Do you have a favourite record from when you were a kid? I don’t necessarily mean a favourite song, no, a favourite record that you liked to look at and hold. As you might imagine, I’ve had a few, but last Sunday I heard Run Run Run by JoJo Gunne and I remembered that was an early single I bought in 1972 on Asylum Records, and I played it endlessly and the b-side Take It Easy. I just loved it. The label was white with the Asylum logo. At this stage I only had the Dansette. I got it simply because I loved the song. Obviously I knew nothing about the band or Jay Ferguson and back then it was tricky to try and find out more.
It must be a teenage thing to really glom onto a song in that way. It was the whole thing, the way the vinyl looked, the different bands of grooves. the label, the logo, the writing. Everything. It was one of the cornerstones of my early collecting habit.
When you can stream or download everything, often without cost, nothing can have as much significance or yield as much pleasure as one single.
I was like this about my copy of 24 Carat Purple. It’s nothing special as a cover but I loved it. It felt special all in gold. An early purchase, it was my gateway record into Planet Purple. It sounds odd now but I really got so much pleasure just holding and looking at it, voraciously reading every bit of info on it over and over. Scrutinizing the track timings on the back, as well as the images of all the records to date. I looked forward to picking it up and sliding the record out. And now that I think about it, I still feel that way.
Because when I was in hospital after my stroke and I was a bit out of it, I would keep my spirits up by spending time ‘playing’ records, plugging back in to that experience. One of my favourite vinyl fantasies was to imagine looking through my Be Bop Deluxe singles. I came across the complete set of them in Harvest sleeves in mint condition in a record shop in Malton, North Yorkshire around 2000. I would imagine laying them out on the floor in chronological order
"Jet Silver and the Dolls of Venus" / "Third Floor Heaven" (1974) "Maid in Heaven" / "Lights" (1975) "Ships in the Night" / "Crying to the Sky" (1976) "Kiss of Light" / "Shine" (1976) "Japan" / "Futurist Manifesto" (1977)"Panic in the World" / "Blue as a Jewel" (1978) "Electrical Language" / "Surreal Estate" (1978) and the Hot Vales EP, in case you’re wondering, I’m still getting pleasure just from the thought.
Do you have a favourite record from when you were a kid?
