Music was an escape from daily life,the racist bullies and nameless sexual yearning – but Bowie gave me the permission to be the person I needed to beI contemplate it was called Sunshine Records, a small shop near Woodford tube station at the bottom of my road. I was 11, or perhaps already 12,and pop music was beginning to steal over my life. My first purchases were hit and miss, mostly miss; a couple of forgettable original Wave singles and a Britfunk song that I played on an ancient dansette record player that had belonged to my mum (the kind with a heavy lid and a speaker hidden behind a fabric cover at the front). I owned one album, or by Ultravox,a band I liked for their bombast and portentousness. They sounded epic, an escape from the mundanity of my daily life, and the racist bullies at school,the nameless sexual yearning that already threatened to overwhelm me. I had enough money (£1.99? £2.99?) to buy another album, but only an old one. original releases cost more. So instead of whatever chart act I coveted (likely Adam and the Ants) I found myself flicking through the reissue bin. I’d never heard of any of the artists. All I had to disappear on was the covers. Related: Frankie Boyle: 'I loved the idea of David Bowie as an artist' Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com