The Stylistics – People Make the World Go Round

I’m only two minutes into the new month and Snowfall is already throwing new little weapons of mass destruction.

First giving me the sound of silk mixed with social issuess..

Whodini – Five minutes of funk

…And then kicking out some electic boogie of Whodini. I’m a sucker for a vocoder…

Egypt, Egypt – The Egyptian Lover

…. And clearly Kraftwerk rip offs…

The Animals – I just wanna make love to you

Reading up on Eric Burdon gets me heading to try and hunt down a copy of The Animals first EP.

I can’t find it anywhere, which, as it turns out isn’t neccessarily a bad thing..

Van Morrison – Sweet Thing

A day of looking forward to seeing Van The Man sees me falling into playing Sweet Thing on repeat.

I knew I loved the song, but I was suprised by how much.

The Doors – Gloria

Morrisson’s show triggers all sorts of memories, though an old impression of drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels and listening to The Doors’ cover of Gloria is the one I run home to.

Why don’t you run over here and make me feel alright?

CRX – Ways to Fake it

Muse’s 80’s throw-back trailer for their live show makes me dig out a real 2000-rock-peice-with-80s-production so that I can avoid their usual nonsense.

The best work by any Stroke. Ever.

The Hollies – Stay

Back to researching the 1963 charts, I come across this Hollies cover of the MowTown classic.

It’s nowhere as good as the original, but I find it interesting in the way it takes the MerseyBeat sound, instruments and layered North Western vocals and speeds up/ punks out American soul.

In a way it’s almost the perfect encapusaltion of what will become the British Invasion – paying homage to American soul and r’n’b but making it more accessible and poppy. What it loses in soul, it gains in commerciability.

The Sleepy Jackson – Good Dancers

It’s beyond cold at the Maximo Park gig. Typical North Eastern weather for September…

A few pop gems distract me during the band change-overs – firstly The Sleepy Jackson’s take on what George Harrison would have sounded like in the early 21st century….

As it happens I happened to be texting my mate at the time to see if he could get me any LSD. It’s been years since I last did any; god only knows what’s behind the thought process. I’d rather not know…

HAL – Don’t come running

… Then this little pop number blows my mind. Who the hell are HAL and where’s this been all of my life??

You got problems? Go ahead and deal with them

Wheat – Don’t I hold you?

… And finally this little yearner

Wasting too much time…

Sour Girl – Stone Temple Pilots

I think I may have posted this only a few months back, but digging through a live Stone Temple Pilots album I was reminded of how perfect a rock star Scott was.

Aloof, selfish, caring, self-indulgent, brave, weak… Weiland remains the greatest frontperson I’ve seen – a real academic of performance art.

I found Sour Girl when the knew the girl I loved was about to leave. It didn’t help the pain, but it soundtracked my fall into sleep on many occassions..

The Girl got reasons; they all got reasons

The Cure – The Last Day of Summer

It used to be so easy, I never even tried

The Cure – 39

Fuck it.

I didn’t want to put 2 up from the same album.

But….

…lyrics about lacking self-worth coupled with the best John Squire esque guitar parts outside of old Wind-In-The -Willows-Boy himself found themselves on repeat late into one evening

So the fire is almost out, and there’s nothing left to burn

Paradise – Creeper

Cartoon pop/rock/goth soundtrack to a opera/theatrical show sung by a cast from Rock-Horror and locked into glam-power-pop posturing from the Glitter Band/The Sweet.

God only knows what this is – or what it wants to be – but what a perfect little piece of character pop it turns out to be.

The Dirt Clouds – Never get enough of me

At trip down memory lane, and past dreams, brings me to the Empire Records film and this little banger. I’d forgotten about this.

Chase & Status – Time

It takes me 10 years, a field full of kids shaking their locked down pens along to the rythmn, and an older sister singing along – but i finally ‘get’ Chase & Status….

Somebody should have told me earlier that they play jungle music…

Funeral Canticle – John Tavener

Terrence Malick’s Song to Song has me at the point of tears; I can’t find it’s soundtrack anywhere but Spotify does have a playlist for The Tree of Life’s soundtrack – Tavener’s peice sounding like the grand idea within the film – good meets evil, creation meets destruction, birth meets death, happiness meets regret, love meets decay, optimism meets cynisim.

If there’s a piece of music that can help you feel all parts of your personality at once – this must come close.

Chris Isaak – Lie to me

A new album by Holy Motors may be my favourite new piece of the month – but seeing as though the track ‘Midnight Cowboy’ isn’t out yet let’s go instead with it’s surrogate father; Issak’s twangy, moody, regretful moment of recognising that sometime’s it’s better to not hear someone’s truth.

Push and Pull – Rufus Thomas

Elvis meets Nixon throws some lovely little soul numbers my way – some new, some i’d not heard since the radio show days.

I wish I’d known this one at the time…

Hard to Handle – Otis Redding

I wish I’d played more of this one.. (that ain’t nothing but drug store lovin’)

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals – When will you come back home

15 years ago, almost to the day, I remember sitting in my old flat, feeling really sad. The end of summer, the uncertainty of knowing what to do next, the reality of being unsure of how to get out of my state of mind.

There was something in the, then, new Ryan Adams album which helped me escape from the noises; this song in particular being particulalry soothing – the sound of the steel guitar and the gentleness of the singing reminding me of how safe I would feel when my dad woke me from nightmares.

15 years later I still need this song sometimes. Especially in Autumn.