1979

13oct2012
i have lots of things i would like to blog about, but 1979 came up in my mind, and it could be some kind of refresh for the mind. a lot of changes happened this particular year. as i remember , it's sometimes hard to remember exactly, but January  involved girlfriend , motorbikes, pinball shops and going to the pub and hanging with them young dudes like steve.

20oct2012
as i remember january  had some girlfriend trouble that was, probably what you would call , heartbreaking. what a terrible feeling that is, sort of like when someones gone and you want them there, a bit of a break, you get over it. i just hung out with the guys , you know. by february we were back together, so we hit the town every friday night, we decided to drop a trip, at that time it was blotter paper, they were around for a couple of years in that form, before that around 75 they were pills and micro dots. i'm not quite sure if i had half or one, but it was a scary spooky one, spiders at first, welcome to my nightmare. we got home about 11.45 peaking , had the psychedelic sex , mind fuck. the morning got home , just watched this jigsaw i done of a cartoon of all these little flying saucers with little green critters flying about , amasing. watched tv music program  the news was sid vicious dead. i never knew that guy but i felt really shit about it and hated rock n roll. there was this song , i dont know , dear anyone. they played . i wanted that song but it eluded me. some time later hot chocolate release a  very similar thing  called i'll put you together again. when i heard that , i thought , that's that dear anyone song.

28oct 2012
 i probably could of said more about that episode back then, than i can now, but some years later when i got into early rock 'n roll, i noticed buddy holly died twenty years earlier, nearly to the day. just a thought. after, we sort of came down, we meet up , i remember saying i feel shit about rock 'n roll cause of the news. we walked to a nearby quarry , which we use as a bike track , done the old in outski, that was pretty much it really. i done a google search of that hot chocolate song , some say 78, others 79. that song was not exactly the same, as the one on the telly, similar.

30oct2012
after that , i thought about giving up everything and trying a clean lifestyle. i had quieten down some since the teens. had some kind of Jesus thing a few years earlier, but couldn't quit the cigs. the sex and cigs won out again really, what else was a 20 year old to do, maybe get a job, that was on the cards. my mum got me a job helping this bloke, sand blasting, another disaster. firstly, i had go and see the bloke, 20 miles away. i caught the bus out , saturday bus out ok, bus back ???. i meet the guy, he just told me about the job, i said ok, no worries, that was it. rather than wait hours for the next bus,  i  decided to walk hitch, more like just walk, hot , miserable. came the day of work, he was a subby, sub contracted by this mob to sand blast their new factory's framework. he wasn't there, but left me to tell them who i was, i filled the papers, they had me working like a dog in their factory , i'm thinking i'm not suppose to be working for these people, nearly left then. next day , the bloke turned up, i thought this should be better. the framework and sand blaster where up the road , on a block of land, no water, no shithouse, the hottest day of the year, while the bloke was dressed up like ironman, i had to shovel this grit in the machine, lovely. he sent me to get some water from the factory, they weren't interested . when i got home, i had a shower all this bloody graphite grit in me hair. took about 3 or 4 washes, never got it out proper, i had long hair then. next day, still no water , no toilet, another hot day, i started to shovel this grit in the machine, after a while i thought, fuck this, don't worry i tried. i told the bloke i had enough, he said see the factory mob. i walked up there, the woman said, she had to do the paper work and it would be ready in the arvy . i lived not far a mile or so , i said i'd come back later, i walked home, got my bike, rode back, seen the grit flying from afar . i think i got 50 something bucks. i'll tell you now that was the worst job i have had to this day , and i had some dandys. took me a week to get that shit out of my hair. funny thing, i was down the pub playing pool and low and behold in comes that old sharpie bloke, not old but my age, the one with the sharp tatt, all grit blacken. he got the job after me. he said they got water now, i said good on them , we got beer here.

4nov2012
you know that could have january  or feb, doesn't matter really, it was hot and 1979 , so it was either. i had a casual furniture removal thing a couple of times during the year. $4 an hour of hard yakka. the routine was get petrol and ride the tracks most days. i remember i got a flat tyre , had no money to fix it , i rode that bike for some weeks with a flat tyre. when i think about it now , i think i was sort of skilled, you get like that. you could ride with a flat , with them motocross bikes cause the tyres are bolted to the rim. it was dodgy on the road, but on like grass it was ok a bit dodgy but you handle it. i remember it felt unreal when i fixed it.

9nov2012
it's a bit blurred around this time, i think i was waiting for the end of the decade retro from the media. the one in the sixties was good , a lot happened mostly black and white, the seventies one was more colour but was more centered on the coming decade rather than the seventies. on the record front , i'd buy second hand, i remember buying elvis costello , armed forces . what did i think .. i'd seen olivers army on telly, the one i remember now most is mood for moderns, i don't have that album now and haven't for years. do yourself a favour was raving on  about rickie lee jones and joe jackson as beening the best albums of the year. i bought look sharp new, thinking it was punk, it sort had a feel in that direction. i dont know where you'd put costello , but look sharp was probably my first post punk thing. meaning is had that feel but came later.

11nov2012
on reflection, i don't wanna keep saying that, but moods for moderns probably was my least fave on that album, i think i liked sundays best the most. i couldn't handle songs that were forever saying that same line, i think thats why i remembered moods. i prefered the story not the chrous. i was in a club in town, one check day, i had heard you could get a schnitzel meal for a dollar on a particular day. i checked it out after signing the book, welcome to the adult world, i wouldn't call it a meal, but it was ok compered to todays. they had pokies there, i decided to play 5 dollars, there was the grandmother of this woman , who lived across the road from my grandmother, who i hung around with a couple of years earlier, there  at the club. so here i was playing the pokies, amongst all these old fogeys, maybe it was beginners luck , but i got 4 witches on broomsticks , 100 smackaroonis. that's how i bought the joe jackson.

13nov2012
the money don't last, it don't matter how you spend it, spend it and it soon departs. among getting a proper job , i had a few get rich quick schemes in my head, just to keep the dream alive. the trouble with get rich quick things , unless you win the lottery, there basically long term hard work that win out. the cops were on to my motor bike follies and word was sent that they were getting 14 calls an hour about the noise, it was only a matter of time. as long as i stayed in the bush it was okay, one day me and a mate were riding , i had to go home a get something, we parked out front on the road . when i came out, radar milton of the highway patrol was there checking out the bikes  and asking questions. we got done for unlicenced, unregistered , uninsured. went to court got 50  on each i think, so i was broke for awhile again.

18nov2012
when in town, i'd check out the record bars in department stores and such. they'd usually played some current new release or some other thing. while i was checking out whatever, they played that neil young my my hey hey, i thought neil young , not bad, i'd had harvest years ago, when i lived a my grand mothers,  when he sang this is story of johnny rotten, i thought why is he singing about them dickheads. at that point they were dead and buried . it made me curious, i checked out the s section , there was one, some product. i got the woman to play it in a booth, i spend 50 weeks in a factory i want some holidays in the sun, it sounded ok, then there was all this talk , like ads, that meant nothing to me. it just sounded like cunts taking the piss really, not really about music, but then it was, strange. to tell you the truth i had actually heard part of the bollocks sometime earlier, not long after its release. i thought it was a live album, that was holidays, and then i heard the swearing in bodies, i thought country joe had done that years ago, they weren't nothing new, and dismissed it. never really gave it, a proper listen. you couldn't get bollocks at that time anyway. meaning 1979.

19nov2012
all that post punk amby pamby, was made just  that one thursday shopping night in town at a record bar when they played anarchy or pretty vacant through their sound system. it sounded like nothing else, it fitted in that time period. i thought it was a gradual thing, like joe jackson thru to the pistols, if you can make sense of that. on a visit to the second hand book, i  got a novel on bob dylan , a rare find at that time, here. strange i can't remember much on the writings now, but had him with his face in his fist on the cover, and them few photos in the middle , that those type of books have. i searched the net for it, one has the cover picture but that's not the one. i think it's the one by the girl in the sixties. it was old even then and covers are constantly changing with reprints.

27nov2012
in town one day around this time, in a department store record bar, i noticed dylan had a new album out , slow train coming. you know i actually bought street legal, i didn't go much on it, 2 or 3 tracks. so, thinking of that last burn, i did the ol 5 finger discount and looking at the power line cross on the back, on the bus home, convinceded. i had been thinking of Jesus for some time, just the life path i was taking. my grandfather had retired , and had some do. there was one of my old man old work mates there, who had work his way to super of traffic. grandad suggested the old man contact the bloke and get me a job, he was very reluctant, never really help me much, that's how is was. he did come round . i got and interview with the bloke, i didn't actually have a good record at that place, the steel works, we called it the shitworks. at first, there was no way they would have me, cause the doctors said i shouldn't be near dust and that, cause of my asthma , which i had the occasional attack. then a few strings were pulled , definitely not nepotism, but after heaps of hassle in got the job, on strict 3 months no days off. i started 2 days before my 21st birthday, which i worked.

29nov2012
some weeks before them events, i got the old locks cut. i'd been thinking about it for some time actually, also clinging, a bit like the samson thing. the olds thought i should have it cut for the job thing, i think , but i thought 21 suppose to be the big grown up. so off it came, i remember this girl said i look like sid vicious after the hair cut, i didn't like that much. you know i could of stuck to my ways , in that last paragraph cause it ended like it began. 

3dec2012
it was a bit unbelievable with the names in that job. after seeing the super, i had to see the main foreman who name was johnny walker. then i meet my foreman pat o'brien, then one of the blokes in the gang was named john henry, he taught me how to swing the hammer. i knew nothing of the other john henry til i bought a woody guthrie cd in 89, that blew me out. then i found that john henry was a common song in america. sometime later that super retired , and the new blokes name was roy rogers, looked nothing like him. i was in the mountain gang, i had a connection to the area more than them guys, but they knew the line. it was hard work , i got strong real quick. i thought with all this hard  work i should get good money. probably the lowest paid job in the whole shitworks. i was reading that dylan book and listening to slow train coming, at that time. the album cover was that work.

6dec2012
having a bit of dosh put me in the spending on records. the bike wasn't getting rid as much, just in the arvy. i was pretty worn out from the yakka. morning, tools on truck, tools off truck, signs out, unspike with hammer an pigsfoot. morning tea ..la la pick & thongs & shovel you get the picture. i'd just buy  stuff i knew or stuff that was cheap, things i can remember country joe paris sessions was real el cheapo at that time, as was pink floyd relics, i'm talking $2.99, where as the others new were $7. i got the country joe. you knew it was hippy , but it was cheap. turned out to have some okay things, like zombies in the house of madness, movieola. colarado town he got busted, now it's legal. never got relics, now it's worth something. i did get a budget kinks double on pye, i had a few 45's around 1970 apeman. the kinks double got played alot around this time, i was on a kinks trip, i think i bought about 5 albums over the coming months. i also got pink floyd the wall , the first week out, not like me at all. i thought it was like punk really. they say animals is the punk album, i'm not so sure. i know it's not really talking 1979, but i really liked animals. it was paned at the time no one liked it. as for the wall , i gave it a few listens but wasn't really my cup of tea. of them albums of only got paris sessions now.