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Star Special


The first place I really bought vinyl was the record department in Boots in Princes Street. (The sign indicating "Records" was located directly below the "Way Out" sign. "Way Out Records". I always liked that. And what I was buying was pretty way out for a fourteen year old. Me and Dad would also pour over the racks of a strange little vinyl subsidiary of Comet built on the site of the old Bonnington Goods Junction, I think. Every time I smell a PVC protective record sleeve I'm transported back to that breezeblock-encased emporium.

The Christmas that found me fifteen, Dixons in the St James Centre in Edinburgh having a sale & picking up cassettes of The Beatles blue 67-70, The Stones' Some Girls & Simon & Garfunkels's Greatest Hits - a release which had strange applause merging the songs. The visuals painted by the Beatles & S&G songs were immediately vivid to me (although Nana Mouskouri fave El Condor Pasa never hammered or nailed me except to the fast forward button).

Back to a holiday in Canada in 1979... I bought With The Beatles & Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan. That Christmas, the BBC broadcast all the Beatles films, including their Shea Stadium concert. I was never the same again.I started listening to the Stones, Bowie, Sun rockabilly, country, Motown & Stax & a BBC radio show called 25 Years Of Rock.I really liked the psychedelic tunes I heard on the show. Another great BBC show, Star Special, hosted by various celebs from Bowie to Frank Zappa (introduced me to Sweet Jane & All Tomorrow's Parties by The Velvets, 96 Tears by ? & The Mysterions & endless great stuff. I recall Tim Curry, Bryan Ferry and Marianne Faithfull spinning their stuff along with Bowie and Zappa - and Ian Page of Secret Affair. Here's Bowie's full selection:

Love Street - The Doors
TV Eye - Iggy Pop
Remember - John Lennon
96 Tears - ? & The Mysterians
The Nursery Suite (extract) - Elgar
Inchworm - Danny Kaye
Trial Prison - Philip Glass
Sweet Jane - The Velvet Underground
Helen Fordsdale - Mars
He's My Star - Little Richard
21st Century Schizoid Man - King Crimson
Warning Sign - Talking Heads
Beck's Bolero - Jeff Beck
Try Some, Buy Some - Ronnie Spector
20th Century Boy – T Rex
Where Were You? - The Mekons
Big City Cat - Steve Forbert
We Love You - The Rolling Stones
2HB - Roxy Music
It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City - Bruce Springsteen
Fingertips - Stevie Wonder
Rip Her To Shreds - Blondie
Beautiful Loser - Bob Seger
Boys Keep Swinging - David Bowie
Yassassin - David Bowie
The Book I Read - Talking Heads
For Your Pleasure - Roxy Music
Something On Your Mind - King Curtis
Lies - The Staple Singers
Outro (Speed Of Life - David Bowie)


It was a good time to feel young and at one with the new. Even when I didn't totally love a song, there was something about pop production in 78/79 I really felt the zeitgeist in, a new freshness, the aural equivalent of those modern clear perspex basses and drumkits you'd see on top of the pops, an element of economy that united your Message In The Bottle and your Down In The Tube Station, a dropped down dynamic three quarters of the way through the track, a presence to the sound, the presence of modernity.
I taped the tracks I liked off the top twenty show, maybe bought some jukebox cutouts at the newsagents a couple of months after they were hits. But mostly I was backtracking a lot further. I started listening to the Stones, Bowie, Sun rockabilly, country, Motown and Stax and BBC radio. I'd seek out Studio B15 - a Sunday afternoon music magazine from the early 80s, broadcast from a basement studio in Broadcasting House presented by the late Adrian Love.  Yoof!
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