Vinyl log 2 - 8 April

Day	Month	Year	Artist	Title
08	April	1970	Blodwyn Pig	Ahead rings out

This is probably the first 'real' lp which I purchased - thus conveniently ignoring 'Nice enough to eat' which I had bought a few months earlier, several cheap 'Woolworths' albums (such as songs from 'Hair') in the previous year and even the Monkees' debut album. After having seen the Pig in concert the previous December and having heard them on the radio, I decided to buy their debut album. 

I knew that their second album 'Getting to this' was due to be released shortly, and I had some strange idea that record prices became discounted after a year or when there was new product to be obtained. When I realised that this idea was false, I thought it time to buy the record. If I recall correctly, the purchase was made from one of the strange shops that inhabited the lower reaches of Christmas Steps in Bristol at the time.

I was already familiar with the third track on the record, 'Sing me a song that I know', as it appears on 'Nice enough to eat'. This track still astounds me for its inventiveness, forty plus years on. I also knew at the time 'The modern alchemist' and 'The change song' but quickly became familiar with the entire record. As I have written previously, I have never cared much for the song 'Up and coming', not liking the blues. 

I have often wondered why so many British musicians played the blues in the 60s; a clue was given in Graham Nash's biography, 'Wild tales', when he writes how people of his generation - working class musicians born during the war years - felt very hard done by and even oppressed. What might be termed the second generation of British musicians - born from 1945 to about 1951 - were less enamoured with the blues and also tended to be more middle class (I'm thinking primarily of Van der Graaf Generator, Genesis and Fairport Convention).

Although I did have some BP songs on my mobile music player, I don't have any currently so I haven't heard the songs on this record for quite some time. Some of the material still comes over as strong as it did then.

My earlier - and more detailed - take about the music can be found here.

[Edit: Mick Abrahams was born on 7 April 1943 so this would have been a day after his 27th birthday]