I’ve been adding (slowly) to my blog page about songs that invoke vivid memories of my past. While I was scrolling through the Nazareth part of my brain, I remembered a couple of funny things that I just have to repeat here:
“You’d think that these memories should come out of high school or even earlier, but they are more about my 2A to 3B terms at UW, most of that time living at Batavia place. The ‘Nazareth Anthology’ came out the term I was in 2A. But it all started in 1A, when I received one of their cassette tapes in the big first purchase from Columbia House (do they still exist?). Yes, cassette tapes. I would listen to this during my walks to class in the dead of winter (1B). “Heart’s Grown Cold” is a big memory maker. It was during this period of purchasing albums from Columbia House that I made the transition to CDs. Wow. My Nazareth Anthology box set was eventually stolen while living on 3rd Street (near Lansdowne) in Ottawa during my third workterm. One day Scott Murphy and I bought a couple of these keg contraptions holding 36 beer equivalent that Labatt’s was trying out for their Genuine Draft product. All day in the backyard we were sitting around listening to old vinyl Metallica albums that the neighbour was ‘introducing us to’. I don’t know how it happened but for some reason 2 absolute strangers joined us in the fun. These guys were shady at best (think mullets, cut off jeans and wife-beater shirts). After drinking a lot of beer with us, they eventually left. They seemed like nice guys. Later that day Scott and I went out to shoot some pool and when we got back, my bedroom window had been broken into and these guys (obviously) were the culprits. But they only took 2 things: my jar of change and my Nazareth Anthology. Now, I say obvious because we had left the keg contraptions in the back yard but not the taps. The kegs were also damaged….as if somebody were trying really hard to get some more of that wonderful Duff they had been drinking earlier that day. True story!”
Oh, and something I’m also proud of: I once went to see Nazareth when they came to the Flying Dog. But it wasn’t called the Flying Dog back then. Does anybody remember what it was called back in the early 90’s?