The first time I came across this album I wasn't really interested in the Beatles at all. I liked their early stuff but I was mostly into my radio and the current pop songs. Luckily this mindset only lasted a few short months in the late sixties. Tony Edwin, who lived around the corner from me, his Dad was a 3AK DJ Graeme Boyd and Tony brought round a copy of the album. Along with some other albums, he said his Dad no longer had need of them. The plan was for me to sell them at school. So like some black marketeer I packed them in my bag and the next day took them to Box Hill High School and with a group of young Form 1 bidders around me, I tried to sell the album. But no one was interested at the extortionate price of $3.50. I think I sold it for $2.50 in the end.
That weekend Tony comes back saying he's got to take the records back. His Dad was looking for them. Especially the Pepper album. So then on we had to tell a fib and say we never saw the Pepper album.
I felt terribly guilty. Graeme Boyd was one of the 3AK Good Guys and he was really a good guy. As a teenager, I got in trouble with the police and he was the one who came down to the police station with my mum to help me. When he walked in the police really changed their attitude. This was a celebrity!.
A few months down the track and my eyes and ears are opened to the sound of the Beatles and after my Mum gave me Abbey Road I start collecting Beatles albums. Because of the stereo effect on my cheap stereo Peppers always seemed to have vocals missing. But there was something about the songs. They're like sunshine. It became a regular play over the years and especially around 1990, I went mad for it. Everything was a little psychedelic again and this fitted in so well.
At the Rubber Soul Ronny would always play the Pepper reprise. Short but ferocious.
Nowadays I just put the record on and it creates a good vibe and puts you right back through time looking through the rose coloured glasses of 1967
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