I was only seventeen, I fell in love with a gypsy queen (Uriah Heep)

I am back in the Abbey Road Two studio/record collection room in Otane for a bit. It's so great to reactivate the blogs on blogger. I've really missed writing about music while we've been in China and I LOVE blogger.

The good thing is I haven't had to pay a fortune to transport CDs back to Nu Zild but the bad news is I've had to go to the dark side and download music from itunes.

I've written about that on my other blog site so I won't labour the point.

We stayed on Waiheke for a few days and that gave me a chance to visit Real Groovy in Auckland.

It was great to find the expansion of the vinyl for sale has continued. There would be roughly twice as much vinyl as there are CDs and that can only be a good thing.

I picked up a few things including Uriah Heep Live in 1973. I used to have it many years ago but it was sold in one of my periodic purges.

Uriah Heep was one of the bands that sound tracked my teenage years. ...Very 'Eavy ...Very 'Umble was their debut album and one of my earliest possessions. For a time it was a permanent fixture on my Garrard SP 25 Mk III turntable.

I added Demons and Wizards (Easy Livin' - the single - sold me on the album) and the double Live album to my collection but, somewhat bizarrely, nothing else by them.

Listening to the album again after all these years was weird. It was both familiar, like the stage announcements - Fridee nite in Birmingham! and fresh.

I couldn't thinking how much they remind me of Grand Funk, with the same wall of sludge blues/ hard rock that has become retroactively so appealing.

Best moment for me is Gypsy (the standout from that debut album too). It's suitably rocky, proggy and there is noodling going on!! All my favourite components.

The band is still going too.

Mick Box, the guitarist, has been the only constant feature. Sadly David Byron, the singer in the classic early seventies line up, died in 1985 (heart attack and liver disease). While in similar died young tragic circumstances, New Zealander Gary Thain died from a drug overdose shortly after being fired from the band in 1975.

The current version of the band is light years away from the early seventies Uriah Heep which will always have a special place in the collection.