Remember the first record you bought?
The first record I remember getting for Christmas was Time, Love & Tenderness by Michael Bolton (still have it, still not ashamed). The first I remember buying with my own money was a David Bowie bootleg cassette of the final Ziggy concert. The first record shop I went to was the only one on Canvey Island, Bee-Bees.
The Bee-Bees was just down the road from school so we’d be in there most lunchtimes, annoying the guy behind the counter by singing songs at him we’d heard on the radio but didn’t know the name of. They also used to give me the odd discount because I was buying stuff the owner liked – Johnny Thunders, Frank Black solo albums and southern soul singles.
My whole family are in to music, so it was always unavoidable growing up – my dad was a mod (a proper 60s one) and he liked all sorts of stuff (he’s particularly in to P. Diddy at the moment, at the age of 75), alongside what my parents were playing, my brothers and sister would be playing Oasis, Neil Young, George Michael, etc etc and 80s soul was massive on Canvey, with the Goldmine club, so that music was unavoidable and I was an avid NME reader. I remember reading something about Pussy Galore in there, which turned me leftways from the usual stuff I was listening to then.