The Bends by Radiohead 1995

Although "Creep" was a massive hit and got played to death at the Lizard Lounge Radiohead didn't really look like they were going to be anything out of the ordinary. Although of course Creep was definitely a huge song. But then again a lot of bands had massive alternative cross-over hits. I mean "Unbelievable" by EMF was new and fantastic. And Jesus Jones "Right Here Right Now" 
Radiohead's first album didn't particularly impress. Though I did like 'Stop Whispering'. So I took little notice when they released their second album in 1995. While everyone was focusing on Brit Pop this slow grower (well for me it was) started to lift Radiohead way above their contemporaries. 

My girlfriend at the time was living with an old pal of mine Lee, not very far away from my house in Elwood. I think she was only there for the summer. She did live with me for a while but she was forever coming and going so I don't know what state our relationship was in. In fact, all I can remember is going around to their place one evening and listening to "The Bends" as the temperature outside heated up. I couldn't believe how good the album was. Great song after great song. It started with High and Dry and then Fake Plastic Trees and then it got messy but I loved it. The joy of finding an album that instantly connects.

Another bonus was as a DJ at a popular nightclub I would get all the CD-singles from the record companies. The b-sides off singles from this album and later OK Computer were just amazing.

I was still listening to The Bends when they brought out OK Computer a few years later. And the game changed again.

Imagine by John Lennon 1971

His last really great album. In 1971 I was living in Fulton Road, Blackburn South. I was hanging out with an Irish kid called Tommy who I met playing for the local soccer team Box Hill United. We played at Wembley Park. His Dad would often drive the team to games. I had to be picked up because we didn't have a car and he lived close. I would ride round to his house which was on the new housing estate. Brand new. The street was full of kids and we'd often muck around in all the other new houses which had not yet been occupied. Hide and seek in half-built houses. Later at his place, we'd listen to his big brother Liam's records on his new stereo. despite having my chemist round sometimes it took me ages to buy a record. Liam played two records continuously. Nilsson's Nilsson Schmilsson and this one "Imagine" The place was all-new with great big windows overlooking freshly dug soil. The sound was magical. Tom and I did the chemist round together. The week after he couldn't work so I did the whole week. $6 for six days. After school. Along with the money I got from taking back empty Coke and Fanta bottles (20cents each) or running to the shop for my brothers (20 cents an errand) I had more than enough to buy the album. On the bus to Box Hill. Hand over the money and an hour later I've got my own copy. It even came with a postcard of John holding a pig to take a poke at McCartney's Ram album. And such great songs. Jealous Guy, Oh Yoko and How Do You Sleep? The song Imagine was all over the radio. How could anyone top Lennon in my book? The Beatles. The first solo singles. This album. And then along came David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust and everything changed. It gave me a totally different outlook on music. One that I've kept to this day.

Sheer Heart Attack by Queen 1974

I remember listening to this in my bathroom at Fulton Road Blackburn South back in 1974. By now I was playing guitar and recording stuff on my tiny cassette player. Thanks to the library at school I had managed to borrow a few books about the history of rock and roll and had become fascinated by the echo. And how John Lennon had a bathroom voice on his records. How handclaps were recorded in corridors. How Eddie Cochran's drummer used cardboard boxes for drums.
So I took my listening adventures to new places. I dragged my record player out to the backyard. I moved my speakers to different heights. Eventually, I would put a pillow on the floor and put speakers on each side of my head. I was then blanketed in music.
Queen records sounded great like this. There was always a lot going on sonically. nd so much layering f different sounds that went from speaker to speaker. But with songs like "Now I'm Here," it really rocked so I couldn't always lie down for it.
In Blackpool at the end of 74 on my first visit back, I had a brief flirtation with a girl called Susanne. One night we were sitting at the bar at the Casino (next door to the Pleasure Beach) while the DJ played Northern Soul and because it was Xmas a few pop hits in little in between sets. Killer Queen came on and she said to me "Every second Queen single is always rubbish!" Then again this was the girl who hated songs on records that didn't fade out.

Not a big Queen fan but I must admit they do have their moments and this album as a few of them.

So by Peter Gabriel 1986

I was traveling back from the UK after spending Christmas of 1986 there. I had turned out to be quite a rubbish experience. I was supposed to take a train down to Italy and meet a friend from school there. After spending Xmas in Blackpool I went down to London. The winter was a particularly cold one. Within two days London seemed to be snowed in. The trains weren't running. Shops were empty. I spent New Years Eve in Trafalgar square. After the countdown, I bought myself a hot dog but before I could eat it some girl took it out of my hands and scoffed it and then proceeded to try and snog me. It wasn't a pretty sight. I retreated to my hotel room alone and watched Ziggy Stardust on the telly.
The next day I tried to get to Europe but the ferries were closed due to the winter conditions. London was dead. It was getting kind of miserable. No good bands. A few days later I got to Paris. But they decided to have a train strike. As I pulled into Paris gendarmes with machine guns lined the railway tracks. I sat on the bench at Gare Du Nord and thought about Melbourne. When I left it was hot. Rubber Soul was jumping. And I'd just kissed a girl outside the Jump Club. Now here I was freezing in a hotel room in Paris watching French TV without subtitles. The cold had given me chapped lips as well. When I went to the chemist and tried to get something for them I could have sworn they were laughing at me. The chemist seemed to pull out a one-litre jar of Vaseline.
My Euro rail train pass useless. Italian ferries suspended. I had to get out of there. I was back in Blackpool by 10pm the next night. drinking brandy and dry with my brother.
All the while Peter Gabriel's So album was playing on my Walkman. And despite Kate and Peter imploring me to "Don't Give Up" I guess this time I did.

PS As for the album the cassette was a constant on my Sony Walkman as I walked the streets of London and moped on my single bed in a small room in Paris. Later back in Melbourne I bought the album and it became a favourite of mine. They used a few of the songs in Miami Vice which particularly effective. Red rain especially. And then of course there was the scene in "Say Anything" where John Cusack plays "In Your Eyes" on the boombox. 

The Man Machine by Kraftwerk 1978

After the blast of Punk the movement broke up into several smaller scenes. although I stayed with my sixties guitar pop I was still enamoured with the electronic music which had been broadcast to the world by David Bowie. He was championing Kraftwerk a lot and in 1978 Man and Machine came out. It sounded perfect. Mesmerizing. It was like one of those videos of a city at night but with the film sped up at the same time the action on the street slowed down. You'd go to parties and though I wouldn't call it dancing, people were swaying to Kraftwerk. Usually later on when the house was trashed from 100 people dancing in a small living room.
I didn't really start listening to Kraftwerk properly until the early eighties when it's influence really kicked it. I had a flat with a large balcony on Meredith Street Elwood. I'd sit out there on warm nights and listen to a mixture of this album, the Bladerunner soundtrack and even a bit of the old classical stuff. I guess I was chilling out.

Best of The Doors 1985

In 1985 I was DJing at Rubber Soul in West Melbourne. It was starting the do really well have a brilliant beginning and then a kind of lull. To get out of the lull me Ronny and Michael talked about having a "special" where we would feature an artist for the night. Play their songs maybe every third song. Put up some posters. It was up to me to come up with the image for the poster. We would have probably begun with the Beatles or The Stones but as luck would have it this Doors double album came out and we were given the chance to launch it with free Doors giveaways. So we had this poster with the image of the album all over Melbourne.
We felt it might be a big night because Jim Morrison was getting quite a bit of coverage including the cover of Rolling Stone. A very hot dead rock star. But we weren't to know how big it was really gonna be. The biggest crowd we'd ever had was 220. On the Doors night, we got 800. It was over the top with queues snaking down the block. We must have filled every available corner with punters. Both levels. We even opened the front bar for the first time. It was massive. Later we couldn't get people off the street after the club closed and the police came down. Lights flashing. It was like Sunset Strip.
We continued having once a month specials but The Doors were always the biggest. Always rammed. My copy of this album looks like it's been in a war zone.

Pills 'N' Thrills and Bellyaches by Happy Mondays 1990

In 1990 I had just got the Lizard Lounge started. At first, numbers weren't all that impressive. It was enough though to buy more records for the club. We even tried bands and one night we had Captain Cocoa play. I was managing them at the time. Their bass player Dave O'Neil later went on to appear on just about every comedy show ever made in Melbourne. However, that was the future. Right then we couldn't seem to over get more than 60 people through the door. On a good night. We even tried Beehive like specials bringing back the dreaded ABBA special. It looked grim.
Three things came together to put us on track. I went to a nightclub at the Continental in Greville street and was like wow to the sheets of material hanging from the roof with light displays bursting over them. I grabbed that idea and put sheets up and used coloured wheels and slides from old movies. Maybe not as artful but still effective. 
Even more importantly the pub gave us a happy hour from 9-11pm. That was a huge thing. from the first night, they piled in for those drinks.
And thirdly music began to change. Stone Roses and Happy Mondays were the new kings. The sound was disco meets sixties pop and it was glorious. It was a big happy vibe. Much of it chemically induced. Almost hippy. We gave out lollies at the door. We mixed new and old songs and all different styles based on what we read about the Balearic sounds of the UK summer. And we played Happy Mondays to death. The good times had begun. And the club numbers went through the roof.

These Foolish Things by Bryan Ferry 1973

 I was going out with a girl from Teacher's College and one day I picked up this album from a small music shop in Box Hill on Whitehorse road. It was an instrument shop and sold a few albums as well. But they had decided the album caper wasn't worth the room used so they sold off their stock for 1:99 each. I had everything Roxy I wanted already (or so I thought) except this which I hadn't got round to buying because I was appalled by the version of Hard Rain's Gonna Fall (now I love it) and I was a steadfast Roxy man. But I took it back to my girlfriend's place in North Balwyn and we played it a few times and she liked it more than the Roxy albums I'd played to her. And it was full of songs I'd never heard before so I had nothing to compare them to. It was great. Mr Ferry was cool. I wanted to wear suits and hang around pool parties in Hollywood when I listened to his solo work.

Anyway we even made the title track our song. Xmas presents and such were often based on one of the lyrics. We even went to Paris together. And London. And in London we saw him perform the song on the Cilla Black show. It really was our song. 

Then we broke up. 

One night I'm driving home from the Clayton Drive In with a new girlfriend and I'm playing the album on my cassette. And I sing along to These Foolish Things. And she loves it and says "That should be our song!" And I tell her that the song is kinda taken and the all hell breaks loose.

PS Do couples still have "songs"?

Give Up by The Postal Service 2003

I don’t know where I first heard about this album but it was one of the first albums I ever downloaded. Not as a whole album but by grabbing individual tracks off different sites the main one being Limewire. So when I put it all together the sounds were all of different levels and different quality. But it was still magic. It also featured jenny Lewis on some tracks.

The moment it really brings back to me is a time I was driving home after DJing at a wedding party way down on the Mornington Peninsula. At what looked a surf beach in Hasting. The reception overlooked the wind-strewn sands. It was a hard DJ gig because the party was full of old friends from the 80s band scene.  Members of the Carlton band scene that I got to know when Mick, Chris and Rod joined my band in 1982. Where they set up my decks there were no lights to see the CDs and only one speaker was working on the PA. This was before the time phones had torches. Tough work but good money! Then of course everyone had a few drinks and we all had a great time.

Driving home I put this CD on (a proper version) Driving down with the darkness and twinkling lights, driving towards Frankston and then home it all became quite cinematic. Especially during my favorite track Such Great Heights. There are also some great versions of these songs around played by the Shins & Iron and Wine. 

Low-Life by New Order 1985

From the opening track "Love Vigilantes" I just fell in love with this album. I had the 12 inches of Subculture and Perfect Kiss picking them up in a store on Commercial Road Prahran when I'd heard them blasting out of the speakers and really leaving me stunned. Before that I hadn't noticed New Order except for Blue Monday and Temptation a few years earlier. I couldn't imagine myself listening to a whole album of electronic stuff. I was into guitars. But that day in that long-forgotten record shop just turned me around. I went back a few weeks later and bought Low Life. Just hearing Love Vigilantes I knew it was going to be great. I had this flat in Park street West St. Kilda. The living room window was huge, floor to ceiling, and overlooked another group of flats. I'd sit in the dark listening to New Order and watching the scenes insides other people's flats like I was watching a science fiction film. Or at least Rear Window by Hitchcock.
I went out and bought any other New Order stuff I could find. I was just engrossed in their sound. At the time I was DJing in a sixties venue the Rubber Soul so I had no way of sharing these records. Then Ronny and Michael opened Beehive in the pub next to the freeway and I finally got to play New order real loud in a club. Their natural home.

Lust For Life by Iggy Pop 1977

Although I liked parts of the Idiot, Iggy's previous album, I wasn't ready for how good his next album was when I finally got round to buying it. From that first track Lust For Life, it just exploded out of the speakers.
Around 1978 the parties I went too they were playing different kinds of music than maybe a year before. There was a group of records which including Bowie Low & Heroes, Kraftwerk, the new Iggy Pop albums and so on. A real Berlin feel. A very grey feel. I would come along with my sixties mixtapes and only manage to get a few songs on before we'd go back to grey. I knew I had to find some people who might be into the same thing as me. I guess this is where the first seeds of the Melbourne Mod movement started as we'd gather to party to uplifting joyous pop and soul in small houses in South Yarra. We still played modern songs too. Lust For Life was a big one.
At home, we'd sit and listen to Success which is hilarious as Bowie tries to repeat Iggy's ad-libs without cracking up.
My favourite track was Some Weird Sin. I always played it during my DJ sets though I never got the reaction I hoped.
In the 90s when they released the film Trainspotting "Lust For Life" went through the roof at the Lizard Lounge. I guess it did the same everywhere. People went mad for the song and it became a staple of any DJ's setlist. The whole Trainspotting seemed to be powered by Iggy Pop and that track.

The Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd 1973

Back in 1974 everyone was listening to this album. Every store was playing it. People were using it to test their new stereo systems. I wasn't a fan of it at all but I couldn't escape it. It was everywhere. And one night I got to listen to it continuously thanks to an "..athon" my youth group was having. We all decided to do something to raise money. Something that ran for 16 hours and we'd get sponsorship. We got to stay out at the church hall all night. My mate Pete's plan was to listen to "Dark Side Of The Moon" constantly for 12 hours. A Dark Side of The Moonathon! 8pm on a Friday night we started listening. I hadn't come up with any ideas so I was just supporting. So I sat and listened with him. And I didn't even like the record. But there was some good stuff on it. Not that I was gonna buy it after that. And I don't think he made the 12 hours. I fell asleep quite early. Out in a car. Away from Pink Floyd. Where I heard "Nights in White Satin" for the first time on a good car stereo and it blew me away.
Actually, the only one to do 16 hours was my girlfriend, Lynne who roller-skated around the inside of the hall all night. In the morning someone from the local paper came and took her picture. She was still going around after everyone else had gone home. I sat on the kitchen bench and waited for her to finish. She finished, we kissed and then her dad picked her up. He gave me a bit of a look seeing no one else seemed to be around. I got on my bike and rode home.
For years after I avoided the Floyd. Though I did learn to play Wish You Were Here early on.  I'd champion Syd Barrett Floyd and rubbish later Floyd. Then I met my wife Liz and she loved Pink Floyd. She'd try and play me the album "Animals" but I couldn't listen to that but as a compromise I tried listening to other albums. The only one I could listen all the way through was Dark Side.   Though nowadays I've got enough songs by Pink Floyd that I like that I could almost fill a mix CD. Almost.

I even went to see Roger Waters in concert and it was brilliant.

Damned, Damned, Damned by the Damned 1977

We had the Ramones first album but what we were waiting for was music from the UK where the punk scene was really happening. Well according to the NME. The Damned were in a total rush. First punk band to get a single out. First to tour the US. First to get an album out. In the end, they made the first rubbish punk album with their second but that was a bit in the future and of course, they later redeemed themselves.
I already had a poster on the wall of my bedroom. It was a picture of the band covered in cake with large lettering "Play it at your sister". I thought that was great and used it as the title of one of my first punk songs.
The album was out in the UK and shortly after I was able to get into Box Hill and buy myself a copy. I can't remember the now long gone record store where I bought albums for over a decade. I do recall never having to browse because every time I went to that shop I knew exactly what I was leaving with. Browsing was for Brashes sales and second-hand stores.
Got the album home and started playing it loudly in my room. I had these new headphones which almost covered my head and had separate volume knobs on each side so at night I would listen through those. My writing started to reflect my listening so I began writing in the Damned style. When I started Subway version 2 (version one was Dylan electric style) it was all three chords, very fast and shouty choruses.
The Damned also got me back listening to Iggy Pop by covering a Stooges song on the album. And "Neat Neat Neat" is one of the classic opening tracks of any album.
Brilliant.

Pink Flag by Wire 1977

I picked up this album in 1978 from a second hand record store. I was living in Oakleigh. Because of the lay out of the house I ended up with my own entrance so I kinda set up a pad. I went down to one of the second hand shops in Oakleigh and bought a stereo. They must of seen me coming. It looked like those great music centres I had seen in England. It had a built in tape deck. But when I got it home it sounded rubbish so I took it back the next day. The guy offered to buy it back for half the price I paid. $60. Bastard! Nothing I could do cos I wasn't going to keep it. He did offer me a few free records from a box on the counter. I'd heard little but great reviews for the Pink Flag so I grabbed that. The cover was heavy cardboard so it was definitely an import. The music inside came in short bursts like machine gun fire. The guys I lived with hated it. They were consatntly listening to Weird Scenes Inside a Gold Mine by The Doors. And I hated that. (I came round to the Doors a few years later) Luckily I had my own pad. But for a few days I had no stereo. Which was hell. So I used up what little money I had laying around and bought myself something much better. Punk records were popping out every five minutes. There was a little kitchen attached to my room. One day I got my girlfriend to put a red tint in my hair and cut it short. Wire was playing in the background. That night I played Bernhardts in the city with The Fiction. Groovy times!

The Slider by T. Rex 1972

When this album came out in 1972 T.Rex were still my number one band. 1971 might have been John Lennon but now it was Marc Bolan I was listening to. I took down my John Lennon poster and replaced it withT. Rex. So when Slider came out I was picking it up on the day it was released. And despite my love of bands and records there really is only a handful of records I've picked up on the day of release. We'd already heard Telegram Sam and Metal Guru so the expectancy was high. 

Unfortunately, there wasn't anybody else at my school who was remotely interested in T.Rex. So I had no one who shared my passion for pop bands. I was actually mocked for my love of T.Rex. I didn't mind that much. I couldn't stand their late sixties blues rubbish anyway. Also, the girls got it and I was really interested in girls by 1972. I was starting the "hanging around" stage of my teenage years. Hanging around the milk bar, the fish and chip shop and gravitating towards shopping centres. 
Back at home after dinner  I'd sit in my front room surrounded by Christmas lights and burning incense listening to this absolutely brilliant sound coming out of my record player. The music was really something else. Almost a sci-fi version of fifties rock vaguely reminiscent of Eddie Cochran.  I loved this record. I played it constantly along with the earlier T. Rex albums. Like all great music it took me somewhere else.
Then one night I took a break from the records and listened to the radio. "Starman" by David Bowie came on. And that changed everything.