Do you like memories? Do you like music? Well...that's exactly what Memory Tapes attempts to combine, and today's taper is Tim Parsons who has fond memories of his 6th form common room. And punk. Here he is in his own words:
"I’ve often thought of Memory Tapes as being something I ought to try and contribute to. Apart from the fact that in the late 70s and all through the 80s I was forever making tapes and getting odd sequences stuck in my head as a result, I’ve never really been able to pin myself down to a create a manageable list of “throw everything I’ve ever loved into the mix.”
Then I started thinking about, back in the day, my first big experiences of music that (a) didn’t involve my parents’ taste, and (b) actually felt like I was going somewhere important and new.
So: enter the other 6th Form Common Room - there were two. I didn’t use the other one. It was a sort of cross between a terrapin and a tin hut. It had a dartboard, a table tennis table... and a record deck with some sensibly large and properly installed big speakers attached. The turntable was in a partitioned-off area that we used as a combined kitchen and tuck shop, and a group of friends and I took possession of the instruments to facilitate our audio education for the entire year.
So this is a list of songs that I first heard or regularly played there, and that always bring back memories of there when I hear them.
The 6th Form Common Room
The Only Ones, The Beast
Gavin discovered The Only Ones. Despite the ubiquity of “Another Girl, Another Planet” this got played lots, and my copies of all their albums still get unearthed and played fairly regularly.
Wire, I Am The Fly (from Chairs Missing)
No idea why, but Michael - generally more interested in much less unconventional bands - thought this was brilliant. And soon, so did everyone else!
The Stranglers, Peaches
Actually, the whole of Rattus Norvegicus could fit here. We liked Ugly a lot, too (what can I say, we were 16-17 and it has a rude word in it! Kevin, who was otherwise a heavy rock fan, provided the album, and we often played it end to end.
Ian Dury, Blockheads
New Boots and Panties got played in its entirety too, but there was a particular day when, having only just played Blockheads, I allowed it to run on to the next track too. I loved the poetry of Ian Dury, his ability to make words and rhymes do clever things, and the Blockheads were just awesome.
Plaistow Patricia
The next track is Plaistow Patricia. It starts with a stream of rude words that “aerosol the bricks.” And as that stream started, in walked the head of 6th and a couple of school governors. Oops. However, I don’t remember that anything was said. Maybe it wasn’t as clear as I thought it was.
Wreckless Eric, Whole Wide World
What teenage boy doesn’t adopt that as an anthem for a while?
Devo, Jocko Homo
Julian was the big Devo fan but this track always reminds me of our common room too.
Alberto y lost Trios Paranoias, Kill
I think Sarah was responsible for this, but the 'Berts EP featuring this and three other punk parodies lived in the Common Room for a while.
Sex Pistols, God Save The Queen.
Julian and I were the first of our group who were openly into punk. He’d spent the summer of 1976 on the King’s Road and, back in Suffolk, didn’t realise that his new thing wasn’t going to make the same sort of impact. I’d been reading the NME and was listening anything I could find -- Saturday afternoons and evenings on Radio 1, bits of Caroline... Julian made the mistake of wearing a safety pin in the lapel of his school blazer and got beaten up for it. I kept my head down a bit then a chap called Mark, one of Julian’s antagonists, heard God Save The Queen in the summer of ‘77 and suddenly it was cool. And we celebrated this fact regularly, well into the following year.
Deep Purple, Smoke On the Water
By popular acclaim."
Send your Memory Tapes t: lauren.6music@bbc.co.uk
