oh yeah, a cpt.stax mixtape...................

The first 20 years of my life in music.

Simon kindly asked me to compile an ideal mixtape, but instead of what I really could like at the moment (every day would be a different playlist) I'm going back with a sort of personal memory lane, to the records influencing not only my music taste and culture, but my life as a kid and, later, a teenager. Some are pretty uncool...I know, but I would be a liar if I don't mention them. Some are b-sides, I'm a natural born anorak! Let's start from...eerrmm...1964ish!    

Side A

 

THE BEATLES 

ASK ME WHY

The first record I "choose" as a 4 years old was "Please please me/Ask me why". At the time there was a shop selling electric material, appliances, washing machines and a few records, just the other side of the road in the village where my (then) young auntie was living with her parents: (I've been told later) one day she took me to the shop to listen to some new melodic italian shite singles she liked. The shop owner, looking at my disgusted face told her something like "I have this new sound coming from England" and played Please Please Me. I fell in love with that single so she bought me a copy! and looks like I preferred the b-side. This is what I call a good start, what do you think?

 

THE ORME

MITA MITA

I've been in the hospital for about a month when I was 8, while I was there my family gave me as a present a portable record-player (in italy we called those machines, literally, "disc-eaters") with a brand new 45 from the festival di Sanremo by the psych band "Le Orme", Loved the b-side again, dedicated to the young TV and club starlette Mita Medici. 

 

SHOCKING BLUE

HOT SAND

ELTON JOHN

ELDERBERRY WINE

Once again 2 great b-sides me and my younger cousin used to play again and again, "blame" his sister (my older cousin), she was like 16 or 17 at the time, so the singles were hers and we were damaging her stereo! Venus and Crocodile Rock were mega in Italy too.

SIDE B

 

ROLLING STONES

ROCKS OFF

Exile on Main St, one of the first Stones albums I copied on compact cassette. I really liked it only after...say 4? full plays, But never changed my mind since. Still in my top 10 now. The Stones my fave band for years and years.

SUZY QUATRO

48 CRASH

the "glam" mania never interested me as a very young teenager, cos probably never arrived here are big as in UK. But, for a short period in the mid 70s I was a fan of Suzy (and Deep Purple too!) Shame on me...

 

THE WHO

SUMMERTIME BLUES (LIVE)

I was introduced to the Who thanks to 2 records: The anthologic "The Story Of The Who" and "Live at Leeds". Later when I became interested in the whole Mod ethics and outlook I slowly completed my Who collection.

 

THE CLASH

COMPLETE CONTROL

When we had the first informations about the British new wave called "punk" I had a conversion, but only in music (never had any gear, pin, trash style). The first "contemporary" band I've been totally devoted to (yes before the Jam!) were The Clash! Complete Control and Tommy Gun where my faves Clash tunes in '78

JOE JACKSON

ON YOUR RADIO

First 2 JJ album were always on my stereo. Things changed short after "Beat Crazy" was released, I lost interest and Costello took Joe's place as my "new wave complicated songwriter"

 

THE JAM

THE ETON RIFLES

   

The band that changed my musical history and lifestyle forever. As you see Im here doing this thing +30 years later just because of the Jam... I was already "into" them before Eton Rifles, but I remember the excitement when this single was released, going uptown Milano in a high street store to buy it and back home in a hurry to listen to the more "complicated" sound/writing style and production Weller & Co were experimenting with Setting Sons. I still have this single, Italian pressing with the (now) rare alternate Italian sleeve. When all the Jam singles were reissued in UK, after Going Underground, I bought it again with the classic UK sleeve I much preferred then.