Are you a mega-fan of anyone?

CORP$EY

no mickey mouse ting
Like one of those people who owns all the bootleg tapes of Bob Dylan and has heard every single recording of 'Blowing in the Wind' and owns all the tour t-shirts and has seen him live in different countries and has traveled significant distances to see him play live and has crouched in the bushes outside his house, taking photographs of him and his family... you get the idea.

I haven't felt like this about a musician/band since I was about 18, but I have respect for the passion of those who do feel like this and I'd like to pick your brains and stroke your hair.

You don't have to be a freak of the sort I describe in paragraph 1, just a long-term consistent fan of someone.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Karl Marx (not really!)

Not any more, no. Nobody is amazing forever. I just have promiscuous flings with artists these days instead of lifelong relationships.

I still have about 30 Psychic TV LPs, mind. Never listen to them though.
 

luka

Well-known member
did you join the fanclub where you had to send in a semen sample and a pubic hair together with handwritten sexual fantasies in a sealed envelope (which psychic tv promised would remain sealed and inviolable but really porridge sat around his house naked giggling and masturbating to them, smearing himself with teenage spunk)
 

john eden

male pale and stale
did you join the fanclub where you had to send in a semen sample and a pubic hair together with handwritten sexual fantasies in a sealed envelope (which psychic tv promised would remain sealed and inviolable but really porridge sat around his house naked giggling and masturbating to them, smearing himself with teenage spunk)

Obviously.
 

luka

Well-known member
i was reading bit of englands hidden reverse but ended up feeling so grubby and contaminated that i had to stop. biggest bunch of wrong 'uns ever.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
i was reading bit of englands hidden reverse but ended up feeling so grubby and contaminated that i had to stop. biggest bunch of wrong 'uns ever.

It's a really good book but it makes me happy that I only got into this stuff a bit later and moved to London in the late 80s rather than the early 80s.

It really does underline how wretched and nihilistic it all was.

It is no word of a lie that acid house saved a lot of these people.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
you can see they 100% needed a cosmic blast of that in-body love vibration.

They all liked mad electronic music and drugs and then better drugs and better music came along thanks to black people (again) and that was WAY better than making music about serial killers.
 

continuum

smugpolice
I was a massive fan of Bill Hicks when I was about 20. I ordered every single VHS tape, CD and T-shirt that his his best friend Kevin Booth had available. It all arrived (just, the VHS tapes were half way out of the packaging when it turned up) along with some of the other comedians and such like that Kevin was doing stuff with at the time such as a pre-internet Alex Jones and others. I watched and listened to everything over and over and then invited friends round for viewings or brought the material round to their houses. A lot (in fact all) of that merchandise I sadly no longer have but I still have all the books ever written on Bill Hicks that I bought in the following years.

Shaun Ryder and the Happy Mondays is another. Anything to do with Shaun Ryder I have to read/listen/watch.

This obsessive quality even went as far as being friends on Facebook with Kevin Booth, Alex Jones, Bill Hick's brother and Paul Ryder (Shaun's brother).

Remembering back to when the Internet first started becoming widely available it was RWD forum (where you could hang out and chat to all the MCs) which blew me away so much. Pre internet you could join a fan club by post but that was about it. With the arrival of the internet anyone could suddenly interact with all the people they were fans of. Obviously this is par for the course now but back then it was wild.
 

Sectionfive

bandwagon house
Saw the Prodigy five times one year. Most artists I am seriously into these days are either dead or not far off so saving money on concert tickets at least.

I have sort of gone in reverse though, instead of obsessing / collecting take comfort knowing there are these bottomless discographies. There is always another MAW remix or 2004 grime riddim waiting to jump out at you from some corner of the internet. Corners of scenes you think are exhausted before clicking a label or producer leads off down another road.
 

martin

----
My first idols until about 7, were Adam & The Ants. My dedication to them bordered on the religious. In fact, if Antmusic was Islam, ISIS would have rejected me for being too extreme. I thought that being in the Ants must have been incredible - just spending all day hanging out with Adam Ant and listening to his genius thoughts about Geronimo tearing him apart and German girls. Honest, friendly, genuine record execs from CBS, giving you thousands of pounds just to get out of bed in the morning and play a bit of guitar. Big breasted Red Indian women in pirate hats. I used to imagine that bit on the inner sleeve that said "All songs (c)1980 Ant/Marco" actually said "Ant/MARTIN" - that Adam and I had written these intense, deathless pieces of Burundi-punk pop together, and that the foul, evil teachers who made my life a misery would soon be shaking with rage and spitting out their false teeth as I casually announced I was dropping out of school to go on tour. My parents would sob and wish they'd treated me better, though my mum would secretly be proud and show our awful neighbours pictures of me in SOUNDS.

Unsurprisingly, my ego soon went through the ceiling and I mentally sacked Adam and the others and formed The Cult.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
I don't think it counts if you've never had to pay for it so anyone my age and younger couldn't be unless you're digitally harvesting all aspects of an artist's life and I'm too lazy/tech stupid for that.
 
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