It is 1990. I’m supposed to be studying for my HSC but I’m ravenously devouring music, writing about it for the school magazine, and hanging out in St Peters with a girl, Greta.
I remember buying Cabaret Voltaire’s Groovy, Laidback & Nasty album for her on import from a dance import store in Wynyard Station Arcade (whose name eludes me). Earlier I’d picked up their 1987 album ‘Code’ from Metropolis Records in the basement of the Mid City Centre and of course their ‘far better earlier stuff’ – Sensoria etc, probably from Red Eye’s second hand store beneath the Amex Tower.
I was a surprised by the direction that GLN took – not having a clue about Chicago house or Marshall Jefferson back then.
But of course it was 1990 and it made sense in amongst everything else of that era. That year we’d head off to see The Beloved at the Phoenecian Club and wonder why they came on so late. But I’ve written about that before.
Watching Nick Cope’s video for Keep On from that album takes me right back.
Keep On (1990/96) from Nick Cope on Vimeo.
Later that year I’d start doing my first bout of community radio on Radio Skid Row, walking from Leichhardt to the studios in the Addison Road Community Centre in the dead of night.
And it wasn’t until the following year that I found that the Cabs’ Richard Kirk had also done the Sweet Exorcist 12″s for Warp (1989/1990). I still play some of those tracks in sets.