Mike is not a professional kayaker (it doesn’t look like a real word), but who knows what he would decide given the choice? Mike and Kev ended up as accidental gig buddies. All thanks to Rob, who couldn’t go, but is over it now. No, really, he is, read for yourselves.

Another real newbie to the blog here!

A couple of months ago I went along to the Year 4 dads’ Butcher’s Arms session. Whilst there, Kev had asked if I’d been or were going to any gigs soon.  So happened that I was off to B’ham to see Neil Young and Crazy Horse (taking Morgan, my son, to his first ever gig). Rob was going too, but not Kev. Long story short: Rob couldn’t go so Kev ended up coming along too.

An amazing night as old Neil worked his way through the Crazy Horse back catalogue, with a wall of noise and fantastic guitar work. Morgan loves the acoustic stuff, so adored Heart of Gold and a great version of Blowin in the wind, as well as one or two timeless classics, such as Powderfinger and Cortez. He wasn’t so enamoured with the end of Walk Like A Giant, ten-minutes of feedback, abstract walls of sound, waste paper blowing over the stage, Mr Young huddled together between giant fake speakers with Crazy Horse.

Most of us starting to think- will it never end, but “Ah!”, I thought. I know one person who will be hoping for at least another 10 minutes more… And he didn’t let me down in the post gig review on the way home, picking it as one of his 2 top moments, along with the extended F****in up banter between Young and the band. I expected nothing less. Neil Young – pure bourbon!!! (as opposed to Cliff’s Kaliber).

Cheers Kevin, have a great birthday – 1973 – what a vintage. Sorry I can’t be there.

Ever since their first musical meeting, Simon took it upon himself to get Kevin to acknowledge that thinking The Who are the greatest band of all is as OK as being a fan of Led Zeppelin. Can you guess if he’s been successful? Yeah, you guess  right! Doesn’t hurt to try again!

A list, Mr Wood?* A favourite Oxford gig list? Mmmm…….Ida Maria in a pub of 40 people, Happy Mondays and feeling young and fit**, Chantelle MacGregor out Hendrixing Hendrix……all good, but please open your mind, park the need for heavy riffs in your impressively tidy garage, and inhale the magic of Half Man Half Biscuit. A John Peel seal of approval must count for something?***

How can you not be tempted with song titles: Joy Division Oven Gloves or Something’s Rotten In The Back Of Iceland

Is it just me? No! There were other balding men of a certain age bouncing and sweating gently with joy at the Zodiac on a summer May’s evening. I could extol further but I’ve been  given a clear bore alert and advised that I’m supposed to be wishing you a jolly happy birthday. So, we must celebrate and drink until you’re convinced of the superiority of Keith Moon. Or until we fall asleep.

Have a good one old boy.

Simon

*should that be A-list Mr Wood?

**relative to the audience

*** ‘when I die I want them to be buried with me’

Emily first met Kev stalking the OUP salad bar with Shaun (her future husband) in hot pursuit of mince-meat. She was the first person to accuse Kev of being the fridge thief in the ELT kitchen, stealing random pieces of fruit (half an avocado, a piece of fruit and nut) resulting in the commonly used suffix of greeting “SCAV”, for example, musicalblogscav.

… This was my favourite wind-up phrase to sling at Kev over a few drinks of a Fritag, BC (before children) that is. As the Ant put it “ridicule is nothing to be scared of” and so it was with you dear salad-muncher. Most Friday nights at 5 o’clock on the dot, Kev, Shaun and me would leave the pillars of decency (OUP), find a suitable watering-hole and wile away the night talking existential crisis and, of course, music. Much of the music talk would involve a large dose of 80s nostalgia – the 80s being our musical common ground.

It went something like this, “remember  Kev ‘Eee, haa, Eee, haa’, arms erect, cross, uncross, big stride forward. Brilliant Prince Charming vid. Or, the Midge, walking in the cold night air in his Del-Boy camel jacket “the feeling is gone only you and I, aaaggghhhh Vienna”. Don’t forget Frankie, my first LP which I know you appreciated “I, yi, yi, yaahaaa”. What else? Oh yeah, much fond talk of the likes of A-Ha, Toyah Wilcox and Kajagoogoo (snigger) and anything else we could remember taping form the charts. Thanks Kev for all those musical reminisces. Keep-on perforating your eardrums.

Love-ya, Emily xxxx

If I say that Si Moss is the gentlest giant in town, and you’re not sure what I mean, then all you need to do is look at the picture. He looks so cute with his colourful friends! Hang on – are you playing with Jack’s toys again???

I’ve never contributed  to a music blog before, but I’ll pretend I know what I’m doing by starting off with a suitably bookish quote in a vain attempt to make it look I know what I’m doing. Even though I don’t.

Tony Wilson once said “…Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented…Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does…”.

Would Kev agree with this? Probably not. Even Kev has a discrete jazz section tucked away in the depths of his record collection. I’d wager that most musical genres are represented in there somewhere (and for these purposes I’m not including the Vanilla Ice CDs that Steve Brown has tried to fob off onto Kev).

I can’t speak for Kev’s formative years but there’s no reason to doubt his mum’s testimony that he dedicated most of the early 80’s perfecting Shakin Stevens’ dance moves. I know this because I’ve seen Kev on the dancefloor. Kev and I met in 1991 at Leicester University. I was a young, tall, handsome Welshman (some might say dashing and suave) and Kev was from Lancashire. What Kev had that most of us did not was an already impressive record collection. It was pretty obvious that here was a guy that had spent most of the previous decade listening to and taping the best of John Peel’s and Tommy Vance’s radio shows. It is a little known fact that, to this day, Kev possesses the largest collection of cassette tapes south of Nuneaton.

I’d like to say that Kev and I spent our student days attending legendary gig after legendary gig but I think we were usually too skint. We missed Alice in Chains touring the “Dirt” album in 1994 because we viewed the £12 admission fee to Nottingham’s Rock City as extortionate. It’s important to also note that, in those days, Kev had a penchant for locking himself in toilets (usually partially clothed) after about 4 pints of medium strength cider. That pretty much ate into any spare time we had for getting to gigs.

If you ask Kev whether he saw Kyuss play at the Leicester Charlotte (a venue slightly smaller than Kev’s garage), he’ll say “no”. But I’m pretty sure he saw Rolf Harris play at the student’s union. Kev also missed Tori Amos playing an intimate gig at a hall of residence. But he more than made up for this by getting to see the Proclaimers. Legend has it that Kev was on the door for that gig and for the subsequent few years he had “Proclaimers’ Bouncer” on his c.v.

By the mid 1990’s, Kev had become adept at missing renowned performances by now celebrated bands. I’ll partly take the blame for him missing the Flaming Lips and Radiohead at Reading ’94 (I’d written both off as ‘cobblers’) but Kev has to take full responsibility for missing Jeff Buckley’s performance in favour of watching a band called ‘senser’ (ever heard of senser? Exactly).

Missed gigs aside, Kev should be applauded for playing a pivotal role in the current so-called vinyl revival. Years of digging around in crates at record fairs and unearthing exciting new (but usually exciting old) bands and albums and dedicating hour upon hour of studiously trawling the record shops of the western hemisphere have paid dividends. But with a great record collection comes great responsibility and even Kev has his weaknesses: he still thinks Lou Reed’s ‘Metal Machine Music’ has its merits (64 minutes of white noise, anyone?) and that Neil Young’s ‘Arc’ is worth a listen (35 minutes of feedback and ‘voice fragments’ anyone?) But for every Metal Machine Music and Arc, there are probably another 50 albums that Kev could recommend that will undoubtedly improve the quality of your life (again, I’m not including anything that Steve Brown has ever bought for him).

Kev recommended a film to me a couple of years ago in which Jack White says that he doesn’t trust anyone who doesn’t like Led Zeppelin. Too right. But Mr White could equally have said “You can trust people who dance like Shakin Stevens (if they like Led Zeppelin)” but that probably wouldn’t have made such a good quote.

I think we got to the point when the argument of me being busy chasing everybody else for their posts is no longer credible. I must now lead by example. And so here it is – my own Kevin-music story.

If you’re hoping for a romantic story, candle-lit dinners, walks at midnight and all that crap – tough. This is a different kind of love story.

Let me tell you this much: musically speaking, graduating as Kev’s girlfriend was bloody hard work.

At the beginning, Kevin was not impressed. When he first asked me about Led Zeppelin, I thought he meant the odd-shaped flying thing from Indiana Jones films. The name Boris only made me think of the former Russian president and Behemoth – of The Master and Margarita (plus I had no idea they were Polish).

My only saving grace was that I share a birthday with Jimmy Page…

Kevin tested me incessantly, brought me CDs with compilations of ever more obscure pieces that caused in me anxiety attacks or bouts of aggressive behaviour (What ARE we listening to? Is the stereo broken? What is this s_ _ _?).

Then Kev got friendly with Richard from work, and so I was off the hook while they joined in the worship of some Japanese bands that play what I call musical abomination.

It all culminated in a concert he took me to a few years back (Kev will say he gave me a chance to opt out, but don’t believe it). It was Lou Reed (cool, right?) and… the Metal Machine Trio. Best summed up by someone we overheard as they were leaving: “I never craved silence more in my life.”

But please, don’t think I’m not into music. In fact, my taste in music is very possibly as eclectic and diverse as Kevin’s, except we don’t often overlap. If we do, it may be in most unexpected places, like when I discovered that the beautiful music to So ell enzina, an anonymous text from Cancionero de Palacio, a collection of Renaissance songs from the 15^th and 16^th centuries, was composed by John Paul Jones.

With time, we developed strategies for peaceful co-habitation, best expressed in how our music collections have (not) merged. The labels we use are: “Kevin’s Music”, “Joanna’s Music”, and “Joanna-friendly Pile”. That last selection is played when we enjoy a quiet evening in. Otherwise, Kevin is usually very keen for me and Jan to nip into town on a Saturday and have the whole house (not just the music room) to himself and his music. He can finally play it really loud.

Shaun C is one of the Shauns that Kevin is friends with, but the only one who knows absolutely naff all about music, which is why it has taken him so long to pull his finger out and contribute to this blog.

One week, Kevin announced that he was systematically seeking out and listening to Bowie’s entire portfolio of work, in chronological order from the early 70’s onwards. Another week, we learned that he was devoting his evenings and weekends to unpicking The Kinks for musical gems.

Now I don’t know about you, but to me that’s the behaviour of a real muso.

In amongst the music in which Kevin and I share some common ground – Radiohead, Led Zep, the theme tune from Magnum PI – there’s the obscure metal – from the bands with silly names.

Now in my ignorance it’s quite possible that Kevin has been taping white noise all these years and making up band profiles for all his recordings. Like a metal version of a Beautiful Mind. (Note to Joanna, check the walls of Kevin’s music room for examples of obsessive behaviour).

To get to the bottom of this, I have established a new type of star sign – a musical star sign if you like. The rule is, the song that was number one when you were born says a lot about the kind of person you are. For example, “Night Fever” was number one when I was born, and interestingly I get very hot in bed even in winter.

So what about Kevin? The song that was topping the charts in late July 1973 when Kevin was entering this world was Gary Glitter, “I’m the Leader of the Gang”. Make of that what you will.

Anna and music are like fire and water. Music is fire, Anna puts it out. Or turns it down on the stereo. Silence is music to her ears.

This, I promise, is a story about Kevin. Yet it begins decades before I met him. My parents, while greatly fond of music, opted professionally for more pragmatic choices. I was their first child and, I am sure, a huge adjustment. By the time my brother and sister arrived, however, they had the parenthood gig off pat, and suddenly they remembered: music!

We are not talking popular music here. That never really entered into the equation. We are talking Aida, string quartets, Lutosławski. When I was in my teens, my sister was a serious violinist, and my brother played the piano with equal seriousness. The afternoons in our tiny 3-room flat went like this: violin practice in the room on the right; piano practice in the room on the left; my head exploding from the noise in the room between the two.

As soon as it became practicable, I moved out. Both of my siblings went on to become professional musicians, excellent at their craft. My parents are endlessly proud, and so am I. But I love silence much more than any sound. I am the person that, upon entering a restaurant, asks the waiter to turn the music down before even opening the menu. The stereo in my car? I do not know even know to switch it on.

When I first visited Joanna and Kevin in their house in Headington, they were wonderfully welcoming hosts, so much so that Kevin gave up his music room to serve as a guestroom. As I was settling in for the night, it hit me: Kevin has a music room. Given a room of his own, he chose to fill it with a huge collection of music, a stereo, and a sofa. When he wants a moment to himself, or just a moment of tranquility – I imagined – he lets the music play.

To me, music is noise. I know, in an abstract sense, that music can brings peace, or that it can cheer people up, or help them through a rough patch. Yet in Kevin’s music room, that idea became tangible to me. It became something that I truly could grasp.

I’ll never share Kevin’s excitement about a new CD, or a fantastic concert. But I did learn something important from him about having music in one’s life. Kevin’s music room was a powerful illustration of the importance of music when it is used to enrich life, not dominate it. A part of life lovingly treasured, cherished enough to be given its own room. I like that.

(And the stereo in my car? When I loan the car to Kevin and Joanna and Jan, they put it to good use. I am sure the stereo loves them with all its electronic heart, to the tune of AC/DC!)

Never underestimate the power of parents’ drinks evenings in a local pub. Absolutely essential for latest gossip (that’s girls’ night out) and making those crucial music connections that may in the future result in some amazing gig experiences. You’ll have to read on to find out what Rob had to offer.

Surely I must be the newest of the newbies on Kevin’s music chum timeline. In fact, to date, it’s just been near misses… “You went to see Julian Cope last year? I did too… didn’t see you there.”

But ultimately it’s the gritted-teeth graciousness I showed in allowing him to take my Neil Young ticket a few weeks back which will last the distance. Reports from my mate, that he met up with there, suggest he was a somewhat excitable puppy throughout, each extended feedback song finale bringing more squeals of delight – his polite verdict to me was “Very electric, very long, tonnes of feedback, exactly what I would want…”. I suspect he enjoyed it more than I would have – which is good enough for me…

So, from one man who avidly taped his favourite tracks off the radio 30 years back, to another man who incredibly (to me anyway) still uses a tape recorder for that very task – Happy Birthday! That’s Altered Images not Stevie Wonder of course…

Rob

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