Some nice remembrance’s posted here this year from HoxtonPaul, Solenoid, and Furniture:
Originally posted by HoxtonPaul:
I don't know where the tape came from now, but it was the one that I turned on the late afternoon I returned from school for the last time ever, in 1980.
The slow flanged beat of Plaza started...
...It was only later in life, when I bought Metamatic reissued record from Tower Records in 1992 that I came face to face with a very strong and sincere adoration of all those songs.
Originally posted by solenoid:
Luckily a good friend bought Metamatic and we swapped every few weeks or so until our funds could reach to buying our own copies...
First live experience came a good few years later in '83 with the GS tour ...I had to cycle 10 miles or so (forget the exact distance) on a cold winter night. It was fantastic...
Then it all went dark until last September and I had to walk just 10 minutes from my house to see him play live in my neighbourhood in Tokyo!
Originally posted by Furniture:
Most of the times I had seen UV they were dressed in black attire with what seemed to be black pumps (the kind that you used at school PE in those days)…
I remember John wearing a very nice 50's suit (also the fashion for posers then).
I have lived out of the UK for many years now. I think John inspired me to do so. Ever since I heard Europe After the rain, I just had to go and live there.
I well remember having to wear those horrible black pumps, I bet every kid in the UK had to wear those at school (probably since the 1940’s onwards or something
) funny to see them later become adopted as a New Wave fashion statement.
Two things from John really grabbed my imagination during the Metamatic/Garden period, one of which was easily obtained at the time: wearing old secondhand suits, bought from market stalls in an attempt to emulate Johns picture on the Metamatic cover.
The second desire was a pact that I made with a friend in 81’ that we would go on a long walking journey around Britain exploring old ruins and abandoned churches and take photographs, getting lost in the tall grass and woods just like John on the Garden cover and in the Church booklet.
Sadly this latter obsession never happened, and I got over this desire a very long time ago, but its since become a running joke between me and my old (now long distance) best friend still to this day, and it continues to pop up in our conversations during periods of middle-age wish fulfillment and day-dream escapist longings
