Here Come The Warm Jets by Brian Eno 1974

If you're going to have a favourite Eno album well why not the first one where you can still see the ties to his old band Roxy Music but you can also see the future of rock. well not everyones future but certainly Bowie and his Berlin triology and punk rock with brian Eno whining over mutated sounds. Really there is so much on this album to get into sometimes it's hard to get out.
One of my more sonic choices of the late seventies I would lie with my head on a pillow in between two speakers listening to this album. Stopping after 20 minutes to flip the record over and waiting for my two favourite tracks "Some Of Them are Old" and "Here Comes The warm Jets" it's a pity it took me 4 years after it's release to discover it.
I wouldn't of bought this album if not for the second guitarist we got in the Fiction in 1978. Joe Clarke was an English lad who came across all Brian Jones and always had his guitar and his girlfriend with him. He would play "Some Of Them are Old" on his electric guitar  and enlighten me to the album he got it off. I loved that melody so much I had to go and find it. And found a whole lot more.
Joe was only around for maybe one or two gigs. A co-headline spot with La Femme upstairs at the Crystal Ballroom which was packed and that was it. I got sick, communications broke down and we never saw him again.

I continued to explore Brian Eno albums and have a particular fondness for Music For Airports when the moment is right.

The La's by The La's 1990

If the Lemonheads were a summery band that summed up living close to the beach in Elwood then a couple of years before that we were listening to The La's whose debut album came out just as I was moving into my new house. At first, it was really hard to get past "There She Goes' which just so happens to be the perfect pop song. Once you played that song you just wanted to hear it again, And again. but I got over that and it became another summer album. And we loved talking about it because Lee Mavers who was the leader of the band went out there and slagged the album off. Which was very theatrical and dramatic and looked a bit like a pose until he never actually released another record.
And strangely enough, it reminds me of my first CD tower. My CD collection had grown to something that needs containing. So on my birthday, I received a CD Tower. This was one of the first. We'd not seen them before. And though it only held about 50 CDs it was huge. More like a sculpture than the thin wire ones that came later. And it was as tall as me.
But I digress. Great album from Liverpool. Not too far from Blackpool and a pointer to what some of the songs Oasis would sound like.

It's A Shame About Ray by The Lemonheads 1992

I bought this album at Readings in Carlton on a fantastic bright sunny day. This is appropriate because this album just sings sunshine. I was searching around the store for music to buy for the club when I saw this CD for the incredibly cheap price of 14.95. Considering most albums were up in the 25 dollar bracket or at least 20 it made no sense that it was so cheap. The man behind the counter didn't know why either. Something about mini-album came up. But hey..it was 13 songs. But short songs.
I hadn't been to Readings or Carlton for a long time. Back in 1980 we'd meet the Mods up at a coffee shop or eat pasta at the many restaurants on Lygon Street. But since then I'd crossed the river from Fitzroy to St. Kilda. Or at this time, Elwood.
Around this time I was sharing a house with Little Murders guitarist Rod Heyward. It was a house I'd just bought a year or so back. I got him to paint the house. One morning we started painting at 7am with this album blaring out of the speakers. To warm us up. The neighbour was over before the first song was finished. The deputy mayor no less. It was a sunny morning and with all the white sheets covering the furniture and the white walls and everything we just had to play this music. Followed by the Las.
A few of the songs on this album I'd play at the Lizard lounge. Confetti, Bit Part and Alison's Starting To happen. But during the first hour when the music was really just for us. Mrs. Robinson however was a big dancefloor hit. Great album

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.