Musical and geographical offerings from GeoBlogs: a 365 blog project for 2026.
Are there any songs which feature your home town in the title of the track's name?
John Shuttleworth has 'Relatives in Rotherham' on his album 'The A1111'
I've previously mentioned some local bands such as the Reytons.
An earlier example was Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers.
They had a hit with this classic... this was one of three number ones they had.
ZTT Records was a label that was particularly active during the 1980s, having been founded in 1983.
Their first signing was Frankie goes to Hollywood.
It was founded by Trevor Horn, Jill Sinclair and Paul Morley.
ZTT is an initialism of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's sound poem Zang Tumb Tumb, which described "zang tumb tumb" as the sound of a machine gun.There is a new free Freddie Mercury exhibition starting at the V&A in October and runs through until early 2027.
Alongside the recent passing of the legendary Dolly Parton, we also had the announcement of the passing of Tim Curry. He played the Lord of Darkness in the 1985 Ridley Scott film Legend and was also in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which features a few well known songs on the soundtrack.
Legend actually had 2 soundtracks.
Ridley Scott's choice was Jerry Goldsmith...
To give the movie a score that might resonate more closely with younger viewers, the production brought in German New Age synth band Tangerine Dream. The band had previously scored movies including Firestarter, and even Risky Business, using their signature ethereal synths. Unlike Goldsmith’s score, which was tightly tied to each beat of the film, Tangerine Dream’s score was more rangy, and loosely atmospheric. The Tangerine Dream soundtrack sounded quite clearly like a Tangerine Dream soundtrack.
European viewers generally saw the film with the Jerry Goldsmith score. American audiences mostly saw the Tangerine Dream version.
Here's the Tangerine Dream OST.
Phil Collins' first solo album was released in 1981.
The album features one of the most recognisable singles of the 1980s.
I hadn't realised (or had forgotten more likely) that L. Shankar played violin and added vocals to several tracks on the album. I saw him play live several times in Peter Gabriel's band and he has also worked with Jan Garbarek.
Here's a live performance from 1984 of 'Song for Everyone'.
Lakshminarayana Shankar - electric violin
Jan Garbarek - saxophones
Zakir Hussain - tabla, percussion
Trilok Gurtu - drums, percussion
This is the 'B' side of a single released by Mike Oldfield.
I lived in Hull for just under a year between September 1986 and May 1987 while I was training to be a teacher.
This was a time when one of the bands most associated with the city was active: The Housemartins. They morphed into 'The Beautiful South'. Some of the band members lived round the corner from where I lived.
I don't remember going to many gigs while at the university to be honest.
One was at the Hull Truck Theatre Company's venue. It was an evening of New Age music put on by Coda Records. John Themis played a great track from his album 'Atmospheric Conditions'.
There was also a band called Frugivores who played the same night.
1988 was the year when I started teaching in full time roles rather than part time.
In January, I started my first term's contract, which was at John Flamsteed School in Denby (where there was a pottery - sadly now closing down...). I lived with the school secretary who rented me a room, in a house above the Amber river. It's very tucked away but I managed to find the end of the drive on Street View.
I took some of my music with me.
Talk Talk released 'Spirit of Eden', Eberhard Weber released 'Orchestra'.
The stand out album was 'Once around the World' from It Bites.
Kate Bush's 'Hounds of Love' was perhaps THE album of this year. This was on cassette tape at the time, which was potentially an issue as you needed to rewind and wind the tape to get to a particular track when playing it in the car, although it was such a good album that there was no need really. This got a lot of plays in my friend Caroline's car which I spent a lot of time in that summer. This was the year I graduated from Huddersfield Polytechnic with a 2:1 in geography - close to a first but noone got a first in that particular year. I went to Huddersfield City Hall to collect my degree certificate.
The album included some classic Kate Bush tracks. The song 'Cloudbusting' was particularly interesting as it had a video with Donald Sutherland in it.
It was based on the experiments of Wilhelm Reich.
The track which most people remember from that album though is one that was popularised by the TV series 'Stranger Things'.
Another female musician released an album this year which was produced by ZTT.
'Slave to the Rhythm' starts with Grace explaining her family heritage. The final track on the album draws the themes together.
It was produced by Trevor Horn - who has worked with many bands and musicians including Frankie goes to Hollywood and Mike Oldfield, and was involved with the ZTT record label I have blogged about separately.
Rush released 'Power Windows'. This was an album I came back to year after year and is probably in my top ten most played. I have written a separate blog post about the album. This used to accompany me up and down the A17 when I first started teaching in Norfolk, but came back home to Yorkshire for most weekends.
A final album from this year was Propaganda's 'A Secret Wish. This was another ZTT album and the production was excellent. I've blogged about this album separately as well, and also the label.
Here's the track 'P-Machinery'.
,My wife has a significant birthday today. Here are some of her favourite bits of music...
KLF up first... a banger from the 80s....
Pet Shop Boys
Her very favourite musical act. She has seen them numerous times, including at the Royal Opera House and other smaller venues, plus the O2. She's a Pet Shop Girl...
News came out a few days ago of the sad passing of Bonnie Tyler. The track that many people remember her for is Total Eclipse of the Heart - created by Jim Steinman, whose dramatic style led to the creation of Meat Loaf's 'Bat out of Hell' (a favourite on the jukebox at the Student Union as you got more minutes for your money than if you chose 'Teenage Kicks').
For me though it's this track. I remember buying Mike Oldfield's 'Islands' album and hearing this for the first time: a period when he was bringing in various guest vocalists for his shorter non-instrumental tracks.
The album was recorded in France, and featured Simon Phillips on drums, but also some Pierre Moerlen. The long first side called 'The Wind Chimes' was also the title of a VHS Video I had a copy of, with some very 1980s graphics....
Here's the title track....
1982 saw some other classic albums.
Rush 'Signals' was a real highlight and has been described before.
This was the summer that I got my 'A' level results, and got a place at Huddersfield Polytechnic to do a geography degree. We had a summer holiday in Cornwall with friends. It was a time when I knew my next few years were sorted and I could relax a little.
Simple Minds 'New Gold Dream' was a classic of this year too.
Pat Metheny Group's 'Offramp' had some excellent tracks, including 'James'. This was the time when the guitar synthesiser which he still uses to superb effect was being introduced to his albums.
Into the 1980s now and the tone of some music changes. This is my wife's favourite decade. Electronic bands and synthesisers along with punk and dance music started to displace some of the other bands from the charts.
'The Blues Brothers' was released this year.
This is a wonderful film, which features plenty of memorable tunes which are now familiar from stage musicals and repeat viewings. Some fine guest star musicians as well.
The car chase to Chicago is an epic way to end the film with a record breaking number of cars destroyed in the process. Carrie Fisher was excellent in this film too.
Mike Oldfield played Knebworth that year.
Several years later, the film was released. I wanted to see it, and I was interested to see that it was playing at a cinema in Rotherham. It was the part of a double bill... the first film was called "Private Teacher" and was a bit 'risque'... google it... so I had to sit through that although I wanted to see the music not the other things.
Ian Anderson has been behind projects to remix and release Jethro Tull's albums - each one with new tracks, live versions, early mixes and remixes.
A lot of these have been done by musician Steven Wilson.
These were remixed by Bruce Soord.
Here's the opening track: Lap of Luxury.
Well, what a band they were! They were so tight!
This was an excellent gig - one of about fifteen at least that I saw in various venues, both headlining and also supporting others, such as Robert Plant.
This was for a standing gig at the Cambridge Corn Exchange.
The band was formed in the Lake District in 1982.
The line-up was Francis Dunnery, Bob Dalton and Dick Nolan who were joined by John Beck on keyboards (and red lipstick and top hat).
Here's Francis Dunnery talking about how the band came about:
In 1986, they had a Top 10 single with 'Calling all the Heroes' - you may remember this one. They were even on 'Top of the Pops'.
They were featured on an episode of the Channel 4 show Equinox, which showed the recording sessions for their album "Once around the World".
Here's another stub from March 1990 - second row seated this time, at Sheffield City Hall.
It Bites - tour t-shirt - image by Alan Parkinson
Here they were in the 80's...The new book by journalist and writer Daniel Dylan Wray explores the history of independent music in Sheffield.
In today's 'Sunday Times' he shared a tour of some key locations in the city of Sheffield.
There are some familiar stories here. I watched a lot of bands play at the Grapes - not the Arctic Monkeys though.
Here's a feature on BBC Radio Sheffield.
Details of the book can be found here from the publisher.: White Rabbit Books.
The Rush album 'Grace under Pressure', which was released in 1984 has been given a major update and made available in some chunky box sets which go up to over $250 in price!
One of the tracks features a guitar solo by Alex Lifeson which apparently took days to get right.
Alex has also said of the solo on 'Kid Gloves':
That song is from our Grace Under Pressure album. What I like about the solo is, it's the opposite of Limelight: it's got a hip, kind of slinky attitude, a little goofy humor. When I play it, I feel a certain confidence, also like a prankster, which is not the way I am in real life at all. What's funny about it, too, is that it has a plot to it, and I only realized that after I recorded it for the first time - I never have a plot in mind when I'm recording solos; I always just kind of wing them. The Kid Gloves solo guided me; it's like it knew what it wanted to be and I just had to allow myself to follow.The entire concert from 1984 has now been made available by Rush on YouTube.
It's an era when synthesisers were becoming more dominant in their music, and reducing the amount of guitar that Alex Lifeson was able to contribute to their sound.
