Wednesday, October 14, 2026
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 incredible 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 have dropped on Iran.
A country far far far away, of which he knows nothing of. .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 that 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. I get further directions form more cool and laidback Glaswegians and I'm at Mono, just up the rad. 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 many 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.
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 75 Seefeel - Sol Hz
Seefeel are a band that graced the pages of the Melody Maker every week in the early Nineties when I used ti buy it and The NME pretty much every week . They regrouped in 2007 and find themselves on the cover of the latest cover of The Wire. Not great for their bank accounts perhaps. But fortunately not all musicians are primarily guided by their bank accounts. .
Their new album Sol.Hz is electronuc hiss. It sounds great In their early days Seefeel used to be loosely connected to the Shoegaze scene but now their sound is perhaps best described as electronuc, atmospheric noise.
This sounded most in place as I was listening late last night. It sounds huge too as eight becomes nine on Monday morning . 'Oceans fall and mountains drift.'
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 32 Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump
'
Welcome back to solid ground my friend....'
One of the records that means most. Putting out creative art into the world is a treacherous endeavour potentially. I'd say you should try to say something and this is an album which says something quite profound to me. and any number of others. It describes the world we lived in when it came out. And now it does so even more. The modern confusion, alienation and the attempt and drives to get back. To find our way back home. This is mornful but also strangely euphoric.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,539 Tallest Man On Earth
A tall rugged Swedish man. Just Beyond Endless Mountain a ragged, desolate, pained record. If you're looking to howl into the Scandinavian void within this may be your go to record as we hurtle towards November.
Monday, October 12, 2026
200 Albums for 2026 It Starts With a Birthstone # 76 Luluc
'It's just gonna be carnage....' 'I wasn't prepared for the intense outpouring of emotion...'
The new Oasis film is in cinemas near you now. Here are two lines from its trailer. One from each of the Gallagher Twins. They're clearly 'living the dream.' Well they have been for as long as I can remember. You could go and watch it. Or you could give Luluc's sixth album Sweet Thief a listen instead.
To my ears this is a preferable option. Sweet Thief is the easiest uneasy listening experience on the block. Soft and gentle with dark interiors and infinite depths. Nico and Simon & Garfunkel are listed on the Spotify bio and that generally works for me . This at the moment is my place of eternal stillness. The weekend beckons !
' Dopamine slot machine. Stole my baby.....' Luluc Dopamine Slot Machine,
'It's Ok to be different. It's OK to want to get free...' Luluc. Wanna Get Free
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 33 D'Angelo - Voodoo
Prince meets Jazz . The temperature bubbles. Mecurial Rising.
Coveted # 18 Yusef Lateef - The Blue Yusef Lateef
I'm listening to a lot of Jazz at the moment but I wouldn't claim to have particular insight so I might as well try to learn a bit more about it on here. I know something about a lot of the music i write about on It Starts With a Birthstone. e but I wouldn't claim to know much.
The Blue Yusef Lateef is an album which diggs deep and swings hard and eccentrically. It came out in 1968 and sounds like that tempestuous year, It's wild. You can marvel at it and medidate to it should you wish. It's a pearl of the rarest quality.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,538 Otis Shanty
A band from Somerville Massachusetts. Surely a first for It Starts With a Birthstone. A suggestion from Darren Jones. Definitely not a first. An album called Ceiling. A set of different guitar textures and song structures which evade converntional classification and pigeon holing.
As I listen further I'm minded of 10,000 Maniacs, The Swimming Pool Qs and a whole raft of thomgs which take me back to the Eighties. A charming record. Thanks again Starbuck !!!
Sunday, October 11, 2026
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 77 Allah Las - Sirensas
I like milestones and we're heading towards a notable summit on It Starts with a Birthstone.The arrival of an Allah Las album is always notable and worthy of recognition. But Sirenas, their sixth is different. It's a series of spaced and spooky instrumentals, and is really rather beautiful.
Reviews suggest it explores modern preoccupations, Liminal Spaces and the like. I leave discussion of such matters to others. It's certainlyplayful and elusive. You can hear the sound of lapping waves and imagine that they are Californian ones. That's where the quartet hail for. There's plenty of sunshine here and no little joy !
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 34 Joanna Newsom - The Milk-Eyed Mender
A great album about the childhood state.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,537 Lily Seabird
All you can hope for when listening to a new record is a profound listening experience. It's not a rare occurence in my experience which is why I perservere with this task which is still not a trial even after thirteen years at the wheel of It Starts With a Birthstone as we close in into the darkness on another Christmas.
Lily Seabird's Lighsphere's on Their Way is uncanny enchantment . Her voice and lyrical feints made me feel I was on a turning road twisting away in the darkness into the winding night as I listened to it at my desk in Newcastle on a Saturday night glancing out into the evening at the sparse evening traffic.There's wonder here and no little risk and daring.
Saturday, October 10, 2026
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 35 Beck - Sea Change
Beck's latest album Ride Lonesome is widely seen as a return to form. I'd agree. What critics generally mean by this is that it's full of Cosmic Cowboy balladeering like 2002's Sea Change. This is a road he's travelled well.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 78 Radiator Hospital - Distorted Time
Radiator Hospital have built up a healthy audience for their ragged and disjointed Garage Rock sound over previous releases. Distorted Time sees them sticking to their guns with a sound that finds the missing chord between 13th Floor Elevators and modern operators like Black Lips, Spirit of the Beehive and The Lavender Flu.Distorted Time gathers momentum and rattles along the rails of destiny for 13 songs and 36 minutes like Dylan the stoned rabbit from The Magic Roundabout with merry effect.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,536 Teenage Fanclub
'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 you'll buy into this. I do and I did. 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.
Friday, October 9, 2026
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 79 Monochrome Set - Lotus Charm
Change and peoples approaches and responses to it is one of the most fascinating subjects. Particularly when applied to Bohemians like The Monochrome Set.. Who surely advocate risk but stick to their essential palate record in record out.
But as the man said if it ain't broke.... (you do the rest). Lotus Charm is a glassful or two of your very favourite things. Absinthe without the hangover. Herman's Hermits are still together. The Prisoner has been comissioned for another season and Sean Connery is forever shaken and not stirred. A marvellous record
Song(s) of the Day # 4,535 Personal Trainer
Friends and loved ones who have past are a difficult eternal ache in life. They take aware a part of you with them. More so than lovers who you have gone your separate ways for specific reasons. But with loved ones who have departed , the wound will never entirely heal.
Matt left about ten years ago. We spent a lot of time together listening to music. Now I listen to something and think Matt would appreciate this. Matt would definitely like Personal Trainer's Human Assholes. It's off the beaten track, Dutch (Matt, not coincidentally, lived in loved and died in Holland) and looks at the strangeness of the world from the margins. From the edge of the pitch.
Personal Trainer are led by Willem Smit, the band's singer and principal songwriter. Human Assholes finds him resetting the compass, this is disimilar in nature to previous records and the effects are altogether glorious. in any number of ways. It has a wonderful record sleeve.
A boy in a red sweater is standing, in fact on the verge of falling, blidfolded and balancing an egg on a spoon. It is a sleeve which defies coherent explanation just as Human Assholes is an album lasting fifty minutes crammed with songs which defy coherent explanation. It's an altogether glorious cacophony.
Precedents; Beefheart, DEUS, Surrealism and Dadaism, Kevin Coyne, Beck , Blur, David Thomas, Pavement, The Nits, Syd Barrett, Kevin Ayers, Bonzo Dog. This is charm and inspiration by turn. itself and refusal to be of the herd. It's a set of astonishing fairground rounds. A true standout record
Thursday, October 8, 2026
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 80 Maria BC - Marathon
Monday afternoon. A good time for a Marathon. The latest album from Maria BC. Threadbare folk songs from Oakland, California; exhaustion, resignation and uncommon beauty It's a record that yearns and emotes as the earth turns.
Coveted # 17 James Brown - Black Caesar
'Born in New York City on a Monday...' Well actually James Brown wasn't. But never let mere detail get in the way of the legend. A mean, bad man fronting a slick tight black band. Heavy input from Fred Wesley here. The OST for a cool looking Blaxploitation crime drama.This is layers of period atmosphere and cool melodrama.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 37 Eminem - The Marshal Mathers LP
It's about a mindset and entering that mindset. Without doing that you won't really buy into the journey
Song(s) of the Day # 4,534 Vanishing Twin
Calling your album Archives and housing it in a plain-ish, nondescript sleeve is not always the best way to attract attention. In the case of Vanishing Twin's latest album I discovered to my great surprise and delight yesterday evening that this wasn't a set of demos and songs rejected for previous releases but a new album, their fifth, and a pearl.
Vanishing Twin have been a firm friend of It Starts With a Birthstone going back a good seven years now. since I heard and fell under the spell of The Age Of Immunology their second album. They're a cosmopolitan collective, (currently operating as a trio), based in London and are experimental by nature though essentially they operate in the slipstream of Stereolab, Broadcast, Pram, Kosmische Rock and Psychedelic tropes such as Tropicalia and Kosmische Rock.
'Postmodern Songcraft that finds transendence in the shared experience of creation.' I'll drink to that!!! Magical, mystical and frankly inspiring.
Wednesday, October 7, 2026
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 38 Bjork - Vespertine
Bjork is an incomparable artist. Vespertine, her fourth album, seems to take her lead from Associates Sulk. It's incredibly sensual, textured stuff. a magical kingdom.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 81 Slow Pulp - Melodie
Sitting on a big oak tree. Yellow and green. At the age of nineteen. We've all been there. And perhaps aren't anymore. But that doesn't seem to matter or impact on the basic emotion. The feeling of being alive. It's certainly a long time in the other place. Lethe. The river of forgetfulness.
In the meantime there are worse places I might direct you than to Slow Pulp's Melodie. It's the stuff of uncertain Independent American dreaming.That will do for today. And tomorrow I imagine.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,533 Bullseye
Minnesota quartet Bullseye posit the frage 'what is Gene Clark had never made it to LA' and landed up in Brooklyn instead. Their self titled album is all dreamful chiming and romantic wonder. Cool Ghouls. Big Star and Tom Petty and many others have been here many times before but this is a seam which will never run dry.
Coveted # 16 Red Garland
A change in routine this morning. Forty minutes in the company of one of the Modern Jazz perennials and his 'block chording' ballardeering. There's something quite effortless and timeless about records like these. Perhaps I'm becoming the person I was always meant to be in my sixties. Yu realise that all of these guys at some point fell out with Miles Davis but that's not clear from the peace at play in records like these.
Tuesday, October 6, 2026
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 82 Hovvdy
Hovvdy are a Texan Independent duo who have popped up intemittently on It Starts with a Birthstone over the years but I've finally found the album I'd nail to my mast with latest release, their sixth in all, Big World.
All their ingredients and influences seem to have fallen into place this time round and no mistake. Breathy laid back relaxed ballads and mid tempo chuggers that assimilate and triangulate The Shins, Elliot Smith and Alex G.
But the key spirit of this , at least to my ears, is that of Simon & Garfunkel. An interesting essay could be rewritten on these mavens of melody. As important in many respects as Beatles, Velvets, Love, and Byrds for the post millennial independent sound.
Coveted # 15 Gordon Lightfoot - Endless Wire
In some quarters Gordon Lightfoot is spoken in hallowed tones. Whereas to me he seem like schmaltzy MOR balladering with a dodgy moustache and dodgier perm. What do I know? Endless Wire is restful enough to lull anyone into wistful rest.
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