55

IN WHICH… A FRIEND’S PLEAS DON’T PLEASE ME

It was a plea from the heart on behalf of a journalistic pal – how could I resist? My friend Chris has ensured his permanent place in my affections for the wonderful and completely true story he once told me of the days when he was a jobbing magician at children’s parties to raise the odd bob or two. He was flashing his wand at an upmarket function being held at a prominent Brighton venue which more usually hosts sell-out big-name band concerts. Chris was entertaining his young audience by plucking coins from their ears, turning water into Pepsi, making the awkward ones disappear, etc, when the whole event was thrown into disarray as loud rock music boomed out from the empty arena behind them. Tonight’s band was staging a run-through prior to the show. Chris was having none of it. Putting his glamorous assistant in charge of the rowdy kids he strode off to ‘have a word’.

Marching up to the stage where the group was riffing away, he shouted up, ‘Oy, mate, we need to have a chat…’ One by one the musicians stopped in their tracks. When they were all silent, Chris explained his predicament and asked whether the group would please desist for the next hour so that he could finish off his stint. Listening patiently, the vocalist/guitarist politely apologised and assured Chris he would be able to conclude his show without interruption. Chris returned to the kids, happy that Bryan Adams meant what he had said… and he did!

Fast forward a while and I had received a plea from Chris’s usually charming wife, Sandra. The plea was hidden in an email invitation to pop round to their house for the evening: ‘Chris got a vintage record player for his birthday. He’s asked if you can bring a vinyl please!!! He’s got some but they’re in the attic!! Thank you. X’ I’d been vacillating about whether actually to attend this combined anniversary-cum-birthday event for our friends from not far down the road. Now, to be honest, I felt slightly miffed. What, Chris does have some records, but he can’t be arsed to retrieve them to play at his own party? So, let’s give Graham a call, he’s got loads so he’ll just drop everything, get a few together and bring them over.

And what is this use of the term ‘a vinyl’ by Sandra in her email? What’s wrong with calling a spade a record? I know she’s a few years younger me, but I think she really should be aware of the proper terminology. I suppose I’ll have to go along with it, though. My wife wouldn’t want me to get stroppy with friends. We haven’t got that many local ones these days! So I send back an email: ‘Who/what does he like?’

‘Anything 1960s! 45s apparently!’

What rubbish! ‘Anything 1960s’? Doesn’t she know how many styles of music that encompasses? They’ve been married 25 years yet she doesn’t know what type of music he likes! Being the nice fellow I am, I drop everything and whip through my 1960s singles. I select some Beatles, Stones, Searchers, Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder, Kinks, Troggs, Supremes – and Twinkle’s ‘Terry’. I figure I know his musical leanings better than his wife – and I’m proved right when, after we arrive, he flips through the discs and seizes upon…

‘Twinkle! “Terry” – I loved that single. That wasn’t her real name, was it?’

There follows an interlude during which Chris endeavours to work out the technicalities of switching on the controls to activate the mechanism inside the tasteful blue box in which the record player is encased. Switching to ‘45’ and lifting the arm to place it on the edge of each, er, vinyl, and then working out that in order to actually hear the resulting music it is necessary to turn up the volume control, we finally hear Ms Ripley’s sombre, dulcet tones… to the incredulity of the younger members of the assembled partygoers.

After three or four songs the novelty clearly begins to wear off. Chris wanders away to circulate amongst the guests, newcomers who know us come over to look delightedly at the record player, but soon clear off again, complaining that it is too loud. I begin to remember how I always used to feel at the gatherings of yore. Jona Lewie’s perceptive lyrics return to my brain: ‘You’ll always find me in the kitchen at parties’. Or, in my case, in the corner with the record player, acting as the DJ, spinning the singles to create an atmosphere and getting everyone up to shake, as we used to say, a tail-feather.

Sandra makes no effort either to congratulate me on my choice of records to play or to listen to any of them, and eventually takes the executive decision that it should be turned off and replaced by some form of automatic music technology of which I have no understanding. As soon as I can, and once we’ve enjoyed some of Chris’s white wine, some very nice salady, smoked salmony, ricey grub, some cake, some of Chris’s champers, I gather up the records, some of which inevitably have come out of their sleeves, pack them into a carrier bag, make our excuses, and leave, not quite in a huff, but…

As we exit, Chris tells me, ‘I’ve got loads of records in the attic, I must get them out… in the future.’

‘Yeah, let me know when, and I’ll come and value them for you,’ I lie. Haven’t been round there since…

Part of my motive in writing this book has been to step up my campaign to encourage friends and lapsed vinyl lovers to rediscover that formerly important emotion. Two messages I received on Monday 25 September 2018 convinced me that my persistence was finally paying dividends. Les, a long-term mate, was in Glasgow with his wife, Aydee, a native Scot, but took time out to send me via WhatsApp, a photograph of him on the threshold of a record shop he had just visited – Missing in Glasgow. I’m getting through to Les, I thought – a contemporary who used to love and buy records and who still attends gigs.

But if this was an unexpected indication that vinyl could be on the verge of a return to Les’s life, the next message, a text, was a bombshell. My best friend, Graham Brown who was deep into his music as a teenager and who gathered around him an enviable collection of vinyl and catalogue of gigs – including Hendrix live – had been resisting all of my entreaties to revisit this period and return to the community of vinylists. But now here he was, sending me a text asking: ‘Best of Keef Hartley LP. £25. Worth it?’

I knew he was on a short city break holiday in Newcastle with wife Anita. I knew he was once a Keef Hartley Band fan who owned at least one of their original LPs from the era. But I was also aware he hadn’t bought any vinyl for many a long year. Now he was considering reacquainting himself with the experience. Before I could call him, my mobile rang and there he was, enthusing that his trip to the 30-year-old RPM Records in Old George Yard, Newcastle, had resulted in one purchase already and the strong possibility of another.

‘I’ve bought an old MFP record with Jeff Beck and Terry Reid on it for three quid already. I was considering buying a double LP by The Band which looked very reasonably priced until the bloke behind the counter pointed out that it only contained one of the two records! That made me think that here was an honest man and I then spotted this Keef Hartley Band album and wondered whether it was fairly priced, so decided to ask you.’

I told him that as compilations don’t tend to attract big money it wouldn’t be worth buying as a long-term investment, but a quick look online confirmed that, if it was in decent condition, that price seemed fair enough. I was confident that he would be buying it to listen to, and that it would contain plenty of music he’d like and didn’t already possess. I had to resist the temptation to shout ‘Yeessss!’ whilst speaking to him as he’d shown no previous inclination to get back on the vinyl horse from which he’d dismounted many years back, despite my other attempts to persuade him to let me look through his collection to value it for him. Obviously my accumulated efforts had finally ground him down.

Just about a week later I found myself looking at a double LP of Keef Hartley Band live performances at the BBC. In apparently new condition, it was in a very attractive replica Deram gatefold cover and on sale for £25. Perusing the credits I noticed that there was a great deal of Miller Anderson input and decided to buy it even though Keef Hartley’s jazzier side had never appealed to me that much. I thought I’d let Graham know about this coincidence, so sent him a text. Almost immediately he was on the phone: ‘I’m on a train to Reading. Yes, I’ll have the Hartley album.’

Ah. He’d either misread my text or deliberately misconstrued it. Regardless, he was clearly well on the way to becoming an enthusiastic, revitalised fan of vinyl – at least when Keef Hartley was on it. I decided to let him have the record and look for another, or a CD copy for myself. Feeling like an evangelist who has just converted a lost soul back to the path of righteousness, I even negotiated a 10 per cent discount on the cost for him…

Being able to add Graham and Les to the likes of other friends (the two Mikes, Colin, Roger, and one or two more) meant that although I couldn’t yet claim as many disciples as that other fisher of men, and no females whatsoever, my efforts were certainly chiming with a few lapsed LP folk. I must admit, though, that I was less successful in my efforts to inveigle Mrs Sharpe back into the fold! Despite my cunning plan to utilise my wonderful Brennan machine to impress her with a stream of her old favourite records.

If you don’t know what a Brennan is, I think you should do, as to me it is the ‘old school’ equivalent to Spotify, downloading and streaming. It is a small machine, no larger than a compact DVD player, on which you can ‘record’ CDs in a couple of minutes and then be at liberty to play them back in any order you wish, or entirely randomly. Even a techy dunderhead like me was able to join it up to a couple of speakers and, although I know it is tempting fate to say so, it has given me no problems over the several years I have owned it. It now contains all of my CDs, so has some 25,000+ tracks to choose from.

Advert over and I can assure you I have no connection with the company and had no inducement or incentive offered to write about the machine, while I need none at all to tuck into a particular delicacy…