The 80's was great for me. Watching the BBC2 programme Back in Time for the Weekend where a family travelled from the 50's to the present day was wonderful - like re-living my growing up years, each decade a memory trigger. I remember making my own entertainment. I never had a TV in my bedroom, the fashion was a bit strange when I look back, and in our family we didn't exactly keep up with latest in homeware accessories etc. (thank God!). What I remember most was the music. In the 80's bands like Tears for Fears, A Flock of Seagulls, Police, OMD, Depeche Mode, Simple Minds, Scritti Politti, The Cure, U2 and the Human League were just some groups I was into. I was busy buying vinyl singles and albums adding to my growing collection which I began slowly from the 60's. I had some record cases and an MFI cabinet for my LP's which my dad put together for me (and which I still have!).
I remember some fun evenings with friends - me with my guitar and a friend on maracas (yes really!) singing along to some songs.
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| Yes, that's me with the Kevin Keegan hair back in the 80's |
When I look at what I listen to now I think the influence is there in the 80's, which for me is still the best era for music, for me at least. My life is all linked to music. I remember when my aunt gave us an old HMV record player - it played only 78's and you had to wind it up and it had a horn. My brother and I had so much fun with it, laughing as it wound down and the voices got lower and sounded drunk. Next my dad bought us Disc Jockey record player with its long spindle to stack several singles in one go. However, quite often the records would slide on top of one another when playing so we tended to play them one at a time. We had to wait for the valves to heat up and I can still remember the aroma! My brother had a Philips reel to reel tape recorder and he taped the top 20 from the radio (in the days of Alan Freeman 'Hi, Pop Pickers!) and we would play the recording back in my bedroom. I then bought my own record player. Still a lot like our first record player, it was mono and was bright blue. Then I bought a speaker to plug into the auxiliary socket to make my record player stereo, and I would sit between the two speakers listening to Deep Purple. Later I bought an all in one Sanyo deck (record player, cassette deck and radio). The problem with that was in order to get a high recording level when taping I had to have the volume up loud, not exactly mum and dad friendly.
After that I really shelled out, this time for a Sony stack system and never regretted the expense. When CD players came out I added to it. It was a wonderful system and I bought independent speakers which I still have. I had them reconditioned and at present they are up in the attic. When my Sony finally bit the dust I bought a modern Philips unit with CD player. My old speakers don't work with it and I had to buy a pro-amp in order to rig up my only surviving piece of my Sony system - the record deck. Since then I have bought a Sony system off eBay which is identical to the one my dad had. I just need to buy a CD player for it (I gave my old one to my brother) and then I can bring my old speakers down from the attic and experience the full sound of those speakers (which the guys at the hi-fi store got very excited about when I took them in for reconditioning).
My life will always be seen through music. My taste has widened over the decades but my enthusiasm for it never wanes. There has to music every day. I'm either listening to it or singing along. Often I'm dancing to it. What was your favourite musical decade?
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| The electric guitar so seldom played these days |
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