Miscellaneous - Dave Goodwin

  by Dave Goodwin

published: 15 / 1 / 2014

intro

In his monthly 'Vinyl Stories' column Dave Goodwin from childhood to today writes of his own personal favourite vinyl records

This month's edition of ‘Vinyl Stories’ kicks the new year off with the column’s own writer Dave Goodwin, describing his most treasured discs and taking us on a journey from childhood to today via the wonderful black wax. We start our expedition with his first disc-overies... My first awakenings to music came in the unlikely shape of glove-loving Alvin Stardust and Crystal Tips-lookalike Gilbert O'Sullivan. I recognised the easy melodies in O'Sullivan and the complete showboating glam of Stardust. I must have been around ten at that time, and a spotty, lanky beanpole of a kid with extraordinarily bright ginger hair. I hated it but the Spanish went crazy for it. If only I had been a few years older at the time when I went on my first trip abroad to Benidorm… I had discovered the energetic but cash-generating pastime of a paper round which I did from the back of 'Thunderbird Three', my champion winning wooden go-cart that my dad had made me, and I remember the money I had saved up went on copies of Barry Biggs’ ‘Sideshow’ and Terry Jacks’ ‘Seasons in the Sun’. I was hooked on the soft reggae beat and the pristine vocals of ‘Seasons in the Sun’ which had a slight echo to them. I remember Biggs on ‘Top of the Pops’ wearing a white shirt and tie and a white suit, and I was fascinated with the use of bell chimes in it. Terry Jacks made me all sad. It was my first encounter of a song with really sad lyrics in it, and it was sort of strange to like something that was ultimately quite melancholic. My dad by then had been made director of a civil engineering firm. He was known by all who worked under him as “The Godfather” because he had a knack of sorting things out. We lived in an average council house in East Nottingham. We also had an enormous wooden Radiogram which opened up in the middle and had a record player inside, and towards the front of the recess were the knobs for the tuning and volume for the radio. The log dial for the radio was displayed on the front. I used to spend hours wondering how I could hear songs in such clarity all the way from places like Luxembourg. And where exactly was Caroline? One of my most vivid moments was when my Dad and I sat in front of it listening to Notts County beating Tranmere Rovers 4-1 to get promoted from Division 3 North. The significance of this life-changing event came shortly after the final whistle. My dad in his triumph decided to introduce me to his little blue seven inch record box. The one which before this epic moment I had only been able to look at but never touch. Inside were roughly about thirty singles of all sorts of genre, but mainly black music. The Upsetters’ ‘Return of the Django’, the Tymes ‘People’ and Bob and Marcia’s ‘Young Gifted & Black’ were all in there. He had a good few Beatles singles in there including ‘Twist and Shout’, ‘Let it Be ‘and my favourite ‘Paperback Writer’, as well as a fair number of tracks by Old Blue Eyes and Nancy too. Three of the singles in the box, however, were responsible for my lifelong love affair with music. The first was ‘Groovin with Mr Bloe’ by Mr Bloe, an instrumental of gargantuan proportions with piano blasting away and a killer harmonica lead meandering all the way to the run out groove. The second was from arguably the best male Tamla Motown group of all time, the Four Tops with ‘If I was a Carpenter’. The simplicity of the arrangement and the soaring vocals was my introduction to the world of Berry Gordy. Little did I know then, but the consequences of such a find which would rear its glorious head many years later. The third was an addition that came a few months later. Dad had heard a version of ‘Rivers of Babylon’ on Radio Nottingham, but had not caught the group’s name. It took him around six months to hunt it down ( there was no internet at the time ) and a trip to the East Coast Town of Skegness ensued where he got his bounty from an old record shop down the main street. With a grin the size of the North Sea, he appeared in the doorway, clutching a copy of the said ‘Rivers of Babylon’ by the Trojan band the Melodians. This record opened up my mind to the fact that there were some tracks that equalled or could even sound better than the original. But not that many! I still have the box to this day, although it's a little worse for wear, but the best thing is that I've managed to keep hold of all of its contents. During my teens I must have confused the hell out of both my parents. I had swapped the now tired- looking Thunderbird Three for a skateboard, and I had got myself a part time job at Tescos collecting trolleys. The proceeds of my wages would fuel my insatiable cravings to own my favourite records. I was the number one Blondie fan. I had a life size poster of Debbie Harry on the back of my bedroom door which spawned many a ‘Pictures of Lily’ moment. My first purchase by Blondie would be ‘Denis’. I was blown away in a teenage crush by the pure sass and confidence of it all. I later found out that Ms Harry was quite a shy character. My all time favourite though would come later. ‘Dreaming’ for me was the ultimate Blondie track and single. The rolling drums and the guitar that lead into Debbie Harry's powerful but harmonic vocals were something special and for me a welcome distraction. And then I got caught up in the mod revival. I wore a pencil tie on a plain white shirt ironed so crisp that the collars would cut your fingers tying it, and also black stay-pressed trousers and a fishtail parka. I had a chance to get a Vespa, but most of my mates had Honda Fizz's and so I opted for an unrestricted Suzie AP50 and spanked the arses off them all for speed. I managed 55mph on the flat! The mod sound spawned one of my favourite albums of all time, Secret Affair’s ‘Behind Closed Doors’. This was to me a fantastic piece of vinyl. It was angry, and said a lot of the things that we were all thinking at the time. It was full of Who type guitar, but it had strings running through it and a killer sax to die for. It just rocked, and also contained the dark and melancholic ‘Life’s a Movie Too’, a song that still rings in my ears to this day. With the arrival of the second mod coming came Two Tone and one of music's most influential periods. For me it sort of cemented the connection between modern Ska and the records that was in my dad’s box. It also brought with it the Specials’ Do Nothing’. I loved Terry Hall's vocal. It was innocent at one level, but also again angry and petulant. ‘Do Nothing’ was a statement of the time for me and my mates. When we weren't hunting girls, we would meet up the road at a set of garages and get up to mischief. In those days you didn't get up to anything serious. We were just walking and doing nothing basically. I especially enjoyed Hall's later collaboration with Dave Stewart when they brought out one album by the name of Vegas. Just to confuse my parents even more, I then slid into the New Romantic phenomena with my box jacket and Bowie trousers. Can you imagine a Futurist in a crash helmet with an RAF target sticker on the back, riding an AP50 wearing a pair of burgundy Bowies and fishtail parka? No wonder the girls were flocking around me! Not! My bike days were short lived though after I went over the handle bars straight into the back screen of a brand new Volvo during a torrential rain storm, which proved how little traction an AP50 actually had. Also during this time I was given what for me was the greatest Christmas present I could have had. Imagine my delight on Christmas morning opening an enormous box and discovering an Amstrad Hi-Fi? My first serious music player with cassette radio and turntable. I will never forget the first record I played on it and now, in adulthood, which ever new piece of music equipment I buy and continue to buy now I test it out with the same track. That track was OMD’s ‘Enola Gay’. It came from ‘Organisation’, their second album. Every single track on that album was a gem. ‘VCL XI ‘was just mind-blowing. I'd already bought their first self titled album which housed ‘Messages’, ‘Electricity’ and the brilliant ‘Julia's Song’. But ‘Enola Gay’ was the track that would eventually be the reason for me buying every piece of vinyl OMD ever did. The 10" ‘Souvenir’ was a source of great speculation at the school discos. All this electro-pop widened my musical awareness. I became very interested in the use of synth and the pioneers of it. At the time it wasn't the brilliance of musicians like Jean Michel-Jarre or Bill Nelson that caught my imagination but Depeche Mode, Ultravox and OMD, and ultimately I discovered the synthesiser tinkerings of Gary Numan. ‘The Pleasure Principle’, his debut solo album, was groundbreaking as far as I was concerned. It had some serious guitar moments in it, but it introduced me to the otherworldly analogue sounds of MiniMoog, Roland and Korg. ‘Telekon’ was also just way ahead of what anyone was doing at that time, and the outstanding ‘Please Push No More’ was like nothing I had heard up to that point, but my pick of this time though goes back to ‘The Pleasure Principle’ and ‘Complex’, one of the tracks from it. It was just so melancholic and moody, but also had some gorgeous piano and vocals. One of the other major albums I was listening to at this time was Japan’s ‘Tin Drum’. I had earlier tracks like ‘European Son’ and ‘Quiet Life’, but like Numan this oriental-sounding wonder was on its own and came out of nowhere. Their song’ ‘Ghosts’ has been a mainstay in my life. We all have skeletons in this life, and this sort of put it all into perspective. Buying all this vinyl was quite cheap for me as my step sister married a Radio Trent DJ and record shop owner. He had his shop in West End Arcade in Nottingham, and every Saturday I would go in and paw my way through row after row of lovely black vinyl. He was responsible for introducing me to obscurities like Bill Nelson's’ Savage Gestures for Charm’s Sake’ and ‘Another Happy Thought ( Carved Forever in your Cortex)’, and also French duo Mathematiques Modernes’ self-titled album which contained a fantastic track called ‘Jungle Hurt’. He was also responsible for my obsession with Joy Division, and later of course New Order. He gave me a copy of’ Unknown Pleasures’ for my birthday, and I went on to buy ‘Closer’ and also ‘Still’ along with the 12" singles that came in between. I bought what was considered the "Bible" ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, and totally immersed myself in all things Curtis. ‘Closer’ was a little darker for obvious reasons and had ‘Isolation’ and ‘The Eternal’, while ‘Unknown Pleasures’ had ‘Shadowplay’ and ‘She’s Lost Control’, but from that album it was the two minutes and sixteen seconds of ‘Interzone’ that infected me the most. It was raw, raucous and rabid and a brilliant track. With the the death of Curtis came New Order. I was an avid reader of the ‘NME’ (It was a paper back then), and this crossover was widely documented in it. The first releases were of course bought up by yours truly in rapid style. My favourite New Order material was definitely their early period, and I spent money on their fantastic double-sider ‘Everything’s Gone Green/Procession’, and then the original Joy Division song ‘Ceremony’. Again I went on to buy all New Order’s records on album and in 12" formats. My vinyl collecting was soon to dry up and record-less days were drawing in. I had experimented with my libido to the extent that just after leaving school fatherhood had reared its expensive head, and I had to cut down on my vinyl. Well, when I say cut down, what I meant was it stopped altogether. Sadder times were to come. Unfortunately my dad was made redundant, and within six months of that developed lung cancer. He was operated on but to no avail, and died after I had spent around six months nursing him at home after giving my job up to help. We spent what turned out to be some of the best times of my life in his last months sitting at his bedside, playing ‘Solo’ and listening to the Melodians and the rest of the contents of the little blue box. The ‘Vinyl Stories’ would have stopped here with the introduction of the compact disc, but happier times were on the way. After a rather costly divorce that eventually lead to me having to leave the family home, I started a new life taking just my clothes, my stereo separates and my vinyl including a copy of Squeeze’s ‘ Up the Junction’ which seemed rather fitting...you have to get your priorities right! The story then cuts to a few years later when by which time i had met my future wife and been introduced to a sound that I'd somehow forgot. After moves to Derby, the Isle of Anglesey for five years and back to Nottingham, I was drawn back again to the little blue box. The girl I eventually married (after much catching up from young long-term relationships and much alcoholic frivolity) took me by the hand and led me into the world of Northern Soul. This was about the time of the start of the mid to late 80’s revival. Shortly after witnessing the strange all night dancing of that period, I was compellingly drawn once more to black wax and I started to buy 7" again. The trouble was that this time I hadn't banked on the cost of said pieces of musical history. Another thing I hadn't banked on was the sounds I was going to discover. Over the next twenty-odd years my collection grew and grew and well.....GREW. I was a regular at Record Fairs all over the Midlands, and with the sounds I had bought soon bought a sound system loud enough to start our own Northern Soul nights in local towns and had DJ slots including the Union in Nottingham. The sounds though were the story alongside the beautiful people we have met along the way. There are too many to list here, but some of the highlights here included when I managed to acquire a copy of Jimmy Frazier's Youth Opportunity Program’s ‘Of Hopes and Dreams and Tombstones’ on a CBS white demo for a few hundred quid along with a super soulful but less expensive copy of Soul Brothers Six’s’ I'll be Loving You’ on Atlantic. The latter is one of the most soulful records you will ever hear. More soulful delights ensued until I found and bought one of the records I had always dreamt of owning at a record fair in Walsall, the Exits’‘Under the Streetlamp’ on a Gemini white demo. It was the best £150 I have ever spent. This took me right back then when my mates and I used to meet up at the garages, and kick around getting up to no good, but dreaming of playing for Accrington Stanley one day! The soaring vocal rising above a slight doo wop backing gives way to visions of guys just the same as us.”'Bobby wants to be the heavyweight champ” and “just dreaming of the days that lie ahead” are the heartfelt cries of another of the most soulful tracks on the planet. I only bought the tracks that I liked at first, and in eventually ended up buying when I could two copies of each. One was the expensive original and the other a bootleg or cheaper reissue to play at soul nights. I have been lucky enough to find copies of records by Marlena Shaw, Joy Lovejoy, the Jellybeans, Dee Irwin, Frank Beverley and a UK demo of Frank Wilson’s ‘ Do I Love You? , an original US copy of which on Tamla Motown would cost you well over £15,000. I got even more into the R&B side of the scene and purchased copies of singles by Lonnie Lester, the Profiles and A.C. Reed. My interest in soul has broadened, and I have found myself delving into disco and funk and also going further back to the Wall of Sound of Phil Spector. My wonderful wife has let me commandeer a cupboard in the living room, and I have converted it into a man cave. It is actually more of a shrine to the black disc. I am now actively buying the music I like on vinyl instead of downloading it, and I find myself inspecting the sleeve and inner booklet etc while sat supping a latte instead of doing it on the bus ride home. I pulled out that copy of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ the other day, and discovered that I had stored a copy of the ‘NME’ inside it. It was a copy that had an interview with the band in it, and I had written the words to the lyrics on a sheet of paper and saved that too. My wife now calls me an anorak. Really? What do you think?

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