THIS IS A JOURNEY INTO SOUND

I love the changing of the seasons. Those points in the year when one season suddenly makes its appearance: the first frost that reminds you Winter is on its way, the first flowers budding as the earth wakes up for Spring, the moment when an Autumn chill makes itself felt on a late August evening. I could never live somewhere that had the same weather or temperatures year round. And my favourite season is Winter, due in no small part to the festive celebrations that lay at the core of it, but also for the dark clear starlit nights, the possibility of snow, the frosty air that really invigorates you in a morning. The moaners and naysayers can sod off.  Music soundtracks the seasons for me, much as it does life in general, and there are songs and albums that i can only really connect with at certain times of the year, that create a ambience suited to a particular season. Winter has a few perennial favourites for me: Mad Not Mad, the 6th and - at the time - final album made by my musi...

Last night i - along with my wife - ventured out to watch live music for the first time in nearly a year. Gigs have become less of a priority in recent years: work, money, and home comforts seem to have taken over, and going out until late when i have an early start the next morning is something i can no longer cope with! But with a couple of days off work booked, and a free pass to a local venue (the gig was sold out, but we have connections!) we headed out, and were not disappointed. The place was The Maze in Nottingham, a small sweaty venue in the back of The Forest Tavern pub. The headliner was blues rocker Barns Courtney (more of whom later), but first we were treated to the support act, Stephanie Cheape (the name of the band as well as the woman). A young, talented, flame-haired woman from Glasgow with a big voice and big, dramatic indie-pop songs to back it up - not to mention a great sounding band behind her -, she left an impression on the small crowd and certainly on me. Dark...

My posts and record buying have been few and far apart this last few months, dictated mainly by personal events and a lack of desire to write anything, although i haven't lost interest in music. I've still been listening out for new stuff, and have downloaded the odd new track onto my iPod, but spare time to go shopping and actually listen to my purchases has been sparse. There's always online shopping, but the odd bargain aside i'm not really a fan of it, but a recent discovery forced an Amazon purchase. Talking about my favourite music at work a week or so back a workmate piped up: "My Uncles' in a band you might like". Initially i imagined a pub covers band, but after being told the name i went Youtubing and was pleasantly surprised. A Mod band from Birmingham called The Deep Six, doing a nice line in soulful guitar-based pop with a definite Sixties feel. A touch of early Who in there i think! I soon found out that they were highly regarded on the Mod s...

It's been a few months since i've had the time or inclination to write anything on here, or had much interest in music beyond playing old stuff, due to personal issues. But a week in the sun on my honeymoon has relaxed and reinvigorated me, and several new bands have revived my passion for new music. There are a few albums and singles on my "must have" list, and i will be buying them over the next couple of months. But the band who have piqued my interest the most lately are London Punk trio False Heads. They've been around for a few years now, and released a few download-only singles in 2016, but i hadn't heard of them until 6music added the lead track from their Gutter Press EP to their playlist, "Twentynothing". A rampaging blast of angry vocals and fuzz-toned guitar hooks, it made my ears prick up instantly. Downloading the EP from iTunes, i wasn't disappointed by the other 4 tracks, "Thick Skin", "Slew", "Weigh In...

Songs attach themselves to our lives for a number of reasons: linked to memories of people and places, names and faces, loves won and lost, the birth of a child or the passing of a loved one, but one word can sum it all up - sentimentality. It's a oft-derided term, usually given cheesy or mawkish connotations, seen as somehow "naff" and reserved for soppy ballads and love songs. But it is why that song you kissed your first love to, why the lyrics of a particular tune remind you of happy or sad memories.It's certianly why Our Tune was so popular on Radio 1 for so many years! I say all this because i got married recently, and over the course of the five and a half years i've been with my wife we've acquired a few personal songs that will forever be "ours". Needless to say, we had them played at our wedding reception, so without further ado.....

A short post to highlight some of my sources that aid my memory in writing this blog. Although i consider myself to have a pretty good recollection of when and where i heard certain songs and artists, i'm not infallible, and whilst i remember most of the music i've loved and bought over the years there is just SO MUCH of it that some inevitably falls through the cracks! And whilst i am still a voracious reader of music magazines, websites and blogs, they will only help jog my memory so far. When it comes to writing my year by year posts, two websites have been an excellent help: one being the Official UK Charts website, and the other being James Masterton's Chart Watch. JM has been writing the latter since 1992 and his often witty observations about each weeks singles chart action have been a great help. https://chart-watch.uk

Time often does funny things to your memory, and ones memories of youth are usually viewed through rose-tinted glasses: the summers were long and hot, sex was plentiful, and the party never stopped. Bollocks - this is the UK where hot days are often outweighed by rainy ones, getting laid is easy if you have the looks and confidence, and if you want to party then you have to work (usually in a dead end job) in order to afford it. Not such a rosy picture after all! Don't get me wrong: i'm not trying to be a killjoy. My own youth had its highlights but also some lows, and typically it's music that brings back memories of both. I was a shy, nervous and naive teenager, and at the age of 18 i somehow found myself living and working miles away from the - to my youthful mind - shithole town i had grown up in, and i couldn't have been happier. I had been working on a YTS scheme in a £1 shop for about a year, when my "skills" in organising the store room were requested ...