I absolutely loved this tape back in 1984. I ported most of it onto a couple of cassettes and it really was the sound track of my last few weeks as an undergraduate and graduand at Keele…and then the early part of my time there as a students’ union sabbatical.
Paul’s tapes were always an eclectic mix – this one is uber-eclectic, with new wave, ska, funk, soul-jazz and a heap of psychedelia all mixed in. I have really been enjoying revisiting it and racking up a high quality version of the old tape in digital form.
The playlist is on YouTube Music – click the picture above and enjoy.
I’m new to YouTube Music and the ability to save and share playlists through my premium YouTube subscription. I’d be interested to learn how friends experience it. I’m assuming that those of you who have YouTube Premium will simply be able to click through the image and enjoy the playlist in peace, whereas those of you who do not will receive constant reminders that YouTube Premium is a good idea and possibly be pestered with other ads too. I’d like to know.
I’m hoping this YouTube service is good enough for me to collate other such tapes into playlists and share them with those who like this sort of thing.
For those who like researching old manuscripts, here is the document from which I retrieved the full list. I have made the typed list also a clickable link to the playlist itself, just in case you missed the picture link above.
Dive down that rabbit hole and have a listen – you know you want to.
Thanks again for the tape, Paul. A gift that is still giving 40 years later.
I had been taking an interest in Motown, Stax & Northern Soul music for a few years by the time the iconic BBC Radio series, Hitsville USA: The Story Of Motown, presented by Stuart Grundy, started in January 1984.
The diary is silent on’t, but the cassette recorder was not
The story of how this audio-beauty came into my possession is worthy of a piece in its own right. But in short, Ashley wanted to buy an Amstrad “all in one” thingie and offered me his Grundig RR720 for a ludicrously low price in order to raise the last few quid he needed to secure his purchase. I negotiated the price up for him as I couldn’t in all conscience buy the item for the price he quoted. I think the offer price was £12 and the strike price £20.
I continued to use and get pleasure from the RR720 for some 25 years, until its increasing hiss-noise and obsolete look condemned it around 2007 or 2008.
Anyway…
…my habit, most weeks, was to go into Newcastle shopping after listening to and taping this programme on a Saturday. I think it very unlikely that I got much if any work done before the lunchtime broadcast. I probably ate lunch (or some might argue brunch) while listening.
I note that Episode 5 was when Jilly was visiting at the end of an action-packed week:
I recall “making” Jilly listen to that episode, arranging our tour of Keele around the Motown programme time. Jilly became quite engaged with the subject after 30 minutes in the masterful hands of Stuart Grundy’s documentary and clips. I’m pretty sure that is where the idea of “The Lesson Tapes” that I made for Jilly started, as she confessed knowing next to nothing about that sort of music, classical music student that she was.
I recorded Week 10 at my parents house while decompressing and getting a little bit of work done there late March:
I remember discussing the series with Paul Deacon when I saw him that evening. Were you already working for the BBC Music Library at that time, Paul, or did that come later?
There are far worse things that you could do than listen to them all “in a podcast stylee”, as I think it is as good an audio documentary about Motown has yet to be made.
For me it brings back memories of when I should have been finishing my assignments and revising, but was still fiddling around with music and socialising and grub instead. A process I continued for many weeks after this series ended:
The wok and rice cooker depicted are 21st century, but the booklets are 1983
My self-education in the matter of producing decent-quality Chinese food in my own (or should I say Barnes L54) kitchen took great strides forward as 1983 progressed.
I bought the Sharwoods leaflets depicted above at some point that year. I cannot remember which shop “took on” Sharwoods displays with these booklets sold cheap but the Sharwoods ingredients depicted within them sold dear. Was it Sainsbury’s in Newcastle-Under-Lyme? Or was it Kermase, the sort-of wholefood store, sort-of rice-and-spice deli? Or was it some other shop with delusions of grandeur that popped up and then disappeared, because grandeur and Newcastle-Under-Lyme don’t really go together?
Anyway, I treasured those little booklets and the techniques/ideas I gleaned from them. I still delve into them occasionally. But I soon tired of the high prices and small bottles of the Sharwoods range – for me the occasional trip to Chinatown in London to gather large bottles of the requisite sauces and packets of dried noodles at sensible student prices. Fresh won-ton wrappers too, once I’d worked out what to put inside them, as described last time…
The other staple substitute which I used in most of my recipes – certainly the stir-fry ones, was beansprouts. These were available in large packets at a very low price in Sainsbury’s. If you knew what you were doing (i.e. just blanch them or toss them into a stir fry right at the end of cooking) they were tasty, nutritious, went a long way and seemed quintessentially Chinese to us at the time, because Chinese restaurants used them.
I shall write up some of my “Keele Barnes L54” recipes in the fullness of time. This week there’s plenty else to write about.
Here’s the diary for the week:
My pattern well set, I love the radical candour of my Tuesday diary entry:
Tried to do loads today – failed.
Forty years on, despite me being older and allegedly wiser now, I can assure readers that I still often have days like that.
I have previously written up the wonderful evening of music that was the Kitchenware Package, which included Hurrah! The Daintees and to top it all Prefab Sprout. I wrote that concert up several years ago, for reasons explained in the following piece, so some readers following “Forty Years On” might have missed the write up – linked here and below:
One element of the Thursday diary entry is baffling me:
Thursday 1 December 1983: Busy day – union stuff etc. Cooked a meal for Viv [Robinson] – went to {Scarves?…Barnes??} with Kate – to Bobbie’s after.
The meal might well have been one of those Chinese meals at that time. It is also quite possible that my flatmate, Alan Gorman, would have participated in that meal. Alan, Bobbie Scully and (to a lesser extent) Viv were guinea-pigs for my Chinese cooking. More on that anon.
But where did we go with Kate and which Kate was this? My first thought was that the word is Barnes, but it makes no sense to go to Barnes after eating in Barnes, unless I meant to write a more specific address within Barnes and missed out a detail. Was there even a place called Scarves or similar for that word to be. Let’s zoom in on that entry:
Perhaps the hive mind of Keele alums can do better with that appalling scribble than my own addled mind is managing.
But a further mystery – which Kate is this? I don’t recall getting to know Kate Fricker as early as that in the 83/84 year, but maybe I did. She might have been friendly with Viv already by then and Viv might have been grooming her for greater things in the Union by early December. Kate might have been Catherine Emerson (now Cathy Butcher), of course whom we called Kate at that time. Cathy will remember I’m sure…not. I can only ask.
Friday 2 December – …Bobbie’s – saw film in Square – stayed there.
I’m trying to recall what “Square” was. I remember a place known as the Hexagon in Lindsay? Did it shed a couple sides and become “Square” in 1983? Or was Square some other place. The fact that I say “stayed there” and Bobbie was very much a Lindsay person (K Block unless I am much mistaken) makes The Square a Lindsay place. I don’t recall seeing films there but the diary says so. Again others might recall these places and events better than me.
Saturday 3 December – …shopped etc – went Asian do in early eve -> union with Bobbie – stayed there for some time.
“Asian do” was probably Chinese Cultural Society although it might have combined forces with some other cultural groups for a pan-Asian do. I recall that Bobbie had a good friend, May Lamb if I remember her name correctly, who went out with Tony Wong, who was a doyen of the Chinese Cultural Society. May’s family ran a Chinese Restaurant in, I think, Hartlepool.
I wonder what those two would have thought of my Chinese cooking? I don’t think I ever had the courage to try it out on them.
Dave Masten Rosen chimed in on Facebook, riffing with me about “Lee Ho Fooks” and Werewolves Of London. In fact I had mentioned Lee Ho Fook No 2 only a few months earlier:
…but without the associated reference to that amazing song, which is presumably about the then main Lee Ho Fook in Gerard Street.
It then occurred to me that “beef chow mein” was one of my regular dishes to cook in the Keele days, although I often substituted chicken. Of course, the recipe is in that little Sharwoods booklet. Here’s the relevant page, as a closing image. You should be able to read the recipe if you look closely enough.
I had two Kitchenware tracks on an NME sampler cassette, Mad Mix II, namely Small Town Creed by The Kane Gang and Lions In My Own Garden by Prefab Sprout.
If you click the above link or the picture below you can see and hear tracks from Mad Mix II – some kind/keen person has done this – thank you
My diary entry for 30 November is brief but precise:
Busyish day – union and work – went to see Kitchenware package in eve – B came back
B is Bobbie – we’d been seeing each other for a few weeks by then. My guess is that I dragged her to this gig on a “you’ve got to see…” basis. I’ll ask her if she remembers anything about it.
I remember that the package had been billed as “The Kane Gang plus Prefab Sprout plus…[either The Daintees or Hurrah!]”. But on the day it was Prefab Sprout plus The Daintees plus Hurrah! I was very disappointed not to see The Kane Gang.
I remember all three bands being very good, but Prefab Sprout was the standout for me, not least because of the variety in their material.
Prefab Sprout’s gigography doesn’t list this gig at the time of writing (September 2019) – I’ll send them a heads up on it – there are several Kitchenware gigs listed around that time and I guess this one was missed.
Parenthetically, I remember Truda Smith Immediate past president) at that gig irritatingly referring to Prefab Sprout as “The Brussel Sprouts” repeatedly, which she seemed to think was very funny…it wasn’t.
I’m hoping this Ogblog piece willbe bulked up with other people’s recollections, so I shall be shouting out to the Keele alums and Kitcheware aficionados. We’ll see.
…and indeed the rest of that week has little worthy of report in it.
Union Stuff
The diary suggests a fairly settled pattern of work, spending time with Bobbie and spending time in the Union, mostly around elections and such matters. The Chair of Constitutional Committee also chaired Election Appeals Committee and it seems there were elections that week.
The other thing that is clear from my diary that week is that I became good friends with Vivian Robinson around that time. She was SU Secretary (and therefore also returning officer) that year – so we were thrown together ex officio in terms of running elections.
Fortunately we got on well and I think the elections that year ran smoothly – even the one that I ran in…just about. Viv and I remained friends after Keele, not least when she lived on Bedford Hill in the late 1980s, about 10 minutes walk from my parents house. Watch this space for future tales.
Anyway, that week, it seems, Viv cooked me dinner one night and I made her lunch a couple of days later.
Anarchist Bonfire Party, 11 November 1983
I like the reference to going to an “anarchist bonfire party” after dinner with Viv on 11 November. Ashley and/or Sally Hyman might remember some details about that event, but I must admit I don’t remember much about it.
Perhaps it was part of a trend at that time to perceive Guy Fawkes as a radical hero, which, frankly, he wasn’t. Or perhaps it was more an excuse to have a bonfire party a week or so after the conventional Guy-effigy-burning occasion and avoid the unpleasant connotations of all that, by simply having a lively bonfire party, which I’m sure it was.
The Anarchist Bonfire Party won’t have looked like this
The Fall Supported By the Stockholm Monsters, 16 November 1983
This was a pretty memorable Keele gig in my book, as much for the buzz there was around The Fall at that time as the sound itself, which was only sort-of to my taste.
The Stockholm Monsters were a more than half-decent support act, well suited to support The Fall. In 1983 they sounded like this:
The Fall appeared on The Tube just over a week after our Keele gig. Their set on The Tube looked like this:
Andrea’s Party At Bushy House, 19/20 November 1983
By the end of that week I was writing in red ink, reporting on a trip to London. I love the fact that I note that I had a haircut on the Saturday morning. I’m guessing that my mum would have strongly suggested I needed a haircut, probably because of the location of the party I was going to that night.
My friend Andrea Dean was living in Bushy House, Teddington at that time. Her father had become Director of the National Physical Laboratory and a rather sprauncy apartment came with that job.
Andrea c1979
Bushy House is a former residence of King William IV, although I suspect he made use of the whole house.
I remember more than one entertaining party/gathering at Bushy House when it was Andrea’s place. This November 1983 one was especially memorable.
…And Forty Years On?
I rather like the juxtaposition of an anarchist bonfire party one weekend and a party in a formerly royal residence the next in November 1983.
Forty years on, both of those parties were good training for the week that I have just been through:
I had returned to Keele in Autumn 1983 armed with my copy of Punch The Clock
At times I really didn’t write enough in my diaries. This last week of October 1983 is an example of that.
Put aside the fact that I went to see three films that week without noting any of the film titles. Anyone out there keep notes on Film Soc 1983/84? Where’s Keele Film Soc archivist Tony Sullivan when you need him? – I think Tony had left Keele by then, unfortunately.
Worse yet, I cannot recall what led to the Monday note:
…Busy day – classes etc. Const[itutional] Comm[itee] in eve – confusion in Union!…
I don’t think the confusion and the committee meeting were connected, but maybe they were.
Perhaps the confusion was connected with the other aspect of my memory which I am pretty sure was that week, which was news of the tragic, sudden death of Adam Fairholme.
As I remember it, Adam had gone into town with friends to see a movie and had succumbed to an epileptic fit. No-one in the party had known what to do to reduce the risk of serious injury or death in such circumstances and Adam had tragically choked on his own tongue.
I remember in particular discussing with Ashley Fletcher the irony of our last evening with Adam, given the film’s title, together with the unquestionable fact that, had Adam had his fit while with us, we wouldn’t have known what to do in those circumstances either. Possibly we would have instinctively done something different and helped save him. More probably, we’d have been in the same helpless situation as his companions that night, who must have been in great distress.
…a role which I think Adam really wanted, whereas I ran for that election more than a little reluctantly. I vaguely remember Ashley making an off-colour joke about me now unquestionably being better qualified for the role than Adam…and then feeling badly about even thinking such a line, let alone speaking it.
Adam was a very decent fellow. His family, his friends, Keele and who-knows-what beyond was deprived of one of the good people when he died so young.
I am pretty sure the heavy drinking session and resulting hangover Friday/Saturday was in part a sorrows-drowning exercise with regard to Adam.
…went to party in Thorns – drank to[o] much
Saturday 29 October 1983 – Felt very ill when I rose – Hungover wasn’t the word. Recovered in time for Elvis Costello concert – brill.
Here I’m going to give myself a big gold star, as my memory sensed that this concert was at Victoria Hall Hanley, not in the Union. Checking in to the Elvis Costello wiki enabled me to confirm my memory and indeed to see more about that gig on a web page than I could possibly have imagined – click link below for all the details of the tracks played and even a link to the Evening Sentinel review that followed:
I cannot remember who came with me to that concert. Simon Jacobs, Keele’s one-man Elvis Costello Fan Club, had left Keele that summer and tells me that he is sure he did not return for that gig. Yet in my mind Simon was there. I cannot imagine having seen Elvis Costello perform without Simon being there.
Latterly, in the 1990s, as I report elsewhere, I got to know Elvis Costello surprisingly well, as we were both members of Lambton Place (now BodyWorksWest). I chatted with him idly for years before asking him what he did for a living and then, when he said he was in the music business, asking him his name.
Simon Jacobs is just about still talking to me after I told him about that. At least I hope Simon is, otherwise next week’s meal (I say, reporting 40 years after the Hanley concert) will be a rather quiet one.
“Exchange” – in my case, was almost always buying, very rarely selling
The diary says that I went to Makro (Woolwich) with my Dad on Sunday 2 October and then to Record & Tape Exchange (in Notting Hill) on Monday 3 October.
Unusually, I can work out from the ink colour in my logs the purchases I made on those occasions. Forty years on, this will enable musicologists, Keele historians, friends, members of the Dull Men’s Club and others to analyse my purchases at will. Indeed, in excruciating detail if they wish.
Here is the batch of eleven albums I bought at Makro, each with a Discogs link:
No wonder I had a frenzied bout of taping for the next few days, before returning to Keele 9 October. I put several of these albums onto cassette in their entirety and made up a couple of none-too-shabby mix tapes too.
Keen to know what readers think of these records, forty years on.
Judging from the notes in my diary, I was spending most of my working days late August and early September in Kenton, doing stuff for Laurie Krieger’s various enterprises, about which I have written a little elsewhere on Ogblog and no doubt will write more in the fulness of time.
As luck would have it, I was asked to return to the office that Thursday afternoon for the rest of the week. Luck, because Jilly, whom I had arranged to meet that evening, got a sudden compulsion to leg it over to the Royal Albert Hall to see the prom that night, as Claudio Abbado was to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra.
It’s Claudio Abbado. he’s the greatest. We’ve got to see him. We might never get another chance…
I was less sure than Jilly about this at the time. She was a budding music student of course, whereas I was still on the low foothills of appreciating classical music.
Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Concerto No 5 in E flat major, ‘Emperor’
Hector Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique.
Indeed, I even owned a recording of the Fantastique.
I remember queuing for quite a long time. I don’t remember whether we enjoyed this concert from the arena or the gallery. My guess is that it was the gallery as I don’t think we could have got there early enough to get in to the arena, but perhaps in those days “after work arrival” was good enough for the arena.
Of course it was very good indeed. Of course Jilly was right – I can now always say that I saw Claudio Abbado conduct.
Feeling envious that you didn’t hear the concert? Wondering whether you remember what orchestras and soloists (Emmanuel Ax on the piano for the Emperor Concerto) sounded like live under Abbado?
Fret no more. A website named pastdaily.com uploaded the recording of this concert as a tribute when Abbado died in 2014. Embedded below.
The reel-to-reel mix tape that Paul made for me in the summer of 1983 was a true belter. Most of his mix tapes were terrific, of course, but this one I especially remember listening to a great deal that summer and during the 83/84 academic year at Keele, having ported the material onto cassettes.
Here’s Side One. I’ll up Side Two soon.
Below I have embedded them all – hopefully most/all will still be here when you get to this piece, if you want to listen (and/or, in a few cases, watch).
https://youtu.be/LJBbinPkAEM
I feel compelled to interrupt this playlist to heap praise on the brilliant selection of the above three tracks as a sequence. It’s hard for me to explain (Paul might be able to do so) but it worked brilliantly for me. I realise, with hindsight, that any smidgeon of ability I brought to DJ-ing at Keele the following year was to a large degree attributable to what I learnt from Paul. What a pro.
So for you, Paul, as I know you will enjoy this, here is a live version of Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band at The Marquee introduced by a young German woman in a mixture of German and English that we might easily have made up:
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