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THE GO-BETWEENS: Before Hollywood (LP, Rough Trade ROUGH 54, 1982)

Item number one, inspired by the selection of this record 2345. As I fired up the random number generator to select a record for this post, I noticed that the number of records in the list of possibilities now stands at 2,345. That number must surely have some kind of numerological, Kabbalistic meaning? I bet […]

TALKING HEADS: Remain In Light (LP, Sire SRK 6095 NP, 1980)

I have a strange relationship with Talking Heads. They’re one of those bands that I feel I should really like, because they – at least the context of endless name-dropping by music reviewers the world over – tick several of my ‘this is my kind of thing’ boxes: ‘edgy’, slightly angular music weirdness art-school sensibilities […]

THE SOUP DRAGONS: Hang-Ten! E.P. (12″, Raw TV Products RTV 121, 1986)

People often bang on about the fashion/style wasteland of the 1970s, but I’d suggest that the mid-to-late 1980s were in fact one of the darkest times in Britain’s sartorial history. I remember, as a naive teenager, sporting the horrific combination of a pair of sand-coloured chinos*, a striped shirt and a reversible bomber jacket with […]

WORLD OF TWIST: Sons Of The Stage (7″, Circa YR 62, 1991)

The band name ‘World Of Twist’ totally takes me back to heady teenage indie-disco days; drinking to excess back when that just meant having more than a couple of pints, and getting down to what then seemed like super-underground music that the ‘norms’ hadn’t discovered yet. Sure, now I realise that I was swept up […]

THE SMITHS: How Soon Is Now? (7″, WEA YZ 0002, 1993)

I really like this song, but I am in no way a Smiths aficionado. I only own a couple of their records, and I think I’m slightly younger than those music fans that had a deep and meaningful relationship with their band as they traversed their awkward teenage years. (A combination of hip-hop and indie […]

OL’ DIRTY BASTARD: Got Your Money (12″, Elektra E7077T, 2000)

Occasionally I’ll hear some piece of music from the mainstream that totally sticks in my head and obsesses me to the point where I ultimately end up in HMV buying it whilst trying to maintain an air of independent coolness that will convince the person behind the till that although I’m buying something that’s been […]

POPINJAYS: Monster Mouth (7″, One Little Indian 61 TP 7, 1992)

This record currently nestles on my shelf betwixt singles by The Popguns and The Poppyheads. It was because of The Popguns that I picked this up at the time; I liked their bouncy indie-pop and figured (illogically enough) that a band with a slightly similar name, and a cute record sleeve, must be another bouncy […]