What magazine/newspapers did you used to read & chat about.

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What magazines/newspapers did you used to read? Reading Andy Knights recent post about The Melody Maker, reminded me of the magazines of the day. Always read Record Mirror, Sounds and remember my sister reading Jackie.

Leigh Wieland-Boys… ‘Jackie’, ‘Disco 45’ & NME

Andy Qunta… As many as we could find! NME, Sounds, Record Mirror, Beat Instrumental was a good one, & many more! Melody Maker was the one we had delivered to the house every week. It sometimes arrived a few minutes late, as we eventually found out our paper boy used to stop and read it before he delivered it! Said paper boy being future bassist-extraordinaire Roger Carey!

Jim Breeds…  I usually subscribed to one per week that the newsagent delivered but often switched allegiance. Mostly NME (still do sometimes) but I tried them all at one time or another. Also we used to lend them to each other at school so that we could read them all.

Pete Fairless… NME for me!

John Storer… It was Roger Carey who told me about the New Musical Express around 1969 or 1970 when I was 13 or 14. After buying my first copy, persuaded my Mum to order it from the newsagent for delivery instead of my usual Lion & Champion comic. Would literally read it from cover to cover. For years and years, I looked forward to the paper boy delivering it. Would photocopy the crossword and me and Mick Watson would spend Thursday afternoons at work racing to see who could complete it the fastest In 1984, when I was doing my law finals in Manchester, one of my fellow students, Rob Mortimer, asked me if he could have my copy when I’d finished with it, as he had no grant and couldn’t afford to buy one. I agreed. Several years later, I would see him again … he’d changed his first name from Rob to Bob and had teamed up with a bloke calling himself Vic Reeves. Not long after, I gave up the NME for Blues & Soul but went back to it in the early 90s and the start of the Madchester / BritPop scene … never lived up to its former glories, though … those halcyon days when Danny Baker, Ian Penman, Paul Morley, Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons were the lead journalists. Finally stopped reading it about 15 years ago. Also bought Sounds form about 1971 and had that every week until it started going ultra-right wing around the time of Oi and Gary Bushell. Does anyone else remember Streetlife? … a really hefty mag, issued fortnightly, and which aimed to become the UK’s answer to Rolling Stone. Had every copy from start to its end about a year later. Responsible, along with John Peel, for introducing me to dub. Finally, a big thank you to my neighbour up on Montgomery Road, Jean Christmas. In the late 60s, every six months she would hand me a big pile of Jackie magazines. Would stay up reading them into the small hours … those glamorous picture stories, the Cathy & Claire problem page … where has that innocence gone these days? LOL

Mick O’Dowd… Used to have NME in the 60’s then Record Mirror and sometimes Melody Maker in 70’s. Also a monthly mag called Blues & Soul.

Alan Wood…. Sounds

Patrick Lewis… Used to read NME, Melody Maker, Disc and Music Echo but the most interesting in the late 60’s was Record Mirror which always seem to avoid the celebrity crap and concentrate on the music.

Diane Knight… Don’t want to sound uncool ,but ….June and school friends!!!

Fern Oshoko… Fab208 Jackie and Disco 45

Terry Pack… NME, Melody Maker and Sounds until I was 18. Nothing after that unless I was in it, which meant no more NME, occasional MM and frequent Sounds.

Yvonne Cleland… Jackie, NME and Disco 45.

Jane Hartley… NME, Jackie & Disco 45 too!

Lucy Pappas… NME and Jackie. Loved all the Jackie posters x

Peter Thomson…  NME. Used to complete the crossword most weeks.

Yvonne Cleland… It used to have about three in every issue, didn’t it, Lucy! And lots of info about boys hahahaha. In the early 70s, I pinned so many pics and posters of Marc Bolan and T. Rex over my bedroom wall that you could no longer see even a millimetre of the original wallpaper. The Cathy and Claire problem page! Oh yes. The first page I turned to!

Tony Ham… Record Mirror, Sounds, N.M.E, and Smash Hits for those all important lyrics!

Ralph Town… I found a mountain of old Melody Maker,NME,Record Mirror and Disc papers in a skip in Calvert Rd around 1975.I read them all and pinned all the promo posters for singles and albums all over my bedroom wall. Same here Yvonne In fact it must have been later than 75 coz there were ads for London Boys and Laser love.I think I had one for Soul of my suit too.  I,d love to know who put those papers in the skip in Calvert Rd tho

Will Cornell… Over here, the OLD Rolling Stone, when it was still in newsprint and folded over….and Circus. I’m sorry to say I missed out on Trouser Press but the subsequent books they put out are greatness. There was a mag called “Musician” in the 80s, dunno if it’s related to the present one by same name, but the old “Musician” had the single best record review ever: When arena rock bands had thoroughly worn out their welcome (they’ve since somewhat become redeemed so I’m not going to opine here!) several members of Yes and Genesis came out with a “supergroup” called GTR. The review of their album simply read “SHT”.

Eric Cawthraw… For me – it was NME and Sounds in the 70s. My old mate Simon Pont still gets Music Mags, whereas I tend to check things on line. We meet up and compare notes. As for newspapers – still with my parents in those days, they had the Daily Mirror then the Daily Mail. The only good thing in them was ‘The Perishers’ and ‘Fred Basset’.[Is that one T or 2?!].

Terry Pack… A bit if info re GTR: Steve Howe and Steve Hackett thought that they could do a quartet without keys, using guitars and guitar synths. They enlisted Jonathan Mover on drums and tried out Phil Spalding and me on bass. I did a couple of days rehearsal and decided that it wasn’t for me: JM couldn’t keep time, and the atmosphere between the two guitarists was already fraught. They booked The Townhouse Studio and spent several weeks (?!) recording rhythm tracks. After a week of trying to do all the synth parts on guitar synths, it became clear that they didn’t track well enough, and Geoff Downes got called in to play keys. The first thing he noticed was the poor time keeping, and the second was that the bass and guitars were not in tune (not at A442). ALL the tracks were redone. Several months later, they had an album, but a very unhappy band with a great bassplayer lumbered with a rotten drummer, a keyboardist, two guitarists who wanted to be the bandleader and no singer! I never heard the album (nor did anyone else!), but heard some of the stories when I recorded with Hackett a year later. All that money, wasted. I gather that Steve is at it again, this time with Chris Squire; a project called Squackett! You can imagine what the review might be for that!

Alan Wood… Found GTR on you tube as I missed that group first time around

Andy Qunta… Thanks for your inside insights, Terry Pack! They had a hit here in the US in ’86 called When the Heart Rules the Mind. I think I liked it at the time, but don’t remember it now!

Chris Meachen… It was the muddly maker for me, with Sounds as an occasional extra;- also ‘it’ before they were busted.. Always used to seize hold of the girl’s ‘Jackie’ mags;- the Cathy & Claire pages were hilarious….

Stuart Huggett… Came in mid/late 80s as an irregular Smash Hits (my sister’s) & Record Mirror reader; then NME & Melody Maker (rarely Sounds) from start of the 90s. Never missed an issue since ’95 & they’re still piled up in the other room!

Pete Prescott… Melody Maker each week. Sometimes sounds.

Ian Mantel… Had the very first edition of Kerrang! Now sadly gone. Found the rock family trees they published fascinating

Paul Crimin… Always the Melody Maker, sometimes NME

Alan Pepper… In the seventies I enjoyed many different genres of music mags NME mainly . But being a soul buff I picked up from the newsagents regular copies of Blues and Soul in the early 70’s and Black Echoes in the latter years. Much to his horror our mum got rid of my eldest brothers collection of early 60’s NME ! Later on Q in the Eighties and Nineties were a regular buy . Got a bit expensive so stopped in the height of REM (one of my favourites) I think.

 

3 thoughts on “What magazine/newspapers did you used to read & chat about.”

  1. It was Roger Carey who told me about the New Musical Express around 1969 or 1970 when I was 13 or 14. After buying my first copy, persuaded my Mum to order it from the newsagent for delivery instead of my usual Lion & Champion comic. Would literally read it from cover to cover.

    For years and years, I looked forward to the paper boy delivering it. Would photocopy the crossword and me and Mick Watson would spend Thursday afternoons at work racing to see who could complete it the fastest

    In 1984, when I was doing my law finals in Manchester, one of my fellow students, Rob Mortimer, asked me if he could have my copy when I’d finished with it, as he had no grant and couldn’t afford to buy one. I agreed. Several years later, I would see him again … he’d changed his first name from Rob to Bob and had teamed up with a bloke calling himself Vic Reeves

    Not long after, I gave up the NME for Blues & Soul but went back to it in the early 90s and the start of the Madchester / BritPop scene … never lived up to its former glories, though … those halcyon days when Danny Baker, Ian Penman, Paul Morley, Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons were the lead journalists. Finally stopped reading it about 15 years ago

    Also bought Sounds form about 1971 and had that every week until it started going ultra-right wing around the time of Oi and Gary Bushell

    Does anyone else remember Streetlife? … a really hefty mag, issued fortnightly, and which aimed to become the UK’s answer to Rolling Stone. Had every copy from start to its end about a year later. Responsible, along with John Peel, for introducing me to dub

    Finally, a big thank you to my neighbour up on Montgomery Road, Jean Christmas. In the late 60s, every six months she would hand me a big pile of Jackie magazines. Would stay up reading them into the small hours … those glamorous picture stories, the Cathy & Claire problem page … where has that innocence gone these days? LOL

    Reply
  2. Used to have NME in the 60’s then Record Mirror and sometimes Melody Maker in 70’s. Also a monthly mag called Blues & Soul.

    Reply
  3. In the seventies I enjoyed many different genres of music mags NME mainly . But being a soul buff I picked up from the newsagents regular copies of
    Blues and Soul in the early 70’s and Black Echoes in the latter years. Much to his horror our mum got rid of my eldest brothers collection of early 60’s NME !
    Later on Q in the Eighties and Nineties were a regular buy . Got a bit expensive so stopped in the height of REM (one of my favourites) I think.

    Reply

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