I've just bought the Orange Juice compilation, The Glasgow School - breaking my own rule of "out with the old, in with the new", or is it "never go back"?
Reading the sleeve notes I was astonished to discover that the classic "Blue Boy" (as well as "Lovesick" and the better known "Simply Thrilled Honey") was recorded in the village I grew up in, in my old school, which was turned into a recording studio in the late 70s. I visited the studio (Castle Sound) in the early 90s to see a friend who was recording there, and for the twisted nostalgia of it, I knelt on the polished wooden floor in what used to be the assembly hall (now a recreation room complete with pool table) and sang a few bars of "The Lord of the Dance", just like old times.
My sister and I used to listen avidly to a weekly programme on Radio Forth, hosted by Colin Somerville, called The Rock Report. I clearly remember him playing a few bars of "Blue Boy", which was the second single released on Postcard Records (I resist the tempation to use the adjective "legendary", but it is). I had no idea that what we were taping, using the time-honoured ancient tape recorder crammed up to the radio, which meant that our comments and parodies could often be heard in the background, had been recorded less than a mile away.
I suspect only my sister and I will find this news at all exciting. But I felt a strange stab of disorientation that, as I travelled to work on the number 23 bus from Mid-Levels to Admiralty in Hong Kong, I should be listening to a song recorded by one of Scotland's best ever bands in the building where I learned to write.
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3 comments:
Wrong Lottie! I found this post exciting as well. It is a great compilation (and the Barrowlands and Glasgow's Grand Ole Oprie are my favourite venues in the world).
I recommend Hal Wilner's new compilation "Rogues Gallery" - 43 old sailor and pirate songs - some terribly sad, some mind bogglingly filthy.
Ta ta!
(We met at Dei's exhibition in Sydney a while back)
Ah, those evenings spent as teens in our attic bedroom, using the beams for our exercises, making our own earrings and listening to Modern Eon, the Tubes, Altered Images and Albania (those are the bands played on Rock Report that I remember best). I always wanted to phone in to Radio Forth's Nightschool, to sing Blondie's Rapture with my sister, but somehow never had the courage.
I am impressed too.
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