435. Nothing But a Heartache by The Flirtations 1968

A Northern Soul classic and a great pop tune that I discovered on one of Decca's World of Hits compilations back in the Seventies. 

Despite being around for the sixties and even being a teenager (just) in 1969 pop music passed by in a parade of the latest and greatest hits. Unless I could afford to buy the record this meant a lot of time glued to the transistor radio just waiting for a favorite song to come on. This much devotion meant I also would be sick of the songs by the end of their run of the charts.

However, when I really got started buying records in the Seventies I kind of had to start digging through all those sixties hits to find long forgotten songs. Luckily there were tons of sixties compilation records around. And so I came across songs I'd never heard like this one. But this should have topped the charts all around the world it's just so damn good. 

That searching for tracks also led me into a bit of obsession with buying compilation albums too. I would buy tons of the things for the Lizard Lounge when CDs were in vogue. Later I would burn my own comps for easy access to the tracks I wanted to play.

Now I like to buy vinyl comps with a theme. There is a label called Two Piers from the UK that puts out these really cool comps. Love the way they are presented. And you can always dig up new unheard tracks.

434. Victoria by The Kinks 1969

For all the brilliance of the Beatles and really there is no getting past their hold on popular culture throughout the sixties, I still prefer the journey that The Kinks made from the heavy metal template of You Really Got Me right up to this song in 69. And there was more to come with songs like Apeman and Lola. And I did like the concept albums of the seventies.

Why this song as remained a firm favourite of mine is because quite like Picture Book it rocks with an acoustic guitar blazing the trail. A song made to spin on a turntable. This time from the Arthur album which was not one of my favourites but has grown on me. Maybe it's got something to with the large kangaroo in the gatefold of my copy. And some of the songs were quite odd. But there was this and Shangri La.
I picked up the album at Monash University. Cut out sleeve. Imported from the USA and sold cheap. Cardboard sleeve that weighed a ton.
Never got sick of this song. Even the Fall did a good job of it. Why isn't our state's tourist anthem?

433. How Soon Is Now? by The Smiths 1985

After sorting out my record collection and finding a large chunk of it as disappeared in the last few months I've been steadily refilling the holes left. Still haven't got any idea where the records went but there is a black box I used to carry records to the Lizard lounge to that is no longer with me. Because I basically ignored vinyl for so long these records could have gone anywhere in the last 16 years.
So now I'm back at record fairs and browsing garage sales and the like.
It's kinda peaked my interest in vinyl and now I'm hunting down not only lost records but vinyl I would like to have.
"How soon Is Now?" was a big record at all the clubs I DJed at starting with the Beehive in the mid eighties. The first time I heard it I don't think I was that impressed but Ronny kept playing it and soon I was hypnotized by those strangely psychedelic Bo Diddley rhythms and the slide guitar. And of course the lyrics although brief just seemed so poignant standing on the dance floor. Often surrounded by slow motion groovers awash in this wall of sound. It lacked the pop punch that got people jumping up and down but it had the crowd moving from back bar to front bar.
Quite a magical song that left it's mark on our young impressionable minds.

432. This is The Day by The The 1983

Spent many an afternoon sitting on around on Sunday afternoons listening to this song and it's parent album. This was the kind of music we would immerse ourselves in as the eighties droves us into South yarra flats and bottles of chardonnay.
I had a flat just off Toorak Road. Three flights up. The balcony was the size of a dining room table and in fact you could only fit one director's chair on it. But the light streamed in and you could see the city over the tree tops. And all the furniture was off white.
I had to trade in my Fender twin reverb for something lighter because it was too hard to carry up the stairs after a gig and my Mazda couldn't lock up because the window was broken. Eventually I sold it and replaced it with a Fiat that would break down in hot weather.
I got myself a VCR and threw away my Beta cos there were no videos in the shops. I borrowed a video camera and made hours of tapes of my friends miming to Cure records. I wore white shirts and 501s and went to the Club in Collingwood but never watched the band for longer than 10 minutes.
My band was folding. Things were changing.

431. Excitable Boy by Warren Zevon 1978

In the grip of punk rock in 1978 and going to endless parties where they played Bowie and Kraftwerk I still found myself listening to artists none of my group of like minded inner city rock dudes were taking any notice of.
Warren Zevon was big on the radio with a track called Werewolves of London which I found 'too' funny. Never caring for funny songs longer than the one play when I would get the joke. So I wrote him off. Kinda. There was something in the piano playing and the casual looseness of the recording that I liked. The fondness bore fruit when I was at a teacher party in 79 (the kind of parties I would avoid because I found them quite alien to me) and someone sat me me down and said "you're in a band, you like good music, listen to Warren Zevon"..or something along those lines.
The wine was flowing from the casks. I was feeling alright so I thought I would give it a go. The first thing I heard was Excitable Boy and not only was the music great but I couldn't get over the lyrics. They were not only humorous but incredibly macabre. and the backing and the feel just got you singing along to these nasty doings by this serial nutter.
I ended buying the album and collecting his other stuff. It also made me like a few things Jackson Browne did after I learned of his connections to Warren Zevon.

430. Kinky Groovy Afro by The Happy Mondays 1990

1990 was a great year because I opened the Lizard Lounge, and music was going through this amazing phase where indie, alternative and dance music all seemed to come together. Madchester was on everyone’s lips as we grooved to the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. This was a single off their Pills ’n’ Thrills and Bellyaches album, which got high rotation both on the home turntable and at the club. Just a fantastic groove. It also had a very groovy video, with all these beautiful model types dancing around the grotty-looking Mondays. Magic.

Because I had opened a club that seemed to be doing all right, I started getting invited around to record companies to collect masses of new records. I used to love going to places like Festival Records and coming out with a bunch of new vinyl. They would also throw in videos of the bands, which was how I first saw the video for Kinky Afro. Some of the record companies were a little more uptight and wanted you to come to DJ meetings where they sold the merits of particular songs. Never went to those. For me, if it wasn’t hello and thank you, I wasn’t there. I could buy my own.

When CDs came along, it all went slightly weird and gradually became too hard because they didn’t really want to part with CDs. But they would give me tons of vinyl.  Eventually it became a little too painful, and I just bought my own stuff.

429. Try A Little Tenderness by Otis Redding 1966

Just found out that song was written in 1932 and had been around for a long time before Otis covered it. I heard the song first when it was a hit on the radio for a band called Max Merrit and the Meteors and though I was a bit of a Glam fan in those heady days of the seventies I could tell that Max was singing a great song.
But that was nothing compared to what I heard when someone finally played me Otis Redding. A slow build up that takes you right to the top and then it's over and you want to play it again straight away. When I finally got my hands on my own copy of the record and it did take me awhile to find the single I played it to death. And never got sick of it. Even when it was all over the place when the Commitments pushed it back into the limelight in the eighties.
Just a totally fab song that gave me my first real taste of soul. I was one of those saddos who carried Otis Blue to parties to show how hip I was. And it was the love of this music rather than electronica which made it important that the Mods of 1979 had to establish our own clubs.