Dirk Star
Group: Members
Posts: 1331
Joined: Sep. 2007 |
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Posted: Feb. 07 2009, 00:20 |
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Funnily enough I did`nt really think about it earlier,but 1979 was actualy the year I got into Mike Oldfield yeah.And the Incantations album was definetly the start of that for me as well.I mean I don`t know about "traumas" as such,but a lot of my childhood was pretty difficult I must admit.You know without wishing to go into any great detail or anything,I spent a hell of a lot of time as a kid being terrified of my dad for instance.And then also during the late 70`s my mother had a breakdown,which I don`t think she ever really recovered from sadly.I became very introverted for a number of years.I mean I actualy still am introverted around people I don`t know today,which is probably why I`m such a gobshite on here sometimes.You know if you met me at a party in a house full of strangers,I`d be the guy in some far flung corner of the kitchen no doubt about it.But then I guess if it was a party where all the guests were Mike Oldfield fans,then we`d probably all be in the kitchen anyway...Gathered round the arga and staring at our hush puppies.
Yeah as far as the intellectual musician thing goes though,I`m a complete failure on those scores.I think in 1979 at the age of 13,I probably could`nt decide if I wanted to be an intellectual or an escapist.You know I probably had grandoise dreams of both,which kind of sums that whole non-paradox up I suppose.So yeah one day I`d be reading Michael Moorcock and skipping through all the melancholy bits.And then the next it`d be all Catcher In The Rye and Brighton Rock,and thinking about throwing myself under a bus or something..Aaah happy days!..I can play the drums though,but that does`nt really count does it.. 
Anyway I kind of "wimped out" of not listing some of the stuff I was into in 1979 earlier,so I`ll have a go now I guess.I mean it seems to me that over the last 5-6 years or so,just about every indie rock/pop outfit around seems to be almost based in 1979 permanently..And then when they get to their difficult third album,and do battle with the zeitigeist and Dorian Hawkmoon they go all bloody electro or something like it`s suddenly 1981.Except it`s took them about five times as long in dog years to get there...Bloody kids nowadays...Pah!
.........Mike Oldfield,XTC,The Stranglers,The Damned,The Jam,Squeeze,ELO,The Specials,The Beat,Madness,Motorhead,The Buzzcocks,The Buggles,Be Bop Deluxe,Wings,Pink Floyd,Roxy Music,David Bowie,The Police,Blondie,Siouxsie & The Banshees,Elvis Costello,Joe Jackson,The Teardrop Explodes,Kate Bush,..mmm that`s all for now off the top of my head.There were a few other people such as Gang Of Four,Talking Heads,The Soft Boys and Television that I did`nt really discover till a year or two later.As well as people like Neil Young,Jethro Tull who I did`nt discover till a few years later still.
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but I was in the hands of 1973 medicine. The tests you see done in the Exorcist(MO tie-in) were really all they had then. The CAT scanner had not been invented yet(1975). My neurosurgeon told me bluntly my chances were 50/50 of surviving. Even as a kid he felt he owed me that much truth. He lied. Years later I was told my odds were 80/20.....against. Years later I was told my parents actually shopped for a funeral plot for me in 1973(July I think). It was a horrible experience not unlike some of the gruesome medical aspects of the Exorcist. But what kept me going.......music. 1973 was an incredible year for music. Some of the albums listed in the last post were there, as was Steely Dan "Countdown To Exctasy(sp)", Yes "Close To The Edge", Alice Cooper "Billion Dollar Babies", Grand Funk "We're an American Band", America "Hat Trick", Zep "Houses of the Holy" and many others... I did not discover MO TB1 till the fall when I was "out of the danger". 1973 was a great year for music, one of the best!! Cat Stevens was still ringing bells with "Catch Bull at Four", J-Tull with "Thick as a Brick". Despite my predicament at the time, I was "happy". My Tubular moment for today.....
..Yeah I know it`s still kind of freaky I must admit.But Jack being the kind of gullible kid that he is sometimes,decided to carry this instruction out to the letter.Well naturaly we`ve had a little bit of a discussion since about not being so easily lead in the future and stuff.During which I was reminded of my own gullible/stupid self way back in 1973,whereupon one of my classmates dared me to stick a pencil eraser up my nose..."See how far you can get it"..they goaded..Yeah you guessed it far enough to have to go to casualty to have it surgicaly removed that`s how bloody far..Like father like son I guess...A chip off the old blockhead.
Yeah I can empathise with that totally,I go into complete verbal overdrive in those sort of situations.I also agree with you about the punk thing.You know I think I was quite fortunate really that I was just getting into music in a big way at a time when punk was on the decline.Or rather some of those artists that maybe started out as punk were just starting to find their own "voice" if you like.Might have been a different story for me had I been born a few years earlier,who knows? 