Hypnotise Us

I posted a different mix of Hypnotone's Dream Beam ages ago, the Ben Chapman version with it's huge bleepy intro. This version was by remixed Danny Rampling and on the Creation does dance Keeping The Faith compilation. Rampling keeps the big vocal, gives us synth stabs rather than pianos and a well Balaeric rhythm to hypnotise us, as the vocal sample says several times. A friend of Bagging Area reckons the over-riding thing about records like this one was the sense of possibility in them. He's not wrong. I saw Hypnotone play Dream Beam at the Sefton Park festival in Liverpool in summer 1990, sitting by the pond in almost complete darkness. It's stayed with me ever since. Tune, as people used to say.

Dream Beam(Danny Rampling mix).mp3

Space Needle

A few years ago one of the first blogs I began visiting regularly was Spoilt Victorian Child, now defunct but formerly a home to all things leftfield and guitary. Through SVC I discovered Space Needle and this song Never Lonely Alone. Dreamy, blissed out, Spacemen 3esque, experimental- Space Needle were a US band active between 1994 and 1997, and without the internet and music blogging I'd never have heard of them. This is a lovely track which deserves a wider audience. Cheers Spoilt Victorian Child.

never_lonely.mp3

Side Project Death Match

Nick Cave's hirsute side project Grinderman get remixed by Faris Badwan's mascara'd side project Cat's Eyes to good and somewhat spooky effect. I imagine no-one involved sees these as side projects, but it's a bit inevitable. Faris Badwan, spindly goth/art-rock front man from the Horrors, has joined up with Canadian classical starlet Rachel Zeffira to make music inspired by Italian horror soundtracks and the 60s girl groups, with an e.p. and album to come. They played their debut gig at the Vatican. Amazingly, they make all these things seem like really good ideas.

When My Baby Comes Cats Eyes Remix.mp3

Dum Dum Dum

Dum Dum Girls take their cues from the 60s girl groups, the mid 80s shambling indie scene and The Ramones, with front woman Dee Dee described as a 'goth rock Susannah Hoffs'. Whilst there may not be much here you haven't heard before here, they're young enough to have an excuse and they do it very well. This is I Will Be from last year's e.p. of the same name. They have a new e.p. out, He Gets Me High, which you can probably buy or steal from the usual places.

DumDumGirls-IWillBe.mp3

Johnny, You're Too Bad

The Slickers, a three part vocal reggae group, found some fame and attention when this song, Johnny Too Bad, appeared on the soundtrack to The Harder They Come in 1972. The song criticises Johnny and the rude boys for the shooting and knifing and making the women cry, while also managing to glamourise him and his lifestyle. Either way, this is a great song.

11 Johnny Too Bad.wma

Friday Night Is Reggae Night This Week

Bagging Area takes a break from the rockabilly this week, to select some more reggae to start off your weekend. This is partly due to a lack of inspiration in the quiff/blue jeans department and partly due to recent reggae posts here, there and everywhere in the wake of Reggae Britannia and all that. This is Sister Nancy and Bam Bam, a magnificent vocal reggae anthem from 1982. Does that make it dancehall? Not sure. Enjoy it whatever it is, it's a blast.

BamBam.mp3

Like Lykke

Swedish indie/electropop siren Lykke Li has a new album, Wounded Rhymes, out soon. You can probably find half of it already if you look in the right internet places- the bloggers like her. Or lykke her. I can see the appeal. This is I'm Good, I'm Gone from previous album Youth Novels remixed in fine style by Metronomy in 2008.

imgoodimgonemetronomy.mp3

Thursday Reggae

One of the great things about reggae is the super heavy, critic friendly, leftfield dub stuff and the fluffier pop-reggae are, to my mind, equally good. Davy H posted Susan Cadogan's Hurt So Good the other day, a pop-reggae tune that is surely as good as anything by King Tubby or Lee Perry, just poppier. This is Wild World, the Cat Stevens song, given the treatment by Jimmy Cliff's honey coated voice. Also contains very nice piano. Probably will not cause drowsiness. May make the user feel better, possibly even mild euphoria.

Wild World.mp3

Medication

We haven't had much 60s garage rock round here for a while so here's The Standells with Medication. Their best known song is Dirty Water which opened the classic Nuggets compilation and which was posted here about a year ago. This is an equally good blast of garage action- short, rough and dirty. You could probably play most of The Standells back catalogue while listening to yesterday's Wilco track or the David Holmes monster.

On a medication note we take I.T. to the hospital today to get his cochlear implant switched on. Fingers crossed.

Medication.mp3

On A Private Beach In Michigan

Another lengthy track, this time ten minutes of brilliance from Wilco. I love some of their stuff- Heavy Metal Drummer also on this album for example- but the more country-ish, piano-led balladry does less for me. This is a huge guitar track with relentless motorik drums, great sounding guitars and funny noises, and a huge stadium power chord chorus bit. It's fantastic, although what it's all about I have no idea. Why spiders and kidsmoke? Is Michigan well known for it's private beaches? No matter- when this is playing, it's totally absorbing and not a second too long.

Spiders_(Kidsmoke).mp3

Exploding Plastic

While we're playing long dance records here's David Holmes' debut single Johnny Favourite from 1994. Recorded with Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns (two thirds of The Sabres Of Paradise) and released on Warp it's fair to say that this one goes on a bit. Just under sixteen minutes in fact. In that time Holmes manages pounding beats (that do sound very like Sabres), ambient breakdowns and all kinds of progressive house bits and bobs, before building to a pretty explosive ending.

Johnny Favourite [Exploding Plastic].mp3

Hex

Hex by Gatto Fritto is a wonderful slice of... oh I dunno, psychedelic Italo disco, or motorik house, or analogue electronica, or.... I think I 'm turning into one of those word generator things. If you like electronic dance music that builds slowly and makes you feel warm and a bit like dancing, click on the link. You won't regret it.

02_Hex.mp3

More Dirt

I posted Good Life as covered by Detroit band The Dirtbombs last week. If you haven't got their album of Detroit techno covers done garage rock style then you really should. In my post last week I suggested Strings Of Life didn't really work. I was wrong. It's the track off the album I'm playing the most at the moment.

This is Sharevari by The Dirtbombs remixed by Omar S, who keeps some of the garage rock guitars, bass and vox, and adds moody electronics and crisp Detroit drums, sending it back to the dark corners of the club from whence it came. Very good and likely to wear out the lino in your kitchen.

The Dirtbombs - Sharevari (Omar-S Remix).mp3#2#2

Wah Wah

This is one of those records that often seems to populate the 7" box in charity shops, all dog eared sleeves and scratched disc. I've written before of my buying multiple copies of records in Oxfam and suchlike over the years, just because I can't leave them in the shop, decaying and unloved, surely eventually ending up as landfill. However I could not house the numbers of copies of this single I've seen. Why is it so often abandoned?

Our local Oxfam occasionally turns up trumps- one time it was full of the entire Siouxsie And The Banshees back catalogue and most of Wah!s output. I was trying to work out what sort of person would have such musical taste, to collect the full works of both the ice queen of goth and Liverpool's 'part time rock star, full time legend'. But then again maybe it was two different people, coincidentally getting rid of vinyl at the same time. Or even better, maybe it was a couple, each one dumping it's youthful record collection to make space in a new place they've just got together, one a Banshees fan, the other a Wylie lover - that's an idea I like. But I'm sure I would've spotted a Siouxsie lookalike and a Wylie wannabee wandering around Sale by now.

Enough blathering. From 1984, The Mighty Wah!'s mighty Come Back. It's not as good maybe as The Story Of The Blues or Sinful, but it's still worth a few minutes of your time.

Come Back.mp3

Moan, Moan, Moan

Malcolm Middleton's A Moaning Shite was the B-side to the Break My Heart single in 2005 and is my favourite Malcolm Middleton song- full of characteristic self-loathing, shot through with black humour and with an explosive finale. I played this to someone once who nearly leapt out of the chair just before the end. You have to listen to this all the way through to fully appreciate it.

A Moaning Shite.mp3

Miami Beach

Sticking with American alternative 80s this is The Fire Of Love by The Gun Club. Their first album, also called The Fire Of Love, was an electric punk blues tour de force. The follow up album Miami was recorded with a largely different band and saw Jeffrey Lee Pierce go slower and spookier, and whilst it's not as good as the debut, it still has it's moments. The Fire Of Love is an old Jody Reynolds song. None of it really reflects what a stereotypically British view of Miami is, no bronzed bodies and flash cars, more like what Greil Marcus called 'the old, weird America'. And the cover does at least feature palm trees.

The Fire of Love.mp3

How Do You Say I Miss You To An Answering Machine?

From The Replacements 1984 album Let It Be (a truly great 80s US rock album), Answering Machine, in which Paul Westerberg mixes up the medium and the message. It's just raw, distorted guitar, Paul's 40 a day voice and some answering machine noise. Paul can't get through, she's not picking up or she's out (and if she's out, who's she with?), he can't leave messages on a piece of tape inside a machine, he hates the answering machine.

07 Answering Machine.wma

Archduke On The Dancefloor

Franz Ferdinand- loved their first album, not fussed much by the second, didn't even buy the third. I've fallen into the same pattern with Arcade Fire (whose second album Neon Bible I disliked from the first time I played it). The only thing I have off Franz Ferdinand's third album are two remixes of No You Girls, one by The Juan Maclean and this one by Gatto Fritto, where FF get bent into all kinds of electronic funk shapes for around nine minutes.

No You Girls (Gatto Fritto Remix) (Gatto Fritto Remix).mp3

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 7

The spectacularly named Dwarless Fearsley with the raw rockabilly hit of You Talk Too Much in 1959. Hit it Dwarless...

You Talk Too Much.mp3

Lone Star Psych

Another track by a band featured on Weatherall's 6 Mix show last weekend, this time from The Black Angels, a psych rock band from Texas. They make the kind of 60s influenced dark psych-rock that seems to be part of the birthright of people from Austin , Texas. Maybe they pump it into the water supply over there. The Black Angels released an album last year called Phosphene Dream, which is now on my shopping list.

River_of_Blood.mp3

Cosmic

Another track that's come from Andrew Weatherall's 6 Mix record box (which is where half the new stuff I hear comes from these days). This one is from the show he did last Sunday night. In the last half hour Weatherall played his customary 30 minute disco mix, where we were treated to a Weatherall remix of Alice Gold, his own cover of AR Kane's A Love From Outer Space (original featured here last summer) and his remix of this- Stratus by Pablo. There's almost nothing about Pablo from a cursary internet search other than he's actually called Michael Hunter, is from Glasgow, has released this single through Soma, and it's 'cosmic synth dub disco'. It's very good cosmic synth dub disco too. If anyone knows anything else, please write in, usual address, no prizes though it's just for fun.

Stratus.mp3

Route 1

White Williams is an American artist whose music I first heard when Andrew Weatherall played his first 6 Mix show a few years back. White's record label said the album Smoke is 'unapologetic pop that flirts with the vacuous nostalgia of the American dream; engaging ambiguous and schizophrenic instruments with impressionistic lyrics; driven by a casually heterosexual backbeat'. Got that? A heterosexual backbeat. I assume this is supposed to be 'ironic'.

This song Route To Palm mixes synths with a vaguely rockabilly guitar line and is really rather good. The album also has a decent cover version of I Want Candy. Other than this, I know nothing.

Route_To_Palm.mp3

I'm Not Scared Of The Dark

I hardly ever listen to this kind of thing anymore. I suppose that in the early 00s there was so much good alt-country/noir/whatever you want to call it, after I while I just got a bit bored of the whole sound. Isobel Campbell and ex-Sreaming Tree Mark Lanegan do it so well and three albums later it's not running out of steam. From last year's album Hawk this is Come Undone, and it's totally mesmerising, with brilliant backing and the voices wrap themselves around each other beautifully. Plus, it still amuses me that a former member of Belle And Sebastian is mucking about with Mark Lanegan, and is telling him what to do.

Come Undone.mp3

I Won't Stop Loving You

This was one of the first songs I ever posted here and is also A Certain Ratio's finest moment- I Won't Stop Loving You, remixed by Bernard Sumner, released in 1990 and living near my turntable ever since.

Mrs Swiss, this one's for you.

Won_t Stop Loving You.mp3

There's Been A Brainwave At The Radio Station

Two pieces of wireless related news as Bagging Area toys with becoming an online listings service. Andrew Weatherall, featured once or twice round these parts, is in the chair on 6 Mix tonight (Sunday) from 8 until 10. Don't touch that dial.

On Tuesday night Mick Jones is on Radio 2, also from 8 o'clock, with Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie talking about The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite. The original line up of B.A.D. have reformed for a tour this spring to play their still wonderful, groundbreaking first album (Medicine Show, The Bottom Line, and E=MC2 are all firm favourites) and hopefully this 1986 follow up, C'Mon Every Beatbox- a rush of guitars, samples, machine drums and catchy lyrics. B.A.D. play Manchester on Friday April 8th, the day we drive off for a week away. Bugger. I'm currently weighing up Liverpool and Leeds as alternatives.

02 C\'mon Every Beatbox.wma

Blue

Things haven't been that great recently. I know this is a music blog, so if you're not interested in this skip to the end for the music. I certainly didn't start this blog as a place to bare my soul but real life bleeds in from time to time.

Simon at The Songs People Sing wrote an affecting piece the other day about aging, which struck several chords and was a great piece of writing. It finished with the joy of watching his youngster respond to music, which our eldest I.T. really doesn't do, which equally affected me. Not your fault Simon, my problem. Our son I.T. had his cochlear implant operation two weeks ago. He's been off school since recuperating. Being the parent of a disabled and special needs child is exhausting in a variety of ways. You think you've got used to knowing that other peoples' twelve year olds that you've known for years do different things and have a different, more 'normal' existence, but occasionally it slaps you in the face when you're not expecting it. I won't bore you with the fairly mundane example that got me recently. I.T. is relentless, and in a way that other people love. He talks nonstop, constantly asking questions (often the same questions over and over, stuff he knows the answers to). Many adults love this. Their own kids don't want to sit around with their parents so a funny little boy who sits on their knee asking where they shop, what day their binmen come, what motorways they use, is nice. However it drives us potty much of the time, especially when we're tired. Recently we've been very tired. I.T.'s op took it out of us, more than we realised and he's been off school so has spent every waking moment following Mrs Swiss around, talking constantly. There is no headspace. He's also, since the op, started getting up at 5 am, usually in a bad mood, slamming doors, demanding we get out of bed, and not being nice to his sister. With I.T. you have to remain positive constantly, otherwise you start to spiral, which inevitably makes it harder as you don't give him the attention he needs. So his behaviour worsens. So you spiral. Etc. He needs to go back to school, to loosen his dependance on Mrs Swiss and change his habits and break the pattern. But this week is half term. But not for me, I'm at work, so the whole thing spirals again. Today we've made a concerted effort to shake off our despondancy and things have been better. Mrs Swiss is out tonight on a well earned night out, which is why I'm typing this at 22.31pm. It may well get deleted later.

When I.T. was first diagnosed eleven years ago someone gave us an A4 sheet with an extract on it. They meant well, as people usually do. It said having a disabled child is like going to Holland when you thought you were going to Italy. Holland is a very nice country with many beautiful and interesting aspects, but it isn't Italy so getting used to the idea you're not where you thought you were going to be takes some time, but eventually you can love being in Holland as much as Italy. I thought it was trite nonsense then and I still do now.

Sorry about all that. Normal service resumed tomorrow.

This is The Walkmen, recommended to me by one of my brothers recently, from their Lisbon album. I didn't know too much by them before but I like this a lot.

blue-as-your-blood.mp3#1#1

Let Me Take You To A Place I Know You Want To Go

Detroit garage rock band The Dirtbombs have done an album of covers of Detroit techno. It's much better than it could have been, although their version of Bug In The Bassbin goes on for about seventeen minutes too long and Strings Of Life doesn't entirely work to these ears. Techno legend Carl Craig was so intrigued he got involved in it, not quite able to believe a guitar, bass and drums band would have a go at this, never mind do it well. This track is ace- a garage rock cover of Inner City's Good Life. The sun's out here and it almost feels like the end of winter so 'Let me take you to a place I know you want to go...'

Dirtbombs_-_Good_Life.mp3

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 6

You wanna rumble?

Gene Maltais makes his third Friday night appearance with the rough 'n' ready 'n' raw 1957 single Gang War in which Gene sings and riffs like his life depends on it. He later recorded another version Gang War (Fast Version) which is pretty self explanatory, but this one will do for us tonight. Proper old school rockabilly.

Gang War.mp3

Hello Squire

There was a link somewhere recently to a short film of John Squire at the Tate, talking about abstract watercolour paintings, and then John painting (which he does full time now). It was diverting enough and I ended up clicking onto youtube to see what else there was, which ended up reminding me of his solo career. John Squire gets most of the bad press of the former Stone Roses. He gets the blame for the demise of the band. Ian Brown's continuing solo success ensures his public profile is high and he rarely misses a chance to slag the guitarist off. The Seahorses were underwhelming. And then there's the solo albums.

John released Time Changes Everything in 2002 and the press were lukewarm at best. The main issue was John's decision to sing and if you look on youtube it's more or less the only thing people can think to post in the comment boxes. The thing is, some of the songs on the album were really strong. Trad perhaps, post Britpop maybe, but the songs were there, the playing was good and there were some interesting instruments and arrangements in parts, including a snakecharmer's pipe. The topics of the songs showed awareness of the past (I Miss You was seen as an olive branch to Ian, 15 Days the story of The Roses set to song). But people couldn't get past the voice, charitably described by some as 'Dylanesque'. This is the title track, Time Changes Everything, probably the best off the album. The guitar work in the last minute and a half is lovely, the tune is strong, it's got a whistfulness and ruefulness that appeals to me, and the singing's fine. Not great, but fine. I like John Squire- he always seemed like the most thoughtful of The Roses, he had a deadpan wit, he had the best hair, and boy, could he play guitar.


04 Time Changes Everything.wma

Bass Can You Hear Me? Loud And Clear

A bit of a lazy post tonight I'm afraid, but the quality of the tune remains top notch. A key early 90s Andrew Weatherall remix for you, Finitribe are given the full-on dancefloor treatment. The 12" of this has four mixes and I've got another two on the hard drive. This is the seven minute plus 101 (Sonic Shuffle) version, to shake your speakers and your tailfeather.

101 (Sonic Shuffle).mp3

Kick Out The Jams

In the late 80s there was no easy way to hear music by bands you read about in the music press other than to hunt in record shops. No internet. No classic rock music magazines. No reissue industry repressing classic albums on 180 gram vinyl, cd reissues were in their infancy (and I refused to buy a cd player anyway. Take that music industry). No youtube, no mp3s, no blogs, no Hype Machine. Nothing. Today you can get on the internet and read a biography, interviews, reviews, watch videos and live perfomances, and download music in minutes. Easy.

From about 1988 I remember reading references to The MC5. They sounded great (in my imagination). The way the music, image and politics were raved about by indie rock stars and NME journos they became this huge band in my head. If only I could find the album. It took years but eventually I found a vinyl copy of Kick Out The Jams and rushed home to play it. Side 1 starts off with crowd noise and then Rob Tyner's famous introduction and then... noisy, sludgy hard rock. Lots of it. Then noisy, sludgy hard rock with a saxophone. If Rob Tyner wanted to see 'a sea of hands' I didn't feel like holding mine up. A massive disappointment.

They're very of their time, very late 60s/early 70s USA, and their political stance seems oddly quaint now- 'dope, guns and fucking in the street'- what's that going to do house prices? Dope, well maybe the odd weekend, guns no thank you very much, and the rest? I don't want to see my neighbours at it on the tarmac.

In the end I got into them. I still think KOTJ is over-rated but parts of it have grown on me, not least the title track. Years later again I bought a cd player and then a cd compilation, and then reissues of their other two albums and it makes more sense. The second album Back In The USA is much better with it's streamlined Ramones style punk and the third, High Time, is my favourite- they remembered to write songs with tunes and dynamics. I suppose it's also their most conventional. This track Over And Over is a good 'un, from High Time, 1971. Listening to this I get what the fuss is about.

19 Over and Over.wma

Majestic Shannon

Del Shannon died twenty one years ago yesterday, by his own hand as they say. Born with the gift of a golden voice, his last 60s hit was this- Keep Searchin' (We'll Follow the Sun), brilliant 1964 pop with bin lid drumming, drenched in reverb, drama, melancholy and melody. Stunning still all these years on.

keep searchin we\'ll follow the sun.mp3

Your Guitar, It Sounds So Sweet And Clear

Sonic Youth cover The Carpenters for a 1994 tribute album. Thurston Moore and his merry noiseniks eschew the usual noise, walls of detuned guitars and wilfullness for space and texture. You can hear the amps humming, the backdrop of electricity and buckets of atmosphere, big bass piano notes and a whispered vocal about love for a pop star. Sublime.

Sonic Youth Superstar.mp3

It's For You

Sticking with Manchester in the 80s this is former Buzzcock Pete Shelley with his 1983 'hit' (number 66 with a bullet) Telephone Operator. Post Buzzcocks he dumped the breakneck guitars for a more electronic sound, with guitars. In this creepy little song Pete expresses desire for the person at the switchboard- 'telephone operator, you're my aural stimulator, phone you up an hour later, you're all I'm thinking of'.

Telephone Operator.mp3#1#1

Burnage's Number One Band

Stockholm Monsters came from Burnage, South Manchester and spent much of the 80s trying to make a success of being on Factory Records. They had all the benefits- Peter Hook as producer and cheer leader, Anthony H Wilson's patronage, gigs with the other bands, some press coverage, beautiful sleeves. However as most Factory bands before '87 found out, if you weren't New Order you didn't sell records, not outside the Greater Manchester postcode areas anyway. They started out fairly sparse sounding and post-punkish, trumpet and keyboards as well as guitars and driving drums, and eventually prefigured some of the Madchester sound with electronics and grooves, and a Perry Boy (Mancunian scallies essentially) image. They split in 1987 having been overtaken at Palatine Road and in the press by Happy Mondays. This song came out at the end, Partyline, and it's flawed but worth your while. Produced by Hook, Partylive Mix from the 12", Fac 146 in case you were wondering.

Partyline (Partylive Mix).mp3#1#1

When You Tire Of One Side The Other Suits You Best

As far as I'm concerned R.E.M. couldn't put a foot wrong throughout the five albums they released on I.R.S. in the 1980s, and they more or less kept that strike rate up until Bill Berry left in 1997. Their first three albums- Murmur, Reckoning and Fables Of The Reconstruction- are chock full of mystery, drama, murk, guitars, tunes and wonder, even if you haven't got a clue what Michael Stipe is on about. In fact his vagueness and slurred, mumbled vocals add massively. This is Life And How To Live It, one of the highlights of Fables. This version was recorded live at a gig in Utrecht, Belgium in 1987. The guitars fizz and chime, the rhythm section's tight, and the whole band sparkle. As a bonus Stipe gives an introduction to the song for a minute or so, where he explains what it's about- a man who divided his apartment into two and lived in each half depending on how he was feeling. When he leaves they find a cupboard full of self-published books, all entitled 'Life and how to live it'.

06 Life and How to Live It [#][-][Live].wma

Gold Medal

The standout track from Fuck Buttons 2009 album Tarot Sport- Olympians. Ten minutes plus of joyful, melodic, ecstatic, headspinning, roomfilling noise, drums and production courtesy of Andrew Weatherall. If the organisers of London 2012 use this for the opening ceremony it'll be an interesting games. I've sometimes wondered about the band's name- is it just two words jammed together, one being offensive in order to catch the eye? An attempt at being 100% Googleable? Or did they overhear a jacket fastening conversation? 'It's zips for me, I can't handle buttons, fuck buttons'.

Olympians.mp3

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 5

This week's rockabilly comes courtesy of Arizona's Joe D Johnson with the track Rattlesnake Daddy first released in 1959. Which makes it fiftyone years old- I'm not sure what a younger version of me would've made of an older me listening to music made over half a century ago. Rattlesnake Daddy is pretty raw and at one minute and forty seven seconds it doesn't hang around. The eagle eyed Weatherall fans among you will know Audrey pinched the title for a song on Wrong Meeting.

Rattlesnake Daddy.mp3

Lost Your Stripes

The White Stripes announced their split yesterday which probably didn't come as a surprise to many seeing as they haven't released an album for four years, cancelled several tours a while back and Jack White's got two other bands, a production career and a record label. But still, a shame I think. Their first four albums are all first rate and the fifth (Get Behind Me Satan) has got it's moments. The last one was rubbish, but even that had You Don't Know What Love Is on it. They made the blues exciting and popular again, had an interesting angle and image, prefered vinyl, made a good racket for a two-piece, could tear it up on stage, chose good cover versions, and Meg's drumming was perfect whatever the snipers and technique bores say. They were also much more interesting than either of Jack's other bands, neither of whom I can get a tinsy bit excited about.

This is Red Death At 6.14, which I'm pretty sure was a mail order only 7" available in red or white vinyl.

Red_Death_at_6_14_-_The_White_Stripes.mp3

Dance To Organised Noise

Bagging Area likes Pilooski, and he's one half of Discodeine (along with fellow Parisian Pentile). Bagging Area also likes Jarvis Cocker, and he's singing on this track. Jarvis gets to put his snarls and growl to a proper disco/house record with a swelling chorus, and very good it is too.

Discodeine_Synchronize (featuring Jarvis Cocker).mp3#1#1

I Guess You Turn Me On

Finland's Vladislav Delay (Luomo) released his Tessio single in 2000, a wonderful minimal deep house record. It was then remixed countless times, sometimes to the point where you thought 'what have they done to it? and why have they bothered?'. This is the Moonbootica remix and it doesn't ruin it at all, keeping that perfect deep house sheen, minimal and spaced production, thin vocal and then turning quite hard and squiggly at the end. Music to make you feel better (even you guitar fans, if you don't usually go for this sort of thing).

Tessio (Moonbootica Remix).mp3#2#2

Thanks Everyone

Thanks to everyone who's left messages here over the last few days and to Ctel for the post over at Acid Ted. Sunday morning seems a long time ago now. I.T. went down to theatre at 9.20 on Monday morning and was in for five hours. The consultant said the cochlear implant was tricky to get into place due to I.T.'s 'abnormal cranium' (funny shaped skull in layman's terms), but after getting an x-ray last night he told us it was 'a perfect insertion'. A phrase you might want to consider using at some point. Maybe. He had a ridiculously big bandage on his head which only just lasted until this morning, and three courses of IV antibiotics during the night to protect his immune system (I.T.'s immune system has never fully recovered from chemo during his two bone marrow transplants in 2000). Anyway, we're home now with a bag full of medicines and a boy asking if his new ear is ready to be switched on. It won't be for a few weeks, so he must be wondering why he's had an operation at all.

Since writing that paragraph I've had to drive him back to the hospital. He'd pulled his dressing off when no-one was looking. We've been sent home with enough steri-strips to patch up an army.


While blocking out the outside world this song came up on the mp3 player- Manchester by The Times (and thanks to Tedloaf for reminding me about it via the comment box recently after I posted their French language cover of Blue Monday last week). I may have been in a slightly emotional state but this track brought a tear to my eyes and a lump to my throat, with it's then zeitgeisty tribute to and celebration of Manchester in 1989-90. Twenty years on it sounds impossibly nostalgic, the lyrics coming across as nicely naive (or gauche even, is that the right word?). There are some other mixes of this song that couldn't sound more New Orderish if they came wrapped in tracing paper and added onto the end of Lowlife. At this exact moment in time, this is my favourite song.

The Times - Manchester (Radio Edit).mp3