374. Glad All Over by The Dave Clark Five 1963

In 2009 when I took the family over to the UK for a holiday we happened to arrive in Blackpool just as they were about to play a football match that would determine if they would be promoted into the Premier League. As we walked around town on the day of the match there were many vendors selling tangerine scarves so I bought one for each of the kids. I also got to hear a lot of this song which I guess was Blackpool's anthem. They won the match. And went up to the premier league. Only for one season however. That day the  headline of the papers screamed "Glad All Over".
I remember loving the early Dave Clark Five hits when I was an eight year old living in Blackpool before we moved to Australia. Sure they didn't look as cool as the Beatles and when the Stones came along they really started to look naff. But I was attracted to the drum beat. All their songs seemed to pound away. Real foot stomping music. I would get a pair of my mum's knitting needles and pound away the rhythm or a magazine or paper lying on the table. One day I got in trouble because the knitting needles had completely destroyed the first few pages of a new magazine mum had bought.
In the end they only had 3 songs. This one , Bits and Pieces and Catch Us If You Can. I can't believe they were once as big as the Beatles in the States. They look like they work on a cruise ship.

373. Positively 4th Street by Bob Dylan 1965

If you're writing about 1000 songs that have made an impression on you then there are going to be some artists that you keep coming back to because they've written so many damn good songs. Bowie, The Kinks, The Beatles, The Smiths and Bob Dylan come to mind straightaway. So what more can you write about these artists and their wonderful songs. Just have to hope I don't repeat myself.

Positively 4th Street was an important song to me because it was a blueprint for my early songwriting. I was intrigued by the fact that it didn't have a chorus. Just a bunch of verses. Later I got into choruses in a big way but at the time of my early songwriting it really helped to know that songs didn't need them. My old song books are full of these types of songs. There were lots of crawling out of windows and medieval references in songs like "State of Execution". Not happy stuff. Really it was just poetry set to music. And I had a ton of poetry after using the medium to capture a girl's heart.

And one can't go past the words. Another put down song from Dylan. Railing against old friends that had deserted him. People change and move away. I had my first car. I had moved from Blackburn South to Oakleigh. I wasn't seeing my old group of friends anymore. I'd sit in my little room wallowing in the words of Dylan.

372. The Concept by Teenage Fanclub 1991

While I was in the UK in 1991 one of the last things I saw on the television was a band called Teenage Fanclub doing a song called Star Sign. It was absolutely fab. There was just something about it that knocked a lot of the other bands I was listening into the out tray.  When I got back to Melbourne the first album I bought was the Teenage Fanclub album. I had picked up the 7" of Star Sign and I couldn't wait to hear more. The first track on the album was the Concept and it just blew me away. Actually it was pretty hard to get past the song because it was so good. After the song finished I instantly hit the rewind button so I could hear it again.I couldn't wait to get down to the Lizard lounge and play it deadly loud. It didn't set the dancefloor on fire but then again not many of their songs ever did that. But a few of us got out there and sang along at the top of our lungs.

I just saw the start of the film "Young Adult" with Charlize Theron trying to recapture her 90s self. Driving home she puts The Concept in the cassette deck of her car. Then keeps replaying again and again. And that's what I used to do in the car. I'd get through the album and then suddenly I would just have to rewind to hear the song again.

Brilliant song and just the start of a fantastic body of work.

371. 96 Tears by ? and The Mysterians 1966

Of all the records I didn't have but desperately wanted, this would most definitely, at the time,  be the holy grail for me. While hearing it in the late 70s for the first time I'd actually heard about it from John Lennon years earlier when reading one of his interviews. and I kept hearing about it but not actually having a clue what it sounded like. That was until I broke out of the Eastern suburbs in the first flush of punk in 1977. Anyway once I heard it I just had to have it. But I couldn't find it anywhere. I picked up copies that were re-recorded and quickly binned them. I kept waiting for the song to appear on a compilation but no such luck. 

I was told Cameo the label they were on was totally unavailable due to some legal issue involving god knows who and you couldn't get any of their stuff. 

Then, sometime in the late 90s, 20 years after I first heard the song I was doing my usual digging around the vinyl in Record Paradise, (the old vinyl shop that was next to St. Kilda police station in Chapel Street) when I came across the soundtrack of American Graffiti 2. And there it was. Amongst all those sixties tracks. I really couldn't believe it. After so long.  Bought the album and took it home and burned it onto a mini disc which was what I used for portability at the time. It was mine. One of the greatest rock and roll songs of all time. At last.

370. Mr. Brightside by The Killers 2004

Back at the start of the century one of the best things about having Foxtel on the television was getting to see Top of The Pops one week after it had been on UK television. Of course like any pop chart show there was often a load of rubbish with a few good ones every now and again. But the good ones made the show well worth it. Every time I went back to the Uk which was quite a bit I would spend every Thursday night watching TOTP. Just like I watched Countdown in Australia. Unfortunately that kind of show seems to have gone now and nothing has replaced it. Now we get video shows but even those have gone because you've got whole channels devoted to videos. Of course we can watch Later with Jools or Abbey Road but I do miss the pop shows where the weird wild and wonderful mixed together. 

Mr. Brightside stands out because at first I thought they were ripping off Placebo but still found the song entrancing. A band like the Killers were made for TOTP. They came across great. There were all these other great guitar pop bands on too. (not that the Killers were a guitar band were they were a rock band) England was having a bit of a guitar explosion in the wake of The Libertines success. A mini Brit pop revival. Which made the charts interesting. A quick look at the English charts now and there's not a whiff of guitar in the top 20. You have to scroll down to number 39 and Arctic Monkeys new single.

369. Tired Of Waiting by The Kinks 1965

While I remember the Kinks from the sixties it wasn't until the early seventies that I really started to love the Kinks. I kind of got it all a little backward and first of all started buying their lessor albums from that time although I did love them. Albums like Preservation Act 2 and Soap Opera were great but as I went back the albums just got so much better . What I realised is that the body of work from the Kinks in the sixties was so wonderful and so influential I always get amazed when people list the big bands of the sixties as the Beatles, the Stones and The Who. I guess that's what makes them a little bit special.
Tired of Waiting was their 3rd hit single after You Really Got Me and All The Day And All The Night. Those first bunch of singles told a story of love gone wrong. I always dreamed of making six singles in a year. Little Murders unfortunately only got to make one a year!
Still this is just one of those bloody brilliant songs that even though it takes a steady pace is just full of power. I often sit around playing those opening chords in the backroom while the family tries to avoid my steady drone. However I can't do those high vocals, which is a shame. Though I guess that's a blessing for the family.
Did I mention I met Ray Davies? I gave him the set of Little Murders singles. I said I've got all of your records so now you have all of mine! I wonder if he still has them?

368. Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield 1981

A fantastic power pop song from 1981. Quite unexpectedly from a guitarist who used to be in Zoot a band I saw many many times when I was a kid. Our neighbour was Graeme Boyd a 3AK disc jockey and he would often take us along to these kinds of beach promotions in summer and at each one Zoot would play. They had a big hit at the time with Eleanor Rigby, a cover of the Beatles song that they had heavied up. It was my introduction to live bands and it was so bloody exciting. Rick Springfield was just amazing. He would do all these tricks with his guitar. Like throw it high in the air and catch it and keep on playing. He had this special strap where he could actually spin his guitar like a propeller. Mind-blowing stuff for a 14-year-old. It seemed a far cry from the band who had the logo "Think Pink Think Zoot" back when I was in form 1 at Croydon High School. Then they were so uncool. In 1971 they became cool. Then they broke up.
Rick had a few solo hits in Australia then went overseas. Then in 1981, I was watching Countdown on a Sunday night and Molly played the new Rick Springfield song. And from the cool New Wave start in it sounded like a hit. And it was. All over the world. And later at clubs like Barbarella's and Lizard Lounge it was always a good party starter. And it still sounds good.

367. Summer In The City by The Lovin' Spoonful 1966

There is a brace of sixties songs that I remember from the actual time they came on the radio as opposed to those songs I picked up in future years. One of the records that leaped out of the radio was Summer In The City by Lovin' Spoonful. It was one of those hit singles that just seemed so powerful at the time and even listening back to it now it still transcends a lot of the other stuff that was on the charts.
In 1966 I was living in a hostel in Sydney my family deciding to move from Melbourne to Sydney in the shittiest car possible. God knows how it got us over the mountains. We stopped overnight in Wagga Wagga and stopped again as I heaved my guts out on some country back road. The hostel in Sydney was a bit better in that we no longer lived in a tin can but something that actually resembled a house. I celebrated by buying white mice who turned to cannibalism within weeks. As kids we hung around the Rec. Outside the Rec were big speakers that played pop music. It was the sound of heaven to these young ears.
Sydney was a different country. I had to wear a uniform to school. I had to a have a little suitcase for my books. All the kids played marbles every lunch play. We walked down to a park in Lane Cove and watched Johnny O'Keefe film a TV show. We lasted six months. It was back across the mountains to Geelong of all places. That lasted a week. How did we get through these things. With one ear on the radio,

366. Anything, Anything by Dramarama 1985

Released in the the mid eighties but a song I always associate with the Lizard lounge. Actually I first started playing it in my DJ set at the Beehive which was an offshoot from Rubber Soul. Opened up in the hotel that used to stand next to the Yarra and the Freeway in Punt Road it was incredibly successful. Too successful I guess because the owners decided we were making too much money and took it over for themselves basically killing the venue. I've seen it so many times. Club or pub owners get someone in to promote a night then if it's successful try to claw either the whole night back or get more money out of the promoters. Then it all falls apart.
Beehive moved to the Carron Tavern in West Melbourne. Had some great nights there but we gave it up to move to a bigger venue in KAOS at the old Therapy! nightclub. Except for a brilliant Smiths night that didn't work out. Not long after I started the Lizard Lounge. We had a brilliant decade there. It was the 90s all wrapped up. Then they decided to do up the place and throw us out and that was the end of that.
I must of played this song twice a week for 10 years at the Lizard. It never failed to get people on the dance floor shaking it. Screaming Anything Anything at the top of their voices. Top stuff. Unfortunately I don't know any other songs by this band. Too overwhelmed by the one song I guess.