@n80 ,
Talking of memories, it's a sobering thought that I will probably never again attain the sheer listening pleasure that I got back in the late 1970s. The sheer excitement of playing those LPs the first dozen or so times! The Beatles Blue album (wow!), Pepper, Revolver, the White Album, Abbey Road, Blonde on Blonde, Highway 61 Revisited, the Doors, the Velvet Underground and Nico, Forever Changes, Astral Weeks, the Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, Electric Ladyland, Closer, Unknown Pleasures, Get Happy!! etc.
Between 1978 and 1980, the Sex Pistols were as important as food to me. It's funny how the breakup of that band/death of Sid /followed by Ian Curtis' suicide/ Lennon's murder, all gradually combined over the next decade and a half to dim that initial red hot intensity of passion. Looking back I can now appreciate why some had said that the death of Buddy Holly was the day the music died. For them it had.
Back then the Sunday chart show on Radio 1 (and the Top of the Pops BBC TV show) were both a staple part of our weekly routine. The current music scene was an important and relevant part in keeping our lives together then. Some of us needed to go back further into it's wonderful history. First towards childhood memories and then beyond even those, all the long and winding road back to Louis Armstrong.
To now think that most of my 'formative' listening was done through a music centre (record player / cassette /radio combo) feeding bookshelf speakers.
Strangely enough as I was to discover later, no amount of upgrading would ever get that initial magic back again. Perhaps there is no way back, perhaps you can only go back in dreams. Perhaps in real life you can only go forwards.
Talking of memories, it's a sobering thought that I will probably never again attain the sheer listening pleasure that I got back in the late 1970s. The sheer excitement of playing those LPs the first dozen or so times! The Beatles Blue album (wow!), Pepper, Revolver, the White Album, Abbey Road, Blonde on Blonde, Highway 61 Revisited, the Doors, the Velvet Underground and Nico, Forever Changes, Astral Weeks, the Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, Electric Ladyland, Closer, Unknown Pleasures, Get Happy!! etc.
Between 1978 and 1980, the Sex Pistols were as important as food to me. It's funny how the breakup of that band/death of Sid /followed by Ian Curtis' suicide/ Lennon's murder, all gradually combined over the next decade and a half to dim that initial red hot intensity of passion. Looking back I can now appreciate why some had said that the death of Buddy Holly was the day the music died. For them it had.
Back then the Sunday chart show on Radio 1 (and the Top of the Pops BBC TV show) were both a staple part of our weekly routine. The current music scene was an important and relevant part in keeping our lives together then. Some of us needed to go back further into it's wonderful history. First towards childhood memories and then beyond even those, all the long and winding road back to Louis Armstrong.
To now think that most of my 'formative' listening was done through a music centre (record player / cassette /radio combo) feeding bookshelf speakers.
Strangely enough as I was to discover later, no amount of upgrading would ever get that initial magic back again. Perhaps there is no way back, perhaps you can only go back in dreams. Perhaps in real life you can only go forwards.