OK. I was never a cool teenager. But in my late teens my musical tastes, ahem, developed from coolish stuff -- principally Japan, Bowie, etc, towards the quite unspeakably uncool. Towards Classic, British, progressive rock. To clarify, this was 1986. When you watch those talking heads shows about the eighties (I love 1985; you know the kind of thing) you never see prog mentioned. "How could this happen?" you ask yourselves. How could a young female with fledgling cool musical tastes be drawn so far astray? Let me explain. The popularity of prog has been written out of the history of the eighties as told by the Media People (who were all, I suppose, cooler than me at school, and probably not into prog at all). This is how it was for me.
1. White, Middle-class, Sixth Form Boys. I didn't stay on for sixth year myself, as I had completed all the exams I needed by the end of my fifth (which is not uncommon in Scotland). That didn't stop me falling prey to the influence of Sixth Form Boys, so far as their musical preferences were concerned. And I'm talking about the geeks here. The poetry geeks, and the physics geeks. They recommended Emerson, Lake and Palmer. And Yes. And because there was one WM-CSFB (a poetry geek) whom I admired, not to say fancied, I listened. And I got hooked. I never got off with the poetry geek, though.
2. English, White, Middle-class, Sixth Form Boys. I was picked for a TV quiz show for teenagers, and met many of these, a class I'd never encountered before. They were bigger, and more confident than the Scottish ones. All of them (and one lovely guy from Northern Ireland) liked Marillion. One of them, let's call him James, because that was his name, was cute. There was snogging. He even came to visit me in Scotland. I was smitten, my mother less so. He was English. He was at sixth form college. He wore an EARRING ferchrisake. I'd never brought home a boy with one of them before. I spent my prize money from the quiz on an electric guitar. That was a story in itself. The shop, I think, was in Cathcart Road. I got it confused with Clarkston Road, and ended up walking over most of the south side of Glasgow before finally getting my guitar. And I cashed in some Boots tokens on Misplaced Childhood (when Boots was at Union St corner and still sold records). And Marillion became my favourite band in the world, ever.
The James thing came to, as the great man Fish himself might have said, a bitter end. I bought tickets for Marillion at the Barrowlands, Glasgow, for Hogmanay 1986, in the confident expectation that James would join me. He didn't. He never actually chucked me, just wrote to say that he wouldn't be calling in at Glasgow on his winter trip to go ice climbing or whatever it was he was into. I went to the Barras alone. This did not, in the end, diminish my enjoyment of the gig. If anyone reading ever saw Fish-era Marillion live, you will know what a truly superb live act they were.
Why am I telling you all this? Because last night I went to the Fish Convention at Haddington. The Big Man was in fantastic form. For the last, say 15 years, I've kept my prog fixation quiet. Tried to move on, you might say. It appals my husband. But I have decided that there is to be no more dissembling. Fish rocks. He truly does. He commands the stage like no-one else I've ever seen, or expect to see. And hearing the whole of Misplaced Childhood live, followed by Incommunicado, Market Square Heroes and Fugazi, took me to another place; one where I' m not embarrassed to sing along, and put my hands above my head. And it was great, great, fun. Thank you, Fish.
1. White, Middle-class, Sixth Form Boys. I didn't stay on for sixth year myself, as I had completed all the exams I needed by the end of my fifth (which is not uncommon in Scotland). That didn't stop me falling prey to the influence of Sixth Form Boys, so far as their musical preferences were concerned. And I'm talking about the geeks here. The poetry geeks, and the physics geeks. They recommended Emerson, Lake and Palmer. And Yes. And because there was one WM-CSFB (a poetry geek) whom I admired, not to say fancied, I listened. And I got hooked. I never got off with the poetry geek, though.
2. English, White, Middle-class, Sixth Form Boys. I was picked for a TV quiz show for teenagers, and met many of these, a class I'd never encountered before. They were bigger, and more confident than the Scottish ones. All of them (and one lovely guy from Northern Ireland) liked Marillion. One of them, let's call him James, because that was his name, was cute. There was snogging. He even came to visit me in Scotland. I was smitten, my mother less so. He was English. He was at sixth form college. He wore an EARRING ferchrisake. I'd never brought home a boy with one of them before. I spent my prize money from the quiz on an electric guitar. That was a story in itself. The shop, I think, was in Cathcart Road. I got it confused with Clarkston Road, and ended up walking over most of the south side of Glasgow before finally getting my guitar. And I cashed in some Boots tokens on Misplaced Childhood (when Boots was at Union St corner and still sold records). And Marillion became my favourite band in the world, ever.
The James thing came to, as the great man Fish himself might have said, a bitter end. I bought tickets for Marillion at the Barrowlands, Glasgow, for Hogmanay 1986, in the confident expectation that James would join me. He didn't. He never actually chucked me, just wrote to say that he wouldn't be calling in at Glasgow on his winter trip to go ice climbing or whatever it was he was into. I went to the Barras alone. This did not, in the end, diminish my enjoyment of the gig. If anyone reading ever saw Fish-era Marillion live, you will know what a truly superb live act they were.
Why am I telling you all this? Because last night I went to the Fish Convention at Haddington. The Big Man was in fantastic form. For the last, say 15 years, I've kept my prog fixation quiet. Tried to move on, you might say. It appals my husband. But I have decided that there is to be no more dissembling. Fish rocks. He truly does. He commands the stage like no-one else I've ever seen, or expect to see. And hearing the whole of Misplaced Childhood live, followed by Incommunicado, Market Square Heroes and Fugazi, took me to another place; one where I' m not embarrassed to sing along, and put my hands above my head. And it was great, great, fun. Thank you, Fish.
posted by seileach at 4:07 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home