Look what Kelly just found on youtube: absolutely my favourite song when I was 14, 15, 16.
Fiji was a shocker for the boringness of the music we listened to growing up. Radio Fiji One was all "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I've got love in my tummy!" and "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" and "King of the Road" and other groaners, and although MH's imported records, sure, there was definitely nothing more funky in there than Frank Sinatra and even he was "pushing the envelope".
However, there were ways around this impasse, mainly from the constant stream of new arrivals from elsewhere and moreso from their vastly more interesting record collections. Martyn C. introduced me to David Bowie, the Aladdin Sane album from memory; Robert Oliver introduced me to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground; Sunny and Skee introduced me to Leonard Cohen; Bish had Queen albums galore; my cousin Collette introduced The Rolling Stones; my brother, home from boarding school in England, brought Cat Stevens; my father of all people picked up Beatles albums on his trips abroad.
And our lovely next door neighbour, Guy H., over a decade older than we were, was a constant help in this regard. I recall first hearing Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane - and the song above "White Rabbit" - on the "Woodstock" album he gave us. And he also gave us The Beach Boys "Pet Sounds", which I still have, AND Yoko Ono's "Open Your Box" which has turned into a collectors item of no little value but which I haven't seen in years. And he taped Jane Birkin's Je T'aime for me once and I played it for so many months the tape snapped.
Let's find that again on youtube:
Ah, nice! Such a blast from the past!
Colette is in town, visiting from Fiji, so I'm waiting for her call to go out jaunting, so that'll be it for today.
Remember, folks! Feed your head!
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You haven't seen my old poster of Grace and Janis on my bathroom door, have you? Sublime. She's now a highly successful painter (despite her critics) and has several exhibitions each year and makes a lovely living as an artist. Have you seen this, btw? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPTzwxr-ZqU Love, Lady R xxx
Well, that might well explain those odd stories about Nixon during his last year in office, running around the White House naked and babbling incoherently!
Maybe not Grace Wing! But someone else!
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