Dave McCormack’s playlist

Tue 29th Mar, 2011 in Features

Brisbane’s Dave McCormack is a master of the catchy pop tune and has written his fair share for his solo albums and with bands such as The Polaroids, The Titanics and his biggest success – Custard. Who hasn’t sung along to a Custard tune or three like Girls Like That, Anatomically Correct, Nice Bird, Music is Crap or Apartment?

We asked Mr McCormack to share some of his musical memories with us and discovered that alongside the Beatles, Scritti Politti, Pere Ubu and Cure in his record collection there’s also a stray Britney Spears record or two on the shelf.

FIRST ALBUM YOU BOUGHT
The first album I ever purchased with my own money was The Beatles Yellow Submarine. I got it from the Myer Music Bar at Westfield Shopping Town in Indooroopilly. I think it was sometime in the late 70s or early 80s. I’ve always been a huge Beatles fan, but Yellow Submarine is, in hindsight, a strange choice because half of it is George Martin’s film score and the other half is just cobbled together from weird tracks and songs from other Beatles’ albums.

FIRST ALBUM HANDED DOWN TO YOU
My dad always had an extensive and varied album collection. It seemed to me that every cupboard and bookshelf was filled to the brim with vinyl and reel to reel tapes. Everything he had, whether he liked it or not, was handed down to me. With regards to inheriting an album from someone other than my dad, sometime in the early 70s my cousin Adam, who was about 10 years older than me, gave me a copy of an album called Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by a Scottish group called The Middle Of The Road Band. Great song, but the album was crap.

FIRST BREAK-UP ALBUM
God, this is going back a very long way. Probably something by A-ha, Howard Jones or Scritti Politti? Or maybe even a Pere Ubu album. I just don’t know.