Another year of this #x-daysofmusic challenge set up by 
I was made redundant from Super Channel which gave me a chunk of money to go travelling with. I freelanced at MTV while I sorted out the details then headed for the sun.
The only gig I went to in Australia was Poison at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. No idea why. Also no idea why I didn't go and see these guys when I had the chance, in a tiny pub gig...
Midnight Oil - Blue Sky Mine
The peak of their careers and I didn't go. Shakes head in disbelief. This album and Diesel and Dust are the finest Australian pub rock you'll ever hear. I did see them eventually at Glastonbury, sharing a bill with The Fall and Rolf Harris. Peter Garrett blew his credibility by entering politics and ditching the Green Party. The band have now re-formed, and I had tickets for a gig last year, but couldn't go.
Paul Kelly & The Coloured Girls - Dumb Things
Australia's greatest songwriter. The previous album Gossip had made Kelly a star in Australia, and Under The Sun was everywhere when I arrived. It was the first Australian CD I bought and I have everything the man has recorded or written. Paul Kelly's Greatest Hits collection Songs from the South is recommended.
Hoodoo Gurus - Come Anytime
A band I discovered just in time for them to break up. For me they're a one-hit-wonder, but I still have the single as the album came out after I left the country.
Angels - Dogs Are Talking
A bit of pub punk from Adelaide. The Angels had one massive song: Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again? (Audience sings: "No way, get fucked, fuck off!"). It's worth digging out Liveline to hear how very good they were back in the day.
Boom Crash Opera - Get Out Of The House
Very much influenced musically and politically by the Oils, Boom Crash Opera had some big ideas which never came good. There was going to be a CD-ROM album at one point but it never happened as the band collapsed at the vital moment. This song was massive while I was out there.
Joe Jackson - Nineteen Forever
Okay, he's not Australian. I'd forgotten Joe Jackson, but one of my house-mates in Sydney played his albums a lot and I picked up a live compilation and eventually picked up the back catalogue.
Joe Jackson was playing Hammersmith Odeon the night after I landed back in London at the end of the year. I decided it would be poor form to try to tell the parents I was nipping out as soon as I got home.
Grateful Dead - Just A Little Light
On my way back from Australia I had a few days in California. Zappa had stopped touring, but I caught my first Grateful Dead show at the Shoreline Amphitheatre at the Southern tip of San Francisco Bay. There's no video from that night on the web, but this is from a week later and was a new song to me so it stuck in my memory.
Honorary mentions to...
Transvision Vamp - Baby I Don't Care
Wendy James was something special back in the day. I saw the band live at Reading University. Little recollection about the gig. Great band for two albums. The third was utter tosh.
R.E.M. - Stand
The single where I finally caught up with R.E.M. It was a few years before I'd see them live, but I picked up Green and was fascinated. It didn't make sense to my English pop/metal/folk mind. It still leaves me slightly unsettled when I listen to it.
Texas - I Don't Want A Lover
The first album was a lovely slice of blues, but pretty soon they started using dance beats and they lost me for a while. Love the slide playing on this. A b-side of the time has a shocking version of Sweet Child of Mine
Lou Reed - Dirty Blvd.
This song made me buy the album, which got me firmly into Lou Reed. His late period work is fantastic - more thoughtful and less showy than the 70s material. It's of it's time, sound-wise but the band and the songs can't be faulted. The follow-up, Magic & Loss is an essay on illness and death - 50 odd minutes of beautiful misery.
Pandora's Box - Good Girls Go To Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)
Jim Steinman makes an album with 4 different female vocalists and his own weird fantasies. It's everything you imagine, and much of it was plundered for later Meat Loaf albums. However, like Bad For Good it forms a vital part of the whole Jim Steinman chronology and is essential background for seeing Bat Out of Hell - The Musical
My days of music: 1967 - 1968 - 1969 - 1970 - 1971 - 1972 - 1973 -
1974 - 1975 - 1976 - 1977 - 1978 - 1979 - 1980 - 1981 - 1982 - 1983 -
1984 - 1985 - 1986 - 1987 - 1988