Todays entry reminisces on a song that I have only purchased through the joys of Ebay but brings the pleasures of the last year of school racing back. Why's that in mind, because on Saturday I am off to a reunion in a pub to celebrate 20 years since I left 6th form.
This pub, the Station was the pub where we would congregate in the beer garden, no matter what the weather as many were under age. Buy bottles of grolsch with flash tops for a pound and generally try to chat to any girls we new. The pub was always rammed and a great venue to rush to after working at Asda on the tills for £3 per hour, I felt rich with that wage.
The tune 'Welcome to the Monkey House' was a staple in all the parties that year, (it was released in 1984 so no doubt had been a staple for a few years), at Shenstone, Spartans or the Rugby Club and would immediately result in everyone bouncing about in the middle of the dance floor bumping into one another. Every weekend had a party, celebrating a birthday of someone or other, it didn't matter who so long as you got an invite, which everyone seemed to. I seem to recall at the time dodgy kids from other schools all attending but the level of violence and drugs was nil, all alcohol experimentation, a particular favourite being the Purple Nasty, snake bite and pernod and black, so the worst you had was a vomiting mate waiting for parents to take him home.
But going back to the tune, it was an incredible buzz to hear the first few bars and would immediately result in a 'here hold this' to which ever young lady was being chatted to and a sprint to the dance floor. From what I recall the dance moves were not too hard, they consisted of bouncing up and down whilst moving in and out of a circle, in fact a mixture between baggy trousers and New York New York (which ended said parties).
I didn't know anything about the artist at the time, and now from what I can gather the band was the starting point for Paul Caplin, he signed to emi and supported Duran Duran but he didn't enjoy the constraints. He was then part of Haysi Fantayzee (in the background whilst his girlfriend was in the foreground) before ditching music to get into computing in a really successful way. He won an Ernst & Young entrepreneur of the year award and is allegedly looking to get funding for more development, quite a left turn in career.
The B side is interesting, but not a patch on on the single which does not seem to have charted so no wonder I never managed to buy it in Woolies, Boots, Smiths or HMV.
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