Wednesday, June 04, 2008

A Date With My Tape Deck


As some of you know, I'm a bit of a tape fan. Not so much that I couldn't bring myself to buy a new mp3, but they did play a big part in my adolescence and as such, they have a place i my heart. It all started with Simon & Garfunkel albums and old sixties compilation tapes from Tel-Star (Top sixties acts suspiciously absent, replaced by 2nd division beat boom chaff like Billy J Kramer, Manfred Mann, Gerry & The Pacemakers & the Hollies) on long car journey's. Embarrassingly enough, I could still sing you 'Me & Julio Down In The Schoolyard' or 'Tell Laura I Love Her' to this day.............


Anyway, I made it through my fathers best attempts to damage my love of melody and rhythm and by the time I was buying music, CD's had appeared. I could never afford them, so I bought vinyl and tape instead. Tape LP's were always the last resort though. Sure they were easy to carry about, but they never lasted, always warped or self destructed..................


They came into their own though on a personal stereo. I remember spending a fortnight in York with my family, permanently plugged into my Walkman and listening to Carter USM, Nirvana and U2 albums on an endless loop. Doubtless I wasn't mute the whole time, but it felt like it. There were two worlds open to me and at the time I knew which one I wanted to live in.


Zipping on a few years and the odd lesson in social interaction, the trusty tape saved me again. An hour it used to take me to get to College. Mazzy Star, Madder Rose and Morrissey (among many others) all eased the pain of the journey, if not the grim reality of an HNC Communications course......................


The final stand for the tape LP came in my kitchen years. This was my chance to impress or disgust people with my musical tastes. I think I just about managed an equal balance. Bliss at Bonhams was being left to prep salad with the Pixies, make soup for REM or wash dishes to the Flaming Lips. Later, at the Bank Restaurant the bigger kitchen meant everyone else's fuck awful musical tastes were discharged in my direction without mercy. There was no escaping the aural buggering that was the 2nd (3rd & 4th) Oasis album(s), or the incessant repeat plays of various 'hit singles' of the time (1999), all of which drove me to the edge of insanity. By this time CD players were making their way into such workplaces, though it was never advisable to bring a disc in. While tapes could easily be left in the deck for all eternity, anything in the CD player could at any moment be flung out and replaced by some verruca faced trainee chef's 'Bonkers' Happy hardcore CD while you were on a day off. By the time you came back in, the CD case would be in at least three separate segments in various parts of the kitchen, the inlay lying in the dry store, attractively decorated with tomato ketchup stains and the CD itself lying down the back of one of the chest freezers, covered in flour.


Anyway, I recently discovered some old tape albums I thought I'd lost. In no real order............


Metallica - Black Album - AC/DC - Let There Be Rock

Both bought on holiday in France many moons ago. The Metallica tape is great, but the AC/DC one is a true joy. I could be wrong, but for me it's Malcolm Young's synapse shredding riffs that make it stand out, though shouts for Angus Young and Bon Scott will be considered...........


Associates - Popera

This is what all pop music should have sounded like in the early eighties. That it didn't demostrates just how fucking wrong the rest of the world got it.


Belle & Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap

God how I tried to like this mob! Really, I gave it my best go, but could only conclude that they were pioneering some evil form of 'Easy Listening' for fey Glaswegian hipsters, and by dint of that, every other soggy arsed pseud in the country as well. Arch, twee and inheritors of Morrissey's box of old hearing aids.


Ok, that's the vitriol and jealousy out of the way, what of the music ,viewed in the cold, sober light of day...................Yeah, it's ok. The odd nice tune, the odd clever lyric, but you still want to hit them. Hard.


Ramones - Ramones

'Hey Ho, Let's Go!'


If you think I need to say any more than that, then I believe you may be missing the point..............


Morrissey - Vauxhall & I

Why is every new Morrissey album a disappointment? For me it's because he made his best solo record in 1994 and will never surpass it. There are great moments on many of his albums both before and after this one, there will probably continue to be great moments on any CD the mardy old fucker chooses to release between now and the end of the world, but none will get within sniffing distance of the sheer majesty and consistant loveliness of this record. So there!


REM - Automatic For The People

I'm a sucker for sad songs. This has probably got more tear jerkers than most country albums. With two exceptions (Ignoreland and The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight), it's all pretty much as maudlin as it gets, but in a sort of cosy, non-depressing way. You might be crying (if yr a big jessie), but you'll be smiling as well.




10 comments:

Billy said...

I've often wondered why a lot of Glaswegian music is so twee. I mean, based on my knowledge of the place, it doesn't seem that twee.

I always get Madder Rose and Mazzy Star mixed up. I think I like Mazzy better, but I could be misremembering.

Cocktails said...

Nice, nice post Ill Man. I feel instantly nostalgic (again!) for my tapes.

I agree with you on Vauxhall and I - definitely, definitely Morrissey's best. Absolutely nothing compares to since sadly. I haven't played Automatic for the People for a long time, I aways preferred Green and the earlier albums, but I really should have another listen.

I saw B&S play in Dunoon - lovely place! - I tried to like them but it didn't work for me. Strangely, I've just got into them recently and I actually like their last album.

And the Hollies are not second division! Bus Stop, Suzanne, Look through any Window, King Midas in Reverse = great!

iLL Man said...

Billy - I didn't get them mixed up as such, but I did sort of associate them together. I preferred Madder Rose..........

Not sure where the twee thing came from. Art students are a possible starting point. I think you get a free Jonathan Richman album when you enrol.............

Cocktails - I'm just glad to have written something at all. I'm running seriously low on inspiration this weather.

Dunoon? Lovely place? On what planet? I assume you had yr tongue in cheek on that one.......... =D If theres one place I never want to go back to, it's Dunoon.........Much prefer Rothesay.

Sorry about including the Hollies in that. What I was getting at was that the tapes my father bought never had any Kinks/Beatles/Rolling Stones/Small Faces/Who stuff on them. In fact, now I think about it, a lot of the stuff was less 2nd division and more 'Sunday League'. Real dregs from the old Tin Pan Alley days..........

Cocktails said...

I wasn't joking about Dunoon! I thought it was nice - great location (you can catch the car ferry!) and its got (or had) a mini golf course... What's not to like?

iLL Man said...

I spent a fair few miserable holidays there. Back then (mid to late eighties) the town was pretty tatty. On top of that, and no fault of the town itself, but the weather was usually rank. The town's main economy was the American naval base in the Holy Loch, though it had been a tourist destination back in the fifties and sixties. That said, according to wikipedia, since the naval base went, the place went through a bit of a doldrum period, but seems to be on the up again.

Maybe Alan Wicker will drop by one day.....

Cocktails said...

Ah, that would make sense - I only went there for a day and the weather wasn't that grim. A week in the drizzle could be a tad dull I must admit.

Clairwil said...

I spent the worst fortnight of my life in Dunoon. I was taken there on a school trip and it was awful.

1. I lived in constant fear of the ghost of Winston Churchill getting me in the night.

2. They made me wear their duffel coat that had a number painted on the back so they could should at you from a distance. NUMBER SIXTEEN LET GO OF NUMBER THIRTY NINE THIS INSTANT.

3. The food was disgusting and I fainted with hunger.

4. I was taken to an American base and forced to attend a roller disco.

5. A guard at the place we were staying called me the most stupid, ugly child she'd ever met and advised that she didn't blame my mother for hating me.

6. There was an outbreak of scabies.

7. We were made to sing the 'jeely piece' song. I made it very clear that my parents had worked hard to achieve lower middle class status but they still forced me to take part.

8. I battered a girl from Uddingston on the first day and spent the next two weeks getting battered by her friends.

9. One of my friends peed the bed after Winston Churchill haunted her in the night. They made her carry her sheets through the dining room in full view of the other children who mocked and hooted. Or in several cases thought there but for the grace of God.....

10. It is a disgusting miserable hellhole and I hate it.

iLL Man said...

The school had you in Dunoon for a fornight? Why? Sounds like child abuse to me.

Sounds like a decent description of hell to me........

Cocktails said...

That sounds absolutely horrific Clairwil.

Seems like I had a lucky escape. I won't risk going there again.

Clairwil said...

Cocktails,
You are wise beyond your years!