Rebel,

I'm with you regarding Ritz when I first heard it. I used to listen to it over and over again.

When my wife and I were expecting our first child, I also wanted to call it Sebastian if it was a boy. Turns out we had a girl first and by the time my son came along our ideas had changed.

Not only did I miss the boat with Human Menagerie, but also overlooked Kimono My House.
I got into Sparks with Propaganda, which incidentally is a brilliant album. Part of the fun of discovering a 'new' band is realising that there is already a raff of material in existence. Even after back tracking and buying Kimono My House, it took me years to discover that they even had a couple of albums prior to this ('Sparks' and 'A Woofer in Tweeters clothing') If you have not had the pleasure, tracks like Slowboat, Girl from Germany, Wonder girl, are well worth a listen.

Back to CR, I was at a party and 'promoting' my new found best album ever album, Psychomodo, to anyone who'd listen. When a girl (Cathy Morby) said, out of the blue, that she preferred the 'first album'. I spent the next 1/2 hour trying to convince her that Psychomodo WAS the first album, and she was clearly mistaken, if not just a little bit stupid! I never did get to apologise to Cathy or to eat humble pie!

Thats the thing these days. 30 seconds to look something up via Google. None of that in the old days!

With Sparks although I liked the singles i was never inclined to buy any of the albums, I left that to my mate, while I took the 'Rebel' route.

Sorry to be taking over this thread, but think that Rebelfreaks seeing SH busking is a brilliant story - talk about being there at the start of someones career!

The only group I could say the same for, although not in the same league as CR, was 'King'. Paul King was a year older than me at school, and on several occasions sang in assembly in front of the entire school. Given that this was a tough boys only comprehensive school in Coventry with 1500 pupils, I reckon this took some balls. Mind you, instead of everyone thinking 'what a wuss', his voice was so good that even the Neanderthal thugs(there were plenty at my school) gave credit where credit was due. If there was anyone who was going to be a pop star Paul King was it. We followed his band the 'Reluctant Stereotypes' in the early days in various boozers. When he eventually 'made it' and was playing in front of 3000 screaming girls (and me)I can remember thinking 'where were you band waggoners' all those years ago at my school?

Maybe Rebelfreak will be looking round and thinking the same in 8 months time in Birmingham, thinking where were you lot on that platform on the London Underground back in 71?

I missed THM and Psychomodo,my first album was FACE TO FACE,I had been to a works party,where we all took some music,and someone brought FACE TO FACE,it was amazing,I really loved it and couldnt wait to get my own copy,those were the days when you went to a proper record shop,and you could order what you wanted,if they didnt stock it.Then there was no internet to google for information,my next albulm was then THM,from a record store in skegness,while on holiday(at the begining of two weeks)oh the torture to have this new album and nothing to play it on,but the joy,when I did eventually get to play it.
A girl called Mandy used to work in my local record store,I used to plague her for any news of new singles of steve's,which I always had to order,because they didnt stock them.
Even in the day of the CD,ive still got all the vinyl,all the singles,and to date 27 cd albums + the anthology.
I cant say which is my favourite,I love them all,for different reasons.