reggae music

26jan2014
probably my first introduction to the reggae was through calypso and/or ska, either way it doesn't matter. like most about my age, we knew harry belafonte, and the my boy lollipop song. even dylans first record was harmonica on belafontes midnight special . i'll side track here for a bit, when i think about midnight special, a leadbelly song , done by others. such as  , lonnie doneghan and creedence clearwater revival ,etc. the thing that blows me out. is  one day i was looking through a sheet music book with different songs in it. it had the midnight special credited to j. fogerty. i thought leadbelly wrote it, i talked to a friend about it he reckons no one had the copy right for it , at that time. anyway, i probably heard desmond dekker, Israelites next , i think i actually owned one of them el cheapo, not the real artists versions, top of the pops things with it on it, when i was young. the first real reggae type record i owned , wasn't too distant from them, it was 20 electrifying hits, i got for christmas 1970. it had bobby bloom singing montego bay. the keys to the mg. i liked that song

27jan2014
okay , i done the google research, bobby bloom wasn't jamacian  after all and lead belly didn't write midnight special, though he did write/do the version most know of. all them years of thinking bobby bloom was jamacian. you never really knew what people looked like in them days. although jimmy cliff was on 20 electrifying hits, he was more calypso really. wonderful world beautiful people isn't really dread. another one a bit after was johnny nash, i can see clearly now. the real big one was double barrel by dave & ansil collins. that was really the start of the chart, ska dub, reggae thing. here, after that was mainly led zepplin d'yer mak'er and eric clapton doing bob marley.  bob marley had albums out, but people were more into things like santana and osibisa. me personally couldn't afford such records , even if i had been exposed to them.

29jan2014

never mind the cover, it's the record reviews inside that matter. in particular  the peter tosh legalize it album. i'm not to sure whether i had the album or not before, buying this mag. i would have bought, the mag, some weeks or months after the initial publication . but the review was there. anyways, this album would have been my only reggae album, at that time. i would compare the title song to london calling. it's like you like the title song , but the rest is a bit iffy at first. then the rest seem to over take the title. i particularly like why must i cry, it would be a song i like hearing every once and a while. a couple of iffy ones there, but as a whole i like about 4 or 5 songs, i like the album more than the bush doctor one.

30jan2014
you know most of these blogs are just my memory recollection, so i could be out a bit. i checked when legalise it was released, apr 76. a year and a bit before the mag, maybe it was released later in the u.s., i had it on cbs label, virgin released it in the uk.i know there was also a richard pryor album in the mag as well, first time i'd heard of him, too. anyway, now comes bob marley  with the kaya album, it was a big hit here. i never brought it , at that time i wasn't buying records much , if you've been reading these blogs, you'd know why. mainly cash and had enough. i never really got into marley for some reason, his name was robert, that's about the only connection. he seemed mainstream. then the peter tosh ,mick jagger thing . alot of people bought that. an okay song , but i never really brought that either, and when i did i seemed disappointed .

1feb2014
now comes the punky reggae party with the clash, the slits, stiff little fingers, ruts, among others. many of these bands done okay versions of reggae tunes, a bit like led zepplin and the blues and other 60's bands. what the punk bands did was expose reggae music to the wider audiences, although people like john peel, played reggae on his shows but not everyone was listening and even john lennon tried to push it.  being the punk clobber cobber you got to meet friend and foe in equal proportions. you tended to meet the likes you would otherwise wouldn't. i meet such a friend who had a very good record collection, so around 1981, he puts on big youth dreadlocks dread on the turntable record player. i really liked this album, not so much the message. but more the music. it was different in that it combined, reggae and harmonica . the two seemed to blend well together. there was probably others who did this, but this was the first time i heard it.

2feb2014
most music has it's place and time, i try not to be prejudiced, but i know what i like. life is short now , with so much. anyway, i was allowed to make a tape of big youth, good. i never knew others like it ,too. most people around me didn't like reggae much, or would say bob marley, that annoyed me. or there's better than big youth. again around this time or maybe before, i heard eddy grant ,do you feel my love. it was the music that hit a nerve, i liked this song. i got the single b/w symphony for michael ,opus 2 . again not really jamacian, but this was the first single of reggae i brought. i don't remember that michael song at all now, strange the guy  who had the big youth record was named michael, i thought i'd throw that in. again ,not long after that he had hits with i don't wanna dance and electric avenue, they were okay, but a bit mainstream for my taste. why i say such is mainly because i'm seen as an outsider or fringe by what i call mainstream, so the feelings mutual. i bought new age steppers first album , the one with elvis on the cover, also around this time on the missing link label, and creation rebel album. so, now i had a couple of dub reggae things.

new age steppers cd cover, missing link lp had blue instead of red

creation rebel lp psychotic jonkanoo  statik lp4

4feb2014
i thought i didn't miss something, but it doesn't matter what you think there always something missing, even now i probably still forgot something. i forgot all about ub40 . the album signing off, i bought as soon as it came out. at that time i was listening to mainly fastish punk stuff and buying albums ,1980. ub40 was different again, i thought i could have got into it a few years earlier , when i was listening to laidback stuff. i remember taking it and a few other albums to this girls house. the people there then didn't like it much, they said they liked bob marley but that was it. i played that album a few times, it was seen by me as not quite muzak but in that field, relaxing stuff to wind out to. i never got into their later stuff, i have a few singles with okay b sides. the reason i thought about ub40, was their sight and sound appearance. probably 1983 here, i taped it , i remember riding this bike to a friends place some 50km away. i set the player and watched it later when i got home. i'm glad i did . not so much ub40, but the guest appearance of mikey dread doing roots and culture, great. it didn't click that i had him on sandinista doing a few , or his involvement with clash. that's pretty much it for ub40, although the video clip, i got mine ,was  filmed in part not far from here , bombo beach. i also used to play a song of theirs on a greatest hits cd ,on jukeboxes around pubs and that, mainly because of the length, don't let it pass you by. i'm not sure if it was an extended version, by it worked well in the pub, playing pool. i think they turned into a covers band .

here's some ub40 trading cards from dandy 80s , 

rock 'n bubble other artists also, i hear astros run out of dough, i preferred his vocal

6feb2014
did i mention ,i was buying records again. in that case i might buy a bob marley, which one? i gave catch a fire a try. i found it short, a couple of ok numbers, i thought things have moved on since 1973, and preferred tosh. then i got to see them on some old grey whistle test clips, concrete jungle and stir it up. i think shows like that and peel done fringe music or not so pop a boost. i got the album out and gave it another listen, not as good as ogwt. i got a few singles like buffalo soldier , could you be loved, one love,, waiting in vain. thats about it with the marley as far as vinyl records are concerned.

9feb2014
probably around 1982 , i was in a now defunct record bar, they had a small blues, jazz , reggae etc section. flicking through the same old, suprise, a big youth record, amazing. must of got shipped by mistake, most of the others were , you know. some great big youth, came out in 81 on heartbeat, some okay songs there , a few standards, i like 'get on up' a good song still to this day, when i used to play that song some people didn't like it, i don't know why. i used to have 60 minute tapes for the car at that time, and missed out on a couple of end songs. songs like we can work it out , great cover of the beatles song, missed out.  i learned much later on that everyone like the clash raved on about screaming target, i never heard the album til a few years back. i bought the cd after many years of wondering, i can understand the screaming target thing, but i think it's a bit over rated, it's probably ok, but then again i prefer keith hudson, flesh of my skin, for that time period.

this is the cd cover from amazon, similar to the lp

11feb2014
with having a video was good to really check out clips and things, i got to know and like people like gregory issacs - night nurse, and a few others. probably around 1984/5 i got to see a reggae sunsplash on telly. here i learned of yellowman and eek a mouse, as well as some more big youth. so i was learning a bit. the 80's was a good time for learning, but you never really stop. it just becomes too much

12feb2014
if you're wondering why i left out the two tone, and madness and the beat, i haven't really thought about them much. i think the beats first album was closer to reggae than the others, a great album. anyways, probably after the sun splash show, i didn't think there would be much more. then came mikey dread at the controls with deep roots music, i missed the first one , but caught the rest. a good doco. here's where i learned of lee scratch perry and the mighty diamonds and a couple of others.

15feb2014
been thinking about that sunsplash show, in particular, yellowmans performance. at that time i don't think many could match his toast/rap. i think it came down to his colour, like he had to really show them. i used to watch that performance over and over. you couldn't get any of his stuff round here. i was once in melbourne at a record bar , 1985. they had a few reggae things down there, even a sunsplash album, i never bought it. i thought nothing could top yellowman , til i saw lee scratch perry on deep roots music, black ark. again i could not get none of his around here, so i thought. someone was once complaining about him, more or less giving away bob marley tapes and things, el budgeto. if he didn't do that , they'd be moulding in some shack somewhere. what he did was a good thing , getting the thing out there. there was a lot of that el budgeto bob marley stuff around , i bought one album probably 81 something it had a soul rebel version on it which i liked.

17feb2014
with the onset of the cd,i think i was somewhat pissed off with the whole music thing ,in particular the cost. i didn't buy much from about 1987 on woulds, i had enough and was happy with my music. why should i sell all my records for a pittance and by cds , the titles i was interested in weren't on cds or you couldn't get them. i never really bought a cd until about 1990, even then they were very expensive.

20feb2014
that's about it, for this blog. i started buying a good selection of reggae music through the 90s on cd. they became reasonable in price, etc etc etc...

24feb2014
etc indeed, you know i try to make these things end with the beginning. in 1992 i saw dread zepplin, i think that covers it.

9nov2024

finally got to read that high times magazine pictured (number 26, oct 77). peter tosh legalize it review wasn't it in that one, it was in number 14, oct 76. although i did have no.26 , no.14 fits more into the time. i had high times mags early on, now and then, when it became more popular, i didn't go for it that much. it was hard remembering to back then, when i read it this time i remembered parts of it. i have the one with the clash in it shopping, all the others have gone long ago.

Jesus

27dec2013
hey, you know i'm a lot feed up with the internet as a whole. i have few things to share, not like vampires, who just wanna take. i took my time just to see who was in the back ground, a few. so, after a think, thought Jesus would be a timely kind of blog. one at which can be prolonged and rush as per leisure. as from previous blogs you can see i'm no stranger to the subject, a subject too which i take very personal. the reason being, as with most things  there's duplicates, peoples version and the rest. so, to end this beginning, i shall say there are many jesus's,  this is about mine.

3jan2014
first, happy new year. of course there's only one Jesus, try telling that to some, there's the Trinity, and everything after. so, it ain't quite the narrow path, there are many mansions etc, etc. this is to do with what has been come to be termed as the historical Jesus, of which there is one. the text which are used are the Gospels, you know Matthew, Mark, Luke & John. these being the records of such a person, the rest, well it's not really about the person and His words. Matthew starts off with the roots, birth, prayer, and such. Mark, you got to forgive me here, cause i ain't to up to date on Mark, so you could say i'm off the mark. i think it's to do more with the parables and stuff, could be wrong. i have read Mark but i'm into reading John and Luke, they're mainly where i find meaning.

6jan2014
saying i don't really read Mark, doesn't mean i haven't read it. it just means i don't read it as much as the other two. even then i have my own comfort zone there. saying that about Mark made me read it, to see if i was right about it. i ain't gonna do capitols no more, cause i'm slow on the shift. no disrespect. Mark, was pretty much what i said, they all are really. it's basically their account of the historical Jesus. Mark mentions John the baptist, who i believe to be the first true christian, that being, he proclaimed Jesus as the Christ. the thing i got with it is, John the baptist is Jesus' cousin. another thing when Jesus split to Egypt , early on to avoid death, where did John go?. herod said all babies under two years old be killed, was that only the ones born in Bethlehem, there's a 6 months difference between John and Jesus. life must have been tough on John, surviving that, and then growing up with no friends your age.

13jan2014
i went back and put the capitols in. maybe john hung out in the desert even then. where did Jesus hung out in egypt? when you think about it , their gone from the promised land back to Egypt, safer?. surely there's records of that time, of life in egypt, hung out in a refo camp. pretty much dispossessed . i'm interested in the time in egypt, but i have not seeked the answer.

20jan2014
many have asked questions about this and that with the historical Jesus, such as what did he do , in the inbetween years? i believe all answers are in the Gospels. a carpenter obviously. we all know up until he goes missing talking to the elders. here i believe is the answer. when the parents found him, they were a bit angry, like most parents are when a child goes off. they told him not to do it again. this would have played heavy on his mind. so from then on til we hear about, say the water into wine, when Mary says the time has not come. he would have refrained from such. two things are sort of required, to honour thy parents and loved your neighbour. so, did he get on with the neighbours ? it's obvious, that there was something there, when it's one of those things. i think the in between years he was just a worldly type of guy, he had a mission but the time had not come.

31jan2017
i haven't wrote for 3 years here. i've been interested in the near last earthly miracle Jesus performed, that the one of Lazarus. my thoughts on the subject are very much questions. was it an eye for an eye? how long did Lazarus live afterwoods?

22feb2018
you know the clag eartha blog can end where it is, i'm happy with that, it can end were it began in a sense. google pissed me off with their responses, and not. today i thought of a story, a true story, about a chocolate wheel. a chocolate wheel is just a number wheel used in fetes and things. maybe they won chocolates or something. anyways there was one in the priests garage next to where they live in the church, which they use at fetes. one day there was a few of us waiting for some reason or another, can't remember why. a couple of older boys  and a few my age, not many. while waiting we noticed the wheel. and got spinning, we all picked a number. one of the older guys picked 54, he said it always lands on 54. so the thing lands on 54. it was just leaning up against the wall. end of story. the time had to be 1967 cause we were living in the shack. i remember this story from time to time, it's no great story. then came the day of the last big fete as i remember. people were a community. i don't know if you've read about the guy who , we rode to oilies. anyway his family had an old vehicle truck with wooden spoked  wheels with bales of hay. drive around the streets for the fetes hayride. one of the sideshows was the chocolate wheel. i checked out the prizes , can't really remember much, probably donated goods. but i do remember the magic set, a box of magic tricks. all the boys wanted to get the magic set. 

24feb2018
you've got to remember this is 50 years ago, my memory is bits about 10. the garage bit, the hayride bit, the prizes and chocolate wheel bit. the next bit was my mother and grandmother turned up. she brought some numbers for the chocolate wheel spin. in the bunch of ticket numbers was 54, whether she asked me or i asked her , i ended up with a few of the tickets, and one was 54, i think i said it always lands on 54. they looked at me and said ,sure. like always with me. it landed on 54. the next bit was shit for me, then . the guy who was running the wheel, reckon i had won it before, earlier on. this wasn't the case, what a let down. my mother asked me what i won. i told her the bloke reckoned i won it before and you can't win it twice. the bloke had my mother and grand mother saying words, the guy said i won it earlier, i never did, after the words i got to pick a prize, i picked the magic set. that'll do 

 4nov22

awhile back, i was thinking about this chocolate wheel episode. i sort  of came to the conclusion, that maybe some other guy earlier won with the 54 ticket, and the ticket seller thought i was him. 

sav

11sept2013
probably the easiest, hardest, longest, shortest blog, i've had to write. okay, the shortest. the kids couldn't say svejda, neither could anyone. so, it got as far as sav. so like mud the name stuck, that's it.

15sept2013
i could go hardest next, then whatever, i don't work like that , but then i do. mainly i do things out of necessity or enjoyment, boredom?? . i find boredom to me is when you go head over heels to tell someone something, they don't get it , then they do and decide it's their idea, that's fucking boring. or they misconstrued it and it turned out to be a misinterpretation, a lot like politicians, their forever fucking things up on both sides. the sad thing is that's all  we got. probably the hardest things about this blog, there are a few, like, you who??. get it.

16sept2013
like you who is reading this. today i bumped into a culprit or one of them, runny. a name i gave him, cause he was always runny to the dunny. he's not known by that anymore. he was a friend of jester , lived close  to each other then, he left the catholic school before 5th class. they lived about 3 miles away in a different suburb, (probably close to half the class). i'm sure runny was the one who said the sav name. he's had a bit of drug problem, more like a serious drug problem. another one i thought about was rednick, he hated me calling him that, that came later, he left quite early also. i hung out with him around 1976. he lived down the road from when i lived at bruce st. he had a mate named kevin who was the only person who liked the sex pistols at that time, no one liked them at that time. we were too far away, and the publicity was bad. i always think of rednick when i cook, i remember they were starving, he went down road and knocked someone's old rooster off, then plucked it and cooked it in the fry pan, what a disaster, i don't think he cooked it right, tough as nails. he headed north not long after that, i think he ended up doing alright. him and another kindergarten friend broke into mullumbimby cop shop and stole the pot locked in a cell, that made headlines. so the story goes. when i heard that i thought of the chook, desperadoes. catholic boys. sav name

22sept2013
of late , i personally have really had enough of the whole internet thing, it's become the same. i thought it would be a buzz looking back on this shit, to tell you the truth, i don't think i'll ever look back at this stuff. not because it's uninteresting, mainly because the world is different to me, and it's fucking pigeon hole  category, which only fit in a mirror. it's better if you and the world can't relate to this. you meaning, my people ain't real savvy on the net, most are gone or oldish and not the same anymore, maybe that's how they really were. probably better finish this before it turns into a rant and ammunition for the dicks. on entering high school in 1971, and the class being divided , the sav name was nearly lost except for a few , who decided not to pursue the catholic journey. only for that did the sav name stay, good or bad, that time was low for me and hard to share, and even to look back on.

30sept2013
you savvy, yes, you chrissy. was this guy called shovel, greeting every time he seen me. he was in a higher class with some old class mates from primary school, they told him sav, you savvy, i didn't know what the fuck he was on about, til years later. he was a good sportsman, i first heard of him at assembly, when his name was called out for getting a hat trick in cricket. i never knew that stuff then. it turned out, we were born on the same day in the same hospital as was another . didn't find that out for a bit. he called me the beast when he first saw me, i think at that time i was fairly wild. i was low at that time, them guys had fairly normal home lives, mine was far from that. probably a guy called bradley, told him, who was in my class since kindergarten. he had as close as life as too me. although he was adopted, he had an ok home, he was just bad. he told shovel sav, and nicked the pot with rednick, among other things. last i heard, he had testicular cancer.

3october2013
so the sav name grow from that really, til a teacher called me that, then i felt kind of stuck with it. after leaving school and working in the mine, there was 5 others my age there , 2 of whom were from the kindy class. so the sav name was there among a few, i only worked there some months. the saveloy name came from a bloke called rory, or though others called me battered and other shit. when you're low, you just take the shit, really. probably that's the best way i dealt with things. when you ain't got nothing, they can't take anything, but it's pretty much the low end. i think i just had enough of nothing and went straight except for cigs and got the steelworks job, fitters labourer, 3 shifts.  there was a couple of people there, who called me sav, 2 of which have gone, 1 liver cancer, the other suspicious accident. neither of which were originally born here. 1 from birmingham, he liked the cough medicine high, that it fucked his liver as well as grog. he was the hippy type, read alot of moorcock and stuff, his mannerisms reminded me of that richard branson, when i see him on telly and such.    

vids

 

 at the top of cobblers hill , then walking south to unanderra

pathway to unanderra

old crossroads

old photo

 

 

old photo

 

 

 old news vid april 1967

 russians in the backyard

a bit more than halfway, run to nowhere

milk bottles and skyrockets dont mix

embassy and shack

17august2013

these vids are a walk on a track i've walked many times. probably even more than the cars in them, and as many stories. it's all ad lib. the main reason to go out there , was to get a photo of the embassy room sign , which has survived many decades. it was a real surprise. the camera is crap, i need a better one, i wonder if the sign will last that long. as for the music, again coincidental, them songs aren't mine , there not about me, i think i'm allowed to listen to them?? one has a thing , if you're at that place on certain day , at a particular time, and ask a person the right question , you will get the answer. but like everything that time is slowly diminishing. 

22may2019
i had a few views at the vids, and i was out that way today. i took some photos that are relevant to the blog.

 some photos of the embassy room sign taken 22may2019.

the embassy room closed in the 1960's

 

1nov23 today was out unanderra, the embassy sign is gone.  they've paint the buildings grey, the soto place is still there. luckily i got the photo when i did, whether or not it's still here in the future, doesn't matter to me, i got my point across. it said 'the embassy room'.

 

 
also,

down the road a bit, across the road from my grandmothers old house.

a old milestone still , in miles , k for kiama, w for wollongong

jester

28june2013
it's taken me a little time to figure out a name for the post, without implementing people, even so this still can be construed as such, nothing of a sort, this being of the nutter. for if you knew his name the title would be obvious. i first meet jester in jan/feb 1964, my first day of kindergarten , a strange day indeed. for, at this time i had done things them other people knew little of, firstly, i had everything , a car, morris minor ute, the old boy won the lottery, he had a few cars at that time, and the morris was mine, even though i couldn't drive and was young, it was called my car. so i was driven to school in my car. for me to go to such a school i had to be baptized, being a catholic school. so i was baptized a few weeks before going to school. all dolled up, i walked into classroom. all these little shits crying, i thought fuck this, and bolted back to the car, climbed in the back, my mother and the nun trying to talk me into going back, saying i had to. i still remember that. eventually, i was coaxed  inside (at this point i'd like to take time out to tell , google,  their dictionary really sucks, i have to always look in the proper paper one, how many times, too fucking many), i felt betrayed. talk about chaos, half the class mainly girls, just crying, and half the class running around the playground following a spazz running and flapping his arms like a bird, the nun just let them go and tried to calm the others, what a sight. by lunch he was still flapping but the followers had halved. the next day he's off again flapping round the playground, the followers had been widdled down to 5 or so , the rest being feed up or lost interested. next day, he off again with 4 followers, with the class basically under control , time for the nuns to work on birdboy , they got it down to 3 , then 2. birdboy and jester, by the end of the week , jester dropped off every now and then, but started again. i tell you something , birdboy finally did settle down, but he wasn't the full quid.

1july2013
i talked to my mother about that first day , she reckons , she had to sit with me on that first day cause i was crying, i'm not surprised, hated it. this ain't about that anyways. it's more about my next 7 years of endurance. jester and birdboy had some intelligence about them, in a goody goody sense, but something wasn't right. for starters neither could stand on a chair, jester was worse. birdboy used to rock back and forth , every now and then make farty noises by pushing his hands together, i think there was some autistic thing there, now. there was probably encounters, but fast forward to 1967or 66, i got one of them james bond corgi cars for my birthday. by this time the money had gone, we were living in what we called the shack. the parents back at work, the cars gone, mine even, no rights when your under 18 them days, any days really. i got busted by the old cheese looking for my birthday presents,  it was never the same again, a lot like bart simpson getting caught shop lifting. i think kids go through the thievery stage around that age, some get caught and stop , others, well they don't.anyways , i took my last real birthday present to school. the teacher took it off me, and put it aside. came the time for class to end, and it was gone, the teacher forgot about it. someone tea leafed my james bond car. months later jester brought one to school , he reckoned it was his.

8july2013
although jester had the height thing, in the water was a different story as i remember. it was his little revenge thing he had over me, which he used conveniently to his advantage , when i done swimming lessons. you have go forward to 1969 for the next remembered episodes. i had to sit next to him for a time, that class was shambles that year. anyway, me and jester ended up having a full on fight in the classroom, we were sent to the head nun , i just bolted up the road, home.at this time we had moved from the shack to a rented house not far from the school.  then went back and got the cane. another memory of that same year, concerning jester , was someone had burnt a broom and written shit on the wall with the blackened stick, it was a big thing with the nuns. the words were , look that up in your funk and wagnels . we weren't allowed to look at it. it got real heavy, that jester had to own up, and another. but jester had written it. on reflection , she must have thought it said you fuckin wankers or something, for such fuss. jester and two others were elevated to 6th class for the rest of the year.

25july2013
now we joined jester in the 6th grade, the head nun had him under control . his daily ritual was to clean the black board standing on a chair, you think that's nothing, but for someone who freaks out on heights, it was a sight . then came the day of the voice. must of been near the end of 1970. i was sitting behind birdboy or 1 up from him, daydreaming . jester doing his ritual after lunch. birdboy rockin with the occasional farty noise. next thing jester throws the blackboard duster hitting birdboy in the side of the head, temple, he was gone. the nun didn't know what to do , police were called . now my recollection is somewhat vague, now but, something significant happen that day.

28july2013
leaving that school and going elsewhere that year end, meant i wasn't to see them two again. i caught up with jester around 1976/77 . i was working at the steelworks at that time, doing fitters labourer work. he had just got his car licence, amasing. he couldn't fucking drive. he picked me up from home and drove into town a few times. i remember him checking out my record collection, he was surprised at my records, i was going through a zappa thing then, so there  was a few of him, probably all up about 60 albums then, i remember buying the eagles greatest hits at that time, the hype. thinking this isn't that great. probably now i could listen to it. as far as west coast thing goes at that time , i was mainly into zappa, i thought beefheart was demonic, after the street life of 1975, i had lived, i needed a safe place. jester drove me into town around the next couple of weeks, but me doing shiftwork and a weekend off a month , i don't know what happened there. years later, i learnt  he crashed the car and ran away.

4august2013
here's where it becomes sketchy, 1984, not really, because i keep a diary that year. i thought it would make a good year for such. enter simon pieman middle name peter, friend of john mc and jester, he played the blues, or white poor little rich kid blues. i had heard about pieman through the others years before. i had a flat in town, i'd caught up with them there, and invited them back. i was trying to learn guitar and writing, i had two guitars , and a amp. a washburn acoustic and an ibanez les paul copy, which i played mainly just barre  chords, the blues what pieman played didn't fit my ascetic, of that time, which was mainly punky reggae type of thing. jester had lost his wallet and was strangely coming and going, looking for his wallet. he still had the height stance thing as he clinged to the wall walking up the stairs , that hit a nerve with the what comes back thing.

7august2013
around this time, maybe even before, i caught up with jester at a psychedelic furs concert. he was into stuff like sid barret and julian cope, and other fringe type stuff which surprised me. a long way from following birdboy around the playground. probably a year or so later , i sold him a teardrop explodes 12" ep, the only thing i remember of that was ouch monkeys. i never seen him really much after that, on occasions. i remember, me and a girlfriend, nymph fartarse, were having pizza at a pizzahut . next minute, who should walk pass but jester. looking at the people eating pizza through the window, he done the mime act of holding a piece pizza near his mouth, pulling it away and letting go, then jestered with the hand that pizza comes back and hits them in the face, then laughs, a laugh i could heard in my head from way back. i just thought you dickhead and laughed, he didn't spot me though.

15august2013
at the end of 1988, i chucked the railway job in, done the jack, on  the road. lived in the van basically for a year and a bit. after that i got a flat in the same block as 1983, this time in the ground level, the rent had almost doubled, that gypsy life , changes you in ways. i met up with jester , he lived not far , probably what you'd call a block away. he was working , but lived in a mens guest house, he had a morris minor, the same as my old car but a sedan. he used to drive everywhere in 1st gear, reminded me of mr bean, not as radical though. he was still into cope alot. he gave me a swell maps album, i didn't go much on it, i thought midget submarines was about the best thing on it. some drama at the guest house and he was turfed out , he lived there for some time. i'm not sure if he done the little excursion before or after that. his work gave him the opportunity to work in the middle of australia, eyres rock, and put in the fibre optic. i told him he should do it , do something you can look back on. he did it. he used to ring me up from there, in a stinking hot tin humpy, saying he couldn't hack it, i told him to hang in there.

20august2013
strangely, i'm not sure, before or after the excursion , he got a flat in these old tower type flats. under him was nymph fartarse. pieman had chucked his job in and was living in a half house, we visited each other, playing cards and yakking . he told me , he had slept at jesters house as a youth. he slept in jesters bed and jester slept  in his brothers bed. jesters old man came home, started laying(hitting) into pieman, thinking it was jester. pieman says he bolted home. they lived in a different suburb to me. another story, these other class mates told me, they had a swimming pool with all stuff stored in it, not water. jester set it alight. they keep him in a parrot bird cage til the cops arrived. in 1993, i was in hospital and jester visited me , i appreciated that.

29august2013
probably never seen much of jester after that, although i did bump into him around '97. he gave me a few dr who postcard things, he was right into jerry anderson and that stuff , a big collector. maybe a curse from the james bond car.  it's funny how he turned up in 97, i was thinking about birdboy and that voice. all i remember it said about jester, to forget about it and tell him to get on with his life. i asked jester about that day , he said it was the scariest day in his life. i asked him what happened, he said best forget it and get on with life, that's all. the exact words of which that voice had said. birdboy??, i was curious about birdboy, what happened to him. pieman and jester both ended up going to the same high school, as did birdboy. during our card games, i asked pieman if he knew him, this is around 92. straight away, he started doing  the rockin and hand moves to a tee. he reckoned he copped a hard time in high school , the other guys burnt him with cigs and stuff, i thought that sad, i seen birdboy in the 90s one day , i didn't say anything, but all of a sudden he picked up a vibe and looked around strangely , he didn't see me. about 4 , 5 or something years ago, i walked out unanderra way and decided to go to the church, thinking, i know this church better than most of them, then all of a sudden this bloke walks out, it was birdboy. i felt like God had hit me back, birdboy always left at a particular time, and he was still doing it after all them years, i felt a revelation.

21march2019.
today i bumped into jester , had a bit of a chat. i hadn't seen him in years.

midnight cowboy

31may2013
if any movie deserves a blogging from me, it can be midnight cowboy, why ?, it will soon be apparent. released in n.s.w. australia before the  r category things, which is just as confusing as the shitfull of crap movies today. then, it was only the big AO (adults only) rating, x was something somewhere else. R was just a letter after q, i think the first R rated was percy, which seems a bit,some word. i think they had to start somewhere, just like this, blog.

1june2013
being unsure about the percy movie, i had to do a search, it was the first r rated in australia, 1971. i got one of them, the great rock discography (5th edition) with forward notes by john peel, it has come in real handy at times. i checked the kinks, they done the soundtrack for percy, the book only gives it a 4/10 rating, i 've only heard the lola, probably not the coca cola version thats on vs, cherry cola. the old percy's getting a write up here, no pun intended. i seen it on a late night movie, maybe the 80's or 90's. with the midnight cowboy movie, i would have been in 5th or 6th class, either 69 or 70. i thought it was a modern day western, something like billy jack or something. so i got a few class mates to travel into town, about 4 miles, big day out at the pictures.

3june2013
for me it wasn't no big deal, my mum was always a keen movie goer, for a long time. so saturday at the flicks was not an uncommon practice. them early days everybody stood up for a photo of the queen and anthem, i think that had just fizzled out, with my generation. them other guys were all dolled up  for the occasion all from the happy family or so called. me, by this time, i knew the streets, i knew trouble, and how to avoid it. probably the only difference here, when we went with mum, she'd go up the top level. cinemas them days had the 2 levels, downstairs the cheap seats, riff raff, up top bourgeois, so called. i don't remember too much about this time, but some things are clear. them days you got the ads, usually cig ads, the cartoon and 2 movies. i can't remember the other movie.

6june2013
that other movie kept playing on me, i thought it was a movie called, the confederate. i did a search it came up with some later thing. the movie i was looking for, was about a soldier who was killed by eating poison mushrooms. luckily, after typing the confederates, there was a movie called the beguiled , staring clint eastwood, never knew that was him, never knew him then anyway. that was the movie about the mushrooms, but it wasn't the other one for midnight cowboy. it must of been later. midnight cowboy came out may 1969, you know how long it took to came out here? i went to the library yesterday and did the  microfilm search. each roll has a month of papers. starting from may 69, i did a quick search of rolls . i knew it wouldn't be may 69, or dec 69 or jan 70 cause of school holidays . it was 29 oct 1970, some 18 months after it's release, i was not long 12. i seen it 31 oct 1970. the other movie was the mosquito squadron . strange match.

7june2013
i thought there was only 3 of us that went that day, there could have been 4. a few class mates didn't turn up that week, but after hearing our reviews went the next week. the 4th kid could have been a john mc , i'm not one for name dropping, but i can see some relevance, and seeing i was a great fan of the man from uncle a few years earlier. when i heard that david mc callum song on those john peel tapes, i thought of john mc, whose last name isn't mc callum , but claimed to be a relative of david mc callum, he reckon his mother had letters and things, david mc callum was in mosquito squadron, so maybe john mc was there, doesn't matter anyway, just a thought. we all have some degrees, distant and removed. so there we were.

11june2013

the first movie came and went, no worries. intermission. now for the modern day western, don't really remember too much about the movie then, what i do remember is one of the other guys freaking out at the sight of tits and bum. there we were three young guys  with stiffys and a fucking nutter, what a sight. when it got to the little dog scene, he was in hysterics. the usherette came down with a torch to see what was going on, we tried to calm him down, with threats and such. told him to put his hands over his eyes when them scenes were on, so much for the western. i don't think we knew that much then, we knew fucking made babies, but all that other adult stuff was above us. i remember looking at the faces of the other guys, big smiles and one cry baby with his hands over his eyes. i used to play a  trick on my sister at the creepy parts on movies when she had her hands over her eyes saying is it over yet, then just as the creepiest bits on say it's over now , she'd take her hands off right on that part, sick. you guess it, the movie was getting boring, down comes the usherette, we seen the movie though.

bought this on ebay, i think that means i own it

16june2013
if it means anything, after the movie we all went to a pinball shop, i can see some relevance. there was no space invaders then, the big thing, were them car on a stick indy 500, a bit like screen projection once you got the hang of it you can get replay after replay, but at 20 cents a pop, bit out of my league. john mc played that, we just played the 5 cent pinnies. you can do a lot more with 20cents then, than you can do with a dollar now days.  i think that movie stayed around for many weeks. i never seen it again for many years, i seen it on telly. you couldn't tell if it was cut though, before the rating system, even after, they just cut out bits.

18june2013
i'd spent half of my life with them two guys, john mc had only been at our school, 2 years. i could write a blog on the other nutter, who went on to the Catholic education system, we others went to public high school. so it bon voyage over the next few weeks. i seen midnight cowboy about 30 or so times, i had/have the video and dvd. i relate more to the little big man.
 

lynore

24april2013

like the clash, i seemed to have worked my way into a corner, where to go next? start something i'm not real confident about writing or fill in past blogs. i have bits here and there, many in fact, but being true to the clag eartha style there's flow and relevance and a link between the lot. so begins the blog of lynore, a person of person i do not know, but once considered a myspace friend. after accepting my friendship, really enjoyed my little richard blog, that can be found here in an older blog . what i've done here is paste that whole myspace text for all the snoops, snoops ??? scorn flakes to wollongong snoops
 .....

it's not aztec, it's not native, it's not african
maybe it's all, but one things for sure and more
 it's lynore galore!!

what is that beauty in yonder mirror breaks?
is it some kind of tinnka¿

with this piece in 1592, you could have brought manhattan isle,
 with maybe n.j. thrown in as a bonus.

yes lynore of some galore, this is i your new + friend, robert. wanting
to thank thee, for thou wise choice. thank you. if you haven't noticed
i put up some comment. i always wanted a friend from new york. why
you? it must be them beady  little eyes, again i jest. in my browsing
i noticed you, you remind me, (in that particular picture) of a
minnie ripperton, joan armatrading or one of those skipping  girls,
you see on the telly. so i had a look, and wallah, you not only
look pretty, you actually do something, very impressive. only one
thing, maybe you should number your photos, so that way people
and you know what piece interests them, go girl.

your friend,
robert may 2008.


Now everybody knows that solium is the wonderful sunlight ingredient contained in one soap, and only one soap, new rinso. But i guess that you want to know what that means to you. Well, here's the story, the United States testing company, an independent laboratory, has tested new rinso with solium, thoroughly, and this is what all of their tests prove.
New rinso with solium will wash clothes, whiter than brand new, make washable colours look brighter than brand new. There you have the scientific facts. No other soap in the world can produce these results, because no other soap contains solium. Now, if i've convinced you to buy just one package of new rinso with solium, then that's enough, your wash day results, will do the rest.


Dear Lynore, I'm somewhat puzzled by your asking about an old newspaper.
Which old newspaper do you mean? Could it be the extree extree? I think not.
Could it be the Little Richard article? I don't know, I'm confused. If it's the Little
Richard, there is a story behind that. It goes something like this. One day,
around 1997, I had to go up town for some reason.
 Now, down here we have a roadside garbage collection, every so often. Stuff
like old pipes, bits of wood, old wares and the like. Well on this particular
day, as I walked up town, I noticed this old greek bloke (man) putting
some stuff out on the curb. As I walked pass I noticed a old 50s  record
player, me being a collector of old record players, thought I'll grab that
later, if it's still there. Not really caring if it was there or not, being a busy
street. Anyways I went up town to do my business, it took awhile, I
walked home a different way. I completely forgot about the record
player, then after awhile I remembered, I thought, I wonder if that bloody
record player is still there, there's only one way to find out, go and have
a look. So off I went up the road again, I was thinking it'll be lucky if it's still
there. Now as I got closer a young dude, a real office type, dressed in a
suit, what I call suits. He was looking at the pile, me thinking he's spotted
the player. As I got closer not knowing if it was still there or not. I could not
believe what happened next, the young suits dude picked up some old bits
of copper pipe and trotted off. To this day I am amazed by this, the
guy obviously had a descent job, there was about 75 cents in scrap, the dry
cleaning bill would have been bigger. Guess what, that's right it was still there,
so I grab the handle and carried it home, a brief description it was them old
box type you see, that open up. As I walked home I noticed it was a bit heavy
and had some other goodies in there. I went to the garage, where I keep other junk.
I opened the box, and there was all these old 50s rock 'n roll records about 30 to 40
in all. I took the records up stairs to check them out. There was Little Richard,
Eddie Cochran, Freddy Cannon and a heap of others, I fell in love with them. For
some unknown reason I became possessed by them. I wanted to know about
them. Now for some unknown reason, I went to the library to check out old newpapers
on the microfilm, I think maybe it was to see my birthdate in the personals of the local rag.
I got the lady to show me how to operate the apparatus, and I was off flying through the news.
It was a speedy machine, zooming and stopping every once and awhile to see what
page and date you were up to. I am not sure whether  my birthdate was on the same reel.
I don't know maybe I was looking for the sputnik, I don't know, but I stopped on a particular
page, now I remember, it was more my conception day what was happening around the time
I was conceived, I am a nutcase, just interested in dumb things, anyway getting back.
I stopped and there was the ad for rock 'n roll show. I went far out, I didn't
know Little Richard played in Wollongong. I didn't know much at that stage.
I'd seen Little Richard on the American Today show, where Bryant Gumble, asked him about
throwing the ring into Sydney Harbour, and that's about all. With the microfilm
machine, you can photocopy the page for 50 cents. so i copied the ad and the next
weeks ad and the next day write up, which is part of my blog on the subject.
I decided to look in the Sydney papers microfilm, to see what they said,
not a mention. That's when I noticed the atomic bomb blast picture, I thought
it's like a figure with wings, like an angel. Another view looks like a face. This
picture can be viewed on my photo's the one behind jimi hendrix, webcam infinity.
A few days forward and it's sputnik. I was amazed. I became more
interested in that time and Little Richard. I read Charles White's book about him.
All them punk years through the eighties, I knew nothing, it was amazing. We
actually had a little concert on that block of land in 1982. I suppose that'll have
to do for now. I hope that's the old newspaper you were talking about. any
questions?.

robert
may 2008

26april2013
you see this isn't about a person at all, it's about a text on a usb called lynore. when i first started going on the internet, say 2007, i joined myspace, didn't know much about it really. i used to go to the library and net cafes things, time was short, so i put things on the usb at home and drop them off . i thought i'd carried baggage around too long , things like the little richard story , peel and such. then came the friends bit, their always prompting you look here blah, i wasn't interested in friends locally or even australia , i know this place better than any of them and it's boring egos. i was interested in other places without going anywhere. you know things look better in pictures, but there are magicial times that pictures can't capture. i went all round the place just looking at their prompt, the one thing that stood out at that time, was the infamous mirror pictures , hence the poem, i still think it funny.

1may2013
the time could not have been stranger for finding that record player. around 97, a bit after the peel tapes. i always believed there  would be the big movement 20 years on from the last , as well as the revival. didn't happen really , or was it windows 98, strange. i see the internet as more of a retreat, tool and a hindrance somewhat to true face to face stuff. it has it's pluses , but is not the big movement that rock 'n roll was, the generation gapper . the internet is more the fragmentaler. the bands i seen at that time, around here anyways, were strum and pedal and the same fucking racket that sends you deaf, there was the occasional treat. i seen a few bands mix and match, some got hot from playing , but couldn't hold it together, others stay together for what reason ??  you tell me.  i think what has been before is still here just the people ain't, maybe that's abundance.

4 october 1957 maralinga

i was in 2 minds on whether to add this, s'pose  it's part of it

the clash

5feb2013
it all comes back to 1980 really, and a few other factors. in town looking for something new to buy, i frustratingly went through all available new or different albums, i nearly bought comes a time, neil young, but it offered nothing new, i had enough of that stuff. arming and aring, i went through the new releases, i notice london calling, i'd seen the single on telly , it wasn't bad. still arming and aring , i notice it was only $11.95, only $4 dearer than an album, only for that reason did i make the plung , i probably wouldn't have bought it otherwise. thinking well it's got one song there with all them others , might get one or two.

8feb2013
s'pose  it's that time again, racking the brain, i often think why bother. i think this maybe interesting in a few more years or so, that's probably all that keeps this going. i was really after that, johnny rotten, neil young song, i didn't know the album or song title. i had harvest and deja vu csny. this time was early 80 or even dec 79. london calling was pretty much hot off press. on playing it , there was the punk thing but more, at that time there was defiantly not much sitting on the fence with the music, it was for or against. i was working hard , i'd put a record on when i got home , and probably crash half the time, side 1 got played a bit, that i got into it, then side 2, by the time i got to 3 and 4, i had made a tape of the songs i liked and just played that.

11feb2013
after playing london calling a bit, it made all that laid back stuff, yesterday. the trendies bypassed it , i think with some mod and ska thing and plenty of other, they didn't need a punk album. or some other excuse. being a double album, as with the white album, there's plenty of stuff and gems get over looked. after about 10 or so years i finally got, i'm not down, funny that. it's one of them tracks that just didn't make the tape and being hidden away on side 4, same with the cover. couldn't tell if that was paul or mick. didn't realise the cover was the same as the first elvis album. wasn't really an elvis fan then, that was my aunties generation. i think his main fan base was born around the mid forties. the elvis records i seen had different covers anyways. i seen a k.d. lang cd the other day using the some artwork, i thought what the fuck is that. and a lot of people think the leonard cohen song is hers, he doesn't mind anyways.... there is a point lenny.

26feb2013
it's was all a bit surreal , whatever that means, what i mean is london calling had songs you could really relate too. never mind the punk hype, there was some really good songs there, songs that where in your head at that time. i remember my grandmother saving all the boxtops from packets of tea, i always wondered why, i think they saved them and sent them away and got some cutlery set or some other prize they'd never use , or on occasions. to this day, i'm not real keen on the politics thing. i've got my views they don't change much, it's the times that do. i think the main thing is to make people think, politics is just a game, that gives me the shits. and you can't get away from it. i think old joe got lost on it, it's a game you don't win cause it never ends.

1march2013
london calling even though it's mainly english it has more of a wide appeal than the first lot.i would call songs like the card cheat , epic rather than punk. i loved that song pretty much after buying it. a bit of a cecil b. demill production there. i could go on about london calling. i'm not sure if i got the first or second albums next, i did buy clampdown b/w guns of brixton 45 . at that time there was nothing like guns of brixton, the closest would have been peter gabriels', games without frontiers, had a similar musical thing there. after about six months the london calling was starting to gain recognition , here anyway. slowly.

3march2013
like i said before, not sure if i got the 1st or 2nd next. i would have got either some time later. the first was hard to get into at first, couldn't really get the lyrics, very brit. i'd heard police & thieves somewhere before, i thought the police done it, funny. it even remind me of the motels, total control, i don't know why. the first album has some really good songs, eventually, i got the first song book, some years later. the second album had some good stuff also, the trouble here was , too much too soon . with getting london calling before the first two, then sandinista , the 2nd was overlooked somewhat, i liked tommy gun though.

6march2013
sandinista, i don't know why, most hated it. me, personally liked the album(s) , and i thought the card cheat was epic, it was the label anyways. the title didn't really do much, a word in one song, hey joe, their been doing that stuff since columbus. the title should have been all aboard or something, here's our friends they do stuff too. the single here was the call up. i actually thought what a good song for woodstock, a little too late though, i liked the clip. you know it was the 3rd song i taped on the old betacord. it was on a afternoon show called simon townsends wonder world. me, at that time not knowing much about simon,who introduced the song, and said it was about what was termed conscientious objector . he himself being a infamous one during the vietnam days. to this day i'm kicking myself that i cut the intro out, apparently all the video from that show was destroyed, it went for years.

10march2013
i could go on about what i thinks good and not on sandinista, but it don't matter. we all have regrets about getting pissed, pissed being well intoxicated not that term i call pissed off , there is a slight difference. time came to see the clash , getting pissed on the train wasn't a good thing. 50 miles to see the band they wouldn't let me in cause i was pissed, they said came back tomorrow night, that wasn't gonna happen. the cops were called blah blah blah. at that time i was pretty powerful both physical and spiritually, being pissed didn't help, i don't know why we do it, i personally loathe drunks breathing and talking shit on me. sitting in the cop car handcuffed behind my back , felt like a fucking mad man. we do push things sometimes with me alot, maybe that felt trouble with me, too fucking right. thinking in the car it's bullshit, like i always thought. i gave the punk a go back in 1980. but it proved to be bullshit. that point was the end. strings were pulled , the cops let me go, they let me in, so fucking what, it was over, anything after was token. probably the saddest thing is, all these other fuckers who came later, even now, still don't get it.  never went back no other night they played. i was an idiot, but i wasn't an idiot that came back them other nights. i knew now just the small things were better, i had heaps better times at small gigs. not to say the clash or any of them ain't good. i just don't go much on the big bollocks out things.

11march2013
not sure if i bought the radio clash single before or after that. i bought know your rights single, wasn't much at that time. that's the thing with me, i think it's a bit hereditary , i'm a bit bent. not bent in a bad nasty way, like i say fuck it no more like that, and things bend and i end up forgiving or something similar, but most times their fucking dickheads anyway. probably one of my biggest battles that. i think it's the devil. should just say fuck it and move on, it's hard when your young though. they released combat rock, i didn't give two monkeys, never bought it straight up, i bought rock the casbah, and straight to hell singles for the collection. the album done pretty good here, all them old rodriguez people where playing it. i remember hearing it coming from a few houses where you heard cold fact 5 or so years earlier. blokes at work would come up and say they really like that band i'm into, i didn't know what the fuck they were on about. i'd go what band? they go the clash, one guy bought the tape combat rock. i didn't think it was that crash hot. maybe i'm missing something here. ended up buying it.

15march2013
you know these stories are already written in my head, whether letting them loose is a good thing or not. i only type when i feel like it, and thinking, can i do a paragraph in a sitting, when you start it flows you know. combat rock was an informative little package, many cameos . at that time i hadn't seen taxi driver, allen ginsberg  was part of another world mainly pencil squeezers. jane fonda? i think liked some movies, had everything and wasn't happy, or something. i think marlon brando said more with the award or without it. i might be making assumptions here, wasn't that her on the chlorine crystals ad. the album was a bit like a simpsons episode with something  new popping up with every view. during the nineties combat rock was played more by this fellow than any other clash album. should i stay... was the, i wonder of this album, maybe the riff is okay, but that's about it.

23march2013
i got, this is england  45, waiting for the film clip , to check out the band. there wasn't no film clip, no nothing voidoole . i was at paddington market , some trendy hippy shitty thing mid 80's. that's where i first seen cut the crap album, thought it was a bootleg, being a market . no it was a release, i didn't get it for a bit when i did, i thought they'd worked themselves into a corner with no direction. i thought time would change the album , but it hasn't
  
6april2013
of course the clash story doesn't end there, i swiped someones twitter page i found, i didn't follow though. using some sav clag and a bit of tech knoware, and walla...

.....the end of the chapter is the beginning

   

alice cooper

11dec2012
thinking for a couple of days on where to head next??.. probably more than any other artist in the seventies to effect me was alice cooper. i first heard the band around 1972. the first was either schools out or alma mater. i heard schools out in our 2nd form music class. not many people in our form took music as an elective , it was all woodwork, metalwork and tech drawing, follow the crowd type of thing. i don't even think there was enough for a class. same went for social studies, i don't think that's even relevant any more, shame really. there was the non elective , 1 period a week music. we done a bit of theory , quavers & crotchets , but most of the time we'd just play records. the teacher encouraged us to bring in records. the year before, 1971, i brought in some 45s, i had 4 , no one else bought nothing that year, it was sort of embarrassing really. i actually learnt a good lesson, that proved right time and time again, thank you rick nelson. them records i brought in , i don't know how they went down, it don't matter what you like , someone dont. those records, the beatles -hey jude/revolution, the jacksons- abc, ray stevens - gitarzan, mungo jerry - in the summertime, were my beloved treasures, something a 12 yr old thinks are great . when someone says there rubbish, it dont feel so good, and then you dont like them as much for a bit. when rick nelson release garden party it was right on.

14dec2012
probably heard alma mater first. i used to listen to the radio at my grandmothers' place. i heard it when i was having a bath on 2sm radio, also i remember hearing, t.rex - children of the revolution at that same time, that was a single and you could play it on the jukebox, 10cents a song or 3 for 20. when you think about it now , that's sort of expensive by todays 99cent downloads, you could by the single for $1.10. it was pay or no music, or try your luck listening to the radio. alma mater was only on schools out . i never got to hear it in class. the girl borrowed the record from someone, she only played school's out, and said the rest was crap, i had no say. i really wanted to hear that alma mater song, i thought it was great, after hearing it on the radio. every christmas was record buying time, between me and my sister, i wanted schools out and she wanted the slider.

17dec2012
so i got school's out, the first issue here had them disposable paper knickers , that were around at that time. you couldn't wear these though, they were around the record  and the cover opened like a desk. the desk cover continue over the next few reissues, then just an normal cover. i couldn't work out who was who from the cover, there was just a photo. i remember a piss up party a few of the olds' friends , they got me to show them the knickers and play the album. i thought they cant relate to that. i think it lasted about 2or 3 songs , then the old man put his beethoven shit on, i hate that shit, i really do. i like a few classical pieces , but i know the rest is fucking shithouse.

27dec2012
i liked most of schools out, the two end songs on both sides weren't much. i'd play the album before going to school. it seemed like nobody like that album much, they were mostly into bowie, creedence and the stones. in 1973, a guy in my class was carrying around the billion dollar babies album , reading and singing the lyrics off the album cover. i asked him if he heard schools out, he never . i brought it in and lent it to him, he liked the first track, but said billion dollar babies was better. anything you can do .. you know. i never got billion dollar babies until some years later second hand, it still had everything thing in tacked. it had a few good songs , but shit too. i had the first greatest hits album which had most on it. i actually thought at the time that guy had the album , it was before schools out. probably that greatest hits was my next cooper album, then school days the first two albums on a double, didn't go much on it as i remember, i can't really remember the songs, i think there was some spiders something or rather.

1jan2013
i got school days from the record club, sold it not long after, too much. the next would have been the greatest hits album , also from the record club. you'd think by reading this that i wasn't much of a fan, i just knew what i liked , like most teenagers,  until they snap out of it. i was happy with the greatest hits album , it served as a good template for the earlier albums. this time would have been late 74, i joined that club then. after that i remember getting muscle of love in the post. records you got from the club came with cardboard packaging . muscle of love had it's own cardboard  pack, i thought it must be a good album if they print that stuff on the box(dummy). it had 1 or2 on it , but wasn't played much. welcome to my nightmare , i never bought that until a year or two after it's release.

2jan2013
the next things were tapes. i made this move after the record debt was paid off, i decide to join their tape section and get them first half dozen cheap. that's where i got love it to death. i really got into that album, black ju ju was a bit much, but the rest was so so. when you look back at the band stuff, i reckon, love it to death is probably their best album. i'd known sun arise from rolf harris and his shows in the 60's before he done the big move. i was surprised that harry butler co wrote it, i didn't realize that until the 80's. alice coopers version starts off good , but then turns into sameness , which in my opinion makes it fill. i always thought they should have spent a bit more time on adding a verse, rather than sameness. i get that same thing with the stranglers golden brown, but that's another story. i think love it to death is the alice cooper blue print. next, probably goes to hell , again tape. i liked this album some what, it was a bit showbizy though, even compared to welcome to my nightmare. eventually i swapped it for jj cale naturally. i took it on a bike trip down the coast, a mate had a truck, we all loaded up the truck and headed south. a guy really liked it and swapped. by this time it had become just another album.

8jan2013
you and me on countdown, somewhat thrilling? compared to the other stuff they played ,yes. the thing with alice cooper, he does those soppy  ballads, that get you in. stuff like alma mater, only women bleed, i never cry , etc, there always there , it's the mix. even new yorks dolls had that with lonely planet boy. the album lace and whiskey was very hard to get into, i think it had 2 or 3, but struggled. i had the tape , which made it hard to jump tracks, the thing with the love it to death tape , i think, just before black ju ju , you turn the tape over and it starts right on the ballad of dwight fry, i done that lots. i liked ubangi stomp on lace and whiskey, didn't know it was a cover at that time, i like all them versions too, warren smith, jerry lee etc.

10jan2013
from the inside, i got this on vinyl, the cover reminded me of brain salad surgery by e.l.p   not that i had that album. the single wasn't much , but i can understand the sentiment . it's been that long since i heard the album, i liked most or it. i liked serious, it had a good pace about it, a bit like, a song on goes to hell, something about pedal to the medal in the lyrics. i checked the songs on goes to hell, can't remember half of them. there's been lot's of different things since . but i know the alice cooper album formula for them 70's one's. flush the fashion , again vinyl, again single a bit weak, i liked this album, a bit , what was term new wave. i remember asprin damage. there was some kind of direction here, but the formula had worn thin, welcome to the 80's. i gave special forces a go, but it was moving on time.

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.

rodriguez

27august2012
i see rodriguez has a film out about him. me and the rodriguez music go back some 30 odd years. firstly, thanks to letterman for putting him on his show,  i quite enjoy some of lettermans stuff, but of late i haven't been into it, it becames the same, but i wonder if grinder girl is still grinding away. anyways, i first heard of rodriguez, around 1973, off a girl, i used to talk to after school, about music and stuff, she was into iggy and that, then, i was more into sabbath and cooper. anyways, she mentioned rodriguez cold fact, the tape, that was getting around, thanks to pirate taping in those days, if you had a tape deck in those days. most of us youth , just had radio really, and the odd album or singles. i talked to a few whose sister or someone had the infamous tape. don't worry them rumours where around even then, they just grew. i haven't seen the movie yet, but i read a few reviews, probably the thing with me was , this big search? here, he was found in 1979, so that ended the rumors.

28august2012
strange with some artists, it's like you've heard them before, maybe unconsciously you have , on the radio or somewhere. too this day i'm still , no i've given up really, but years ago , i'm talking 1965/6 something, i heard this song on a jukebox at the embassy cafe. it had the lyric, down the highway , in it. that's stuck in my head, the music , everything, for many years. later in life i chased that song, man. from alro guthrie to bob dylan to any fucking folk singer, i've given up. i've forgotten the song, and it don't matter no more. i think it was like a rolling stone, it sounds very much like it and time period, but no down the highway lyric.

1sept2012
rodriguez done that to me, deja vu, i'd heard that stuff , especially i wonder. probably now one of my least favorite. it's one of those songs you really like at first, then tier of, then like, etc. i love that bass though. at the time i had a semi legit tape must of been 1977, it goes like this, i was trail bike riding up the mountain, as you did. i stopped at the waterfall . a couple of mates were drinking and pissed, there. one had a new secondhand car, they decide to drive down the pool, i said i'll follow. they sped off pissed as. i only had a 175cc bike , up ahead i saw this cloud of dust. when i got up ahead, i saw skid marks on the road , but no car, the when i got there i noticed the car over the fence , upside down on the railway track, thinking the worst. they crawled out of the broken window with blackened dusty faces saying, did you get the number plate. i didnt know what he was on about. apparently, he reckoned some bloke sideswiped him off the road, from where i was i saw dust that's all, he was just holding his head and cursing words. i rode down the road and hid my bike in the bushes and ran back. when i got back some others were there. i said i'd hang and wait for the cops, it's a long time now, i think the others drove him home, and rang about the car on the line, cause trains could be on there way. while waiting i noticed a couple of tapes on the track, no blood though bob, maybe. one was elo new world record and the other rodriguez at his best, i went, rodriguez, what the fuck. never thought i'd ever see a proper rodriguez tape. i hung until they got the car off the tracks, the cops turned up, gave me the 3rd degree . wanted to know where the driver was, i said the others who rang up drove him home, they were shitty about him leaving , then his old man and the others turned up, they talked to the cops, me and these other young guys walked down to the bushes where i hid the bike, then i realised the tapes , i gave the elo to the young guys , i keeped the rodriguez, i didn't feel good about anything. i told him sometime later , he was thankful that i just hung there anyways.

4sept2012
you know i didn't know what to expect with that rodriguez tape, the look reminded me of a time in music, 1970 elvis, glen campbell , lee hazelwood etc. which was a far cry to what i was mostly listening to at that time , maybe dylan or van morrison, i had moondance and a few dylan, desire and blood and greatest hits. the sound was like that time , but had a few more things. sugarman was first on his best, i always thought a sugarman was the lsd peddler, you use to get lsd in a sugar cube, maybe i'm wrong. sugarman is a song you can get sick of lyrically, but i has this other that keeps it alive. crucify your mind is a classic , establishment blues is rap and subterranean homesick blues, street boy was me, i wonder great bass, a hook , one of my least faves.

10sept2012
that tape was played until it became just another. no car at that time just in the room, no walkman even. then around 78/79 came the big cold fact release, the tv ads on late night music shows like night moves. the stories where around about his death and such, then he was alive going to university, running for office etc. i remember seeing a current affairs show ,late60s/early 70s about the car industry in detroit and life after. it was a sad program , i always remember an small clippit interview of an unemployed car industry worker, when asked how he survived without work , and no real prospects , and want he ate. he said he made soup from water and ketchup. it only got worse. hearing that rodriguez was from detroit, that story always came to mind, a bit like jon voight in midnight cowboy, the sauce scene. anyways , it took me a few weeks and months to buy cold fact . i'm a bit like that, wait til the hypes over, you know i still haven't seen stars wars, maybe i have, all the little bits i'd seen on telly, put together. i thought cold fact was unreal , a great album, only one regret no street boy, then that was a good thing, cause all the trendies missed that one. they went for, i wonder, anyway . i wonder was release as a single, on blue goose, i regret not having bought that, singles are like that, i think they'll be real collectors items, maybe not. blue goose , i often wonder, i wonder, if that's the crumb blue goose?

  18sept2012
been thinking about , maybe i bought coming from reality before i got cold fact, doesn't matter really. coming from reality had some good songs, but you could feel it had this decline, 2nd album syndrome. it was like all the good songs were on , at his best , excepting 1 or 2, you could probably say the same about cold fact, i don't know, but there was something missing. i can probably listen to the whole album now, but back then , probably not. the song, i think of you, if it's original, i heard some woman, like a show type, like cabaret , do a cover of it, in the maybe late 80s , early 90s something. i thought i know that song, it's rodriguez, i had to get the old coming from reality album out of storage, and give it a play.

24sept2012
did a search for the , at his best, thinking maybe it survived past moves and a tape clutter throw out, it wasn't where i thought, maybe it'll turn up, like the john peel, but i doubt it. would have made a good photo under the origins story, i think it went a few years back , i have a vinyl and cd of it , so i think the tape went. if you can answer why you hoard something, you think has lost it's purpose , only a short time later after throwing , selling or giving , it comes to purpose, how many times. i could say the same with the alive album, i bought it at a time , when it came out , pretty much my post rodriguez stage. the music scene around 81/82 was far more different from the 70s period. don't get me wrong cold fact did get played from time to time, where as others never got a listen, a lot of laid back stuff just didn't cut it.   the alive album was interesting to a point, i hoarded it for some years, but never really played it, then sold it with a bunch in the late eighties. regrets, not really.

10oct2012
during the eighties there was a few little pockets were i listen to cold fact for a few weeks. one of them young guys got feed up down here and moved to alice springs , installing air conditioners , around 84 something. i caught up with him around 92, he told me he won a singing comp up there. he meet up with an indigenous american indian, he said he turned her on to cold fact, she loved it and never heard of it before . i thought i'd mention that cause i see rodriguez likes pow wows and things. anyways, pocahontas if you ever read this, steve died around 98 of an od.

11oct2012
i spent most of this evening looking for an mp3 i made from a tape of steve playing his mountain song a few weeks before he died. use the password - spms01

steve phillips mountain song 

12oct2012

i had another, knocking on heavens door, i could have also put up, but that's not rodriguez . you know i actually followed both letterman and rodriguez on twitter, but stopped ,awhile back, maybe 1 year or more, i made a policy only to follow who follow, letterman only follow his rivals. as for rodriguez , his twitter page stopped on tour of byron bay. funny that, the girl i talked to on the fence all them years ago, ended up being the mayor of bryon bay. as with my blogs i like to end at the beginning.

h.b. bobby

19august2013
i finally got i see the searchin for sugarman doco. what did i think , does it matter. no. was it worth the accolades? probably not. there's a punkest  saying of the late malcom mc laren , never trust a hippy. i can see a touch of that in this movie, the best part was clarence avant, he pretty much summed it up really. when you say dylan is timid compared to  rodriguez, and there was no other songwriters around that time, you got to question it???. sugerman is volkswagon frank

15feb2016
cleaning i found the tape

 

smoking

 26april12
this came up in the 1975 blogetry, and also came up again in conversation today. its probably not cool, but my first butt was kool (*brand), when i was quite young, although i did smoke passively most of them early years. plus all the other smoke about the place, like fires and such. i was buying them for people, who were sending me to the shop to buy them for the them. in those days, the sixties, anyone could buy them, maybe not, but if you said they were for a parent or someone else. i was sometimes a rather sickly creature, and didn't smoke as a habit, just a show off type of thing and no draw back. the draw back was too heavy for us youngsters. although, i did do the mexican draw back on occasions. which consisted of a drag and throwing the cig on the ground, and do a little stamping dance on it, followed by the word, ole'.

3may12
dont feel that typey  of late, mainly my mind is other places. that's the key to stop anything, a place called nothing and contentment, and as they say, all things pass. it's the time. getting back to the sixties and smoking, i remember buying my first packet of viscount, 10 in a pack 13 cents, 1967. just for something to do. after that, when it came near cracker night, in them days quite a big event. you'd spend all your dough on crackers, and unwind all the little tom thumbs, you'd have hundreds of them or less. rather than buying heaps of boxes of matches, you'd also buy a packet of cigs, just to light crackers.

5may12
this episode took place around 1969, with somebody dropping something and me finding it, something like $10 note. it was suggested i buy cigarettes. so, off we went to the shop, the other guy asked me what kind of smoke my old man smoked, not knowing what he meant, i said phillip morris soft pack, no filters. he meant for me to say something else like viscount or something, we went to a drain under the road to smoke, they were shit. we decide to get someone else to get them, we got marlboro, that was the first time i smoke them.

12may12
high school was the big ciggy thing, 1971. i done a few weeks here and there no draw back though, i think adolescents fucks your head, when i was younger, my inhibitions were much less, then all of a sudden you forget everything. back to square one. the 1971 thing was mainly to hang out with the crowd who smoked, you had smokes you had friends type of thing, they were grubs anyways. strange that, they had some dirty fucking habits, doing the gob hangers on the toilet ceiling. i probably didn't start smoking seriously till about late 72 early 73. mainly winfield (aussie brand promoted by paul hogan), escort and a few others like alpine for a bit. they were around 40cents a pack, i use to go without lunch somedays to support the cig fix.

15may12
s'pose i better finish this, i think why bother now, but maybe someone sometime might relate. to tell you some truth, maybe if we had the laws on smoking now back then, i might have not taken it up,  there was always suicide. smoking seemed a fun way and it was rebellious, or just plain bad. there was smoking in the toilets, round the back, down the creek, on the bus, and in the middle of the playground. the bus was the main influence, if you couldn't smoke on the bus back then well, why bother, nothing like smoking on the bus doing smoke rings and things. one incident comes to mind, one wasteful trick was to light the whole box of matches at once. this happen, and one guy hit the box underneath, and matches went flying everywhere. one landed in a girls hair and caught fire, nobody noticed straight away til smoke was seen coming from her head and the stink. everybody was hitting her head, it became a big deal after that, and the bus driver cracked down. we still smoked but done the smoke shake to stop the smoke, but occasionally got busted and kick off the bus. 

9june2012
i could go on about smoking but i dont. 35 years, 2004, i stopped. hardest thing i've done. takes about 6 months to really stop thinking about. then about 7 years to get it mostly out of the system. it got boring, i mean really boring, no buzz, just mess. eat healthy and smoke, boring boring boring

see you