First NMA Experience

[Sylvain]

Welcome to this forum Artrat! And... no, your story is not "the most uninteresting one on this thread"!! What is important is that you discovered -- and was sensitive to -- NMA, whatever the conditions of the introduction...

[Jonesy]

1990. A friend of mine bought Impurity round to my house. I was a total 'metalhead' at the time. As soon as I heard the double kick drum and bass line of 'Get Me Out' I was hooked. Had all the prior albums to catch up on which was amazing. The good ol' days uh?

[Master Ray]

So, I'm going to go bowling with some friends in the late eighties, going down the bypass to Stoke, when my mate, who's driving, sticks on a tape of some band he's just gotten into. I hear a ghostly intro that leads into a great percussive beat... dum, dum, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum... and a great, gritty-yet-soulful voice comes in a little while before the instruments do and, within a couple of minutes, I'm hooked...

'Who is this..?' I say...

'New Model Army', my mate says...

The next day, I'm down at the local record store. They don't have 'Thunder and Consolation', as I now know that album is called, but they have 'The Ghost Of Cain' and I buy it, listen to it and within the first two minutes of 'The Hunt', I know I have found my favourite band.

It's been, what, 25 years since then?  I've been to numerous gigs, collected so many rareties (still got the 7" of 'Great Expectations'... any chance of playing that any time soon, lads?) and had so many great times... yeah, that drive to Stoke was a life-changer, alright.

By the way, there was too big a queue at the bowling alley, so we just buggered off home.

[Ade of Cornwall]

Some time in late '84 the guitarist of the band i was in said "you HAVE to listen to this!"

...so i did,turned out i was listening to Vengeance...and it got straight under my skin and stayed there.

Yesterday, listening to the same album in the car(well,the Small Town England re-issue),i was quite pleased to hear my 7 year old daughter crooning along to "A Liberal Education" (although her favourite NMA track is "51st State",she tells me )


...oh yeah,and Hi all,it's good to be here!

Ade

[kabe]

No Rest in my local library, must have been around 13 years old, maybe.  Grandmother's Footsteps didn't come off my HMV turntable for a long time....

[Shush]

No Rest in my local library, must have been around 13 years old, maybe.  Grandmother's Footsteps didn't come off my HMV turntable for a long time....

Nice one. I remember wearing out Grandmothers Footsteps as well. Great tune with great lyrics. I think it was mainly aimed at American foreign policy in the 1980s, but I think it can be applied to any power dominating foreign countries. For me at the time, it was about the USSR and it control of Eastern Europe. Maybe for people in Commonwealth Countries it was reflective of Great Britain !! Thought provoking clever lyric on that song, and throughout what is still my favourite album of all time   

[Monk]

I first saw NMA 30 years ago today!

Where the **** did the years go?

[Master Ray]

No Rest in my local library, must have been around 13 years old, maybe.  Grandmother's Footsteps didn't come off my HMV turntable for a long time....

Nice one. I remember wearing out Grandmothers Footsteps as well. Great tune with great lyrics. I think it was mainly aimed at American foreign policy in the 1980s, but I think it can be applied to any power dominating foreign countries. For me at the time, it was about the USSR and it control of Eastern Europe. Maybe for people in Commonwealth Countries it was reflective of Great Britain !! Thought provoking clever lyric on that song, and throughout what is still my favourite album of all time   

Love Grandmothers Footsteps as well... have any of you ever heard it live?  Might be one to bring back for the November tour (not so subtle hint)....

[Shush]

No, I've not heard Grandmothers footsteps live sadly. I bet it would be phenomenal !! I find it hard to resist singing along at the top of my voice to the chorus, arms stretched out and all that.

Gets a bit embarrassing on the bus with the ipod on the go   

[Alicat]

Hi all, I'm a former lurker now re-registered here : I used to be on a previous incarnation of the forum back in the early nineties, as 'Ali' I think, when I first got into NMA but wasn't able to access to a computer for a while and then didn't get re-registered when the forum was updated.
 As I can remember, I first got to really hear the band when I took a copy of Ghost Of Cain out of the local lending library, mostly because I loved the cover and I was curious to see what the band actually sounded like. I'd been aware of their name (and that wonderful cover) for quite a while, so when I fell in love with the music I was kicking myself that I hadn't had my personal discovery earlier- better late than never I guess! I know I had to wait a year or two before I finally got to see them live, playing as The Gardeners of Eden at Newcastle Riverside, I think it was '94? Have since lost count of the gigs but it's probably around the 20-ish mark, including the 20th anniversary at Nottingham with my then boyfriend now husband - introduced him to the band and happily he loved them too - and both London dates on the 30th. Looking forward to Leeds in November now!

[MarkDFarr]

Early 80s, Pretoria, South Africa. I was in high school at the time and tagged along with a friend of mine to his record library. While he was browsing I was listening to the music playing. When he had made his selection and we got to the counter I asked the guy what was playing. He said "New Model Army - Ghost of Cain". My friend said, "Can we take it?" The guy said "Sure," took the LP off the turntable and added it to the stack. Thunder & Consolation is my favourite album, but Ghost of Cain will always be special because of that memory.

   

[kevloy]

1985 - Berlin - As a feckless youth just saving up and going to gigs, they played the Loft at the Metropol.  Once I saw them that was it - Other music catches the heart but I don't think any other band will hook me as much.

I know it sounds weird but I can't believe I can see them live - always feel like it won't be as good as 'last time' but it always is.

[wrbones]

In 1990 a co-worker loaned me his CD of T&C, thinking it was something I'd like. I loved the first song but there wasn't really much in the rest of the album that grabbed me, except for Nothing Touches, which I found strangely haunting in the same way as Bauhaus's Hollow Hills works on me. After half-a-dozen listens I gave the CD back but after a few months I really wanted to hear I Love the World again so I sought out my own copy, put it on in the car and found that I loved most of it.

From there I went out and got No Rest and Impurity and loved both of those from the get-go. Soon after I got Vengeance which is a very different sound but I liked it just the same. I got Love of Hopeless Causes when it came out but it never really worked for me so I kind of lost interest in their new material after that. I skipped Strange Brotherhood and Eight but for lack of anything else new to buy, I got Carnival when it was released but all it did was confirm my suspicion that NMA had lost it.

I eventually got hold of Ghost of Cain when the EMI re-issues came out, along with No Rest, T&C and Impurity, and for a few years it was about the only NMA album I listened to, having played the others to death. I bought High and TIAGD when they were released but it took me ages to really get into either of them, even though they are now amongst my favourites. I pre-ordered BD&W and enjoyed it at first, which made me realise that I was only missing two albums, so I grabbed cheap copies of both Strange Brotherhood and Eight via the Discogs marketplace (a great place to find anything you want at reasonable prices). I love Strange Brotherhood but I think Eight is destined to be my least favourite NMA album, along with Carnival.

[Rusco]

Ahem. I'd like to awake now an old and interesting topic concerning the bands that Darkness, Stoney and NickyG had inside this thread somewhere in 2011:

(...) lots of talk about old legendary crust/anarcho/hc bands in 80`s at Adam & Eve's with you over there (...)

Yeah, you mentioned Civilized Society, Logical Nonsense... Gotta say that CS have been one of my all time faves although it's a rare thing when I play them nowadays. I've heard rumours that before they split up (because of one of the singers that got jailed due to ALF things) they had something like 80 songs that were never released.  Do you know what ever happened to the last tapes? Did they end up in any record?

There are some bands that I'd like know a bit more if you have any information or remember them: F.U.A.L. and Internal Autonomy. Do you know them? I've always thought if there were any relations together? Female vocals and quite similar sounding actually. I've almost all of IA's albums too but don't know are they still active? For what I've understood it's /it was sort of a project band and they reformed it at times.

[kmjpe2]

I heard Vengeance at a mates house when i was about 15 .Then I seen them on top of the pops doing no rest was blown away so seen them at the RiTZ In Manchester on the No Rest tour .I was amazed by Justins attitude and the wonderful musicianship of Rob and Stuart. The fans dancing and tribalness was also enlighteneing.Seen them many times since 40- 50 times I think. I was lucky enough to interview Justin at Strummercamp in 2011.f My favourite albums are Ghost oF Cain ,No Rest and Vengeance though i also really like the new one. Current favourite  track probably Kneviel  favourite old track The Hunt, Christian Militia ,Family