In the summer of (I think) 1987 I went up to Yorkshire to spend a week on a thing called Musicamp. Organised by a music teacher and brass player called Mortimer Rhind-Tutt (I’m assuming some sort of relation of the actor Julian), a bunch of kids from the Watford and Maidenhead areas got together to play wind band music for the week.
Over that time I got to meet someone who would become a friend who (one way or another) I’m still in touch with all these years later. Becky today runs a microbrewery and bar and campsite down in Devon, with her husband John and three daughters. We haven’t seen each other in ages, but still converse on the socials reasonably regularly.
At the time I was still heavily into hip hop, but the band New Order was just emerging into my view (their best of compilation Substance having been recently released). It was a bridge point for me from music primarily from the USA into guitar music in the UK.
In our conversations in the tents up in Yorkshire, Becky extolled the virtues of a band called The Waterboys. When I got back home I went out and bought This is the Sea. Although we didn’t hear it over the course of the week, the whole album is intrinsically linked to my memories of meeting Becky in Yorkshire, and our friendship over the past 30 or something years. And The Whole of the Moon still reduces me to a wobble every time.
You can see the #51for50 project to date here: https://mmitii.mattballantine.com/category/projects/51-for-50/
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