In 1978, when he was 14, Justin bought a second hand acoustic guitar and started teaching himself how to play it. My bedroom was across the landing from his so I could hear him progressing and the first recognisable tunes emerging - ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ by Pink Floyd and ‘ESP’ by The Buzzcocks. He played them on one string but I was impressed, none of my family or friends played instruments.
Before Punk Rock, being in a band seemed like a very glamorous and completely remote concept. Music was an important part of our lives of course, we were big fans of The Who and our pocket money went on records: Bowie, Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, Tangerine dream… and The Beatles, our older brother had bought their albums as they came out so we’d grown up with them being played in the house, ‘A day in the life’ - ‘Come together’….The first records I bought were with our sister - we went half-half on 7” singles - ‘Space Oddity’ by Bowie, ‘All right now’ by Free and ‘Oh well’ by Fleetwood Mac. We bought them from the chemist in Bournville, Birmingham where we lived before moving to Worcestershire.
When the first punk bands appeared we resisted them, as though being into punk would be like betraying the old bands but it was soon clear that this was where the energy and passion of the time was being generated.