what few i did have were Greatest Hits and Best Of's, and i was determined to find some more music by the 2-Tone bands i'd been getting into. I was already a huge Madness fan, and had heard The Specials, but very little by any of the other acts associated with them. A lot of those old albums weren't as available as they are now, so it was a joy to find the debut album by The Beat - or The English Beat, as they were titled on the cd, as it was an American import - alongside their 1983 compliation, What Is Beat? (an U.S import also). The only songs i had heard were their first single, "Tears Of A Clown" - a cover of the old Smokey & The Miracles Motown classic - along with its flipside "Ranking Full Stop", and their signature song "Mirror In The Bathroom". Listening t

1996, and the Britpop movement that had started a couple of years before and peaked in the summer of 1995 had become the mainstream. Oasis were now the biggest band in the country, and were starting to have success in the USA. Blur seemed to have reached a creative dead end, tipping over into a parody of themselves. Pulp, Supergrass, Echobelly: all having released storming albums the year before, would disappear for a year or two. The Boo Radleys, despising the Britpop tag they'd been given, would go back to their more uncommercial but creative style, releasing C'Mon Kids!, an album of loud garage rock, psychedelic experiments, and distortion. It was quite a shock the first time i heard it: lead singer Sice shredding his vocal cords on the lead single "What's In The Box?" and the title track which somehow made its way into the Top 20. The band hoped to take their new fans along with them: they opted to follow workmanlike indie bands like Cast and Ocean Colour Scen