11. Avenues and Alleyways – Tony Christie (1972)

This song is the music that they played at the end of the TV show ‘The Protectors’ which starred Peter Vaughan, Nyree Dawn Porter and Tony Anholt and was one of the shows I used to watch when I was a kid! I must confess that as well as wanting to be Doctor Who, Steed, Jason King and Batman (okay Batman was also sophisticated super capitalist Bruce Wayne in his spare time) I also wanted to be Harry Rule.

As we lived in Leicester, which was in the ATV region we were lucky enough to get a good stream of repeats of Lew Grade’s shows such as ‘The Protectors’ and ‘Captain Scarlet’ etc which were usually on around lunchtime on a Sunday. I really liked ‘The Protectors’ and I really liked this song and even though it is a little dated now Tony Christie has an extremely dramatic and precise voice that could make his alphabetical singing of the names in a telephone directory sound amazing.

When buying this on itunes I discovered a rather exciting new video that Tony had made which is very much in keeping with the original track and although all this song does is remind me I want to be a velvet wearing 70s special agent involved in international espionage it remains a masterpiece….and so much better than ‘Show Me The Way to Amarillo’ for which Tone is now known by a younger generation.

Now listen to the song (and watch the video….)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcfGeNqp-bY

10. See You – Depeche Mode (1982)

They say that it is the sense of smell that invokes feelings of nostalgia when one returns to a much loved place or is reminded of a particular time in one’s life, but I am convinced that music and certain songs also evoke cherished memories.

Back In 1982 I was a young fourteen year old attending a school, which was fifteen miles from where I lived. Although it was a boarding school, I used to go daily (by bus) which meant I was up and out early and home for 5.00pm each day. As my school was attended by boys (there were no girls but luckily for me we had two girls’ schools next door one of which was a convent school!) from other towns such as Nottingham as well as various parts of Leicester nearly all of my school friends lived too far away for me to see in the evenings or at weekends and so I joined the Western Park Youth Theatre which was run on a Wednesday night from the Church Hall about 100 yards down the road.

This was a magical time in my life where I made many wonderful friends and indulged my pleasure for acting and singing! The Group was run by a wonderful man called Mick Lowe, who was (without doubt) one of the most dedicated and amazing people that I have ever been lucky enough to know. A more kind and generous man you will probably never know and he was so talented he could just about play anything on any instrument as well as produce magical shows from virtually nothing! To say that I loved him dearly is something I am not ashamed to say.

I have lots to tell about this time in my life and there will be more later, but amongst all the people I met in this group (and more about them and the songs that remind me of them later) were two friends Mark and Melanie who were to have a very definite influence on me. The Depeche Mode song ‘See You’ always reminds me of Melanie!

The reason is a simple one. Melanie had to write and record a radio play as a project for her ‘O’ Level drama and wrote a very amusing short play called ‘The Barbeque’ which was about a woman who murdered a significant number of ex lovers and enemies and then served them up at a summer barbeque! Both Mark and myself played all the men’s parts (with various accents and in my case degrees of bad acting) and Melanie and her friends Lucy, Adele and Catherine played the girls’ roles. The school (I seem to think the New Parks Drama Teacher was called Mr. Butler) had given us the use of a very posh stereo reel-to-reel tape recorder and microphones but as everything had to be done in real time (no digital editing in those days or multi tracking!!) we had to work hard to actually get the telephone to ring at a specific time during the scenes. The opening scene was one of the girls listening to ‘See You’ by Depeche Mode in her flat as the phone rings. I had never heard this song before but as we did take after take of trying to get the phone to ring in the right place we played it a number of times  and so I truly heard it (and loved it). Melanie and her friends Lucy and Adele were to introduce me to their favourite music which included Soft Cell and Japan but this particular song always reminds me of the weekend we recorded that play and Melanie who wrote it!

Now listen to the song…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhI8bff4_x8

9. The Sun Rising – The Beloved (1989)

‘The Sun Rising’ is one of the songs from the album ‘Happiness’ by The Beloved.

I have to admit that they were a band I had knew very little about until the mid 90s but my wife Kerry (she was my girlfriend at the time) had ‘Happiness’ on a cassette and I came to love this album and this song during a road trip we undertook from Leicester (via Essex) to the French Alps!

Some friends had decided to set up a skiing business in the French Alps and moved out there but as the costs of moving were so massive they asked Kerry and I if we would drive over from England in a van and bring some of their furniture. We loaded up the van in Leicester and drove back to Essex (where we were living at the time) and got up early to catch the ferry from Dover. Armed with a few hundred Francs for road tolls we arrived in Calais at night and began the long drive to Grenoble. This was the first time we had ever driven in France and we were both surprised to discover that there were no motorway lights on the motorways and to make matters worse as it was December it was totally freezing. Before long we discovered another shocking problem – The whole of France was on strike and whilst this was a good thing as no one was collecting any tolls on the motorways and the gates were open for us to drive through unchallenged, none of the motorway service stations were open and before long we were cold, hungry, tired and miserable and there was nowhere to stop and have a coffee or get something to eat!

We had a number of tapes to play however and so Kerry put ‘Happiness’ on and we played the album from start to finish a number of times as we drove the several hundred miles to the Les 2 Alps!

We drove through the night and into the morning and decided to try and get some sleep, however it was so cold that the moment we turned off the engine the temperature dropped in the cab and before ten minutes it was unbearable.  In the end we decided to press on, and with the windows open (yes OPEN!!!!) we continued to listen to ‘Happiness’ until we finally arrived.

I love this album because it reminds me of this adventure (and we also had fun on the way back…but that’s another story……) and every time I hear ‘The Sun Rising’ I am reminded of the actual sun rising as the dawn broke as we drove across France in the cold on our way to the Alps….

Now listen to the song….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2hzlEdXsg0

8. Musette and Drums – Cocteau Twins (1983)

It was in 1983 and on a Friday night that I first saw and heard the Cocteau Twins on ‘The Tube’ and this is the one of the songs they were performing. There was quite a bit of ‘experimental’ music during the 1980s and the Cocteau Twins seemed to me to embody this perfectly. Instead of the glamorous singer and snappily well-dressed new romantics that were doing the rounds which I personally loved and adored these guys were the complete opposite! From the amazing hair and jumper combo of Robin Guthrie combined with his deliciously relaxed performance style to the bizarre and atmospheric vision and voice of Elizabeth Fraser accompanied by a tape machine, this screamed ‘radical’ to me and I have loved it and the group ever since.

I was 15 years old at the time and loved ‘The Tube’ on a Friday which was a genuinely ground breaking show from Tyne Tees and it introduced me to so many new and exciting things. I could say more about this song and the Cocteau Twins but for some reason I think the music speaks for itself! I still listen to them regularly on the way to work and when I post a status on facebook which says ‘Tom is listening to the Cocteau Twins’ I AWLAYS get comments and a number of people who ‘like’ this….

Listen to the song and watch that ‘Tube’ Performance….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SRpJst3Tyw

7. The Banner Man – Blue Mink (1971)

One of the truly fantastic things about the rise of technology and the internet and the ability to access music using computers and so on is the ability to listen to things that have long since been deleted and you thought you would never hear again in your lifetime. One such song for me is ‘The Banner Man’ by Blue Mink.

This is one of my absolute favourites from childhood and a song that ‘stayed around’ for a long time in the jukeboxes and bars well into the late seventies, but is now sadly forgotten. I seem to recall that in the 1970s mainstream songs such as this one and another favourite ‘The Pushbike Song’ by The Mixtures were often sung on tv programmes like ‘Play School’. Presenters like Chloe Ashcroft (who I adored as a six year old) and Fred Harris would sing these songs with Big Ted and the other toys thus introducing them to a wider audience, which included me!

My lasting memory of this song was on a summer’s night in 1974 on holiday in Blackpool. I was six at the time and I was on holiday in Blackpool with my mum and dad, my brother and my granny. My mum was always an ‘early to bed’ type and it was very surprising to ever see her up past 10 o’clock so after our fun day riding the trams and making sandcastles on the beach and being too scared to go down the stairs into the Dr. Who exhibition, opposite the Central Pier, we arrived back at our ‘digs’ for the evening.  For some reason I cannot recall my mum, brother and granny went to bed and I went for a walk along the seafront with my dad. It was dark and I distinctly remember the light on the top of the Tardis (which acted as the entrance to the exhibition) a kind of nobbly-glass disco style light, was flashing pink even though the attraction had long since closed.

After a time we came to a café. A typical Blackpool café, which probably almost certainly utilised lard for frying the chips and other 70s pleasures such as sausages, bacon and eggs etc and there we sat down while my dad had a cup of tea and I had a hot chocolate. In the corner was a jukebox and after a bit of pestering my dad let me put 10p in for us to have two choices. I seem to think he chose them as he knew what I liked and he knew I loved ‘The Banner Man’ by Blue Mink. The juke box was one where you could see the records (special ones with a much larger than usual hole in the middle) being picked up by an arm, swung over and dropped onto the turntable before the heavy duty juke box needle started on its journey from the outside to the centre and filling the café with such a joyous and wonderful song.

I remember it was dark outside, but the white lights and white paint of the café shone out of the night while we sat drinking our Cocoa and Tea listening to the music. I was so pleased to rediscover this song on itunes and to play it again and again and think back to Blackpool in 1974 and the wonderful fun I had on holiday in the 1970s.

Now listen to the song…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwRECj2Lvu8&feature=related

6. Breathe Slow – Alesha Dixon (Feb 2009)

This song is one of my most recent favourites and I totally love it. I came across it completely by accident when I was having a random glance at the home page of the itunes store and playing the samples of the songs in the top ten.  I had a listen and in the same way as one might fall in love at first sight I fell in love with this song from a short sample! The fact that you can listen to a little snippet of a song on itunes is (I suppose) like listening to a record in the shop before buying it in the sixties, which is something that had gone by the time I joined the record buying public in 1978 (up until this time I had my records bought for me as presents!) but must have been a great incentive to buy.

Before long I was listening to this song so much I felt the need to see Alesha’s video and so logging onto itunes once again I paid my £1.79 or whatever it was to download that too! During January and February 2009 I was travelling between London and Newcastle and London and Edinburgh most weeks and was spending many hours on the train in the late evenings coming home. The internet connexion on the East Coast Mainline is shocking so it was hard to log on and have a look at ‘facebook or ‘You Tube’ as the connection kept dropping so I would often turn to my collection of music and videos stored on my computer.

I particularly remember one very cold day when it had been snowing and (as usual) the trains were being cancelled left right and centre and I was travelling down from Newcastle to London. It was so cold that the doors of the train were frozen shut and we could only get on the train using certain doors and to make matters worse there was no working heating in the carriage in which I sat. I was wearing my coat and gloves but at least there was light and power. Luckily for me it was quite empty so I plugged in my lap top, fixed my headphones in my ear and listened to this song and later watched the video (which as you will see if you watch the clip) which was shot in Vegas where I had a few memorable days back in October 2010 – but that’s another story.

Listening to Alesha D will always remind me of that cold winter and miserable journey home once again made better by the power of music.

Now listen to the song….(and watch the video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-503QA6F08g

Happy Xmas (War is Over) - Plastic Ono Band (1972)

Happy Christmas everybody! War is Over – if you want it?  This song reminds me of two things. Firstly the tragic murder of John Lennon some thirty years ago when I was a twelve years old and its subsequent re-release in time for Christmas which acted a further reminder to the futility of war and the fact that war will (unfortunately) never be over as too many people still want it and always will.

Secondly it reminds me of an excellent drama based on a book by Malcolm Bradbury entitled ‘The History Man’ which was shown on BBC 2 in 1981 when I was a thirteen year old. Looking back it was quite a racy piece of drama for a thirteen year old to be watching as the hero of the piece – one Howard Kirk – played by Antony Sher was a bit of a womaniser and was bonking Isla Blair and Veronica Quigillian as well as others in the first episode alone, but I distinctly remember that in the opening episode Howard and his wife are preparing for a party they are throwing at their house, and later in the episode when the party is in full swing we hear ‘Merry Xmas – War is Over’ playing in the background during a particularly engaging scene. I must admit to really having enjoyed that drama as it was set in the 1970s and as I have a bit of a thing for velvet and flares as I used to love wearing my own as a child during the period (as well as having long hair and watching ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ but that’s another story….) I found it fascinating.

For some reason the BBC did not repeat the programme for years but recently re showed it on BBC4 where I videoed it and watched the episodes on the train travelling to and from Newcastle. Unlike so many things it was exactly as I remembered it and there was ‘Happy Xmas – War is Over’ playing at that party again…

Merry Christmas….

Now listen to the song……


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROnq699pesM&feature=fvst

4. Fast Car – Tracy Chapman (1988)

 This is one of the great songs and from one of the great albums. The thing about Tracy Chapman’s album ‘Tracy Chapman’ is that it is absolutely perfect and like so few albums a ‘whole’ entity. There is no waste, there is no song on that album that is only just ‘okay’. Every single track is a masterpiece and each one takes you on a journey from start to the finish. From ‘Talkin’ Bout A Revolution’, through ‘Fast Car’, listening to the horror of ‘Behind The Wall’, looking at yourself and your conspicuous consumption in ‘Mountains O’ Things’, the things we would all do ‘For My Lover’ and finally the big one ‘Why?’

I first heard it when I was twenty and living in Leicester, it was the summer and I was a member of the Haymarket Youth Theatre in Leicester  run at the time by Tim Supple who is now a successful director at the National. We used to have our rehearsals in a big old warehouse in Short Street, where the stage was marked out with tape on the ground floor,  and the other floors housed additional rehearsal space and props and costumes. It was a magical place and many friends were made there. It seems odd now but at the time we were allowed to do our own rehearsals completely unsupervised and as the building was so old and so dusty and so creepy and had an internal lift which was something like a metal cage where you could see the inner workings and had to slide the heavy concertina doors together before it would move, it was an ideal place to play hide and seek and better still ‘sardines!’  Needless to say we did this a lot!

‘Tracy Chapman’ was the album of the summer and we listened to it in the car and on the stereo (when ghostly voices weren’t interrupting the music or making the tape recorder stop working – but that’s another story) at Short Street.

One summer night I was in my room listening to it and the telephone rang. A keen lover of all things telephonic I had installed a lovely shiny red telephone in my room and it rang and flashed a red light as well. My best friend wanted to know if I wanted to go to London that night on the spur of the moment and so I packed a few things and he came to pick me up in his dad’s car. We listened to ‘Tracy Chapman’ as we drove to London, went to Southgate, picked up a couple of his friends and went to Ronnie Scott’s! Three things about that evening I will never forget:

1.     The fact that the trip was just so spontaneous and exciting and ridiculous -we left at about 8.00pm!

2.     The fact that my friend drove to the West End and parked outside Ronnie Scott’s in the biggest car I had ever seen! It was a massive seven seater Peugeot estate!

3.     Listening to one of the greatest albums of all time when it was new and fresh and dangerous and inspiring.

Now listen to the song…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl6yilkU1LI

3. Twist in My Sobriety – Tanita Tikram (1988)

Having started to write to about my favourite songs and the memories that are attached to them it seems that often I come to love certain songs when I associate them with exciting or pleasurable or interesting (or sometimes ‘sad’) things….. and so we come to this one.

I first heard this song properly in a Dance Lesson in the Victorian Ballroom at Sheriff Hutton Park in North Yorkshire where I was a student at east 15 acting school. I have always been a really terrible dancer (and some would say rubbish actor and singer as well but that’s another story….) and have successfully managed to reduce more than one professional choreographer to tears, so as you can imagine, I hated dance lessons but this was an expection.

In the first term of that second year at east 15 (Sept – Dec 1990) we had a lovely dancing teacher called Lesley (who was a truly lovely person as well as a dancing teacher but that’s yet another story…) and I remember her putting this song on and doing a whole lesson choreographing and performing a dance to it. The Ballroom was so large and so light and so brilliant for dancing and performing as it had wonderfully big bay windows, a magnificent wooden floor, a gun cupboard (every stately home should have one) and woodwork painted in a lovely light blue colour. The sunlight that shone through the window on the cold autumn mornings warmed the room as well as the movement of the dancers (and me!).

Although I’d heard ‘Twist In My Sobriety’ on the radio a few times in the past, I came to love this song from listening to it more acutely in this dance lesson and so I went out and bought it. I still have it on my ipod today and I listen to it as I travel to work sometimes. It always reminds me of that dance lesson and Sherriff Hutton. I had a truly wonderful time at east 15 and in Sheriff Hutton in particular and to be reminded of that makes me smile.

Now listen to the song…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJdgSRzv8wE&feature=related

2. (Return to The Valley Of) Out Come The Freaks – Was Not Was (1983)

Where do you start with ‘Was Not Was’? These Guys have got to be the craziest musicians known to humanity but at a risk of sounding like I come from L.A – I LOVE THEIR WORK!!

I was first introduced to them on a trip to London back in 1986 when I was lucky enough to come to London with my friend Tom. Tom is now an actual musician and you can buy his stuff on itunes (and very good it is too) but back in 1986 he was just a sixth former who wanted to start a band – just like me. During the summer holidays we had recorded a few songs on a four track cassette recorder (which was state of the art at the time) and had come to London to stay with Tom’s auntie and see a few record labels (seriously!).

While Tom’s auntie was out working her partner who was a very talented young actor working for the BBC and the National at the time took us for a drink in the pub on the corner of the street before taking us back to play a few records and ‘chill out’ as they say these days. Once we were back he pulled out a cassette of the ‘Was Not Was’ Album ‘Born to Laugh at Tornedos’ and said ‘Man, you have just got to listen to this shit – it’s amazing!’ So we did and it WAS!

After we came back home I searched and searched for a copy of this album, which by that time had been deleted. In the end I managed to get an imported American copy from a specialist shop by the local market and will never forget the first time I laid this baby on the turntable. The whole album, which includes guest appearances by Ozzy Osbourne, Mel Torme and Mitch Ryder to name a few is just so gloriously weird that I have loved it ever since and this track (apart from ‘The Party Broke Up’ which includes the immortal line ‘His girlfriend Gloria wore metal shoes that emitted poison gasses from the heels’ and the equally weird ‘ Man vs The Empire Brain Building’) is pretty strange too.

Now listen to the song……

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa-Qb_riX6Q

1. ‘Gimme, Gimme, Gimme’ – Abba (Oct 1979) – Epic Records

‘Gimme, Gimme, Gimme’ – Abba (Oct 1979) – Epic Records

For anyone who thinks that this is an odd place to start this record reminds me of a party my parents held in 1979. I was eleven. It was a Saturday and I had been out into the town on my own on the bus and bought this record by Abba in Lewis’ Department store. I rushed home to play it, but our record player wouldn’t work! It was broken and had decided to give up the ghost the very day we needed it as we were having a house warming party that very night and what is a party without music?

We had moved into our new house in September, just before I started secondary school and here one month later we were having the family round! My mother had a large family who accounted for 99.6% of the guests and my dad invited his mother. Such a gathering was a rare occasion - the last one having been in 1973 (but that’s another story) and it fell to me as the oldest son to be in charge of the music. Armed with my copy of K- Tel’s ‘Disco Fever’ (another record you will hear more about later unless you’re bored to tears already) a handful of other singles and the Elvis’ Christmas Album I had no means of playing these records and so……we went down town and bought a new one!!!!

Back home we unpacked the new record player, sat it on the dining room table (which would not be its usual home - but this was a party and we needed easy access to the music) connected a plug to the power cable, plugged in the speakers and prepared for the first play.

I took my lovely new record with its distinctive orange label from its equally orange sleeve and gently positioned it at the top of the metal central column just above the catch before selecting the 45rpm speed and forcibly moving the player control from the ‘stop’ to the ‘play’ setting. The disc dropped onto the turntable with the familiar sound of plastic falling onto plastic, the arm swung over from the side, hovered gently above the disc and then the needle touched the record and then one of the most familiar refrains from pop history rang out of the speakers! What a great song!

Needless to say (a bit like John Peel with The Undertones) we played it again immediately when it had finished and then again and again and again. Even now whenever I hear that song it reminds me of the new record player and that party.

The party itself was very eventful….but that’s another story….

Now listen to the song….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEjLoHdbVeE

500 Songs

500 Songs – Tom Gregory (born 1968)

This is a journey into music and songs. A journey which will tell you about 500 of my favourite songs, why I love them, what it is about why I love them, what they mean to me, the memories that are attached to some (but not all of them) and why they make me smile or cry or laugh or sing along too.

I hope that you enjoy reading about them. As Yoko Ono said in a tweet on Twitter on 18^th December 2010 ‘…don’t get stuck in one media it will dry your inspiration’ – What she probably meant to say was ‘don’t get stuck in one medium’ however we can forgive her that small lapse in proper English as it is a foreign language to her – however the sentiment is a good one. So here is a project in one medium that refers to another – the medium of music! Remember these are my memories and my views and all things are subject to taste!

Tom – 21^st December 2010