120. Where Do I Begin by Chemical Brothers 1997

1997. Lizard lounge was really happening and I was DJing every Friday and Saturday from 9pm til 3am. I more often than not would pop down on a Thursday night for a drink. I didn't have to get to work in the morning because I had my own company by now. Nevermind Promotions and also Swerve Records both being really one man operations. So a lot of drinking and getting up really late. Often I'd get home about 4 am in the morning and then play FIFA soccer for a few hours. All well and good but I could never get an anchor on it all. It didn't really do my first marriage much good either. Where do I start and where do I begin indeed.
I would spend quite a bit of time riding along the St. Kilda foreshore listening to my Walkman more often than not with the Chemical Brothers blasting away as peddled into the wind. When the wind was behind me I drifted along to this song. I have this image of this song playing while the seagulls hovered above me. Listening to headphones was like having your own soundtrack. It's not often I get a chance at the beach to listen to music now with 3 kids. Oh well!
Chemical brothers were big at the Lizard but if I got the chance I would play this early on while people were just arriving. It's even better in wide screen through massive speakers.

119. Pretty in Pink by The Psychedelic Furs 1981

1981. I was doing the Mod thing and listening to a lot of sixties stuff and soul and Stax but I always kept my ears out for other stuff. With the album Talk talk Talk I kinda got into the Furs for a short while. Seduced by Pretty In Pink and it's wall of sound and Bowie leanings I found myself on the singles lookout once again for more of their stuff. Unfortunately some of their other stuff was a tad boring so they never got too close to my musical heart.
But at the time I listened endlessly to the lyrics in my small flat in Fitzroy North. some of them were so off the wall but at the same time made perfect sense.
But 1981 was a particularly hot summer and on Thursday nights we'd go to the Underground night club where with a bit of persuasion the DJ would play the Furs and we'd dance around in what was by all intents and purposes a cage. We were getting a little bit mad and crazy. Smashing glasses for fun was obnoxious behaviour but one of our group liked to do it. When he kicked a hole in my car that was going a bit far. Still we were dressing up and wearing eyeliner and the world was ours and the Psychedelic Furs provided a good soundtrack. I had a new girlfriend and the band was taking off as we prepared to tour Sydney and parts of northern Victoria (or was it southern NSW). Good times.

118. Sexuality by Billy Bragg 1991

This song came out when I was in London in 1991. I remember billy being on one of those breakfast shows live at Covent Garden talking about his new single "Sexuality". I missed the performance but I thought it was a crap title and didn't promise anything. A big Billy Bragg fan I wondered why it was releasing this kind of nonsense. After I few listens it grew on me pretty quick. Then I went to an indie club downstairs in a pub in East London. Actually the guy at the door thought I might be a bit old for this alternative stuff. I told him I ran and DJed at one of these clubs. The UK can be so ageist. The club didn't open until 10 so Miriam and I drank in the bar until around 10ish everyone started heading towards this door to the side. 5 quid and we're in. Down a narrow stairway to god knows what the club was called. But I;m a sucker for underground venues.

Anyway down in the pit I drank and danced to the usual suspects and then this song came on. Amongst the  gloomy Gothic sounds of My Bloody Valentine this was a blast of sunshine. Johnny Marr's guitar ringing like a bell.
I picked up the 12 inch and the 7 inch in Tower records in Piccadilly Circus and Sexuality was a big song at the Lizard lounge.

117. Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade 197

Christmas day. My favourite Christmas song though sometimes my loyalty leans towards the Pogues "Fairytale of New York". This brings back a strange New Years Eve party I ended up at in 1974. It was somebody I can't remember but I got on well with him because he came from the North of England too. The party was a few young people and a bunch of oldies which was a crap mixture. however the magic thing about the party was that it was the most English party I'd ever been to. This song was playing and it hadn't been released in Australia yet. (we missed out on most Xmas songs because of timing). Pork pies, Guinness beer, grannies with fags, dancing to Gary Glitter. It was a real Lancashire knees up. For a party that looked horrible from entrance by the end I was having a real laugh. It was like a house in Blackpool had been beamed over to Box Hill North just for one night. Even the vinyl singles had massive holes in them for the spindles.
Anyway now Merry Xmas is the opening song on all mix Xmas CDs I make.

116. American Girl by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers 1977

1977 and it's year zero for punk rock (well in Blackburn south anyway) so I start chucking out some of the crap from the last few years because all i want to hear is the new stuff like The Clash and The Jam or old stuff like Iggy or The New York Dolls.
Then I'm driving in my Datsun Bluebird which cost me 400 bucks from a car yard in Springvale Road and would eventually sell for 20 bucks. (when I sold it a piece of chewing gum was keeping the carburettor working). Driving to my girlfriend's place in North Balwyn when the radio starts blasting out that guitar. like ringing a bell just as Chuck Berry said. American Girl. Then the bass in time with the drums and then...oooooh! here come the vocals. Brilliant. The vocals end and then it keeps going. Woah ho! And then driving the car is so much better. I've been putting this song on my car mix tapes for over 30 years and it never gets boring.
But he wasn't punk. He sounded like a power pop version of The Byrds. Here I was torn between punk and this great new sound from the USA. Long hair and flares indeed. Then The Fiction played a gig at the Crystal Ballroom (then Wintergarden Room) with Two Way Garden. And they did a version of Breakdown by Tom Petty. Year Zero hadn't lasted too long in my house. But with songs like these I was creating my musical identity.
I had held back, but that week I invested in the album.

115. Don't Fear The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult 1976

Definitely a one hit wonder. I bought the album just to get to this song and the rest of their stuff is just rubbish. I was alerted to this song by my mate and original Subway band member Chris Hunter ( not to be confused with Chris Hunter who joined Little Murders). When he played me the song I was totally gobsmacked. Of course he went on about the suicide imagery and the baroque references but I was really just digging the the way the song just moves along with that repeated riff. The single left out the guitar solo which made it even better. It also had great harmonies. It was a big influence on the way I write music and I've used it's characteristics a number of times. Just rolling patterns.
There was a great version of the song in "The Executioner's Song" the story of Gary Gilmore. I've tried to get it for so long I'm now not even sure it exists. I'll have to rent the movie.
Chris joined Subway when I decided to go punk (which sounds a bit a shallow) It didn't matter that he was still learning guitar, so was I. The 3 of us Vic, Chris and I played one gig where the bass player didn't turn up. We cleared the room. Later when Rob Wellington joined the band and we became The Fiction and  had to let him go. We had our first major punk gig playing the Pulp benefit. Rob could carry the guitar parts by himself. We decided to streamline the band. We were kids though and didn't actually tell Chris he was out. He drove past the rehearsal rooms on the first night and heard us playing.  I felt bad about that for a long time.

114. Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads 1980

One night after Kommotion had closed a bunch of us decided to keep the party going all night. It was hot and we'd had a few drinks. So there were six of us packed into a Mazda 323 I think it was called. We're in Richmond but one of the girls had to pick up some stuff from home before we kept going. So there were a group of happy campers burning down the Princess Highway to Noble Park. Which was miles away! Of course I made the long drive because I fancied a girl. But the tyranny of distance killed any romantic notions. I couldn't foresee myself driving all that way for a date because it would most likely incur the trip times 4. Anyway not a big Talking Heads fan at the time but I think it was the only record she had. I loved Once in A Lifetime though.
I got to like them a lot more later on and they released a killer greatest hits album.

A few years later and a mate of mine was DJing at Therapy in North Melbourne. I helped him put together a killer set list and included this song. It was great dancing to it. Therapy had a raised dancefloor. It was just so eighties. I used to go there a lot but only got thrown out once. Later on we took over the place and opened Kaos there but it wasn't very successful. About the only good thing to come of it was a Smiths special where I managed to score a set of the CDs

113. Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles 1979

 

Christmas 1980  I was staying at my brother's house in Lytham St. Annes just outside of Blackpool. There was lot of pop songs playing in the house. the British are very tuned in to the hit parade. Earlier in 70s I remember staying at my Auntie Sheila's and every Sunday night the whole family would sit around the radio listening to the weekly chart.
Anyway this was a song that takes me back to that Christmas spent at David and Brenda's house with my nieces Sharon and Sarah. Just kids then but grown up now Sarah told me this year that this song always reminds her of that time too. It was a lovely time with snow outside and plenty of Xmas celebrations. Relatives popping in for a drink. meeting a bunch of fellow students from Burwood Teachers College who crashed at David's.
Leonie and I hired a car to drive to Edinburgh. Brenda had one of the new electric stove tops with a glass top. One of us forgot to turn it off when we left in the morning. Yikes!
Later this song became a regular on the set list at Barbarella's Beehive and The Lizard Lounge. A very Eighties song that managed to keep it's own special coolness. Maybe because it's a bloody good song.

112. Crosstown Traffic by Jimi Hendrix 1968

I missed the Hendrix phenomenon in the late sixties being too busy with The Monkees and The Beatles. And as a Bowiephile in the 70's I never understood why Ziggy Stardust was based a little on Hendrix. By the time punk came along I was totally removed from knowing anything about his music.
however around 1981 I was at a party in Carlton, slightly drunk and not altogether when someone put this on the stereo. I was in one of those long hallways that Carlton homes seem to have supping a can of beer when it hit me. Bang! I didn't know he was so good. I was gobsmacked. What a sound. I couldn't get over it and started chasing down his albums.

Admittedly it was his run of hit singles that I really got into. Later there was a show on the ABC about Vietnam and the war. One night I was waiting to go out with my bass player Chris Hunter to see someone quite big at the Prospect Hotel. After the show I had a few drinks and put on Hendrix really loud.  sometimes you can have a really great time playing loud music and waiting for the night to begin. When Chris got there we set off. By the end of the road we realised I wouldn't be driving that night.

111. The Kids Are Alright by The Who 1966

Tonight I ran into Paul Stewart from The Painters and Dockers. It was good to catch up and he mentioned how he remembered how Little Murders used to do a great version of this song. I remember the first time we played the song. It was at the Jump Club in Collingwood. The Murders were a Jump Club regular. We played there a couple of times a month there either headlining or supporting bigger bands. The first night we played this song was the first night of the Mod Easter Invasion of 81. The place was packed with Mods. It went off and initiated a flurry of stage dives. It was the beginning of a legendary weekend.

At the time of the Mod revival of the early 80's The Who brought out a film "The Kids Are Alright" which was there history on film. It was always teamed up as a double with Quadrophenia. We went to a number of screenings as a mob. I even managed to get a button. It's pinned to my coat on the back of the Dance Set single. That picture was taken in the Jump Club band room. The photograph on the rear of She Lets me Know was taken out the front of The Jump Club too. the Jump Club was a big part of my life back then.

110. Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie 1981

In 1986 I decided to take a trip back to England for Christmas. The weather was cold and when I got to London after spending some time in Blackpool the snow really began to come down. The tube was closed down at one stage so staying just off Piccadilly Circus I often walked through deserted streets. I spent New Years Eve at Trafalgar Square and got a few drunken kisses but it was starting to get a it lonely. A couple of days later I was off to Paris intending to train around Europe eventually meeting a friend in Italy. But the Ferry was closed and Italy was iced in. I managed to get to Paris the next day to find a state of emergency with the railway workers on strike. I was stuck in this horrible hotel next to the Gare Du Norde with French TV and misery descending like a black cloud. It was horrible. The trains were coming back on by the third day but it was too late. I packed my bags walked over to the train station and sat on the platform until I could get back to England. And as soon as I got to Victoria and jumped on a train to Blackpool. Sometimes you just need to get back to family.

I've never missed Melbourne so much. I remember standing outside the jump club in the heat of summer just before I left talking to two beautiful girls in summer dresses and thinking "Why am I leaving?" when I got back home I immersed my self in music and this track just seemed to sum it all up.

109. Virginia Plain by Roxy Music 1972

1972 and 73. Glam was really starting to happen and each copy of NME I bought had top twenties full of songs I'd never heard of and some I wouldn't get to hear for many years. I didn't get to hear Virginia Plain for a long time after I started loving Roxy Music. Although the cover of the first album was brilliant I was too infatuated by Bowie to take notice. But with "For Your Pleasure" their second album  I was well and truly hooked. I tracked down the first album on import but Virginia Plain wasn't on it. (Later releases would add it). My best mate at the time Pete J was an avid music fan. he got me into the import shops at Monash and Melbourne Unis. And the import was a gatefold.

Roxy Music was very glamourous. I loved the sleeves of the album. The first four album sleeves are burned into my memory. I wanted to be a part of Roxy world.When I finally got round to hearing the single it was just magic. It still holds it's power now. As for all those singles I missed out on back in the early 70s. Most were rubbish. Some were classics that Australian radio ignored. But I kinda miss all that searching for records I did until the advent of Napster I guess. Now a song is a click away. So the hunt is on for the obscure. And the b-side "The Numberer". I wonder how long it would take for me to hear that.  Found it on the internet and started listening to it in less than 30 seconds. What a world!

108. Going to a Go Go by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles 1965

The drums . The horns. For me one of the definitive Mod epics. It just makes you want to get up and dance. Clouds disco, Edinburgh 1980 and I was on the dancefloor pounding my feet to this one. I can't say I'm a natural dancer. But Jesus when a record is this good, Secret Affair had their version out (which I kinda liked too) but the original was the greatest.

Hundreds  of Mods dancing to the old beat but somehow making it new. 1980 in the UK everywhere you looked there were pop art styles on young girls and sharp suited men on Vespas. The English loved their Motown and the stores were full of Motown and Stax records which sent me into a buying frenzy.
Really the only way I was going to hear this kind of stuff was if I played it myself. So when i came back to Melbourne first of all I pushed for a disco at our gigs. and when my friends Chris and Michael opened Kommotion I was always pushing for guest spots on the turntables, Same with the Venetian Room. It took the end of Little Murders in 1985 for me to take a regular DJ job at Rubber Soul. And from then until 2001 I DJed nearly every Friday and Saturday. Gigs and romantic dinners aside.

107. Chicago by Sufjan Stevens 2005

2005. I've got three children and it's getting mighty crowded in our little house in Elwood. This was to be our last summer there and I had this album on constantly in the house, in the car ..like everywhere.  Two songs really stood out for me and this was the first. Chicago. Amazingly, listening to the orchestra swell up, it's just Sufjan playing most the parts in his bedroom. Or taking his laptop around to friends places to get their contributions. Snow Patrol even mention this song in one of their songs so their writer must of loved it too.

It seemed like the perfect summer. Totally unlike the one we're having now. It was great living in Elwood. we lived next to the bike path that took you down to the beach. I can't say I spent a lot of time on the sand but I made good use of the bike path for a time. I first moved to Elwood around 87/88. At the time it was known for an article in the Age where the spotlight was focused on the 7-11 store as the only bit of nightlife. It was terribly uncool for a while despite cool people living there but they walked down to St. Kilda. Then over the last 20 years it became a Melbourne hotspot. Even our local shopping strip in Tennyson got a few bars.

A few years back I moved out. It's good to change positions now and then.

106. Stuck In The Middle With You by Stealers Wheel 1972

1972. Box Hill High School. The art room was a kind of escape from all the crap going on in the school grounds. Art was an elective subject so only those kids who like art were in there. The pyschos who liked to lean over and destroy your artwork for fun had drifted off. One went to play football for hawthorn. At lunchtimes a few of us would be in the art room just hanging out while the teacher worked on her tye dyes and batik prints. And the music was generally loud. This song takes me back there because I remember first hearing it amongst the incense and colour.

1972 was a crap year. Nothing was going right and I hated school. My friends had kind of moved on and I was totally obsessed by music. But not the music my peers were listening to. They hated stuff like T. Rex. I loved it. Slade. No way. I grew my hair and the principal grabbed it one day and asked if it was a handle! Other kids were getting sharpie haircuts.

For a couple of months I crossed over Middlesborough Road to hang out with the sharpies. They dug my music but I after falling asleep in a telephone booth one night after drinking warm beer I knew it wasn't for me. So I began staying at home. But things were about to turn around. And thank god for my record player. and my ever expanding record collection.

105. Tainted Love by Gloria Jones 1964

In 1975 I was in Blackpool for Christmas. I had just turned 18 and my cousin Neil and his friend Phil would be going out almost every night. It was the middle of the winter but we would always just go out in shirts no coats. "No where to put yer coat and I'm not paying for cloak room". I learned a lot in those few months. Hold back from taking a leak as long as possible because once you crack open the seal you'll be goin every pint. If it rains it's better because it will be warmer.

Anyway I digress.

One place we went to was the Blackpool Mecca. I was totally unaware of Northern soul but I soon learned. They wore baggy pants threw talcum powder on the dance floor and leaped and spun. No wonder the girl I liked made fun of the way I danced. These were tough guys who loved to dance. This song was one of the many unknown songs they played.

Becoming familiar with the Northern soul version when i finally got my hands on it Igot Little Murders to cover it. First time we played it was the Continental in Sorrento and the surfers loved it.

Oh and I was foraging in a box of artifacts the other night and found my Mecca membership card. Cool!

Of course my memory is also tied up with the Soft Cell mega smash of a few years later and the rerelease of the single just after that. But for me the song fits perfectly in sync with mecca dancing so it's found it's place in my musical history.