Story by Bernie
I'm going to go
with one of the tracks on that list of "12 songs that made me who I
am". Back in the days when I was more social, I left behind lots of little
snapshots of my life: party tapes.
I know mix tapes are pretty commonly known these days, but pre-internet
I didn't know that I was doing the same thing as countless other people round
the world were doing. I was young,
I had just discovered a whole world of strange (and sometimes not so strange,
but just non-mainstream) music and I wanted my friends to hear it all too.
It's all a bit
obnoxious, really, in retrospect, but I really enjoyed sharing my discoveries
with my friends. And, to be
honest, I think I also enjoyed weirding them out a little bit. How strange that after all those years
in high school desperately trying to "fit in", at uni I now felt the
need to "stand out".
Anyway, it
became a bit of a tradition for me to turn up to parties hosted by my uni
friends armed with a party tape. I
think as the years went on they started to resent those tapes more and more,
but it was fun at first. The first
tape I did was for "The Red Party" at Baptist St, Surry Hills in
1984. And the opening track on that tape was a pause-button edit mix of
"Dead Eyes Opened" by Severed Heads. Pause-button edits was another one of those things that I've
since discovered that other people did.
I guess my music nerd-dom started fairly early. So this pause-button edit mix started
with the original 12" version of "Dead Eyes Opened" (not one of
the many later versions) played at 33rpm instead of 45 until just before the
voice kicks in, then Pause! Slip
in the robotic "1-2-3-4" that opens New Order's "Hurt"
(import 12" version, of course, with the gorgeous Peter Saville cover)
then pause and add in the full 12" version of "Dead Eyes
Opened". Not a complex mix,
but a bit of tomfoolery for the party.
As for the Red
Party itself, well I'm not big on themed parties but red was the theme and
Fiona and I decided to do our hair red.
It must have been one of our first parties together. Of course, I was too much of a coward
to do it properly (my transition from medium-length northern beaches scene hair
to something approximating a gelled-up 80s style not having gone down very well
at home) so we got a can of this red hair spray stuff that would wash out. Of course, we discovered by the end of
the evening that it also just dropped out, and rubbed off on our collars, car
seats...
Artwork by Karin
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