Saturday, February 8, 2025

101 Essential Rock Records # 5 Davey Graham - Folk Blues & Beyond

 





David Lynch's Favourite Songs # 18 Depeche Mode

 





Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,666 Placebo - Sleeping With Ghosts

 


That bloke from Placebo was a bit annoying. Some of thei songs were alright. They're rather intense. Take a pill mate. 




500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 104 OMD - Architecture & Morality

 


OMD got a bit wet. Two songs about Joan if Arc Lads !?!




1985 Singles # 13 Sade

 


Sade wasn't really my thing in 1985. I walked up and down the High Streets of Richmond with mu best friend and we bemoaned the pubs being tuned into wine bars for arravista trendies in polo necks, 501s and DMs. With the passing years I've mellowed. Sade was always irresistibe and The Sweetest Taboo now has a nostalguc tug that's hard to withstand.



Song(s) of the Day # 3,998 Rats on Rafts

 

In the early Eighties I fell big time for The New Psychedelia. Teardrop Explodes, Echo & The Bunnymen, Psychedelic Furs. Felt. XTC, The French Magazine Les Inkoruptibles wrote an article which I struggled with with my PGCE French, couldn't make head or tail of and settled for their playlists.Went out and bought some records

Forty years on in less innocent times, Endtimes. For New Psychedia read New Dystopia. The Waeve. Rats on Rafts. I can't think of any others off the top of my head. I'll get back to you. In the meantime check out Elon Musk's Android Army. That should go down well with your muesli.

Why not listen to Rats on Rafts second album Deep Below and tuck into toast and orange juice. Rats on Rafts are an intense and earnest young quintent from Rotterdam who I'm much taken with. A Go Betweens for dark times. Cool hair dos and cheekbones. Fuelled I suspect by Orwell, Camus and Koestler paperbacks and ssecond hand copies of Diamond Dogs, Their vision is inspiring and contagious.

The dreaded Post Punk standby apellation seems appropriate. Deep Below is by turns Oriental. Angular. Cosistentlt gloomy and dramatic. Fabulous. 'The ice age is coming, the sun's zoomin' in...' I see  Rats on Rafts are playing tound the corner from me in a few days. I'm tempted to pop along. In the meantime  this will more than do. 

Friday, February 7, 2025

101 Essential Rock Records # 4 Bob Dylan - Another Side of Bob Dylan

 

'I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now..'

Dylan is the original. A model of how to do things. The way he kept moving forward. People didn't like it. They didn't like him for ti. They want the same thing again. But a true artist keeps moving forwards.


.


David Lynch's Favourite Songs # 17 Bjork

 





Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,667 Thin Lizzy - Live & Dangerous

 


'Tonight there's going to be a jailbreak. Somewhere in this town.' Err. Try the jail Phil !

It's Thin Lizzy. It's Live & Dangerous. They were a force of nature.




500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 105 R.E.M. - Fables of The Reconstruction

 



I have a relationship with R.E.M. as with no other band. I wouldn't claim for a moment that they were the best that's ever been by any means. Or even that they were more important than other groups who were also putting out great work in the early to mid-eighties, (The Smiths and The Go Betweens come immediately to mind), the period where they put out their first records, the ones that still mean the most to me and the ones I keep coming back to and always will. They're just my band, the one I constructed much of my personal identity and perspective of the world from, in my late teens and early twenties when you do these important, unrepeatable things.


'When the light is mine. I felt gravity's pull...'

Fables of the Reconstruction was their third album and was recorded and released in 1985 when they were undergoing a lot of personal change, as was I. I was in the middle of my gap year and then went on from there to university where of course so many of the important things begin to happen. As for R.E.M., they meanwhile found themselves in London, away from their former production team of Mitch Easter and Don Dixon for the first time, recording the album instead with Joe Boyd, producer of Fairport Convention and Nick Drake among numerous other notables.

'He's not to be reached. He's to be reached...'

R.E.M had a famously and well-documented terrible time during the recording of the record. It was cold, they were poor, and existing apparently on a dreadful diet consisting mostly of potatoes in addition to having to become acquainted with the dubious pleasures of the London Underground of the mid-eighties in winter on the way to and from their recording studio. The turmoil they underwent during this period is reported to have brought them to the verge of splitting, though the strong nature of their personal friendships and shared mission, (a notable feature of the band), stopped this from taking place.

 
'Way to shield the hated heat. Way to put myself to sleep...'

The record they came out with is notoriously muddy. Whereas the production of Murmur and Reckoning is thoughtful and layered and different instruments can be clearly differentiated in the mix, allowing the listener to follow different things each time,  Fables still sounds like thick soup, even thirty years on. Boyd has been repeatedly blamed for this, much to his irritation.The muddiness though for me is part of its attraction and ongoing appeal.

'Two doors to go between. The wall was raised today...'

I bought and heard the record in the autumn of '85, just after returning from Switzerland where I'd been working for six months and where I'd fallen tentatively in love for the first time. I was already in love with R.E.M., however, their mystery and melody chiming with an idea I was developing of myself. I bought the album in Richmond in the company of a friend and went back to his parent's flat to listen. 


'Joe, Bill and Ted, stand on your head, (that's my folly)...'

My first listening reaction was an almost total blank. It was nothing like I'd expected, nothing like either Murmur or Reckoning to my ears. It took me a while. There are of course clear continuations between the three albums, as I came to discover on repeated listens, the melodies, the vocal harmonies, the evocation of the American South and Michael Stipe's lyrical concerns, found poetry and thick vocal burr, almost as incomprehensible as previously in terms of the actual words or coherent sense of individual songs but slowly coming into focus in terms of what he was saying and where all this was going.


'Can't get there from here. (I've been there, I know the way)'

It does take some work however. I'm still working on it and thinking about it thirty years on but the album is worth it and things are beginning to fall into place. Fables is crammed full with duality. An album of eleven songs, each of them to some degree a narrative about the Deep South and the consciousness and troubled eccentricity it generates and shapes. Knowing your Faulkner, McCullers and O'Connor is helpful in this respect because the band feed on these forbears in their early work particularly.


'Green grow the rushes go. The compass points the workers home...'

Life is a great deal about narratives. Which R.E.M knew. They were grounded in narratives. Communal, happy living in Athens, Georgia and a shared experience which is where this record comes from. Listening to their early albums you can hear The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Creedence, The Band coming out of the mix but also the way that veers off into the road into the New York Dolls, Patti Smith, Television, and on towards the arty side of UK Punk with Wire and the Gang of Four. 
 
'Fever built a bridge. Reason tore it down.'

But the narrative here is actually a lot deeper. This is a confused, conflicted record.Ill at ease with itself. And in the tension, the awareness of their potential and the idea of where they might be going is pretty much what makes this the quintessential R.E.M. album along with Murmur and Automatic For the People. Knowing their talent, sure of themselves. Over the next few records they burrowed into the idea of being the biggest band in America and then from there to the world, slimmed down their songwriting craft, first through Fall on Me, then The One I Love and finally Losing My Religion which showed them the way back home to Automatic for the People which is probably their lasting statement and their best record and testament. How they found their way home.


'We never wrote the reasons that I need explained. Some things are givens and others get away.'

Pretty much all of the songs on Fables are unfinished. They're open ended and lonely. Orphans all. They speak of a certain kind of unhappiness and disorientation that never really knows satisfaction.  But not one that doesn't know the way back onto the main road. When I went to see the band play in Hamersmith Palais in the autumn of 1985 with my older brother and younger sister they put on one of the great Rock and Roll shows I'll ever see. As they kicked into the opening bars of Feeling Gravity's Pull, the clean cut American college kids at the front of the venue felt the surge of the London crowd pushing behind them and melted in genuine but slightly unjustified terror toward the back of the venue. From that point on the night was all melody and tension. They were quite remarkable!



'I'd like it here if I could leave and see you from a long way away.'

I haven't told the whole story about Fables here. I can't. Nobody can. It's one of the best open-ended, inexplicable records ever made. You can talk and write about other R.E.M. albums but this one remains elusive. Even to the people who made it I imagine. It's like a fish out of water, flip flopping on planks. It's crammed full of great songs, some of the best this band ever wrote, but none of them done full justice.


'He had a dream one night. That the tree had lost its middle...'

As I write, Peter Buck, the guitarist of R.E.M. and one of the guiding visionaries of this great band has turned sixty and is heading on to sixty one. I wonder what he thinks of this album. I think I read a quote from him today that said that nobody else could have made this particular record. In that respect he's entirely right.




1985 Singles # 14 Suzanne Vega

 

'I'm fighting things I cannot see.'

Posters on your wall. So important in your youth, Bought at poster fairs along with pot plants from the Student Unions. As you're heading out into the world. Looking to make allegiances and fall in love. Suzanne understands. And so does Marlene. This us a song that reminds me of when I was young. Regardess of what they tell  you it's possible to stay young.




Song(s) of the Day # 3,997 Guided By Voices

 '


'He's wearing chemical make up. She's wearing dirt perfume. Let's have a hairsplay party. In the universe room.'

There are worse things to do than spend your early Friday morning, heading towards your half seven than cupping an ear to Universe Room the latest album from Dayton, Ohio legends Guided By Voices. It's an invigorating and reassuring experience,

There's nobody like these guys. Nothing like their doughty resilience and flinty determination. The hours they've spent at the Potter's Wheel and the way they're back every few months with a new album. I'm not even going to bother to check exactly how many records they have under their belt now. hey don't bother to keep count, they keep forging on to the next,  s

They do what they do. The Who meet Document era R.E.M. Wire, Mission of Burma and Husker Du. It's long since been a modus vivendi patented and piloted by Robert Pollard and whoever he collects around him as they head off to the studio. Universe Room will more than do. To infinity and beyond. Have a great Friday !

Thursday, February 6, 2025

101 Essential Rock Records # 3 The Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones

 


'Nearly fifty years on Beatles versus Stones arguments seem like relics froma battlefield  no one can quite locate anymore. And yet they hold some truth, for the Rolling Stons are, both by theur original intent and savvy brand embellishment, the first antipop band....This is the most energetic and galvanizing Rock & Roll since the 50s.'




David Lynch's Favourite Songs # 16 Neil Young - Love & War

 





Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,668 The Flamin' Lips - At War With The Mystics

 


As with many Flamin' Lips recirds I listen to it and think that was alright. I wonder why so many people love them so much. 




500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 106 Lucinda Williams - Lucinda Williams

 


It's C&W with good writing, good songs and a good voice. It doesn't cut much deeper with me than that. But it does to Uncut Nagazine readers for whom this is a central musical tug.




1985 Singles # 15 The Triffids

 


In 1985 while I went off to Switzerland on a magical journey, The Triffids began thei rise. Peel approved, and gave them any number of sessions and plays. NME put them on their front cover at a time when that honour really meant something and pushed a band genuinely forward in terms of youth conscoousness.

My sister, who was developing her tastes and they overlapped and complemented mine made a C-90 cassette with my dad and sent it to me in Switzerland with a letter.The cassette had great songs from Bruce Springsteen. And others. Interspersed with Horror and Storm sound affects from a BBC record which I'd bought the year before. People screaming. Machetes splitting cabbages to give the impression of guillotines severing human heads. Wind whisting around ships rigging. I've still got the record. Though I don't play it anymore.

The Triffids songs were the highlight of the cassettes.Songs from  their mini album Treeless Plains which led them towards their 1986 masterpiece Born Sandy Devotional. They were something else clearly. A force to be reckoned with.


 



Song(s) of the Day # 3,996 Tuung

 

It's not particularly difficult to find records to write and talk about on here. We've only just turned the corner into February and I've already had ten or more excellent albums to document, catalogue, talk and write about here. Music remains wonderful distraction and refuge from the madness of the world. 

For Thursday we have Tuung. 'Pagan Folktronica' , if you will. The collective's eighth album  Love You All Over Again is cottage industry craftsmanship. Textured old school Art. Words and rhythms weaving together magically to form fascinating labyrinths of sound.

The instrumentation here is astonishingly inventive. Unconventional collages are fabricated utilising seashells, voices and collective endeavour. 'Disquisitions on nature, mythology and the human condition.'  

This is an intiguing old school creation. A joyful discovery. Almost like an Oliver Postgate soundtrack to Noggin the Nog, The Clangers or Bagpuss. Love You All Over Again  is a thing of intricate but mysterious beauty which insinuates iteslf under the skin and burrows its way gently and lovingly into the soul.  In short, I like it.

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

101 Essential Rock Records # 2 Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

 


A record that suddenly feels bery current again. given the release of A Compete Unknown. These are questions that always need to beasked. Stances that still need to be taken.
 



David Lynch's Favourite Songs # 15 David Bowie

 





500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 107 Squeeze - East Side Story

 


I'll sit down and listen to this. Even though I've got a lesson at half eleven and a no nothing middle manager breathing down my collar to do paper work of no significance whatsoever. It can wait. Squeeze are more important. They knew about life. They knew about melody. They had a way with words. They knew it could hurt. ut that essentially it was worth it for all the wonderful things about it 'They were ordinary guys... the kind of blokes who always seemed like they'd stand their round.' 




1985 Singles # 16 Fine Young Cannibals

 

'Whay is wrong. In my life. That I must get drunk every night.'

Records from the likes of Joy Division, Dexys, The Beat and The Specials were lessons in growing up whrn you were 16 , 17 and 18. They told of a life I barely knew about because I was brought up in a sheltered, middle class home.They told of a life I'd never know. But they told their tales brilliantly. Bruising tunes.

Fine Young Cannibals came from a splinter in The Beat . They were a surprise. The way the guitarist and bassist move un this vudeo. It comes from James Brown and Stax and Northern Soul. It's brilliantly realised. The drumming. The trumpet. the lighting in the studio. The commitment.

The great discovery is Roland Gift.He's a proper soul man. You can feel the pain in his delivery. It was the best thing the band ever did I bought the debut album on the back of it. It was really good. They had the right politics. The right clothes. The right moves. They went to America to make a mint. But thus was the one you really remember. .


 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,669 Echo & The Bunnymen - Crocodiles

 

'The sky seems full when you're in the cradle...'

I listened to this again just yesterday. It's a wonderful opening salvo. Bristling. Brilliant ! Using school poetry and literature as a starting point as you set off for your journey into the world. What do you need. Hair, coat, attitude. Good record collection. Dreams. I love this just as much as I did when I was seventeen. Not time to grow up just yet.




Song(s) of the Day # 3,995 Bonnie Prince Billy

 


A lie in allows me forty five minutes with  Prince Billy and his latest album The Purple Bird. He's an ornery critter. Very much his own man. He's created his  whole alternative universe and now he's revelling in it. Not unlike Nick Cave.

By contrast with Cave though Billy seems to have made his way to the light. 'After the bright night comes day. Yellow and grey.' 'Love overcomes.' It's such a  pleasure to be in such company

Over his career the man has made a crucial shift form The Blues to C & W. And although both genres are imbued with religious intensity. Battles with the beer and the darknight outside. Struggles with the soul and the cry of the demons. There's a constant sense of community here though. This a record of enormous communal warmth, One last hoedown around the campfire then we make for hearth and home arm in arm.

Prince Billy is sleeping with the dogs tonight. 'I'm all bark and she's all bite.' It's hokey as hell and unashamedly so. But the vein of humour is incredibly rich and so are the tunes. This has a glorious understanding of the ancient musical welI it draws upon, 

This is a wonderfulm sentimental record to draw us into the day. Ultimately this is a record that draw you into the water and then drags you to the surface of the ;ake into the bright sunlight. Cleansed. Restored. 

 

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Bob Dylan

 


101 Essential Rock Records # 1The Beatles - Please Please Me

 

'Modern music starts with this voyage of discovery.' 'Startling in its originality.'

A splendid coffee table book. Edited by Jeff Gold. Lots of fine essays. By Iggy Pop, Robyn Hitchcock, Nels Cline, Jon Savage, Peter Buck and the like. Starting where many books  ahould start. With The Beatles first album. With that classic image of the four of those instantly recognisable faces gazing  down from that balcony. The record still sounds fresh too. This should keep me occupied until Summer.





David Lynch's Favourite Songs # 14 Pixies

 





500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 108 Husker Du - Zen Arcade

 


An incredible statement. A slab of by turns, fury, confusion rage and sensitivity. Sometimes cheek by jowl. Startling.


 

1985 Singles # 17 Dexys Midnight Runners

 


Kevin Rowand and the people he's working with at the time, do their thing. We should aways be grateful.This was never destined to be Nunber One. But it's an unstoppable statement.




Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,670 Air -Walkie Talkie

 


There are worse things to do than put your headphones on or else lie back in the arms of someone you love for forty five minutes and listen to an Air album together. They're a band of rare and stately grace. Crackling static.



Song(s) of the Day # 3,994 FKA Twigs

 


Not an album I expected to relate to or spend much time with but  FKA Twigs EUSEXUA is certainly one of the more notable early releases of the year. I gave it a listen last night and frankly found myself gripped. 

I've never really caught Tahliah Debrett Barnett's work before but I get the feeling that I may have been missing out on simething really special. A frequently other worldly and incredibly creative record.

Obviously focused on sexual identity and dancefloor politics. I'm not an authority of either but have immediately warmed to the incredible fluidity of this album. The enormous diversity of the rythms and attitudes here. It's a planted flag and a fascinating record.  

Monday, February 3, 2025

David Lynch's Favourite Songs # 13 Elvis Presley

 






Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,671The Radio Dept - Lesser Matters

 


Swedish Sensitive Street.




500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 109 Haircut 100 - Pelican West

 


Has it's moments. Nick Hetward was a talented fellow. Though  it felt much more cynical than it appeared on first notice. Like a marketplace reaction to Orange Juice.




1985 Singles # 18 James

 


James really first emerged in 1985 with The Village Fire EP on Factory Records which still charms forty years down the line. It's a fabuous document of a band setting off on their journey. Young shavers packing their rucksackswith flasks and sandwiches wrapped in cellophane.An apple and a catron of juice for anexcursion to the country..

I've always thought 'Trumpton' 'Camberwick Green'. There's a clockwork beauty here, a slipshod artisan amateurism to the arrangements and Tim Booth's mannerisms have a purity that's really rather lovely. Youth in all its earnest innocence.




Song(s) of the Day # 3,993 The Laughing Chimes

 


A wistful throwback start to the first working week of February.. Brett Anderson fronting a Flying Nuns band. Ohio band The Laughing Chimes strike no end of artful poses which hark unmistakeably back to yesteryear on the posily entitled Whispers in The Speech Machine

You can't help but feel that you're in a damp cellar somewhere in the Eighties wearing your favourite polkadot shirt. Back in the days when you had a full and not unimpressive head of hair.



The lack of variety in  The Laughing Chimes schtick wear slightly over the course of a whoe album. Also the mannered delivery of their lead singer. But this is a bright start to the working week. 

Sunday, February 2, 2025

David Lynch's Favourite Songs # 12 Buddy Holly

 





Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,672 Todd Rundgren - A Wizard, A True Star

 


I've listened to this on my TV while I made my tea. Slightly hard work despite  spme stand out tracks.


500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 110 Dexys Midnight Runners - Don't Stand Me Down

 


This may not be what the record company or much of the fanbase hoped for from Dexys in 1985. But this is a great example of artists doing what they want to do and being held out and respected for it in due time. 




What I Did on Thursday Night - Wingbeats at the Cobalt Studios

 


My life goes from day to day. That's a great way to live. I recommend it. An Existential approach. . I woke up on Thursday and took the stairs down from my bed to my living room in darkness in  preparation for my working day. At my desk on my laptop to my surprise and delight there was a message from a fundamental and central friend of mine waiting for me..An important person. There aren't many such people in anybody's life. I hadn't really heard from her for many years. 

She told me she had got a divorce a couple of years back and she would be in London in April with one of her beautiful daughters. That she was happy. Should we meet? I hadn't really known she was unhappy but the news didn't really surprise me. I met the man she married. Was at their wedding. I'd been surprised at the time. Puzzled. I replied that I would love to see them both. Suggested tea at The Dorchester. Mentioned Budapest where we had spent the best Christmas together. Possibly of my whole life.  Twenty years ago.

That has been the emotional backdrop for my last couple of days. This seems to be the world we live in now.Living in the present. Dwelling on the past. Thinking of the future. Outside there's a climate of fear. Every time you look at the news. Turn on the TV or the radio. Look at the front pages. Read the headlines. . A plane has just crashed into water near Washington DC. An American president is eager to blame others rather than taking charge and clearing matters up so we can all sleep in peace. Life is and remains stranger than fiction.

Never mind all that. I have lessons to plan and teach. It's a great way to spend my days. Teaching German business students online. People who are probably waking like me. Glancing at the news.Putting it to the back of their minds and thinking of the day ahead and the task at hand. Children off to school. A pecked kiss for a partner. No time to worry about a German parliamentary election. An important one surely. Just a matter of weeks away.

Meanwhile the music plays. I like to make my own soundtrack. My life has been great in that respect since I left a stale and hostile corporate office space a year ago and became self employed.  In my flat as I bathe and dress, The Goon Sax's debut album Up To  Anything spins. Insouciante, irrepressible youth, First love, first friendship, first heartbreak. We may not realise it at the time  But the heart is a remarkable organ. Resilient. Durable. It heals. We go on towards the coming day

I check my emails from work. Text to friends. No more time to delve further into the news. It cares not for me. It would do no one any good for me to weep at my desk. I take off  Up To  Anything. Put on Lou Reed's New York. A lament for his home town. From 1989. Lou is gone. But New York goes on. We must go on. 'Fly, fly away. From the Dirty Boulevard.'

I've got a sub to teach first. I love sub classes. Melissa, the group's regular teacher needs to take a week off. So I've been parachuted in with a basic roadmap. I click on the Teams link and am admitted into a virtual classroom where four IT businesspeople await me and we sail into the lesson.

I always feel like teaching is a breeze. An opportunity to immerse myself in the now. Sub classes generally demand that you meet people, find out the basics keep them entertained and hopefully help them in some way. Teaching is a noble pursuit. At least that's the way I look at it.

This class is fun. The students are funny. They know each other well and I warm to them increasingly as the ninety minutes proceed. We talk about different kinds of humour. They have good senses and feelings for it. We laugh and I hope learn something together. Time doesn't lag. They give ad hoc presentations, demonstrating their ability to describe their working processes in English. Switching between active and passive voice when required. Like professional footballers with two good feet.

Half an hour later and I'm into one of my regular classes. I play this one by ear, I have a powerpoint but subject matter comes up from the group and I pursue it. We talk about the property market. Compare what goes on there and what goes on here. As with pretty much everything I've learned about Germany since I started this a year back it strikes me that they have a saner approach and that we might do well to learn from them. An astonishing idea. 'Learn from Johnny Foreigner.' Perish the thought.

I'm done by 1.15. Do my paperwork, tidy up a bit and the day is fine. I've decided I'm going to a bash in the Cobalt Studios in Ousburn tonight. I've hardly been out since I got back to Newcastle a couple of weeks ago and it's time I did so. I don't wish to become a hermit.

I stop off at Beatbox Records across the road for a chat with Sam of No Teeth. They're probably a syndicalist commune or something of the sort but franky Sam is in charge whatever anyone tells you. We chat for a while. Sam is good and rolls me a tab for good measure and I'm on my way.

I pop in at The Telegraph to see if Amy's in. She isn't so I chat to the young barmaid who has a Nirvana T Shirt on. We chat about Nirvana and I say I was in Dortmund at the time of Grunge when Cobain died. I witnessed events unfold one Friday afternoon. A highly memorable event for me. It was genuinely upsetting. Cobain and Nirvana seemed to matter to a lot of people.

The barmaid is amiable but I get the impression that she isn't particularly interested. In what I have to say or actually in Nirvana really. It's just a t shirt she chose from her drawer. Nothing wrong with that. I go to the jukebox put on some songs that remind me of those days. Drink my cider and I'm on my way. 

I like the idea of choice these days. It gives my life rhythm, The Bridge? Nah not this time. Down the winding steps to The Quayside and the Crown Posada. One of the ultimate pub destinations in Newcastle. Or anywhere else for that matter.

I buy my non alcoholic beer. Sorry I'm a dull man these days. It was time to show the alternative to  non alcoholic beer the door. A young group of people come and sit next to me. They seem perfectly OK but get engrossed in a never ending chat about a sad psychotic who murdered some poor young children recently. 

I'm sorry but I avoid discussion of things like these because I find it can lead to string 'em up conclusions. Or general unhappiness and confusion.I want and need to be happy. I make my way as inconspicuously as I can past them and back to the bar. I read an article about the fine new Dylan film instead. Then I'm off into the night.. 

The Quayside is glossy and still. Ink black. Bible Black. As somebody with more poetry in his soul would have it. This acts as my exercise for today as I'm giving the Fitness Centre a break for a while. 

I'm into the Ouseburn Valley and I spot Alan at the doors of The Cluny. One of the best baman of my lifetime. An avuncular, friendly Viking of a man whose hobby is beng a viking. Staged battles and talks for the kids. I'm pleased because I've had a solitary day and it's great to catch up with someone I haven't seen for a while. Newcastle's wonderful for that.

I invite him to my 60th Birthday Party. We chat about common acquaintances. Then I'm off into the Ouseburn night . It's one of the best parts of Newcastle. Up the hill towards The Tanners. Turn right under the bridge to Shieldfield. Past Ernests, a community art space and I'm at the doors of the Cobalt Studios. One of the clutch of venues in Newcastle that offer cheap, affordable artistic nourishment in difficult times.

There's a young man at the counter. He's got one of those inadvisable half hearted attempts at a moustache which seem quite current. He seems angry but friendly. For some reason I think of Dexys Midnight Runners Kevin Archer. 

He asks if  I've bought a ticket. I say no, I'd like to buy one now. He says 'You'll have to wait for food' A nourishing meal in with the price, usually curry, rice or salad is one of the best things about Cobalt Studios Thursday nights.I'm not bothered about the food tonight.

I'm just glad to be back in the Cobalt Studios again. It's just a nice space to be in. Rows of chairs. Tables. People of all ages chatting together. Likeminded people. It's all quite idyllic actually. Artistic. the word has got out about this place. It's pretty much full. People smile at each other. 

Not taking the food option doesn't bother me. I don't bother with it tonight. I'm just happy to be here and have already promised myself that I'll come back in company soon. This is an interesting project. A project for troubled times,

A band come onstage. Four or five players. Wingbeats. Nu Jazz according to the flyer. It immediately ticks all boxes. Not corporate ones perhaps but emotional and spiritual ones. They play a graceful, languid set. The mood is mellow and positive.

I have a chat with the young guy next to me. We agree that places like these are important in times like these. Inclusive ones. He's a medical student and he talks about where his course of study is lacking. It's all about the money. Isn't that what's wrong with the word now. Isn't that what needs to be critiqued and challenged. 

Places and spaces like the Cobalt Studio might be a part of the solution. An alternative. I like the place very much.I don't need to stay for the headliners. I've got three classes tomorrow. I thank the young medical student and head for the doors.I say goodbye to Kevin Archer and thank him too. I'll be back.    

1985 Singles # 19 Pet Shop Boys

 


Pet Shop Boys were a new kind of band. They reflected the changing times. A new Political skyline. A new attitude to one another. This was Number One. Some start.




Song(s) of the Day # 3,992 Circa Waves

 

Circa Waves Never Going Under made some impression on me in 2023. They're back earky in 2025 with Death & Love. Pt 1 and first impressions are less durable or impressive. It's all rather innocuous Indie Landfill twenty years after expiry date I'm I'm afraid. I think they should regroup and reconsider before Part 2. 

Saturday, February 1, 2025

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,673 Bark Psychosis - Hex

 


A band that were big in the Melody Maker in the nineties.They weren't really big anywhere else. But this is a gently haunting record. Introverted. Rhythmic and melodic. Hypnotic. 



500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 111 R.E.M. - Green

 


I probably listen to an R.E.M. album every three or four days. That's probably been the way I've lived my life since I was 17 and I imagine I'll continue this was until the day I die. There are worse ways to be.

Green isn't my favourite album of theirs. When I come to Stand I feel a little like I do when you get to a Ringo song on a Beatles album. There was always an element of dumbness to the R.E.M. mix. If you're talking We Walk, I go along wholeheartedly. Later on I baulk slightly and think Michael might be reined in a tad. I Can Turn You Inside Out is somehow oppressive. Not an adjective you readily apply to many R.E.M. songs. It's not their thing. They're generaly rather warm,. This is alienating. But they were becoming a big band and that probablt wasn't always the easiest thing to go through. They became a different entity from now on.  

But Green also has a layer of melancholy, of sadness that prevails and endures. Impresses. World Leader Pretend, which initially I didn't like because if its title, I now fid incredibly impressive. Orange Crush is immense, I sat alone in a living room in Nowich when my housemates, half of wonderful student band The Legendary Gazelles weren't in . Warching my band on Top of the Pops. Something I'd never thought would happen. Then they went on to become the biggest band in the world. Quite right too !

 I've been listening to this while I write this. I should listen to it more. Not just the early stuff. R.E.M.'s greatest triumph was that they continued to be relevant. that's not something that applies to many bands. 




February

 


1985 Singles # 20 Lloyd Cole & The Commotions

 

'Walking in the pouring rain. Walking with Jesus and Jane...'

Lloyd Cole & The Commotions moved from Rattlesnakes to Easy Pieces. Brand New Friend and Lost Weekend kept them in The Hit Parade and on Top of the Pops  I moved from idyllic gap year experience in Switzerland to idyllic first term at university. Lloyd Cole seemed like a fellow traveller to that experience as well as someone to aspire to. 

You didn't really get the sense that he was laughing at himself and the type that he was and that you were. You just yearned for his bookcase and paperback shelf. His record collection. I was in he process of assembling both of mine. This is what I did between 17 and 25.  Lloyd Cole & The Commotions were consistently placed to the front of the stacks.They were writing abou me.And the peolpe I knew.




 .

Song(s) of the Day # 3,991 Rose City Band

  

Rose City Band provude a gentle, rolling backdrop for household chores or breakfast. A roadtrip perhaps. Their sound strikes me as an update on the early Dire Straits sound with C&W preferenced over Blues. They have a sound that doesn't grate for a moment. Smooth as the open highway.

Latest album Son Y Sombra doesn't tamper with a formula that the band has honed over years and several years. Sunkissed feels an apt description.This is a throwback. Creedence, Riders of the Purple Sage. Harking back to older times and simpler values. The record's a welcome reminder that such things are always possible. 

There's not a hint of cynicism or smarter than thou aloofness. Songs are titled Lights On The Way. Open Roads. We're not talking Pavement or Kurt Vile here. I have no end of time for both. But Son Y Sombra takes a simpler route to the same destination. Can Get There From Here.