So It Started There - Tell us where 'It Started' for you

To celebrate Nick Banks' upcoming autobiography So It Started There we would like you to tell us where 'It Started' for you. What was your first Pulp single or album? Do you still have it? Where did you first see Pulp play live? What other memories do you have of how you discovered Pulp? Contributions will be published on this page.

Nick Banks has kindly shared his own where 'It Started' memories here.

Nick's autobiography was published in paperback and a special hardback edition on 28th September 2023 by Omnibus Press. The hardback edition is limited to 1,000 copies and, if ordered direct from the publisher, includes the chance to win an original prop from the Common People music video. It can also be ordered from all the usual online and high street booksellers.

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Gayle

I was 16 when different class was released and listened to it on repeat. I first saw pulp live at V96 in Warrington and was hooked. Fast forward 27 years and I've taken my 15 year old daughter to Warrington, Manchester and Hammersmith this summer. It's been amazing to share the experience with her and see how much she loves the music.

Meredith

Photo submitted by Meredith

90’s, in the U.S.. Different Class playing in the local bookstore. Immediately purchased CD, fan ever since.First saw live, and, met band on Coachella Cruise. Travelled to Dublin to see them again in 2023.

Scott Frazer

In my early years so say up to the age of 12 - I had a strange taste in music, we had not long had a satelitte dish installed and MTV was always on in our house. My favourite band at the time was Erasure. I was quite into all the weird groovy synth sounds and catchy lyrics...id even pretended to be like Andy Bell by throwing water all over my face as if i was sweating and doing all the dodgy dancing. I was very innocent then and didnt know anything about the homosexual nature of the band and what not. Not that there is anything wrong with that.....each to their own and what not? Then they did a cover version of a few Abba songs - and I was horrified to see my favourite band dressing up in drag - got worried that my friends would take the mickey out of me and bully me because of my taste. Again, I was very innocent and didnt understand about what was going on. I immediately stopped listening to them and started listening to the radio.

November 1995 came, and I remember listening to Red …

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Arnaud

It started with "Do you remember the first time". Heard it a couple of times on the French radio, was in my early teens, thought it was good but at the time I was more used to listen stuff like Guns n'Roses or Nirvana. I remember going to the disc shop and seeing the CD, His'n Hers, the cover caught my eye but I couldn't afford it.
Couple of years later, it was Common People and then I never left.
Hoping to finally see you guys live next year (please, please European dates).
Arnaud

Sarah A. Wilson

October 1st, 1995. Listening to the chart show on the radio whilst finishing my homework on a Sunday night. Heard this melancholy song on the radio which kind of matched my mood so went to turn the volume up and I listened. At the end the DJ said it was "Sorted for E's and Wizz", the new song from Pulp. I was aware of the band of course, but couldn't believe this band was the same that had done "Common People" - it sounded so different. The next day after school, I bought the CD singles and that was it really.

Mitzi

Photo submitted by Mitzi

I was 13 in 2004 and I was a huge Franz Ferdinand fan. I started looking for b-sides, rarities, covers, etc. and suddenly I bumped into a Mis-shapes version they did for the BBC radio. I thought it was the best song I've ever heard and I felt so touched by the lyrics, so I went to find the original one. So it started there. I fell in love with Pulp and it almost inmediatly became my favorite band, til the present day. I love them so much I decided to include a cover version of Monday Morning in my first album, here's the link to it:
https://open.spotify.com/intl-es/track/1kFN5wNwI2qQPVUbAmEs5h

I haven't seen Pulp live yet (I'm from Argentina and I had no money when they came in 2012) but I will, in November.
Thanks for the space!

Sarah

First of many live shows in the 90's I think was the NEC in Birmingham in 1996 with Edwyn Collins supporting. My brother and I were obsessed and my 10 year old sister was infuriated that she was too young to tag along. Pulp and Ocean Colour Scene were the soundtrack to life for the next goodness knows how many years and I'm grateful that I got to experience it all again this year in Cardiff.

Jack

The earliest exposure to Pulp I can recall is 2013, as I religiously listened to the soundtrack for the ‘The World’s End’ movie (hadn’t even seen the film at the time, I was just fascinated by everything to do with it as it was predominantly filmed in a neighbouring town) and lo & behold Do You Remember The First Time is featured on the tracklist. I credit that Br*tp*p-filled soundtrack as having almost entirely curated my teenage music taste (Blur, The Stone Roses etc etc) but I didn’t dive any deeper into the band’s catalogue at the time, the song came and went through my little head.

Flash forward to I wanna say 2018, I was sat in my parents’ car when Disco 2000 came on the radio. I’d been watching the show White Gold which features Laura Brannigan’s ‘Gloria’, and Disco 2000 interpolates it - and my silly brain exploded! Went on a full Different Class bender, eventually expanding to the other 2 “core” albums (reunited with Do You Remember The First Time!!!).

Flash forward to 2021, …

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Ingo

Got in the car to drive to work. The Kobe of work I was into was quite boring to me at that time. So I drove in silence, and got a bit grumpy. So I decided to switch on the radio to cheer me up a bit. And that bulleted me straight into "common people" exactly at the line: "I took her to s supermarket, I don't know why but I had to start it somewhere... so it started there"

Couldn't stop laughing for a while. Immediately bought the album different class that evening and listened to it over and over again. The nextn weeks I bought every album from before 1995 I could get my hands on.

Rachel

I was a bit of a misfit as a youngster, never felt like I fitted in. I grew up in a very musical household so was always taught how important music was and how it had the power to influence your emotions. I remember seeing the video to Do You Remember the First Time and thinking 'this is MY music'! From then I bought a copy of His n Hers at a record fayre in Brighton and I couldn't believe how much I loved the album! It gave me goosebumps...I was only 12. The first time I saw Pulp live was at Wembley Arena in March '96 (a 13th birthday present from my parents). I cried the whole next day as I couldn't believe what I had witnessed. I'm now a 40 year old mum of 2 and I've just seen Pulp live twice during their latest tour. They still give me goosebumps to this day... :)

Joy

I was watching Glastonbury on TV in 1995 but had missed song title and band but was mesmerised by the lead singer and the music the band were playing. I was then on my quest to find out details. After chatting at work and getting hold of musical press I discovered it was Pulp and lead singer Jarvis. So then got cds, became a Pulp Person and my first time seeing Pulp live was V96. Hooked ever since and was beyond excited seeing Pulp on recent tour.

Sara

Well it happened years ago, Autumn of 1992 in fact. Saturday morning TV, possibly The Chart Show. I was sitting by the video poised to spring forward to press record for anything at all indie. And there it was, Pulp with Babies, the original video. And I fell in love.

Emma Hughes

First saw them live in 1993 in the tiny nightclub bit of Cardiff University student union. So long ago mobiles weren't even a thing & it was too risky to take your big decent camera to gigs, so no photographic evidence. Probably a good thing after a few Strongbows too many.

They absolutely blew me away live - the tunes, the styling, the moves, and Steve just being too cool for school. Man how cool was he. Straightaway I knew I was all in. They were talking about the real life that I knew. For me, no other Britband came close.

My bessie got married in 1998 and styled us bridesmaids to match the Different Class cover. After the 1998 tour I had to wait 25 years to see them again. And every last second lived up to their glory days.

Heather

Photo submitted by Heather

At about 12 or 13 my Dad started introducing me to stuff that was, to be honest, probably too mature for someone who was barely out of childhood. It was often by accident while he was trying to show me something he really liked, but couldn’t remember how explicit it was. I distinctly remember being shown Pulp Fiction (not related to my discovery of the other ‘Pulp’…) and him being horrified that they were doing heroin onscreen while his 12-year-old daughter watched on. I’d also discovered his bootleg copy of ‘This Is Hardcore’ in our big tall CD stacker (or whatever you call this now-obsolete bit of furniture) maybe a couple of years before that and I remember being really scared by the cover. Or maybe just scared that I’d get caught looking at something I really shouldn’t be looking at, which was a naked half-dead …

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Pearl A

My mom has been a big fan of Pulp since 1994, so the love just carried on to me. I started to get into pulp when I was 12. The first album for me to get was one of my moms CD’s, the “hits” compilation. I really wore that CD out until I got more of their discography. I was particularly obsessed with Babies, Disco 2000, and Underwear. Ever since, the obsession has just grown stronger, with me having a big collection of pulp albums/singles and a small collection of pulp merchandise.

Eva Vlckova

My classmate lent me her tape with Different Class in 1995 and I made a copy of it. :-D I was 16 and only started to learn English at that time so I eagerly studied the photocopied lyrics with an English/Czech dictionary in my hand – despite the sentence "Do not read lyrics whilst listening" ;-) This music became the soundtrack of my teenage years in a small village in Eastern Bohemia. First saw them much later – in 2011 at Sziget fest in Budapest, Hungary. They did not make it to Prague in 1996 due to some problems at the border so I hope they will finally make it next year. ;-)

Sazzamataz

In 1994 when a 16 year old me and best friend Kathy cycled to where we knew Jarvis's sister lived in Sheffield and pretended to be collecting jumble for the college jumble sale. Jarvis's face came to the door but he didn't have any jumble - we were gutted - to make it authentic we had to do the whole street and ended up with bags full of jumble we didn't want that we then had to cycle with to the local charity shop!! 30 years on and we are both still Pulp's biggest fans.

Mary

I was a student living in a flat in South London. My boyfriend bought Different Class when it came and we played it a lot then. It was so different and exciting. It started there.

kio c

Photo submitted by kio c

i first listened to pulp on the 2nd of april 2020 when i was 13 when my friend recommended disco 2000 when i was talking about my friend at the time called deborah and ever since then ive been obsessed with pulp. i never thought id get to see them live but thankfully i got to see them twice, at finsbury park and hammersmith night 2 and i was at barrier both times!!
and ive met jarvis(at his exhibition) and candida (in the queue for hammersmith, i gave her a plush toy of jarv’s dog i made to give to him) and ill be meeting nick in october!!

Abi Reeley

My dad loves music - he always taped Top of the Pops off the telly so we had piles and piles of videos of old recordings throughout the 80s and 90s.

It was 1994 and I was 13 and I was watching an old recording of Blur from 1991 doing ‘There’s no other way’ and I thought it was cool.

I asked my dad if he had anything by Blue in his exhaustive vinyl collection and he either misheard me or ignored me and popped His n Hers on the record player.

Joyriders was unlike anything I had ever heard before - I felt that Pulp we’re letting me into a huge secret.

I was hooked from that point on. My dad bought Intro on CD and when I was there for the weekend, we would bond over Pulp.

I bought Different Class and all the singles on cassette and then on CD.

I have had a picture of Jarvis by my bed since 1996 and I take it everywhere I go.

I now have ‘I only went with her ‘cause she looks like you’ tattooed on my arm.

Keith Corrigan

It was Top of the Pops and I saw them performing Disco 2000 there was something different yet exciting about them. My Christmas presents in 96 were Different Class and the first two Oasis Albums. Even though I Love Oasis I connected with Pulp more and was also the band that helped me discover things as they say as a young teenager.

Never looked back since although the first time I did finally see them was the fateful Dublin Ambassador gig back in 2001. The less said about that the better. Thankfully the reunion gigs more than made up for it.

Chris G

Although I remember seeing earlier Pulp videos on MTV as a kid, it really started when I saw them do Common People on TOTP (in my head, Elton John was on the same show doing Made In England, but I could be misremembering). I would have been 13. My dad was watching and said “look at the state of him” aimed at Jarvis, and from that moment, I was in love!

Nick Banks

Photo submitted by Nick Banks

I do remember the first time….

I first entered the tunnel on 24 October 1982. Well, I say ‘tunnel’ but the reality was the complete opposite. I saw the light.

Me and my girlfriend had met a lad called Dave Kurley who, that October, put on a small run of concerts by local bands at the famous Crucible Theatre. Truth be told it was in the much smaller studio next to the main auditorium.

We had heard about a local group called Pulp and were keen to go see – we were really into the local band scene; playing and viewing. We had been doing a stint at putting local bands on above a pub (The Hallamshire) - that’s where we met Dave.

Anyways, we turned up and were completely – cliché alert – blown away by Pulp. Trouble is it was the direct opposite …

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Do you remember the first time?

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Page last modified on October 03, 2023, at 09:08 AM