Strange Fruit

"People used to go round other people's houses with three or four albums, and I'm talking vinyl obviously, under their arms. And we'd meet up every weekend and play those records and talk about those records, what we thought about those records. And it helped make a connection that was intimate, emotional and passionate." (Dick O'Dell)

This evening I met up with a couple of friends who very much fit the paradigm described above: Simon, whom I met for the first time last year, and Colin, who was my best friend at school. Back then, Colin was the only other person I knew who (openly) admired Gary Numan. Funnily enough, Simon was also a big Numan fan, and he and Colin met for the first time at the Numan retrospective concerts in London, last October.  

I wonder whether people sit around discussing albums, these days. During what I consider to have been the golden age of music, from 1977 to 1983, there seemed to be so much to talk about, and such a diversity of bands on offer to us. Even the charts seemed more vibrant and varied than at any other time when I was listening to them.

Fuelled by both the independent music labels and the music press - Record Mirror, Melody Maker, New Musical Express, which seemed far more anti-establishment than today's music magazines - we were presented with bands that seemed to be pushing at the boundaries of what might be considered music without (necessarily) being particularly accomplished musicians. Off the top of my head and from my own music collection I'd mention Kraftwerk, The Human League, Simple Minds, Japan, OMD, Talking Heads, Tubeway Army/Gary Numan, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Wire, Shriekback, even Duran Duran. And, of course, there was a lot going on outside my electronically skewed tastes. 

Evenings on Radio 1 were a little more adventurous, too, than I believe them to be now, consisting of two shows of two hours apiece: David 'Kid' Jensen and John Peel. Peel was cooler but Jensen was my preference. It was on his show that I first heard Kraftwerk's 'The Model' and Simple Minds' "Promised You A Miracle'. Often, I'd be listening with my friend Darren Lodge, playing poker for matchsticks while we discussed the music we were listening to. 

As part of their offering, both shows would invite bands in to play 'sessions'. Here, they would have a few hours to record three or four songs with a BBC engineer, leading to often pared back and sometimes slightly more adrenalised versions of the songs they were currently promoting. So popular were these with the fans of the bands involved that, over the years, many of the sessions have been released on CD by the Strange Fruit label or by the bands themselves. 

This week, I took delivery of Shriekback's 'Peel Sessions and Singularities', which includes the nine songs from their three Peel sessions. I've been rather excited at the prospect of this being delivered and I'll be playing 'Faded Flowers' on this week's edition of Electronic Ears. Just listen to Martyn Barker's amazing stick work, so much better than anything you could program. (And I say that as someone who loved drum machines.)