From Neil Diamond to The Fall ... And Beyond. The Urban Hatemonger Music Journey
 

Now that the pretentious title is out of the way I can get on with it.
This is a look at my lifelong journey with music all throughout my life with many stories & pointless asides and a bunch of albums in some cases i'm quite happy to see the back of. Rather than me upload everything listed if anybody wants any of the albums mentioned just shout & i'll do my best to provide a link or upload it myself if needs be (unless it's Neil Diamond or DR Hook , in which case you can f*ck off) , It might take a bit of time to get to some of the more interesting stuff , but you never know.
Anyway lets start this thing right from the start..........


Apparently when I was a toddler my favourite song in the entire world was Neil Diamond's Beautiful Noise and everytime it was played i'd start dancing around in my nappy, or so my Dad tells me . Although I think there's an irony in the title as to what would happen to my musical tastes in the future i'm calling bullsh*t on this one as I can't ever remember there being a single Neil Diamond record in the house.


OK I can't lie about this one , yeah I did used to love this band when i was a small kid. Although I think it was more to do with the lead singer (or one of them anyway) wearing an eyepatch and looking like a pirate that appealed to me than any of their music. Although I have to admit even today that 'When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman' is a great song , even though it breaks every rule in my anti 70s soft rock stance on music. Again I don't think we had any of their records at home , but then lets face it would you buy a child of 3 or 4 years of age an album entitled 'Sloppy Seconds?' However I do remember getting excited when my mum would shout that they were on the radio.


Soft Cell's version of Tainted Love was the first song I ever remember liking that wasn't owned by my parents.So on my next birthday I excitedly opened my presents & found I was given this album , although technically it's not an album , it's a collection of three 12 inch singles. I think I played it solidly for a few years before getting hopelessly bored of it & recording Iron Maiden's first appearance at Donnington over it when it was broadcast on the radio & I had run out of blank cassettes. Skip forward to 2002 and I find the first Soft Cell album proper (Non Stop Erotic Cabaret) with all these songs on plus loads of others on sale for a quid , so I picked it up & still liked listening to them even to this day.
And lets face it , it is kind of funny that the first song I ever liked is something right-track considers to be one of the worst crimes against music :D

hehe...I remember when I first heard Soft Cell's version of Tainted Love.
I think I cried in despair.
I'm surprised it didn't put you off music for life. ;)

You've redeemed yourself in fine style since.
Expect the odd shout for ups.

Nice thread btw.

I may do this sometime too.

so far, i'm seeing a serious lack of bands that scream.


and it's really upsetting me :(

I really don't think I could.
Apart from it driving me crazy trying not to miss things out, I'd probably bore everyone to death before I even reached the punk years.

I think Kevorkian has a similar thread.
There's a few I'd like to see.
Apart from Urbans...JayJamJars, Stu's and Big3's would be interesting amongst others, I'd like to see Gentleman Johnny's too.
These are the kind of threads that make visiting here worth while.

So you dont want to see Jackhammer circa '86-The metal years lol

Shouldn't take me long to get to the punk years.

I had Sex Pistols , PIL & Clash records at the age of 7

Adam & The Ants were my first ever favourite band. I can't remember which song introduced me to them. All I remember was seeing him perform on TV & being really excited by it , and then pestering my mother to get me some Adam Ant records for my next birthday. Sure enough by the time it rolled around I was given his Kings Of The Wild Frontier & Prince Charming albums.
These were played to death every morning before I went to school for ages afterwards.I remember reading the sleevenotes for Kings Of The Wild Frontier & seeing all these names I had never heard of , Patti Smith , Iggy & The Stoogers , The Velvet Underground , New York Dolls , Siouxsie Sioux , Lou Reed , David Bowie , Andy Warhol. I had no idea who all these people were (Apart from Bowie) but they sounded interesting.
I remember going to my mums work one day & chatting to this guy called Kevin she worked with. Kevin told me that there was another Adam & The Ants record I didn't have & that he would give it to my mum to copy for me. So a couple of days later my mother comes home with DIrk Wears White Sox & a few of his early singles. I ended up liking this album more than the others. I liked it that when I went to school and people talked about Adam & The Ants they had no idea about this record , my first taste of musical elitism ...HA!
Dirk Wears White Sox seemed to be more grown up than his other stuff , darker & more serious and there seemed to be this air of mystery about it that attracted me to it. Sadly just as I was getting into Adam & The Ants he decided to quit music to concentrate on acting ...oh well.


A bit later on from this I received my first record player , second hand for something like £2. Didn't bother me how much it was or how crap the sound quality was, it meant I could play records in my room rather than have to listen to them in the living room & have to ask permission everytime I wanted to hear something. Before this my mother had decided to give me a broken record player as a toy and she'd make me all these records out of cardboard , I decided real records were much more fun so used those , that led to me pestering her to get me a real one.
One I got it I was allowed to be let loose on my parents record collection. As far as albums go they didn't have many but they did have a couple of hundred singles. Most of my dad's stuff was from the late 50s early 60s , stuff like Buddy Holly , The Shadows (Without Cliff Richard thankfully), PJ Proby , Joe Brown , Freddie & The Dreamers & Adam Faith. My mothers collection was much more towards the mid - late 60s with stuff like The Small Faces , The Beatles , The Move , Traffic and a couple of Rolling Stones singles (She saw them live with Brian Jones ... bitch). I used to love going into the cupboard pulling out a handful of records & just seeing what they sounded like. This was probably one of my favourite times in my life as I was just listening to new music without any bias & without knowing who these people were. But the only problem was none of it was my music , but that was about to change when something different was about to enter my life .... PUNK.

I'm planning on doing one,
I just have to organize my thoughts, and I'll start it this week.
This weekend is just too hectic,
but the feeling is mutual, I'd love to see the progression you underwent to get to being a northern soul fanatic.

:)