Having been a fully paid-up hippy in the Seventies - I would have argued with you all day and all night who was the best rock vocalist in the world - I never really embraced Punk and New Wave in the proper fashion.
However I was musically broad-minded and realised that the times they were a changin. Besides, I loved guitar-based music and listened to rock albums 24/7.
It wasn't long before I was being lent LP's of this trendy new genre and coming across the likes of Teardrop Explodes at the close of the Seventies.
I mention Teardrop as I'm at this very minute listening to their album Kilimanjaro as we speak courtesy of You Tube.
I remember so many of the tunes and riffs as clearly as if I was in a field of poppies. It is an exceptionally beat-full collection and worthy of much toe-tapping even now. Back then it was typical of the modern young sound at parties to which nest-topped kids gyrated and pogoed as the canons of Led Zepp and Sabbath gave way to harpy teenage guitars without solos.
The stand-out track of Kilimanjaro for me was and is The Poppies are In The Fields. With its catchy chorus line proclaimed by deep-voiced Julian Cope, its twanging rickenbackers and driving poppy riff its an indie classic - or is it New Wave? Dunno.
As an avid collector of things I definitely collected songs in my head, those which formed the soundtrack to my youth. The Teardrop Explodes' album Kilimanjaro is there alongside Lynyrd Skynyrd and Judie Tzuke as the heliopause of the Seventies whirled in my memory like a teardrop of patchouli oil exploding in a tub of hair gel.
Did you listen to rock and punk/ new wave/ indie at the same time readers?
