So my blogging cohorts (i’m looking at *YOU*   JulieOnwards decided to up the and ante increase the blogs we had to write a month to 3, AND we have to include an image in one of them.  And  Darcie  agreed.

Ok…Game on.

A long time ago a friend of mine told me I would probably like a group called “T.REX”.  At the time my three favourite groups (no hating) where KISS, Black Sabbath, and ABBA. In that order.

Each one of those choices will have it’s own blog (later ‘cause i’m inspired to crank out music related blogs for a while)

I had as much interest in listening to music outside of my comfort zone as having a complete collection of disco albums (although disco as it’s known today didn’t exist then). Oh, i will rant about disco later. don’t worry.

So I didn’t think about it again for about 2 years. And then a disco version of “Bang  A Gong” (a T.REX song) by a group called Witch Queen played on one of our local radio stations. It sounded vaguely familiar and it wasn’t long after that i heard the real version by T.REX. I remembered my friend had mentioned this group so i thought i would pick up the album it was on. second hand of course, i wasn’t about to put out full price for an album i wasn’t sure of. i didn’t take any musical chances back then. but i did want to check out the group.

I used to frequent a store called “Used Grooves’ that sold second hand vinyl albums. Every saturday i would go through every single record bin they had. Every saturday for a couple of years. A lot of the albums that i saw on a regular were Led Zeppelin’s first three albums, Babe Ruth’s first three albums, Fleetwood Mac albums,  Thor’s “Keep the Dogs Away”, and T.REX’s “Electric Warrior”.

I was pretty sure they’d have a copy of it for something like $1.95 CAN. I went down to the store, went to the “T” section…and it wasn’t there. In retrospect i can see this was foreshadowing. T.REX albums were notoriously hard to find in Canada.

They had a “remaindered” bin in the centre of the small store. albums that didn’t sell or hung around too long. as a last resort i checked in the “T” section. and there it was. i got it for $0.50. Image above is the that album (i put a plastic sleeve on it a few years after).

Back then i used to listen to every album i just bought on headphones. very rarely did i not use headphones. The reason is, my first experience with headphones was listening to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”. So yeah, i was spoiled for headphones early on 🙂

The very first song on the first side of the album (vinyl, remember) is a song called “Mambo Sun”.

It. Blew. Me. Away.

right then and there, my favourite group was T.REX. sure I bought the album for “Bang A Gong” but that first song did it for me. i was hooked. and i had it bad. yes, the song i bought it for was good…but that first song. my EEG’s would have been off the chart. my spine tingled. it would influence my musical choices from then till now.

i would be very surprised if i’ve played that album less than a thousand times. i probably played it 5 or 6 times that first night. i know every note on it. last year on Record Store Day i bought a die cut cover version of it. I listen to the album probably once a month.

Having said all that, it’s not my favourite T.REX album. it has a special place because it’s my first T.REX album, but not my favourite…stay tuned.