Memoirs of a Roadie

Today I had a rather large desire to pretend it was the summer of 1987, whack the volume up (especially the bass) and enjoy my new eBay purchase of Heaven On Earth by Belinda Carlisle. I got to turn the volume up, but was quite surprised to discover Rhythmbox doesn't (currently) have any form of graphics equalizer builtin or plugin. After a bit of searching I discovered there is a plugin in development, but seeing I listen to my music on my works Ubuntu desktop, I'm a bit dubious of trying to build from source plugins and apps that aren't work related. However, seeing as there does seem to be several requests for it and there is active development of it, I'm hoping that we get a stable release in the not too distant future.

I seem to be enjoying quite a retrospective of the 80s at the moment, alongside Belinda I've also got some Rush, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Visage, Kraftwerk, Ultravox among others, having bought several CD versions of albums that I originally bought on vinyl. I used to be a big Belinda Carlisle fan, and can even been seen on her Runaway Live video (recorded at the NEC Arena in 1989) if you look quick :) Alas I never got to see the Go-Gos live, when they toured the UK in 1979 and 1980, as it was them I was originally a fan of. In fact I did beg to be allowed to go and see one of the Two-Tone dates in Manchester with The Go-Gos, The Selecter and Madness, but my mum thought I was too young at the time (I was still 14 at the time). I also bought Belinda's most recent album, Voila, recently, which was a little .. um .. different. Now that she lives in France, she has become rather enamoured by French pop songs, and has recorded an album of them. It's not a bad album, but compared to those late 80s albums, it doesn't have that instant appeal. Then again maybe it'll grow on me.

During the few summer months during the late 80s, I spent a lot of time travelling up and down the motorways of Britain, both working on tours and just going along for the ride. Heaven on Earth was one of the great driving tapes to help the miles fade away. I even remember having summer months back then too! Although more than that I remember some great gigs. I even recall a mad drive from a Belinda gig at the NEC in Birmingham, down to Clacton-on-Sea, via Hitchin to pick a friend up, for a weekend party, and arrived there while the party was still in full swing!

I've already got the kids hooked on Blondie, so I can see our summer holiday drives being quite an entertaining sing-a-long in the back of the car. Ethne is already well versed with Parallel Lines. Roll on summer :)