It Starts With a Birthstone...

The best thing I put on the jukebox tonight. 

The album that Blondie will ultimately be best remembered for of course though their other albums are regrettably neglected in its shad...

On Get on the Mic.

Three tracks from the splendid new Barr Brothers album  Queen of the Breakers, (their third in all), which came out last Friday. It...

A British TV presenter of the sixties and seventies of course best known as the boorish host of the interview where The Sex Pistols set...

Always great to hear Japan coming out of the radio at you. ' Completely alien and ahead of its time...' as the DJ commented. ...

A vinyl listening event I attend at the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle. Here's a review of Week Two of their October Punk season. ...

An album that was originally eleven tracks but then became twelve when Reward was a hit, leading to the re-release of the record with t...

On 59 Chrystie Street.

Fine early DIY punk from Ed Ball fronted band. Oh and having been brought up round there, East Sheen deserves a song.

No need to say more. The American flag on the album cover says how important this is. Just play the record!

Drum and bass samples on Shadrach.

A couple of tracks from the eponymous Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mich & Tich debut album from 1966. They were an odd band. A curiosity. I...

After a puzzling night at the Record Player at Tyneside Cinema, (of which I'll write more later), I went back to Rosie's for a ...

The early Radiohead high water mark before they made the moves that turned them into the most revered band on Earth. Still a wonderful ...

From What Comes Around.

No, not Ocean Colour Scene. More Oh Sees activity. Truly the most prolific band. Album forthcoming.

Search me!

From Car Thief.

And back on to that series of twelve with Big Star's quite pristine first, one of the best debut albbum's evr made. Not perhaps...

When Amy O kicks into Lavender Night, the opening track on her cracking new record Elastic like a hyperactive eight year old at a kiddi...

A couple of weeks after writing my thoughts about the George Harrison documentary Living in the Material World I'm coming to anothe...

More from today's Song of the Day man Benjamin Clementine. Also from current record I Tell a Fly , a response to American poet Joyc...

Pulp's still remarkable Different Class. To my mind better than anything Martin Amis ever wrote, or at least anything he ever wrote...

From Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun.

The second album from Benjamin Clementine, I Tell a Fly.  Not something I expected to be enthusing about or advertising on here but I f...

Really you can't beat a bit of Pentangle at this point in the night!

Memory banks kick in again. And I'm personally on the top of pretty much the only hill in Norwich, Norfolk (overlooking the city pr...

               and band. At CBGBs.

Well of course. Not much wrong with this one. This came out just as vinyl was beginning to be wrestled to the ground by the CD format. ...

From Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun.

One of the best songwriters the UK currently has. Also of Ultimate Painting and previously Mazes. Here's a small delight from his c...

Sometimes it's too long since you listened to a particular record!

The Captain's 1967 debut and one that still stands out in his body of work for its relative simplicity.

From the Deliverance soundtrack. Sampled on 5-Piece Chicken Dinner.

For the recently departed Tom Petty whose American Girl I just woke up with going round and round my head. This is from his original ba...

My current favourite and destined probably to be my record of the year. Oh and it has twelve tracks. Here's how I reviewed it a week or ...

On  Hey Ladies.

' Holidays in the Sun is a blur, roaring and crashing in waves of fragmented noise. Within, over and under through that noise, John...

I'm never entirely sure that calling your band after something that will get a lot more hits before you're mentioned on a Googl...

I have a theory that twelve is the best number of tracks for an album. The Never Mind the Bollocks review beneath this on the blog has e...