For the record ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've just done something I've not done for a long time .. I've bought a record.

Ok, it's actually a CD of course, and I ordered it from Amazon rather than rushing down to the local Virgin Megastore, but the thrill was the same as I dashed to my hi-fi to hear it for the first time. (And don't worry, I already realise how old I sound, what with my records and my CDs and my hi-fi, but I've always preferred to 'own' my music, rather than rent it from some anonymous cloud!) Incidentally, that reminds me of Ronnie and Nick, of Ames Records and Discount Records respectively - two blokes who guided my teenage musical tastes back in the late 1970s. Ronnie owned Ames - one of (Can you believe it?) three record shops in Eccles. He sold me a pink 12 inch version of The Rolling Stones' Missing You and gave me the promotional (almost) life-size cut-out advertising The Pretenders first album. Nick owned Discount Records in Sale and sold me everything from Dana to Nina Hagen with his wide hippy grin never far away ..

Record shops were irresistible back in the day. Whether it be for something you'd heard on the John Peel show, or seen on Top of the Pops, you just couldn't wait to get to one to buy it. I've spent a fortune on music over the years and, unlike a lot of my contemporaries, still have every single record I've ever bought. (And a turntable on which to play them, albeit a bit of an upgrade to my pictured 1970's music-centre!) ..

And the latest addition to my collection? In Times New Roman, by Queens of the Stone Age. I shouldn't have bothered ..