I was watching a Rick Beato video which made a very good point. That you have big, famous artists like Taylor Swift today but there are great swathes of people who couldn’t name three of her songs. I’d count myself in that. And the reason is because we all curate our own playlists. In other words, it’s hard to stumble across anything because you are constantly fed music that is in a similar genre. So if you’ve not listened to Taylor Swift, you won’t get sent it. It’s interesting because it reflects the way the world is now. We have famous artists, world famous, who people love in their millions, while millions have never heard of them.
I suppose this was, to an extent, always the case. As Led Zeppelin rampaged across America and were selling millions, my dad, for example, had never heard of them. But then again his world was totally removed from popular culture in a way if you're 50 now, you’re not.
But it got me thinking, how did I first get into bands? Where did I hear bands and what sent me on a lifelong sonic pathway?
Easy to forget now how extreme and unusual Yes were when they first emerged. We’d heard nothing like it before. I first heard them on Radio Luxembourg in 1972. Roundabout had been released as a single and my memory is it got to #28 on their chart. It was a radio edit but all the same, I loved it even though I was only 11. Then my brother brought home The Yes Album and that was it.
ELP however, I didn’t hear until Alan Freeman’s Saturday rock show when he played ‘Welcome Back Friends…’I remember how thrilling it was, and again, not like anything I’d heard.
The Old Grey Whistle Test was, of course, a huge influence on all our taste. Just a few of the bands I was exposed to; SAHB ( wearing pig masks), Man, Camel, Zappa, Captain Beefheart and Humble Pie.
Remember, you really had to seek this stuff out. It occupied niche spaces. If music falls into your lap now, it certainly didn’t used to. I remember being off school one time and at 11 O’clock in the morning, for some reason, there was a film of The Groundhogs playing at a festival somewhere. For some reason, I want to say it was the Buxton festival in 1973, which was held on a bleak moorland in the Pennines. Another time, there was a half hour of Man live.
Then of course there was Sight And Sound In Concert, a TV series in the mid-to-late 70s that was also broadcast on FM radio. This hit me in the sweet spot as I was seriously building the record collection. Rory Gallagher was on and I taped it and played the cassette until it spooled out. I actually still have the remains of it. Lone Star, Santana, Thin Lizzy, Renaissance, are just a few of the bands that were on. It’s where I heard Colosseum II, Be Bop Deluxe and John Martyn and Gentle Giant for the first time.
The industry was growing exponentially but UK TV and radio didn’t keep up. John Peel, before 1977 was a good source of sessions, many of which were later released, because it seemed as if rock could only be heard when it was dark. It was too subversive for daylight!
But more than anything else I heard unknown bands at other’s houses. Yes we’d go round and listen to records. All very wholesome and where I first heard Supertramp, Kraan, early Pink Floyd and Hawkwind. Doing such a thing seems very quaint now but was how we heard and even taped new records.
Every journey starts somewhere and how you heard bands back in the day was really crucial.
