Where it all began.....Vol. 1

It's fitting that, as I start this entry, Oasis's Wonderall is the song that Steve Lamacq starts his August 20, 2010 show with.

You would think, with everything that has been going on in my life lately, that I would not have time to reflect on how I became an Anglophile but you'd be wrong. Let me start by stating that I'm not an Anglophile in the traditional sense of the word. I don't pretend, as some would contest, that the English do everything better than we Yanks. I mean, we've already proven that Arthur's Fish'n'Chips was not as good an idea as McDonald's.

I've been trying to pinpoint the exact time in space that I became an Anglophile but I think that it is more a series of events than one specific moment. To start with, my parents had a decent collection of vinyl that I listened to growing up: Motown, Beatles, and singer-song writer stuff. My parents didn't actually encourage this hobby but they accepted that it was better than the alternatives. I must make this perfectly clear, the first record that I bought of my own accord, contributing to my disease, was "A Hard Days Night" by the Beatles. Yes, I know that this is fairly generic but at this time most kids my age were listening to Kid n Play or something equally as foul.

Wait, hold on a minute, I remember the band that totally blew my mind and that is responsible for my affliction. I had a friend named Adam and we were in his parents Chrysler minivan one Sunday after Youth Group, yeah Christian kids are the worst. So, he pops in this tape by a band called Pink Floyd and plays a song called "Bike". I had never heard anything like it and I didn't like it at first. "I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like, It's got a basket, a bell that rings and things that make it look good". But how can you deny the genius of, "I know a mouse
And he hasn't got a house
I don't know why
I call him Gerald
He's getting rather old
But he's a good mouse"
I mean, you don't hear that kind of stream of consciousness on American Idol. It altered the way I thought about music and life.

Then I heard Lola by The Kinks!