Sprog One's Ipod

by Dave Richards

Back in the days before satellite telly, your first musical taste was shaped by your mam and dad's record collection and the radio, and even the radio was pretty lame back then as you only had Radio One, Radio Luxemburg and the local FM station that played anything half decent. We always used have the Top 40 Countdown on of a Sunday, mostly driving back from Blackpool or Prestatyn or somewhere that the magic Cortina had taken us to for our Sunday constitutional. The Countdown made me aware at a young age how utterly shite most "chart music" is - for every decent tune like "Black Betty" by Ram Jam or "So You Win Again" by Hot Chocolate you'd have to endure cunts like Leo Sayer and Gilbert O'Sullivan and Tina "Button My Baby" Charles and about a million more. I knew there had to be more to music than that so I started to have a root through the records that were stacked inside the record player. Yes "inside" the record player, cos we had one of those huge sideboard cum record player things in ours, about the size of David Rappaport's coffin.

With the benefit of hindsight I can say that my folks had a pretty cool record collection, although they were nearly all "Best Ofs" or compilations by K-Tel. There wasn't loads cos we never had two bob, but what they had were quality and I've bought most of them on CD in later years, and copied them for me arl feller. Out of all the records, my mam only had one - "A Collection Of Beatles Oldies and Goldies "(the only Fabs record in our house), but my dad had a load of Soul stuff, Motown and Philly mainly. The ones I used to batter while practicing volleys in the living room with a ping-pong ball were - the Best Of The Isley Brothers (the Motown one, not the Epic one. There isn't one bad tune on it, my favourite was "Tell Me It Is Just A Rumour", "a Northern classic" according to the sleeve notes, though I had no idea what that meant) , the Best Of The Supremes (the one with the microphones on the cover - "Love Is Here And Now You're Gone" - choooon), the Best Of The Detroit Spinners ("Rubberband Man", "I'll Be Around"), the Best Of The Four Tops ("Bernadette", "Running Away"), Phillybusters, Souled Out on K-Tel, The Best Of Al Green. The only one I hated was Gloria Gaynor's paen to money grabbing bints everywhere "I Will Survive (And Live In Your Ken With Your Kids While You Pay Thanks To The Bent Legal System)". There wasn't one single white boy rock album in there. When I brought my first ever self-bought record home - Genno's "Selling England By The Pound" - he just looked at it and said, "Shite".

I was contemplating all of the above when I realised I had to load up sprog one's recent birthday present - a MP3 player (not an iPod either, just a shitty 1 Gig Samsung one). Throughout his life I've tried to educate him about music, it's one of the key jobs in being a parent I think. This manifests itself in two main ways - choice of tunes in the car and choice of tunes on the telly. The car one is easy enough as the "driver's choice" bylaw is ruthlessly enforced so he basically listens to what I like, which is mainly reggae and ancient country these days. The telly one is a bit harder since he worked out how to use the remote when he was five so there's nothing to stop him watching the truly putrid Redemption TV channel all day if he so wished - the horrible Goth twats. At it's simplest the Musical Education Program involves surfing from MTV on channel 340 up to whatever the top one is now, 374 or something, and commenting on each tune as they pass - "Shite"- flick - "Shite" - flick - "Parrotheads" - flick - "Mancs" - flick - "EMO" - flick - "Piercings" - flick - "Hold on, good tune this....." to Gnarls Barkley's "Who Cares" or Baby Cham's "Ghetto Story" etc etc etc. Fair play to the boy, he's buzzed off a few good tunes without me having to prod him, such as Outkast's "The Way She Moves" and that "Hands Up For Dirk Kuyt" one. So it's job done I think, although it's a nap when he's older he'll end up hanging round by The Crown with the rest of the Trenchcoat Mafia and bringing home a ringer for Cat off "Miami Ink" just to piss me off.

See if you can guess which ones are "in car" and which ones are from the telly.

Honey Boy Martin - Dreader Than Dread
Outkast - Hey Ya
Eek A Mouse - Wa Do Dem
Outkast - The Way She Moves
Marty Robbins - El Paso
Bert Jansch - Anjii
Bob Sinclar - World Hold On
Wayne Smith - Under Mi Sleng Teng
Red Dragon - Compliments On Your Kiss
Tex Williams - Smoke Smoke Smoke That Cigarette
Elton John - Ready For Love
Bob Sinclar - Rock This Party
Fedde Le Grand - Dirk Kuyt
Chet Atkins - Main Street Breakdown
Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
Kings Of Leon - Four Kicks
Rose Tattoo - The Butcher And Fast Eddie
James Brown - Superbad
Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc
Shapeshifters - Lola's Theme
Dr Evil - Hard Knock Life