It Starts With a Birthstone...

Thank goodness for that. England are out. But there was a second game tonight and as a Newcastle resident and fan of the team I was ple...

Gerry Goffin, one of he truly great pop lyricists has just died aged 75. Here are seven of his songs written with various collaborators (mos...

Not to be put on every time. I get the feeling when I do that I'm the only one that's enjoying it. But it's nice to know it...

  Just titled Cassavetes . But a surname like that doesn't always require a first. Just wondrous! Certainly enough to make me reali...

'Why you guys always teasing me?'   One of the rarest Garage classics from mid-sixties LA group. Here's Bobby Gillespie:...

Like many others I have a soft spot for Bernard Cribbins. When the British media start claiming 'National Treasure' status for peopl...

  Time to put an end to this spurious series. And no doubt start another one.  

  The Tallahatchee Bridge in Money, Mississippi, (immortalised here), collapsed this day in 1972. It was rebuilt.

  For no reason other than it's wonderful. It's Devo. And it's a new day.

  The expression 'Not very good are they?' springs to mind.

From The Guardian Horace Silver: the perfect musician for the jazz averse The pianist, who died on Wednesday aged 85, was one of the mos...

'The part in Ryan's Daughter when you lose your wife. I've never seen a more dignified man in my life.'   Julian'...

  This letter was published in The Record Mirror.  

  This song. Of course this song. But here's a different version. A folk rock take on it by a former doo wopper and rock and roller...

  Benny Hill     Bob Dylan      

  Now this is magnificent. I always though The Moles were a New Zealand Flying Nun eighties label band. It seems they're actually A...

  Ch-ch-ch-Changes. Out with the old, in with the new.

Not found by me but by one of the regulars. This led me to buy the album it comes from when I spotted it at a Record Fair in Newcastle ...

  One of the more Rock and Roll Disney songs (though of course it also lends itself to good jazz), about one of their best characters. ...

  A truly great album born in the era when everything I bought was on cd. Probably need a vinyl version at some point.

  Clearly just a laid back day for crooners in smoking jackets. Grey is surely just a muddy silver, still here is one of many great tra...

  It could really be any one of countless songs from Serge but this feels apt for today. A day I'm not obliged to be at my desk. ...

  Philip Chevron, guitarist and songwriter of The Pogues born on this day. Sadly, he died recently. He wrote this.

  Watching 'dark horse' 'much fancied' Belgium in a commentary cliché-fest with ITV's Clive Tyldesley and the shock...

  Perhaps amongst the original and definitive Garage Bands. Many American groups took their lead from them and covered their songs and ...

  This may be about a metal rather than a colour but here goes  

  Going down to meet me old mate Philip and watch some World Cup games. This is a track that reminds me of back in the day.

  'For those who go on about hating football. Fair enough. But have a look at what's going on. It's just as valid in terms ...

A b-side in the UK to Dogs in 1968. An a-side in the US where it reached # 40. Patti Smith and Tom Verlaine danced to it as it played o...

  My second near brush with Yellow Submarine today. First weekday of my holiday and thought I'd pop in to Beatdown Records, the sh...

Walker is a suburb of Newcastle   'I’ve had a couple of offers for acting in films. When a good one comes along, I want to take i...

  The first day of this, probably the first great Rock and Roll festival. Here's Otis. Though he played the second night.

'In the museum. What have we here? The baddest painter since God's Jon Vermeer.'   That's Vincent Van Go. Great Rock ...

'They paved paradise. And put up a parking lot.'   Yellow offers a pretty poor range of song choices. No Yellow Submarine or ...

  So much great Post-Punk to discover. An incredibly fertile period for British music.

  Argentina slightly understated. Despite the great Messi goal. Ibesevic gets a late consolation for Bosnia-Herzegovina. Hence the song...

  ' In 1976 I hitched to London for Patti Smith's first UK gigs. To kill time I poked around a few places I'd heard and hea...

  Nick Currie, later Momus, talking about the 4AD aesthetic. From Martin Aston's great biography of the label.   ' I saw 4A...

  Sukiyaki . Surely one of the oddest singles to reach Number One in the US. It reached that spot this day in 1963.    

  'He was a very romantic man Johnny Thunders. He was like something out of a Shanrgri Las song. He was that embodied. He loved gir...

  Sung most famously by Nat King Cole but I chose this as it might as well have been written for Screamin' Jay. There's also a ...

  That's us I suppose. Described by Dennis Bovell , producer of The Slits and The Pop Group as the first dub record.

  Slightly disappointed, tough not surprised. I still imagine they can get through given the state of Uruguay in their first game thoug...

  A man who likes to make good use of a brass band if he gets the chance.

  David Thomas is 61 today. Happy Birthday David!

  Song to the star of the eternal Billy Liar and Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. Also name checks Julie Christie and Eleanor ...

  I've probably posted this song before. Never mind. It's one of the absolute greats.