my dad has an awesome sound system.

giant floor standing b&o speakers, and a really good amp.

before that it was large teak-boxed castle warwick ones, and before that something else that he’d salivated over in a hi-fi magazine for a few months before bringing home bound in bubblewrap and spending hours wiring, repositioning and ‘checking the levels’.
the thing is he’ll only play mark knophler or phil collins through them.
actually, that’s not true. he’s got an auspicious classical collection and sure, that all sounds brilliant through hundreds of pounds of hardware. but i grew up with very little pop music playing. we were a staunch radio four family and long car journeys were filled with news and documentaries from bush house, a bit of elgar, vivaldi or san saens, some story tapes and maybe some flanders & swann for singing along to.

very occasionally there’d be something my parent’s friends had taped from vinyl for us, or a throw back to before my ma and pa were married. simon and garfunkel, elton john, supertramp, 10cc, steeleye span or the inter galactic touring band (yeah… exactly. who?).

unsurprisingly i was a book nerd growing up - something the complete absence of knowledge of duran duran, wham or the human league only conspired to compound in me, so while my friends were talking about singles and taping the top forty i sunk deeper into the hobbit and pg wodehouse novels.
which is all context for my hand me downs.

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Spring has sprung and just to show all y’all that we too can move with the times, we have an exciting new feature. Discussed over Moretti beers and Bison Grass Mojitos at the remodelled BFI in our most recent catch-up this section is a play on Saturday Live’s Inheritance Tracks. The general theme is what tracks do you feel have been passed down to you from another, older, scene or generation – and what track would you want to pass on to the next generation from your own times. Musical Time Capsules if you’re twee.

We’re not. We call it Hand-Me-Downs.

A cursory glance at Saturday Live’s guest selections throws up all kinds of dancefloor bombs, such as Tina Turner’s ‘The Best’, Monty Python’s ‘Bright Side Of Life’ and Elton John’s paean to early 90s NYC Vogue & Drag Balls “I’m Still Standing”…which is a shame because I was planning to choose some of those.

Nevermind.

All the more reason to kick off the first post with a guest selection.

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