It was twenty years ago today...
I've just found a twenty year old cassette tape (remember them?) that I'd used for a compilation*. I haven't anything to play them on, but I managed to track down a device that is normally used to play The Singing Kettle. Endlessly. Here's what I was listening to twenty years ago:
Should I - Barrington Levy
Starvation - Jerry Dammers etc**
Desmong Dekker and the Aces - Israelites
Picture on the Wall - The Natural-Ites
Too Much Too Young - The Specials
Gangsters - The Specials
The Bottle - Gil Scott-Heron
Shut Them Down - Gil Scott-Heron
Bring Him Back Home - Hugh Masekela
I Am Down - Salt 'n Pepa
Across the Tracks - Maceo and the Macks
Into the Groove(y) - Ciccone Youth
Surfin' USA - The Jesus and Mary Chain
Nobody's Twisting Your Arm - The Wedding Present
Hand in Glove - Sandie Shaw
Mandinka - Sinead O'Connor
Hit The North - The Fall
That Petrol Emotion - Swamp
I've no idea what this one's called***. It's in Xhosa - Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens
Hey, La' - Gone to Earth****
Waxy's Dargle - The Pogues
Big Decision - That Petrol Emotion
Someone To Love - Jefferson Airplane
Drop The Bomb - Trouble Funk
I have to say - I'm impressed by my young self. I'd stand by all those tracks. Certainly no "Jaysus - what was I thinking" moments. Ah, memories, memories...
* Explanatory note for 'Young People': In those days, you couldn't just whack together an empeethree playlist, hohhhhhh, no! You had to get out these big plastic disks called a 'record', start them playing on a special rotating machine, hold down two buttons on the 'cassette' recorder, wait until the whole song had played, then stop the 'cassette' machine before the 'record' started making a funny scratching noise at the end of the song. Compiling a 'cassette' could take the better part of an afternoon.
** The alternative 'Do They Know It's Christmas'. Double A-side with 'Tam-Tam Pour L'Ethiopie'
*** But I do recall it was on 'The Indestructable Beat of Soweto, Vol II
**** You won't have heard of them. Punkish Folk on Liverpool's Probe Plus label. From the album 'Vegetarian Bullfighter'.
4 comments:
Didn't you just hate it when you were recording the last track onto a comp cassette, and the damn thing ran out of tape?
The kids are always amazed when I explain that back when I was in college and dinosaurs roamed the earth, editing music required a splicing block and a razor blade...
Cool playlist there, though I'm not familiar with all of the tracks. "Across The Tracks" popped up in one of mine farily recently. What a coincidence!
When I think of Maceo Parker, I always remember the line from 'The Commitments':
"Soul music has corners!"
Bod alive, those were the days, eh?
And the really funny thing is I used to make a lot more compilations for people back in those days when dinosaurs ruled the earth.
I've been promising Azahar one since I was last in Seville, 3 years go. If I'd been doing it on tape, it would have been done within a week of me getting back to Blighty...
Why is that?
Found your page having googled for Vegetarian Bullfighter by Gone to Earth. That has to have been of my favourite albums of the 80's. Annoying thing is I only have the cassette copy (c90) that a mate made of the LP.
Saw them live in Rochdale - they were excellent.
Trying to find a CD copy of it but it doesn't seem to exist. If anyone from Gone to Earth reads this please re-release. A few companies offering LP+CDR though.
Anyone enough wittering.
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