507. Love is the Drug by Roxy Music 1975

When this came out in 1975 it seemed like the epitome of cool. It starts with footsteps and then a car starting up. A good car not like the crappy Datsun Bluebird I had bought for 400 dollars on Springvale Road. We follow Bryan Ferry to a bar. Oh it goes on. Who wouldn't want that lifestyle. Sitting in my bedroom in Nunawading it was all I wanted.  As it it turned out a year later when punk came along we didn't want it.
But in the eighties it all came back. The glamorous lifestyle was all anybody wanted. After Rubber Soul and Barbarellas the gang decided to open a club called the Beehive at the Riverside Hotel in Richmond. A great old building with plenty of room to do our stuff. By now I was taking on the roll of press officer or copywriter. On writing the blurb for this club I used all the imagery from Love is the Drug. Even the footsteps and the car starting. I think we even used it in an ad.
The Beehive didn't last long at the Riverside. It was too good for it's own sake. After a month of packed crowds the pub owners wondered why we were taking all the money and having so much fun. So they threw us out so they could do it themselves. The pub shut down a few months later. We moved the Beehive to the Carron Tavern.

506. Shot By Both Sides by Magazine 1978

Picked this single up in a bargain bin for 25 cents not long after it came out. I was very much into the Buzzcocks and Howard Devoto being their lead singer and leaving the band just when they became kind of famous was both strange and intrigueing to me. The Buzzcocks releasing Orgasm Addict put me off at first. Bit of a gimmick record. Magazine releasing this song was much more impressive. However the Buzzcocks went on to release track after brilliant track while I found Magazine a bit sporadic. 

It was almost as if the two bands were a dividing wall in conversations. If you were cool you liked Magazine. Buzzcocks were pop punk. Magazine was the onset of post punk. Me I was forming a mod band with leanings towards the Undertones. I knew then I was never going to be post punk cool. No matter what my inspirations. No matter how many Joy Division records I bought. I did buy myself a long black coat which I thought made me look mysterious. I loved that coat. I wrapped myself in it and made my way to the heart of the crowd. The crowd were probably watching The Church at the Jump Club. 

The song stills sounds great and I never tire of it. Actually the Magazine stuff sounds even better to my ears now than it did then.