The thing I like best about all this radio malarkey is the chance to play some things on air that I never hear otherwise. Needless to say this has involved getting in about the CD cupboard in a major way. When I’m there I start to find the most amazing things that I’ve not played myself for years, never mind heard on the radio.
Last night we played Rachel Yamagata’s Jesus was a Crossmaker (written by the late Judee Sill), Freda Payne’s Band of Gold and Oh Patti by Scritti Politti.
The good news is if you like any of these songs you can, almost certainly, find them legally and download them for a very small price. In the old days I used to hear a song on the radio and know that the only certain way to hear it again was to go to Bruce’s record shop in Reform St (Dundee) and ask the boy behind the counter to put it on. Most of you know that this task is beyond the emotional development of a teenager so the track would not be heard until a few months later when I’d saved up enough money to buy the album. Going to the boy behind the counter and asking him to put on the record led to the “minter” – a full blown red-face full of embarrassment.
There was one other option to this: you just hung around the record shop in the hope that it might come on. We spent days in record shops – not that there were many. In Dundee, until Bruce’s arrived we used to to go to Boots! (I ask you!) In Bruce’s one day in November 1975 I heard an entire album from beginning to end. It was Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. I have owned that album on vinyl, CD and now the remastered version sits pride of place on my shelf. That afternoon probably changed my musical life for good. Sometimes it’s worth just hanging around.
Hi Ricky
Your mission should you accept it (and you should as you’ll not have to travel as far as Bruce’s Record store) is to look into the humungous pile of CD’s in the office and locate the (most) recent one by Green Peppers.
It’s their new single, it’s called HONEST INJUN, it features vocals by Justin Currie and it’s available to buy from ITUNES and other soul-less digital stores from the 11th June (i.e. next monday). It’s also a hook-laden, 24 carat classic with some fabulous pedal steel embelishment.
If you could play this a couple of times it will do many things:
1. Make me very happy
2. Make the listeners very happy
3. Make the artist very happy.
4. Make you very happy.
Who could argue with all that happiness?
cheers and best wishes
David
PS sorry about the time my labrador nearly stole your family’s pieces up in Linn Park, he’s a greedy b****r!
Hey Ricky,
Hope you can play Backstreets from the Born To Run album some time over the coming weeks.
I haven’t heard a show like this since the days of late night Nicky Campbell on Radio One – sublime stuff.
Hey do you realise you’ll be competing with the majestic Mr.Galloway MP on Friday night for listeners? He spoke very highly of you on his show last week…
Much love and Respect…
George,
Northern Ireland.
Talk of record shops in Dundee always makes me go dewy-eyed. It was the place where – as a teenager – I bought most of the little circles of black plastic that, some forty years later, still mean a lot to me.
But one particular incident – at an age when such things mattered deeply – left a deep impression on me. And it happened in a Dundee record shop. Not Bruce’s, and to be honest I can’t now remember which one. (I can’t remember what I had for breakfast today, either, mind you.)
I have always been unable to walk into a record shop and come out empty handed. Nowadays I ‘virtually’ walk into GEMM or eBay every night, but in those days things were a damn sight more tangible.
And I found something I really wanted. Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasy on Greensleeves”. Sure, Ricky, I can hear you squirming. But I’d just had the first real moment of teenage glory when I’d “done” the sound at the school play – “The Duchess of Malfi” – and we’d used this piece as background music. And it had got to me.
There it was – a nice, cheap version on RCA’s cheapie label. Trouble was, it was 14/11 and I only had eleven bob in my pocket.
The girl at the counter was a vision of dark-haired loveliness. One of Dundee’s finest. More Maggie broon than Daphne, except for the hair.
So I chatted her up. I think it was the first time I ever chatted a girl up. I told her the story about the school play…and the music…and bingo! she let me have the record for eleven bob. Put it through as a staff purchase!!
Dundee record shops. Cannae beat ’em….
Missed monday’s show but have been tuned in ever since and enjoyed the wise variety of tunes played so far.
I miss Stereo 1 in Paisley and Johnstone. I used to save up my money from my paper round and buy the latest LPs and 12″ singles there and sit excitedly looking at the sleeves and imagining how the records might sound as the bus took ages to get home. The guys that ran the shop knew their stuff too and they were always happy to order in some stuff that they didn’t have on the shelves. My mum liked it too, i use dto give her these lists of things i was looking for at Christmas, stuff she hadn’t heard of like Prefab Sprout, Martin Stephenson and the Daintees and some old gospel compilations and they always came up with the goods.
Have you heard any of Steven Lindsay’s new stuff… its been album on the week on Tom Morton? Got to play some Kevin McDermott too at some point if you have a few rockier nights… he’s been posting lots of new recordings on his myspace page and there’s a great video which is worth seeing for the final frame about the new artwork arriving for his latest album.
*wide… not wise variety hehe… and i just remembered the guys at Stereo 1 would also give you the old shop display posters… somewhere in the loft i think i have a cardboard cut out of Deacon Blue which came with the Dignity 1988 single and a 3-D display for Fellow Hoodlums
One of the great draws to your Late Lounge to me is the great eclectic mix of music on offer, which has already had me heading to iTunes or artists’ websites and is always the joy of shows like these to me, as it is with (Whispering ) Bob Harris.
In this digital age, of course, the romance of scouring record stores has given way to the instant gratification of the download. I’m still a big buyer of CDs too, though, and perhaps that lingering desire to have something tangible to represent the music is what drives this impulse for me. I used to browse for hours in record stores — still do given half the chance — but as for the joy of hearing something new and unexpected over the airwaves, I’ll be sticking with the Late Lounge in the coming weeks…
funny the things that people say.
reading what you have just written has now given me a question for yourself.
the way in which you mention that record shop and bruce springsteen and the album thing.
how does it feel to be at the opposite side of the scale.
i have everything you have released from
so long ago to pale rider.
i have fond memories of record shops and the hassle these spotted geeks can cause.
i have had my share of trying to get a simple request over to them.
i bought raintown on vinyl and then again as it was re-released with riches.
as a lot of fans it was dignity that drew me in.
i then bought raintown on cd as i then got my first cd player.
i often found i heard a certain click in the lead in on dignity. i bought another copy as i thought it to be faulity.
after buying a couple of copies for family and friends i am sure i have purchased at least 30 copies. i never lend cd’s so people often ask when they hear me play it.
i have since bought another remastered copy.
so in my house alone i have 2vinyl copies and 3cd
copies of raintown.
so how does it make you feel when you are the subject of the record purchase’s that you remember doing your self with springsteen.