Musical memory lane part 1

Soon I´ll be starting my 5th decade and I´m taking you on a trip to musical memory lane.

42 years ago my parents married in a dutch border town and they had a splendid party afterwards in the discotheque bar where they met in ´73.

Over a year later I was born and eventually, technologically the seventies were not that advanced. No CD, no MP3, no internet, no streaming, and the music was so much better in the old days.

As a little kid, occasionally demanding “cookies”, I listened to dutch Radio 3 (or Hilversum 3), the channel that evolved years later into 3FM. Wunderbar by Tenpole Tudor must´ve been my first favourite track. My daughter, now around 19 months old, has been fond of Jamiroquai´s Automaton from the first day. Believe me, this little gem by Jay Kay and his marvelous band has helped to calm the little lady whenever she was upset.

Back to the eighties then. Between 1982 and 1984, pink and green were very popular colours because of the LP Skunk, by Doe Maar. These blokes were simply too popular and went on hiatus for about 15 years. All people in the Netherlands born between 1950 and 1980 know the lyrics of at least one Doe Maar song by heart.

Somewhere in 1983, my cool uncle,visited us and we had a tape of hits by Normaal, dutch dialect rock band from our province, they sing about beer, fun, chicks and motorbikes. The radio has always been the red line in my “music education”, after coming home from school, having a “cuppa tea” or on a Saturday morning, it was always turned on.

1984, the "magic year" that turned me into francophile: Skin Deep by the Stranglers was a nice song I heard on the radio.

My nephew had become a big fan of the band Duran Duran around 1985. When I visited him in Summer or Autumn of that year, he recorded the Arena album on a tape for me.

In 1986 I performed Neil from the Young Ones during a playbackshow with some classmates. Mister Cliff Richard had renewed his Living Doll tune and it was a huge success in the Netherlands.
It was a “glamrock” year, with the Americans Bon Jovi and Swedish band Europe for example. In the chestnut autumn we visited our family in the border town once more, and I got another compilation tape which became “the final countdown” cassette.   

Then in 1987, when finally English was being taught to us in school, an Australian band founded in ´76 suddenly got a hit in the Netherlands. Midnight Oil and their Beds are Burning helped me a lot with my English. Some other peculiar songs from that year were “Right Next Door” by the Robert Cray Band and the mysterious “Somewhere down the crazy river” by Robbie Robertson.

In 1989, my aunt knew that I was fond of the band Queen and she let her son tape the Miracle album for me. Around that same time the house music “invaded” the hit lists; it was terrible. At my new school, a smart kid with a huge comic collection and a big old MSX computer with tapes introduced me to AC/DC, and I took the rocky highway, distorsioning my voice to imitate Thunderstruck at the top of my lungs.

to be continued...