Really going back in time with this post, before ‘back in the day ‘ existed, to where it all started, when I bought my first LP, On the Level , by Status Quo, which launched me on a lifelong journey of discovering rock music and all points in between. Back then, I didn’t really know much about music apart from the Radio 1 pop charts, which I had followed for years, and of course ‘Top of the Pops’, which I watched each week, there wasn’t much choice in those days , those pre-digital days. I had bought the hit single ‘The Wild Side of Life’ , Status Quo’s cover version of a Hank Thompson song, a sort of loud hard rocking version of a country classic, (similar to what US band , Jason and the Scorchers would do a decade later with their , pardon me, scorching version of Hank Williams’ ‘Lost Highway’). Anyway, with some money I had received for Christmas, as we did in those days, I had in mind to buy the parent album that ‘Wild Side..’ came from, namely ‘Blue for You’, a search through the record racks of Boots and John Menzies was not a successful one, but Menzies did have another Status Quo album, from 1975, just a year before, what the hell, I would buy it , Christmas money spent, excellent, I was never one who saved money as a youngster.
So I took the LP home, in the John Menzies carrier bag, not as credible or cool as the Other Record shop carriers I often saw folk carrying around in school, but I wasn’t really too bothered, I had an LP, my first LP.
The music was loud and it rocked, as they say, ‘Little Lady’, ‘Down Down’ and ‘Bye Bye Johnny’, a Chuck Berry song, were instant favourites, they were grrreat, as the famous cartoon tiger in the cereal advert of the time said.
This was far better than Slade, or Showaddywaddy, or any of the bands in the charts, better than disco, it wasn’t the new thing ‘punk rock’ , it was rock’n’roll, I think, not a million miles away from what would be called ‘ heavy metal ‘, a couple of years down the line.
The slower songs like ‘Broken Man’ tells the story of a man down on his luck, and is maybe a little country-ish in the sentiments of its lyrics, but I didn’t care about that back then.
‘Nightride’, and ‘Most of the Time’, are quite bluesy, again not something I was aware of at the time, they were slower songs, but they still rocked, played loud in the front room of my parental home, if my Dad told me to turn it down , maybe I was doing something right,
So travelling through time Tardis-like passing more years than I care to remember, earlier this year, I bought the cd of ‘On The Level’ online, a remastered version , with bonus tracks, including the Doors ‘Roadhouse Blues’, hearing this now, the years fly away, when times were simpler back to times when the world was a very different place, but the music is still stands the test of time, maybe not the most ‘credible’ choice for a first album purchase, but it was one which lead me to seek out more records to buy and listen to , and which affirmed my lifelong enthusiasm for rock music of all kinds.
A wee check online had Status Quo’s ‘Down Down’ given the thumbs up by the legendary D.J, the late John Peel, maybe the ‘Quo are ‘credible’ after all!!
The Eclectic Audio Lab 