Few find the time to write about aspects of their lives which might detract from their cred<\/em>. Even the “ten records hiding at the back of your collection that no grown man should own” meme<\/a> ended up being an exercise in wacky popism rather than abject embarrassment. Because we’ve\u00a0already<\/em> purged our collections of the really awful stuff – as part of the process of reinventing ourselves as dashing young things rather than spotty teenagers.<\/p>\n Maybe it’s time for a potlatch?<\/p>\n An envelope full of totally bonkers memory-recall turned up recently. Little squares of paper with dates and band names on them.<\/p>\n Squares of paper from a time in my life where I changed from being a polite boy who toed the line, into a polite teenager with a head full of weird ideas. Who wasn’t quite so sure about that line he’d been toeing…<\/p>\n I grew up in St Albans, a relatively well-to-do commuter belt town famous for its roman ruins. St Albans is about 45 minutes north of London by train on a bad day.<\/p>\n In the autumn of 1980 I started at a comprehensive school which had still had delusions about being a grammar. For example, they didn\u2019t let girls go there. My parents thought this would help me to concentrate on my school work, but instead I found all sorts of other stuff to distract me. It was in many ways a classically nerdy childhood \u2013 comics, computer games, mates, science fiction\u2026 and music.<\/p>\n School was tribal. In my first year, you were either into two-tone OR heavy metal. Friends from primary school were suddenly all into heavy metal and so of course was I. At least to the extent of wearing a Judas Priest badge, but not knowing any of their songs. I liked Madness and The Specials more, but couldn\u2019t admit to it. I liked Soft Cell and The Human League even more than that, which would have united both rockers and rude boys against me, had it been made public knowledge.<\/p>\n Later that year, I was given my first transistor radio as a Christmas present (Jonah Lewie\u2019s \u201cStop the Cavalry\u201d is the first song it played me – I was thrilled). At some point a clunky mono portable cassette player followed, which meant I could record my favourite tunes by pressing its tiny built-in microphone up close to the radio\u2019s tinny loudspeaker.<\/p>\n I remember especially liking Tony Blackburn\u2019s Saturday morning radio show for kids. He\u2019d play novelty tunes like Captain Beaky<\/a>, but also proper hardcore stuff like Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five\u2019s \u201cThe Message\u201d. In a parallel universe, hearing that record turned me into an instant b-boy with a catalogue of credible teenage experiences. In this one, it was just another great tune.<\/p>\n I\u2019d spend Sunday nights polishing my shoes and making a vat of sandwiches for my school packed lunch for the whole week. (4 sets of which would then go in the freezer and be thawed out each night. Yes, they tasted disgusting, but I couldn\u2019t be arsed making fresh sandwiches every morning.) During this weekly ritual I\u2019d listen to the Top 40 rundown on Radio 1, occasionally rushing up to record something or other. I didn\u2019t feel like my home taping was \u201ckilling music\u201d because I was also spending virtually all of my money on music. Even, at times, money which my parents had given me to buy clothes.<\/p>\n The first album I bought was Adam and The Ants – \u201cKings of The Wild Frontier\u201d, on cassette, from Woolworths<\/a>. Many more followed, but I was always really excited by the idea of seeing bands in the flesh, alongside a mass of like-minded fans\u2026<\/p>\n It is fair to say that my first gigs were not by people whose music has aged as well as Adam and The Ants or Grandmaster Flash\u2026<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.uncarved.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/tickets.jpg\")
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