Out Of The Blue (3/7/13)

Know what I haven't rambled about for a while?

The way music throws you back to moments in your life, the way songs bring out memories like nothing else on earth.

As ever, the thought has been brought on by a couple of things that I've seen and heard over the last few days. As ever, 6 Music is involved but BBC TV is in there as well as is a post on Facebook.

I was watching a Top Of The Pops 1978 that I recorded last week, trying to clear the Sky+ box down a bit (the entire series of Banshee? Deleted. Anybody want to tell me that I missed something epic?)

It was one of the 70s TOTPs that the BBC is still able to show, there are very obvious 'skip' weeks in that period nowadays, and ELO were on doing (I say 'on doing',  they were showing the video of) Wild West Hero. I've come back to ELO late in life, Chris Silker (were he reading this, I don't think he is) would readily attest to my antipathy toward them in 79/80/81 when I was far too credible to be listening to such bland pop nonsense. Obviously their singles are actually huge slices of utter pop genius but I wasn't going to cough to that at the time.

Anyway, ELO are two things;

They're my Dad's mate Frank; Uncle Frank, one of those friends that you grow up knowing as practically family when you're a kid so you call them 'uncle' (do people still do that or is it an outmoded way of thinking?) For years we all went away on holiday together, four families, two related, two not. Frank was probably the youngest, he'd worked with my dad for years, his big claim to fame was seeing The Beatles pre fame. Came into work the next day, told my Dad, "I saw this band last night, they're going to be massive" Apparently this wasn't the first time he'd produced this assertion.

My dad's reply? "I'll give you a quid for every number one they have."

To my knowledge that debt has never been called in but the true point here is this; Frank had 'Out Of The Blue' when it came out, it was huge and I hadn't really turned against the mainstream yet. Double vinyl, gatefold sleeve, big picture (possibly a cut out) of the ELO spaceship. I thought Frank was so cool for having that.

'Wild West Hero' specifically though? That's my Nan and Grandad's kitchen in Dryden Street in Bootle; the song was on the radio, my Nan had a plate of Jaffa Cakes out. Jaffa Cakes, Battenburg and cream buns from Sayers, that's the taste of my Nan's kitchen.

Then there were The Stones; Saturday night's coverage from Glastonbury started an hour into the set with Miss You. I always think of Miss You in terms of the garden in my Nan and Grandad's second house out in Westhead, near Ormskirk although I know the song I mean is actually 'Emotional Rescue'. I remember being on the patio hearing this playing on the radio, first time I'd ever heard it. In front of me there are a couple of steps down to a small fence and a gate, about knee high, leading to  a small garden; somewhere my Grandad could grow things. He'd spent his whole life in a house with a yard; had a greenhouse to grow tomatoes. This was his area to enjoy at last. Just past that, at the bottom of the garden with a small stream behind it, was his shed, somewhere to work, somewhere to keep his tools. He was the kind of man that could turn his hand to anything, a practical man, someone who knew everything. I'm not sure how long he was there before passing away - a year? Maybe two? Not long enough. He should have had more time to enjoy his garden. (I'm 50 years old, I lost my grandad in 1980, I'm bringing myself to tears writing this) I can still smell that shed. I probably always will.

Shall I cheer up to finish?

Okay, Ian McNabb posted on Facebook this morning. A clip of The Icicle Works live in Sefton Park from one of those two summers where the BBC co-opted 'Larks In The Park' and gave us some lovely free days out. If I remember correctly The Icies supported Big Country. We went; me, Keith, Geoff, possibly Mally, possibly our Kev, maybe Andy Flan, these things blur. The gig remains vivid because I've watched it so many times since. It was thirty years ago today.

Thirty years ago today. Thirty years before that there wasn't even Rock'n'Roll. That first thirty years was an epoch, the second has been a blink.

Time speeds up (I know, I'm obsessed with that fact) but everything stays with us and you end up back there when you least expect it.