Another Informal Subsidiary In Contemporary Music From Keele In the Summer Of 1982: Tutor On this Occasion – Jon Gorvett

Jon Gorvett on the far right (pictorially, not politically) next to Simon Jacobs (also a Keele alum), together with me and Jon’s partner Stephanie in 2018

In August 1982, during the Keele summer break, Jon Gorvett visited my family home in Streatham for the weekend.

The diary is a little low on detail. It looks as though we focussed on wine more than beer (unusually for me at that time) and we seem to have focussed on trendy London places – Brixton, Camden Lock & Notting Hill – how cool is that!?

Somewhat higher on detail is my log of tape recordings, which lists a whole heap of albums with Jon’s name beside them. How we found the time to rip all those albums onto tape while doing the listed activities from the diary is a mystery to me. I’m guessing that Jon might have left that pile of albums with me and I returned them to him at the start of term. Either that or there were some recording sessions deep into the early hours.

Here is a list of the albums:

• Horses by Patti Smith;
• The Boomtown Rats by The Boomtown Rats;
• See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! by Bow Wow Wow;
• The B-52’s by The B-52’s;
• Crocodiles by Echo & the Bunnymen;
• Heaven Up Here by Echo & the Bunnymen;
• Playing With A Different Sex by The Au Pairs;
• Journeys To Glory by Spandau Ballet;
• The Doors by The Doors;
• Transformer by Lou Reed;
• Penthouse & Pavement by Heaven 17;
• Setting Sons by The Jam;
• Kaleidoscope by Siouxsie and the Banshees;
• Warm Leatherette by Grace Jones;
• Nightclubbing by Grace Jones.

There were some singles too, which I used to fill up the tapes, but I was not so meticulous about logging who lent me which singles and I know I had a similar (smaller) recording session with Wendy Robbins later that summer break; she also had some cool singles. But I think the following classics were from Jon:

Yet still questions remain about that visit. Why was Jon delayed on arrival on the Friday? How scary did he find my mum? Which wine bar did we go to in South London – I don’t remember such places existing in those parts in those days.

Memorable sounds though, for sure. I listened to those recordings one heck of a lot in the subsequent years and still rate several of those albums very highly indeed.

Thanks, Jon.