Tapes (3)

So, further digging has revealed that not only is there still a box of tapes in the loft but it's about twice as big as I thought it was! What I'm going to do with this discovery I've no idea short of finding out who still actually has a tape deck and randomly 'tape-bombing' them with selected gems (obviously what will actually happen is I'll leave it where it is in the vague hope that some of the stuff in there may one day be worth something - plus it weighs far too much to bother with wrestling it down the loft ladder and to the tip anyway!) In the meantime, though, here are a few more gems off the top, and then I'll leave this stuff alone for a bit...

'Parallel Lines' by Blondie by was the first album I ever bought (or owned, at least; I was only ten when it came out so one of my parents probably did the actual buying - I just requested it.) That makes it - scarily enough! - 35 years old this year and as far as I'm aware it still plays perfectly (it certainly did a few years ago when I last tried it - obviously I've long since bought a CD copy...) It's a pretty cool 'first' - not to mention a drop-dead pop classic - but misleadingly so: after this there were several years of the typical teen-boy musical development through heavy metal and in the general direction of 60's psychedelic rock and proggy seventies stuff that I thought was a lot cooler and cleverer than it really was (Jethro Tull, especially, and the Doors, you know the kind of stuff...) I think there's an argument to be made for 'Pretty Baby' being the perfect pop song - 3 minutes just, bratty but vulnerable, perky, yearning, with a talky-bit in the middle and some faux-classy French lyrics - but I still prefer '11:59' for it's slightly desperate sense that something really important is just about to happen...

Robert Plant's first solo album, 'Pictures At Eleven', from 1982 was more firmly into the latter, 'Rock', period, but it's got a pristine eighties sheen that actually makes it sound pretty current (I listened to it - via the magic of ipod - today and I enjoyed it a great deal alongside John Grant's new album.) I bought this tape with my 'holiday money' from some resort in North Wales on our family summer holiday, as I did, annually, for a few years at least, once I'd located the local purveyor of musical delights. It would have joined the select band of Rainbow, Iron Maiden and Status Quo tapes (plus a couple of 'Axe Attack' compilations...) in one of those little vinyl-covered suitcases designed to hold your whole 24-or-48-tape collection. I've got a feeling that the following year I probably got Percy's follow-up 'The Principle of Moments' album, which wasn't as good but had the hit 'Big Log' on it. I still like 'Moonlight In Samosa' and 'Like I've Never Been Gone' a great deal; slightly weird hybrids of classic blues-rock and machine-tooled eighties pomp.

The other two are a couple of magazine spin-offs, both from 1988, very representative of the music press of the time in their different ways. Melody Maker's first 'Gigantic' compilation, produced in association with Rough Trade, was a step up from the usual cover-mounted freebie - you had to send off actual money for it. It was pretty cheap, though, as I recall and you got a good line-up for your money (the House of Love, the Sugarcubes, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., etc.) Plus it came in a fancy box with a booklet and V23-on-the-cheap pretentions. 'Strum + Drum', on the other hand, came free with the short-lived 'Underground' magazine, though it has an interesting cut-away plastic case and is on 'Clear Chrome' cassette, whatever that may be. The track listing is similarly left-field, with the Go-Betweens debut single 'Karen', an acoustic version of 'Give My Love To Kevin' by the Wedding Present and Alex Chilton's honking New Rose single 'No Sex', amongst other things. Most importantly, it introduced me to the fabulous Raw Herbs, about whom I had to wait for the advent of the internet to actually find out much more (I'll not go through all that again, though - I've already banged on about it before...)