I got Love, in the Music…

Being quite a long entry, I’m not going to make things worse by writing a long intro. Please just note that these albums aren’t necessarily my personal Greatest Albums of all Time. They’re just albums that I remember that I had some fascination with and that made some sort of impact in terms of the music I still like today.

So here they are (in chronological order. 1983 – present):

1.       Queen – It’s a Kind of Magic; Greatest Hits vol. 1

Ah yes Queen. I think that even if you were born under a rock, you’ve heard of Queen.

Now let me be the first one to say, they are probably one of the greatest bands ever to grace the music industry. But, I will also admit that Queen is a band which songs we mostly know from their Greatest Hits Albums (Vol 1, 2 & 3). I mean, hands up, do you REALLY know any other Queen songs that weren’t on one of their Greatest Hits Albums?

The reason why I put 2 albums on here is because my earliest musical memories came from these two albums.

I remember very clearly that my parents had “It’s A Kind of Magic” on a cassette. The color of the cassette was white with blue writing on it. I listened to this tape SO many times. And this is the only Queen Album other than a Greatest Hits or Live Album I know from the beginning right ‘till the end. The two most overlooked Queen songs has to be on this Album (One year of love; The Prize). Most of the songs on this album were of course used in the soundtrack of The Highlander. (fucking awesome movie, I don’t care if you judge me!!!).

I don’t want to go in to great detail with Greatest Hits Vol. 1, but I remember that my parents had this LP. The one morning I put it on and when “You’re my Best Friend” came on, I didn’t know that LP’s could scratch and jump. Anyway, I got to the part “Ooo, you make me live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey…” and I’m thinking :”What the fuck is up with this guy just repeating the lyrics” “…live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey, live now honey…”. This carried on until my dad had finally had enough and explained to me that the LP was actually jumping and how to fix it when it happens again. Let’s just say that was a very confusing 30 minutes

  

2.       Chris de Burgh – Spanish Train

When you think good music; dark; intriguing; fascinating; almost gothic and even a bit scary, you won’t be thinking of the Irish man with a Lego hairstyle. I mean, this is the guy who brought us “Lady in Red” for crying out loud.

But this album has a few great songs on it. “A spaceman came travelling” for instance is about an Alien, “Lonely Sky” always made me think of birds dying in the Freezing winter and “Just another poor boy”, if I remember correctly, was about people fucking up a poor boy. Very depressing I must admit, but very good music.

The stand-out song on this album however is the title track, Spanish Train. To sum it up, it’s about a train with Spanish Ghosts/souls (fucking gibberish speaking ghosts!!! OH MY FUCK!!! HELP!!!!) and God and the Devil playing poker for souls.  As an 8 year old, this scared the piss out of me. Even as an adult, I think it would make an excellent movie or book… or something. Plus, it’s a great song.

3.       Erasure – Pop:The First 20 Hits

If you look at the album cover, it just SCREAMS all that is early 90’s cliché. “pop!” (Written in lower case) with a Splash in the background. Who still remembers those Splash stickers? And let me tell you, this album cover makes no secret of the fact that you’re about to go on a journey of corny 80’s and early 90’s synth pop… and I just love it!!!

I think the only Erasure song I knew when I bought this cassette, was Oh l’amour. But when I first stuck this in to the car’s tape deck, I was hooked. “…who needs love like that??...”. This album, although cheesy synth-pop, was a nice gateway in to the grittier (and let’s face it, better) Depeche Mode and much later, Nine Inch Nails.

And I am not ashamed to say that I still blast this on my ipod every now and then. “Blue Savanna”, “Star”, “The Circus” and of course “A Little Respect” being my favorites.

4.       Metallica – The Black Album

This is the first CD I ever bought and I think it was probably around 1993. I don’t really need to say much about this album as the success of it has been widely documented.

You have to remember, this was a time when Indecent Obsession and Roxette were to bands everyone was listening to.

I heard some of the older kids in my neighborhood talking about “Metallica Black”. I thought the band was called “Metallica Black”. So, wanting to seem cool, I asked my dad to buy me this album. I remember he came home and said: “this is all they had. It’s only Metallica but it doesn’t have an Album title though. Is it the right one?” Well I didn’t know if that was the album the older kids were talking about, but once I put this on, I was simply blown away and I really didn’t care. I remember the booklet containing only the lyrics and very dark faces of 4 ugly motherfuckers with long hair. I haven’t stopped liking this band since that day.

So what did my peers think when I told them I bought a “Metallica” album? (Plus I was drawing Def Leppard logo’s in class). Well, I was labeled a Satanist. Pffft, how the times have changed ‘eh?

5.       Nirvana – Unplugged in New York

My oh my. Again, I don’t really need to explain the pure excellence which is this album.

It was about this time (1995) that I started reading the Top 40 magazine. I bought this on a cassette in Margate whilst on holiday with my parents and a friend of mine. When I put this in the tape deck in the car, I got a few strange looks that screamed “what the fuck is this?”

Well the times have changed. My mom and dad were moved to tears a few years ago when we watched the DVD.

6.       Marilyn Manson – Portrait of an American Family

It was 1997 in std. 6 when I first heard the name Marilyn Manson. I honestly thought it was a women when I heard the name (I mean, why wouldn’t I?). Luckily someone else said that before I could and when everyone laughed at the poor guy, I knew he probably wasn’t a woman.

This was probably not his best album and by far his least known album. But this was REALLY the gateway to all the other music I came to love during high school (e.g. Megadeth, Pantera, Sepultura, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, etc.). Yes, I used to be a Metal Head.

It was just plain weird and like nothing I had ever heard before. You have to remember that these days, Marilyn Manson is something of the past, but back then, he was really the guy who set the boundaries. And being an impressionable 14 year old, I was taken in. This wasn’t anything like what we had listened to only year before in primary school. Weird Album cover, Satanic looking drag queen type guys in the booklet and strange to just plain nonsensical lyrics (e.g. “My Monkey”). Throw in some samples of children, TV shows, Film Quotes, etc that plays in the background, you have a VERY creepy album.

Looking back now, I’ve toned down my musical taste quite a bit. In fact, I don’t even think I have any Marilyn Manson songs on my ipod (or Pantera or Sepultura for that matter). But, I can see why young teens were so drawn in by this scene.

7.       Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral

This is purely a classic album. I bought this again the other day. Industrial Heaven. This album confirms that Trent Reznor is a genius (confirmed by his Oscar win for best score for “The Social Network”.

It starts with “Mr. Self Destruct” and ends with “Hurt” (which was NOT written by Johnny Cash FOR THE LAST TIME). One of the best songs of the 90’s is also on here: “Closer”. I think “Piggy” and “Big Man with a Gun” are the only two songs I don’t like on here.

The Title Track by the way sounds like something out of a Horror Movie montage.

8.       Global Underground 019: John Digweed

The reason I included this on this list, is because it’s the very first Dance/House/Electronic Album that I ever bought.

I first heard the name John Digweed on the movie “Groove”. You have to remember that this was about 2000/2001, when I first started really listening to electronic music. I don’t think this was a very good buy for my first House Album because I was expecting “hands-in-the-air-trance” that you got on the “ESP” albums of the time. What I got instead was a very deep Progressive house Album which I found VERY hard to listen to.

I must say though, since then, I think I have grown up in terms of Dance Music and this is now probably one of my favorite House Albums. This is also the reason why I think EVERYTHING Global Underground touches, turns to gold. (Well except for the Layo & Bushwacka mix. That was fucking dreadful).  

9.       Nubreed: Sultan

Plain and simple, this is the album that made me get into Production and is one of the reasons why I have become so passionate about House/Trance/etc/etc the last few years.

From start to finish, this album is just fantastic. If it is your scene, get this album. Get it NOW.  

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And there you have it. I think this is by far one of my longest entries since I started blogging. I hope it was interesting enough to get you to this point.

Not a Food Blog

When I first found out I was going to be employed as a chef, I fully expected chilled out days, cooking myself into getting laid and working my magic with knifes. I mean what was not to like?

Before I went to Scotland in 2002, I never really watched any Food Channels. I had no interest whatsoever in going into the catering industry. For me, going to the UK was just going to be 2 years of getting pissed and occasionally doing some loose-end jobs to finance my yet under developed drinking habit. I was going to be employed as a waiter but then I asked a friend who was already working there if he couldn’t get me in somewhere else. I managed to get in to the kitchen thinking to myself what poor bastards my friends were for taking bar/waiter jobs. I had it made… I soon realized that I made a huge error of judgment…

1.       Sandwiches

Working in a massive hotel with guests passing through the whole day and night, requires shit loads of sandwiches. I’ve had mornings where I’ve had to make 400 to 500 sandwiches. If you visited this Hotel in early 2002, chances are that you probably got VERY good value for your money when buying a sandwich.

Eat your heart out The Shining

To me fish was fish and ham was ham. Unfortunately this is not the case (as we all obviously know). So let’s just say that when I ran out of cheap, canned tuna, I substituted the tuna for fresh salmon. Ran out of ham? Fuck it. Use Parma Ham.  

I’m sure none of the guests minded though.

2.       Hours

Let me say this right off the bat: I will never complain about my work hours again.

Work days there sometimes lasted from 05:00 – 00:00. I mean sure this wasn’t always the case, but it happened. When the whole world starts getting ready for the weekend, chefs start feeling an urge to commit suicide. The day you find it absolutely hilarious that someone spills a pot of BOILING lentil soup on themselves, you KNOW you’re too tired.

3.       Being called a cunt numerous times a day

I will never forget this for as long as I live. You see we were very understaffed, so they stuck my untrained ass into the veg corner. Except for the obvious, one of the responsibilities was also to make all soups. So when I saw “Orange and Carrot” soup on the menu, it sounded simple enough. Orange juice and carrots thickened with some cornflower. Right before service, I tasted it and it TASTED FUCKING HORRIBLE. But I thought to myself: “hey, these bastards eat black pudding, haggis and all kinds of other shit, so who am I to judge?”

Cutting a long story short, after the 200^th portion of this orangey, carroty abortion was sent back, I was less than popular. Being called a cunt and everything else by all the chefs as well as the dining room manager in front of the waiting staff, is not fun. The hate that I saw in everyone’s eyes is beyond what words can describe. I was only 18 for God’s sake!!! Let me just say, I have never met a chef who is not homicidal.

Actual Customer Reactions

Anywho, I didn’t cry that night. That was reserved for…

4.       Nights it all falls apart

Gary Busey

      One of the most important things about being a chef is probably prep. The way it worked was we got the number of guests expected to dine in the dining room. So it goes without saying that you obviously did not want to under prepare, but also not over prepare.

If it was a quiet day, you could get your prep done in the morning and for a sleep until about 5 in the afternoon when it was time to get everything ready for service. You see, days consisted of working and evenings partying. You had to catch all the sleep you could get.

So when I got back from my afternoon nap and saw everyone in the kitchen looked as pale as ghosts, I knew something was up. You see, in the time that I took my nap, 3 fucking busloads of German Tourists arrived unannounced. So instead of the expected 100 people, there were 400 or so.

*sigh* I wish

Let me tell you, that night was something out of a Gary Busey sex dream. To cut a long story short, I ran out of food 60mins into the service. Having so little experience, I couldn’t get myself back up and running. I think that was the closest I’ve been to a nervous breakdown. The guys took pity on me and sent me home to get some rest (go to the bar and get pissed).

Hands down, the worst night of my life.

5.       Dickshit Customers.

Telling customers to get fucked started becoming 2^nd nature to me. I don’t want to go into the whole. We had a book with Customer Feedback Forms in the staff smoking room. The one read something like: “some of the chefs’ language is unacceptable especially with children around”.

When that comment was read out loud, everyone present just went “SHHHHHAAAAAAUNNN”.

I was never quite sure as to why I didn’t even get as much a warning for this or any of my other spontaneous outbursts. I guess they were probably just glad they didn’t hire me as a waiter.  

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There are still plenty more stories to tell, but I think this will do for now.

I guess some of you might be wondering how the fuck I managed to stay employed. Well, I will be quite honest here. I managed to learn and improve. I actually got very good. In 2003 I ran my own kitchen and regularly received praises. I’m not and will probably never be a Michelin starred chef, but I still rock.

And if the above paragraph sounds like me sucking my own dick, you’re absolutely correct. This is my blog after all.

PS: I’m not chef anymore by the way!!