Where bought? I think my pal Jude was having a clear-out and he gave me this and a few others.
A perennial of British music magazines Best Albums of All Time mayhem that seemed to arise every year from the late 90s to the late 00s (the internet sort of killed it, though Rolling Stone just resurrected it and remembered that black people have made music in the past). It's probably this hype and the general wild positivity toward one Declan McManus that has gotten me off on the wrong foot.
Where bought? I am really not sure. Had it for a while. Feels like I could have grabbed this from anywhere between 2008 and 2014. Manchester? A record I forgot that I owned, as I went and picked up the 'Rock Lobster' 7" later on.
Well this brings back a particular time and place. In 2004 and 2005 I was, essentially, a tour manager for a local band with big ideas of making it in the world. They didn't, and that's a shame because they were good and better than a lot of their peers. The singer is now low-level indie famous and the rest are in normal jobs.
Where bought? Good Time Records in Walton, north Liverpool. Went for a lockdown walk there when record shops were allowed to open and bought this and a couple of other cheap things.
12 years on from First is almost a completely different band with two whole careers worth of drama, success, and change under their belts. This is post-Saturday Night Fever, a band of global megastars responding to the task of producing something that exists in the world that punk was about to change.
Where bought? I didn't. It belongs to my partner, N, and I think it used to belong to her dad.
My partner doesn't own many records, but the few she has are mixed in with mine. Her taste in music is pretty hard to pin down, ranging from intensely cool and modern electro-acoustic weirdness, dark techno, and very mainstream pop from the pre-00s. She seems to like most things that I put on, which is a positive. Her favourite song is 'You Can Call Me Al'.
Where bought?: I was in Toulouse in 2017 and some guy came up to me and said 'you left this here last time you played and I looked after...
