Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

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Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby Corporate whore » 04 Sep 2011, 08:33

I have always liked listening to music; I don’t think we were a particularly musical family but we had a record player and a few records, my dad had his Trad Jazz 78s that I don’t remember him inflicting on his children and both parents had a few popular albums of the day.

I remember being fascinated by the cover of Sgt Pepper far more than the music it contained, but the album that I remember from childhood is the one I used to ask my parents ]to play in the living room if I couldn’t get to sleep - Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water. So it must have been in the early 70s when I was a pre-teen ( Born the end of 1964 ) when I first started to want to listen to music and I requested it, I preferred the upbeat numbers like Baby Driver and Cecilia, but I can also remember being impressed by the grandiosity of the title track.

So my first choice is Cecilia by Simon and Garfunkel.



That takes me back to the backwater of the far NW of Wales in the 70s. My experience of music tended to be hymns and choral singing, as I was in school choirs for most of my school days, these choirs competed in the junior Eisteddfodiau. The only access to music that I had was TV and radio, but I can’t say I remember too much about Top of The Pops in those days, what I do remember is Ed Stewart’s Junior Choice on Saturday mornings, this coincided with the acquisition of a tape recorder with microphone which was my introduction to owning music.

My first ever record purchase, from Woolies at Wellfield in Bangor, was a 4 track sampler that was purchased because it contained Papa Joe by the Sweet on it, alongside Storm in a Teacup by Lyndsey De Paul and Day by Day from Godspell ( interesting mix and the last song on the four track EP is long forgotten ) I can only remember one album I bought to play on the tape recorder and that was Gary Glitter’s greatest hits with Rock and Roll being the track I played over and over again, but I was aware of the poppier end of Glam Rock I can remember officially ranking my favourite bands as T-Rex, Slade and Sweet; David Bowie was obviously a bit too outre for me.

But the song that reminds me of listening to Ed Stewart on a Saturday morning with my fingers hovering over the Play and Record buttons is this one - Jungle Rock by Hank Mizell




I assumed that this was re-released and became a hit in the early 70s but it appears that it was 1976 just at the point that Swap Shop was testing my allegiance to Ed Stewpot and Yompy was inventing Punk in London.

I don’t know if punk ever did make it to North Wales, it certainly didn’t in the late 70s, I can remember we had various punk singles in the house - I remember a crossword themed picture sleeve of Babylon’s Burning that my brother Jonathon had and there were others, I had a single by Rocky Sharpe and the Replays, my brother Matt had The Police covered, Ali purchased Ant Music when that came out in 1980, we are getting ahead of ourselves but there was a fair amount of music coming into the house.

But around this time -1978 - an important event happened; my Dad bought me a portable record player, it had to be portable to allow me to carry it home from london where he had moved after my parents split up. It formed itself into a suitcase with the speakers forming one half and the deck the other. Obviously this had to come with an LP, my first one I believe, and that was Boomtown Rats - Tonic for the Troops, my idea of punk rock being pretty inclusive and not informed by any Burchillesque nonsense.

So here is a neglected classic off that - I Never Loved Eva Braun - The Boomtown Rats.


The next few years were a fecund period where most of the rest of the music will come from. It is pretty inevitable that the years between by 14th and 21st Birthdays will provide most of the music that formed me.

Next up the first album that I purchased when it came out and became truly immersed in and that would be Back In Black by AC/DC, they were sold as a bit of a punk band in the late 70s and I already had Highway to Hell and If You Want Blood, and I can remember where I was when I heard that Bon Scott had died ( Dad’s sitting room in Blackheath watching the London Evening news ), They were also the first band I ever saw, just before my 16th birthday at Deeside leisure center on the Back in Black tour.

That was an epic night out, to get to gigs, which didn’t really occur locally, we were reliant on a compliant father who would drive us there and back, as happened for AC/DC, this was always my mate Steve’s dad. Sometimes a bus would run as I think happened for my second gig - Motorhead Iron Fist tour also at Deeside.

But back to that first ever gig, we queued up to get in as the doors opened we bought T-shirts and programs and we waited through the crap support act, the lights dimmed, people cheered the curtains opened to reveal a large metal bell being lowered from the lighting rig, the dim figure of Brian Johnson came out with a mallet and hit it and it went *ping*. Because for a bell to go BONG would require it to be the size of a car.

But never mind because then this happened - Hell’s Bells AC/DC



Judging by the gig going at this time I was listening to AC/DC, Motorhead and Status Quo, but something incredibly important had happened at Christmas 1979 this place had opened:

http://www.cobrecordsbangor.co.uk/about.php

Cob Records, with a large 2nd hand department where you could buy Relics for 99p, music finally came to North Wales and we were like kids in a candy store discovering Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, Led Zeppelin, Yes and Wishbone Ash, we were plundering the music of the 70s, the 60s was our parents stuff not so interested in that as yet.

I also joined the Britannia music club, 4 albums for 99p and then 4 albums a year at full price, something along those lines, I a m sure that’s where A Farewell to Kings and Rainbow Rising came from, but as Saturday mornings in Cob Records became more important I extricated myself, with some difficulty, from their Byzantine Bureaucracy.

Then another incredibly important thing happened we discovered John Peel, by this stage we were regulars with Tommy Vance ( or his BBC Radio Wales counterpart Richard Rees on Rockpile ) ushering another set by the Tygers of Pan Tang or another alumnus ofd the NWOBHM, we had our Iron Maiden and Samson albums, we’d been to see Diamond Head and Spyder at Colwyn Bay pier, but John Peel was very different, this was the end of Post Punk and he was playing difficult, spiky, dark music.

Of course without Cob Records and their Indie purchase policy this stuff would have been incredibly difficult to get hold of, even if you knew you wanted to by Transmission by Joy Division it was still difficult to work out how due to the strange designs of Peter Saville and the lack of obvious band or track names.

People forget how devilishly difficult it was to get rare records then, Albums were often deleted after short runs. I can still remember having to travel to London in the late 80s to get a copy of Julian Cope’s Fried album as it had been deleted.

By this time I was in the 6th form and I had a load of mates all as interested in music as me, we formed a band and plundered the record collections of those guys who had older brothers picking up on odd things that we’d never caught up on - Barclay James Harvest or Mike Oldfield and also getting into the first wave of punk for the first time - Pistols Clash.

We used to go around to each others house’s by bike and later car, because we were spread over a large geographical area, and listen to albums for hours often whilst playing board games, Dungeon’s and Dragons or wargamming with lead figures and complex rules. Girl’s didn’t feature much in this world except at parties, but I didn’t think this odd at the time, probably don’t think it odd now to be honest, none of the girls seemed to be into this stuff.

I can remember being physically stunned by many of the records that we listened to for the first time during this period, it was all so new whether it was Rainbow Rising bought from the Britannia Music Club or Knife Slits Water by A Certain Ratio, we were incredibly eclectic and there were no real musical gangs to belong to in a backwater like ours. One that stands out is my next pick, the first time I heard my mate Aled play it on our stereo we laughed because we thought he had it on at the wrong speed, but we listened to it over and over again all afternoon.

Atmosphere - Joy Division.



So now we are off to University with our boxes of tapes of Marillion and Joy Division, finally you can go and see bands really easily practically every night of the week, there are now 4-5 shops like Cob within a mile of the center of town.

At the end of my first year - June 1984 - I went with my mate Mark down to Oxford to pick up his older brother, we borrowed their parent’s Volvo which had a tape deck. On the way back we listened to one of David’s tapes on one side it had 1977 by the Talking Heads which I hadn’t heard before and on the other side it had a album that had come out a couple of months before and an obsession was born

What Difference Does it Make - The Smiths.



Still unbelievably exciting.

That set the tone for my student years, Indie replaced Rock, the NME was read cover to cover on the day it came out, there was a selective culling of albums, many of which that would have to be repurchased years later. It was all one big round of Aztec Camera and Billy Bragg, REM came over the horizon, James brought out thrilling singles.

At this time my dad moved to Canada as well which opened up new horizons, MTV for a start which was a revelation back in the days when they actually played music, and record shops with new bands like the Swans, Husker Du, Sonic Youth and The Minutemen.

Then rumours came from East Kilbride of a band so shockingly inept and violent that the flat topped, speccy soul boy who recounted their existence nearly fainted with scorn.

My interest was aroused but I was off home, but first day back I went into Cob Records and dug through the boxes of tatty singles on top of the counter and pulled out two plums.

I got home and people gathered we put the first one on and heard this:

Upside Down - The Jesus and Mary Chain



The acme of 80s Indie- leather, attitude, drugs, Velvet Undergound, Phil Spector a perfect musical storm.

And that is more or less it, I think the years from 1979 to 1987 were the years where I listened to music the most and they set the tone. New trends came along, I remember rave when it was about music in barns in the countryside not drugs in warehouse sized clubs in city centers. Baggy was fun, I lucked out during Britpop living in Bedford where the booking policy at the local club was inspired so I saw bands like Oasis, Supergrass and the Super Furry Animals at close quarters early on, well not Oasis as I couldn’t be bothered to see them and don’t regret passing too much.

But While bands that I love have turned up over the last 20 years - British Sea Power, Tinariwen, Belle and Sebastian - nothing will ever match those first few years of music appreciation. In fact I find myself looking backwards more these days picking up stuff that I’d missed out on over the years; stuff like Nuggets, Nick Drake and Love. But more so I am revisiting the music that my dad loved Pre-war Jazz and blues, especially the acoustic blues of the Mississippi Delta.

There is something thrilling about listening to Leadbelly or Son House to my ears, so in some ways I have gone full circle back to my Dad’s old 78s to get my listening pleasure these days.

Robert Johnson - Hellhound on my Tail




There is more music made these days than ever before in history and I miss having a trusted filter like John Peel around to make sense of that, or even a circle of close friends who want to spend hours listening to albums together, life is too busy for that I fear, I fill my iPod up with more and more music, more boxed sets, Billie Holiday, Muddy Waters and Louis Armstrong sit before me ready to be ripped, but I seem to have less and less time to actually listen.

So, the Island, My book will be the Encyclopedia Brittanica, I would be perfectly happy with that for years and it may have useful knowledge to impart about my surroundings, fiction would be unsatisfying, I have a vivid enough imagination to manage that side of things.

My luxury would be a decent bed and mattress, you can over estimate the utility of a good nights sleep and I could kick back on it during the day reading my encyclopedias.

One record; probably the Smiths
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby Thesiger » 04 Sep 2011, 08:55

Cob Records. That's a madeleine moment for me. They would take any old crap that you wanted to get rid of and had a huge stock of great cheap stuff. I used them for many years. Fondly remembered.
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby BlueMeanie » 04 Sep 2011, 09:06

copehead wrote:I find myself looking backwards more these days picking up stuff that I’d missed out on over the years


Same here. I'm often amazed at what I haven't heard. The stuff that mystically managed to pass me by.

Another excellent read. Well done!
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 04 Sep 2011, 09:56

Robust read!
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby never/ever » 04 Sep 2011, 10:10

It is Copehead's DID, not corporate whore's, right?

Recognise a lot of listening in this when I was a kid (the hard rock-stuff mostly). I always presumed with your name that Sir Julian was one of the more important artists in your musical appreciation- what song of him would you have chosen?

And again a very fine read!
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby Belle Lettre » 04 Sep 2011, 10:39

It certainly was. Will anyone mind if I just list my songs and bugger off?
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby copehead » 04 Sep 2011, 14:11

Thesiger wrote:Cob Records. That's a madeleine moment for me. They would take any old crap that you wanted to get rid of and had a huge stock of great cheap stuff. I used them for many years. Fondly remembered.



I have to say without them, I doubt I would even been on this board, they were instrumental and central to my development as a music fan.

The second hand department was excellent, you'd give a shaggy Welsh hippy a record they put it on for a couple of tracks, then said:

*Adopt thick Welsh accent* " Bit of a scratch at the start of side 2"

Then they'd offer you 50p or £2 off stock, so you'd take the money off chitty and rummage through the second hand racks for the rest of the morning.

And those racks were fantastic for telling you what had fallen out of fashion, they had nearly a whole bin of Relics all priced at 99p, I now realise that it was a bargain bin release of Pink Floyd non-album material from the Syd era, obviously purchased by loads of people off the back of the success of DSOTM; they obviously took it home put it on and said WTF! and brought it straight in to Cob records :D

It was a gold mine of old prog records in the early 80s as well.

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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby copehead » 04 Sep 2011, 14:17

never/ever wrote:It is Copehead's DID, not corporate whore's, right?

Recognise a lot of listening in this when I was a kid (the hard rock-stuff mostly). I always presumed with your name that Sir Julian was one of the more important artists in your musical appreciation- what song of him would you have chosen?

And again a very fine read!


Shamefully, at the time the Teardrop Explodes were massive I considered them a teenybop band beneath my consideration, although I obviously secretly knew that Reward was one of the great songs of all time.

But I didn't come to Julian until the latter part of the 80s really, I went to see him on the World Shut Your Mouth tour because a mate had a spare and I was blown away by his charisma and sense of humour, he really is a great raconteur and tremendous fun to watch live.

But if I had to choose one song I would struggle to see past Reward, although Read It In Books, The Great Dominions and Fear Loves This Place would give me pause for thought.
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby yomptepi » 04 Sep 2011, 14:19

Why is the first post under Corperate whores ID? This is very confusing...
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby Corporate whore » 04 Sep 2011, 20:05

yomptepi wrote:Why is the first post under Corperate whores ID? This is very confusing...


Cope head asked me to post it as he is off to sea and wasn't sure he could post it today.
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby Leg of lamb » 04 Sep 2011, 21:43

Superb stuff, again! Cob sounds like a place I wanna go. In fact, I need to visit north Wales tout court sometime soon. A bizarre omission in my life's travels.

Your list would have been improved for some Dizzee Rascal, mind :D
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby copehead » 04 Sep 2011, 21:57

Leg of lamb wrote:Superb stuff, again! Cob sounds like a place I wanna go. In fact, I need to visit north Wales tout court sometime soon. A bizarre omission in my life's travels.

Your list would have been improved for some Dizzee Rascal, mind :D


I was considering bigging myself up with talk of my frequenting rap clubs in Edinburgh in the mid 80s, but it was already starting to look like a rather rambling post

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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby Magilla » 04 Sep 2011, 23:21

Copehead, that is a superb write-up. There is just so much in it that I can relate to even though we live on opposite sides of the world.
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby copehead » 05 Sep 2011, 00:04

Ma'a gilla wrote:Copehead, that is a superb write-up. There is just so much in it that I can relate to even though we live on opposite sides of the world.


And I didn't even mention the importance of rugby in all this :)
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby The Prof » 05 Sep 2011, 08:16

Thesiger wrote:Cob Records. That's a madeleine moment for me. They would take any old crap that you wanted to get rid of and had a huge stock of great cheap stuff. I used them for many years. Fondly remembered.


Been there several times and went back again this Easter. Unfortunately there was not much to write about. Just tatty records and CDs :(

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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby copehead » 05 Sep 2011, 11:23

The demise of independent record stores is a tragedy, but I suppose people just don't need that service anymore everything is there on demand and a lot of it is free.

Our local store has a coffee shop and has bands on and all sorts to try and make a living
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby Deebank » 05 Sep 2011, 16:51

That's pretty much as I remember it :)

I would add that the portable record player was a joint christmas gift - you also got Rock and Roll Swindle while I stayed on the Boomtown Rats theme and got The Fine Art Of Surfacing that year (I think).

You got a double LP and I got a single ! :evil:
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby Footy » 05 Sep 2011, 16:55

Excellent stuff and I really enjoyed reading that, Copehead, thanks.

Copehead wrote:I also joined the Britannia music club, 4 albums for 99p and then 4 albums a year at full price, something along those lines


I remember those bastards, or, at least, trying to escapes their clutches. I ended up with quite a few unwanted records, too, having forgotten to reject the monthly 'Editor's Choice'. Twats.
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby Deebank » 05 Sep 2011, 17:05

Footy wrote:Excellent stuff and I really enjoyed reading that, Copehead, thanks.

Copehead wrote:I also joined the Britannia music club, 4 albums for 99p and then 4 albums a year at full price, something along those lines


I remember those bastards, or, at least, trying to escapes their clutches. I ended up with quite a few unwanted records, too, having forgotten to reject the monthly 'Editor's Choice'. Twats.


Likewise...
Although we did get the odd gem by accident too... High Tide Big Hits Green Grass being one that springs to mind.
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Re: Desert Island Disks - Copehead. 4th September 2011

Postby kath » 05 Sep 2011, 20:22

indeed, another robust read. (this series is just fucquin great.)*

i belonged to one of those music clubs. mine was called columbia house. i was very bad. it's not my fault if those people were stoopit enough to let me sign up multiple times under different names at the same address, just so i could get the initial huge haul of whatever greatest hits comps i thought looked cool when i was twelve and then default on ever buying another fucquin thing again. if i'd forget to return a card and they'd send me a selection of the month, i'd take a big black marker, write RETURN TO SENDER on the front, and throw it back in the mailbox. my ma never checked the mail, ya know? i think i might've tried RETURN TO SENDER -- DECEASED. either way, they never gave us any shit. and i ended up with loads of comps... gateways to better things. ahem.

when the last independent record store around here finally went out of business, our fave one, reap almost wept. he was depressed for a month.

and what you said about yer dad's music and coming full circle... finding yerself looking back... sighhh. yeah.

*cmon belle. yer not *really* just gonna list yer songs, are you? where's the fun in that?? you hafta give us *something*... i know. maybe with each song, you could talk about one of yer arrests.


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