For the first time in years, after hearing a song for the first time I had to listen to it again, and again, and yet again.
For once, people in Los Angeles and London and New York might be sitting around listening to a song about where I lived, rather than my sitting around listening to songs about all the places that they live.
I confess it was more than just clothes that drew me back to Hyper Hyper on those rainy afternoons. There was music. And The Boy. Perched behind the counter, nose in a book, he seemed to exist in some other world, one with particularly rarified air - it was all over him like a scent.
Tired. Burnt out. I want out. I don’t want to be here. I need something new. What’s next? No solid plans. Wing it. Improvise. Until the money runs out. Or until I get bored doing nothing.
After calling out to the members of the audience who had ever experienced mental turmoil, or just emotional struggles as a whole, the rollicking beauty of steady electric guitar along with the angelic high pitched crooning of Sultana, the flash light on thousands of phones swayed in time to a truly memorable cacophony of sound.
Darlene Zimbardi February 1992, New York City The cab stops; Peter runs around to open my door. Even though the doctor told me that everything was going to be fine, here we are just a couple of months later; I can’t even stand. Received: diagnosis. Lost: everything else. Pete bends over, gently lifting my body [...]
There is much conjecture and disagreement about the trajectory of Paul Weller and friends, the evolution of The Jam from punkish to mod to pop to pastiche, ending in the Style Council, of which I was never a fan (you can tell a Weller woman by the way she wears her hair etc).
“My big sister learnt this song!” “My cousin can play this!” The excitement in the room was palpable. The look on the faces of the Grade One/Two students was a sight to behold. This is what bliss looks like.
I remember Sundays in the cold redbrick church, the smell of Mum's leather gloves and lipstick. During readings and sermons I would run imaginary horse races between the red, blue and green ribbons in my missal.
It’s the middle of winter. Never mind, we’re wearing shorts and thongs. The sky is an unbroken plain of blue. Well, not entirely unbroken. Here and there, a pillar of white smoke plumes from a cane mill.