250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 29 The Clean - Compilation

 

We all miss out on essential lives. Our essential vocations. My essential vocation was to dream I suspect. Mu 91 year old parents sit together in the living toom with a set of pictures of their children to their right. There's a photo of me which I think is the essential photogtaph of my lifetime .

It shows me walking down a garden path in Zimbabwe  towards the swimming pool at the bottom of the garden. Chameleons in the trees. Banana tree ahead of me. Africa in all its verdant majesty and vibrant life all around me. I have a far away look in my eyes. A dreamer. I doubt if I will ever escape my essential self. I doubt if anyone does really.

My other essential selves are. Working in record shops. I've never done that so. I haunt them instead.I lack ambituin except to live.  Collecting records. Collecting experience. Teaching now online. Reaping the rich harvest of life abroad. Experience life. As i said teaching. Learning .First in class. Now online. Every class is dofferent. Every time you play a record the experience is never the same 

I should have been in a band. I would have been in a band loke The Clean. Minor Cult players. Not the big boys. Velvet Underground, Doors, Roxy Music, Joy Division. Essentially happy. But aware that life is a mountain path and  the road is the long and winding one and we could trip and fall at any moment. Don't point that thing at me!

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 5 Tight Fit

 

My very dear friend Philip is completely  obsessed with Tight Fit. I should encourage him to write the  band the tribute they clearly deserve in their honour. Personally I reckon they're just Bad Pop and even worse Camp !

Song(s) of the Day # 4,378 Bill Orcutt

 

I may have got to that age. The age where I can happily gaze at a fly wnadering across a pain of glass facing out on the street below While listening to Bill Orcutt's Music In Continuous Motion  on my television set as the sun goes down. Then going over and cooking my tea. There are wirdse ways to spend a Monday evening in April,

The record is like something that Tom Verlaine and Tichard Lloyd might have dreamed up. Otcutt has been round the block more than most. He was apparently initually unspired to create by seeung Muddy Waters perform on The Last Waltz.. He's supported Sonuc Youth. He has nothing left to prove. But Music In Continuous Motion proves it. Just the facts !

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,403 The Horrors - Primary Colours

 

Shocking ! And not in the Hitchcock as in the classic dig your nails diwn your boyfriend's palm sense. But in the this is really, really piss poor car crash respect. The Cure meets Bauhaus meets the worst of The Scream OSTs. Go back to Drama Scool lads. Do not pass go. Ever again !!!

Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 89 Nina Simone - Pastel Blues

Some talents are so extraordinary it's difficult to do them justice. This is a set of shades of humanity.   Pain, urban blues, protest and sublime singing and playing. It didn't do too well in the Billboard Album Charts at the time. 

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 18 The Streets

 

Self conscious and intertextual like so much Post Millennial music is. A down at heel Brummie Good Fellas one moment. Bad bets and relationship decisions follow but the narrative and momentum drags rather. Iy seems to portray a rather mundane existence. I take iy iff and put on Pastel Blues.

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 6 ABC

Half of my record collection is in  the process of being moved. To the museum . Graded , listed , ranked and codified. These are times I lived through. It doesn't really feel like ancient history but that seems to be the current approach. 

There was a sense when Lexicon Of Love camd out that it was a record of note. For us at school it felt a bit silly but we didn't fully appreciate the reference points.We didn't approach the greatest of The Temptations, and Bacharach & David. We needed Mojo for that. ABC I now realise did know how good that stuff was and they appreciated Semiotics too. Respect .  

250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 31 The Kinks - Village Green Preservation Society

 

'I miss the village green. With all the simple people . I miss the village green. The church. The clock. the steeple.....'

Nostalgia's not what it used to be. It probably never has been. Or will be again. The Kinks were always very good on its comforts and tiger traps. Look out your window. That's what I'm doing as I type this. I sit  at my desk on the second floor of a picturesque listed Georgian building of flats near the Central Station  . It's a lovely day and I have a glorious view of the street below .I glance down at the  pavement opposite my flat and can watch as people pass by below and can speculate on where they're coming from and where they're heading to. And what are the thoughts in their heads. .

 

And all the time as I do so Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks spins on the turntable in the corner of my flat, It's an album whuch came out when I was three years old and had little awareness of the existence of the UK. I was born in Zimbabwe . We all came back when I was 60 yo the land where my parents had grown up .

 I've never forgotten  that I was not born here. That I was born somehwere else and that some might consider me an immigrant. An outsider. As they do others.  Now at 60 I'm more aware of this strange and troubled country. In many ways I'd prefer to be somewhere else. But this is where I've made my home and I love Newcastle. 

I also love The Kinks and Village Green Preservation Society. It has 14 songs. Not a dud amongst them. Sweet pop songs wuth hodden depths. About railway trains and village greens. And sitting by the riverside and staring at the sky and dreaming of escape .  

Nostalgia's not what it used to be. But the people are still prone to being rather simple from where I sit. I do not except myself from that judgement We're easily swept by simple narratives and easy solutions to complicated problems. But so long as we like the Kinks !

Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 90 Kate Bush - The Kick Inside

 

Kate Bush like all great artists introduced a voice, a persona and with it a world that didn't exist before her arrival..And she changed things.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,404 Harry Nilsson - Nilsson Schmilsson

 

Harry Nilsson is still in his dressing gown on the cover of Nilsson Schmilsson. You get the sense that he's undergoing some kind of crisis but he's such damned good company for the course of the album that you're certainly rooting for the man.

  

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 186 Kings Of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak.

 

Not the excellent furst. Not the breakthrough third. A transitional album but to my ears a fantastic one. Creedence, meet,  Blondie meet Befheat meet Ramines and get down and dirty. They lost what they had from here for me byt their bank manager wasn't complaining.

Song(s) of the Day # 4,377 RAYE

 

'It's a shame about Raye...' This morning I was listening to Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds . An important record from my youth. I like it, and am glad I bought it last year on the day I went to see The Loft at Cluny 2. . They're putting out a second album soon and returning to Newcastle. I'd like to see them again next month.

But in the meantime This afternoon I'm listening to RAYE. It's not really a shame. This is about as far away from the Leminheads as you could possibly get. RAYE.second album THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE is not actually a million miles from The War of the Worlds. Because what is music really? It's escapism. Entertainment. Sustenance fror the brain, soul and feet.

I confess I don't really speak   THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE's language or walk its streets .It's not really aimed at me. I don't have any children. I'll never completely live in this world. But it strikes me as not too dissimilar exercise as The War of the Worlds in essence. It's tuneful. It's huper theatrical, t's incredibly ambitious and it's surely destined for the West End.

I imagine any number of people are listening to this on permanent rotation and I can quite understand why. It's rather kitchen sink, but let's face it we're living through the kutchen sink age good as dammit.. Thimbs up from me!

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 7 PhD

 

There was always an odd song that was in the charts for weeks that didn't do anything for you but hung around got radio play and was on Top of the Pops every couple of weeks. Everybody's Got To Learn Sometimes. Video Killed The Radio Star, This. 

PhD were a duo. their lead singer was a guy called Jim Diamond.He wasn't a particularly trendy looking type. An everyman. I Won't Let You Down got to Number Three in the UK. But it parked in the charts for weeks it seemed. It charted in the Top 10 all over the place, 

I just listened to it. I haven't heard it for years. It had a small majestic 45 quality. But I remember why U didn't like it. I don't care for Jum's voice. The way he sings 'Woman.' It wouldn't have featured on the evenung Radio One shows whuch is what I listened to mostly. I understand why it resonated but don't need to hear it again really..

250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 32 The Go Betweens - 16 Lovers Lane

 

I almost died a few times. Don't we all. My mother almost died befioe I was born. Drowned . An older boy saw her adrift in the sea before she was five and plucked her from the waves and returned her to her parents on the shore. My sister as a baby fell into our garden swimming pool in Zimbabwe and her sister rescued her. I almost fell out of the open window on a train heading across Botswana. Casual incidents but they make you pause.. 

The Go Betweens 16 Lovers Lane reminds me of another one of the times I might have died. When I was at unuversity I was ill. Very ill. I had to intercalate for a couple of years and return to my parental home and be diagnosed and treated back to some kind of health so I could return to university and complete my degree. All the while. My older sister was dying and died in the same house.

There were four of us there with her. My younger sister who had been plucked from the pool by Sarah in Zimbabwe.. My mother who cared for Sarah when she returned from the hospice.  My father. And me. But it made a mark on us all. And the five if us still bear the scars. Though you may not know it to meet us. We never recognise each others scars. .

I bought this album, the last of The Go Betweems albums during their initial run at round about that time. I'm playing it now as my supper warms.. It's essentially an album about Love in its many incarnations. An incredibly beautuful and refined one. As the man says, 'Love goes on....' 

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 187 Girl Aloud - Chemistry

 

There are daus when I'm faced with a selection like this and I think 'I don't write that kind if a blog. I don't really have an ipinion on this which is worth hearing I'm afraid,'

Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 91 Ash Ra Tempel - Ash Ra Tempel

 

A German Krautrock group led by guitarist Manuel Gottsching. Their eponymous debut from 1971 is a hidden passage into the pyramids.

 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,376 Parlor Greens

 

Parlor Greens Emeralds plays a straight bat . It's Booker T & The Mags for the late twenties. Frankly it's difficult to fault an approach like this. Smokin'

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 8 Patrice Rushen

 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,375 My New Band Believe

 

It's Friday. So let's relax. This is complete pants. I suspect it has no redeening features whatsiever. Look we've all been young and can understand the meaning of precocious. I personally loved Joseph & His Technicolor Dreamcoat and I knew all of the words.  

But I was nine. I'm not now. I didn't form a Rock & Roll band called My New Band Believe and go out on the road dragging the good name of Rock & Roll through the mud behind me while I pranced and preened and genuinely expected anybody to take me seriously for a moment. This is ghastly nonsense.

Iggy Pop knew and knows all about the inner child and how it can be channeled to produce creative and challenging art. I left primary school almist 50 years ago. It was a wrench at the time but part if life's passage. My New Band Believe seem to be in denual of this essentual feature of life's passage

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 9 Junior

 

And my advice is.... listen to your mother.

Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 92 Donnie & Joe Emerson - Dreamin' Wild

 

The greatest Rock & Roll record ever to come out if Fruitland, Washington. Self released in 1979. Originally only 2,000 copies 1,000 of which were destroyed. This is a story which is so uncanny and a record which sounds so beautiful that it's almost impossible to categorise. Just hear it. If you want to learn more start here. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 188 The Magnetic Fields - Distortion

 

I find The Magnetic Fields  rather arch generally but I could go for this because it chooses to skip across genres like it's in a field if daisies. And a fine time is had by one and all..

Song(s) of the Day # 4,375 Pale White

 

Interesting day today ! Every day should be interesting . Well here's an interesting record to go with it. From Newcastle Upon Tyne where I reside as it happens. Pale White's third; Inanimate Objects of the 21st Century; White Stripes meet Queens of the Stoneage at the Bigg Market on Friday Night .. And make a damned fine night of it. 

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 10 Joan Jett & The Blackhearts

 

The clock was ticking down to eight o'clock. I was due in Dussledorf in a couple of minutes for a virtual lesson. I needed a warmer.  Every half decent lesson needs a warmer. I came up with this one. What's the Next Line? 'I Love & Roll...' Cathi and Carsten were stumped. Don't they teach Insurance Professionals anything anymore? For the record it's 'So put another dime in the jukebox baby !' Don't pretend you know that ......

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 189 Moodyman - Forevern Evermore

 

Classic Soul meets House.

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 10 Hot Chocolate

 

When I was growing up Hot Chocolate were always in the Top Twenty. And this always seemed like a good thing. . 

Song(s) of the Day # 4,374 Jose Gonzalez

 

I'm listening to Richard Thompson and thinking about Kevin Morby today. Jose Gonzalez'  Against The Dying Of the Light has been chiming with that. Plugging into that primal Folk energy. Revving up the motor and presseing your bootheels on the accelerator and bombing down the woodland road until dawn.

There's some Nick Drake inspired poetics and picking and that's always welcome. This is some record. It has plenty of company in 2026.. 'Do not go gentle until that night.;  You heard what the man says.

Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 93 Richard & Linda Thompson - I Want to See The Bright Lights

 

Life is not all peaches and cream. We must realise this and face the music, Here is an album that spells that out clearly if we needs a reminder to tell us it has always been thus. This feels like being cast and finding yourself adrift in a Hardy novel. There's plenty of light and shade here as there.  

 

250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 33 The Undertones - Positive Touch

 

How does a band that comes to fame at a certain age appealing primarily to people of a similar age as them last the course. Take the Undertones and Positive Touch. They could always write sings and play. Now they found nuance and moved away lyrically frim a largely hormonal rush. Discovered Soul and Dexys and Orange Juice. Maintained the joy and humour. (less of a factor on The Sin of Pride, the record which broke them).

Here they really embraced the experiment. Were content to be out of synch. They broadened their palate and range of harmonies and finally sang about the Troubles. Theirs and the part of the world they hailed from. This is a gorgeous textured and incredubly colourful record. Almost dayglo. I can't think of another album which sounds quite like it.   

Songs About People # 1,425 Martin Luther King

 

                                                                                Beauty.

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 11 Duran Duran

 

I have double standards. At heart I'm an NME reader. I like the Stranglers so tirn a blind eye to their callous misogyny and thugushness. But I'm not so forgiving to Duran Duran.Hungry Like The Wolf. 'A character who hunts women. Charming !' I suppose the tune's alright.   

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 190 Lambchop - Oh (Ohio)

 

Lambchop seem like a world to discover for another lifetime. For now to melt into this should suffice.

Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 94 Tractor - Tractor

 

Don't let the man in the grey suit deceive you.'

The kind of album that is born to be mythologised and sounds wonderfully mythical from its opening notes. Rochdale's finest. I expect. Appreciated by John Peel and Julian Cope. Featured on Peel's famed Dandelion Records. Listening now feels ike duscovering a new colour.

This is their second album and has a mystery and no little wzzened, gothic ork majesty. Dark, craft and  learned. This is news to me. Today is the first time I've heard the record . It won't be the last.

Song(s) of the Day # 4,373 Sweetwater

 

'Sometimes I feel like a motherless child. A long way from home...'

The first thing we feel in life is the act of separation. And from there begins the eternal search for meaning, Some of us fare better than others. But we all remain confused. Despite our protestations to the contrary.

 Ask Californians Sweetwater if you don't believe me. The band that were set to open Woodstock in 1969 but were delayed by traffic so Richie Havens stood in and took their slot in history. Sweetwater I imagine are largely forgotten. .Except by those like me who obsess over this fundamental stuff. 

History records that  Sweetwater were taken to the festival by helicopter and performed their set after Swami Satchudinanda's Invocation. They were paid $3,500 fir their efforts. But I imagine it didn't go very far. There were rather a lot of them. Pushing double figures.

Their debut album, named Sweetwater was the only one to chart nationally. I listened to it this morning. It went down smoothly with bath and breakfast. It's perfectly of its times. Santana Lite. 'What's wrong in our school. Politicians are blowing their cool. Over they who refuse to abide by the rules. What's wrong  at the zoo.  The animals sense all our fears showing though.'

It's a cool and educative listen. How little things change. A wonderful reminder of times that were definitely not innocent ones but were well served by music like this which sountdracked them. And what to be frank has changed. A man who was then dodging the draft is now leading the charge into the next set of conflagrations. Like all great generals. Frim the rear.. Have a great day ! 

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 191 Phosphorescent - Pride

 

 Phosphorescent revel in the poetic moment. The moment of realisatiom. The albums swell with epiphany.

Woodstock Artist Booking Fees

 

Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 95 July - July

 

The chart continues to descend through albums which I don't know, which is exactly  the kind of chart I'm most enthralled by. . July was an Ealing based psyche band and this is their debut album frim 1968. It struck me as slightly run of the mill initually. Psychedelia of the Hole in My Shoe strain. But it's a grower as  perfectly amiable. And then opens up in Crying is fir Writers particularly tp gentle epiphany. I'm sold. Also highly collectable naturally.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,405 Miles Davis

 

An OST for a documentary about the life of Jack Johnson the boxer.  Chick Corea, John McLaughlin and Herbie Hancock feature .It's funky as.... and sounds ready to blow at any moment.

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 12 Scotland World Cup Squad

 

Scotland have a dream . To get knocked out at the group stage apparently. This featured Johm Gordon Sinclair from Gregory's Girl. A film whuch described my life at that point in time pretty well .

Song(s) of the Day # 4,372 Frog

 

Charm, an almost forgotten art. And evident in spades on For Sale the latest offering from New Rochelle guitar and keyboard duo Frog. it's a gentle syncopated record that takes its time and chooses its byroads.It seems indebted wonderfully to Jonathan Richman and Andrew Gold.  Takes its  time. As we should all try to do.  

Lulu & Julie Driscoll

 

Songs About People # 1,424 Casey Jones

 

A man who's fateful destiny illustrates the dangers of punctuality. As for Grateful Dead, they 'got on that train, high on cocaine.'  

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 14 Blondie

 

Blondue were not exactly 'washed up' in 1982. But they'd pretty much run out of road and were sensible enough to realise it. The Hunter was the first album you didn't really need to own. Except perhaps. for its wonderful cover. It reached Number Ten in Belgium only. Time perhaps to go..

   

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 192 Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Real Emotional Trash

 

Another day, another Stephen Malkmus album in the inbox. Can I think of anything new to say ? Probably nit. But here we go.... 

I've just played This Is It by The Strokes and loved it completely so Malkmus is a logical next stop. Lets face it Stephen Malkmus could have been in The Strokes. He;s good looking, loves himself and his work is deeply referential. This is Post Rock. So clever that you can't hope to keep up. So lay back and enjoy.

250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 34 Genesis - Trespass

 

I guess the ultimate goal is to term temporary freedom into permanent freedom. With that in mind I left my phone charging in the socket next to my bed a couple of hours ago and left my flat and wandered down to Newcastle Quayside. A ten minute walk downhill from where I live. I found a record stall on the edge if the Tyne that  I've frequented over the almost eighteen years I've lived in Newcastle. I had a brief chat with the stall owner; a friendly bearded fellow who remembered me too.

We chatted about this and that and I bought a copy of  Trespass by Genesus which seemed reasonably priced. He popped in a splendid purple sleeve which reminded me if the Hazlenut Caramel's from Quality Street. We bade each other farewell and I made my way up Grey Street, called by some the finest street in Europe. It certainly seemed so this afternoon , I felt unencumbered without my phone. Noticed the phenomenal quality of the Georgian architecture. Observed the faces of the people I passed. Speculated on them. The great mystery; other people.

19th April  2026. There's never a bad time to take a new step. Make a new resolution. Some time without my phone on a daily basis if I can. Who knows how far I'll get. As for Trespass, I like it, I care for Gabriel's Genesis more and mire as I make my way into my sixties 

Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 96 Grateful Dead - Workingman's Dead

 

It's April 2026. It's a Sunday. I've just listened to Matching Mole frim 1972 which still oddly, with all it's quaintness still sounds like the future. And a rather comforting one with all the idiosyncrasy that we cherish in humanity and existence. Let's see how Workingman's Dead from 1970 fares.

First of all it's playing on my television set. How's that for Psychedelics?  How far we've come. Or have we ?. I immediately warm to it. It's warm and I sense a campsite fire. A sense of community where you're more than welcome .Always room for one more. So find yourself a seat. I imagine a bowl of broth. This is gentle and loving stuff. A great set of songs

Song(s) of the Day # 4,371 Adrian Younge

 

It's 2026. And every other record it seems is an imaginary soundtrack. We seem to be being asked to gi and live in some kund of permanent fantasy existence. It's certainly inviting. Well if you can't beat them you might as well join them, So here's today's serving and its another fine record.. Peaches and cream. With breakfast. What are your doctor's orders? 

Adrian Younge is an Emmy award winning self taught musician whose work apparently 'defies the digital tide.' If this means his current offering Younge recal Golden Age of Soul classics like Trouble Man and Hot Buttered Soul then I'll have a serving of that !

500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 193 Richmond Fontaine - The Fitzgerald

 

For those who have immaculately kept bookshelves and know their Cheever from their Coover. Tracing the great American arc. The way any life could go either way.

Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 97 Iggy & The Stooges - Raw Power

 

A malevolent, dark record im every way . Reflecting the journey The Stooges were going through and the times. Incredibly wired and frantic. Ar tunes deeply aggressive. At others deeply confused. Not easy listening. You probably have a good idea if what you think about this already. Not one for the cowering masses. Or for those who like being told what to do.....

1982 Top 40 23rd May # 15 Depeche Mode

Depeche Mode were in transition . From Basildon to Berlin.

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