When I was 12 or 13, growing up Norwich, there were two things on my mind – Norwich City Football Club and live music.

I won’t bore you with tales of footballing woe, which continue to this day, but the live music thing… Me and Cuz cut our teeth live on Altered Images at the UEA in 1981 and that was that really.

They were the loudest thing we’d ever heard. We were quite literally deaf for days afterwards. Might have had something to do with being inches from the PA, heck, we had no idea what a PA was until that night. It was a life-changing night. After that, anything that waved a guitar in Norwich (and plenty that waved them at distance once Cuz passed his driving test and was behind the wheel of his much-loved Hillman Minx), and we were there.

Quite how we found ourselves knee-deep in the local music scene I can’t quite remember. We were just up for anything that made a noise. UEA was the venue of choice, but The Jacquard, Pennies, The Arts Centre, The Gala, The UEA Barn and The Studio Theatre were all regular haunts.

At the time, Norwich was in the spotlight thanks to The Farmer’s Boys. They were snaffled up by EMI and came within a whisker of being on Top Of The Pops, peaking at no.41. Seems daft now, but it was stupidly exciting at a time when the charts actually meant something.

It did the Norwich music scene no harm and there was no shortage of local bands to like. Gee Mr Tracey, The Fire Hydrant Men, The Higsons, Popular Voice, 18 Yellow Roses, Serious Drinking… there’s a great A-Z here, courtesy of Mr Pete Roberts, if you fancy a rummage.

Listening back now, I can still hear the appeal of The Farmer’s Boys. There’s something of Morrissey about Baz’s voice. Funny how I never noticed it before.

‘I Think I Need Help’, pictured above, was their debut single. It was released on The Higsons’ Waap Records, which was run out of the magnificent Backs Records, a true great among the record shops Norwich seemed awash with during the Eighties.

I served my time behind the counter of Andy’s in Lower Goat Lane from 1984 until 1989. I started working there while I was doing my O Levels. Exam in the morning? I worked in the afternoon. It was the world’s greatest job for a 16-year-old boy. I loved every last second of it.

Actually, I didn’t like moving round much – that’s the one where you spend an afternoon in the backroom moving the vinyl, from right to left, round the floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves to make room for new stock), but I did like hoovering at the end of the day. There was something very satisfying about that. Most of all I loved the people I worked with. They were to a man and woman the funniest, kindest, most lovable people I’ve ever met. Even the awkward sods – and there were a few – never failed to make me honk laughing.

I never ceased to marvel that I actually got paid to hang out, laugh far too much and smoke fags while reading a paper on the loo, and all in a huge shop full of records. We often did whatever it was we did in silence because no one could decide what to play. I once put on The Beastie Boys’ ‘License To Ill’ only to be told to ‘turn that shit off’ by a passing regional manager. He reasoned we were here to sell records not drive the customers away. CBS’ biggest selling album of all-time then. Happy about that.

Payday was quite something. We all had a cubbyhole in the back room where we’d stash records we wanted to buy. The bosses weren’t daft. They’d hand over your wages just before slapping down the staff purchases book. At which point we’d hand back a good chunk of our wages. We were paid in records, basically.

Andy’s is a clothes shop now. I make a point to walk past it when I’m in town. Every time, something inside yells at the injustice of it all. Andy’s is why I am who I am. These days, what’s a young person to do? What’s the coolest Saturday job in the world now?

More hear…
- There’s an unofficial website, which is here.