Gavin Vaclavik’s Inheritance Tracks
At the SEDA Shownight and AGM on 25th March 2018, it was Gavin Vaclavik’s turn to present his Inheritance Tracks.
“Rose Marie” – Slim Whitman
My very first memory of music was my dad’s record collection, he was obsessed with Slim Whitman and had pretty much everything by him, most weekends as a very small child I can remember Slim Whitman being played on the record player, for a bit of trivia, this song was the biggest selling single in Great Britain for more than 30 years.
“Rockin’ all over the world” – Status quo
Status Quo where one of my Mum’s favourite bands, my teenage years were spent playing the drums, and Mum’s face would light up when we played this song, for her 60th birthday as a surprise, I took my parents to see Status Quo in concert, approximately 4 years ago she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and made a specific request that this song be played at her funeral.
“I know what i like” – Genesis
This is the first song which I ever owned, I’m an only child and would spend time with my cousins, one day my cousin Carl and I were out for a bike ride and found a box in a ditch (fly tipped), in the box was some junk, Carl found an action man and I pulled out an album, it featured various bands like The Rubettes, Chicory tip etc, but this song really stuck out for me, rather than the usual “boy meets girl” kind of song, it had references such as lawnmowers, wardrobes and fire escapes, I would play this song over and over again, and never grew tired of it.
“Star Wars” theme – John Williams
As the 70’s progressed the bands Ii liked were suddenly out of favour, punk had come along, I couldn’t relate to punk, as we lived an a very select part of Harwich, our neighbours where ships captains and bank managers, drove Mercedes, Porsche etc, we were only 100 yards from the beach, had a boating lake, putting green and swimming pool close by, I couldn’t rebel against this, and I could relate to the music either, the BBC avoided the punk issue by playing bands like The Smurfs, Barron knights and Boney M etc, none of which appealed to me, so I switched off from music, until the Star Wars movie came out, I was enthralled by the film and loved the music as well, so much so I saved up my pocket money and bought the album, the first record I has ever bought !
“Ant music” – Adam and the ants
I had drifted away from popular music towards the end of the 70’s and early 80’s, but just by chance on a rare occasion I watched “Top of the Pops” and saw the video for this song, I loved the imagery of make up and costumes, the “pirate/dandy highwayman” look, also they had two drummers, as was becoming attracted to the drums and this band had quite intricate drum parts, which got me more attracted getting my first drum kit.
“The spirit of radio” – Rush
Prog rock was pretty much killed off by the beginning of the 80’s, these bands that had once ruled the world with concept albums often one song per side, singing about ” tales of topographic oceans”, and would tour with lavish stage sets, but Genesis and Rush survived by trimming down their songs to under 4 minutes. As I was now interested in the drums I was always listening out for new inspiration, I heard this song and fell in love with the mix of odd time signatures and drum fills that required at least 20 drums and cymbals to play, but still make it radio friendly and easy to tap along to.
“Rosanna” – Toto
As soon as I saw this band on “Top of the Pops” my world was completely turned upside down (for the better), this was a rock band, but playing a song that was based around a latin American groove (The Clave 1-2-3/1-2), I was completely blown away by their musicianship and song writing, as I got to learn more about this band I realised they were all top studio session musicians, and had played on albums by Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Boz Scaggs, I then realised that to be successful in the music world you had to really know our stuff and be able to deliver the goods.
“Rather be” – Clean Bandit
The music industry has changed immensely in the past few years, and many people seem to believe that modern music is basically rubbish, but to me this band are as talented as any I have heard over the years, to me they have a prog rock quality about them, whilst being commercial, also have the Clave rhythm at the chorus (1-2-3/1-2) and some incredible production, I just love them !