**warning - long read**
If you have been important in my life in any way then I can guarantee we have danced together and/or gone to gigs together and if you matter enormously then at some point you can bet I will have expressed my love via a mixtape (or these days, a playlist). If I made you one and you never gave me feedback then I am probably pissed about it on some level (joking, kind of).
I grew up in a house where there was always music on and it was encouraged by my very music-oriented mother to sing, to dance, to indulge in it (thanks Mom). There were music related rituals as standard in our house, like Sunday afternoon top 40 listening sessions which would then segue into Mom listening to (and singing along with) The Carpenters or Madonna, or George Michael while she did the ironing and we had our baths. I remember being utterly fascinated by Rondo Veneziano - whose albums were played on high rotation in our house and with whom both my parents were infatuated. It was my first exposure to any kind of orchestral music and, to this day, if I need to calm down and zone out it ticks that box perfectly.
Returning to music that my birth parents (I also have step parents) had in common, there was a lot of Motown and Northern Soul in my childhood and it was a bond between them too, a shared appreciation that lasts for both of them to this day (while their marriage, sadly, did not!). I associate this genre of music very strongly with both my parents, who will still jump up and dance to it whenever they get the chance.
Mom sang in a contemporary choir when we were small so she sang a lot round the house, practicing her parts - and she sings beautifully. I wish I sang as well as she can - I can hold a tune but it's nothing special. I had singing lessons for a while in my late teens and navigated them perfectly well, but it is not a gift for me like it is for her. I still sing a LOT, mainly when I am driving or cooking. I have an expensive (but well worth it) bluetooth speaker in the kitchen which is almost continually on when I am pottering around in there (another favourite pastime) and to spend an afternoon prepping food, cooking and baking with music on, sometimes singing along, is a real treat. I have been asked whether I would like to join a choir by people I know that sing in them (and enjoy it enormously) but I personally know this would ruin singing for me - I don't like the formality or confines of being told what/when/how to sing, though I do enjoy seeing other people do it well.
My earliest memories of singing as a small child date back to when I was in the school choir and in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat in my final year of primary school (Year 6). I also recall singing in various Christmas carol concerts and I used to actually enjoy school assemblies for the singing (until I cottoned on to the overly religious nature of majority of the songs we were confined to). I have a weird encyclopaedic memory for lyrics and still remember the words to lots of ridiculous nonsense songs from school too (about sandwiches and worms and other random things). I can ALWAYS find lyrics that say what I mean, in every situation.
In 1993/94 while at high school I finally stopped obsessing over East 17 (!) and exclusively listening to chart rave (Utah Saints, early Prodigy, The Shaman) when I discovered indie music by dint of Beck's debut smash 'Loser' and Suede's single Stay Together. I distinctly remember the trouble I got into at some point in that year when Mom gave me money to get a new School uniform polo shirt and instead I went straight to Our Price Records at Telford Town Centre and bought a cassette copy of Suede's eponymous debut album. It changed my life.
To and from school everyday became my listening time (20 mins on the bus, 20 mins walking) on my beloved Sony Walkman. And I started to gravitate towards the other kids who were listening to this kind of music, swapping taped copies of Nevermind, Beck's 'Mellow Gold', PWEI 'Two Fingers My Friend', Rage Against The Machine, Licence to Ill and then further into 1994 becoming quite obsessed with The Offspring (Come Out and Play was almost worn out with overuse for a while), Green Day, Weezer, Rancid, NOFX and also all the Madchester bands from the late 80s and recent early 90s - The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, Charlatans and so on. It was like discovering a bottomless treasure chest of amazing things and my appetite for it was quite insatiable (still is).
My grandad bought me my first pair of Doc Martens at age 15 for passing my GCSEs in English Literature and Language a year ahead of schedule. There was technically no rule against me wearing them to school - but my mom hated them and it caused some enormous rows about how appropriate they were for school, at one point she locked them in the boot of her car to prevent then being worn (I can laugh now, I could not at the time - and I currently, at age 41, own 3 pairs of DMs).
Meanwhile I had grown my hair long, bleached it, and was proudly wearing long sleeve band shirts almost full time when not in actual school uniform. To my families' amusement my favourite was one I had stolen borrowed from my friend Anna (love you Tyler!) which had "IDIOT" emblazoned on it in large letters across the front - a prized piece of Wonder Stuff merch purchased for her by one of her much older and cooler sisters. I think this was the Christmas when I used food colouring to dye my hair 50/50 red and green (festive colours right?) and provoked an absolute showdown with my poor mother (at this point just about dating my future step dad, who I am sure found the histrionics endearing....maybe).
My final year at School (1994/5) was also the year I started being allowed to go to gigs (albeit driven to and from by Grandad) and we (Anna and I) duly attended Suede at Wolverhampton Civic Hall in the November of 94. After this the gigs came thick and fast for about the next 20 years. Somewhere (probably in Mom's loft in a cardboard box marked "Ali") is a scrapbook with all gig tickets in chronological order between 1994 and around 2003. I didn't stop going in 2003, I just got lazy about maintaining the book so from there in it is sporadic and there are multiple (annoying) gaps.
Festivals became a major hobby/addiction/investment from 1996 onwards. I was now at college pursuing my A levels (English, Tudor History, Theatre) and revelling in the freedom to wear band merch and docs every day and hang out with all the other indie kids for whom music was not just an interest, it was a lifestyle and a religion and defined your tribe. I remember vividly the summer of 1996 when somehow I managed to attend Phoenix Festival (highlights - Cypress Hill, Bjork, Chemical Bros & Prodigy) , Reading Festival (highlight - RATM for my first mosh pit split lip, lowlight - The Stone Roses being completely ruined by Ian Brown being out of tune) and Oasis at Knebworth as well as numerous stand alone gigs. I have no idea where I found the cash for such a jaunt around the scene and country at age 17, let alone the amount of Carlsberg, vodka and other substances fun that was essential for such endeavours.
1996 was the summer where I grew up. I was in my first 'proper' relationship (which introduced me to heavier music; during this time I attended gigs by Korn, Limp Bizkit, Skid Row, Paradise Lost, Shelter and Pantera, among others, and fell totally in love with Faith No More), I had two part time jobs, I was learning to drive and my group of mates was now defined and starting to hang in pubs with jukeboxes, which was an excellent way to learn all the cool stuff I hadn't even discovered yet. A standard Friday night was spent in the Kings Head in Wellington playing pool, drinking Archers and lemonade (?!) and feeding pound coins into the jukebox (or begging boys to give me their pound coins to spend - a surprisingly successful strategy when you have waist length blonde hair).
Most weeks we were at a gig or two, some weeks had gigs most nights, and at some point in 1996 I was at a gig in Wolverhampton with my college mates when they introduced me to a couple of their friends from school, one of whom was a guy called Stuart. I did not realise the significance of this at the time. We cannot agree now on whether this fateful meeting took place at a gig by Ash or Garbage, but it was definitely a UK indie band of some sort and possibly one of those two.
Between 1996 and 2000 I was also a regular at a brilliant, iconic and now legendary monthly trance/drum n bass night in Birmingham called Atomic Jam, which took place in the Que Club - a converted church which still had the massive stained glass windows. Seeing the sun come up through them at dawn on a Sunday, after an entire night dancing and sweating with your mates was truly the closest I have ever been to a spiritual experience and if you have seen the movie Human Traffic then you would have a great understanding of what these nights (and their aftermaths) looked and felt like.
The main room at Birmingham Que Club during Atomic Jam
Over the years between 1997-2000, while at University, we were socialising a lot, every summer was a series of festivals (almost always Reading and V Festival) and for a while I was living in a shared house with two friends where there was usually music on, my room was adorned with posters and I owned hundreds of CDs. Most Saturdays we would head to Blast Off! - an indie night in Wolverhampton, where we would dance until the lights came on around 2am. Many a short lived relationship was sparked or died (or both) on that dancefloor for all of us and over 20 years later I still have some incredibly strong and bonded friendships with people from that group of mates.
In 1999 Stu and I had made it official and were now properly together, him at Uni in London and me still in the Midlands. We made each other mixtapes and sent them in the post with actual pen-and-paper letters (remember them?!) I still have a box of them with me in Australia. I have also recreated those playlists in Spotify for nostalgia's sake (Deus - Hotellounge, Gene - London Can You Wait? will always take me straight back to that time).
My best ever non-graduate job was working for Virgin Megastores between 1999 and 2002 which indulged my love of music by providing me with access to Elvis (the store database) and a massive retail sound system for playing whatever you felt like outside of store opening times (though, as you can imagine, surrounded by passionate musos the competition to get your choice played was fierce, think High Fidelity levels of music grandstanding). Here I learned to appreciate The Beta Band, PJ Harvey, Bob Dylan, Bright Eyes and (weirdly) Eva Cassidy as well as lesser known acts like Clem Snide, Elwood and Turin Brakes. I adored that my musical knowledge was actually a massive benefit in this job and that I was surrounded by colleagues who felt the same. If I ever win the lottery I will happily open and run an independent record store, it is literally the happiest I have ever been at work by a mile.
Stu and I lived together in Shifnal, London, Shifnal again...until we got married in 2003 - the week before our wedding we went to see Eminem at Milton Keynes bowl, a spectacular wedding present from our friends the McCreddins.
Wedding planning was a bit of a ball-ache but I do remember being particularly specific about our DJ needing to be able to accommodate our indie tastes and also play Motown - and our first dance was a little leftfield too, it was U2 - All I Want is You (read the lyrics) - a decision that Stu had completely agreed with, not realising it was over 6 minutes long, an excruciatingly long time for an introvert to spend swaying about on a dancefloor in full gaze of all of his family and friends (oops). One of the glitches* in our wedding day was that our DJ had a car accident and was unable to attend, thankfully our wedding planner found an emergency replacement that fitted our quite specific needs and had the all important first dance in his collection. For our 1 year wedding anniversary, Stu bought tickets to see U2 at City of Manchester Stadium, it was as amazing as it was thoughtful.
When I think about the first house that we bought in the UK I immediately think of Arcade Fire's debut Album 'Funeral' and Interpol's debut 'Turn on the Bright Lights' - both excellent albums that were on high rotation around that time in 2004. I also remember a quite legendary birthday/NYE party that happened on my 26th birthday as 2004 turned into 2005 - dancing to Outkast 'Hey Ya' in our living room with our closest mates, someone having an ipod with them for the first time and controlling the music via that amazing device. The playlist that night was also heavy on The Libertines, The Kooks, The White Stripes and many other bands whose names started with 'The' (it was an early/mid noughties theme).
In August 2006 my brother in law and good friend Graeme and I drove down to London and back in a night to see Madonna on her 'Confessions on a Dancefloor' tour - it was worth the insane amount of driving and tiredness. Graeme and I have probably been to more gigs together than I have been to with anyone else, including multiple Suede fan club gigs and I owe him for introducing me to Bowie in particular.
In 2007 I went travelling with my best friend Claire and we did a road-trip in the USA, exploring route 66 but mainly staying in the west around Arizona, Nevada and California. It was the second time we had been there together having made our first trip in 1998 and this time around we drove a lot whilst playing music. I distinctly remember what felt like some kind of magical epiphany moment driving on the I-15 from LA towards Vegas, seeing that incredible mirage of a city begin to appear on the horizon at dusk with The Killers 'Hot Fuss' playing in the car. The other albums that remind me so much of that trip are Kanye West's Graduation and RHCP Stadium Arcadium.
Claire & I having breakfast in Hollywood in 2007 (note The Vines t-shirt!)
The following year, she and I would do another road-trip up the east coast of Australia (my first visit) where the most disastrous thing that happened (among MANY incredible things that happened) was that I lost a cd holder containing about 48 (mostly self-burned) discs in Hervey Bay somewhere and we were left with minimal in car music for the rest of our trip. I still wonder which lucky sod found that carefully curated collection of my music library.
Claire & I at Hervey Bay in 2008, about 10 minutes before I realised I had lost all my CDs
Of course, these days my entire music library is much harder to lose because it is predominantly in the cloud and driven by my phone and mainly consists of curated lists on Spotify and my (hardly used) iTunes library. The days of owning a physical collection of CDs and vinyl seem so archaic and I was personally forced to accept this fully in 2013 when we emigrated and had no choice but to severely downsize our belongings for the ten thousand mile relocation.
There are a swathe of songs that will always connect me deeply with Adelaide because that first winter we were here they were my high rotation listens while we found our feet, these include Haim's debut album The Bones of What you Believe, and Arcade Fire's fourth album Reflektor and since then my music taste has been massively influenced by the Australian music scene with a whole lot of Violent Soho, Gang of Youths, Amy Shark, Hilltop Hoods, Meg Mac, Alex Lahey, Polish Club etc a frequent presence on my 'most played' list.
My taste in music is still pretty eclectic, I go through phases listening mostly to emo, or mid-90s grunge, or 80s classics and I am as likely to be listening to Fleetwood Mac as to Funeral for a Friend on a Sunday afternoon (this week it is a passing reminiscence/obsession with 90s Ibiza tunes, thanks to the excellent Netflix produced series White Lines) - just let there always be access to music in my life, thats all I ask. For me, if a person has passion for music in any form then it is usually a safe guess that they are my kind of human being.
I was inspired to write this blog when I watched Beastie Boys Story a few weeks ago and was so incredibly overwhelmed with love for that band and their history and all the things it meant to me that it made me ponder on why music moves me so much (I still don't know the answer to this). I saw Beastie Boys live 3 times (twice at festivals and once at Birmingham NEC) and feel so privileged to be able to say that about a band no longer in existence but still so relevant. Check Your Head would be on my list of top 10 influential albums in my life for sure.
This week we finally got notification that the Hella Mega tour date we had tickets for (Seattle, in July) has been postponed - not a surprise really, in 2020 COVID meltdown. I am still processing the sadness about this, because it features 3 of my favourite bands ever on the same bill. I am crossing everything that it just gets moved out by a year and we can reschedule the amazing trip we had planned around this show. These days I may not go to 2 or 3 gigs a week but the gigs we do go to are usually major events like this one.
It is fair to say that music has defined and soundtracked everything in my life and will likely continue to do so. I have never wanted to go out and dance more than in the last 10 weeks or so while we have been in isolation and I can't wait for that first opportunity. Until then it's just me and my headphones having a silent disco in my kitchen or enjoying the insane bass produced by my Jeep sound system.
As you were ;)
*other glitches at our wedding included a fistful of confetti being aggressively shoved down my top, a particularly feral relative stealing our photographer at a critical moment and then getting shitfaced before crawling around the dancefloor on all fours and a giant penis being drawn on the door of my new in-laws hotel room by mistake....
