The Joys of Music
I can remember when I was young, going back 25 years or so, being exposed to punk. I never really took much of it in but I did enjoy it.
Somewhere in the next few years I didn’t listen to much. I was growing up, playing football in the street or doing the things children did in the late 70s and early 80s.
I didn’t much like what I heard. The radio fodder at the time wasn’t much. It didn’t inspire me or make want to listen. I probably spent more time listening to classical music than anything else. Being the pianist I was (and still am to some extent) it was what I was playing and subsequently what I was listening to.
Then in the mid 1980s I discovered Iron Maiden. Live After Death in particular. It changed everything for me. No longer did I have nothing to listen to. I was hooked. Not only was it great music but it made me feel good. I wanted more.
The next few years, and given that this was the time before the internet and the current ease there is to download music I had to find other sources for what I wanted to hear. The library in York helped a lot. It had a whole load of stuff to borrow. Friends who had similar taste suddenly emerged. I began to expand, listening to Def Leppard, Queensryche, Metallica, Alice Cooper, Van Halen.
Radio helped too in its own way. This was a golden age for rock music. Friday and Saturday nights were spent listening to Tommy Vance and Alan Freeman. In that same way so many people hold a reverence to John Peel I held for Tommy Vance. I’d tape shows, listen back, buy, borrow or steal what I liked and wanted more of.
Live music always had more of an appeal for me though. Concerts were the next step, Joe Satriani in Leeds was my first. A great night it was too listening to and watching one of the best guitar players around.
I went to Uni in Nottingham purely because Rock City was there. At the time it was a case of going there or to the Marquee in London. I saw heaps of bands over the years, some memorable shows in various places – Def Leppard in Sheffield a few times, Guns n’ Roses in Milton Keynes with Izzy back while a broken wrist kept Gilbey Clarke out, Pink Floyd in London. I still say my favourite show was in 1995, Queensryche in Nottingham. Smaller venues were always more fun, more intimate.
A punk night in Rock City one Friday night had me reliving my extreme youth. Hearing a load of music for the first time in years, not knowing who it was but knowing the songs was a special and fun night.
Nirvana came along and ruined everything though. A new generation and a so-called disaffected youth saw a time when rock music on the radio slowly disappeared. Bands split up. Gone, it seemed where the days of sex, drugs and rock’n'roll. Even Motley Crue were trying to clean themselves up.
Fortunately the growth of the internet and bootleg trading meant I could hear and sometimes see concerts from everywhere. Trading was fun. Collecting stuff, obscure stuff, concerts that were held in high regard by those who were there. It’s never quite the same as being there but it’s the next best thing.
I lost track a little recently. Being in Australia for a year and given that I haven’t found a new band in recent years that has really set me going.
It sometimes feels like a revival is coming. It never does but those bands I loved are still going. Still touring, still writing new music. Whether or not I find new bands I doubt I’ll ever hold them in the same regard.
