It's hard to imagine now but in the summer of 1980 what passed for disruptive technology came in a compact plastic box with a cardboard inner sleeve. Ah yes, the cassette - I remember it well. In my first year as a staff writer for the music paper Sounds, I was deluged by the little devils, as bands up and down the country sent me demo tapes after I did the first major published interviews … [Read more...] about C30, C60, C90 – don’t go!
My Personal Stories
Rest In Purple: My long-term love affair with Prince
It seems that these days the only time I feel inspired to write a blog is when a musical hero dies. I paid a personal tribute to Bowie earlier this year, but now I have lost Prince... In many ways he impacted me more directly than Bowie. This is what I wrote about him in my (still unpublished) memoir Hit Girl: My Bizarre Double Life in the Pop World of the Eighties: "In 1981, another unique … [Read more...] about Rest In Purple: My long-term love affair with Prince
RIP David Bowie: his script is you and me, boys…
David Bowie terrified me. I was a late developer, a shy teenager who looked up to the cool girls at school flashing their well-worn copies of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, reinforcing the feeling that they had joined a club I could never be part of. He was theirs, not mine. He didn’t belong to me. I was standing outside the door, looking in and not even … [Read more...] about RIP David Bowie: his script is you and me, boys…
Letters from my father – remembering Bill Glick, 1926-2000
I have spent the past couple of weeks helping my mother settle in to her new flat in Amersham after 20 years in Mumbles, Swansea. But it's not the first time she has moved from South Wales to the South East. In 1951, Dad got a job in London. Among the mounds of superfluous paperwork that Mum brought with her from her old house, I have found a few gems - including letters my dad sent to my … [Read more...] about Letters from my father – remembering Bill Glick, 1926-2000
A “spesh” time when I played fast and loose with the English language
When I was a music journalist back in the Eighties I thought nothing of casually mangling the English language. In those days it was "hip" to use in-jokes, amusing abbreviations, shorthand, wordplay and made-up words to create a vernacular of belonging for the readers. I wince when I read some of the reviews I wrote because the way in which I expressed myself was very much of its time and seems … [Read more...] about A “spesh” time when I played fast and loose with the English language
The day I missed The Greatest Gig of All Time
On this day 30 years ago, I was sitting in my parents' front room waiting for The Greatest Gig of All Time to begin. Only back then, it wasn't clear that this was going to be quite such a momentous event. With my rock journo cynicism, I had doubted whether Bob Geldof could pull it off, so had decided to send another member of the Record Mirror staff to Wembley. It turned out to be one of my … [Read more...] about The day I missed The Greatest Gig of All Time