If you ever wondered where Kevin’s love of neatness comes from – best expressed in the filing and storing system for his CDs, records and tapes (yes, Liz, you are right – they are all still in the garage, dated and labelled…) – you need not look any further. Liz is the best Mum and friend, and makes the best cottage pie on the Isle of Man (sorry Donna!).

Well, where do I begin with Kevin’s music?  I wish his dad was here to remember when he started Kevin’s interest in music.  As far as I can remember the first LPs were possibly Rainbow and Black Sabbath.  This could have been round about the time when he got his first record player.  But maybe earlier memories are him playing  Shakin’ Stevens and learning to dance like him (yes, I know it seems hard to believe…).

He used to play music every morning before going to school – that’s primary school.  Of course, he progressed a lot from there. We used to have the endless lists at Christmas and I used to go to the record stall in Nelson to order these LPs, Aerosmith, Guns’n’Roses,  AC/DC  etc., etc.

Can you believe we went to a Tight Fit gig and Sad Café? But the best was seeing Robert Plant and The Who on the Isle of Man.  Kev would go anywhere to see Robert Plant and once met him and shook his hand. Robert Plant and The Who gigs stand out more in my mind – absolutely fantastic. I believe he’s gone to see The Who again last night at Wembley with his mate Shaun.

We had the John Peel days as well. By this time Kev was sometimes out, so we were instructed to remember to change the tape, as he used to set up the tape recorder to tape John Peel on the radio. So Saturday mornings were taken up with him going through all the tapes and deleting/listening to certain numbers.

I bet he’s still got all these tapes in a big box somewhere.

As far as music was concerned, nothing was too much trouble for Kevin. He’d find tapes or CDs if we so much as said we liked a certain group. He just loves music.

He used to do quite a lot of compilations for his Dad to play on the car cassette player, e.g. listening to Madness while going on holiday, or Cocktail /Billy Joel. Maybe that was our music and not Kev’s. I suppose Kev has always been brought up with us playing music every day, but he did get into the deeper rock bands and some of the posters on his bedroom were awful – I can say that now.

When I think back he was always plugged into a cassette player in the early days, now his music taste is, well……………………………………

I nearly forgot to add the Metal Hammer magazines you bought, remember Kev you’d keep most of them always referring back to some music piece etc.

Happy 40^th Kevin, keep on gigging and strumming!

Love, Mum x

Donna, Kevin’s little sister, has always had a mind of her own. There is, however, one area of life she’s always trusted Kevin’s judgement with – stocking up her music selection. Donna, Steve (the honorary 1st blogger), little Jack and Molly (aka Lady Gnasher) live on the Isle of Man.

Where do I begin? When  I think of Kev and music, so much  springs to my mind that it will be hard to keep this to a reasonable length and not start writing a book!

My early memories start with Dad really, as Mum and Dad always used to have music playing when we were younger. Dad got me and Kev into taping off the radio (Sunday charts) and also creating our own cover versions of songs… Gerry Rafferty, a tape recorder and a microphone and we were off!  Our car journeys on holidays to Scotland or Cornwall always involved a stack of complication cassettes of dads, which over time became something that Kev started to compile for us instead. As Kev started to develop his own interest in music including Adam Ant, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Kenny Logins (I take full responsibility for the latter for buying him the  Dangerzone single, Christmas 1986!!) he was introduced to the likes of Rainbow and Led Zep, bands which I guess started to pave out Kev’s music tastes for many years to come. As a teenager he went deep into heavy metal and I will always remember his Christmas list being full of bands I had never heard off (and actually didn’t want to listen to!) but it was what Kev liked and he never tired of playing his LPs and cassettes in his bedroom. And so it carried on. Some of the older groups are still up there in Kev’s top list – Led Zep without a doubt taking the number one slot and what about Neil Young or is it Neil Diamond?!

Kev has always had a ‘knack’ for introducing others to different music and I can honestly say the CDs he’s bought me over the years have always lived up to my expectations when you say to someone to ‘just choose something you think I will like’ not chart music, not too off the wall, just good music that I myself would never have been able to pick out.

Aside of listening to music, his guitar playing has always been something in the background that he quietly plugs away at and then there’s the concerts as well. Always going somewhere to see someone which seems to be on a weekly basis at the minute!

Music to me is something I listen to but to Kev music is so much more, a passion just like it was for Dad and one that matures with us. Where would many of us be without Kev’s influence and also Kev without Dad’s? Maybe our collections would be full of Mika, The Pet Shop Boys and Deacon Blue instead!!!

Enjoy your blog Kev and have a fantastic birthday 🙂

Lots of Love,

Sis (Donna) xxxx