When the three of us travelled to Europe Glam rock was a 'way of life' as was long hair , Brett and i had different hairstyles but ours was long , shoulder length , Pete had a different one , short at the back but with a sweeping fringe , one that i warmly referred to as 'having fringe benefits'. Probably the 'small car syndrome' thing again but we found ways to amuse ourselves , Pete also grew a beard , he thought it looked 'cool' . Brett had a habit of wearing a bandanna to keep his hair out of his eyes where my trick was to wear sunglasses on my head , to hold back the locks , even at night in pubs , strange lot we were....
Brett and i were obsessed with the finer points of music (Glam) whereas Peter had his obsession with Darryl Braithwaite (you can see why i wanted to simply kill him) , yet we found a common ground , still don't remember what that was though . We all had walkman head sets (Cliff Richard Wired For Sound style) and one day i leant my tape to Pete to listen to , to 'educate' him . It didn't take him long to stuff this opportunity of 'male bonding' up as it got caught in his player and jammed . He knew this tape was my 'lifeline' to sanity so he came up with a pathetic excuse that he needed to stop at 'the next possible opportunity ' as he had a ' bad guts'. After at least 15 minutes in a public toilet you would think that i would've clicked that something was up , but no , the mouse had obviously stopped running around on it's treadmill . From memory he had cut the tape , opened it up , re aligned it and got it working again with me none the wiser until both of them told me that night over a beer . This tape of mine from memory again had the' best of the best ' on it as far as i was concerned , Def Leppard ,Cheap Trick , Kiss , Skid Row , Bon Jovi and other Glam Rock bands that were as much a part of our lifestyle back then as the hair styles and the way we dressed on a daily basis . Tennis was the reason we were all there , yet other factors took over , we were developing some 'different' friendships with each other as well as with the European players and their families and friends . What disappointed me was that while we were over there we had a chance to see White Lion in concert in Paris , a glam rock band with hairstyles and guitar riffs to die for , that would've capped off the trip , such is life....
I recall wagging school regularly at age 16 and heading to my local Tennis Club with a stereo in my bag along with my racket and training for hours with a buddy to the sounds of Def Leppard 'Hysteria' , great for motivation and inspiration . Five years on here i was in another country playing Tennis Tournaments , eating spaghetti bolognese , speaking 'pigeon' English and still listening to my all time favorite Rock band 'The Leps' for inspiration . At age 44 the long locks have been cut shorter but Tennis and Glam Rock for me still go hand in hand......
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