Dave Carter – Five Miles Out

If I could buy my reasoning, I’d pay to lose

In Spring 1990 we had a university reunion at Dave Carter’s in the Lake District. I met Alex at a station near his house in Slough and we drove up together. It was a warm spring day, but the temperature progressively dropped the further north we went. By the time we got to Carter’s IContinue reading “If I could buy my reasoning, I’d pay to lose”

Computer Love

Graham was the first person I knew who had a computer – a ZX Spectrum (I think it was that rather the ZX81). We played a game called Time Gate on it and it seemed amazing. The games were loaded from audio cassette. Our family’s first computer was a VIC 20. Neil had one andContinue reading “Computer Love”

Blackness, blackness draggin’ me down

There was one other source of borrowing music at university besides the town library and the College record library. The Union Society record library. It was in a pretty sorry state, obviously money was not being spent on it and most of the stock was some fairly poor-quality cassettes. Still, Dave Carter and I foundContinue reading “Blackness, blackness draggin’ me down”

All the Work Shutdown

Another one Michael likes. I mean really likes. We took exams at university seriously. Despite tutors saying that our failure would reflect worse on the admissions tutor than us, as Cambridge did not accept people who could fail. First year exams were particularly scary as we did not know what it would be like. So,Continue reading “All the Work Shutdown”

Have You Ever Had It Blue?

The mid 80s turned into a pretty barren period musically. After the regular injections of innovation from Punk, New Wave and New Romanticism mainstream popular music moved towards a fairly middle of the road approach. Do not even mention Jazz/Funk dance music – no one ever does because it is like muzak. The Style CouncilContinue reading “Have You Ever Had It Blue?”

Poor Man’s Moody Blues

“Home taping is killing music”. Except it didn’t. Neither did Napster, of course that was on an industrial scale compared to home taping. Home taping was a gateway to music when you were young. I taped from the radio (for about a month and came to loathe DJs who talked over tracks) and then fromContinue reading “Poor Man’s Moody Blues”