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CryptoKnight's avatar

Great article James - perfectly captures that "I'll listen to anything" period when your ears are wide open and you haven't yet chosen your tribe.

Also, Northop Hall!! What I remember about Northop Hall is that it had a ford across the road, which always fascinated me, even though the A55 had long since bypassed it.

I grew up in Halkyn., but I was a dozen years ahead of you, so my "not sure why I like this" track was from an earlier Don.

Don McLean's American Pie. His high school sounded a lot more interesting than mine. Nobody was kicking off their shoes and dancing in the gym at Holywell High. Or if they did, they didn't invite me.

Here was another old guy, trading on nostalgia and lamenting 'the day the music died'.

Hang on just a minute, Don. You mean I'm only just discovering this stuff and I've already missed the best?

But, Boys of Summer is a classic. It's so much more than just another bland slice of AOR. It's a rock elegy to a dead romance, or maybe one that never was. And let's face it, where else could you find a guitar solo that sounds like seagulls?

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Tobias Sturt's avatar

The mid-80s was like Jurassic Park for rock dinosaurs, with David Hepworth as a sort of Richard Attenborough, exhibiting them in an insecure Q magazine to alarmed teenagers

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