ONE LP PORTRAITS: ARTISTS: NEIL ANTCLIFF: Neil Antcliff: Artist

"Well, it’s Lou Reed’s Transformer. It could have been any number of LPs, if I’m honest. It’s a really difficult question, is I think the first thing that I’d say.  

But the first one that popped in my head was Velvet Underground Loaded just because that was a really significant album for me. Probably, around 13/14 years old when I first got onto that tip and obviously then Lou Reed stemmed directly from that.  

Inappropriately appropriate this week with Lou Reed having died a couple of days ago but Transformer has always been a really significant album for me as well primarily because it filled a lot of gaps for me.  

I was into quite indie alternative music at that time, sort of the prequel to grunge and stuff like that and yeah, I think Lou Reed filled a lot of gaps in terms of that proto-punk sort of style and yeah, I think it just had a different vibe for me. It kind of just felt really different when I first listened to it even though it was way after that I obviously discovered it. I wasn’t there at the onset but I was definitely interested in a lot of stuff that he was talking about and sort of paring music back. 

It was the first time that I had appreciated that paring back of music and simplifying, which was then adopted more by punk aesthetic.  

This album particularly, I think you can hear that with a range of different sounds on the album as well. Some of the tracks are real proto-punk sort of sounding tracks and then others are melodic almost pop, do you know what I mean? That pop track sort of sound to it.  

But it is something that this and Loaded by Velvet Underground are the records that I return to. Sometimes, not in the most pleasant of times. Sometimes it’s in the darker periods that you’ll return to certain music but yeah, it’s definitely one of the albums I’ll keep going back to, drawn back to, on those rainy days when you need something to put on.  

This is one of the few albums, I think, that you can listen to all the way through as well. I think that’s a bit more of a rarity these days to actually get albums that you buy for the entirety of the album to listen to but this is still one of them for me, definitely.  

That’s really significant; if I can put an album on and not feel as if I want to change it that’s always a good sign for me, definitely." 

Neil Antcliff: Camden Palace Hotel, Cork, 28th October, 2013 

Lou Reed: Transformer released 1972  

Neil Antcliff