Rob's Fav's

Who the hell would be interested in this? Well I enjoyed writing it and it’s better than nothing. Also I find it so hard to summarise our influences so why not put down as many as you can remember? These are all albums I genuinely loved in the year in question. By album I mean I liked most of it, not just 2 or 3 songs and I’ve tried to be as honest as I can (so no ‘I hope this makes me look cool’ stuff and no ‘look how post-ironic I am’). Surprisingly, the late eighties/early nineties stuff was a lot easier to recall than later. Probably something to do with having all the spare time to listen to music I had in those days, or I’m getting old.

I’ve included a little context with most choices as well so you can smile quietly and nod in agreement or bang your fist as you come across more blasphemous (or sychophantic) rubbish!

1979

Queen – Flash Gordon: My first album. I got this before the film came out. Football Fight still gives me a bit of an adreneline rush.

10CC – 10CC’s Greatest Hits: The whole household would get up to answer the phone during ‘Donna’. A very strange band and probably a bigger influence on me than I realise.

Styx - Pieces of Eight: my Dad used to like these, he’d put it on loud and quickly jump up and turn the stereo down when he heard my mum coming home.

REO Speedwagon – Hi Fidelity: this makes me cringe a little now, especially when you see the singer’s great nose/hair combo, but still some good songs. More the kind of thing Warby would deny liking in the past and is now coming to terms with.

Rush – Moving Pictures: my Dad’s influence again, he told me they were proper musicians

Foreigner - Foreigner 4: another favourite of my Dad’s, I bought this on CD recently, but Simon seems to have claimed it and it resides in his house!

Queen – The Works: My computer project at the time involved making letters spelling my name to move across the screen and then for a terrible version of Radio Ga Ga to play. It took me weeks to programme each note and I still only got a CSE Grade 2!

Deep Purple – Deep Purple in Rock: I will always love Child in Time, one of the greatest songs to bang your head to, ever. A wrinkly old woman actually told me ‘That was fantastic’ in the Silver Fox one evening after I gave a solo performance

The Michael Schenker Group – Rock Will Never Die: swapped my Role Playing adventure books for this album, Perfect Strangers by Deep Purple and Animalize by Kiss, with Daz and played them on my Aunty’s tiny old record player which she gave me. The guitar playing sent shivers down my spine and I just couldn’t understand why no-one else loved them in the same way I did. And, of course, it is true that rock will never die.

Thin Lizzy – The Boys are Back In Town: dodgy compilation with the usual suspects plus some weird ones. It includes an obscure B-side called ‘Don’t Play Around’ where Phil’s voice and lyrics are very ‘street’ . Thin Lizzy are still one of my favourite bands ever.

Rainbow – Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll - the first album I went out and bought on my own (quickly followed by Rising and Ritchie Blackmore’s). I can’t say I like Dio’s voice that much now, but a friend of mine insisted he was the finest singer who walked the earth and we believed him.

Def Leppard – Pyromania: me and my mates all loved this album, ‘Photograph’, Steve Clark’s guitar instrumental bit in ‘Die Hard the Hunter’, ‘Rock of Ages’. Me and Warby even used to bluff our way through a cover of ‘Billy’s got a gun’. You should have seen the disappointment in our faces when Hysteria came out. It might have sounded good to a 17 year old kid in Mid-West America, but it didn’t sound good to a 16 year old kid in Stocksbridge! 14 million album sales or not, it was a cacophony of squiggly noises. And later it got worse. As Mike once said as we listened in disbelief to ‘Let’s get rocked’ – I suppose a song is out of the question?

Van Halen – Van Halen I: There was a guitarist in Kiss called Vinnie Vincent who formed his own band called the Vinne Vincent Invasion and the lead track from this album started with a flying V going ‘widdly widdly widdly widdly’ with no relation to the music underneath. Some idiot compared this to the solo in ‘Ice Cream Man’ which I was playing in our form room during break one afternoon. More evidence that a lot of people just don’t understand what they’re hearing (like a dog being shown a card trick as Mr Hicks would have said)

Ozzy Osbourne – Blizzard of Oz: this album was continually on my timetable in this year, though Diary of a Madman is my favourite these days. I loved Bob Daisley’s bass playing and, allegedly, lyrics. Me and Warby used to play spot the cliché in Ozzy interviews at the time. Favourites were ‘Tony Iommi is the greatest riff master ever’ and ‘I thought Metallica were taking the p*ss when they played Black Sabbath stuff on their tour bus, but they were in awe of me.’

The Scorpions – Blackout: I managed to break my Dad’s old stereo playing ‘No-one like you’ too loud. Something just went inside and I couldn’t fix it. In desperation I bought a really naff old record player from Warby for £15. Apparently, he still feels guilty about this (and rightly so).

Dave Lee Roth – Eat ‘em and Smile: Just about every Saturday morning we’d have a ritual of catching the 10:40 X67 into town, visiting every record shop, looking at the same albums and . I must have viewed this around 15 times before I plucked up the courage to buy it (Dave Lee Roth was a bit too soft rock for me at that time). I thought Billy Sheehan was king of the bass for a while, but really the bass doesn’t work as a solo instrument, I think he used to say pretty much the same himself in interviews and that you’d learn more listening to the Judas Priest bass player.

Guns ‘n’ Roses – Appetite for Destruction: For a while I convinced myself that I looked a little like Axl Rose, I had the long red hair and sometimes, like me, he would sport a few days of growth. Now I’m fully content with resembling Paul Scholes, the greatest footballing midfielder ever to put on an England shirt.

Judas Priest – Screaming for Vengance: This is a surprisingly melodic album in stark contrast to the cheesy clunkers they often come out with, and I can still enjoy listening to it. The album was given to me by a girl who broke my heart. Everything seemed to be leading up to something, but I think I was a bit too slow and she went out with someone else, I was in a state for weeks. When you’ve loved and lost like I have, you know what life’s about etc.

Kate Bush – The Whole Story: Wuthering Heights still sends a rush through my soul. My friend Mike was obsessed by her and lent me this album, but I grew up listening to her early stuff. I clearly remember my 3 year old cousin stomping about singing Baboushka in the early eighties.)

Led Zeppelin – (Untitled, but known as Led Zepplin IV): Some stupid top 10 heavy rock groups thing on Channel 4 discounted Zeppelin from the list because they went folksy on III (despite ‘Immigrant song’ being one of the heaviest songs ever and ignores, IV, Holy and Graffiti, do we have anyone who knows what they are doing anymore?). Obviously I loved Stairway when I was younger, but my long term favourite is ‘When the Levee Breaks’ which I’m sure includes some bass chords. ‘Going to California’ is also genius.

Megadeth – So Far, So Good…So What! : This reminds me of cheese on toast at my friends house after we rushed there to listen to this album. Includes a naff version of Anarchy in the UK where ‘another council Tenancy’ is changed to ‘and other c*nt like tendencies’. Bloody Americans! I saw them at Nottingham Rock City the same year and had to hang around Nottingham city centre until the next morning to get back home. I still made it to the Economics lesson for 9:30am.

Black Sabbath – Volume 4: Supernaut, Snowblind, Wheels of Confusion. Slow and heavy and awesome! I used to spend hours rooting around for second hand Sabbath albums in the record shops of Sheffield. Now it looks like I’ll have to buy them all on CD and by the time I’ve done that it’ll be some other format!Jimi Hendrix – Electric Ladyland: In my whiskey phase I’d put this on, especially the long slow ones, ‘Voodoo Chile’ (ie the night I was born, the moon turned a fire red’ not ‘stand up next to a mountain, chop it down with the edge of my hand’ which is Voodoo Chile (slight return)) and ‘1983 a merman I should turn to be’ and melt into the music as I sipped Asda whiskey and cola.

The Dead Kennedys – Give me Convenience or Give me Death: ‘Let’s party!’ ‘Let’s not’ – that caption would have me in hysterics for hours. Jello inspired me to put a lot more into the lyrics. He was definitely my ideological hero for a long while and his spoken word albums eventually led me to the writings of Noam Chomsky.

Metallica – Master of Puppets: it took me a while to get into Metallica because my mates over-rated them, or so I thought at the time, which always puts me off. It still upsets me that I never made the effort to see them in Sheffield when Anthrax supported (I made it later for the prog thrash ‘..and justice for all’ tour). Orion is awesome and the chord sequence in the middle section of the title track still does my head in, why does it sound so right? I try to do scales which ascend and descend differently and it sounds like mush. I used to spend hours trying to work out Cliff’s solo on the first album and never got the fast end bit properly.

Pixies – Doolittle: I borrowed this from my first proper girlfriend (it didn’t last). I’d never heard of them before and it did my head in. I just listened to the whole album over and over again. I used to practise my bass by playing every song on the album, really working hard on my timing and how I plucked every note. Any Nirvana connections made with the Pixies just irritate me, this has about 12 more layers. Grunge – another example of rock having a coat of paint slapped on it, given a new name and then lots of bright lights shone on it in the shop window. And all because the average teenager doesn’t like the look of a bullet belt, a denim jacket and a big Saxon patch. But ‘They Changed everything’ as my drunken Irish friend, Cathal, claimed one evening (he retracted his statement the next day).

New Model Army – Thunder and Consolation: I was in a thrash band and they used to pick me up from Oughtibridge in a van. They were playing NMA one time and I’d never heard anything like it, really raw and bassy. I went out and bought ‘No rest for the wicked’ but this one became my favourite: Green and Grey, Family, great songs. I only saw them once ten years later when they weren’t the force they’d been, but it was still a powerful experience. It riles me that they are mocked in media circles, but what do you expect? They were very serious, very uncommercial and very unattractive.

Faith No More – The Real Thing : Son of a Cat are mentioned in the biography as the band I was in for nearly 3 years. This was the album that brought us all together. Another big bass influence for me as we played quite a few of their songs.

Suicidal Tendencies – How will I laugh tomorrow… : I loved this album but can’t see the attraction now. I saw them play Nottingham Rock City and they stormed off after a few songs because someone spat at the bass player (they’re a mardy lot those bass players)

The Red Hot Chili Peppers – Mother’s Milk: I could play about ¾ of it but never got Higher Ground as tight as Flea – I was all over the place actually. I saw them 3 times (Nottingham, Manchester and Leeds). I rate the Nottingham one as one of my favourites of all time. Flea’s bass amp broke down at one stage and Frusciante did a little solo spot singing and playing guitar. It was beautiful.

Fugazi – Margin Walker: This, the first album and Repeater were what it was all about for me. If you think your cocky little NME darlings have energy, try this to squeedgy your third eye and put things in perspective. Like New Model Army, another very serious band, but quite respected these days (though I don’t think the respect is matched by number of albums sold). I didn’t get the chance to see them for years until around 2002 in Leeds. If that was Fugazi getting old, I can’t imagine how much energy they must have had in 1990. Another big bass playing influence, especially Waiting Room from the first album.

Public Image Limited – Public Image Limited: hard to pick one album out as I bought most of them at about the same time. This naturally followed from buying the Sex Pistols but it was a massive change in direction. I loved the odd song, but to be honest this was more something I wanted to like, rather than loved. I don’t revist them much these days.

Madonna – The Immaculate Collection: Yes, yes she’s a commercial sucker of satan’s pecker, and I don’t believe those song writing credits for a second (just like I don’t believe Guy Chambers saying ‘Robbie, tell me how you feel’ qualifies the fat dancer as a songwriter), but even if her role is to work with the best talent of the time, it’s still a pretty good talent. Dammit! She even gets a good song out of Lenny Kravitz!

Fields of the Nephilim – The Nephilim: ‘this could be my last request’ silly I know, but played with 100% conviction, original and takes you to another world. My mate Mike was seriously into these and had the black outfit to match. I share the bands love of ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ (‘People scare better when they’re dying’ what a line!)

Prince – Purple Rain: I liked this when it came out, having a soft spot for ‘When Doves Cry’ even in my fundamentalist rocker days. However it took a little more maturity to appreciate the whole album. Every song on there is brilliant. Teddy, who now likes to be known as Jay (the singer from Son of a Cat) and I once did a knees on the floor air guitar duet during the solo for ‘lets go crazy’ in the Silver Fox in Stocksbridge one Friday Night. I was lucky to get out alive.

Ice T – Power : What’s wrong with being sexy? You’ll see why when you see the front cover of this album which features a scantily clad relief picture of the man’s girlfriend. This sounds so basic now, almost like x-rated nursery rhymes. It was a Jello Biafra anti-censorship connection that introduced his work to my ears and that led me into the world of rap. I also saw him live at the Leadmill on the OG tour, where some guy in the crowd, who proudly claimed to be from Moss Side, thought I was a hippy, cheers!

Arrested Development – 3 years, 5 months and 2 days in the life of… : So maybe I was a hippy after all! I loved Tennessee and it became one of the soundtracks of my move from Stocksbridge to City Road. But why didn’t they release that housey version of Mr Wendle?

Bob Marley – Exodus : The ominous, gradually increasing volume of the bass-line for ‘Natural Mystique’ can make the hairs on my arm stand on end. I love to sing this song, his voice has a stark quality here. I bought a lot of his alum’s from this period and I think this is the most consistent, but special mention deserved for the song ‘Concrete Jungle’.

Sinead O Connor – The Lion and the Cobra : Probably my favourite singer. I’d love her to sing one of my songs. Dream on! She’s more likely to rip up my photo on Saturday Night Live!

Depeche Mode – Songs of Faith and Devotion: A very powerful album which led me to buy a lot of their earlier stuff. My fundamentalist rocker days were responsible for me missing out on a lot of music I would have liked when it was originally released. Listening to ‘In your room’ used to make me feel immortal

Bjork – Debut: One of those albums that just do your head in because it was so different to what you’d heard before. I bought both CD singles for ‘Big Time Sensuality’ so had around 7 different versions of the song. I listened to them all without feeling I’d been ripped off as you often do with dodgy remixes and live versions that some artists fill their singles with

Various Artists - Now Dance 1994 (?): Not sure of the exact title as it was stolen from a friend’s car the same year (he refused to replace it, citing the pints of beer he’d bought me in the past) but it included that all time classic, ‘Push the Feeling on’ by the Nightcrawlers. I was quite taken with a woman who appeared in the photo booth set video, who looked very much like the 3 rd incarnation of Lucy Robinson from Neighbours! I still love this kind of music, the glory years of electronic dance that we had in the early 90s. A Bez-like Mr Willis can often be spotted raving on the dance floor at Christmas discos if ‘The Bomb’ by The Bucketheads is played.

AC/DC – Powerage : The peak of the Bon Scott era for me. Two friends of mine, Graham and Jamie were crazy about AC/DC. I’ve seen them play live 3 times now. The last time was at the Arena at the front in a crush and Jamie managed to shake hands with a sweaty Brian Johnson. Jamie proceeded to wipe his hand in my face. Maybe he didn’t wash his hand for a while after, but I certainly washed my face.

Snoop Dog – Doggy Style : That summer I did 2 weeks casual work at Shepcote Lane Steelworks, exposing myself to various chemicals. One of my fellow scrubbers made me a tape of this album and I loved it. Over the top misogyny? Glorification of violence? Peddling the misery of the poor for the titillation of the rich? Stealing the glories of past genius? Yes, all true to some extent, but Snoop has got an extremely cool drawl and Dr Dre really knows what he’s doing with those samples.

Thin Lizzy – Jailbreak : The greatest Thin Lizzy album. I love every track and have a special fondness for ‘Romeo and the lonely girl’ which breaks into a nifty little solo.

U2 – Achtung Baby : As you may have noticed, I usually miss the boat when great albums come out, avoiding the hype and settling into the good stuff at my own pace and in my own time. U2 are a prime example, I loved ‘With or Without you’ when it came out, but there was no way I would buy an album as pretentiously tilted as ‘Joshua Tree’. Whatever you feel about Bono (and personally, I’d rather someone with the money and the time to try and do something constructive with it, you can project your inadequacies about your own inertia and call him an egomaniac if you wish, but try and be more honest with yourself). Achtung Baby is an excellent album, consistent, well produced, well written and well executed. Don’t confuse yourself by taking it any further.

The Stereophonics – Performance and Cocktails : I turn on Top of the Pops and this band I’ve vaguely heard of are playing ‘Bartender and the thief’ (I think Warby had played me something of theirs before so obviously I didn’t pay much attention). It was an aggressive cross between AC/DC and Thin Lizzy and it knocked me off my feet. Once I got the album, my favourite song became Plastic California. What a shame about the stuff they did next!

The Beatles – Revolver : Obviously we all grow up with the Beatles, but it is amazing how clever ‘they’ are about it. They aren’t played to death like some ‘classics’ are, so even the big hits still sound really fresh. When I got this I listened to ‘And your bird can sing’ over and over and over again. Quite disappointingly, I read it was a barb from Lennon to Mick Jagger’s girlfriend.

Queens of the Stone Age – Rated R : Just when you thought proper hard rock (not that nu metal row) was dead. Along come the Queens. Particular like ‘Better livin’ through chemistry’ the title of which inspired one of my songs. Can you guess which?

The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds : I had this for years, one of those CDs that you read about in magazines, saying how good it is. I just couldn’t see what the fuss was about, but every so often would give it another try. This year it clicked!

Thin Lizzy – Fighting : Time for another Thin Lizzy phase! This year I went mad on them, even buying the weak albums they released in the eighties, but this was different. The tone of the guitars in ‘Suicide’ just rips open your head.

By the Way – The Red Hot Chili Peppers : Finally, after all those years, I fell back in love with the Chili Peppers. One reason why I went off them was I could never hack Anthony’s voice. But he’d actually started to sing of late, instead of that whiney rapping he’d indulge in from time to time.

The Darkness – Permission to Land: You can laugh, but they’re laughing longer and harder. ‘Growin’ on me’ is possibly my favourite hard rock song ever. Justin is pure class in interviews and on stage. I also love their second album, but Warby says they’ve blown it!

Rammstein – Mutter : I bought Sehnsucht because I was trying to learn German and thought it might help (and it might have helped if I’d wanted to work in Germany as a psychologist for disturbed children). I liked two or three songs but wasn’t that bothered. Vaiva liked them more and I bought her this one but promptly took ownership. My favourite track is on this is ‘Speiluhr’ which is very spooky. They were brilliant live.

Killers – Hot Fuss : Yes, yes, a fairly obvious choice, but it really grew on me. When I first heard ‘All these things that I have done’ I thought it was stupid and now I can’t get over how good it is. For me, the songs stand head and shoulders above all the other 80’s influenced bands of these times (Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, Franz Ferdinand etc which my nutter neighbour is playing downstairs at the moment). Imagine how much NME would have wet themselves if they were British!

Interpol - Antics : ‘Rosemary, heaven restores you in life’ a voice with such authority. But what the hell does ‘I make money like Fred Astaire’ mean? Following my ‘Mini Metro’ theory (ie we must buy British so no matter how garbage they are, the British copy version is marketed to death, eg The Libertines) we now have The Editors.

Damien Rice – O : I’m almost embarrassed to admit this now! My New Zealand friend, Bealey, has a fondness for what I describe as ‘twee chancers’ (such as Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright), ie the ‘Please love me, I’m sensitive’ brigade, and Damien Rice fits into this category. I particularly loved ‘Cold Water’ only a few months ago and can’t bear to hear it now, it’s like fancying a girl who you soon realise is ‘wetter than a haddock’s bathing suit’ (Blackadder III)