Rob's story of vinyl addiction

Music is an incredibly powerful medium. Songs evoke memories and their value is timeless, which is why Rob Grillo’s Is That The 12” Mix? will appeal to many music-lovers.

Remember taping the Top 40 on Sunday evenings, with fingers poised on the record and play buttons? How antiquated cassette recorders seem compared to today’s technology, when you can download tunes with just a couple of clicks.

A chart book Rob kept, in which he jotted down the full Top 40 singles listings, plus the Top 30 albums, American singles chart, Radio Luxembourg chart and Tommy Vance’s Radio 1 rock chart, marked the beginning of his “obsessive interest” in music.

ABBA’s Greatest Hits (Volume 1) was the “gift from God” he played morning, noon and night. Then it was the disco and electronic pop dominating the Eighties music scene which captured his imagination, underpinned by the thrill of vinyl.

“Maybe I’m a little old-fashioned, but collecting music in mp3 format on my hard drive doesn’t give me the same thrill as getting the bus into town, walking into that record store, searching through the record racks and pulling out a much-sought-after piece of vinyl,” writes Rob, a teacher in Keighley.

Madonna furthered his obsession with the remix, and his fascination with the 12” disc was partly down to the record with which the medium is most synonymous – New Order’s Blue Monday, which Rob says is the most successful 12” record.

In his book Rob talks fondly of Saturday night discos at Greenhead Youth Club in Keighley. “There have been publications galore detailing the history of the biggest clubs in history – the Hacienda in Manchester, Studio 54 in New York, the discotheques that broke new ground on Fire Island – but for those of us that were around in its heyday, there was Greenhead, Keighley’s very own Studio 54, with Breeze, the nearest we had to Manchester’s Tony Wilson, employed as youth leader,” recalls Rob.

Anyone who remembers the youth club, or has a place in their heart for the music of this era, will enjoy Rob’s recollections of the sounds of his generation at a time when lads attempted to re-create the style of singers like Nik Kershaw or Ian McCulloch, with their hair slicked in hairspray, and girls were Alison Moyet or Bananarama wannabes, with fluorescent laces and frilly shirts, huge ear-rings, floppy fringes and thick mascara.

He pays homage to ‘hometown heroes’ such as Keighley gothic rock band The Skeletal Family and Bradford rockers Terrorvision, and talks of spending summer holidays visiting Rocks Off and Wax Museum in Bradford, two of a number of secondhand record stores in the city.

“Since then I’ve successfully made my transition into the real world, where mortgages have to be paid, work schedules have to be met and family members catered for,” writes Rob.

“Mrs Grillo needs a medal for her patience and fortitude. She may not recognise every single version of The Human League’s classic Don’t You Want Me, but she recognises the fact that she lives with a man who spends an inordinate amount of time not just following his favourite sports teams, but also listening to and collecting music. Particularly music from the 1980s.”