Brierly Hill 90210: Recent Episodes
Podcast hosted by Jon Miller
Previously an occasional podcast of new, good and/or interesting music. But, starting in 2020, a change of format and frequency. Weekly (mostly) new episodes telling the story of a different year through music and "found sounds".
There's not much to laugh at in 2024. It was a year dominated by an escalating conflict in the Middle East, the continuing war in Ukraine and extreme weather events across the globe. Also, while I tend to focus on events in the US and UK, there were elections in over 80 counties around the world.Probably as an escape from reality, 2024 features some quite upbeat songs. There are some contrasting emotions in this episode. I hope you enjoy the ride.
While 2023 starts with a continuing war in Ukraine and there are horrific events in the Middle East on the horizon, I'm struck by what a relatively uneventful year it has been. While I clearly don't want you to switch off, and there is some great music and significant moments to enjoy in this episode, I do find myself asking, is this the most uninteresting year ever?But, having said that, there were personal events that will forever shape my memories of 2023. My father passed away in September, just shy of his 84th birthday. While I was pleased I got over to the UK in 2022 to see him, I will always regret not going back again since then while he was ill. I did rush over to help out with funeral arrangements and such, and ended up staying for a month. Even though it was for a very sad reason, I did enjoy that time spent mostly with family and there is a large chunk of this episode heavily influenced by that time spent in the UK.
1973 is another of those years that feels like one chapter is ending as another begins. That may have something to do with personal memories. I turned 7 and, while I certainly have earlier memories, they're just glimpses and fragments. There are stories in this 1973 episode that have a concrete “time and place” to them.
But there's a flip side to this. While I have distinct memories of Australia and New Zealand protesting French nuclear testing, the energy crisis, Goodies and the Beanstalk and a host of the other TV sound-bites, I am struck by how many times I found myself saying, “how did I not know this?”.
I did not know that there was a referendum in Northern Ireland about whether to remain in the UK or not. I have visited Bermuda several times but never knew that the Governor was assassinated in 1973. I vaguely remember Skylab but did not know that Skylab 1 was shortly followed by Skylab 2, launched to repair Skylab 1.
I did not know about an arson attack on a gay bar in New Orleans that killed 32 or the fire that swept an Isle of Man amusement center killing 51. I had never thought through the fact that Nixon was elected with Spiro Agnew as his vice-president but that Gerald Ford was VP when Nixon resigned the following year (sorry for the spoiler by the way). Agnew resigned before Nixon because of his own challenges with bribery, extortion and tax fraud.
See if you spot these and other memories as you sit back and enjoy the world of 1973.
My name is Jon Miller. I was born in 1966 in the idyllic countryside of the Cotswold Hills in the south west of England. I have a brother who is two years younger than me and soon after he was born, my parents moved from the tiny village of Salperton, to the slightly less tiny village of Hazelton about 2 miles away.
I was 5 as 1972 begins and attended school at Northleach CofE. I spent most of my time riding my bike, climbing trees (or onto the roof of my dad's shed) or kicking a football around. I have vague musical memories of seeing artists such as Slade, T Rex, Gary Glitter, Roxy Music and Gilbert O'Sullivan on Top of the Pops. But I couldn't swear they were the songs you'll hear or later ones.
I do remember Gordon Banks car crash, a world of airplane hijackings and Mark Spitz winning lots of gold medals. But I do not remember some of the bigger news stories carrying over from the previous year; Bangladesh seeking to separate from Pakistan, the British stepping up activities in Northern Ireland or the continued war in Vietnam.
For some people, the story stays the same. But for others, things are about to change.
In this episode you going to hear from artists that are the epitome of 1970s music; T Rex, Rod Stewart, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, what have you. But there's a new sound creeping in that doesn't even have a name yet!Discotheques had been popping up in Europe as early as the second World War. The shortened term “disco” first appeared in 1964 to describe a fashion and a certain type of LA night club. It wasn't used to describe a style of music until 1973 but there's a prelude to that in a couple of songs you'll hear in this episode. You've probably heard bits of it previously (Sly and the Family Stone comes immediately to mind) as the sounds of rhythm and blues, soul, gospel and funk started to align. Motown had added a distinctive sound of their own, bringing in disco elements, including the bass and orchestra. Contributions come out of Philadelphia and New York plus the role of the UK can't be misstated either with the sounds of northern soul and the newly emerging glam-rock also playing their part.But before this turns into a whole musical history lecture, let's get on with the show. Welcome to 1971.
The music of the early 70s does not have the greatest of reputations. You can judge for yourself if that is well-founded or not. But there certainly seemed to be less good songs to draw from as I put this episode together. But, if you're of a similar age to me, a child born of the 60s, there's something that starts to feel more familiar now. See if you agree.
One of the reasons for looking back to pre-rock'n'roll in this series was to learn more about the styles, trends and back-stories that shaped the music of the punk rock movement and beyond. I've mentioned before that there's clearly never an alignment to musical styles starting or ending with how the calendar falls. But there was almost a dividing line in the middle of 1968 that signified the end of what I think of as “60s music” and what feels like the 1970s.You hear commentators talk of the “end of an era” and the “end of innocence”. But there is a sense of weariness, cynicism and down-right anger as we bear witness to the death throes of the 1960s.The big news story is the moon landing and is something, as a 3-year old I do vaguely remember being woken up for. There's little in the way of music or other current events I recall. But we're starting to hear TV that was a large point of my childhood. Listen out for Mary, Mungo and Midge, Scooby Doo, Pot Black, The Clangers, Ask The Family, Chigley, and Dastardly and Muttley.
From the start of this series, I've included clips from television shows, mostly from when they first broadcast. Even though I was born in 1966, I have memories of shows that debuted as early as the mid-50s; The Woodentops, Andy Pandy, The Flowerpot Men. But as we get to the TV of 1968, I'm starting to have more direct recollection of watching them. As I was only 2, it may not have be right away. But you'll start to hear shows that I remember watching when I was small, maybe only a few years after they first came out. Listen out for snippets from Hector's House, Lamb Chop, Joe 90, Wacky Racers, The Herb Garden and The Banana Splits. You'll also hear one of the first movies I remember as a child. See if you can spot that towards the end of the episode.
As a child, I had a fascination with the year 1967. Why would that be do you think? Having plunged into the music and sounds of the year to bring you this episode, I'm still not sure I know the answer.It is undoubtedly a year of dramatic change. Musically, the best that the 60s had to offer transitions into the drippy, hippy nonsense that become the navel-staring self-indulgence of the early 1970s. But the other side of that coin sees the development of a harder rock n roll while there are soul performances that show-case some of the best song-writing ever.Documentary film makers are starting to tell a different tale about Vietnam and you'll hear great contradictions in America as the summer of love competes with Vietnam protests and the long, hot summer that saw racial tensions become violent in many US cities.Maybe it's that sheer number of contradictory and complimentary story lines and musical numbers that appealed to the young Miller. For this episode, more than any other, there were too many songs and sound-bites to fit in. There were many editorial decisions to be made. But hopefully I captured the mood of 1967. Maybe that's the real headline.
Back in 1953, many British homes bought TVs for the first time so that they could watch the coronation of their new Queen. But there are also TV-related changes afoot in these episodes from the mid 1960s. Filmed news reels are increasingly being replaced by TV news coverage. Maybe this happened earlier and it's only becoming apparent because technology hadn't allowed earlier TV news to be retained for posterity. But it's evidenced in 1966 with the US coverage of Vietnam and the British coverage of the World Cup and the Moors Murders.
As another year gets underway, there's a striking change in tone for stories that have been running for a while. There's a difference in the action taking place in Vietnam but also in the way it is being reported. Similarly, race relations are being addressed more directly as steps are taken, both forward and back, in all corners of the world.
1964 is a year without the single, big-impact story of other years. The assassination of President Kennedy is still a fresh, raw memory as Americans go to the polls later in the year. Political change is coming to the UK also with a general election on the horizon.Children are going missing in the Manchester area, close to Saddleworth Moor. That's a story that gets very little attention in '64 but, while nobody know Brady and Hindley yet, they're names that make headlines later and will remain in infamy to the present day.Having conquered England, four mop-tops from Liverpool lead British bands charge across the Atlantic. It's tempting to say they're “top of the pops” but that's a phrase given to us early by the gift-giving year that is 1964.
The year started with something I'd avoided to this point; I came down with COVID the first week of the year. I was very poorly for 24-hours but quickly recovered after that. Others have not been so fortunate.As is always the case as the calendar turns a page to January, one's never sure what kind of year it's going to be. I don't think any of us were expecting what 2022 would throw our way.Happy New Year. Happy 2022.
It's hard writing the introduction for an episode when you know a major news story will dominate it. While the focus will inevitably be on events in Dallas in November, there are other things happening in 1963, some significant, some less so.
While the US has had a presence in Vietnam for the last few years, a coup changes the political complexion in that part of the world. At the same time, but much closer to home, Americans hear wise words in the race for civil rights.
There's also a bunch of firsts in the race to conquer space. While, closer to the ground, listen out for the introduction of the Hillman Imp, Vauxhall Viva, Ford Anglia.
Musically, there is no question that the “sounds of the 60s” arrive with a bang. A 4-piece beat combo from Liverpool are set to have a break-out year. So, with no further ado, welcome to the 1960s. Welcome to 1963.
As a new year begins, the US continues to ramp up it's presence in Vietnam. But Americans are looking closer to home.
The previous year had seen the failed invasion of Cuba by former exiles of that country. The invasion, though it wasn't known at the time, has been funded by the US government. Their response to this failure would be a trade embargo of Cuba early in 1962.
Let's see how all these twists and turns pan out. Welcome to 1962.
As a new year begins, tensions are rising between the US, led by newly elected President John F Kennedy, and Cuba, two years after the revolution that installed Fidel Castro as it's leader.
On the other side of the world, pressure is also building as communism spreads in south-east Asia. The United States is keeping it's finger in that pie as well.
Musically, while I didn't expect there to be the flick of a switch to turn off the rock 'n' roll of the 50s and turn on what we think of as the “sound of the 60s”, I did expect a gradual fade of one into the other. But what I hadn't thought through was a musical revolution occurring between the two. R&B artists such as Etta James, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Roy Orbison and The Shirelles were recording hit records that certainly stand-up better today than the awful “bubblegum rock” that it was competing with.
That continues into 1961 but, while Johnny Kidd & The Pirates were already, in my opinion, way ahead of their time, there's a single by Tony Sheridan in 1961 that went almost unheralded in the UK but that is of incredible significance in predicting what is to come. If you know your musical history, you already know what I'm talking about. But, if not, listen out for the pieces falling into place and I'll reveal all at the end of this show.
Something that's struck me throughout this series is the evolving use of language through the decades. It's a fascinating insight into trends and attitudes present in general society of the time. There's a real contrast from the language used in 1960 news reels and even in the TV news of race riots in the late 70s and early 80s to what you're likely to hear as you tune in for information in the 21st century.
As this episode unfurls, listen out for some choices of words which wouldn't be considered acceptable today. Ironically, you'll also hear famous words describing a “wind of change”.
Welcome to a new decade. Welcome to 1960.
I noticed a musical trend starting in the previous episode. The earnest beginnings of rock n' roll were joined by novelty songs in 1958. You may recall songs about lollipops, splish-splashing and yakety-yakking. Do you see parallels to later musical movements; earnest angst to begin, novelties soon follow but then more serious musicians shape the period after that?
I'll leave you debating that one and whether it really matters as you listen to the sounds of 1959.
I was born in 1966, 3 years before man first walked on the moon. I have a vague recollection of my dad getting me out of bed to watch some of those Apollo missions. So it's interesting to hear the prelude to those memories, forged 11 years earlier from America's fear of the Soviet Union.
Also aligned to the fear of communism is the west's fear of Arab nationalism. This creates new tensions in the middle-east and elsewhere.
Sit back and enjoy these and other historically significant moments while global and musical revolutions continue apace. Welcome to 1958.
As I work on this series, I'm still fascinated by the highs, lows and lulls that are outside of my control. The working title of the series was “chronology” and, as much as possible, I let that tell it's own story. The music, news and entertainment timelines drive the narrative.
While there is still excitement and a newness to the music of 1957, worldwide events seem to be taking a pause, to catch their breath after the upheaval of 1956 and social change coming in the 1960s. That's not to say there aren't some significant headlines in 1957. But it still feels like a “filler year” between what came before and what's still to come.
See if you agree as you sit back and let the sounds of the year wash over you. Welcome to 1957.
Historical! Montgomery, Suez, Hungary, Eurovision and Bert Trautmann. Musical! Little Richard, James Brown, Johnny Cash and Gene Vincent.
There wasn't a specific date when rock 'n' roll started. As mentioned in earlier episodes, it had been a term used since the 1940s. DJ Alan Freed had used it as early as 1951 and rock 'n' roll recordings had occasionally charted since 1953. But there was an event that happened in 1955 that put rock 'n' roll in the headlines and firmly on the map. That event was the movie Blackboard Jungle. So listen out for that as the rock 'n' roll story kicks up a gear
This is a series about music. So I mostly introduce each episode with a musical bent. I'll sometimes tie those musical stories to events happening at the same time. But there is a commentary bigger than music and mere “stories” that I'm equipped to capture through an introductory sound-bite.
I'll say no more as bigger stories unfold. Welcome to 1955.
Alan Freed used the term “rock and roll” as early as 1951. It was a euphemism for sex but Freed used it to describe rhythm and blues, or “race music”, in a way that was more acceptable to white audiences. Freed was keen to promote white cover versions of songs originally recorded by black artists.
But, while this new rock 'n' roll music started to gain popularity and see increased record sales, there wasn't an instant mass take-over of the music scene. You'll hear a marginal increase in rock numbers but the charts are still dominated by big band orchestration and actor/singer cross-overs. Listen out for a crooning Norman Wisdom as you sit back and enjoy the sounds of 1954.
If you've followed this series from the beginning, it started with 1977, the year I began high school and a year when music changed with the arrival of punk rock. So why jump back to 1953? As I recorded the earlier chronological episodes, I found myself thinking, both for the music and the major news stories, how did we get here? What's the back story of each news event and what are the inspirations and ground-breakers that blazed a trail for music through to today?
Because, primarily, this is a series about music, I wanted to look back to just before rock n roll to get an understanding of the popular music before it was changed forever. I thought that would mean 1956, maybe 1955 when Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock first charted in the UK. But in keeping with the series theme of taking a view from both sides of the Atlantic, things started a little earlier in the US. There's still debate about what was the first rock n roll record or even which was the first rock n roll “hit”. But the one I went with was released in 1953. See if you can spot it and listen out for the other, less successful recordings that were clearly appropriated for what became known later as rock n roll.
A couple of foot-notes to explain things that were different back in the 1950s.
It was not uncommon for the same song to be released multiple times by different artists almost at the same time. One song in this episode charted 5 times in the same year all by different artists! So don't be surprised to hear songs in this episode recorded by unexpected artists.
In the 21st century, because of the nature of the internet and digital content, new music releases are usually a single, global event. But in the 1950s a record could be released a year or more apart in the US versus the UK versus other parts of the world. This certainly made determining what constitutes “music from 1953” a challenge. There will be disagreements.
World War II had only ended 8-years earlier but conflict continues in Korea. That will be an early order of business for new US president Dwight D Eisenhower and vice-president, Richard Nixon. In the UK, King George VI (sixth) has just died, resulting in his young daughter Elizabeth taking the thrown. She hadn't been formally crowned as the year begins and the impending coronation will be televised in the UK, seeing increased sales of TV sets. Televisions have only existed for 17 years and around a quarter of British households now own one.
Welcome to 1953.
I was 7 as 1974 began and my musical memories are, not surprisingly, fuzzy. Most of them from this episode seem to be from around October and I suspect this is from a Sunday night chart rundown that my dad taped for me off Radio 1 and that was played over and over until the tape broke.
Memories of 1974's music are further enhanced in this episode with genuine hiss and crackle from vinyl recordings. It's weird that in 2022 there is now a vinyl section in my local Walmart.
While it had been around for a few years in clubs, particularly in Philadelphia and New York, 1974 was when disco started gaining mainstream attention. So get the funk out of your face and shake your pants down to the floor. It's 1974.
As 2021 begins, continuing the saga from last year, our house is still on the market, but there's more interest and it looks we'll be making a decision soon; should we stay or should we go?
Similarly, in the wider world, stories from 2020 are coming to a head. COVID vaccines are being rolled out, cases attempting to show that black lives do matter will get their day in court and Donald Trump continues to not accept the result of the election. How did all these things pan out in 2021?
I was 8-years old as the year began so was mostly interested in riding my bike, climbing on the backs of tractors as the summer harvest was brought in, waiting until prompted to yell “Crackerjack” at the TV and thinking how much fun it would be to hang out with Jimmy Saville. I have a vague recollection that there was to be a referendum on the UK staying in the European Community but was fairly oblivious to anything else going on in the world.
It's hard to believe that, less than 50 years ago, a major Western European nation, Spain, was still living under a dictatorship. Equally hard to believe was that the Vietnam War was still going on.
But you better believe... it's 1975.
For reasons that we'll get into in the next episode, the plan had been to start this series in 1977. But that was always a bit misleading as it started with events that happened at the end of the year before. So what was the background, context and the general state of play that lead up to those events?
The music of the mid 70s was disco, glam rock and sickly pop ballads. As 1976 begins, Gerald Ford is president of the United States, Harold Wilson is British prime-minister and leader of the Labor Party, Ted Heath leads the Tories and Jeremy Thorpe the Liberals. Women are being attacked in northern England by what appears to be a single person, the violence escalating to a first murder in 1975.
But I was 10 years old and oblivious to all of this. I attended Northleach C of E Primary School in the Gloucestershire, Cotswold country side and my main interests lay in climbing trees, convincing my mum to let me have jeans with flares and seeing what they got up to on Blue Peter.
We'd been living in our “dream house” for 12 years but, it having been built in the 19th century, there was always something failing, breaking or otherwise needing repair. It was beginning to take it's toll, both financially and in terms of time spent. So we decided it was time to move on. With the impeccable timing that had us buy it during a major financial crisis, turns out we would try and sell as the world experienced a global pandemic!
Obviously that's the main story you'll hear about in this episode. The world went into lock-down, the kids stopped going to school and I stopped going into the office. But working for a company that manufactured highly sought after items like diapers and paper towels, unlike many others less fortunate, I was in no danger of losing my job.
Mostly to keep the kids occupied, we bought some chickens... and then some ducks. We lost some chickens to a fox so we got a dog. While our house, which was clearly not selling, turned into a farm, I took up walking every morning to make positive use of the 2-hours no longer spent in the car each day. I lost about 40-pounds while listening to podcasts such as Something Rhymes with Purple, The God Pod and John Otway's serialized reading of his biography. I'd already been toying with the idea of doing something with the musical playlist that I'd organized into chronological order the year before, so started recording this series in April under my existing Brierly Hill 90210 podcast name. Cotswolds Radio, recently established in my old stomping grounds of Northleach, were on a similar COVID-related journey and they started broadcasting the Cotswold Hills 90210 version of my show in October.
But as the year begins, while there are stories coming out of China of people with flu-like symptoms, here in the west, the main stories are President Trump's impeachment trial, the UKs impending withdrawal from the European Union and continuing tensions in the middle east.
The year begins with the US Government shut down over a refusal to fund Trumps wall on the Mexico border.
Globally, many are starting to wake up to the potential impact of climate change, mostly young people making their voices heard.
In the UK, the bickering over Brexit is taking everybody nowhere fast. But the Windrush scandal of the previous year aligns cosmically with Black Lives Matter in the US into another global movement for good.
I missed a mention of turning 50 a couple of episodes ago. Probably from being in denial.
I know the cliche about age just being a number. But there is something about reaching that particular number that, in my case at least, brings about a need to look back on one's life. I'm sure the seed of this series was planted in that flower pot of nostalgia.
But it's interesting... these last few episodes haven't felt like it's MY life that I'm looking back on. They've felt more like I'm looking in from the outside as the world continues on without me. That probably sounded more overly dramatic than I intended it to. But I think a lot of us would have prefer to not be present in the world of 2018.
I only recorded one new podcast episode in 2017. Looking back, I'm not sure if there's any one reason why the show slowly petered out, though there would be a couple more shows in 2018 before work started on this current series. But I had been doing it for 12 years which is long time in the podcast universe.
It probably had something to do with family. When your kids are just babies, you think you're entire life is taken up by them. And that's true. But much more of your time is taken up by their various activities as they get older. Our youngest was now 9 years old and after being continuously ill since he was born, he was finally diagnosed with something; celiacs disease. He had a major gluten allergy. The poor kid loved pizza and bread and those were things that were killing him. But he adapted quickly to a change in diet and we found gluten-free versions of his favorites. We'll never forget the time our 9-year old son told us, “I never knew you weren't supposed to get sick every time you ate something”. Broke our hearts.
Out in the rest of world, Britain has voted to leave Europe so is eagerly embarking on their well thought through exit strategy. While, on this side of the pond, everybody gets behind the orange, small-handed, lying sack of monkey guano that they voted president.
2017 is going to be a bumpy ride.
I started recording this series in 2020 and it's 2021 as I record this episode. Depending on when you're listening to this of course (it could be 2030 and I'm coming to you from the implant behind your ear as you ride your self-driving rocket-ship), doesn't 2016 feel like we're up-to-date? The events seem like they've only just happened.
Having said that, it could equally apply to the 1977 episode when I looked back to the 11-year old me, attending Westwoods Grammar School in the Gloucestershire countryside, listening to Tony Blackburn spinning the latest tune from The Electric Light Orchestra. Where did those 40 years go?
Time plods slowly onwards and we just tag along for the ride. Time is also an album by the Electric Light Orchestra.
Welcome to 2016.
In some previous episodes, I've spoken of a glut of good music for certain years. This time, more than any other I can remember, I have more news stories than usual. I think that's partly due to several long-running stories coming to their end. There are the usual smatterings of death, relegation, job suspensions and criminal indictments for past misbehaviors. But there are also many story lines that, although we didn't know it at the time, were the start of bigger things to come; stories that would define the next 4 or 5 years.
I mentioned last time that I wasn't really enjoying my job. I felt too old to mix it up with the youngsters at a New York technology start-up. But after a few years of job hunting, I finally landed a “proper job” with a manufacturing company in Pennsylvania.
Elsewhere as 2014 begins, while the world still grapples with events in Ukraine and Crimea, a new middle east presence is starting to be felt. At the turn of the year, nobody's heard of it and, in the west, for those that have, is it called ISIS or is it ISIL?
Here in the US, while the Black Lives Matter hashtag started to be used in 2013, connected to the 2012 death of Trayvon Martin, events of 2014 bring it to main-stream attention.
I wasn't really enjoying my job as a product manager for a software company in New York. I shouldn't have had anything to complain about; the work was challenging, I was getting good experience and I enjoyed working with my team. But the money wasn't great, it was a long slog up to New York on the train and the overselling of our software's capabilities to potential customers was grinding me down. But work was work and, despite ongoing job-hunting, I wasn't finding anything better. It seemed like another step on the endless treadmill into 2013...
The kids are growing up. One is 6 as the year begins and our youngest turns 4 in January. He's sick a lot and it'll be another 5 years before we find out why.
In America, the economy continues its slow recovery; too slow for several big name brands and retailers that didn't sufficiently prepare for a digital economy. Will economic recovery be fast enough to secure Barack Obama a second term as president?
Meanwhile, across the pond, the UK prepares to celebrate 60 years of Queen Elizabeth's reign. There's also the small matter of the summer Olympics coming to town.
Welcome to 2012...
I had started a new job in 2010 after spending the best part of a year out of work. I was now a project manager and integration consultant working for a start-up company in New York. 2011 saw me working on an assignment on Wall Street in the city. That meant 4 hours on Amtrak and 2 hours on the New York subway each day.
Musically, the long train rides coincided with me having no music to listen to on them. A hard-drive crash the year before meant that a lot of music was lost. What made it particularly sad was losing pieces that artists had recorded especially for me. Luckily, I was able to retrieve some of that but I never fully recovered from the pause in recording my podcast. What had already slipped to less than monthly, slipped further to only 1 or 2 new shows a year.
Across the world, as 2010 came to a close, a horrifying event went almost unnoticed in Tunisia. That story continues into 2011 and into what would become known as The Arab Spring.
The year started with me still not in full-time employment. But I was doing contract work for a major US health insurance company so was better off than most. But come February, one of my previous contracts offered me a full-time position and I took it. I was earning half of what I was before the financial crash but beggars can't be choosers.
I ended up at gig in New York State which meant a long drive up the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway on a Sunday night, back again Friday and start all over again after too brief a weekend.
It was exhausting and it has to be faced that I wasn't the best father and husband as the stress took it's toll.
After living in our new house in Pennsylvania for a year, we corrected our mistake of not selling our old house first by finally off-loading it for far less than we'd planned. That was obviously not great news but things got worse in March when, with a wife and two very young children to support, I was let go from my job in California. A lot of other people around the world suffered the same fate that year. We were more fortunate than others.
As a small child, I remember driving with my parents to Evesham to visit my grandparents and seeing a hill completely covered with trees except a small clearing in the middle and down one side. I recall thinking that it would be an ideal place to build a perfect house, white and with a majestic view of the valley below.
I only realized relatively recently that childhood memory stayed with me and subconsciously resurfaced when we saw a Victorian gothic revival house for sale in Pennsylvania.
As 2008 began, our second child was born and our offer on the house was accepted. The high-school drop-out from the Cotswolds, survivor of Cheltenham's drug-fueled excesses of the 1980s and 90s, was happily married with two kids, working in Silicon Valley with more stock options than he new what to do with and, by April was living in his dream house, perched on a hill overlooking the Pennsylvania countryside.
The job in California still meant traveling out there once a month and the first monthly trip after we moved wasn't timed well. Leaving a wife with a baby and a two-year-old in a run-down house with no phone or running water did not go down well!
Like a lot of people of our age at that time, we thought we were financially indestructible. We'd bought the new house without selling our old one, thinking that would inevitably happen soon after. The global financial situation had other ideas.
Being a first-time parent with a 1-year-old is thrilling, frightening, fun and exhausting. With a life that revolved around eating, feeding, sleeping, doctor's visits, social interaction with other toddlers and their parents, much of 2007 is a blur. You'll notice an increased focus on kids TV in these episodes!
But I continued to record weekly podcast episodes and they seemed to be popular with a small but loyal following. Some of the artists I featured recorded special “station IDs” for me which always made my day. I featured several last time and there's one more here. See if you can spot it.
Becoming a first time dad at 40 was exhausting. I felt too old for it yet knew I had been too immature to have done it earlier. Our son was NOT a good sleeper. My recollection of that time was sitting up all night rocking him to sleep while listening to Shitmat and This Morning Jacket. Surprisingly the boy liked the Killa Babylon Kutz album and it would put him to sleep! People often asked how I had the time to record a new online radio episode each week but it was the perfect thing to do during those sleepless nights.
The year begins with George W Bush celebrating a second term as US president while the world mourns and prays for those effected by the massive Indian Ocean tsunami at the end of 2004.
On the personal front, by February, we were pregnant again and, after many nervous months, this time it stuck. Looking back, I don't remember a direct connection but find it hard to believe it's a coincidence that I wanted to do something musical and creative while we were expecting.
I continued gathering new and interesting music, mostly from MySpace and Last.FM (or Audio Scrobbler as it was known at the time). For some reason, just doing it for myself wasn't enough and my musical discoveries were something I wanted to share with the world. So in June, not fully understanding the difference between podcasts and online radio, I launched Brierly Hill 90210 as a weekly, 1-hour online radio show on Live365. Audiences could frequently be counted on the fingers of one elbow. But by the end of the year, a handful of people liked what I was doing and started to contribute suggestions. But I missed John Peel and regretting not listening to him over the last few years.
Does any day, week, month or year feel like the end of something as it's happening? It's only in hindsight that, usually as the result of a new beginning, you see the previous end for what it was. Even then, it's mostly like a gradual evolution, not a sudden end. But in looking back, 2004 is an ending. There's personal sadness that goes with it which, while devastating at the time, gains clarity later as the necessary metamorphosis into something new and glorious.
We were trying for a family and, as for many others, it wasn't as easy as one thinks it will be. There were some heartbreaking moments along the way. In retrospect, with two normal, healthy, annoying, teenage sons, the pain of 2004 seems worthwhile.
There was also the pain and sadness shared by others in the loss of a national hero and musical legend in October and the loss of so many lives in December.
The musical metamorphosis starts in 2004 with the shedding of musical skin, made more necessary by the shock in October. This really was a year when I didn't like the songs I liked; one song in particular. See if you can spot which one it is.
I switched from Windows to Mac in 2003 and bought by first iPod. It was still the early days of online music and Apple had “New Music Tuesday” when they would give away a newly released track and would list all of the albums that had been made available in iTunes that week. It was a small enough number that I could scan through each Tuesday to see what was new. Looking back, it was probably the start of my rediscovered love of new music. There's a large list of music from 2003 in my library!
In fact, there's too much for me to include in one episode, so creates a dilemma. Do I play the music I listened to at the time or music released in 2003 that I only discovered later? Do I include the music that I liked back then but not so much any more? That's a question that's come up for previous episodes but with the large selection available for 2003, there were some tough choices to make but I tried to mix up some things I've only recently discovered and kept in some originals I'm less keen on but that feel more representative of the time. I hope you like it. Welcome to 2003.
The year started with America still coming to terms with a new world after September 11th the year before. Everybody was getting used to new security restrictions, myself included as I continued working in California, traveling from New Jersey once a month. If I was lucky enough to get an upgrade, I'd have to eat my deluxe airline meal with a plastic knife and fork! Oh the humanity...
I started my new job in January and began a new routine; 1 week in the office in California and the rest of each month working from home in New Jersey. That suited me, greatly reducing the amount of time spent in airports and on airplanes. There was still a 12-hour round-trip once a month and it's hard to imagine now that was pre portable MP3 players and smart phones so I read a lot. The 3-hour time difference usually meant that, by the time I got home on a Friday night, I couldn't sleep so took to catching new music on late-night MTV. Music on MTV was still a thing back then.
This new year heralded not just a new millennium but many new things on the personal front as well. We had been married 6 months and I broke out on my own to become a self-employed software developer and consultant. My first gig was in the US mid-west where Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota all meet. Not only is that part of the world incredibly cold in January, I was working in a meat processing plant and slaughter house so it smelled awful too. The people I worked with were terrible and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. Luckily, it only lasted a few months before I was able to escape back to work with old friends in Columbus, Ohio (so could take in more Columbus Crew games in Major League Soccer) and Silicon Valley in California. Semi-conductor technology does not smell as bad as cows and death.
In the second episode where music and the outside world were things that happened to other people, I got married in October of 1999. So a big chunk of the year was spent gearing up for that. The official ceremony was at my wife's church in New Jersey but we then travelled, with a large American contingent, to the UK to do it all over again in the Cotswolds. We then honeymooned in the Lake District and Scotland. An indicator of how small the country now felt, we bumped into my wife's family 100s of miles away from where we left them... twice!
But I hear you asking, “What if I don't know any of the songs in this episode?”. And... er... and...
This is the start of a period when I took my eye off the ball that is music and it smacked me square in the face... or it went sailing over my head or hit me in the groin, depending on how you look at it. Things were “getting serious” with my girlfriend, we got engaged and built a house together. Maybe that whole “getting a life” thing is what shifted my focus from keeping up with music that was new and exciting. It would really be another 7 years before I got that love back again.
But have no fear... the nice friends of this podcast (and a little Googling) have filled in some of the gaps (maybe between teeth from being hit in the face by my previously mentioned music ball... or maybe I'm taking that metaphor too far).
I'm getting off topic here... 1998...
Two personal highlights in 1997... I saw the Lollapalooza tour three times in Dallas, Columbus and Philadelphia. It's on record as not being one of the best but I loved it, getting to see The Prodigy, Orbital, James, Eels and Summercamp.
It was also the year I first dated the girl who would become my wife. For some reason, she doesn't appreciate that I associate the occasion with the first episode of South Park; a group of us were watching and giggling childishly downstairs while she was getting ready for us all to go out.
Something else of significance that I'm only just realizing as I put this episode together... it was the first year America felt more like home. Some of that is down to the personal experiences I just mentioned. But, while my taste in music is still relatively anglicized, what I'm following on TV and in the news is definitely more American.
I had just started a 3-year secondment to my company's office in the United States. My first assignment, continuing from the previous year, was just north of Los Angeles in California. The Brierly Hill 90210 name was born there... an amalgam of old and new... the move from the West Midlands to the West Coast. Episodes of US TV shows were recorded in the office complex we were in, including Melrose Place and Power Rangers. Visions of Lenny Henry in these shows morphed drunkenly into Brierly Hill 90210 and a brand was born!
Throughout the year, I got to see more of the country, spending time in Columbus Ohio, Phoenix Arizona, Chicago and Oklahoma City. Events of the previous year and put that onto the global map.
I had rented an apartment in southern New Jersey, just outside Philadelphia and the year started with me running into a bit of weather on the flight back from the UK...
It was an eventful year with a lot of traveling which is mirrored in an extended and varied soundtrack. There's a lot of music packed into this episode. You'll hear a beginning in the UK followed by a 3-month sojourn to Chicago. It was a great place to discover the real America and I spent a lot of time listening to Q101 while driving around the Chicagoland suburbs.
My 3-month work permit meant I had to return to the UK for the summer. That meant more music and the final recording of Hostile Implant. That was sad to say goodbye to as a more permanent move kicked-off in the fall.
My new office was in New Jersey on the east coast but my first assignment was on the west coast just north of LA in California. Starting to get some idea of scale, the east coast of the US is closer to the UK than it is to the west coast!
But the year starts in cold and wet Dudley in the West Midlands...
Early in 1994 I took a new job as a computer programmer for a company based out of Dudley in the West Midlands. At the age of 28, one would expect some maturity but, with incredible naivety, I went up to Dudley the weekend before my start date without anywhere to live. I spent a night or two sleeping in pubs and then ran into a guy selling watches from inside his coat who knew another guy who could sub-let a room in his council flat. That at least gave me a base to impress my new employers from and surprisingly it worked. I did well and by the end of the year had upgraded to a flat of my own. Dudley had some good, old-fashioned pubs, great takeaways and a decent second-hand record shop where I spent most lunch-times. There was also JB's,a music venue where I got to see the likes of Chumbwumba, Shed Seven, Supergrass, Dr and the Medics and Bad Manners. I would take the train back to Cheltenham most weekends to watch my beloved Cheltenham Town and would buy records in the center of Birmingham on the way. As you can tell, it was the start of a jet-set lifestyle.
I moved house at the beginning of 1993. It would turn out to be my last move within Cheltenham and I would only be there one more year. I was now living in the center of town in a one-bedroom flat and, having only previously house-shared, it was the first time living on my own. It was awesome! The Swan was just up the road and was my new local and my favorite record store, Badlands, which had moved from the indoor market to a larger, more permanent home, was also in easy walking distance. That may explain why I discovered so much good music in 1993 and why I'm going to cram so much music into this episode. But there are also a lot of “ear worms” from The Swan's video juke-box. It had a limited selection and the same few songs were on a constant cycle.
Because the music for each episode is based on when it was released, not when I first heard it, there are tunes starting to sneak in that I only discovered later when I moved to America. The idea that that was where my path was heading would have blown my little mind as 1993 began, sat at the bar in The Swan in Cheltenham Spa (ra-ra-ra).
In some ways, 1992 feels like the start of something. Looking at what's lined up in this episode, there are a lot of new beginnings. John Major has replaced Margaret Thatcher as leader of the Conservative Party and a general election looks imminent with Labour leading in the opinion polls. In America, under a different system of course, the exact date of the next election is known with George Bush in the final year of his first term. Will he continue or do the Democrats have somebody new waiting in the wings?
Throughout eastern Europe and beyond, new countries are coming into existence or old ones are being reborn. Unfortunately, there is “history” between old clans and the old animosity has an opportunity to resurface.
In South Africa, apartheid nears it's end while, back home in England, the national sport is about to get it's own new beginning. Welcome to 1992.
1990 saw several stories left with cliff-hanger endings. Iraq has invaded Kuwait with the United Nations establishing international embargoes and resolutions that clear the way for a military intervention. Nelson Mandela has been freed in South Africa but the system of apartheid is still in place. While the Berlin Wall fell and Germany re-united, many other nations from the old Eastern Bloc continue the struggle of replacing fascist leadership with new, democratically elected governments. Several states prepare for independence from the Soviet Union. The UK response to all of these important international events will be provided by a new leader, John Major having replaced Margaret Thatcher as prime minister. And so the story continues...
For those that missed the beginning, this series started in 1977 and the last episode saw the end of a decade with 1989. In 13 years, music went from The Ramones and The Sex Pistols to James and The Happy Mondays, from Kraftwerk to 808 State. Bands have come and gone; The Clash, The Farmers Boys, The Smiths. While others remain; Cabaret Voltaire, The Cure, New Order.
And so into the 90s. I'm still living in Cheltenham (in the Hatherly area), still at the same job I had upon leaving school 7 years earlier. I'm probably partying too hard, but was in my early 20s so it would have been rude not to.
The Iron Curtain is, if not completely dragged wide open, certainly open half-way with disobedient children unashamedly peaking through. At home, like the Iron Curtain, the Iron Lady sees challenges that appear to signal the beginning of the end. A build-up of violence at football matches saw an increased caging-in of fans which results in the tragedy at Hillsborough. Apartheid remains but, in South Africa, just as elsewhere in the world, you can feel change coming...
In the last episode, I made the correlation between the lack of good music and an increased number of Australian actors in the charts in the late 80s. Don't get me wrong... I have nothing against Australians and there's some excellent music in this 1989 episode. But there's a musical shift afoot; for one example, think of the lack of electronic music in the '70s episodes (apart from Kraftwerk) to now where it's pervasively in the hands of the mainstream.
Personally, there'd been some change by the time 1989 came around. I'd moved to a different part of Cheltenham; another shared house but a different local pub. A slight aside to a disturbing trend; The Bass House is one of many personal historical landmarks destroyed by fire!
If you listened to earlier episodes, as the '80s draw to a close, there's been increasing violence whether that be Irish terrorism, football hooliganism or race riots. Thankfully the later is something we don't see these days. That would be your “irony” there. But as we sit on the precipice of the 1990s, are you detecting an increased optimism? It was hard to think that way at the time. Was that the optimism that comes naturally to a 22 year-old me? Or is it part of the natural flux and adjustment of the world? 2020 seems like dark times upon us once again. But throughout this series, I've continually been drawn to parallels with the present. So maybe a new optimism is just around the corner.
Personally, there'd been some change by the time 1989 came around. I'd moved to a different part of Cheltenham; another shared house but a different local pub. A slight aside to a disturbing trend; The Bass House is one of many memories destroyed by fire!
Through this series as the '80s draw to a close, there's been increasing violence whether that be Irish terrorism, football hooliganism or race riots. Thankfully the later is something we don't see these days. That would be your “irony” there. But as we sit on the precipice of the 1990s, are you detecting an increased optimism? It was hard to think that way at the time. Was that the optimism what comes naturally to a 22 year-old me? Or is it part of the natural flux and adjustment of the world? I'm recording this in 2020 and it seems like dark times. But throughout this podcast series, I've continually been drawn to parallels with the present. So maybe a new optimism is just around the corner.
For the previous episodes in this series, I've only used music from my existing record collection (or whatever the digital equivalent is called these days). For this episode, that bucket came up from the well a little short and I had to go hunting for some. I don't know if that's because the quality of music dipped in 1988. There was certainly a marked increase in manufactured pop in the charts, including many former Australian soap stars.
But I also suspect a personal shift in focus; spending more time involved in drugs and alcohol than in music. Amphetamine sulphate (or speed) was my drug of choice and I saw it as bringing me out of my shell, making more of what I wanted to be. In hindsight, it probably made more of what I wasn't. It's the start of a period of my life that I'm not particularly proud of but it certainly had a formative impact on me and where I ended up. So I refuse to be ashamed either.
In 1987, I moved from my parents in the sleepy Cotswold Hills into a rented three-bedroom house in the sprawling metropolis of Cheltenham Spa. I wasn't earning much money but I found enough for beer, records, cigarettes, gigs, sausage & chips and watching the non-league football of Cheltenham Town. We even scraped enough loose change together for the band to record a couple of sessions in the studio. A personal highlight was meeting this gentleman at the bar at one of his gigs...
I was 19 as 1986 began. Technically an adult, drinking in pubs and even had my own car; a 1968 Mini Clubman estate, blue with fake wood side panels. I still lived with my parents even though my YTS placement had turned into a full-time job, albeit a very low paying one. I worked alternate weeks on a night-shift until 11pm but that was OK, I listened to Janice Long and John Peel while I worked, writing down what caught my ear to buy at the weekend. When not working, evenings were spent rehearsing with the band, down one of the local village pubs and, at weekends, Chedworth discos! The idyllic life of a teenage Gloucestershire country bumkin!
Stephen King said that, if you want to be writer you must do two things; read a lot and write a lot. The same is true with music. Any budding musician must listen to a lot of music. I'd been playing in a band for a few years but we weren't very good. Zero-talent Madness wannabes if truth be told. But, in 1985, from listening to so much new, good music, something clicked. Stripped down to just the two of us and a drum-machine, we found our own sound that we liked. Nobody else seemed to care for it much, but we really didn't care.
I had left school in the summer of 1983, a year early and to the disappointment of many, not going onto university. Instead, I became a “Computer Room Operator” for a replacement door and window manufacturer in Cheltenham, earning the princely sum of 25-pounds a week on the Youth Training Scheme. I was still living with my parents (apart from a brief period of roughing it in an old farm-house) and 25-pounds seemed like a fortune. I was absorbing new music like a sponge and could have spent nearly all of my income on records and beer each week. And I did.
At the start of 1983, I was 16. Still too young-looking to get served in pubs and, to be honest, I wasn't that interested in it anyway. I'd stayed on at school with the intention of completing some A-levels and heading off to college. But by Jan '83, that was a plan that was already looking a little iffy. I was starting to drift and loose focus... except on what was in the NME and what John Peel would be playing that week.
When someone asked John Peel what the best year for music was, he said “this one”. I've been recording a podcast focused on new music for 15 years so I understand and agree with that sentiment. But, if pushed, I would choose 1982 and, it's interesting... I would be wrong! 1982 was a significant year for me musically because it was when I started listening to the John Peel radio show and broadened my musical horizons. I'd been listening to late night radio for a while, with head and radio under the covers so that my parents couldn't hear. I'd tried Peel's Radio 1 show but found it too frightening. I preferred the satirical humor and radio theatre of Radio 2 and Radio 4. But in 1982 I realized what a terrible mistake I'd made and the likes of the Farmers Boys, The Higsons and the Cocteau Twins were to be cherished, not to be frightened of. But in compiling this episode, I realize, sure... that's when it started. But it was the discovery of the Festive Fifty at Christmas time (when Peel's listeners voted for their favorite tracks of the year) that really captured my imagination. That set-up 1983 for a glorious year of musical discovery. But it all starts here, in that transition year of 1982.
In some ways, 1981 was the last year of my childhood. I started 5th form so it was the last year of school for some of my friends. They would be going out to the real world while, though I didn't know it at the time, I had only one more year of school to go. 1981 was also the last year when my world of music was centered almost exclusively on what was in the charts. A group of us started keeping a tally of the records we played at home and totaled them into our own chart each week. Madness was number one most weeks as I recall. Happy days...
As a teenager in the Gloucestershire countryside, financial opportunities were few and far between. The only way to indulge my fledgling love of music was to buy a handful of 7” singles a year with saved up birthday and Christmas money. The cheaper alternative was to record songs to cassette tape from the radio. The Sunday night chart show was essential listening, with finger poised over the record button should something good come on, hoping the DJ wouldn't talk over it. That would have been Tony Blackburn in 1980. Or, if you were lucky enough to have a whole tape spare, you'd record the entire show and pour over it afterwards. Music was a valued distraction from “the troubles” and “Thatchers Britain” that seemed to take up most of the time on grown-up TV. Meanwhile I tried to find something to fill that last 3-minutes of side 1 on my latest C-60.
I became a teenager in 1979 and my passage to manhood was marked by switching my weekly comic subscription from Beano to The Crunch while still deciding if the world was better served by Match or Shoot magazines. Almost passing unnoticed to the young Miller, punk rock moved aside to make way for post-punk and new wave. Nobody knew what that meant then and nobody knows now. As happens most Januaries, the year started in winter. But 1979 started with a winter of discontent.
In 1978, James Callaghan was Prime Minister of Great Britain while leader of the opposition, Margaret Thatcher, hovered in the wings. The brutal Khmer Rouge regime led Cambodia under leader Pol Pot. But in the sheltered world of the Gloucestershire countryside, I was 11 and, at the turn of the year, had been at “the big school” for 6 months. I was becoming aware of the importance of music and that it gave me an identity that was more than just “child of my parents”. Unfortunately, as I would only learn later in life, my choices in music did not mark me out as “one of the cool kids”. See if you can spot which music I liked at the time and what I learnt to love later in life. Musically, the year started with an ending...
In many ways 1977 is the real start of this story, both personally and globally. Anything that came before was, in hindsight, back-story, context and childhood.
1976 saw political change around the world (a new US president and a new UK prime minister) and it ended with London families witnessing The Sex Pistols confronting the establishment while they settling down for tea in-front of early-evening regional television.
Less significant and being noticed by a far smaller audience, I turned 11 in 1977 and, in September, left Northleach CofE Primary School to start Westwoods Grammar School. I made friends there that I discovered and created music with for many years to come.
But that's the future. Welcome to the now of 1977.