Do you have a piece of music that immediately evokes a memory from your past life.
Not a concert or some particular performance, but something quite unusual.
In my case this occurs with one particular piece. I was lying in the bath this evening wondering why my six pack has become a barrel when on it came. Rimsky-Korsakov's ' Sheherezade '....the full performance.
So, what did it bring into my mind, a girlfriend, a holiday or family event ?
Not a bit of it,...Manchester's Victoria Station. The very place I was hit with a bus lane fine earlier.
The story...Back in about 1963, SWMBO2B was at college and was charged with the task of doing an architectural description of a building in the City. As a rail anorak, I suggested the 1904 station with it's fine building, mosaic domed buffet, large white tile map of the system and the war memorial to the fallen Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway employees in WW1.
After the photos were developed, we spent a few happy evenings putting the project together, largely to Rimsky's masterpiece. ( in between snogging sessions !)
I still see in my mind, a Leeds/Liverpool express drifting down Miles Platting bank in the faster sections or an engine simmering at the buffers in the quieter bits. It just does it for me every time.
This way, madness lies, I think !
Ted
|
For me it's "Great Balls of Fire" (by Jerry Lee Lewis) but I'm not going to tell you why!
tinyurl.com/ygwqpap
|
After reading your posts today I was thinking you had got up grumpy this morning L'es, but that must have been one happy memory to get a smiley!
Pat
Last edited by: pda on Tue 30 Mar 10 at 08:17
|
|
Le's defo was NOT up me this morning - or any other morning!! Must be some other Grumpy......
|
You weren't feeling Happy at the same time.....I hope !
Ted
|
Scheherezade reminds me of ole Jack in the warehouse where I used to work driving Bedford TK's.
He used to call my music (Pink Floyd) Jungle music and so he introduced me to Rimsky Korsakov
Which remains to this day my all-time favorite classical piece.
Albatross by Fleetwood Mac always reminds me of when I met Lady Dog in the Frigate at Leicester Sq.,
and that track was always playing on the jukebox.
|
I have some memories.
Dancing Queen - Fiest heared it int he Liverpool Arms in Conwy as a kid.
China in your hand - First heared in a pub which is now pulled down when I was 5 years old. Seems to be one of my first memories of music.
You Win Again - Back in 1987 my father bought a Sony midi sized system for £500 (ouch!!) complete with a CD player and never stopped playing this song.
More recently I would say Love Will Tear Us Apart completly changed my music taste from pop to rock/alternative/indie and punk. I just thought it was the most amazing song ever when I first heared it, I was like wow can this really be Joy Division who's manager I used to see every day in the playground.
I started going clubbing around that time too.
I remember going to a pub in Edinburgh in 2003 and I played every single manc song on it just to annoy the locals! Ironicaly the juke box had more manc stuff on than anything else anyway!
|
|
Possibly those of us born in the sixties are the ones who have had a music soundtrack to their lives as music suddenly became custom made and portable with the arrival of Walkman cassette players and the such like. Me ? Elton John Yellow Brick Road and Captain Fantastic Albums were what I listened to when studying for my O Levels - just had it blasting out through the house now on my iPOD/Bose combo - brilliant. EJ was on BBC Sessions the other night - his music is good and still pleasurable in the 21st century
|
For me it is the Bowie Live double album from the 1974 Diamond Dogs tour. My sister was the Bowie fan really but I transferred her album to tape straight after she bought it and played in my first car.... a Triumph Herald. First months wages after leaving school went on a Phillips car cassette player.
Bowie isn't my favourite artist and this isn't my all time favourite album but here is something about the raw ambience playing as you drive. The cassette, then latterly a CD, has been in every car I've owned over the past 35yrs.... and it's in the new C5 right now.
I only have to put on almost any track from it to be transported back to the wide tyred, Peco exhausted Herald roaring up the village high street at 1am as I tried (and usually failed) to creep in without parents waking.
|
I also enjoy Bowie's stuff to, I don't class myself as a fan it has never been that cool to be a Bowie fan for some reason yet say you're a Ramones fan and that is some how cool.
Elton John is a bit 'soft' for my tastes but hm and Bernie are extremely tallented musicians. I like a bit of Elton John when I want a bit of easily listening, Alice Cooper or Range Against the Machine can get a bit tiring.
I completly forget the mention the band which had the most inlfuence on me as a kid - Pulp. As a 13 year old Pulp came out and I was like wow this sounds like nothing else (at the time I hadn't really heared any indie songs, my parents were not into music at the time and I was too young to be into Madchestoh).
|
Alice Cooper can get a bit tiring.
>>
aaarrrggghhh, corruptor of the very air we breath you you heathern you..;)
Welcome to my nightmare, Killer, Billion dollar babies, Lace and whiskey etc wondrous music.
Thats it Alice Cooper fix in not so sunny Northants....sorry Vince he didn't really mean it.
|
>> Thats it Alice Cooper fix in not so sunny Northants....sorry Vince he didn't really mean
>> it.
13 year old son listens to Alice Cooper DJing on Planet Rock on DAB every morning in the kitchen while getting ready for school. I like what little I hear of him - obviously knows his stuff.
|
My 30 gig MP3 Player has
Opera, classical, Bluegrass, Famenco, reggae, californian soft rock, english hard rock, romantic, new wave, motown, rat pack, ballads, glen miller, 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s - you name its there and it all has memories.
Except NO Morisey, No Punk, and NO ELVIS PRESLEY, the fat burger eating richard!
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 30 Mar 10 at 17:19
|
>> 13 year old son listens to Alice Cooper DJing on Planet Rock on DAB every
>> morning in the kitchen while getting ready for school.
good kid, he's listening to a proper old school rock star that doesn't take himself too seriously.
The albums i listed above can be found very reasonably priced to download on one of the Russian sites, i became a fan of AC nearly 40 years ago, still am....feeling better now by the way after Rattie's earth shattering statement, 'I'm Going Home' is playing the background and i've got swmbo hooked too.
|
The first tune I can distinctly remember hearing is 'Downtown' sung by Petula Clarke, when I was about 4.
My strongest music memory is driving across Barnes Meadow flyover in Northampton with 'your latest trick' playing on the stereo of my nearly new Cavalier Mk2 and the girl of my dreams in the passenger seat. still a strong image 20 odd years later.
|
The first album I bought was AC/DC For Those About to Rock.
Best Album I thought they made was High Voltage.
Flotsam & Jetsom, Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer got me through college, my first concert was Metallica supported by Anthrax at the Mayfair in Newcastle 1986.
Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade is one of my favourite classical pieces together with Bach's Tocatta en Fugue. Scheherazade as I played in an orchestra, during rehearsals the brass could nip over the road for a pint or two... or three before coming back and giving it some :) 180-odd bars rest I seem to recall.
|
|
Saw AC/DC live and Led Zep and er...Kiss !
|
|
Ah ! Crazy nights....I got kicked out of a nightclub in Blackpool for headbanging while sitting on our drummers shoulders. The DJ thought I was standing on a table :)
Last edited by: gmac on Tue 30 Mar 10 at 17:43
|
Talking of Led Zep another of my strongest 'musical' memories is said band at Knebworth in '79 (my first proper gig), during one moment there was a large scale beer can fight going on ( cans at festivals, those were the days) and Zep had some powerful strobes above the audience's heads. Hence I look up and there's loads of beer cans arcing across the heavens in slow motion illuminated by the strobes.
They actually read that out on Planet Rock the other week as a gig memory, fame at last!
|
|
I was there ! That was the gig when they promised to e back "next year" in Manchester. Also supporting were Chas and Dave, Commander Cody and the Asby Dukes et al. Bril day out, I was high on passively smoked cannabis when I drove home. Moggy thousand isn't a good place to sleep !
|
|
I couldn't drive in those days, didn't learn 'til I was 24. I recall walking back to Stevenage station and getting on an absolutely packed train to Hitchin. How I got from Hitchin to my late gran's bungalow in Offley I have no idea. Maybe I just floated, there was quite an 'atmosphere'.
|
>>The first album I bought was AC/DC For Those About to Rock<<<
Good choice!
Saw AC/DC Live at the NEC for the Hells Bells Tour in the early eighties and again last year in June at Wembley Stadium. They haven't changed one bit but I had to hang on when I was head banging....................I never used to have to do that.
A Whiter Shade of Pale Amen Corner the most erotic song of all time and memories of my teens.
Pat
|
>> A Whiter Shade of Pale Amen Corner the most erotic song of all time and
>> memories of my teens.
>>
>> Pat
>>
Amen Corner?
Procol Harum, dear girl. My up her own backside sister in law had that played at her first (of three) weddings. Never could stand it.
Papa was a Rolling Stone makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I hear it even now, I am instantly transported back to The Growling Budgie in Ilford and a French girl called Helen, my first love...
|
You're absolutely right RR, so not only is my balance failing but me memory too:)
So, who did White Lines then, because that has some memories for me too but I can't remember their name, it must be Alzheimer because I can remember every word:)
Pat
Last edited by: pda on Tue 30 Mar 10 at 18:20
|
> but I can't remember their name, it must be Alzheimer
never heard of them, who was the bass player?
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 30 Mar 10 at 18:22
|
>> So who did White Lines then because that has some memories for me too but
>> I can't remember their name
Grandmaster Flash??
|
I was in my early teens around glam rock time, and there are quite a few tunes from that era which remind me of girls I once knew... (T Rex, Gary Glitter, Mud, Suzi Quattro, The Sweet etc etc)
Having said that, I saw some great concerts in the early 70s - the Stones in Hyde Park, Rod & The Faces at the Sundown Edmonton and so on
A close mate who I just re-acquainted with recently was a big Ziggy Stardust fan and we were discussing how songs reminded us of the old days. In our immediate circle of friends was a fan of each of King Crimson, Hendrix, the Beach Boys, Rod & the Faces, The Who and one guy really loved his reggae - quite a diverse set of stuff really.
|
For me the album has to be Sky 3 (by Sky, strangely enough). Like PU it takes me back to revising for my O levels, just me, my books and a carp Ferguson record player.
Last year I bought a 'proper' stereo turntable so that I could relive the music (its never on the radio, strangely). Rarely go more than a few weeks without playing it again.
|
|
John Williams et al ? Saw them live somewhere as well ! No drugs at that gig.
|
|
Thats them, pu. Proper musicians.
|
|
St Asaph Cathedral around 1975...
|
The majority of the stuff quoted here is a mystery to me, although a young 64, I moved from Glenn Miller type music straight to Classical. I do enjoy some other stuff if it's done well or a really clever song...Marty Robbins ' El Paso ', Davey Arthur's ' Green fields of France ',
even George Formby's . Thanks Mr Roosevelt '
My MP3 has all the above plus opera favourites, arias, Don McLean, the Marx brothers. Even the Wehrmacht singing the 'Horst Wessel '
For those Rimsky lovers above, I have a piece that I've never heard on the radio in 35 years of listening to Radio 3 and Classic FM, ' The Invisible City of Kitesh '
I love the 'East European ' composers particularly. The Piano Concerto is probably my favourite type.....Shostakovich, Hummel, Scriabin and of course Chopin.
We're all different, thank the Lord !
Ted
In fact, I'm just going to go on HMV and see if the Invisible City is out on CD...I've got it on tape.
|
That's it, ordered and paid for from Presto Classical.
Look forward to hearing it again since all my tapes were put away.
Ted
|
|
Kept all my tapes as well :-(
|
|
Had some happy times in the "Star" pub in Bentworth Hampshire, remembered by Martha and the Muffins - Echo Beach, and some better ones from the "Queens" in Selbourne, Rod Stewart-do you think i`m sexy?, but overall its got to be Dire Straits, "Alchemy" - me can be seen on the inside cover of the double album!
|
"Had some happy times in the "Star" pub in Bentworth Hampshire"
I spent a great, if somewhat befuddled, weekend at their blues festival last year!! Great pub...
Last edited by: smokie on Wed 31 Mar 10 at 08:25
|
>> For those Rimsky lovers above I have a piece that I've never heard on the
>> radio in 35 years of listening to Radio 3 and Classic FM ' The Invisible
>> City of Kitesh '
Thanks for that, will have a dig around.
>> I love the 'East European ' composers particularly. The Piano Concerto is probably my favourite
>> type.....Shostakovich Hummel Scriabin and of course Chopin.
>>
>>
Hummel...that brings back a memory. Grade 5 Trumpet practical. First movement of his Trumpet concerto. Freezing cold room with piano accompaniment. First exam of the day. Cold does nothing for tuning a brass instrument.
|
|
Went to see Llyr Williams (Google him) play at a small venue - a series of Beethoven's Sonatas - although never really a fan of the composer that concert really stuck a pin in my mental road map - magical. Also treated myself to Eric Clapton's concert in Liverpool last year,. the years just rolled back...
|
>> Thanks for that will have a dig around.
GMac....Google ' Presto Classical '
Quite a few recordings of it. Russian spelling Kitezh.
Ted
|
>>
>> ' Davey Arthur's ' Green fields of France '
Funnily enough I was playing The Men They couldn't Hang's version of that last night.
I recall being in a particularly morose mood in a pub in Bedford once a long long time ago, I put The Fureys and Davey Arthur version on the juke box half a dozen times or more in an hour, interspersed with the Tennesee Waltz.
|
Suzi Quatro, Can the Can, and a pinball machine at Butlins.
I was playing a pinball machine in one of the coffee bars and for some reason I got an enormous high score - just kept on getting bonus balls.
A small crowd gathered to watch, including some young ladies who I would not otherwise have been able to attract.
Compiling this score must have taken 30 minutes or more, and I heard Can the Can several times on the coffee bar's jukebox as I was playing.
For once in my life I felt cool.
OK, it should have been Pinball Wizard by the Who, but it wasn't, so let's hear it one more time for Suzi....
|
|
IIH - similar experience to Hawkwind, Silver Machine, which almost was appropriate, in our local in about '73. There were one or two pinball tables I was something of an expert at, and I still always play them today when I see them, which is fairly infrequent. As per most things, they are now much more complicated, requiring knowledge of certain sequences to get high scores, and often badly lit. But I still have quite a lot of success. (With the scores, not the laydeez!!)
|
|
Another memory re-awakened - off to iTunes !
|
...I was something of an expert at...
I wasn't, and I'm convinced the machine decided it was going to give a high score to anyone who could manage to keep the balls in play.
And as I mentioned, I kept on getting extra balls.
Haven't seen a Bally table in years.
|
>>>similar experience to Hawkwind, Silver Machine
One of *the* sounds of my youth. Weirdly at this moment a 12" Silver Machine live single (Roundhouse recording 1972) sits next to the desk awaiting my turntable to come out from under the bed to have a listen.
|
>> Hawkwind,
Heard them live, New Year's eve 1969 or so, in a bare concrete garage somewhere just off Euston Road, a word-of-mouth gig. No one had ever heard of them.
They were very hip and amusing, played with the feedback to excellent effect, kept everyone guessing. I thought they were frightfully good.
A few years later, spotting their name, I put a number of theirs on the jukebox. They were total rubbish.
That's the problem with hearing things under different complex circumstances. Were they ever any good at all, or was I just elated when I thought they were? Not that it matters.
|
>> IIH - similar experience to Hawkwind Silver Machine
Ah yes - that was always on in the Leeds Uni Student Union mid 80s where I used to go to have my lunch of beans and chips. Those not listening to the jukebox were watching Neighbours. Happy days...
Went to some good gigs at the union hall - Alarm, Long Ryders, Green on Red, Mission, Pogues, Suzanne Vega, Colourfield, Everything but the Girl (the only gig I've been to where everyone stayed sitting down (on the floor))... Biggest disappointment was the cancellation of the Nik Kershaw gig because of a fire alarm or something :(
|
Focus, our paths may well have crossed, had I not chosen Nottingham over Leeds (mid-late 80s too). Sometimes I regret that decision, Nottingham turned out to be a bit pompous and public schooly. We never had decent gigs on campus, we had to go to the city and pay properly for that.
I was one of the crowd at the Nottingham Union watching Neighbours at lunchtimes, but my attention would have been more taken by the jukebox in the evenings.
|
|
Students today reckon they've invented the joy that s a Pot Noodle Sandwich and 1 beer and three straws 'cos we were generally broke.
|
Tiger Feet by Mud and Hi Ho Silver Lining playing in Tilton Village Hall at the annual Tugby v Tilton Disco :)
We always won!
Pat
Last edited by: pda on Wed 31 Mar 10 at 12:24
|
My God, Pat....you know how to live it up !!
Ted
|
Mull of Kintyre - as a 10 year old, my brother persuaded the 5 of us to all chip in to buy it as it was going to be a huge record , so first single I ever bought (a share in)
Bat Out of Hell album, again my brother had the pic disc of this which was rare and was never off the turntable, as well as being shown to every visitor to the house.
When I was small and my pals were into Duran Duran or watever the bands were in the early eighties, I was into Queen, ELO, Free, REO Speedwagon, Journey etc as thats what my brother played all the time!
Hi Ho Silver Lining - when I was wee my aunty gave me an old reel to reel player and this was on it and I played it non stop.
Dirty Old Town - when I used to do DJing in my late teens (I know don't laugh), this became a regular song that got requested and played every week without fail.
More recently, Eva Cassidy Fields of Gold, a song that reminds me of my mum who died of cancer. Was used in TV adverts for Cancer charities and is a very very powerful song and one that is in my mind every day with the line of work I am in. Much better than Sting's version.
|
Music and a memory. - L'escargot
