I can’t remember you wrote the book “time machine”?
It was fantastic first time I read it
First rock concert I went to was Deep Purple as a 15 year old. Actually seeing/hearing Ritchie Blackmore play live was absolutely magical.
Supported by Elf with the late great Ronnie James Dio on vocals. 
That was the start of watching Purple, Rainbow and Dio as often as possible over the next 3 or 4 decades.
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I could have written that!
As for the time machine angle, music certainly does that for me, some things transporting me to a very specific time and place and company, not so much bringing back memories as placing me there in that space and time.
Rolling Stones Let’s spend the night together - an evening with my first GF… (best not go into that too much!)
Beatles Here comes the sun - Hearing my first hifi system for the first time, though not quite finished.
Who Won’t get fooled again - Watching them live at the Rainbow theatre in London.
Moody Blues On the threshold of a dream - sneaking plays of my brother’s album on his record player when he was out (before I had my own system)
And countless more!
Absolutely not the only reason why I play these pieces, and not all of my favourite music does that, but an amazing effect nonetheless.
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Jules Verne. The band Eloy I mentioned above are named after the people the traveler meets.
Wasn’t it HG Wells?
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Maybe…. Indeed, you are correct!
Ok guys back on topic, the tile is a play on words
It was that recording that I was thinking about actually. Have you read “Ring Resounding” by John Culshaw? He describes the recording of the first stereo recording of the Ring operas. It’s fascinating.
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Yes, David, I have read that book. It’s fascinating, although out of print, so extremely difficult to get hold of.
One story from the book, which I can’t quite remember, is the name of a singer whom they were keen to bring on board for the recording, but couldn’t sign up. He then died shortly afterwards. Was it Sandor Konya?
Will look that up when I’m home.
What a great post @Pete_the_painter. Music always brings back memories and transports me back in time. It’s funny, my memory is not the best but I still remember every single circumstance surrounding the first time I heard Carry on Wayward Sun by Kansas. First time I heard Tuesday’s Gone by Skynyrd. Thanks for a wonderful post.
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David Bowie - Space Oddity on 7" vinyl. This is my strongest musical Time Machine. Every time I hear this track, it still takes my right back to the moment a mate said “try this with headphones”. So that’s what stereo is? Ever since then I started to explore ways and means to hear music at its best.
As well as music, I also find certain smells equally evocative… When cutting the grass I always think of school sports day. Home baking cakes in the oven remind me of my mum. The most powerful experience of this was when exiting Piccadilly Circus tube station, where an elderly chap was smoking a pipe with the same pipe tobacco my Grandad used - “Edgeworth Ready Rubbed” a type only available at specialist pipe tobacconists. The sensation was so powerful, I switched direction and followed him and the pipe smoke trail all the way down Piccadilly past the Royal Academy to Green Park where he disappeared into the crowd. I was late for a client meeting, but it was worth the Art Directors scornful expression. I’ve never forgotten the experience as my Grandad had recently passed away, and it felt like he was back with me for that fleeting moment I followed that chap down Piccadilly.
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There is a radio show in the UK on a Sunday afternoon. Sounds of the 70’s presented by a 70’s ( and current) DJ Johnnie Walker. It is the sound of my teens and he interviews people and tells stories of his time in the 70’s.
I love the show but get alternatively happy and morbidly depressed while listening. 
Definitely a time machine.
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I too love that music. The very first time I ever heard any opera was when I borrowed an LP from the library. It was selections from the Ring Cycle, with Kirsten Flagstaff etc. I didn’t really expect to like it, after all opera was serious music and I was still in a pop phrase, but I like to try new things. Well I adored it and rapidly bought the Solti complete ring cycle on LPs (and later on CDs and later on HD download).
I have loved opera ever since and have loads of music files, plus several hundred DVDs. I still remember that first LP though, Siegfried’s funeral march played through our big bass heavy radiogram really shook the house.
I’m with you. As a very young lad I was chocked by my aunties strong perfume.
She wasn’t that old, maybe young thirties but wore a perfume that was very popular in the mid 1970s and one I always associate with that unique “Old ladies handbag” smell.
I’ve no idea what the particular product was, but have recently been sidestruck back in time by wafts from todays young ladies using perfumes that are fashionably “Old ladies handbag” like.
Then there’s bonfires. These can have various complexities ranging from fresh garden waste to toxic rubbish.
Sunday night used to be bonfire night where waste was burnt. Other bonfire triggers are breakfasts at the range. Posh girlfriends romantic large hearth. Sitting with strangers off my head at festivals and Scout camp with stick bread.
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Ah, yes, bonfires, I’d forgotten about that garden ritual - they do have a distinct smell. My parents had an incinerator at the end of the field / garden and I remember there was weekly Wicker Man like ritual (without Edward Woodward thankfully!) where all the combustible waste was disposed of. This was way before the days of collected recycling in rural Wales.
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I’ve come late to this thread but I must say how much I’ve enjoyed it, from Pete the Painter’s original thread onward.
Music IS evocative. When I brought my first system my mother’s advice was to crank it up as music needed to be experienced, to be felt. (She also introduced me to F1, especially Lotus, and since Colin Chapman died all those years ago it’s never felt the same.)
Going back to the OP, due to house moves, children and all kind of reasons my system was hidden away for 15 years, and I relied on car radios, iPods/Pads/Phones/Macs and the TV for my musical experience. When I finally got the system up and running again, I couldn’t believe what I’d been missing. I don’t see a difference between the system and my enjoyment of music. The whole point of it is to get me to the emotion that the artist put into it. Otherwise to paraphrase Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson, it’s just karaoke for me, dude.
There are albums or CDs, less so streamed files, where the connection through the vocals, the instruments, the feeling of being there is so emotional that it makes all the faff with the connections, dust, high purity copper etc worth it. I can see why someone designed the SBL and why I can put up with foam grilles, silicone sealant and stabbed hands putting it together. It all takes me closer to the music and that’s what it’s all about. It doesn’t hurt that I like the look and feel of all of this stuff, and I don’t mind in the least that when I started out someone told me the Creek and later the Nait looked like they came from the Radio Spares catalog!
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I’m sure I’ve read that smell and sounds are the most evocative of all senses.
An odd one, but whenever I hear ‘Downtown’ by Petula Clark I’m transported to being sat in the back of a Ford Anglia van with my cousins on way to a caravan holiday in Blackpool with the Tower in sight. It’s incredibly powerful - 40 years later I drove along that stretch of road and saw the same sights and was nearly moved to tears as everyone in my memory of that day apart from me was now dead.
First time I heard ‘Moonage Daydream’ by Bowie on a set of Wharfedale electrostatic headphones. Wow.
My Dad was a semi pro musician and our home was full of music. I’m sometimes stunned when I hear obscure music and I realise I know the title and who recorded it. Those ‘where the hell did that come from’ moments.
I couldn’t be without music. A life saver.
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Smell is a huge trigger and used to evoke an emotional reaction forever. Back in 80s I had trouble selling a house, lots of interest but no buyers. The morning before another open house I decided to bake some of that store bought par bake bread as well as place some flowers in a few key areas. I sold the house that to first couple that arrived (over the asking price as well).
I think it is hard when you’re left with a memory that only you now have, and can’t just get the immediate recognition and response and emotional reaction from those that were there. Your description though does prompt an image to form in my mind as I visualise you all in the Angle Van so thanks for sharing. It also prompted a cascade of images and memories for me going back 50 years or more where the majority of the folk in it are gone, but their memory is with me for as long as I’m around. These particular images all centre on Union Mills in the Isle of Man, the fresh smell of damp fern along the River Dhoo, the smell of cut timber and resin at Tom Crane’s house, the absolutely thumping bass from my grandfather’s enormous loudspeaker, driven by a valve amp built by my father. This is 1972, and the musical trigger was the B-side to the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards’ Amazing Grace single - the altogether much better Cornet Carillon. We were surrounded by military music, unusual maybe but my father had been in the Royal Signals for a while, my grandfather the Royal Horse Artillery, my mother had been a Land Girl and her family had been in the East Yorkshire Regiment, Royal Tank Regiment and Royal Artillery. Sorry to go on but your post triggered a chain reaction in my memory. I sometimes think I should write it down while I remember it all, but then again don’t think it would be valued.
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I lived abroad with my parents during the sixties and early seventies and as Dad was in the forces music source was though forces radio. On return to the UK I remember being presented with so many more musical influences but never forgot the likes of Judy Collins the original Seekers etc but then there was the one event that catapulted my love of music Bowie performing Starman on telly. This one event opened up a whole new world and my journey of discovery with my Naim kit continues. Nina Simone Karl Jenkins all vying for attention on listening nights alongside Bowie Velvet Underground Lou Reed and many more. Played Blackstar last night first time since 200 recapped could be the wine cried a lot as my little time machine took me back to the day Bowie died but also great pride that he pushed me into seeking out new music and that Naim have been my travelling companion on an ongoing discovery.
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