M!B Moments
In absolutely no order at all:
1) Like a few others I have to include the Rockstage TV show, I remember sitting up biting my nails all through Hazel O'Conner's set counting down the seconds till the MiB hit the screen. Screen is probably too kind a word for it though- I watched this up in my room, me with headphones plugged into a Tapedeck/Radio/TV combi we had up there. One of those car ariel type things you had to pull out and stick at a crazy angle just to get a picture, holding it in place when you got one and with a Black & White screen of about 4" Square, but it didn't matter- for that half hour I was in heaven and got to record it too on an audio tape that I wore out within a couple of months. Getting to see that show again a couple of years ago for the first time since then was truly breathtaking, it's still probably the best filmed performance of the band I have ever seen.
2) 1st gig- it really is a blur now, the details gone, lost to the mists of time and burnt out braincells but I still wouldn't swap what memories I have left with anyone. There might have been people at the same gig with better memories of it than me but no one felt as fucken electric as I did that night. Being "lost in the crowd" at those early Stranglers gigs. No feeling like it. Not even seeing the band for most of the gig due to being right at the front of the huge Apollo stage and being part of the universal unconscious, jumping and shouting and clapping and cheering and singing along and sweating and falling over and picking others up. Truly excstatic. It shaped the way I experienced gigs for a lifetime, I'm still unable (or not comfortable) to sit at a fucken Rock N Roll show. Sacrilege. And experiencing it all over again, once again sweaty and bouncing and lost in music last year at the ABC gig.
Bliss.
3) Going into the town and buying The Gospel According To... on release day (the first time of what would become a ritual). Feeling so fucken PROUD striding up to the counter (HMV Shop, Union Street, Glasgow) and asking for the new Stranglers album. How good did that use to feel? I love the Stranglers - you fucken know it and who gives a flying fuck what anyone else thinks. Studying every inch of the gatefold cover all the way home on the train (sadly no printed inner sleeve this time, I loved ogling all the icons on The Raven and all the wee live pix on Live XCerts), hardly able to wait to stick it on the turn-table and find out what the MiB had been up to.
4) Oran Mor gig- Fan Power in action!
I once stuffed my face with pasta, I think it was. Might have been chicken. Or mibee lasagne, next to Baz and JJ at the Oran Mor. Thanks to John (who was doing the sound that night) who I banged into in the bar beforehand and, after sharing his cracking stories of Stranglers old and new he kindly invited me to sit his table. I ended up at the table at the front where JJ and Baz would spend their time between sets, with another load of hard core fans, and a couple who had heard about the event on the radio. The girl was a raving Stranglers fanatic, but her boyfriend was a self confessed "Stranglers virgin" and had just been dragged along, really. And guess who the night's main attractions sat right next to? That's right- the guy next to me that had been dragged along by his burd! Best seat in the house he had- with both Baz and JJ leaning in to have a chinwag throughout the sets, much to the ungrateful swine's indifference.
Still, I was close enough to get Baz a drink during JJ's set and I also got to hear the big guitarist mutter, under his breath, "I couldn't take the grief!" as JJ took the stage and said something like, "Well, if we ever need a new singer we know who to ask".
It was a brilliant night, a great laugh with a raffle and all sorts of mad pish, and a chance to bang into MatesinBlack, both new and old- at the signing/chat at the end I ran into an old mate I hadn't seen for about 12 years, so that was another "made my night" moment.
5) I'd have to include finding the M!B Forums site (and through it Dr.Blacks site and the BUT PDFs) in my personal MiB moments, can't remember now how I stumbled upon it, but it definitely rekindled the old Stranglers flame that had burned down low in the preceding years. Once I got a PC and started looking around the internet and buying too much from ebay (got well sick of the sight of Mr.Postie dragging his bulging sack down my garden path) it was The Stranglers that I returned to, buying up a couple of old Mk1 gig discs and DVDs for nostalgias sake but never really counted the band at the time as a going concern, but it was from visiting the Burning Up Time site that I lost myself all over again in the world of the Stranglers, past and present. It rekindled my interest enough to go see JJ's now infamous solo gig at Kind Tuts, where I met Christopher who ended up organising the Oran Mor gig. I took in a few more Hugh gigs, solo and with band and resigned myself to once again being a fan and going to see the Stranglers again next time they played, convincing myself that I could now just about handle "the new singer"!
6) Meeting JJ, Hugh and Dave in the alley beside the Apollo on the Aural Sculpture tour, and getting the 12" of Bearcage/Shah signed by the same outside the Barrowlands years later (How fucken huge JJ and Shug looked that day as they strode towards the entrance (and me) from their shared car).
7) Sticking Aural Sculpture on for the very first time and hearing those horns come in halfway through Ice Queen- it really was devastating for me at the time. And not in a good way. Can't all be good memories!
8) Drunkenly agreeing to sell a mate in the pub a couple of shaped and picture discs in the "dark days" and then luckily forgetting all about it when sober.
Sorry John.
9) Sitting up all night in bed listening to Street Sounds on Radio Clyde through one of those wee hearing-aid style headphone thingies plugged into a tiny tranny, hoping for some Stranglers on the radio.
10) Searching for Stranglers goodies at countless record fairs and up the Barras. The totally shit quality video tape I got with the Black Doc, a couple of TV shows and a bit of the No Nukes gig on it was a prized possession for many years.
11) Being totally into the band at just the right age- Pissed out of my box on Croft Original, doing the JJ shuffle on a disused bandstand in St.Andrews. http://www.thestranglerssite.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6462&start=36
12) Being so proud of the band and Golden Brown when I was at school and it was heading up the charts and on the radio, other people started to get a small inkling of what all the fuss was about, why I always wore docs and black.
Shit, and that's just the ones I remember tonght!
1) Like a few others I have to include the Rockstage TV show, I remember sitting up biting my nails all through Hazel O'Conner's set counting down the seconds till the MiB hit the screen. Screen is probably too kind a word for it though- I watched this up in my room, me with headphones plugged into a Tapedeck/Radio/TV combi we had up there. One of those car ariel type things you had to pull out and stick at a crazy angle just to get a picture, holding it in place when you got one and with a Black & White screen of about 4" Square, but it didn't matter- for that half hour I was in heaven and got to record it too on an audio tape that I wore out within a couple of months. Getting to see that show again a couple of years ago for the first time since then was truly breathtaking, it's still probably the best filmed performance of the band I have ever seen.
2) 1st gig- it really is a blur now, the details gone, lost to the mists of time and burnt out braincells but I still wouldn't swap what memories I have left with anyone. There might have been people at the same gig with better memories of it than me but no one felt as fucken electric as I did that night. Being "lost in the crowd" at those early Stranglers gigs. No feeling like it. Not even seeing the band for most of the gig due to being right at the front of the huge Apollo stage and being part of the universal unconscious, jumping and shouting and clapping and cheering and singing along and sweating and falling over and picking others up. Truly excstatic. It shaped the way I experienced gigs for a lifetime, I'm still unable (or not comfortable) to sit at a fucken Rock N Roll show. Sacrilege. And experiencing it all over again, once again sweaty and bouncing and lost in music last year at the ABC gig.
Bliss.
3) Going into the town and buying The Gospel According To... on release day (the first time of what would become a ritual). Feeling so fucken PROUD striding up to the counter (HMV Shop, Union Street, Glasgow) and asking for the new Stranglers album. How good did that use to feel? I love the Stranglers - you fucken know it and who gives a flying fuck what anyone else thinks. Studying every inch of the gatefold cover all the way home on the train (sadly no printed inner sleeve this time, I loved ogling all the icons on The Raven and all the wee live pix on Live XCerts), hardly able to wait to stick it on the turn-table and find out what the MiB had been up to.
4) Oran Mor gig- Fan Power in action!
I once stuffed my face with pasta, I think it was. Might have been chicken. Or mibee lasagne, next to Baz and JJ at the Oran Mor. Thanks to John (who was doing the sound that night) who I banged into in the bar beforehand and, after sharing his cracking stories of Stranglers old and new he kindly invited me to sit his table. I ended up at the table at the front where JJ and Baz would spend their time between sets, with another load of hard core fans, and a couple who had heard about the event on the radio. The girl was a raving Stranglers fanatic, but her boyfriend was a self confessed "Stranglers virgin" and had just been dragged along, really. And guess who the night's main attractions sat right next to? That's right- the guy next to me that had been dragged along by his burd! Best seat in the house he had- with both Baz and JJ leaning in to have a chinwag throughout the sets, much to the ungrateful swine's indifference.
Still, I was close enough to get Baz a drink during JJ's set and I also got to hear the big guitarist mutter, under his breath, "I couldn't take the grief!" as JJ took the stage and said something like, "Well, if we ever need a new singer we know who to ask".
It was a brilliant night, a great laugh with a raffle and all sorts of mad pish, and a chance to bang into MatesinBlack, both new and old- at the signing/chat at the end I ran into an old mate I hadn't seen for about 12 years, so that was another "made my night" moment.
5) I'd have to include finding the M!B Forums site (and through it Dr.Blacks site and the BUT PDFs) in my personal MiB moments, can't remember now how I stumbled upon it, but it definitely rekindled the old Stranglers flame that had burned down low in the preceding years. Once I got a PC and started looking around the internet and buying too much from ebay (got well sick of the sight of Mr.Postie dragging his bulging sack down my garden path) it was The Stranglers that I returned to, buying up a couple of old Mk1 gig discs and DVDs for nostalgias sake but never really counted the band at the time as a going concern, but it was from visiting the Burning Up Time site that I lost myself all over again in the world of the Stranglers, past and present. It rekindled my interest enough to go see JJ's now infamous solo gig at Kind Tuts, where I met Christopher who ended up organising the Oran Mor gig. I took in a few more Hugh gigs, solo and with band and resigned myself to once again being a fan and going to see the Stranglers again next time they played, convincing myself that I could now just about handle "the new singer"!
6) Meeting JJ, Hugh and Dave in the alley beside the Apollo on the Aural Sculpture tour, and getting the 12" of Bearcage/Shah signed by the same outside the Barrowlands years later (How fucken huge JJ and Shug looked that day as they strode towards the entrance (and me) from their shared car).
7) Sticking Aural Sculpture on for the very first time and hearing those horns come in halfway through Ice Queen- it really was devastating for me at the time. And not in a good way. Can't all be good memories!
8) Drunkenly agreeing to sell a mate in the pub a couple of shaped and picture discs in the "dark days" and then luckily forgetting all about it when sober.
Sorry John.
9) Sitting up all night in bed listening to Street Sounds on Radio Clyde through one of those wee hearing-aid style headphone thingies plugged into a tiny tranny, hoping for some Stranglers on the radio.
10) Searching for Stranglers goodies at countless record fairs and up the Barras. The totally shit quality video tape I got with the Black Doc, a couple of TV shows and a bit of the No Nukes gig on it was a prized possession for many years.
11) Being totally into the band at just the right age- Pissed out of my box on Croft Original, doing the JJ shuffle on a disused bandstand in St.Andrews. http://www.thestranglerssite.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6462&start=36
12) Being so proud of the band and Golden Brown when I was at school and it was heading up the charts and on the radio, other people started to get a small inkling of what all the fuss was about, why I always wore docs and black.
Shit, and that's just the ones I remember tonght!
posted by Alias at 2:33 PM
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