~

In 1979 - When i was 8 yrs old, I hijacked my eldest brother Thom' s copy of Blondie's "eat to the beat" album. "Atomic" and "dreaming" - so cool and grown up! It made my Goofy gold and Loony tunes lps OBSOLETE.
My sister bought me "Autoamerican" a year later. "the tide is high", "rapture" and "call me". I think i had the '45's, too. I was all sorts of into them. I would watch American bandstand and video jukebox hoping that they would be on there. I don't recall any of my friends caring about such at the time. Being the youngest of 4 kids, I was constantly hearing the stuff my 2 brothers and sister were into. Years later they would start taking cues from me ( because I rule ).

How hip I was at such a young age. I recently got the reissues of both these albums and relived the days of jamming out in my parent's living room, rocking out in my HUGE earphones. My mom would come and tell me to keep it down as I was singing along so loudly.

On the otherhand, I have even earlier memories of rocking out in the huge headphones to ABBA, Bobby Vinton, Johnny Mathis and...GASP..Barbra Striesand's "superman" album. I'm sure that one was because of a song called "Superman" and not some under 8 yr old's pre-homo obsession with Babs.