Saturday 26 January 2013

The Bodgie get's nostalgic

The past is another country.
We can choose to live there, visit there or just completely ignore it.
I'm gonna go visiting.

Once upon a time, I grew up listening to the current music of the day. But on Saturday nights the radio station 6PR (bless whoever invented the wireless, Marconi or the other contenders) used to play an "oldies" section with some of the hits of the fifties. Why don't they make records like those now, I used to ask my mates.
They all thought I was barmy.
But some of my mates parents had Elvis & Buddy Holly records hidden at the back of their collections.
Why were my parents never that cool?
I used to go around and listen to my mate's parents records.


The seeds were born.

Sunday 6 January 2013

What Is Rockabilly?



I hear a lot about rockabilly and while I don’t really care much about labels, I’m gonna share some of my thoughts on what it means to me.
It seems to have become synonymous with retro.
Rockabilly is NOT burlesque.
Rockabilly is music that combined the dirt poor sounds of hillbilly with rhythm ‘n’ blues (also known as rock ‘n’ roll) hence the name Rock-Billy.
As a music form it was marginalised and was able to explore themes that could not be expressed in the radio friendly pop market.
Because rockabilly was rarely popular, it did not need to worry about conforming to trends and so was able to continue in it’s underground form. Therefore, there was no rockabilly revival, as it never really died.