Over the next few articles, I am delving into the extensive miscellaneous minutiae of all things gig related. The first question I would pose here is why would you choose to listen to or want to see a particular band?
Initially for me this was influenced by my background and my dad who was a music fan and had a decent back catalogue so I first picked up on records by Del Shannon and Buddy Holly moving onto Bob Dylan and also instilling a life long devotion to Neil Young who also contributed (not literally!) one of the songs for mine and Gill’s wedding.
Then the pervasive influence of schoolmates kicked in resulting in an Adam Ant and a mercifully brief Heavy Metal phase. Around 1982, a significant event happened where as a stunningly shy 14-year-old I was navigating the unremitting awkwardness of a school disco where the DJ was spinning the soporific tunes of Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet. Suddenly an Irish lad called Aidan Callaghan requested ‘At the Edge’ by Stiff Little Fingers and then proceed to pogo around an empty dance floor for the next three minutes. I was spellbound by the joyous urgent racket and his unabandoned enjoyment, it was literally a life changing moment for me that music like this existed. I still adore that track to this day!
My elder brother also introduced me to various below the radar American indie bands such as Husker Du, Minutemen and Meat Puppets. Those specific bands reminded me of a decent book called ‘This Band Could Be Your Life’ penned by Michael Azzerad. This commendable tome covers 12 bands between 1981 and 1991 and outlines the commercial constraints of the pre-internet age and the more imaginative way (i.e. flyers and fanzines) they chose to spread their gospel though quite often being restricted to pop up gigs in basements and shop doorways. One unusual stat for you, the Meat Puppets referenced above, generated the longest gap between the first and second time I have seen a band. I saw them play their first ever British date on 18/09/87 and didn’t see them again until 03/09/15 – just shy of a 28-year gap!
It is somewhat difficult to imagine now with all information at our fingertips (arguably too much!) that it was very much a word of mouth existence to keep yourself updated. To exemplify this, I recall Rick Clegg and I on our first holiday in Majorca in 1986 trying to find out the latest Preston North End score. There were very limited options available to us, one an eyewatering cost to ring home and the second to wait for the English papers to arrive which would be 3-4 days later. We managed to circumvent this via a third option by identifying a dingy bar that had World Service transmitting via a tinny radio. It was all worth it as it was announced that we had beaten Cambridge 1-0.
The weekly music magazines Sounds, Melody Maker and especially NME greatly assisted in identifying new bands. I learned to became somewhat adept in gauging my future interest in a band from reading their LP or Live reviews. Their periodic 45’s and more so C86 which was a fine influential mix tape of new shoegaze type bands introduced me to the likes of The Pastels, The Shop Assistants, Half Man Half Biscuit and We’ve Got a Fuzzbox and We’re Gonna Use It.
I soon discovered at this point after dabbling with various instruments, guitar and drums that I was musically inept, so my future lay in being a listener only, but I was going to make sure I was damn good at it!