Discovering the Joys of Binge-Buying and Binge-Listening
Shortly after buying my armful of Who LPs in April and then beginning my second season with Westminster, I began acquiring albums with a bit less restraint knowing I would have a job and money until October. I was not binge-buying, exactly (because the manner in which I was copiously buying albums was itself one long, sustained binge), but regularly collecting LPs by groups and artists from the present and past. Still, I bought a number of Beatles albums in May and September while purchasing more Who LPs in June and picking up Heart records here and there throughout the year.
In 1981, however, my heightened collecting was marked by occasional bursts of binge-buying: In January, I purchased the first three Foreigner albums; in early June, the first three Police albums; in late June, all four Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers LPs; and during the summer months, a slew of Beatles records, along with solo works by John Lennon and George Harrison. I continued to steadily buy LPs until year’s end, methodically building my rock music library while slowly gathering records by Jeff Beck, The Babys, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, and others. By this time I was also able to binge-listen, having finally acquired, in early ’81, a quality stereo (with $600 borrowed from my paternal grandmother). My new Pioneer amplifier/receiver, Akai cassette deck, and Realistic bookshelf speakers were complemented by a Technics turntable — one that had tracking and anti-skating controls and would allow precise adjustment of stylus position and tone arm balance (to protect my expensive and precious new vinyl from ruin). Now I could finally listen to records as I bought them, record them to cassette tapes, and enjoy my music in the car as well as indoors.
Though I listened repeatedly to the entire Foreigner and Tom Petty catalogs, my first binge-listening encounters after my exalted experience with The Who (and with Peter Frampton, chronicled elsewhere) were with Jeff Beck and then The Babys. I began listening to Beck’s There & Back and Wired soon after beginning my job at the Lake Arbor Golf Course, on my early-morning drives to the course every other Saturday and Sunday during the summer to put up the flags before the first tee time. Paying attention for the first time to what a guitarist was actually doing, I admired Beck’s playing and was soon infatuated with “Too Much to Lose,” “El Becko,” “Led Boots,” and the phenomenal “Blue Wind.” How can a human play like this? I remember wondering. I soon followed these records with Beck’s live album with the Jan Hammer Group, enticed by “Freeway Jam” (and its Frampton-esque talkbox passages). I listened to nothing else for weeks, impressed further with friend Robert, who knew these albums intimately years previously, and surprised at how hard instrumental music could rock and how I was drawn to it. (Not until 1985, when I purchased Spyro Gyra’s Alternating Currents, would I fully embrace instrumental rock and discover a love for jazz.)
While still flirting with the sublime sounds of Jeff Beck, I began binging on The Babys. Having purchased the band’s Broken Heart for “Isn’t It Time” and Head First for the title track and “Every Time I Think of You,” I soon fell head over heels for both LPs, marveling at the quality of songwriting and musicianship, especially on “Give Me Your Love,” “Broken Heart,” “I Was One” and the affecting “You (Got It).” Studying the album covers’ photos, I wondered how these 20-somethings learned to play so well at such young ages. And how they learned to sing, compose songs, and write such sophisticated — even profound — lyrics. They were just kids, not much older than I. I was impressed beyond measure and in awe at the talent of John Waite, Wally Stocker, and Tony Brock. Their musical accomplishments made me feel grossly inferior by comparison. Nonetheless, I let the music of The Babys thrill me over and over during the last weeks of 1981. Craving more, I picked up the three remaining albums in The Babys catalog: the band’s self-titled debut, Union Jacks, and On the Edge. These records — the two latter LPs with bassist Ricky Phillips and keyboardist Jonathan Cain, who was now, in 1981, an integral member of Journey — contained several excellent songs, “Midnight Rendezvous” among them, but failed to satisfy. I returned, then, to Broken Heart and Head First, binge-listening again and again through the years, the incomparable Broken Heart becoming one of thirteen albums I count as the most influential of my musical life. [1]
Above piece excerpted from the forthcoming It’s Only Music: A Musical and Historical Memoir.
[1] The List of Thirteen. In no particular order, my thirteen favorite, most-influential albums of all-time: Led Zeppelin’s II and Physical Graffiti, the Beatles’ White Album, the Who’s Who’s Next, and Badfinger’s No Dice. Starting Over by the Raspberries, Somewhere I’ve Never Traveled by Ambrosia, Broken Heart by the Babys, and Middle Man by Boz Scaggs. Peter Frampton’s Breaking All the Rules, Aldo Nova’s debut, Great White’s Hooked, and FireHouse’s Hold Your Fire. Honorable mention: Little Robbers by the Motels and Reading, Writing & Arithmetic by the Sundays.
