9.29°C Each week, Keep Colchester Cool invites local faces to share their top ten tracks of all time. There are no rules – some will explain why they’ve chosen particular tracks; others won’t. Either way, it offers an insight into what has influenced some of our local heroes over the years.
This week, it’s the turn of Johnno Casson – aka Snippet, aka Old Tramp, aka the host of The Warm and Toasty Club – or, for all the old ravers out there, the lead singer of Deep Joy. He’s a talented chap whose music has made him the most played artist on Tom Robinson’s BBC Introducing show.
In Johnno’s case, he has selected his top ten musical memories for this feature.
Enjoy!
“Picking a top 10 songs of all time would be ridiculously hard for me, as there is just so much good out there – I’d be debating for weeks on end the merits of this song or that song. So, turning this feature on its head a little, I’ve picked 10 songs that hold the strongest memories for me in my life tonight.
These are not meant to represent my greatest songs ever, but they all represent a strong memory and a moment in time for me…”
1. Nat King Cole – The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot
One of my earliest memories. My dad used to sing this to me when I was tucked up in bed as a tiny nipper. I don’t know if he was keeping me guessing about Christmas, but I do know I had a lovely childhood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlduJjJg2dY
2. Mr Benn Theme Tune
I loved the TV show and basically wanted to be Mr Benn – go to a shop, change my clothes in the dressing room and suddenly enter another world based on the costume I put on. What’s not to like? This was the beginning of something that has served me very well in my life: an active imagination.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FaEzP1yUJk
3. Sly and the Family Stone – Family Affair
I had an Elizabethan record player in my bedroom when I was a kid, and this vinyl 7” must have been my brother’s or sister’s. The middle hole was misshapen, so it played a little wonky and off-kilter – what a wonderful sound it made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdiRhzTsSnk
4. Kate Bush – Babooshka
I may have had a Kim Wilde poster on my wall, but after hearing this, it was Kate all the way for me. Kim looked nice, and I liked her stripy T-shirts, but her music wasn’t filling and couldn’t hold my wayward teenage spirit. The video for “Babooshka” showed how they tortured nice, shy 15-year-old boys in those days. One of my favourite artists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xckBwPdo1c
5. The Specials – Too Much Too Young
Ghost Town was the pinnacle, but this was the wake-up call. Seeing this multi-cultural band live on TV (and at No.1) made total sense to me and my mates in Hackney. It gave us music and style that could belong to us too, and they spoke to my generation like few others did then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvfolYjii2s
6. UB40 – King
My school class went away on a trip, staying at a big house in the country for a couple of days. There was an old record player there, and someone had brought some 7” singles with them – this double A-side was one of them. I was a good kid, but some of my classmates were so unruly it made the rest of us a little braver and naughtier. All sorts of mischief went on that weekend. On the last day, all the pupils (all boys) played naked football on the field to the shock of the very reserved locals and staff. I think it might have been this that got the school banned from attending again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsxLfdfM5jk
7. Gary Numan – Cars
My brother went on Capital Radio to do a guest young DJ slot, talking and playing this new electronic music. I remember the interviewer asking him if music made by machines was the future – my brother was convinced it was and put his point over very well. Mind you, he also played Turning Japanese by The Vapors, which sort of negated his electronic music argument, but overall the kid did great. Much as David Bowie had done before to many, Gary Numan appearing on Top of the Pops felt like a real spaceman was on my telly. Great tune.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIHwL5J_PR4
8. Chairmen of the Board – Give Me Just A Little More Time
Gary Crowley’s Tuesday Club in Harrow – a group of us went every week, the Hackney boys in full flow. Joy, pure joy – being young, dancing, happy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzIAiyxS-nk
9. The Style Council – Shout to the Top
Andy Weatherall on the decks at Shoom. Strangely, Kevin Rowland is on one knee (footballer style) holding a beer in the middle of a rammed dancefloor and, amongst all the Ibiza classics and old-school house tunes, Andy throws a curveball and drops this. Sweet!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m94ip38UKs
10. Marvin Gaye – Is That Enough
In the back of my mate Stu’s camper van, travelling back from a warehouse party in Brighton, where I was tripping my face off and had to be looked after by Martin Fry and his wife Julie. This song sounded, at the time, like the weirdest thing I’d ever heard (outside of Dr John’s Gris-Gris album). The harmony work on the “too obsessive, jealous” line never left me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We8lmkmtOaE
See Johnno host The Warm and Toasty Club at Colchester Arts Centre this Sunday.
