For our second Record Store Day feature, our resident old school rock ‘n’ roller, Martyn Coppack, gives us a very personal, and probably familiar to many, essay and poem on why records & record shops are so important to him.
I love music. Simple as that. Any type, I have no qualms, although there are certain sounds which take a place in my heart more than others. It’s always been this way, I think. From the time I used to patter around the house trashing everything in my path I would sing along to the newest hit sound emanating from my mums gramophone. Granted she didn’t have much taste so my range was limited to the Sound of Music soundtrack or some other episode of bad taste. One thing I do remember from this time is a certain song by The Beatles. Yes, it may have been ‘Yellow Submarine’ but hey…I was a child!
Fast forward a few years and I’m on the verge of puberty. My Christmas present that fateful year in 1985 was a cassette player and along with that came a new found love that would last me all my life. I was now free to discover the delights of music, albeit generally through the Top 40 as I didn’t know any better then. First purchases were Madonna and Go West (yes, I cringe at that thought now) but what did I know. This was all I heard on the radio apart from that bleeding Band Aid song! One song that had an impact in my formative years though has returned to become a defining hero of my musical development, but more on that later.
It wasn’t just through the radio that I heard music. My brother had a huge collection of vinyl which comprised of classic rock and 80’s hair metal. It was this mix of Radio 1 and Motley Crue that led to a confused part of my life where I was constantly searching for MY type of music. Did I like the newest pop hit or did I like this new-fangled Ratt album. I couldn’t like both…it was like that in those days. You had to choose, the lines were drawn. Looking back now it is amusing considering that in a few short years these lines would be stretched beyond all recognition.
There was one pivotal moment in this time of my life which would have a lasting impact. Have you seen the bit in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous when our hero rifles through his sisters record collection? Albums pass through his fingers and he comes to a stop by The Who. Well, this happened to me (though I doubt if I can claim credit for it even if I was 15 years or so ahead of the film). One dreary Saturday morning I flicked through my brothers collection and chanced upon an album by a band called The Rolling Stones.
I had never heard of the band, well, I tell a lie, I had, but not the true story…not the story of their music. I was intrigued by the cover (only a basic compilation cover with their faces) and gently pulled the record out the sleeve. As the needle dropped onto the record and the opening riff of ‘Satisfaction’ started I was transfixed. What was this sound…primal, dirty, pure…and the vocals, yelping as if from hell (to a boy on the verge of puberty remember, the impact was tremendous). My life would never be the same again…I knew then as I do now. I had found my manna…my type of music. I now understood what rock n’ roll was all about.
I’d like to say that the very next day I went to school in a kaftan smoking a huge spliff but unfortunately this didn’t happen. I now had a secret though, one that I could share with a select few friends in school whilst all others were enticed with Five Star and Bros. We had the key…the secret…in huddled corners we whispered of The Stones, Sgt Pepper era Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young. It all sounds rather trite in this day and age but in the mid 80’s no-one talked about these bands where I came from.
The discovery of real music (as I feel it has a right to be called) inevitably led on to the discovery of record shops. Emporiums of delight filled with dusty copies of ‘Harvest’, ‘Blonde on Blonde’ and ‘Aqualung’. Wrexham’s mecca for music was Phase One Records. Two floors of new and second hand records, tapes and eventually CD’s where my friends and I would spend all Saturday just looking through the same old records. Who were these people…how can we hear them (remember there was no Spotify in those days!). Only through word of mouth and a brave move would we impart with hard earned and minimal pocket money to hear something that looked cool.
For me it was prog rock. Marillion and Genesis became my newfound heroes. I would stare at the album covers for hours whilst listening to 25 minute songs about god knows what. The longer the songs and the least on the album the better (until I heard ‘Tales From Topographic Oceans’ by Yes which just took the piss really). Geeky by nature, I had found a music which matched my thoughts. This wasn’t to last though (although prog has returned to my life now).
The stirrings of something new started with a surreptitiously passed tape of ‘Green’ by REM. A band I had never heard of but when I heard the first chiming riffs of ‘Pop Song’ I felt once again that I had found a new kind of music. This was an interesting time for music in general although coming from a backwoods town such as Wrexham none of it ever really siphoned down to school. It was during the late 1980’s and rumblings were abounding of a band called The Stone Roses. In probably what must amount to the most uncoolest thing ever, it was a teacher who borrowed me and my friends a copy of the album. My friends were smitten, I on the other hand had found two new bands to occupy my time. One was one of those hardcore type of bands which I was fond of at the time called Faith No More and the other…well, let’s just say that they became my new Rolling Stones.
It was of course the Happy Mondays and with this a complete change in musical grounding. The walls tumbled down as the old guard of mods vs rockers were suddenly thrown in the mix together and made to make friends. Up in the hills and in abandoned warehouses all night parties were celebrating a new style of music. The 1960’s had returned…for me it had took a mere five years from that fateful day of hearing The Rolling Stones.
From here on in I just knew that things would never be the same. I had lived through the school wars, the endless put downs of “what are you listening to?”. I was validated, I had taste…that inner secret that had burned for so long in him had made me a prophet. Actually that’s all nonsense, I just thought it sounded good (hey, the beer’s loosened me up…rock n roll?). What did happen was I left school, went to see The Rolling Stones at Manchester Maine Road the very next day and my future was sown. For the 20 odd years since I have travelled the length and breadth of the country watching numerous bands….half of which I can’t even remember. I have discovered new branches of music (it seems that as you get older you are more receptive to new music…although in my case this is generally older than The Stones…hey, I’m a conundrum!) and have amassed a record collection which to my wife’s chagrin still keeps building!
I don’t feel like I have to tell you much more. It’s probably the same story for all you readers out there. We all have our formative music years…some of us try to act cool and say that they’ve always liked punk rock, some of us are more truthful. In the end it doesn’t matter. If you are reading this chances are you have had similar experiences to me. Whether it be that first listen to true rock n roll, the discovery of music which none of your friends have heard yet, that thrill of passing it on, standing in a field in Pilton knee deep in mud waiting for The White Stripes, going to watch U2 six nights in a row, building up a complete collection of Wire singles, sleeping in a shop doorway after travelling half the country to watch Pulp….I could go on.
And what of now? Well, my music taste spans styles and generations. One minute I’ll listen to hardcore punk, the next it’s gospel. Depending on my mood I will listen to whatever I want. I feel I have earned the right to love music. I feel I may even abuse that right to even write about it sometimes. I may be harsh, I may be loving…at the end of the day it is my point of view and I’m just passing on an opinion. What it all comes down to is a love for music and that is why on April 21st I will be first in line to snatch up whatever goodies I can lay my hands on (particular wants are the Janis Joplin release , Cate Le Bon and Bruce Springsteen). Because what it all comes down to is that once again there is a revival in vinyl meaning that once again music is something to hold, cherish, care for and most of all….listen to.
THANK YOU RECORD STORE DAY!
Going back to an earlier note in this “essay” I mentioned a song that I heard on the radio which would form my musical grounding later in life. I have already mentioned his name in the previous paragraph, the song was ‘Dancing in the Dark’. Why do I decide to end with this. Well, my argument is that music is cyclical. The best stuff always returns. This could be by hearing a snippet of a song one day and being thrown back to a time you had forgot about or it could be, as is often the way, a riff that sounds familiar. As your musical years go by, you start to gain a deeper understanding of rock n roll and to appreciate it more. Back in 1985 I thought ‘Dancing in the Dark’ was a simple pop song, now I know a deeper meaning to it which I won’t bore you with. The cyclical nature of music (which in a way is nice as a record goes round and round) ingrains itself into your psyche and offers new ways of seeing things. Springsteen is my hero now but I never would have foreseen that when I was listening to the radio in 1985.
It’s a funny old thing is music….
Ode to the Black Circle
I’d like to tell a tale, a story of my obsession
One that will be recognised, a universal song
I know things like this are supposed to rhyme
But then I’m not writing a fucking pop song
I’m here to celebrate a thing that mean so much to us
This is the story of the musical black discs
It all begins one sunny day, down in Tupelo
For sake of argument, a fair place to start
With a young man named Elvis, “made a record for his momma”
An act of love marking a turning point
For reckless souls, lost youths all
Heads were turned, hips were swung, revolution in more ways than one
The simple drop of a needle on a record
Became the communal love of a post-war generation
North, South, East, West, the four corners of the globe
Music had found a lasting home
Now here’s the bit where you join in
In honour of this lasting faith
Drop a record on your turntable, you know the rest
Worship the crackle, anticipation rising, revel in the warm sound
We’re going on a journey, through the mists of time
London Calling, Queen is Dead, Ziggy Stardust, Pearl
Names locked in reverential memory
Sun, Chess, Factory, Rough Trade, Mute
Etched on labels, spinning wildly
Behind inviting doors, windows of arcane delights
Lie artistic splendours, stacked on dusty shelves
From swimming babies to cakes designed by Delia Smith
We’d sift through the records
Planning our next buy
It was more than the music
That made these records desirable
To hold, to cherish, dissect, disseminate
Store away in arcane filings
It was a wonderland of dreams, both lost and found
Then one day out the blue, a usurper arrived
An imitator all shiny and sleek
A technological marvel, you could eat your dinner off it
A cunning entrapment to replace crackling vinyl
People forgot the wonders of vinyl, the death knell tolled
Hark at the new sound! You can hear the sound
Of crystalline production, Dire Straits never sounded so good
How did we listen to music before
Bu technology took it just a little too far
Crushed the music down to digital bytes
No more was it an object to hold
Just a simple file locked away on a hard drive
Keepers of the faith fought back against this
From flames kept stoked by a dance generation
Ironic in a way, for a music so advanced
That it would provide the doorway for the phoenix to rise again
Young pretenders to our Tupelo guy
Raised on a diet of rock n roll
Took the first brave steps towards a purer sound
The vinyl record was born again
So now we have our old friend back
Turntables retrieved, Ebay raided
Records lost to an unsure future
Dusted off, placed on newly built shelves
Even a special day, what we’re here to celebrate, lest we forget
Let’s hear it for vinyl and Record Store Day
All across the world, people are queuing
Waiting in anticipation for a new Flaming Lips compilation
Classic re-releases, independent one offs
A day of celebration and communal gathering
So when you return from the record shop, new purchase in hand
Bear a mind for its past, its future and its now.
And with those words I will leave you to muse
Over a certain bands words which resonate so much
Consider why you love the humble record
And raise a glass for Record Store Day
“I know it’s only rock n’roll….BUT I LIKE IT!”
