Hotrod librarian's post today got me thinking about my first LPs.After nagging from November 1973 through to March 1974, eventually Bev gave in and bought me the first LP I obsessed over for my 11th birthday - Suzi Q's Can the Can. I loved Suzi Q with a non lesbian passion and collected every snippet of information about her. On one of her visits to Australia, I even woke up a 5 am to listen and tape her on a breakfast radio show, at that age I didn't even know 5 am existed! (I believe it only exists now if I have a plane to catch, it's some sort of airport time warp continuum thingy)
I spent hours studying the cover - sketching every detail in my mind until I could see it even when my eyes were shut. Suzi looking tough and sexy with rough looking blokes backing her up - confident, secure and protected. No-one would wanna mess with her. In hindsight, I believe this image may have influenced my (subconscious) decision to join gangs, the tuff chick with a gang behind her.
The next album I coveted was Struttin' by TMG - Ted Mulry Gang. Ted sucked me in with the song 'Jump in my car'. When I was 13, I started babysitting once a fortnight for a neighbor for $4 an evening, as the album was $6, I had to work two fortnights to save for it. In the meantime I was going out with JJ's boyfriend Kent's cousin, a pommie Jon English look-a-like and he turned up with Struttin' as a present for me. The problem was I hadn't told Bev and Mad that I had a boyfriend (18 and driving) and she knew I hadn't saved enough yet (because I went on and on and on about it) so he kept it for his own collection. Eventually his younger brother dobbed to their mum and she insisted he come around and tell my parents he was seeing me. He was so cute when he turned up one night on the front doorstep, all dressed up in his best clothes to tell Bev he was my boyfriend - brown pinstripes and platform shoes with a skintight white jumper that had one blue diamond shape imposed over a light brown diamond shape. He was shittin himself, but he left me a week later for a worldly 15 year old - I hated her, scraggy looking long haired bitch!
