Songs About People # 1,449 Ronnie Spector

 

Not a favourite song but hey this is Ronnie...

Coveted # 32 Foghat - Foghat

 

Dazed & Confused was a pivotal film for me. Music is the fundamental thing for me. Hence... erm .... this blog. Dazed & Confused  helped me understand to a much greater degree what it must have been like to grow up in the Mid West in the mid Seventies rathe than on the edge of London as I did.It's a film it's tempting to inhabit.

It's easier after watching it to comprehend why Americans like Kiss. Aerosmith. And some band called Foghat who I'd never heard of until I watched the film. Foghat must have been in the record collection of pretty much every kid in the cast of Dazed & Confused. And Foghat's debut album sounds a lot better to me having heard Foghat by Foghat,

It's consistent. And follows its own internal logic. Foghat are actually an English band though they certainly don't sound like one. They signed a deal with Bearsville Records and headed on the road which in many respects they're still on although several members have dropped off the map down the years.

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 57 Fruit Bats - The Landfill

 

'Look at that mama spider crawling on the bouganvillea'

Day Two of the World Cup. And while I eagerly await witnessing the best football team Canada have ever produced at 8 o'clock according to reports. In the meantime,  I'm listening to The Landfill Fruit Bats twelth album. It's a comforting record. Distinctly old school. As if Dylan and Van the Man and Harry Nilsson are still in their prime and putting out excellent product. The same record forever. Not the worst idea.

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 14 Arcade Fire - Funeral

 

Funeral was a big deal and so were Arcade Fire for quite a while. Never ones to shy way from melodrama. the quixioic. The grand gesture. It was one of those albums that came out and you sensed it has changed things in some respect. It had tremendous ambition. It still feels like a classy Art film

Song(s) of the Day # 4,557 Queen Of The Stoneage

 

Queen of the Stoneage don't lose their ability to plunge in the knife when that's what the scene and the moment require. Life after all's a walking shadow as The bard 'quilled' and it always makes sense to have some dramatic flair. To have some semblance of fun while you're on alive if you can.

On Perfecth their latest and ninth album in all they strut and fret their hour upon the stage once more and it's just shy of forty minutes short of beaudacious guitar wizardry. and preening. One foot on on the speaker stand and grurning into the moshpit on their forthcoming global tour of ghastly enormodomes. 

I took a while with this band but there comes a point at which you click into their pitch. And that moment has come for me. I doff my hat to them. They walk the highwire that describes how deeply and scary life can be. But how the best response is to get yourself up and dust yourself down. To stand up and spar until you hear the bell. 

Coveted # 31 Fleetwood Mac - Then Play On

 

The original incarnation of Fleetwood Mac are the rare kind of band that make you long for a bygone time.There's a fluidiy and flair, a capcaity to slow down time that is quite peerless

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 15 The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

 

The turn of the century was definitely a turning point you realise ,usically. Musically bands like Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev came into their own. Perhaps they feel like transitional artists now. John The Baptists for the younger generation. Yoshimi is an awestruck album. Struggling with fragility and wonder.

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 58 Lamplight - Lick The Spoon Let It Soften

 

                                    'INTENSE1' A Repo Man's life is always intense.' Repo Man

If you like intensity you might like Lamplight. Their records burn with a rare intensity. I liked their album Lamplight, from 2024. I like their current one Lick The Spoon Let It Soften.Here was a paragraph from my review of Lamplight, 

In the sway of a rural breeze, Ian Hatcher -Williams vocals soothe and enchant the listener on his self-titled debut album as Lamplight which recounts his odyssey from a child raised in a Virginia cult to a burnt out tech worker in New York, then back to Virginia, happily married to his childhood friend, Throughout the album Hatcher -Williams explores how identity as it relates to where a person is from and evolves with where they live, and how that facet of self is further compounded by the agency one has over where they call home. To some extent Lamplight is about learning when to take the reins and when to let go - discovering what parts of yourself should be pruned so new branches can grow.'

Some backstory. Lick The Spoon Let It Soften. has literary qualities, which I realise is what I'm most inclined to. There  are the slow determined qualities of Red House Painters. Making our way up a hill. Pushing your shoulder to the wheel. It uses personal narrative as fuel. It isn't afraid to burn, 

* Thanks again to Darren Jones

Song(s) of the Day # 4,556 Spacemoth

 

When I was nineteen I went for six months to a hotel in Switzerland. It was pretty much the best six months of my life though I've had plenty and am anticipating plenty more. But this was a special time. A golden period. I was young and falling in love for the first time. It's always a good idea to fall in love.

The hotel I worked in was in Locarno in Ticino, Switzerland. On the slope of the alps above Locarno. Looking over the Lake Maggiore and across to Italy. To get to the hotel here you took a funiculaire up the mountain side. The journey was the stuff of dreams; as is the memory of it now as I close my eyes at the end of a long day. Memory can do that if you have the right soundtrack and I'm experiencimg the right album.

This is exactly the right album for this endeavour. It's Spacemoth's Inward Eye and its motorik rhythms and instincts are wrapping me in the cotton memories of forty one years and more. This is very clearly School of Stereolab and there's a very clear utopian centrifugal flow and momentum to music of this kid. An integral logic and coherent and purposeful pulse. 'A journey through inner and outer worlds' as it says on the tin. 

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 59 Shredded Sun - Never Odd Or Even

 

Shredded Sun come motoring out of Chicago, Illinois with waterpistols blazing on latest album Never Odd Or Even. They trip through the tulips, unpack their hamper of Indie tricks and picnic in a field. Another suggestion of loveliness from Darren Jones / First Mate Starbuck. Thanks Darren.

One moment the Velvet Underground , (who provide the essence and base ingredients  and moral and artistic compass for projects like these) are chugging in the slowlane. Next C-86 pick up the batons and press down on the accelerator. Never Odd Or Even. strike a good balance and lasts the course.

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 17 Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not

 

'It's been a long time since...'. Our Space. Twenty years to be precise. There are people who went to school with the Arctic Monkeys who are grandparents now. This was in conversation with The Smiths who were in conversation with The Beatles and The Stones who were in conversation with Dylan Thomas who was in conversation ...

It talks about a rites of passage we all go throuugh. Where we speak too loud and its always coming up to closing time and we don't really listen to each other as well as we might. It's never too late...

t

Song(s) of the Day # 4,555 Improvement Movement

 

It's always interesting to find a band that seems to be bending Rock & Roll into fresh shapes, seventy years an more down the road.Improvement Movement work out of Atlanta and are not entirely disimilar to acts like Omni and Canada's defunct Ought.But latest album Your Perfect Real Life yesterday marked out fresh territory to my ears.

Drawing from. on the surface. incongruous ingredients from Prog and Post Punk but the results here are consistently intriguing.There were moment where I found myself drawn back to some of the horrors of listening to late Seventies AOR Easy Listening Radio but the band have a routinely deft touch which hauls the coles from the fire time and again.  It's a record that demands little from the listener save for  an apprecition of open teritory and minimal clarity. This is unfailingly restless is the bestest fashion, 

Coveted # 30 Buffalo Tom

 

Buffalo Tom chimed and clanged like a Paisley Underground band reborn throughout the early Nineties.Dream Syndicate. True West. True values They never had the personality or the pure firepower to make the front page but they lit the fire in the bellies of honest triers like me who appreciated the real stuff. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Dinosaur Jr. .

There's a lot of heartbreak in Buffalo Tom songs. Hearts on sleeves. Men behaving emotionally. There's something valiant about the band. Emotionally courageous They never let up, or desert the banner. their songs sweat buckets and I imagine they did most nights onstage. They don't short change which is all you can ask from anyone.

Big Red Letter Day is their Valentine's Day album. The one where you get the sense that they drop to their knees and pop the big question.. I haven't heard this album for probably thirty years and the years just fall away. The way I feel hasn't changed.

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 18 Bob Dylan - Modern Times

 

If you read many Uncut Magazines publications you are likely going to be directed to a lot of Bob Dylan product. You may well have made up your mind over whether you're inclined to heed these directions.

Coveted # 29 Madder Rose - Panic On

 

I'm in the mood to listen to little remembered second albums by mid ranking little remembered left field American bands who surfaced and joined the circuit in the early Nineties and I recall from my time in Germany from 1992 to '94. A fondly remember time. Of going to Cologne and Dussledorf. with my best friend from these times. Seeing bands at the weekend or during the week.Making a point of catching the support, Drinking and smoking as if there was no tomorrow.

Madder Rose's Panic On will serve the purpose for today It's their second album and came out in March '94. I was about to leave Dortmund and head out to Izmir, Turkey for an aborted sojourn with a job that never materialised before heading on to Warsaw as the snow started to fall. Panic On was recorded in Hoboken, New Jersey and has a poetic, arresting quality. A bittersweet essence which drew me back to the record throughout today. Essentially calming. An essential sense that everything will be alright. 

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 60 Angela Autumn - Believer

 

Yes, yes, yes. it's my autumn almanac. All the leaves are brown. And the sky is grey. But the great records keep flowing up the pike . Not least Angela Autumn's new one. An unholy mix of Adrianne Lenker, Karen Dalton and Janis J. New album Believer is as rich and ripe to fall as you could possibly want.

A songwriter and banjo player based in Nashville Tennnessee although she hails from an appalachian region of Pennsylvania. Believe is  the sound of someone raised in bluegrass roots music. A brave, bucolic and heady record,

A Song(s) of the Day # 4,554 Grumpy

 

Grumpy. Nobod'sy favourite of the Seven Dwarves. But a canny band from Brooklyn. They swagger and sway in the queasy Southern sunlight  on latest album Unfindable Ring a record which draws from the likes of Big Thief and Wednesday and feels rather 'Now'.Singer and songwriter Heaven Schmitt has a lilting presence. 'I'm so hapy I could die' she intones on opener title track. I'm not sure about that but I'm more than content to listen on.

Occasionally this tips over into a queasy, giddy recklessness as if the whole thing is about to fall apart but the incoherence is clearly deliberate and has a giddy steeliness throughout which is rather impressive. Thanks once more to Darren Jones (Starbuck to his friends) for nudging me here. 

Coveted # 28 John Cale - Vintage Violence

 

Cale's first album sounds like sloppy early Glam before the event on Colombia Records. Cale himself is dismissive of the album saying essentially he's trying on clothes in an attempt to find a voice. but it works for me. It's artistic, bohemian has a set of great tunes which swing from melancholy to whimsy.

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 19 Joanna Newsom Ys

 

There's an unorthodoxy about Joanna Newsom's work which in itself is remarkable and noteworthy. But then you listen to her records and surely the central kernal of her charm and appeal is clear. It's childhood itself.

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 61 Steff Chura - Dancing Alone On The Concrete

 

Steff Chura has a good pedigree. She's from Detroit, Michigan.Tight band .Neat formula. Three or four minute New New Wave songs that hark back to the sharpest parts of previous decades. Chrissie Hynde, Liz Phair. Steff Chura.

She first made a record because a good friend died and she decided she needed to do so. This strikes me as a good basis for decision making, She's on Saddle Creek Records which also seems a fine idea. Dancing Alone On The Concrete is her third album and her first since 2019.

She exhibits control of the form and how she wants to project it on all of her nine innings here.She has the Art and the Smarts. Peter Buck and Mike Mills contribute and everything shines. Songs of the street. Songs of how broken hearts have a remarkable knack of healing. 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,553 Crayon Angels

 

When you were young you could hold a shell to your years. And hear the murmur of the oceans. The enchanted state of childhood. Chancing upon astonishing new music is not unlike this sensation. The low door in the wall The beckoning finger to the golden chamber of youth. 

Listening to the eponymous debut album from Crayon Angels out of Northwest Territories, Canada last night at the end of a long day's work felt something like this. It's an extraordinary record. Not their first but the first that's come to my attention. 

Thanks to.... Darren Jones for this. Again. thanks Darren. I've no idea of your source for many of your albums you send my way but you certainly add another dimension to It Starts With a Birthstone. 

Back to the record. The band are named after a Judee Sill song but this sounds nothing like Judy Sill except for its vaulting ambition and imagination. It recalls Arcade Fire. Another ambitious, Canadian band. But I find this purer. More open hearted. Less stentorian . In fact quite the opposite. This is a very gerous record and doesn't show off as arcade fire generally do, as good as they get.You can sense the terrain. The glory..This has some of the wild eyed rapture of The Children's Crusades.

  

Coveted # 27 Judee Sill - Judee Sill

 

Not the happiest person by all accounts. But a supernova talent. Influenced by Bach. Sounded like the Karen Carpenter of the drugged Underground. Made records not quite like anyone elses. Lived a quite extraordinary life and committed armed robberies of liquor stores and gas stations in her youth. Discovered heroin early and set her hand to sex work and fraud before deciding on a music career. Came to the attention of Crosby, Stills and Nash and signed to David Geffen's Asylum label . There's an intense purity to her work, astonishing intricacy and condensed mystical passion for the rapture but I wouldn't recommend the lifestyle.  She died of a drugs overdose . Her reputation will surely endure

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 62 Arab Strap - Half-Told Tales

 

I kind of dig Arab Strap. They come from Falkirk .They're drawn to the darkness. The bleak. The disturbing and uncanny. .They drag me relentlessly back to te Nineties . The vibes and moment of Trainspotting. But they have a voice that endures. Latest album Half-Told Tales (their ninth I think)  sticks to the script . It's a minimal, relentless, pulsating  record which will make few converts but appeal to admirers.

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 20 The White Stripes - Elephant

 

This is 50 minutes long. A pretty ideal length for a vinyl record. I bought it at the time on CD and played it a lot and liked it a lot though I never fell hard for White Stripes. I always found them easier to respect than adore. But this is pretty mean Rock & Roll and is difficult to knock in terms of its design, its appetite and execution.

A Song(s) of the Day # 4,552 The Cat's Miaow

 

A Monday afternoon. Grey and overcast in Canterbury. Nothing better to than listen to When You Smiled & Turned Away the latest album from Melbourne Indie stalwarts, The Cat's Miaow. A band that have taken a 25 year hiatus after first putting out cassettes on the small Australian label Toybox. Anglo strumming in the vein of The Velvet Underground, The Go Betweens and The Sundays. Heaven clearly is a place on earth.

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 63 American Football - American Football

 

I've surprised myself by falling hard for American Football's self tutled fourth album over the last couple of days. It's spacey and grandiose. In The Smith and Radiohead's ballpark. Incredibly inventive and slightly remote and withdrawn. The band are pegged as Emo and hail from Urbana, Illinois. It  makes sadness feel slightly stately. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 21 The Streets - A Grand Doesn't Come For Free

 

Intertextuality. Texts feeding in to other text. A Grand Doesn't Come For Free feeds off The Oddysey, Ulysees, Good Fellas, Eastenders. A track closes . Another one begins. This is how we all live The sun rises. The sun sets. It starts again.

A Song(s) of the Day # 4,551 Shabazz Palaces

Hip Hop takes different pathways. I confess I sometimes find its narrowness slightly difficult but Shabazz Palaces stand apart from the herd and latest record It's a Style Sport is a pathway to the stars. I listened last thing last night and got lost there. Astral

There are so many ideas here on every track. It's pure ingenuity. bravery and wonder. A spectral journey to return to and incorporate into your day. I felt like I was in a Star Trek episode. The original gang.I sailed through its thirty eight minutes then went back to the top of the slide. 

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 64 The Heavenly Bodes - Green Hills

 

It's July. But frankly it's hotter than July. I've just taught three online classes in a flat where it sometimes felt like I was teaching in an actual tin can and headed into Newcastle to make the most of the day. Dropped in to Reflex and this took my fancy. Green Hills the debut album from Falmouth's The Heavenly Bodes. Now I'm back at my desk listening to it on my headphones and I'm gripped.

  Apparently emerging from South Cornwall's Grassroots Psych scene. This is instantly recorgisable to anyone with a certain record collection; Sonics, Cramps 13th Floor Elevators, Yardbirds, Troggs, Allah Las. Add your own suspects. An utterly thrilling ride. 

Coveted # 26 The Cardigans - Life

 

I was in Marks & Spencer's in Canterbury today. Lovefool was playing on the retail sound system. It made me think of my oldest nephew who had loved the song as a little boy. He came round unexpectedly today with his wife and young and utterly charming baby boy. All the old stories came out. Baby stories. This is what families are for. 

Now I'm listening and coveting Life, The Cardigans second album. Jonkoping's finest; the band came sailing in on the taste for the easy going and kitsch which had a palpable  resurgence at a  certain point when Brit Pop was in full swing. It was a CD that I played relentlessly throughout the second half of the Nineties and I wonder whether I need a vinyl copy now. 

It's a record that wallows in longing for both the Fifties and Sixties and their classic and clockwork arrangements and also for the bands own childhoods I suspect. It has any number of ingenious narratives and moods. It's a masterful record in every respect. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 22 Lambchop - Nixon

 

An artist who mkes life rich. Where every album feels like an event. Meeting up with an old friend after a couple of years of down time. Nixon has multitudes.

A Song(s) of the Day # 4,550 Sour Widows

 

'When I look out my window..... so many people to be..... You got to pick up every stitch. Must be the season of the witch !'

Well it certainly feels like it. The evenings are drawing in. The sky is darkening. The rain is falling and so are the leaves. Never fear. Because Sigil, the second album from Oakland, California's Sour Widows is here. 'Every crack in the ceiling. Let's another angel in....'

It's pure witchy wonder. There's a swan on the cover, struggling with the snow and trying to rise to the heavens.  Sigil documents this constant struggle. The agonising towards epiphany. Throwing Muses provide the guiding pilot 'Light the candle.' 'put a candle in the window.' we're bound for home. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 23 Gillian Welch - Time (The Revelator)

Uwinds like a hot afternoon on the porch with a pitcher of something potent shared between friends.

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 65 Jenny Gillespie Morton - In The Saftey Of The Light

 

So many album like these come out on a regular basis these days. Albums made by willowy artists in flowing dresses summoning back the golden age of Folk.

A Song(s) of the Day # 4,549 Michael Kiwanuka

 

Michael Kiwanuka's latest album Fudge is immediately a sunlit meadow and a great way for the weekend to begin. Soul flecked utopian semiments and melodies. I'v never really found a  Kiwanuka' album to wallow in.

i'm doing just this as four closes in upon five .. It's a record that sends the message that labour is done and its time to restore .Fudge is staggering mellowness.

Important Gigs in My Life # 1 The Thompson Twins & Tears For Fears - November 2nd 1982

 

Another day, another series. I plan twenty of these and haven't made my list yet. Just a set of evenings and experiences that stick out in my mind for one reason or other. Starting with this, my very first gig, and ample evidence that this is not some late bid for credibility. I was seventeen when I went, a late developer emerging from a spotty undistinguished teenage phase, looking for ways of constructing a self.

Hammersmith was a bus ride away from my family home in South West London. Still my favourite part of that city. Even now, I dream about being on that and other local bus routes. I went to this on my own. Not ready for a girlfriend to share a particular teenage rites of passage with at this moment. Thompson Twins and Tears For Fears were both set to embark on what turned out to be sustained assaults on the British and global pop charts which would bear decidedly mixed fruit though we were none of us to know that at the time. The pop world, particularly in Britain was about to change, reflecting the times. Undoubtedly for the worse. I'll brook no arguments with that

Tears For Fears first. I had quite a bit of time for them at round about that point. Their debut album The Hurting was out and I'd bought it. All exaggerated teenage mannerisms and psychodramas but I was a bit like that at that moment and still have the diaries to prove it. Late developer as I said.

I'm listening to it now. I'd maintain it's a reasonable record but that may be my teenage self confusing me. Still, some fine melodies, magpie thievery and the title track, Mad World and Pale Shelter, some opening salvo. The singles are generally the ones that stand the test of time best. I stood a few rows back from the stage in my John Lennon specs and curly mop of hair, probably swaying slightly. Lost in irredeemably teenage thought.

The record overcomes me now eventually in terms of it's non-stop angsty projections, particularly when the pace drops. Some tracks actively repel me. I no longer have a Holden Caulfield fixation. They had tunes but little depth. Still, they were right for me at the time. I enjoyed them and they were probably one of the best support bands I've ever seen, all these years later.

Now, after a tea break to come down from Orzabal and Smith's emotional contortions I'm back to reflect on Thompson Twins. They had just made one of the most remarkable transitions in all of pop history. From a seven piece, Talking Heads fixated political seven piece to a mop haired trio of almost cartoon-ish quality, probably better suited to their name, derived from the moustachioed detectives in Tintin 

I was unaware of the complete nature of the band's metamorphosis when I bought the ticket for this. I think I would probably have preferred to witness their earlier incarnation. Listening to the record this gig presaged, their breakthrough album Quick Step & Side Kick now is frankly a much more harrowing experience than getting through The Hurting, which is at least supposed to be distressing. The pop version of the Thompson Twins were one of the most conspicuous attendees of the garish pop party of the early Eighties. Duran Duran and Nik Kershaw were also there along with numerous other fortunately mostly forgotten arriviste ghouls. It was an unedifying spectacle. As for Quick Step & Side Kick, it was at the time and is still a deeply vacuous and frankly upsetting listening experience. I'm not a snob. At least not completely. There is always space for pop records that don't appeal to Velvet Underground fans like me. Some of them are just fabulous. But this is an affront. Listen to it yourself if you don't believe me. On second thoughts don't. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I think I enjoyed them well enough. The sound was certainly impressive for a trio. Then they put down their instruments and started dancing around the stage. The music continued. It was an early lesson for me, both about the nature of the music business and about life itself. Thompson Twins and I pretty much parted company when I left the venue. Tears For Fears and I a couple of
years down the line when I heard the singles from their world conquering second album Songs From the Big Chair and they left me utterly cold. Still, for better or worse, these two were my first. Oh good, I can take  Quick Step & Side Kick off now. The things I do for this blog...

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 66 TV Buddha - Hallelujah Anyway

 

Cometh the hour, cometh the sound and the scene. Chicago's TV Buddha's debut album Hallelujah Anyway is unhinged on any number of levels but rather loveable. Garage Nuggets if you're looking for a peg to hang this on. Beach Boys meet 13th Floor Elevators down by the corner. Post Pandemic Pop of the kind that young Chicagoans like National Photo Committee  Horsegirl, Sharp Pins are highly conversant in.these days. Urgency, abandon and slightly tone deaf  joy. This is loads of fun ! Playing New York next March. Be ahead of the herd. 

Coveted # 25 Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour Of Bewilderbeast

 

I find myself coveting albums I never imagined myself coveting. And in vinyl form. The act of ownership is something we couldn't really explain to ourselves or anyone else. I'm long past the point of buying records because the NME tells me to. Or because I feel the need to impress anybody. This just strikes me as very good. Something I had no real realisation of when it came out. I wasn't really interested. 

The Hour Of Bewilderbeast seems easier to place within a context now to me than it did when it came out in 1999. Things seemed to be slowing down in the UK after Brit Pop and the great, slightly depressive and mordant slabs of OK Computer, Urban Hymns and Mezzanine.

This was a smalller statement. Homier. A Baby Bird with a stab at the Mercury Prize which it won in 2000.. Something to buy alongside Travis, Belle & Sebastian and Elbow. Now it feels significant and bold and slightly poetic. Damon Gough. An Elliott Smith who would stay the course.  

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 24 The Killers - Hot Fuss

 

You see it quite often in Rock & Roll. Quite a lot in life. John The Baptist and Jesus Christ. Two thousand years down the line Television and The Cars. Echo & The Bunnymen and U2. Orange Juice and Haircut 100. Pixies and Nirvana. The Strokes and The Killers.

It's how the record companies and the music business works but its how bands work too. Hot Fuss is Hot Stuff. It keeps the executive behind the desk happy and the kids on a first date at the back of the Midwest Arena happy too. You can't fault this. It hits its marks. It rings the cash tills. It's great Pop Muisc.

A Song(s) of the Day # 4,548 Meryl Streek

 

Stories They Don't Teach You At School where should we start. How about Meryl Streek's latest. A one man rant from Dublin. Twelve songs. Thirty eight minutes. Motormouth mindset . This will more than do for Donnerstag.It's not quite clear what the message is but a great time is had by all !

Songs About People # 1,448 Alec Guinness

 

Coveted # 24 Bernard Cribbins - A Combination of Cribbins

 

Sometimes only Cribbins will do. A mainstay of many British lives. A reminder of the nice stuff. Listening to this and you're at home, school is over and Jackanory is on. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 24 Boards Of Canada - Geogaddi

 

What I'm in need of right now I need somewhere to escaps at the end of a work day and I

am coming to the conclusion that there are few better avenues of escape for me than Boards Of Canada . They're like the wardrobe to Narnia with additional servings of Millennial dread and terror.For Edmund's turkish delight, help yourself to infinite wonder. Smart, space. 

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 67 Kim Gordon

 

Kim Gordon's Play Me is a textbook 'how to' guide on growing older on your own terms and thereby staying young. It' came out last week but I'm only just listening to it. A week ahead on Courtney Barnett's latest and a day ahead of the weekend.. I'm rather taken by it.

Song(s) of the Day # 4,547 Flora Hibberd

 

Mammoth the latest album from Flora Hibberd is rich fare. A playful  Poppy and literate record that dances between the raindrops. It's all rather classy and serene.

* Thanks again Darren Jones for the nudge,

Coveted # 23 Trees - On The Shore

 

Listening to records like these in 2026 genuinely feels like a visitation to a vanished realm .Some of this obscure British Folk stuff which frankly isn't obscure anymore due to the Great Vinyl Collectors Phenoenon of the last decade or so is beyond sensational. Certainly this, 

Fairport of course were incredible but you realise if you refine your search that there were actually hundreds of bands like this operating all over Britain and the European heartland at the time. .It feels like it must have been a rather weird and wonderful place. Touched by magic and creative inspiration.  .

 On The Shore is a staggering record on every level. Its cover alone is breathtaking .Trees second album from 1970 and then they were gone.This is frequently shiver inducing stuff. The band is muscular and brave. You get the sense that a spell is in the process of being cast. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 25 Bob Dylan - Love & Theft

 

Bob Dylan started the new millenium with Love & Theft. He sounded like Ezekiel after having over indulged on the communal punch. Plenty of wisdom to be gleaned here mind.

 

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 68 Bevis Frond - Horrorful Heights

 

Bevis Frond have become an Indie standby over the last few decades. Something to check your watch by. A speaking clock with lilting power chords and wistfulness Latest album Horrorful Heights which is Nick Faloman and pals 30th or so and counting is more of the same.and no one is likely to complain because he's damned good. Neil Young if he'd hailed from Walthamstow not Winnipeg and been born a bit later. 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,546 Fontaines D.C.

 

Understanding ourselves and the reasons we do the things that we do. The great sturggle and journey of life. Never mind understanding others. We apply modern labels like 'Dopamine' or 'Boundaries' to help us assert control of our thoughts and environment but nothing really changes I suspect. The road we're is the same. Going back to the dawn of time.

I'm at a desk and preparing to start work.. I'm listening to Fontaines D.C.'s latest album Dopamine Chamber.. I've been listenining to it for days and I suspect I'm going t continue doing so. Much anticipated as every record by this band is now. It has plenty of Rock & Roll precedents. When I was sevnteen I was listening to Echo & The Bunnymen, The Doors and Joy Division. If I were seventeen now I woul be listening to Fontaines D.C. They have all the invitation promise and mystery of youth.

It's a fine record and will shift units. There is also top  ollar resting on the record though the times have changed. They'ree rolling forward. They have momentum. What's great about Fontaines is that they continue to push the boat out and releaase records that make you want to read interviews to discover what they're listenining to and reading, where they're coming from. Where they're heading next.

Nights # 30 Soviet Wartime Song

 

Coveted # 22 Stereolab - Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night

 

Sterolab, Broadcast and Tortoie toured together in 1996. Of course I wasn't there. But perhaps I will be. In anothe life. I have a few Stereolab records. But their fabulous packaging process encourages you to rob a bank and become a completist. 

The Upper Cut

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 26 Broadcast - Tender Buttons

 

With time Broadcast's albums sound more and more significant statements. Swimming against the tide of time..Static Attack . 

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 69 deathcrash - Somersaults

 

deathcrash are a four piece slowcore band from London. Labels such as these seem spurious to me but new album Somersaults reminds me most of all of early Radiohead and the way their early songs could connect through a cultivated though slightly unholy mix sense of disconnect, dread and ennui.

It's a powerful album of skillfully constructed and slightly depressed songs but there's almost a sense that deathcrash are choosing this stance because they enjoy the state and know they are skilled at constructing morose edifices. They certainly are. But 'three years and no heroin'.is a key line. Somersaults is a fine record. but I suspect the next album will be better still. 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,545 Angele

 I fell in love last night. With Angele's Instinct. Big in Belgium, toasted in The Guardian and appreciated by It Starts With a Birthstone. It's Angele Van Laeken's third album and she switches between  French and English on whim looking to break to a global market. I'm a sucker for big emotion and Instinct is just drenched in it. This record plays you like a harp.

Nights # 29 Loreena McKennitt

 

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 70 Rostam - American Stories

 

The variety and quality of  great albums I'm coming upon this year is gathering momentum. Rostam Batmanglij's American Stories  is an elliptical record with plenty of the sparkle which its author contributed to Vampire Weekend before his departure and plenty to say to the confused, embattled age we all live in.

It's a warm and mysterious record that cherry picks from the Great American Songbook and draws from the World that America is currently plundering and in some quarters attempting to shut itself away from though of coursee it can't . Records like this may not provide all the answers but they direct you towards the light and a life spent on golden mountain pathways 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 27 Robert Plant & Alison Kraus - Raising Sand

 

This feels like a listening to reading from the Old Testament if that's your bag. And why shouldn't it be ! the sage statement. Sometimes its worthwhile listening to the seers. The sages. The ones who come down from the mountains carrying tablets of stone.' Walked out of the desert. Been a long time since Rock & Roll...; ? It's even longer now. But nothing in the scheme of things.

A Song(s) of the Day # 4,544 The Avalanches

 

The Avalanches remind me of being in Katowice, Poland a quarter of a century ago.. Since I Left You, a genuinely significant and innovative album that has become commonplace since. Twenty five years on, I'm still trying to write shopping lists on my smartphone but here  am I  listening to the Avalanches fourth album No Bad Memories on my laptop. These are slow Avalanches but their albums are certainly worth waiting for worth waiting for. I love it.

It's a record that foregrounds technology. There are a floppy disc and an I Phone classic hand in hand on the album sleeve. All our yesterdays ! The album itself features appearances from the likes of Karen O, Carly Simon and Mike Patton. According to the press release it's about how 'advertising and brand name technology wraps itself around our memories.' . Gulp! It's fun and might take you back if that's what you want. 

There's something implicitly nostalgic about the album. But comforting regardless of the deeper intent and message. It revisits childhood jingles and through them reimagines emotions It's inherntly positive and upbeat .Feelgood. Onwards towards the summit !

Nights # 28 Elton John

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 28 Wilco - A Ghost Is Born

 

In another lifetime Wilco would have been the band for me I find I can choose pretty much any of their albums. Grab a mug of tea and a slice of cake and just let the record spin. I've known bad tempered people who have been to see Wilco and been unhappy that Jeff Tweedy was rather bad tempered during the concert. This strikes me as slightly rich! The man can do what he wants as far as I'm concerned. 

 A Ghost Is Born is instilled with holiness and grace.Tweedy takes over the lead guitarists role here as encouraged by Jim O'Rourke the album producer. You can hear the Television in the mix.But there's plenty else besides. I like listening to music by people I sense appreciate poetry

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 71 The Loft - Badges

 

I've had an emotionally bisy day. Sometimes circumstance dies this to you and you deal with it as best as you can. Still it's early evening now, I've put the day to sleep and I'm listening to The Loft's second album Badges as evening's fading light beckons.

The Loft are an interesting story in themselves. They reformed a couple of years ago after splittung in 1985 under the most dtamatic circumstances imaginable. They modus operandi us simple in essence. Twin guitars. The Byrds, The Velvet Underground, Television late middle age. Reflected wryly on the vicissitudes of live. The curveballs fate throws ys.

It's just short of half an hour of Glory and Beginning to See The Light. A few miles high on cruise control. It stays true to its script. Doesn't fuff a line or miss a beat. Blue Peter badges all round

A Song(s) of the Day # 4,543 Arab Strap

 

I kind of dig Arab Strap. They come from Falkirk .They're drawn to the darkness. The bleak. The disturbing and uncanny. .They drag me relentlessly back to te Nineties . The vibes and moment of Trainspotting. But they have a voice that endures. Latest album Half-Told Tales (their ninth I think)  sticks to the script . It's a minimal, relentless, pulsating  record which will make few converts but appeal to admirers.

Coveted # 21 Teenage Fanclub - Grand Prix

 

Grand Prix was the moment when Teenage Fanclub proved themselves. And ensured they were here for the duration. I played this so many times for so many years on CD. The CD years !!!It makes me feel slightly forlorn for some reason.  I may not listen to my CDs much ever again. I suspect I might need Grand Prix on vinyl. It sounds like a vinyl record in the same way as Revolver, Younger Than Yesterday and #1 Record do.

There are plenty of bands with pairs of sonwriters. Go Betweens, XTC, Husker Du. Teenage Fanclub likeThe Beatles have three. There's something about the way Blake, Love and McGinley dovetail on Grand Prix. The way the production, sequencing and sheer quality fall into place. Pole position to chequered flag. 

Nights # 27 Ringo Starr

 

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 72 Teenage Fanclub - Do Not Dare To Dream

 

                     'Straight off the door to the factory door...I was looking for something to do.' 

Teenage Fanclub are a wheel that just keeps turning. If you buy into what they're doing and have done you'll buy into this. I ido and I do. They're old school in some ways. Do Not Dare To Dream sounds like a record that might have come out in 1972. That's not a slur on any level. It's intended as high praise.

A Song(s) of the Day # 4,542 Steff Chura

 

Steff Chura has a good pedigree. She's from Detroit, Michigan.Tight band .Neat formula. Three or four minute New New Wave songs that hark back to the sharpest parts of previous decades. Chrissie Hynde, Liz Phair. Steff Chura.

She first made a record because a good friend died and she decided she needed to do so. This strikes me as a good basis for decision making, She's on Saddle Creek Records which also seems a fine idea. Dancing Alone On The Concrete is her third album and her first since 2019.

She exhibits control of the form and how she wants to project it on all of her nine innings here.She has the Art and the Smarts. Peter Buck and Mike Mills contribute and everything shines. Songs of the street. Songs of how broken hearts have a remarkable knack of healing. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 29 Cat Power - The Greatest

 

Cat Power to me feels like an artist who understands the times she lives in. The transition between Rock & Roll as a living process and  road and Rock & Roll as a curation with a shared awareness of where this all comes from. A museum piece with matching his and her cocoa mugs and egg cups and slippers and Jack Daniels nightcups.

This is not intended as a shot across the bow by any means. The Greatest is pretty... err great. It has a measured sense of time, pace and place. It also has great taste. But you can't actually fault that iin itself n a record I'd suggest. 

Nights # 26 Heatwave

 

Songs About People # 1,447 Carmen Miranda

 

Coveted # 20 The Mamas & The Papas - The Mamas & The Papas Deliver

 

There's an incredible melancholy to almost everything about The  Mamas & The Papas . Chreck out their Wikipedia Page. That band was not a bunch of happy campers. But the records are woven gold. They're something that everybody needs.

Deliver was clearly thrown together. The band didn't have a Sgt.Pepper in them in 1967. But they did curate The Monterrey Festival to me a happier idea than Woodstock. Here you get their take on My Girl and it sounds like chiming bells. Creeque Alley. every band worth its salt should write thei memoirs in song. Nothing feels out of place.

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 30 Boards of Canada - The Campfire Headphase

 

Boards of Canada invariably supply the 'headspace'.. This is their third album and came out in 2005. It features more organic musical instruments and slightly more conventional song structures than they're usually associated with but still is heavy on the 'whirl'. There's a more explicit connection with the traditions of British Pastoral Folk.Plenty of crypticism for those seeking clues and conspiracies but also space. 

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 73 Baby Rose - Yearnalism

 

I like music which takes risks. Baby Rose's third album Yearnalism will do me for today. It's cimematic and soulful and aches. Reminds me of Nina Simone one moment, and having a broken heart the next, It's a beautiful, sensual record that reaches for the stars as all good records should .and makes you feel you're wishing on one. 

Coveted # 19 Dion & The Belmonts - Live At The Madison Square Garden Reunion 1972

 

A John Cooper Clark eulogy to this record in Mojo Brought me here now. It's a glorious historical document. 'The state of the Doo Wop art.' Lou knew it John Copper knows it. Dion DeMucci's first performance with the Belmonts for twelve years.

There's something about the whole record. It feels like a forgotten memory, A whole world  of innocence opening up before you on the first day os Spring. A golden meadow. An unknown memory. Those of us who missed the initial years of  Rock & Roll and what that must have felt like, can listen to this and wonder. 

A Song(s) of the Day # 4,541 Andrew Chalk

 

As I grow older I find myself more open to the posibilities of Noise unadorned by lyrical concerns. It's it a good way to calm myself before I slip into darkness and easeful sleep. 

But it can also prepare you for the coming day. I'm listening now as the sun rises to Andrew Chalk's Mystical Obscurant. Chalk is base din Hull and has been active musically since the mid - Eighties. It's clearly an act of accumulation. Of bearing witness.

Keeping an eye on the tiller. The shoulder to the plough. A hand on the wheel. Choose your own synonym or metaphor . Head towards the distant horizon. Towards the sun. Perhaps there are things behind it. Mystical Obscurant is powerful trance for Thursday in October as the light gathers and collects.  

Nights # 25 The Tokens

 

200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 74 Gun Outfit - Process & Reality

 

Gun Outfit occuply the same emotional territory as Allah Las, Mazzy Star and The Paisley Underground bands and the likes pf the Doors, Love and Buffalo Springfield. They live on the saddle and their records invite you to join them. Out in the prairie. Under the stars.

Latest album Process & Reality takes it's time and stretches it's spurs on the blanket on the ground. It all feels rather 2026. Rather Wes Anderson on the Range. But I ain't complaining cowboy ! 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 31 P.J. Harvey - White Chalk

 

An artst not 'of the herd'.One who in another lifetime would have written novels or poetry or produced other kinds of artforms.P J Harvey wants to cut deep and inspire others to engage in art. She's consistently inpirational and other worldly..

Song(s) of the Day # 4,540 Elizabeth Cook

 

Great Television. Surely a contradiction in terms. An oxymoron. A thing to pass the times when there's nothing better to be done. Some love to be made. Some alcohol to be drunk. A real conversation with someone that matters. Building an understanding, fellowship and bond.

Great Television is non coincidentally the latest record from Elizabeth Cook. The kind of album I would never have listened to when I was fifteen. I associated such stuff with Terry Wogan. And although I bought myself a C&W best ofs which round about that time which told me about Tammy and Dolly and George. I beg your pardon I never promised you a Rose Garden. I didn't delve much deeper until the NME told me to pursue the Gram and Big Star trails in the following decade. I was growing up in South West London and never imagined myself in Memphis Tennessee or Tuscon Arizona.

I'm more open to that now. (Don't Go Back To) Rockville was my first true brush with and initiation into this way of thinking and living.Now I'm a little more atuned to where this comes from. The kind of  C& W album / Americana record Uncut Magazine quietly has kittens over it. I listen to it now and it passes the time amiably as this kind of record does. A voice that chimes and emotes like a heart that is ready to break but puts the bottle back on the bar and heads for home. 

Gigs of the Year # 1 Horsegirl & Nightshift at Mono in Glasgow

 

A day can be a very long time when you're travelling. Emotionally and physically. As I write I find myself in the famous and rather marvellous Astoria Hotel. A two minute stroll from Copenhagen Central Station in one of the most interesting and certainly thoughtful. cities in the world right now I'd say.. London? You must be joking mate ! Yesterday morning I woke up in a slightly corporate hotel off Sauciehall Street in Glasgow. Sunday was pretty full on and I saw a sensational gig at the end of it. So let's start there. 

Sunday I actually woke up in another hotel further down Sauciehall Street. Glasgow's a pretty remarkable place, it's 'steeped' in something intanguble, a set of 'values' and it's nice just to regain consciousness there propped on plump pillows knowing you're not obliged to work and there's a prized event at its close to look forward to. But first you might as well make the best of the hotel you find yourself in. 

So I get up yesterday, shower and shave. Go down in the lift. to the lobby. Pay at the reception desk and make my way to the dining area through a warren of darkened and confusing corridors..Dystopic labyrinth. I heap myself a plate of sausages, eggs and mushrooms, pass a table of babbling Chinese students and make my way to an empty table in front of a large screen television. 

An orange man in a loud tie, devoid momentarily from his customary large and ridiculous baseball hat is making vacuous pronouncements upon the screen for the Industrial Military Complex which he momentarily acts as frontman for. About the bombs that he or others in his name have dropped on Iran. 

A country far far far away, of which he knows nothing. .I hear the expression 'Make Iran Great Again' and am momentarily taken aback. But nothing shocks you for long these days.   Dylan's Masters of War comes to mind. I exchange words with a couple of fellow diners who are preparing to wolf down their own breakfasts in a state of numb shock. 

All of our mouths are agape which makes it easier to shovel our breakfasts into them I suspect..Horror is served up for breakfast on a regular basis these days. Whenever I make the mistake of watching the news it seems. Then I'm back to my room and I pack my bags. Go down to the lobby once more and call a taxi by pressing a button on the bar. . I'm out in the street and presently the taxi arrives to take me to another hotel further along Sauciehall near Pitt Street. Don't ask !

The chat with the taxi driver as he gets me there is worth the fare in itself. You cannot beat Glasgow people I'm deciding. They are what they are. Reality. The older I get the more I appreciate reality. After a great chat about what makes Glasgow what it is he wishes me a good day in thick but plain brogue and I'm in a corporate lobby with a smart bespectcled lady at the desk. It's all very corporate but she's clearly a human being and a nice one which is a great bonus. .I get a ticket for my luggage which I can redeem and get access to my hotel room by three. 

I'm back off out into Sauciehall and it's raining. Not men. And not Casablanca type end of the world global torrents which I've already experienced yesterday afternoon on the way to the hotel when I arrived in 'The Dear Green Place.'.  yesterday afternoon   I find myself in Watertsone's to avoid another downpour and momentarily I'm in heaven and my heart beats so that I can barely speak. 

Sauciehall Street Waterstone's is utterly fabulous. Several floors, Books, Books, books of every dimension and description and ample sofas and cafe areas. You feel like you're off for an extended tour of Mr Wonka's chocolate factory but you won't get far and might learn lots instead.

I grab Luke Haines latest extended moan about the perceived telling of what happened to Rock & Roll and who the Heroes & Villains actually are. Gene Vincent, Jim Morrison, The Fall, The Velvets and Television and aparently he never cared for Blondie much. .I suspect he might not be much of a feminist. Anywhow, reader, I bought it, and will get round to it on It Starts in due time. I bet you can't wait.

I head onwards shrugging off more rain and make my way into The Willow Tree Cafe half way down Buchanan Street. Willow Sreet Cafe has all you need. momentary shelter from the downpours whuch punctuate most days here regardless of the time of year. Attentive Glaswegian waitresses who give as good as they get. Rennie Mackintosh wherever you look. Scottish Rarebit for less than a tenner. A sieve for your China Rose Petal.

I text my Polish friend who I'm remaking a great friendship with after not seeing her for the best part of twenty years. She has been in Poland for a week with her younger daughter. It all sounded heavenly and she was in bliss. Sending photos of everybody down coal mines in fetching yellow helmets. Wining and dining in Katowice where we'd first met and attempted to drink dry on a regular basis. We're both taking things a bit more sensibly and soberly these days.

Now she's at Krakow Airport and feels like crying so she's got herself a beer. I console her with pictures of cake and advise her to plan the next holuday. We resolve to do just that and I head back to Pitt Street to get my room and freshen up. I call Mum and say I won't be in touch for a week. Then I'm back into the fray. I ask directions for Argyll at reception and I'm off again. Into the late afternoon.

Argyll Street is nt the easiest destination today clearly. A JJ Abrams Samuel L. Jackson film is being shot in Glasgow this summer and many main thoroughfares are closed for filming purposes at no little expense and no little inconvenience for pedestrians and tourists. Glasgow is a street of long thoroughfares and reminds me of New York which its standing in for in this film because it's cheaper. I feel like I'm in a movie myself as I inch my way downtown. Past the taxi rank outside Glasgow King Street.This is a place that I find I fall in love with just by walking its streets. Like the best cities.

 I'm not sure I trust my Google Map skills to get me to the Mono Club in King. Fortunately I'm in Glasgow which I'm beginning to suspect may be the friendliest city on earth. I go into another Waterstone's this one not so much like Willie Wonka's Nine to Five and an assistant in cool Pinz Nez gives me detailed directions. I'm clearly in my way from misery to happiness today.

But I've got a bit of time to kill. So when I get to King Street, between Merchant City and Trongate if yu're taking notes which I imagine you are, I duck into a bar. Avant Garde. It's full of elderly well dressed Glaswegians. They're playing Gang of Four and Specials in here and the main attraction hasn't even arrived .

He soon does. An elderly fella in a dapper suit so sharp you could cut your loaf of  bread with, should you wish. And a line of patter to match. 'My kind of town Chicago is....'   I get momentarily confused but he's damned good. A Nightingale Sang in Berkely Square. By the time he gets on to his Tom Jones and Cliff numbers the couples are bobbing and weaving on the dancefloor in front of him and a fine time is being had by one and all. 

But I'm not here for The GoodFellas Experience. I'm here to see Horsegirl. The kind of band making small but important stands against the Orange Man because we all must. I get further directions form more cool and laidback Glaswegians and I'm at Mono, just up the road. It's immediately the kind of venue I feel most at home in. Another spiritual home.

It's a beautifully spaced venue. Comfortable tables. A well stocked bar . A low stage placed at the front of the venue. A relaxed air . A terrace out front where the Glasgow Indie Groovers are beginning to gather .Cool looking, relaxed  people. The kind of place where people like me feel  relaxed because we're in our element and with our people. I'm immediately enchanted.

I have a look through the ineffably cool record shop at the back of the venue. Monorail Music. It was apparently set up by Stephen Pastel has row upon row of rare classics I would love to buy immediately. I don't have anything by Sebadoh or The Field Mice on vinyl. These issues probably need to be addressed. Immediately.

I resist and move back into the venue and wait for the music. I text to my Polish friend but my flesh is weakening. I'm tired. It happens at my age. It's been a long day. My legs are tired. Will I last the course of the evening. Thankfully help is at hand. The support group, an impossible assured looking group of young men and women I heard doing a soundcheck for earlier have climbed back onstage and started to play. My ears prick up. If you've been listening to this kind of music as long as I have you know what you're going to like and I know I'm going to like this. A lot. I get up and start to make my way through the crowd looking for a better vantage point.

They announce themselves as Nightshift. That figures. I've long liked Nightshift and appreciated their records on It Starts for some time. They're the kind of band that appreciates the essence of the Underground. Park their charabanc in the vacant lot between The Velvet Underground, Au Pairs, Girls at Our Best  and Young Marble Giants and would have done John Peel Sessions and sold precisely no records at all back in the day. They're playing to a set of people they've played to any number of times and will love them unconditionally every time. Not because the audience lacks discretion. But because they have it. 

They're energetic, kinetic, laugh a lot between themselves between tracks and have no fear of showing commitment to the Palestinian cause, and what I conclude is wrong with that. I thank the singer after the set for speaking out. I think it's important to speak out, She's excited when I do and keeps babbling effusively. I think she and they are great. They've been on tour with Horsegirl and clearly bonded as the best double bills do. They make this kind of lifestyle feel like a calling. I'm glad it still is for so many. It allows the rest of us to follow more conventional lives but still wiggle our toes in more bohemian ponds.Of an evening !!!

Half an hour more and we get Horsegirl. It's darkening outside but there's something ripe about the night. It belongs to lovers. This is why I still do this. The venue's sold out but sensibly it doesn't feel cramped. There's consideration from the venue in that respect. I've learned through a lifetime of experience that these are the best venues and the best nights. It speaks of values. Of a lifestyle where genuine respect for others is the common currency and people go home happy with a sense they've got their money's worth.

Horsegirl play the best set I've seen any band play for mlany years. They have a brittle but inspiring edge and actual swagger. The band is clearly a democratic colective but I realise tonight that if they have a lead it's probably Pemelope Lowenstein when previously I'd thought it might be Nora Cheng.. Lowenstein has cut her hair and she speaks a lot tonight and I get the sense if the group are following anyone's lead it might be hers.

Anyway Horsegirl strike me as having that cerain ineffable and difficult to quantify essence that marks the great bands out from the merely good ones. They don't hold back. They're riding their wave. Their first record was good but this is a huge march onwards from that. Ive seen a handful of bands at the time when I felt it was just the time to see them. R.E.M., The Go Betweens and The Triffids at the time of their imperial albums. Pixies and My Bloody Valentine later in the decade. There are more but I wom't bore you. 

Anyway they have an elliptical quality tonight.. .Sure they take a lead from The Raincoats and The Feelies. But if you're going to steal, steal from the best. .A few songs in a set of pretty young girls slide past me at the lip of the stage and it's a wonderful moment. Something I'll remember . It's inspiring. The true meaning of girlpower not a marketing exercise. It's been a wonderful night and I'll ride on its wave of positive energy for some time.  

I'm back into the night and off to catch a taxi in the rain.......