TVD's Parting Shots

I almost don't know what to write in this spot sometimes. I worry that I've lost focus every now and again. I never really fancied myself as a writer but that's implicit with a blog, now isn't it? I tend to toil on the graphics much more then I do the writing portion of this thing and I have to remind myself - "Oh yea, gotta add some CONTENT to this this or that image..."

Back in June of 1981 my parents purchased for my birthday my first honest-to-goodness stereo after I churned baby's first phonograph into the ground. Finally—stereo! Vinyl that breathed, glorious FM radio, and uh - 8 track!

I recall it was a weeknight and being overly enamored with the local shopping mall, we had dinner in the food court where I got Chinese takeout and soon after came home to a brand-cranking-new stereo system set up in the spot of the earlier record player which was never to be even gazed upon again.

My hands were eager to learn every nuance of the new system STAT, and the knobs and doohickeys soon took on the scent of the Chinese food I had eaten earlier—specifically the fried rice. It's an odd memory, but there you have it.

Mom and Dad also surprised me with the LP at the top of my request list then and it's the one up top here: Soft Cell's "Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret" which seems like a risque purchase for a newly 14 year old, but there you go—they were open minded like that.

For some time, the fried rice stereo system stayed scented as such and tales of sex dwarfs and adult frustration, pornography, and bedsitters saying hello and waving goodbye never sounded so sweet.

And never have since.

I'm reminded then and again after the bouts of 'what the fuck am I doing with this blog' as blurted out in paragraph number one in this post, that often this isn't even a music blog. Or a vinyl blog.

If anything it's a bookmark of our collective lives and times—mine in particular and yours specifically if you were alive when I was, where I was, or listening to what I was listening to. Then or now by default, it's about the memory markers each one of us possess.

Some bloggers photograph their meals, their new purchases, or their friends making kissy faces. And well, me? Perhaps I'm working at recapturing what's come and gone and come again each time I play 'Sex Dwarf' or something.

The memory of the new stereo for my birthday is almost 28 years old to the day as I write this. Dad's gone, Mom's here (but 'gone'), the stereo's LONG gone. But I'm still here.

With my records.

Fancy a listen?

Elvis Costello - High Fidelity (Mp3)
The Motors - Love And Loneliness (Mp3)
The Buggles - The Plastic Age (Mp3)
Soft Cell - Sex Dwarf (Mp3)
Heaven 17 - Let Me Go (Mp3)
Squeeze - If I Didn't Love You (Mp3)
Split Enz - One Step Ahead (Mp3)
Peter Gabriel - Solsbury Hill (Mp3)
The Pretenders - Mystery Achievement (Mp3)
Joe Jackson - Got The Time (Mp3)

(Ten from the era of that new stereo...)