462. Pictures Of Matchstick Men by Status Quo 1967

The first thing anyone would do on the guitar back in the late sixties was play the riff from Pictures of Matchstick Men. It was just something you had to do. And if you haven't got a guitar then you just pretend. It's just fantastic. I would play it on my first guitar which was some no brand super light thing with strings that would cut grooves in your finger. It would take a few more years before I managed to get myself a guitar that felt good.
A mate of mine from the local youth club. I recall his name to be Jimmy Page. But it could have been something different. Though his last name was Page but for the life of me the only first name I could think of is Jimmy.
He sold me is Ibanez Les paul. It had a case.  It was heavy. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. It was black with white trimmings. When I became a Mod I decorated it with arrows using electrical tape. Same stuff I would put on my shirt. Copied from Paul Weller on the modern world album.
I'd throw it around on stage and despite knocking off a machine head it survived rough treatment. I got new pick ups.
Then the day I got my first telephone ever. This would be 1980. Never had a phone before. God knows how I ever found out about gigs. That day, thiefs broke into my flat in Fitzroy and stole the guitar, a carton of Kent cigarettes, a six pack of beer and it looked like they had a bit of a party too. Bastards.
Luckily that was all they took. All my records remained. Including this one.

461. Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan 1968

Another song I picked up on my Crystal Wireless. Built it myself from a kit I purchased in Box Hill. One ear plug. Wires wrapped around any piece of metal I could find. Bring in sounds from the air. The idea of sounds and images floating around in space to be collected by a simple antenna used to do my head in.
In 1968 I was in Form 1 at Box Hill High School. I had just begun to really start buying records and had my first few albums. Mostly something I picked up secondhand or given to me. It would be another year before I would walk into a record shop and actually buy an album. Or even 1970 when I took my money and laid over a counter to buy an album. I think it was the Beatle's last album in a box. "Let it Be' and from there I worked back through the Beatles. But I digress.
Hurdy Gurdy Man was probably the first really hippy psychedelic I really got to hear and love. It was like something that came from outer space. I loved Donovan's voice. The guitar quietly goes mad in the background. Jeff Beck if I recall rightly. It made me a massive Donovan fan. I tracked down his albums and found them maybe a little too jazzy or folky or out there for my teenage tastes. So I stuck with the greatest hits. Until I discovered Barabajacal. That was a killer of an album.

460. Desolation Row by Bob Dylan 1965

In the mid seventies when I was trying to learn guitar and do something or anything with music I really got hooked on Bob Dylan music especially stuff before his motorbike accident. The music that came after that was kind of spoiled by a change in vocal stylings that wasn't fixed until Blood On The Tracks.

I bought this big blue songbook which had all the songs of Bob Dylan up until that time. And I would play those songs that I did know and whose chords I could play relentlessly. Most of the time they were the only songs I played which sounded remotely like the originals. I guess it was the strumming. When I ventured over to the Kinks and the Beatles I had lots of trouble. Dylan was my teacher. Also when it came to writing songs. 

Because I found it hard to play other people's songs I had to start writing my own. I started with with imitations of Dylan. And one of the most imitated song I probably did was Desolation Row. I was obsessed with this song. All 11 and a half minutes of it. And I would write my own epics based on poetry I had been writing to impress this girl I knew at teachers college. Songs like the Revolution Girl, State of Execution and the Life and Death of a Hong Kong Prostitute might have entertained me when writing but performing them in a Doncaster Pizza parlour was never going to work out. Especially when teamed up with John Lennon's Working Class hero.

459. Boppin' the Blues by Blackfeather 1971

In 1971 I was in Form 3 at Box Hill high school. A boys only school that had a few years before had changed it's name from Box Hill Grammar. Not sure why but maybe because it had become just a little bit rougher. It was a bit of a grind and made worse because I was always the smallest in the year level. so I always got bottom locker. Which meant I was constantly stood on by the school skinhead fraternity. Mainly because my hair was growing half way down my back.
There was some respite from all this crap though when at lunchtimes a bunch of us would go to the music portable situated at the back of the school next to the train lines and Box Hill cemetery. Half the time it was playing records and talking rubbish but one day one of the students whose name escapes me starting banging out the opening piano bit of this record. I was mesmerized. It sounded so good. When  he had finished we all begged him to play it again. Which he did about 10 times.
Later they formed a band. I wasn't in it. I was trying to learn drums and was proving hopeless banging away on my rubber matt. Soon gave it up through lack of co-ordination. Anyway it was just cool to hang out with the older kids rocking through Jumping Jack Flash. I got to go to their first gig in a friends backyard. They even built a stage. It was brilliant. Two days later I rode my bike down to Box Hill and found a music shop a few doors from my previous hangout, the slot car racing shop and bought a cheap electric guitar which came with a Corona amp. A good substitute for the tennis raquet I'd been using previously.

458. Aliens in our Midst by the Twinkeyz 1977

Back in 1977 & 1978  I would go round to Bruce Milne's place in Hawthorn to drink coffee and talk about music. Each time I went round he would play me something new that he'd dug up from the USA or the UK. He played the Boys "First Time " single and pointed out how the vocals were non existent in the mix. (and if you were the vocalist how would you like that? ) The Residents and how magnificent they were though I never understood that band but I could see how they led to early Devo. Modern Lovers who just blew my mind. And in a similar vein were the Twinkeys with this slice of neo Velvet Underground masterpiece of low fi indie out there rock and roll.
These were the days when if you liked a record you'd either tape it it or go searching for it in every record shop in Melbourne. I didn't want to start taping any of Bruce's stuff because he had so much of it. The walls of his abode were lined with fruit crates full of records. Biggest collection I'd ever seen. Where would one start or for that mind stop taping all this brilliant hard to get stuff. I knew that was out of the question. So I looked. Then I found a copy in some cheap bin in a now forgotten store. Second hand. A bit worn. But that just added to the pleasure. It seems to change speed a bit but listening to the recording someone else posted on YouTube I think that's what the record really does sound like. Anyway it's a thing of beauty with it's sub Lou Reed lyrics about rubber hoses and cross dressing. I even like the "alien" backing vocals. brilliant!

457. Can The Can by Suzi Quatro 1973

It was 1973. I was being dropped off at my house in Blackburn South after a night out with my friends. The car was packed and I was the first person to be dropped off which I hated because I imagined the fun continuing in the car until they all got home. But as we pulled into Fulton Road off Middlesborough Road Can The Can by Suzi Quatro came on the radio. It was just mind-blowing for my teenage mind. There was no way I was getting out of the car until the song had finished. It was this over-the-top brilliant sound. Just magnificent. I loved Glam pop. Not just Bowie and T.Tex but all that Chinni Chap stuff. They had these amazing sounds and gobbledygook lyrics which seemed to make sense even when they didn't make sense. Still haven't got a clue what Can the Can means.
A few nights later I saw the clip on GTK. Getting to Know (or was it Get to Know?) was like a 10-minute music program at 6:30 p.m. every night on Channel 2. I watched it religiously every night after tea. Black and white of course. High contrast. Incredibly exciting with Suzi's hair being blown back by some giant off-screen fan. The band looked a bit rough. But she looked so cool.

456. Tears of A Clown by The Beat 1979

Little Murders had just released our debut single and started playing around Melbourne at venues like the Champion and the Ballroom. We also played up in Daylesford once a month. We were a new band.
We started playing in August and in December I flew off to the UK for a 6 week holiday. By this time I was really into the Mod thing and was looking forward to getting myself kitted out out with clothes and records.
What I wasn't really aware of before I got there is the Two Tone revolution about to take place all over the UK charts. It was a Thursday night in deep darkest Britain when the Top of The Pops came on and 3 ska bands were on. The Specials, Madness and The Beat. For a TV show, it was quite exciting to see these bands who dressed up like Mods and played this exhilarating pop music that you could dance to. The first ska track from these modern bands that really got to me was "Tears of a Clown". The rhythm just pushed it along to a point where you just had to dance. As I would when I got to Edinburgh a few weeks later and they played it between sets at a Purple Hearts gig at Clouds.
It was a great time for record buying. The new Jam  (Setting Sons) and The Clash (London Calling). Cool Mod singles like Millions Like Us by the Purple Hearts. Secret Affair. Tons of soul compilations that were swiftly put out when Mod hit the music pages. All the TwoTone Records. It was brilliant.

455. Kids In America by Kim Wilde 1981

Pop hit from 1981 at a time when I shouldn't have liked stuff like this but ...what can I say?  I have a soft spot for pop singles. And this was a great one. And there was always the video of Kim Wilde. Of course Blondie was amazing and all that but sometimes we pined for an English rose to come along and brighten up our Sunday night's viewing of Countdown. And Kim sure had that sultry English look down pat. Countdown had some spectacular rubbish on it so video tracks like this one were gifts from pop heaven.
Plus of course it was a terrific song. Even though it's been a bit overdone this century for anybody who as kids and ends up watching the Disney Channel or Meet The Robinsons. And I can tick both of those.
It starts out all new wave and electronic. Even reminiscent of Ultravox. And despite the daft chorus it grabs you on first listen. Even she wasn't an American! Or was I missing something in the lyrics?
Anyway big in 81. And one of those big hits that came back at Barbarellas in 86 and the Lizard lounge in 91. Although we would often give it a rest because it was a bit easy to get sick of. All that woahing and we're the kids waffle. A song to be played once every five years maybe.

454. The Rake's Song by The Decemberists 2009

A very dark song. But strangely uplifting even though Colin Meloy, the writer and singer, is describing how he kills off his family to be free of the burden. As I said, it's very dark.
I've always had a soft spot for bands like the Decemberists. I guess it goes back to the mid seventies where in between all the Glam Rock and Punk singles I was listening to, somebody played me a copy of Steeleye Span's Commoners Crown album. Or I read about it in NME. No matter. It was very much electric folk and I played it to death. Attracted as much by the songs of death, murder and vice as the great rhythms. And the last song New York Girls was one of the first songs I played on guitar when I started learning.
I also listened to other folk bands with an electric feel like Lindisfarne and Fairport Convention (who proved to be best of all and led me to Richard Thompson records)
Now folk music is all over the radio. The wife and I even went to see Mumford and Sons play the Rod Laver Arena which is massive and the Mumfords came on like a small pub band. Which they admitted they were. I was amazed by the thousands of people there that knew every song.
Anyway love the Rake's Song and when it comes on the stereo I singalong and the kids join in with the ALRIGHT ALRIGHT!