Memories of a first music buy

[Thenop]

There's a Fog Along the Horizon

Memories are funny like that; they take you wherever you had no clue you wanted to go.

I must have been nine years old, sitting next to my cousin, at least 6 years my senior, well abled to travel by himself and to have me tag along. The tram moves with abrupt movements, squeaking every turn it takes. If it was early hours people would wake up from the noise it makes, I am sure of it. My legs dangling, I cannot yet reach the floor sitting with my back leaned against the rest. We on our way, we are going to spend money.

My mother is waiting, with my aunt, the only tangible evidence my paternal family ever existed, giving me the roots I crave. It's midday, sort of, and there's a radio playing. What's popular is playing and I am bound to purchase a seven inch single of "Bright Eyes", the song with the bunnies. The radio dares me and plays something different, something I never heard before and it draws me in and locks my ears. The song is over and the presenter announces who it was, what they do and mostly: what they look like. Supposedly they are it at the moment. What did I just hear? and before I have time to digest we are at our stop and need to get out. A most peculiar spot for a record store: at the beach. Being instructed to not stray I handover the cash, and get the near forgotten desired single, its' cover a black and white exposure of a rabbit in headlights caught. It would take me years to figure out what the song was about, I read a lot of books but I reckon Watership Down was a bit steep for a just turned nine year old.

This is where the recollection ends: there is no trip back, no showing mum what I bought, no ride back home in the car. None of that.

There is a vague recall of playing that single that felt out of place once I had it at home on the turntable.

It's been forty six years, I rarely if ever play Dynasty, there is no reason to. There is so much other music, it would bring me little more than a memory. A lifelike one, the colour of the tram is vivid enough, although memories tend to spruce up everything like a polar opposite Polaroid after all these years, only intensifying the memory.

Maybe I should take it out after all these years.

What? No not Bright eyes! Spare me!

"I Was Made For Lovin' You!"

[David L]

Played Dynasty the other day!
 My first Kiss studio record. Good album. I think it retains the essence of earlier Kiss records more than anything that followed it, mostly due to the inclusion of tracks that were individually written by all four original members.

[Thenop]

Played Dynasty the other day!
 My first Kiss studio record. Good album. I think it retains the essence of earlier Kiss records more than anything that followed it, mostly due to the inclusion of tracks that were individually written by all four original members.

Looks can be deceiving here. Peter Criss is on exactly 1 song: Dirty Livin', the other tracks are done by Anton Fig.
And Criss never wrote a tune in his life (and according to Simmons he couldn't carry one either). The co writes were mostly to keep up the foursome image.

[David L]

Played Dynasty the other day!
 My first Kiss studio record. Good album. I think it retains the essence of earlier Kiss records more than anything that followed it, mostly due to the inclusion of tracks that were individually written by all four original members.

Looks can be deceiving here. Peter Criss is on exactly 1 song: Dirty Livin', the other tracks are done by Anton Fig.
And Criss never wrote a tune in his life (and according to Simmons he couldn't carry one either). The co writes were mostly to keep up the foursome image.

I did know that Peter Criss only played a small part on this record but at least they gave him the vocal!
At least it's better than Hooligan 

[Slim]

My first music buy was Alice Cooper's School's Out. I can't actually remember buying it or even which record shop it came from. That's odd, now I think about it. But I do remember playing it over and over again, on my brother's "record player" which looked a bit like a bulky square suitcase with a turntable in it.

I very well remember hearing Kiss for the first time. I'd already seen a tiny clip, just a few seconds in a music documentary with Gene breathing fire on stage. A few weeks later I was listening to the Metro Radio rock show in bed - I would have been 16 at this time I think - and the DJ, Geoff Brown, played Firehouse from Alive!

I assumed the fire-breathing guy was the singer for some reason although (of course) Paul is lead vocalist on that tune. By the time the siren was going off, I was hooked!

Another few weeks later I found a £5 note on the way home from school and I bought Alive! (eventually - my mum made me take it to a police station and wait two weeks for it not to be claimed).

[Thenop]

Fantastic, the band had such appeal back then. Dangerous stuff, fierce sounding but accessible enough to draw everyone in.
Coincidence though: I found 50 guilders around that time ('79 it was), my mum made me wait and we went to the police station as well   No one claimed it. I bought some of the solo albums, picture discs with clipped corners, they went cheap, and I got the Best of... the solos for no reason. All the music as on the regular solo albums of course, but I did not have that one so I NEEDED it.

[The Picnic Wasp]

Sorry to go a bit off thread but this sparked a memory in me. One Friday night leaving work with a colleague on a really windy evening, as we headed for the bus a twenty pound note blew towards me, then another, then a tenner. All grasped by me in an instant.

I was always completely skint in those days and there was no hope of finding the person who had lost the cash. It was a desolate, run down industrial part of town, getting dark and all I could think of was my weekend was paid for by a higher power. However, the guy I was with was famed for his abject meanness. He would never buy his round in the pub and even owed me money for lunches not paid for. Nevertheless he nagged me until I parted with some cash, although I could only bear to hand him the tenner despite his protestations.

The nagging continued as he suggested the pub on the way home after the first part of the journey and I reluctantly agreed. Needless to say I went home with very little money as he reckoned I should buy most of the drinks due to my good fortune. More fool me. A few weeks later when out for a lunchtime stroll I passed the same bus stop about quarter of a mile from my workplace. I noticed some cash on the pavement, two twenty pound notes and a tenner. Weird. Again, no point in handing the money in anywhere as it was cultural desert near the docks that place. For that reason I kept the money without any guilty feeling as it felt like an account had been balanced in my favour by something in the cosmos.

A few months down the road I bought a car at long last. I'd been using public transport for many years and it was becoming increasingly stressful and indeed sometimes dangerous. It was not a nice part of the world where I worked. So, one lunchtime I headed to a nearby shopping centre to pick up a sandwich from the supermarket. After parking the car and heading to the store I noticed money lying on the ground. Two twenties and a tenner! Again! This time I could only imagine in my mind's eye some old pensioner rummaging around in their pockets at the checkout and not getting their groceries, so I gave the money to charity that time.

I wish I'd known about Kiss in my teenage record buying years, not that I bought many in those days, but I think they would have appealed to me. My first proper purchase was The Slider by T.Rex who were a short lived obsession. I never got into the follow up Tanx in the same way. Then Queen came along to save the day and as my feelings for them faded slightly later along came those three Canadian guys to save the day, costing me a fortune in basses, guitars and synths and fuelling my obsessive traits until quite recently. Sorry, that was all a bit meandering.

[Thenop]

What a lovely story, why would you apologize for anything you post? Never do that.
And this little thread is not about Kiss, it's about music and memories, so you fit in just fine   

We want more!

[Matt2112]

Great thread idea!

Mine would have been in 1983, being the 7" single of New Song by Howard Jones, I think from WH Smith (still seemingly going strong in Halifax's town centre). I was 10 years old and it was the first time that neither of my older brothers bought a record I wanted them to, so I had to take things into my own hands.

The lyrics of New Song were printed in spiral form on the disc's label, and of course I played it so many times while reading those words that they've been etched in my memory ever since.

Of course, I still adore the song and still have that record - it's in the loft with others of a similar vintage.