Released in October '78, this was the very first record I ever bought. It felt exciting, buying and listening to my own vinyl, after only having access to my parent's stuff. And what a start to my collection. The first copies were pressed in pretty purple vinyl too and I was one of the lucky recipients.
We liked coloured vinyl, my big brother and me. Only a year older than me, he started buying records at roughly the same time. He quickly became an avid collector. I remember Generation X released a single in four different colours and he bought all four.
And he was fastidious - or disease level as I call it. Each of the sleeves were packed away and he stored the singles, in alphabetical order of course, labelled and in cardboard sleeves. He was a draughtsman to trade so I guess he was as careful, neat and tidy in his professional life too.
We shared a room, with his record player between our beds. We would spend hours playing our daft version of "name that tune". With eyes closed (incase the colour of the vinyl gave it away) we'd have to name the song and the artist from the first few bars - you know how it works. This was one of our favourite things to do. Mostly, we'd love the record so much, we'd inevitably end up playing the whole song instead of just the intro. No wonder hours and hours would pass with us doing nothing other than listening, singing and talking about music.
Funnily enough, I'm still an absolute shark at name that tune games. I wonder why......
I've never seen ELO live but I've just found out they're touring next year. It would be rude not to, don't you think.
