Musical Journey

All music posts here please.
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karatestu
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Musical Journey

Unread post by karatestu »

I want to hear about your musical journey as far back as you can remember. It's good to listen and not talk about your own experiences all the time.

I first vivid memory i have of music is the late 70's when i was a weelad of six or seven years. I have three older sisters and they always had Top of the pops on. Showoddywaddy, The Bay City Rollers, Jacksons, Slade etc etc. It was just music to me. Being from a farming family then Combine Harvester by the Wurzels got played a lot.

My eldest sister who is nine years older than me was really in to Disco. She used to put her crappy stereo on full blast whilst she was in the bath. It was distroting like nothing you ever heard. I liked the music though. My mum was listening a lot to Abba (love them), The Carpenters, Cliff, Barbara Sreisand, and quite a bit of classical which i was never bothered about much (still aren't). She progressed on to soft rock like Pat Benatar, Meat Loaf and Whitsnake ( of all things).

My dad didn't listen much to music. I remember helping on the farm in my early teens and driving the tractors. In those days they only had cassette decks and the only cassette that was ever in there was Glenn Campbell. I did actually play it a fair bit in between listening to Radio 1.

First album i bought was The Police Zenyetta Mondatta. I think that is the reason i love it so much now. I remember all my sisters wanting to borrow it and it finally got returned with blobs of nail polish on it :angry-fire: . I liked Adam and the Ants and finally got to see him perform last year at a 80's festival. When i got to about 16 i discovered Def Leppard, Bon Jovi and then the moment happened that changed my musical life. I heard Aeromith Love in an elevator and bought the Album Pump. Played it to death. I didn't know anything about their history until my sister bought my a VHS of some of their live performances from the 70's. Loved it. Bought all the albums and then discovered Led Zeppelin. That was the band that opened the gateway to everything else i have discovered.

Certain bands i have been in over the last 30 years widened my horizons as i started playing different styles. An acid jazz band got me into jazz, funk, fusion. A country rock band gave me an appreciation of country music. Still it all leads back to Led Zep. I find myself plundering music from years ago mostly as i find very few modern releases of any musical merit, apart from Jazz. Jazz is the big thing in my life at the moment. But i find myself going back to the things my mother used to play. Time to get Bat out of hell out :dance:

Over to you.
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Re: Musical Journey

Unread post by Latteman »

I grew up in a council estate in Northern Ireland where getto blaster ruled- this is where I first heard AC/DC- back in Black album I think: Saw my first punk rocker in the bus station in Portrush as my mum hurried me along. I too had older sisters & remember Jackie, Bunty and what I now know was a Dansette- Bay city rollers and David Cassidy were the norm- mum & dad didn’t play music- dad had a radio for the horses.
I got a small tape player and my sister gave me a Neil Diamond cassette which I still have a version of this day. I moved onto back in black, Flick of the switch and first heard Bohemian Rhapsody or should I say saw it on the TV -black and white naturally. Went to see the Flash Gordon movie with friends my first ever cinema adventure without parents - ah ha
I’ve always had some form of music player but my first real system started after a summer job in my first year at physio school - a year of firsts- first proper girlfriend, motorbike & an Awia midi system. Quickly picked up the mags & progressed to a dual turntable then got into Rotel and musical Fidelity amps; A Thorens turntable arrived -then Royd Mistrels - living the dream! - still got them sort of: and my music progressed with the 80s and 90s and I started the concert / gig scene.
it’s only recently I would class myself as eclectic taste and that is thanks to Doc- Introducing me to Nva & Radio Paradise
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karatestu
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Re: Musical Journey

Unread post by karatestu »

Oh yes, Neil Diamond. My mum played Jazz singer a fair bit. We had a very long music centre with speakers at the ends. We hosted a village auction on the farm where people brought stuff to sell that they no longer wanted. I remember that music centre got one bid and sold for £2. I wish i could see it again.

So the horses enjoyed about of radio then Peter :grin:
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Re: Musical Journey

Unread post by Fretless »

It all and always starts with The Beatles.

As a small child on the Wirral, Liverpool was this huge, mystic city on the other side of the Mersey. An uncle would regularly come and stay with us hoping to bump into John or Paul. The radio was a stream of joy: Hollies, Manfred Mann, Motown, Dusty. Lulu, Cliff ....

In school our music teacher would sometimes just sit us down and put an LP on while he smoked his pipe: Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, Vivaldi, Holst, Vaughan-Williams and Elgar - lots of Elgar.

Secondary school and the older lads were into the greats of 70's rock: Led Zep, Purple, Floyd. I discovered Genesis, Supertramp, Oldfield and stranger things like Can, National Health, Stackridge. What were those weird sounds? Synthesizers? What the **** are synthesizers? I loved them and bought every LP I could find with synths on it: Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze. Got hooked on EM at an early stage.

But I am also from the punk generation - that was OUR music with The Damned, Pistols, Buzzcocks, Jam, Go4 and the New Wave came quickly -B52's, Teardrop Explodes, Echo & the Bunnymen, Siouxsie, Penetration, OMD, Ultravox, Numan. The music was NEW, the music was EXCITING the music was REAL.

Got a job and had money to start on the Hifi road. Sound Quality became an important factor and I discovered Jazz. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis 'Tutu', ECM, Windham Hill, Soft Machine. The LP collection expanded rapidly with Judie Tzuke, REM, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, VDGG. I read the 'Sounds' every week and cut out the LP reviews that intrigued me - bands like The Durutti Column, Punishment of Luxury, Joy Division, New Order, Cocteau Twins, Smiths, Dead Can Dance, Comsat Angels, Chameleons.

CD's arrived and I was the first of my friends to have a CD player. Huge, heavyweight Trio unit. Due to 'circumstances' I had to move to a tiny flat and the TT & LP's went into storage in my Gran's garage and I just took the CDP and my small (but growing) selection of CD's. Then the career move abroad meant that I simply gave most of my LP's away to a good friend who had a secondhand record shop in Huddersfield. He was happy. Starting afresh in Holland, LP's were already going out of fashion (early 90's) and the CD was the in-thing. My new job was with PolyGram records and that meant access to a vast catalogue of virtually free music. Pity is that I didn't work there for all that long, Ah, well ...

90's bands - Radiohead, Faithless, Massive Attack, Orb, Underworld.

As a result of all this my tastes are wide and eclectic. Neil Young, ABBA, Heart, Brian Eno, Marillion, Pat Metheny, Saga, the list is huge and I love it all. There is just too much good music from too many brilliant artists and I hope I live long enough to hear as much of it as I can.

:violin: :banana-guitar: :character-beavisbutthead: :music-headbanger: :music-listening: :music-rockout: :music-listen: :banana-dreads:

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karatestu
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Re: Musical Journey

Unread post by karatestu »

Excellent story Fret, thanks.

We have had to miss huge amounts of detail out or the posts would be of epic proportions.

It really was the different bands that i joined that widened my musical tastes. Whilst at Uni in Sheffield (what a dump) i joined a psychedelic rock band with the other members being locals. I wonder what they are doing now. They were all older than me and got me in to all sorts of stuff i had never heard. The was a lot of drugs taken in that band. I first heard Gong through them. Wow, that music just blew me away. They also introduced me to Hawkwind, Ozrics, Captain Beefheart and many others.

Looking back the music i played had a lot to do with which drug was being consumed. Acid led to interesting discoveries like Can (Future days etc) TD etc on vinyl. Blew my mind as did early Floyd.

I remember being at work and radio 1 was on. First time i heard Nirvana Teen Spirit when it had only just been released sticks in my mind to this day.
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Re: Musical Journey

Unread post by Fretless »

I applied for Sheffield Uni because there were so many great bands there: Cabaret Voltaire, Human League (original lineup).

Strangely enough I can also remember the first time I heard 'Video Killed the Radio Star' by The Buggles.
"That's going to be a number one." I said.
I was right. :grin:

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Re: Musical Journey

Unread post by Fretless »

... and I forgot to say what a huge influence John Peel was in the late 70's and early 80's.

Image

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Re: Musical Journey

Unread post by SteveTheShadow »

First piece of music I remember is The Ying Tong Song, by The Goons. My dad was a big Goons fan and also had lots of other comedy 78s including Stan Freberg’s Yellow Rose Of Texas and Banana Boat Song. There was also Spike Jones And The City Slickers I Went To Your Wedding, which verged on complete lunacy, with the echo drenched maniacal laughter at the end. So daft records seeped into my consciousness at a very early age.

He was also a big fan of British big band leaders such as Ted Heath, Johnny Dankworth, Wally Stott and Jack Parnell. He was too old for rock ‘n roll, but did have one or two 78s by Bill Haley, The Four Aces, and a bit of boppy jazz, courtesy of Earl Bostic and a sprinkling of British trad from Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, Chris Barber, George Chisholm and Humph. So my formative musical years were definitely of a jazz and big band persuasion.

It was in the early 60s, when my parents started being able to go out and leave my sister and me with a pair of teenage babysitters from across the road - Christine and Ray. Now this pair were Mods, and used to bring their 7in singles with them, to play on our KB valve radiogram. It was through them that I got introduced to The Kinks, The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, The Action, Manfred Mann, James Brown and Motown. My own love of 60s pop music and soul was kindled by them and has never left me.

The teenage years started in the 70s with T-Rex, Slade, The Sweet, Mud, Alice Cooper, David Bowie and moved to Deep Purple, Zep, then Yes, Rick Wakeman, Greenslade, Can, Tangerine Dream, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Yuici Sakamoto.

Then suddenly all that was ditched and I was to be found with my head back in the 60s, baggy trousered, cherry brogued and Fred Perry shirted, throwing myself around the dancefloors at Wigan Casino, Manchester Ritz, Sheffield Samantha’s and the KGB Northern Soul all nighters. Later I moved onto the slicker productions of Philly soul. Then as the eighties dawned, it was the Brit Funk of Shakatak and early Level 42, plus generous helpings of Hi-Tension, Linx, Dick Morrissey, Freez, Working Week, Swing Out Sister, and American stuff from Chic, Shalamar, Maze, The Whispers and the rest of the SOLAR records stable - Marvellous!

As a result of all these influences I have a pretty wide ranging taste in music, from European Electro Lounge, jazz, rock, prog and soul, all the way to to Beethoven and Bach.
Last edited by SteveTheShadow on Sat Feb 15, 2020 3:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Musical Journey

Unread post by karatestu »

You sound well cool Steve. I hope Ant appreciates what a cool dad he has got.
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Re: Musical Journey

Unread post by TheMadMick »

I started off with a transistor radio - do you remember the ones about twice the size of a pack of 20 fags. That got superseded by a valve radio that has lost its plastic casing and I got a buzz off it every so often. I usually listened to Radio Caroline. My mum and dad bought a Dansette and my first vinyl purchase was Telstar (don't even remember who recorded it).

Eventually I worked one summer for Findus and gathered enough pennies to buy a Garrard SP25 Mk2, a Teleton SAQ25 and a pair of Wharfdale Unit 3's. I made my own cabs and it was a real step up from the Dansette although soldering was not a strength and DIN plugs were really fiddly. I would buy all sorts including Holst's the Planet's suite. I had that for many years and bought a lot of Missisippi John Hurt, Doc Watson, Stefan Grossman and Pentangle. I was heavily into guitar at the time - acoustic folk mainly.

It was HiFi Answers that drove me to a Rega Planar 2, A&R Cambridge A30 and Harbeth HL1's. It was really loose in the bass but a load of fun. It was then I started to buy classics like Joan Armatrading, Simply Red, The Eagles, Supertramp and Fleetwood Mac.

However, I got the upgrade bug and bought a Townshend Rock with an RB300 arm and ATF3. It beat an LP12 into the dirt. I had it until about a year ago and I sold it as I wasn't playing Vinyl. There then followed a series of Musical Fidelity amps and I loved each of them. They were variously paired with the Harbeths, ProAc Tablettes and D28's, MF MC2's and finally my Monitor Audio PL200's. I've just sold my NuVista 3D as, like the Rock, I wasn't listening to CD any more as my old fingers were going through a bad patch and I couldn't get the CDs out of some of the cases. I now rip CD to FLAC on my Blusound Vault. It's really rather good if different to the NuVista.

I'm now downsizing as my next move may be to a smaller house and I need less stuff. I've ordered a pair of A80's (big tax rebate) and an upgraded P50.

My musical tastes are now so wide that it would take about the same again to try and cover all of it. My latest discovery is Gypsy Jazz. Fast and tuneful guitar (unlike some jazz) as well as Kinga Gluck recommended on this site.

My main experience of NVA to date has been cables, BMU and an A20 bought second hand. Happy days.
Blusound Vault 2, P50SA, A80's, BMU, TIS, LS7, MA PL200, Meridian 506 (18 bit).

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