Ok, i want to talk a little about music that was in my house or that i was exposed to in my cousins house. In my own house growing up we didn't have a record player. We had a Silver Sanyo Radio/Cassette deck something like the one pictured. I see this particular model is referred to as a "Boombox". So, i was really reared on cassettes.
Cassettes in the house and more importantly in the car. Don't forget that you could record onto cassettes (more on that later).
My Dad's choice of music to listen to in the car has had a big influence on me whether i like to admit it or not in some cases.
I remember my cool cousins from the States visiting one Summer. We were out driving in the car with the latest (i kid you not) "Foster and Allen" tape playing in the car. The song "Old Flames" had been a staple on radio that year and i have to admit that i did love that song. Imagine the horrified looks on my cousins faces when all my family started to join in with the song. The lads had been rocking out in the USA to Van Halen etc. and were experiencing a culture shock in the heartlands of Offaly.
Funnily enough, when I was visiting the them in the States in 1983, i brought "Thriller" with me. I thought i was really cool, being into Michael Jackson and all that. However, upon being collected in JFK and on sight of my copy of "Thriller", I was told - "how could you like Michael Jackson? He's so gay!". I don't think i really understood at that point what gay actually was but it probably affected my enjoyment of his music from then on. I did persevere with "Bad" but let go of Michael soon after.
I had a huge musical education from my cousins in the states over the years as i stayed there on holidays and experienced the various musical trends of the time, which were often drastically different than Ireland.
Another favourite of my Dad's in the car was Charley Pride. We played his Greatest hits collection to death. All the family loved that one. Years later, i heard Kris Kristofferson sing "Me and Bobby McGee" - I though Charley wrote that one , I had no idea that it was such an iconic song written by Kris and sung by Janis Joplin et al. To me, Charley's polished Nashville treatment of the song was the definitive. I don't think many purists would agree.
I did get to listen to records, however, when I visited my Grandparents house and also when i visited my cousins house. I had a cousin who was the same age as me. The crucial difference was that he was the youngest of four children, the oldest of which was five or six years older than him. They had a good few current records in their collection.
I remember their record player well. You could line up several records to play one after the other. The awaiting records would be suspended on a plastic arm above the currently playing record and the next record in line would drop onto the platter after the previous one ended. It was beautiful to watch such mechanical precision in action.
We listened to a lot of ABBA in their house. I distinctly remember the "Arrival" album with the four members of ABBA in a helicopter (arriving i guess) on the front cover. My oldest cousin was into "Horslips" and i remember being into the track "Trouble with a capital T". He had a few albums of theirs including "The Belfast Gigs" and "Tracks from the Vaults". I remember thinking that this collection of records was so exotic. I had never heard of half of the bands. It was a time when people used to wear the little badges on their denim jackets of their favourite bands. This was all around the late 79/80/81 i guess and i remember seeing little badges with "U2" and "Stiff Little Fingers" on them. I hadn't a clue who they were, what they did or why they were on badges.
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