Carry on till tomorrow there's no reason to look back (Badfinger)

Recent 2020 passport photo

Wie geht's?

Recently, very recently - last Sunday during our weekly family zoom in fact, Keegan wondered whether I was on a nostalgia trip. I believe he said (I'm paraphrasing obviously) something along the lines of - I don't care about 2007, I wanna know what you are doing now.

First up - no I'm not on a nostalgia trip per se. More that I don't have much going on really aside from the work/sleep/work/sleep treadmill, with a fleeting side interest in football, music, American politics, books. I'm pretty boring. Shock horror probe!

Plus I had fun taking a photo folder at random for the recent posts and seeing what it had to share.

But anyway - for Keegan and anyone else who cares - here's what I'm currently doing:

Losing weight (a week ago during a visit to the doc about my painful knees and she says to me, she says - have they hurt more since you put on weight? She says. Erm, as I squirmed - maaaybe, says I. I rushed home and weighed myself - 84.7kg. The heaviest I've ever been. So I determined to lose the excess 4.7kg. The plan: no to cakes, biscuits, snacks between and after meals, fizzy drinks and yes to fruit, water, three simple meals a day. The result? The loss of 2.5kg in a week. Nice. 2.2 to go before I celebrate with a donut from the Little Frimley Kitchen). Ha ha!

Reading (Mojo's October issue, My Life in Red and White - Arsène Wenger's autobiography, and James Sallis' Drive) - two of the three are up-to-date, of the moment texts - I'm counting Wenger's as such because it was just released.

Listening to music (high rotation awards go to The Beths latest album released this year, and Bruce Springsteen's latest)

Watching - we've just finished watching season 1 of The Queen's Gambit and we continue to enjoy Modern Family - both on Netflix.

Working wise - ERO are due a visit so that stokes up the paperwork.

Travelling - two trips to my Gisborne campus in the next two weeks - one is my regular visit (where I'm typing this right now!! at the Portside Motel), the other is for ERO. A week after that they visit my Hastings campus.

Miscellaneous - Walking, mowing lawns, some gardening, some Jade and Asher visits...that all makes up my now.

And you're up-to-date!

Love and peace - Abu Keegan

Riding on a long blue paper plane (Status Quo)

Wie geht's? 

This one's about one's hobbies!

Bruce Springsteen was asked recently about what he did outside of music, what were his hobbies?

He said something along the lines of, I'm not really a hobbies guy.

No surprise there! 

My brother though, certainly is. He loves flying remote control planes (pictured on the right above). Has done since he was a youngster - starting with those model kits we both used to do as kids.

Except as his model building got more elaborate and bigger and bigger in scale, mine stopped.

As a hobby it suits his fastidious, pain-staking, inquisitive personality. He's amazing at it!

That he's still doing it 50 plus years later is, like the Springsteen answer, no surprise.

I'm the same! As I type this, I'm listening to a record album I first heard and bought in 1972 - Emerson Lake and Palmer's Trilogy.

The buzz of excitement I get listening to it is the same (From The Beginning instantly transports me back to 1972)

So raise your glass to hobbies!

Jacky has her horses (still going strong), my brother-in-law has his vintage truck, my father-in-law has his videos and Little Theatre, Ross has his planes, our mother loved flowers - floral arranging and gardening, our dad loved electronics, and I collect and listen to music (including the new Sprinsteen album).

You don't know what you're missing Bruce!

Love and peace - Wozza

A child is coming (Paul Kantner/ Grace Slick)

Music is love (You may say I'm a dreamer - Chapter 7: The Eighties)

The expanding Jefferson Hot Airplane Tuna family in the eighties

AJ is the third part of my musical journey/ memory/ celebration (for now). The AJ (After Jacky) period takes in 1983-1990 and takes in the New Plymouth, Auckland and Nelson locations.

When I met and married Jacky, and we started a family, many things changed, including the big three mentioned in my earlier post. 

The big three? To summarise: I now lived in New Plymouth, so no Marbecks; discretionary money had disappeared, I had others to think of and provide for; the self indulgent years were history!

Yes, sobering up via a mortgage and fatherhood will do that to you! 

I still bought records whenever the budget allowed but nothing like I had before. So, my big record cupboard that I'd brought down to New Plymouth stayed pretty much as it was for a while. I even sorted out some non essentials to sell off from time to time. I know, I know.

Jacky and I did manage to go to a few concerts during these years and in the nineties - big deal things like Dire Straits at Western Springs, Michael Jackson at Mt Smart and...erm, The Little River Band (with Johnny Farnham) at the Bowl of Brooklyn - mostly concerts I would not have bothered with previously. Apart from Pink Floyd that is. The Momentary Lapse Of Reason tour was a must see, as was The Rolling Stones during the Voodoo Lounge tour - I went with Roger and Deirdre.

At the time, Jacky's tastes were of the Human League/Duran Duran/Yazoo/New Order sort - again - things I would not have listened to previously. True love is never a snap.

She is not a great lover of music and so our collections stayed separate. Mine became known as 'hillbilly music' - hers as 'fashion parade music'. Eventually they kind of combined as we learnt to live together.

I love my MTV...um...metal. Jacky hates all of them.

Returning to Auckland to teach at Macleans College from 1986 to 1990 meant a reconnection with Marbecks records - I again worked some of the holidays, and this again meant beefing up my collection.

During this time while living in Windmill Road, Keegan decided, one day, to use a few of my records as skateboards. Jacky broke it to me gently when I got home from work. Aside from that and drawing large black crayon circles on his Dornwell Road bedroom wall, he was a perfect child!

In 1990 we were a family of five and on the move down to Nelson and a new life.

And, so - to the eighties Top 20: 

1 The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses (1989)

I first heard this at Roger and Deirdre's place in Birkenhead. They had a great old funky place - worst house in a great street idea and I loved it! Before dinner one night Roger had this playing - I Am The Resurrection actually, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

2 Reckoning – R.E.M. (1984)
The Pink House in New Plymouth  heard this album throughout 1984/85 as we settled down with a baby Keegan (after cleaning the cat pee and dealing to the roaches). 

3 Tunnel of Love – Bruce Springsteen (1987)
Bruce's disintegrating marriage was a sobering experience. I was three years into a happy marriage with two young children and this record gave me some mature thoughts about what marriage is all about and what being a man is all about. Yes, with a beat!

4 The Lonesome Jubilee – John Cougar Mellancamp (1987)

5 Spoiled girl – Carly Simon (1985)

A tape that Roger gave me introduced me to this amazing album. I didn't know who it was at the time. I normally wouldn't have bought Carly Simon's stuff. This was a good lesson - don't be a musical snob Wozza!

6 Purple Rain – Prince and the Revolution (1984) 

I bought this after working again at Marbecks. It was huge at the time and I had passed first time around. Then I heard it a lot in the store. Then I got it!

7 East – Cold Chisel (1980)

8 Swingshift – Cold Chisel (1981)

Roger and I played this a lot as we dug out his basement! Loud. And I mean LOUD!

9 Surfing with the alien – Joe Satriani (1987)

10 Eliminator – ZZ Top (1983)

Lorna Street in New Plymouth bopped to this!

11 Fables of the Reconstruction – R.E.M. (1985)

12 Remain in Light – Talking Heads (1980)

13 The Joshua Tree – U2 (1987)

14 Life’s Rich Pageant – R.E.M. (1986)

15 War – U2 (1983)

For a while in 1983 it looked like Jacky was going to end our relationship and go overseas and I was gloomy thinking of that possibility. I had a Sony Walkman and listened to this a lot on morose walks down to the seafront in wet and windy New Plymouth. It was a good soundtrack to my mood. Luckily for me, she decided to stay!

16 Nebraska – Bruce Springsteen (1982)

17 Closer – Joy Division (1980)

New Order isn't really my cup of tea. Give me Joy Division any day!

18 Making Movies – Dire Straits (1981)
Greg loved this record and I really didn't for a long time. I eventually saw the error of my ways.

19 Born in the USA – Bruce Springsteen (1984)

20 What up, dog? – Was (Not Was) (1988)

Love and peace - Wozza

Into this house we're born, into this world we're thrown (The Doors)

Music is love (You may say I'm a dreamer - Chapter 7: The Seventies, Part 1)

Vinyl junkie-dom kicked off big time in the seventies - the decade when I was a teenager.

This first part covers the first flush, the fertile BF (Before Forth)/BK* (Before Knowles) period and takes in 1971-1975. [The second part, due in four days' time, is the AM (After Marbecks) period - 1976-1982].

Records! Bands! What was an interest previously, became much more as posters of bands festooned my teenage bedroom; as the Garrard Sp25 Mark 3 timetable was kept constantly spinning; as Shoot! and Look and Learn gave way to NZ's Groove, Rip It Up, Australia's Go Set, Hot Licks, England's Sounds, NME, Melody Maker and Crawdaddy, CirCreem, Rolling Stone, Circus from America.

Thanks to the growing piles of music magazines under my bed, I began listening to the radio and collecting records with increasing knowledge.

I joined record clubs - RCA first, then World Record Club. I saved up money from odd jobs and my vegetable garden returns from mum and bought records. 

Due diligence became a thing. It became of vital importance to visit record shops a number of times and weigh up the merits of various albums. I didn't have lavish sums remember.

Starting off it was often cut out bins. Often this resulted in some great buys (the aforementioned Small Faces, Hollies, Beach Boys albums came from the Foodmarket, or Woolworths at Three Kings). 

All this gave me habits that last to this day: I love a bargain, and I consider purchases carefully. I value the actual physical object. Number one then, now and forever was/is/will be Long Playing vinyl albums.

During the BF/BK period, a variety of record shops became familiar haunts: Onehunga's Queen Street (Led Zeppelin III); New Lynn's mall (Creedence Clearwater Revival EP); Taste in Lorne Street (Deep Purple's Machine Head); Newmarket's Sounds Unlimited (Frank Zappa's Bongo Fury); 246 (The Hollies and T Rex singles); Otahuhu's DJ Records (The Beatles' Hey Jude and Let It Be package) and on and on it went - building a collection.

As witnessed by the Top 30 list at the end of this post, mainly my tastes ran to hard rock, heavy metal with many tangential weird fringe side streets along the way, but Beatle style music was always a constant.

My modus operandi was to latch onto a group or artist after buying their current album or single. From there I would start hoovering up the back catalogue.

Following my purchase of a Solid Gold Hits Vol 2 album, John Lennon is a case in point - the current album and hit was Imagine in 1971 (from George Courts in K Rd). From there it was a backwards search for John Lennon/ Plastic Ono Band and Live Peace in Toronto. Then it was a slavish devotion to everything he's done, said, written, sung.

I wrote a letter to Sounds magazine in 1975 that to my shock was published. I was seeking information on how to get some mythic Lennon albums - Two Virgins, Life With The Lions, Wedding Album, and Live Peace in Toronto. None of which I could find in any of my usual haunts.

Some of these albums are pictured above. How come? Noel Forth is how come. He saw my Sounds letter and (along with a few others like Lothar Drockner in Germany) started writing to me with suggestions and swaps. He was after certain NZ pressings of Fabs stuff which I could get, parcel up and send to him in Adelaide. In return I got Apple singles and albums, including some of those mythic albums. Heaven.

Noel is also a drummer! Tortis first, then Vertical Hold in the eighties. I became a keen fan of both bands. Nothing like that personal connection, is there?

Even before this watershed moment in 1975 though, the collecting picked up pace!

Mum vetoed Joe Cocker's Cocker Happy for some reason - perhaps the drug busts, perhaps the vague obscenity of the title, and Black Sabbath and Frank Zappa brought howls of protest from the folks but generally I was given free reign with my purchases. I loved them all with a passion.  

Sample of stuff from Noel.

During 1972 things really kicked off: in the football teams and my 4B class I had friends like the aforementioned Clive Webber who lent me records like The Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street, Jimi Hendrix's Isle Of Wight; I bought Machine Head, Dark Side Of The Moon, and Led Zeppelin 4; heard The Doors' Riders On The Storm on a car radio; from the RCA record club came Uriah Heep and Frank Zappa's Fillmore East album. All of these went onto high rotate on the Garrard SP25 Mk3.

And in this way ran the AF-BK years - reading, collecting when I could, listening, day dreaming and wishing. Oh and failing everything I touched at school. Was there a correlation? Hmmm - now that I think about it...maybe, just maybe, there was!

* BTW - it's called the Before Forth/ Before Knowles period because up to 1975 I was collecting on my own. Then, in addition to Noel Forth's long distance help, I met Greg and during the sixth and seventh form at Mt Albert Grammar we became a team - collecting records, buying records together and even recording stuff together (as Buster Bludvessel and Gregarious G-String). Noel's help was invaluable from 1975 onwards, and without him I would have been truly lost. Much more on this in the second part.

Here is my Top 30 of the BK period (there is nothing that compares to the music of your formative years - ages 13 to 15 - life was never going to be the same after this lot!):

30 Blows Against the Empire – Paul Kantner (1970)
Using the same musicians as David Crosby's magnificent first solo (number 2 ), Kantner et al plot my path to the cosmos!

29 Dark Side Of The Moon – Pink Floyd (1973)
My memory surrounding this has me in mum's mini at the Royal Oak shops, on our way home to Asquith Avenue. I'd just bought it, was busting to hear it, and was looking at the two posters and devouring the rest of the packaging. including the Harvest label. So so cool!

28 On the Beach – Neil Young (1974)

27 St Dominic’s Preview – Van Morrison (1972)

26 The Yes Album – Yes (1971)

25 Bongo Fury – Frank Zappa/Captain Beefheart (1975)

I used to get my Sounds magazines from a corner bookshop in Newmarket. Mum would often visit the shops here, so I guess it made sense to 'have it put away' for me here. Funny - I now have my monthly Mojo magazine put away (PaperPlus in Waipukurau). Nothing much has changed huh?Anyway - while in Newmarket I'd cruise up to the record shop, Sounds Unlimited - which had an amazing range. This is one album that came from there.

24 Captured Angel – Dan Fogelberg (1975)
Copious family holidays were soundtracked by the cassette of this. My favourite Fogelberg album by some distance because of that.

23 Close to the Edge – Yes (1972)
I first taped And You And I from a friend's copy, the rest of the album felt way out of my league - what the hell were they on about? Then I got it! Then I was hooked on Yes and had to have everything!!

22 Aqualung – Jethro Tull (1971)
I bought the single version of Locomotive Breath ('balls' was censored) and molested the house with it - loudly! The folks were a bit disapproving (naive me couldn't understand the fuss - I was listening to the riff!!). A bit later I was watching a surfing film at MAGS during a lunchtime screening, when Slip Stream started up behind the surfing footage. Then Locomotive Breath started. Then I HAD to get the album.

21 Made in Japan – Deep Purple (1972)

20 Wishbone Ash – Wishbone Ash (1970)

19 Machine Head – Deep Purple (1972)
I can still feel what it was like, buying this from the ultra cool Taste Records in Lorne Street and walking out of the shop feeling ten feet tall!

18 Live at the Paramount – The Guess Who (1972) 

In 1972 the family had another Sydney holiday. This time I was old enough to INSIST on visits to record shops. I returned home to NZ with a clutch of albums including this one, and Deep Purple's Made in Japan. At the time, I would have put the Purps ahead but not now (obviously). A rare example of a CD improving on the original vinyl by including all the additional tracks.

17 Alive! – Slade (1972)

One of my first buys was the Tak Me Bak 'Ome single, then this album. Slade in their finest hour - burps, rough starts, stutters and asides just add to the appeal.

16 Moondance – Van Morrison (1970)

15 Ram – Paul McCartney (1971)

14 Isle of Wight – Jimi Hendrix (1971) 
My first Hendrix experience after the Hey Joe single, this is not an album you'd direct newbies to - the track listing is all over the place, but somehow it's the Hendrix album I play the most often! I taped it from a school friend's copy, then had to own it.

13 The Koln Concert – Keith Jarrett (1975) 

This is an example of an album I NEVER would have found on my own. A double album of solo improv jazz piano? Are you kidding?? Please!! But thank God I met and worked for Roger Marbeck. He gave me a home taped cassette of this and told me to listen. I did. OMG. It brings me to tears, this music. How is that possible?

12 Four Symbols – Led Zeppelin (1971) 

I asked dad to get this for me from DJ Records (I paid) and I will always remember arriving home from school and finding this on my bed. I cherish those memories! Many, many headphone sessions in the dark would wear the stuffing out of this album!

11 Exile on Main Street – The Rolling Stones (1972)

10 The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle – Bruce Springsteen (1974)

Like the previous Stones record, bought from the Record Warehouse at the same time as Darkness On The Edge Of Town. What I loved about the Record Warehouse was the way they displayed albums facing front so that you could be completely seduced by the cover! Worked on me every time.

9 Irish Tour ’74 – Rory Gallagher (1974)
I came to Rory via a TV special that hooked me well and truly and for ever!

8 Stormcock - Roy Harper (1971)
A friend from where I played social badminton (St Margaret's church hall) wanted me to tape a load of Genesis and Harper albums for him. While the Genesis ones did nothing for me, I instantly fell in love with this one.

7 Waka Jawaka/ Hot rats – Frank Zappa (1972)

From the World Record Club. I didn't 'get' this record for a long time. A teenagers' attention span finds it hard to appreciate a 17 minute Big Swifty, with no vocal. Yikes. Then it just clicked. I used it often to soundtrack my walks through Hadleigh Castle in Leigh-on-sea. It was a perfect fit for my thoughts!

6 Tonight’s the Night – Neil Young (1975)

5 Thick as a Brick – Jethro Tull (1972)

4 Headband – Headband (1971)

3 Blood on the Tracks – Bob Dylan (1974) 
While at University I would often walk past the central library to get my bus. The library was a great place to borrow records I was unwilling to buy for whatever reason. I borrowed this and a few older Dylan albums and took them back to Ramelton Rd. I taped it, then had to own a copy, then another...

2 If I Could Only Remember My Name – David Crosby (1971)

1 John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band – John Lennon (1970)

Less is more was embraced by everyone it seems on this most harrowing of listening experiences. Maybe that's why I love that philosophy so much.

Apart from this being my favourite album of this era (and actually, any era) the album has special memories for me. 

My mum was interested in a number of creative hobbies - flower arranging, pottery, knitting and for a while - painting. I asked her to paint the iconic cover for me and she did. And I have it hanging, proudly, in Abbey Road Three.  

Love and peace - Wozza

Some guys they just give up living, and start dying little by little, piece by piece (Bruce Springsteen)

Jacky is working nights at the moment which means I can catch up on some of the music videos I've horded for when Jacky is at work (and Woody Allen movies which she hates). Bruce Springsteen's Live in Hyde Park London DVD was first up yesterday. I cranked up the stereo and the Clash's London Calling blasted forth from the DVD.

Woagh!! What a sound. Brucie baby has lost nothing in terms of passion and commitment over the years. I love his 1975 UK live set and the E Street Band has grown in numbers and stature since those days (although poor old Clarence Clemons looked in bad shape over his 1975 model - back pains and surgeries have obviously taken their toll). Stand out track for me was Racing In the Street. It's long been a favourite but the grizzled 2009 Boss injects the words with new subtleties of meaning. What extraordinary words for a young guy to write.

I realised, listening to it about 30 years after I first heard it, that I don't want to be one of those guys who gives up living, who comes home/washes up/and goes racing in the street. I'm going to continue to fight that 'dying little by little' impulse that, I suspect, resides in all of us.

Tonight's visit is to Oasis land.

Love and peace - Wozza