How come all that stuff ended up in Townsville, of all places?
Was it something to do with the fact that it was the era of conscription and the Vietnam War?
In Townsville there were large numbers of twenty-year-old blokes who’d been walking around Sydney or Melbourne six months ago with hair half way down their backs and now found themselves wearing jungle greens and being sworn at by sergeant majors,
Whatever the reason, the cut-out bins at Woolworth's provided an endless supply of albums you could buy on spec for a dollar.
So my mates and I did, in a flurry of attempted one-upmanship to see who could come up with the most obscure little gems. While there were the inevitable duds, but the gems that were sitting in those racks waiting to be unearthed made up for them.
For a start I ended up with a copy of Dr Strangely Strange’s Kip of the Serenes, which seemed to be in fairly plentiful supply. At a time when anything on Island Records was worth checking out, I ended up with copies of Richard Thompson’s Henry The Human Fly and Bryter Layter by Nick Drake in 1971.
Some people, of course, I just didn’t get. Even though the fabulous furry Buff brothers raved over the Moody Blues’ albums and they were often heard when my acquaintances got together, for some reason the music never really registered on my consciousness. Maybe if I’d been a dope smoker and been regularly stoned with In Search of the Lost Chord as a soundtrack, I’d have been more appreciative. But I wasn’t, so I’m not...
Some things I just ignored.