Facebook 'Things'

At the start of the year, another one of those Facebook threads popped up asking people to present lists about something. Favourite albums, favourite films etc are usually the order of the game, but this one was to just list ‘seven things about you’.

It probably gave further cause for the people who don’t use Facebook to ask in horror “why do people reveal so much information about themselves online?”

I can see that point to a degree, but personally I just see it as a bit of fun… I’ve not got that much to hide! Besides, bloggers around the world will state that making lists about things (and particularly making them a bit personal) is a staple diet for subject matter!

I’ve upped it to ten, just to make it a nice round OCD list, so here are my ‘things’, ever so slightly expanded:

1. In 1975, I was born and was named Aaron Richard Berry after Elvis Aaron Presley and Richard the Lionheart. And Berry after my parents

I’m happy enough with the name I was given, but do people ever make a meal over how it’s spelt and/or pronounced!? It’s only five letters and two syllables – it really shouldn’t be that difficult! At work, I have a name badge that I wear constantly and yet a colleague who has sat adjacent to me for 10 years still manages to spell my name wrong on Christmas cards. Bless them they even get it wrong in the office birthday card where eight other people have already written my name down to observe and copy!

Yes he spelt it both ways!

 

2. In 1982 (6 years old) I could do multiple cartwheels on an upside down gym bench that was only 3 inches wide

When a lot smaller (and more agile), I was quite good at gymnastics and even went to a proper club to train for a few weeks before being forced to cease attending. The cartwheeling was done in tangent with a girl who ‘matched my symmetry’ according to the instructor.

3. In 1985 (10 years old) I inadvertently appeared as an extra during the filming of the Bob Hoskins cult classic movie ‘Mona Lisa’

There’s a scene on the Palace Pier with Bob (RIP) and I can be seen in the background buying an ice cream (a ‘99’ of course) even though it was a cold and grey day. If you want to see it, make sure you get the Blu-Ray version – I’m clearer in that one!

Anyone fancy an ice cream?

 

4. In 1986 (10 years old) I was one of the first 20 children to go on the new waterslide flumes at the King Alfred Swimming Pool, Hove.

Yep I won a competition in the Evening Argus to get first dibs on opening day. This was a HUGE attraction for Hove at the time and they were great fun… until they deteriorated and just became plain dangerous! The only annoyance on the day was that the school bully was also a winner in the competition too, so I had to put up with that lowlife for an hour or so.

They were cleaner back in the day - well for the first few weeks anyhoo

5. In 1988 (11 years old) I sang solo lines in Oliver! at the Brighton Dome in front of 2000 people each night for four shows

My Grandad had been part of the Crescent Operatic Society (amateur dramatics) for a few years and persuaded me and my brother to audition for Oliver! We didn’t get lead roles, but I did at least get about 10 seconds of solo lines to melodiously deliver!

6. In 1992 (16 years old) I was the first male ever to get a B in GCSE German at my school

Or so I’m told. I’m sure it’s been bettered since!

Helped in no small part by our 5^th year teacher, after the 4^th year teacher had been a little out of his depth, to say the least > see Substitute Teachers for a fuller explanation of this!

7. In 1997 (21 years old) I literally bumped into George Lucas at a Michael Jackson concert

It was my second Michael Jackson concert in just three days at the old Wembley Stadium, and having just got through the turnstile, I half stumbled into George and his children. No words exchanged unfortunately, but there was this instant murmur of those around the scene that it definitely was him! The one thing that I still find a bit odd is why on Earth would George Lucas be amongst the masses in the cheap seats? Surely he and Michael were good enough mates to have secured him a better view?

8. In 2002 (26 years old) I cried when Ally McBeal ended

Many people will rib me for this one, but I really don’t care. I couldn’t get enough of Ally McBeal and found it to be a terrific show both incredibly funny at points, and incredibly sad at others. I don’t know why but I really related to the show, though I can’t see how I had any right to.

Ooga Chaka, Ooga Ooga Ooga Chaka

9. In 2005 (29 years old) I won £250,000 for Brighton & Hove Albion FC, but I don't like to talk about it...

Nah! I love talking about it!! To help the club I love by winning a Coca-Cola sponsored competition, at a time when they needed all the financial help they could get was definitely one of the best moments in my life. I might even do a blog about it soon as it’s been ten years since the win!

You can't beat a novelty sized cheque!

10. In 2015 (39 years old) I posted this blog discussing 10 ‘facts’ about me… but one of them is a total falsehood!

So which one is it then!?

I know a song that’ll get on your nerves, get on your nerves

I know a blogger that’ll get on your nerves, get on your nerves etc.

Yes yet another music based blog (brace yourselves for the impending Christmas music blog!)

This one comes with a slight twist though. I’d like to think that I couldn’t often be accused of being a negative sort and I rarely, if ever, even say the word ‘hate’ (I hate it!)… But this list is made up of songs that have somehow managed to really grate me. Maybe unfairly, maybe justifiably, but regardless there are some songs that make me impulsively change the radio station:

Doop by Doop

I remember when this came out and people saying to me that I would love it, as I loved ‘oldies’ music. Yes I do love ‘oldies’ – meaning 50s, 60s and 70s music though, not ancient before the war music hall Joanna swingfests!

Whilst all music has its place, I’m just not over keen on the Charleston personally. I do like a bit pre-war / wartime music, along the lines of Glenn Miller etc. and Jive Bunny’s mash up of the Glenn Miller classic In the Mood was favourable (though not to some!) but Doop just annoyed the hell out of me, and even if I never heard it again, it would be too soon.

Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus

For some reason there was a desire from some of the British public to fill the void of their being too few Country and Western songs in the UK POP charts for a while. Erm there was probably a reason for that void being there!

To be fair though, I quite like some C&W songs: Blanket on the Ground by Billie Jo Spears for example, or Dolly Parton’s Jolene and Ray Stevens excellent version of Misty. But Miley’s dad released this at a time when I was more interested in the New Jack Swing sound of Michael Jackson’s Dangerous album and such like, so Billy Ray just didn’t do it for me at all.

Weird Al Yankovic said it best in his parody: Achy Breaky Song

Jenny from the Block by Jennifer Lopez

It took 11 writers to compose this song! ELEVEN!!!!!!!!

“Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I’ve got – I’m still, I’m still Jenny from the block”

Nope. No you’re not.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

No Limits by 2 Unlimited

For several weeks this song was at number one – probably in direct protest to the previous incumbent being Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You which sat on the throne for over two months.

I actually didn’t mind a couple of 2 Unlimited’s other tracks. Both Tribal Dance and Get Ready For This (alternativeversion parental advisory!) were pretty good and listenable, but not this one.

In fact No No, No-No No No, No-No No No, No No THERE’S NO LYRICS!

The good news is I could only come up with four songs!

My Favourite Things (well specifically Albums) Part 2

Okay so Part 1 can be found here.

As mentioned before, I might not get much interest in Part 2 given some of the choices in Part 1, but I bet a lot of the readers bought the same albums as I did in actuality, so I’ll say it again:

I really don’t care if any of the albums chosen get laughed at.

Music stays with us for many reasons, and people should never be ashamed of the music they like. Even Doop by Doop was liked by some people… (not yours truly!)

Note to self: Do a blog about annoying songs…

Anyways, I give you my top five, and again feel free to click on the hyperlinks…

05. The Great Escape – Blur

Me and a mate were on a trip in early 1995 when he persuaded me to listen to a few songs on some album called Parklife by Blur. I knew about the song Girls and Boys, but little else. Anyways I listened to a few songs and thought it was all reasonably good, but then we got to track 9.

Every so often when listening to a song, I get struck by a 'goose pimples' moment, in that I instantly fall in love with it. Some songs have genuinely made me feel that way - like I love them (yes I know I'm odd)...and track 9 To The End was one such song.

It set me up for listening to more Blur songs and when The Great Escape and Oasis' (What's the Story?) Morning Glory were released in the late summer of 1995, BritPop exploded and musically it became a way of life for a good couple of years… and it was great!

I remember going to see Blur in concert at Wembley Arena just before Christmas that year, and during stand out song (and my favourite) The Universal, I'd like to think that whilst singing, Damon Albarn really, really, really WAS pointing directly at me! #itreallyreallyreallycouldhappen

04. True Blue – Madonna

I wasn’t particularly fond of Madonna in the early part of her career, though this was probably more due to a lack of exposure to her material than anything else – besides which I was also very young.

In the mid 1980’s though, two things happened:

1. I learnt that girls liked Madonna (there’s a trend developing here…)

2. Just as I started to listen to chart music, I discovered Borderline (re-released in 1986) and soon after, I also heard Live to Tell.

To clarify point 1, I don’t particularly think I’m a Machiavellian type. I just wanted an ‘in’! The more salient reasons are in point 2. The girl could sing and I was hooked, and I still am to a degree, but the True Blue era was my favourite Madonna period and I feel that nigh on the whole album was absolute pop perfection and very much of it’s time. White Heat took some getting used to, but I liked it just as much as the others in the end.  I frequently borrowed a friend’s copy of the album on cassette during 1986 and 1987 and fell in love with all the songs.

Not least my favourite La Isla Bonita, which is up there amongst the most beautiful songs of all time. In the accompanying music video, Madonna’s look as the un-made up, timid, austere and passive girl (contrasting with the red senorita) absolutely did it for me. I can’t think of a more stunning image of such an apparently plain character. Just wow! > La Isla Bonita

I digress.

So yes obviously this has stayed with me since forever ago – and the poor girl that I initially kept borrowing the cassette off eventually bought me a copy for my 12^th birthday!
Oh and when my daughter was born in 2012, the title track was playing on the radio in the background!

03. Bad – Michael Jackson

"You can’t have two albums by the same artist dammit!" – Yes I can, it's my list!

Jackson's second biggest selling album (just the 40 million units sold) but definitely my favourite of his. For me it's every bit as good as the world record selling Thriller, and just a bit more 'zingy' to make it sound even better.

Much like True Blue above, this was released at an age (11-12ish) when as I was getting seriously into music from my own era (having largely listened to my parents music up to that point), and was now purposefully listening to the charts of a Sunday evening on BBC Radio One. I struggle to find fault with any song, and again like True Blue it's near enough pop perfection. Each song very much gives me a fond memory of the time, and even now they don’t sound dated at all

Favourite song: Man in the Mirror

02. Abbey Road – The Beatles

I could have filled this entire list with Beatles albums, but that would have just been a bit daft!

This album for me was all about craft in the sound and structure of music. Side A of the album is very good in it’s own right, but I could listen to the B-side Abbey Road Medley jam session (which it wasn’t) till the Blue Meanies came home. During Michael Jackson’s Dangerous / Heal the World concert tour, Abbey Road would play over the PA systems at the stadiums he was performing in right before he went on stage (he was a huge fan of The Beatles.) Being in the crowd at Wembley in 1992 for one such concert, it helped pass the time for sure.

People often say The Beatles peaked in 1966 – 1967 with the Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt Pepper albums, but whilst all those albums are terrific, nothing tops the artistry of Abbey Road in my view. The album also contains my favourite lyric ever:

“In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make” from The End

Favourite song: You Never Give Me Your Money

01. Pet Sounds – The Beach Boys

Although I was aware of quite a few of the songs on Pet Sounds, and had heard people laud it, and had read reviews that continually praised it, I didn't actually take the time to listen to the album itself until probably 1994 or 1995. It should have been no chore at a mere 36 minutes long, but one sunny afternoon I decided to give it a go.

The word genius is often overused in culture, but Brian Wilson might just have nailed it with his production of what I had just listened to in fullness for the first time – and for me to get that excited about a mono production is pretty rare. In fact, purists will shudder when I say that I prefer the stereo version that was released in the late 90's, but that's just a preference rather than a criticism.

I believe the content of the album could encapsulate the love life of anyone aged 16-25. How did Wilson manage it? Who knows but it nearly drove him insane in the process searching for perfection.

Favourite song: I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times

Paul McCartney once said "I love the album so much. I've just bought my kids each a copy of it for their education in life – I figure no one is educated musically 'til they've heard that album"... 'nuff said.

And I’ll leave you with one final ‘nuff said:

GodOnly Knows

My Favourite Things (well specifically Albums) Part 1

During last summer on Facebook, a thread trended about people revealing their top ten albums of all time, and why the album had made an impression on them.

I listed mine at the time in a rush as I suspected the idea was that you shouldn’t have to think about it too hard. That said having given it a little more time to reflect, I thought I’d give it another go.

Obviously, millions of people love greatest hits albums and Original Soundtracks (OST) (e.g. The Eagles Greatest Hits, The Bodyguard OST), but for my own list I have avoided these categories.

Each to their own, but there is enough on my list to make others chuckle without me feeling the need to add, for example, The Sound of Music OST to it.

And on that note, I really don’t mind if any of the albums I’ve selected below do indeed get laughed at and I fully expect that to be the case for some! Music choices are SO personalised, and songs stay with us for many reasons, so I’m a huge advocate that people should never be ashamed of the music they like. There are enough genres out there to cater for everybody’s tastes, so live and let live.

Anyways, in reverse order, here is part 1 (albums 10 to 6) …and feel free to click on the hyperlinks:

10. Ten Good Reasons – Jason Donovan

I might as well start as I intend to go on! Yes Jason Donovan. I love my 80’s pop, and this is one of the quintessential ‘pop’ albums of the late 80’s. It sold millions, and yes a very high percentage of those buyers were probably teenage girls, but this teenage boy bought it too and enjoyed virtually every song on it. On the basis that so many girls liked Jason Donovan, I recall thinking it genuinely might help me get a girlfriend if I liked it too #laughtercombustion

Favourite song: You Can Depend On Me

09. Different Class – Pulp

BritPop at it’s finest, and Pulp gave us at least two of the biggest anthems during my dev years in Common People and Disco 2000.

Poignant and accurate songs to the last note. Most people I knew DID have woodchip on their walls.

I bought this at Woolworths (RIP) in Southwick Square (West Sussex, UK) in January 1996, primarily as I hoped to see a girl who worked there that I’d plied with drinks two nights before at the Paradox nightclub in Brighton.

Did I find her? Did I f…

Favourite song: the aforementioned Disco 2000

08. Spiceworld – Spice Girls

Back to pop cheese (no, not pop tarts) and the Spice Girls. Their first album Spice was pretty good in its own right, but this follow up was the phenomenon of the Spice Girls at their absolute peak – every song could easily have been a single. This lingers with me as I used to play it on the way to and from work (Sainsburys, Lewes Rd, Brighton) and in particular when driving past the old Goldstone Ground (another RIP) during its final memorable season hosting Brighton and Hove Albion FC.

Favourite song: Too Much

07. Listen without Prejudice vol.1 – George Michael

I could easily have chosen any one of three George Michael albums. I love Older and Patience almost as much as LWPv1, but it just edges ahead on the basis that Cowboys &Angels is on it.

It’s stayed with me as I used to clog up pub jukeboxes by setting about 7 or 8 of the songs to play two or three times in a row! When on Earth are you going to make LWP volume 2 Mr Panayiotou?

And here’s a useless fact: this is technically the only album in this list that I didn’t purchase myself – it was a Christmas present! A couple of others were also bought for me but I’ve since repurchased them myself for various reasons.

Favourite song: Cowboys & Angels of course!

06. HIStory – Michael Jackson

As a big fan of Michael Jackson, I can still remember the huge anticipation I had for this album's release. The night before it came out, I was in Brighton on my way to The Event nightclub for a colleague's birthday – actually it was The Event II nightclub, having reopened a week or so before following a revamp. The club was stone dead, and a few other issues between friends were kicking off, resulting in one instance of me preventing a guy being beaten up amongst other things. Bored and disillusioned, I left early and wandered back alone along Western Road, Brighton, and having grabbed a box of Cheeky Chicken, I strolled along to HMV. It had a huge window display advertising HIStory, and I felt a lot cheerier after seeing that!

I went home to bed, and got an early bus straight into town to buy the double album and listened to it solidly for weeks on end, writing down all the lyrics and learning them by heart. By far and away this was Jackson’s most personal album in terms of content, had it not been so pricey (the double album was half greatest hits, and half new material) I'm convinced more people would have bought it and it may have even rubbed shoulders with the astronomical sales figures of some of his other albums. It was definitely the last time that he put such enormous effort into a project. After HIStory, I guess he just "ran outta gas..."

Favourite song: Stranger in Moscow, though closely followed by the unreleased Tabloid Junkie. Special mention should go to the awesome Hani's Club Experience version of Earth Song. How anyone could have made Earth Song such a huge trance hit on the club scene deserves a medal!

I’ll post the top five shortly – that’s if I didn’t lose you with Jason Donovan and the Spice Girls of course…

November 1993

Someone asked me recently if I missed going out on the lash and pubbing and clubbing. I honestly hadn’t given it much thought, having been so busy since the time when I guess you could say that I ‘stopped’ doing all that.

Giving it some reflection though and casting my mind back, I have to say that initially (i.e. the first three years worth of clubbing) I didn't really enjoy it at all.

I’d been drinking in pubs for years – my first time being half a Guinness that my dad bought for me at the St George Inn in Portslade when I was about 4 years old. I was sitting at his feet at the bar and he opted to hand me down a half of the black stuff rather than a coke for that particular round!

But in terms of clubbing, I first went in November 1993.

Most (though not all) of my friends used to go to The Event nightclub (now called Prizm) in West Street, Brighton but in truth I virtually had to force myself to go, as I really wasn’t fussed about going. I had glandular fever and anaemia around the ages of 17 to 19, so maybe that explains my nonchalance to it all! Not that the first night I went clubbing was uneventful though…

I remember that first walk down the stairs into the club and seeing a particular girl from school – a girl that virtually everyone fancied – walking towards me and my mates. Now I’ve never been keen on girls being too heavily made up with garish lipstick etc. and have always preferred a more natural look, but she looking stunning and it struck me that we were no longer kids in a playground.

I didn’t get drunk, but that was mainly because I hadn’t really found my tastes in alcohol yet. I’ve never really liked beer, and I hadn’t discovered spirits at that time, so I tended to just push and tolerate my way through a few bottles of Budweiser and peel the labels off just waiting till midnight when the ‘decent’ music started. This would be a forty five minute session of 80’s music or commercial chart songs. I was never into the heavy techno, trance or garage music that was played for most of the night. I was far happier listening and dancing to Michael Jackson, Madonna, Wham!, Madness, Dexy’s Midnight Runners etc. than the other stuff on offer. They even played Beatles and Stones songs on occasion.

Pretty much that became the pattern for a few years. Save money, go clubbing, drink poor beer, enjoy 45 minutes of music, eat takeaway chicken and taxi home.

Hardly exciting times, but just to add to my indifference on that first night, on the way home one of the lads in our cab was sick which meant the rest of us chipping in to pay the cabbie the ‘clean-up’ fee. Deep joy.

And if that wasn’t enough, when I got home I found I had great difficulties in taking out one of my contact lenses. I kept trying to get hold of it and pinching and missing before eventually being in tremendous pain. It turned out I must have been at least partially inebriated as I’d actually already got the lens out, and was in fact pinching my eye-ball. Eventually I went to a&e, and after a few hours and scans later, the doctor said I had three scratches across my eye and put a few drops over them to ease the pain… though I had to put up with triple vision for a few days.

After a few years of trudging through boring nights out, things finally improved as I started to find other club nights, like 80’s nights and student nights (with music I liked played endlessly)…and the cheap spirits and mixers offers often helped!

It was mainly about the music for me, but once I worked out what drinks I genuinely liked (dark rum and coke / southern comfort and lemonade) I found my enjoyment of the nights out increased immensely.

And I believed I’d found the answer to clubbing enjoyment in one word:

Friday

Such a different group of people would go out in Brighton on a Friday night compared to a Saturday night. The atmosphere was so much more relaxed and you didn’t have to actively try and avoid the people who couldn’t handle their shandies.

My Friday nights between the ages 22 to 26 took on a life in itself. Work pending, I was out with a certain group of friends every other Friday. It possibly looks uninspiring looking back, and I didn’t travel the world and change lives etc…I just had a really enjoyable social life with my friends, with such a simple routine: 

1. Get ready between 4-5pm – music a-blaring throughout
2. 6pm: With a full wallet (£60) make way to friend’s house for a few alcoholic 'tasters'
3. Get to the Pull & Pump Pub at 7pm-ish and await the arrival of others in the crew
4. Move on to the Quadrant Pub for 8pm (cart wheeling through the Imperial Arcade on the way) - insist on the bar staff putting THIS on the jukebox and gently mocking the Bryan Ferry and Mark Owen look-alikes
5. Down to The Event (by 1015pm to avoid the queues)
6. Get hammered on cheap booze, do a circuit of the club to see who is about.
7. Dance ourselves sober
   
   
8. Get hammered again (do another circuit - week after week we would contrive to not pull a single girl- this is why >>>
   
9. Leave at about 130am to avoid the crying girls who invariably had lost their purses
10. Go to Hungry Years night club (RIP)...
    
    
    
    ...to meet with others in the crew
11. Head to Subway for a foot long double (quadruple) cheese, double bacon, single turkey, BBQ sauce and salt fest… served by a kid we called Andy. But that wasn't his real name… or was it? He might have been called Bob.
12. Walk as far as we could before we were just too knackered to go on... and hail a cab with whatever change we had left, and get dropped off wherever the money ran out
13. Leg it across Easthill Park kicking an imaginary football into the goalposts that were set up for the Saturday morning league games
14. Get home at around 3am and go on ICQ to talk again to the people I’d spent all night with
15. Start to eat Subway...fall asleep
16. Wake at 7am to finish Subway and down a glass of strawberry milkshake and rejoice at yet another night out with no hangover!

Happy days… the trend stopped during 2001, and after that I had children and priorities changed!

When I stopped going, I definitely missed it, but I think I’d had my time and in particular I thoroughly enjoyed the latter part of it. Many of my other mates who didn't come along used to give me tremendous stick for my habitual routine, but I couldn't care less… it was my music and my time and I loved it.

And tellingly, whenever they came with us, they tended to love it too.

I went many years before going clubbing again, but relived a few good nights nonetheless. When Michael Jackson died in 2009, during a period when I was going through something of a personal breakdown, I went to The Event (by then renamed Oceana) as where better to go to grieve on various levels than to somewhere that was celebrating his musical legacy. They didn’t let me down and literally every other song that night was a Jackson classic.

And this boy was last seen leaving a nightclub in August 2009, with Black or White playing in the background…

Update!

Rummaging around I came across the song list for that first night clubbing - the aforementioned '45 minutes of decent music':

Boom! Shake The Room - Fresh Prince & DJ Jazzy Jeff

We Will Rock You - Queen

Right Here - SWV

Grease Megamix - John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John

Summertime - Fresh Prince & DJ Jazzy Jeff

Satisfaction - Rolling Stones

Out Of Space - The Prodigy

Leader Of The Gang - Discredited 70's artist

Baggy Trousers - Madness

Atomic - Blondie

Come On Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners

People Everyday - Arrested Development

Moving On Up - M People

Informer - Snow

Jump Around - House Of Pain

Relight My Fire - Take That & Lulu

Just don't ask me why I still have that play list to hand!

Update 2016!!!

Remember the girl on the stairs at the Event near the start of this blog?

Well in August 2016, I bumped into her for the first time in years at a friend’s birthday party.

 

Many mutual friends from back in the day were there and as 40 year olds we drank, laughed and danced to 80’s / 90’s music galore, just like before. And for completeness I thought it might be nice to offer up this little soundbite that she told me:

“I miss nights like these…”