I spent three days in Glasgow last week in the company of JC, The Vinyl Villain, who showed me the city in all its glory: the south side of the city, Queen's Park and Pollockshields; the West End, Kelvingrove, the bandstand, the university and Byers Road; the east end, Barrowlands and St Luke's; the city centre, its pubs and bars including the legendary McChuills and the Laurieston (both pictured below, McChuills top and the Laurieston below), a superb photography exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art, and the Admiral Woods bar; the sites of local musical history (including the two places where The Clash performed on their 1985 busking tour- venues The Clash played becoming a theme of my summer), venues that Andrew Weatherall frequented as a DJ, acid house/ techno clubs the Sub Club and the Arches; and in a rush of blood to the head, a bus ride to East Kilbride and back, to see the 1960s new town that Roddy Frame and the Reid brothers were so keen to escape from.
On Wednesday night we watched the England game, the semi- final that led to defeat against Argentina. I wasn't the only England fan in the room but we were very much outnumbered by the Argentina fans. The sun shone, the beers flowed, England collapsed with twenty minutes to go. The following night we met up with Aldo, Comrade Colin, Stevie (from Charity Chic Music) and Carlo (Strangeways), some of whom I hadn't seen since the international bloggers weekend in Glasgow in 2017.
It was fantastic. Glasgow is a city that is alive, gritty and energetic, where music and culture and football rub shoulders all day long with the people who live there. I saw this advice on the flagpole on top of the hill in Queen's Park and it felt apt...
Some music from Glasgow's extensive back catalogue starting with Simple Minds and an extended version of the title track from their 1984 album, added drums and running time, a glorious song from the mid- 80s.
Belle and Sebastian's Lazy Line Painter Jane, their second single back in 1997 with Monica Queen on guest vocals, a Northern Soul/ indie rock crossover with a still startling line about getting a dose of thrush from licking railings.
And finally, from East Kilbride, the new town they built eight miles from Glasgow, in theory a short drive from East Kilbride to Glasgow city centre but it might as well be a hundred miles, over the hills and far away. On a gloriously hot and sunny day it was a little difficult to imagine the teenage Jim and William Reid, sheltering from the wind and the rain, convinced they were the only Velvet Underground fans in East Kilbride, antisocial, isolated and alone, experimenting with the local LSD and dreaming of escape, black jeans, winkle pickers and a mess of hair. Everybody comes from somewhere.
I went back to The Whitworth last week to revisit the Beneath The Great Wave exhibition, a selection of surviving prints from Edo period Japan by Katsushika Hokusai and Utogara Hiroshiga. I loved it when I went in March, its free, I'm off work- what's not to love?
The Whitworth is a beautiful building, stepping in through the front into the modernist interior and recent re- modelling is in itself a joy. The woodblock prints of Japan's floating world are visionary- the colours, the lines, the perspectives- and seem to be both old and modern at the same time. There are drawing of nature- the great wave of the exhibition's name and numerous prints of Mount Fuji.
The scenes portrayed in some of the prints, show Japanese people going about their daily business- farmers, travellers, actors, Geisha, merchants, urban dwellers and rural peasants, Samurai. The floating world (Ukiyo) became a phrase used to describe the growing urban world, where Edo (future Tokyo) became a place for hedonism and urban lifestyles. It and the prints also brought Japan into contact with the West.
As I walked into the gallery last Tuesday a primary school was in the large open room that overlooks Whitworth Park and as I started to make my way round the prints the children started singing Sly and The Family Stone's Everyday People.
I poked my head round the corner to have a look and the children's choir were singing for parents and carers, a teacher conducting this group of multi cultural and diverse ten and eleven year olds singing...
'There is a blue one who can't accept the green one for living with a fat one trying to be a skinny one, different strokes for different folks, and so on and so on and scooby- dooby- doo one... I I I I am everyday people'
It was quite a moment, completely unexpected and a little overwhelming.
In 1992 Arrested Development borrowed Sly Stone's hit for their own song, a tale of respect (and the lack of it) and a warning about the dangers of violence. Arrested Development were a big thing for a while in 1992-3, an alternative voice in the rap world.
A few days ago Echo And The Bunnymen's new single came out, a song called Brussels Is Haunted. They've been playing it live for some time- I heard at Manchester's Albert Hall a couple of years ago. I don't know how much of a contribution Will Sergeant made to it but it sounds like an Echo And The Bunnymen song, one that could easily have fitted on 1987's self titled 'grey album'. The guitars chime, Clem Burke plays drums, Ian is in good voice, there are some suitably Bunnymen lyrical touches- Brussels is haunted by the song, by world wars, by Plastic Bertrand, by Waterloo, by Annik Honore, by its past and by its present, while Ian is dancing at the Classic and drinking rum, cassis and beer blond. It sounds like Ian is still interested, still cares and is still up for it.
A day later they launched news of an album called Apples For Isaac. The title alone caught me in my tracks. I've no idea at the moment who the Isaac in the title is or what it's referring to but it has a personal angle for me. Time I guess, will tell.
Last year I did a Bunnymen Sunday mix which took in covers, versions, remixes, edits and samples, very much an inspired- by Echo And The Bunnymen mix. You can find it here. At the time I promised a follow up. Friday's Seven Seas on Top Of Pops post and Thursday's Brussels Is Haunted double punch provided the prompt for me to get it done. This is one for the purists, entirely songs from the 1979- 1987 period, the original line up, no singles, all album tracks, B- sides and alternative versions, the Bunnymen in all their pomp.
Over The Wall is from the second Bunnymen album, the mighty Heaven Up Here. Heaven Up Here has a powerful opening trio, with Show Of Strength, With A Hip and Over The Wall. In 1980 they recorded this version for John Peel ahead of the album's release, Will, Les and Pete perfectly locked in, guitars, bass and drums kicking up a storm and Mac imperious on vocals, all urgency, drama and poetic beauty.
All I Want is Heaven Up Here's final song, a celebration of life and living as the finale of an album of darkness and terror- spiky, pounding early 80s post- punk psychedelia. Will's guitar playing is choppy and angular, the sound of flashing lights against ink black skies. 'If we make the same mistake, who will we blame?', Ian asks as the song fades out. A question England fans have pondered since Wednesday night.
Heads Will Roll is from Porcupine, the third Bunnymen album. The extended Summer Version came out on the Never Stop 12". Porcupine is a heavy album, produced by Ian Broudie, one that no one particularly enjoyed making. They had to drag the songs out of themselves after a long period on the road. McCulloch has said that lyrically it's the most autobiographical and honest album- the lyrics are pretty oblique. Heads Will Roll is a highlight (along with the majestic pair of singles, The Back of Love and The Cutter) and those Indian strings provided by Shankar add a great deal to Heads Will Roll.
Ocean Rain. The greatest album ever made etc. My Kingdom is superb, skyscraping 1984 psyche rock, from an album with some huge pop moments and career defining songs. Ocean Rain is all drama, majesty, jewels and stormy seas. My Kingdom, organ intro, rackety dynamics, gorgeous sound and a twin Will Sergeant guitar solo, his semi- acoustic pushed through a 60s valve amp, utterly wonderful, while Mac sings of 'burning the skin off' and 'climbing the rooftops'.
Way Out And Up We Go was the B-side to 1983's The Cutter, Ian asking for money but being given alcohol, the bass and drums pounding away and Will chucking everything at it.
Over Your Shoulder is from 1985, a B-side to Bring On The Dancing Horses, the Bunnymen responding to the new pretenders- the Jesus And Mary Chain- by piling the guitars up and stomping on the fuzz pedal.
Happy Death Men is from their debut album Crocodiles, moody and isolated, more than a little frantic. Anguished. Neurotic even. The band sound as if they're playing under a strobe.
All That Jazz is also from Crocodiles- the Peel Session version here is from a May 1980 session. Ian's lyrics are funny, genuinely comedic- 'Where the hell have you been? We've been waiting with our best suits on/ Hair slicked back and all that jazz'.
Watch Out Below is an early version of The Yo Yo Man, recorded at a 1983 Peel Session. It shimmers, embers burning, a psychedelic sea shanty that became more overblown on Ocean Rain. The Peel Sessions album, double vinyl, twenty one songs, is an essential companion to the albums they made during the same period. If you haven't got it, you really should.
Ocean Rain- this alternative version of the 1984 album's final and title track is faster, less hushed and awed. They were right to slow it down but this version is fascinating, Will's guitar riff and Pete's brushed drums rattling away as Ian finesses his lyrical theme for the song and the record, 'screaming from beneath the waves'.
Turquoise Days is from Heaven Up Here, all of that album's melancholy, drama and dark energy brought together. Ian sets sail under rumbling skies, 'We got a problem/ Come on over', the unease and dread of 1981- Cold War paranoia, Ian Curtis' death, Thatcher's managed decline of Liverpool, inner city riots- a flickering backdrop. On the album's cover the four Bunnymen stand on the beach at Porthcawl, staring out to see beneath heavy clouds, silhouetted on the sands.
A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion.
Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was You can only make one dot at a time.
This made me start joining the dots between One Dove and Dot Allison, Arab Strap, Wire and Dot Dash, Ry Lichtenstein, The Jam and Pete Wylie and Ariadne's Labyrinth. From the wider Bagging Area community came these dots- C with Angines de Poitrine, Ernie with The Blue Aeroplanes ...And Stones, Al G and Jonathan Richman and Vincent van Gogh, Craig with Hot Chip's Over And Over, Noone and Les Rallizes Denudes, Rol and The Teardrop Explodes, the Swede with The Beat and Ranking Full Stop, Walter with !!! and Chris ZenArcade with some lysergic dots and E.D. 209's Metre and that Robocop sample...
This week's Oblique Strategy card is this- A very small object. It's centre.
My knowledge of physics is fairly limited. Last year a friend lent me Carlo Rovelli's Helgoland,a very readable account of the story of quantum physics. I still couldn't explain even in the simplest terms much about quantum physics but I enjoyed the ride.
I do know that atoms are extremely small and are the basic particles that make up everything. At the centre of an atom is the nucleus (which must therefore be smaller than an atom- right?). Atoms are so small we cannot see them, a million times smaller than the breadth of a hair. Coincidentally (and I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that nothing about this series is coincidental, it all seems to be connected), earlier this week I was wandering around the campus at Manchester University where I photographed the Humanities building, a rectangle of concrete opened in 1970. It is the picture at the top of this post. It is just round the corner from the Rutherford Building, which contains the room in which in 1917 Ernest Rutherford split the atom* and so created the modern field of nuclear physics (I once went on a course in the exact room where Rutherford made his discovery).
Sixty seven years later, also in Manchester, Factory Records released FAC 102, Atom Rock by Quando Quango.
Quando Quango were a dance act somewhat ahead of their time, Mike Pickering channeling electronic music from New York and Chicago into mid- 80s Manchester along with Gonnie and Reinier Rietveld. They formed in Rotterdam in 1980 and then relocated to Manchester in '82 when the Hacienda opened. Mike Pickering's role in modern Manchester and Factory cannot be overplayed.
Atom Rock is a light on its feet slice of 1984, pioneering dance music with jazz and Latin influences worn on its sleeves, produced by Be Music (Bernard Sumner and Donald Johnson of ACR). That jangly, funky guitar riff is a moonlighting Johnny Marr (the birth of Electronic, Marr and Sumner's late 80s band, is this record). It's one of those songs that made Factory such an interesting record label in the mid- 80s. 'Fela Kuti meets Kraftwerk somewhere between Rotterdam and Manchester', said Gonnie of the band's sound.
A year later there was a Mark Kamins remix, Kamins putting his Roland 808 through its paces (Kamins was the man who launched Madonna)...
Juan Moreno's Atomism Theory came out in 2024, an eight minute ambient piece that actually sounds like it could be the sound of atomic particles and nuclear fission.
And in a nice link to Carlo Rovelli's Helgoland, in 2009 Massive Attack released Heligoland (both named after the same piece of land, an archipelago in Germany). The first single from the album was Splitting The Atom, with Horace Andy on co- vocals and Damon Albarn on keys.
I have several other atom/ atomic songs but I'll stop there. Feel free to split your own atoms in the comments box or make any other responses to the Oblique Strategy card- A very small object. It's centre.
* Apparently 'splitting the atom' is a poor choice of words for what Rutherford actually did. The University of Manchester's website says that Rutherford was ''the first person to create an artificial nuclear reaction... now described as 'splitting the atom' in popular accounts''
Echo and The Bunnymen on Top Of The Pops, July 1984. A masterclass in making an effort and blowing early evening teenage minds, the Bunnymen at their most pop and most stoned.
The Bunnymen travelled all the down from Liverpool to the Top of The Pops studios to mime to the third single from Ocean Rain, their poppiest moment, the epic, swooping grandeur of Seven Seas. On the left, Pete de Freitas is dressed a penguin, white face paint and puffed out chest, a minimal kit (two cymbals and a snare). He looks deadly serious as only a man dressed as a penguin should.
On the right, Will Sergeant (I presume, it could be anyone) miming guitar and dressed as a fish. Unlike Pete there is less effort made at the miming. Will/ the fishman strums an F chord for the entire performance.
In the centre, Ian McCulloch. Ian is of planet Earth but not on planet , a man spiralling far away, distant and alone, porcelain skin and bird's nest hair, swimming on dry land, dancing in front of a mirror of his imagination, Narcissus in high waisted pleated trousers. Stoned immaculate. It's a miracle he can remember the words.
As the band give it their very best shot, a giant fish dangling above them and down the front Bill Drummond stands by, mouthing the words to Seven Seas and operating the stage prop waves as the band hit the third chorus. Where is Les? Missing, lost at sea...
Magnificent, the stuff that dreams are made of. Seven Seas is peak McCulloch, a song of romance and travel, cavemen and mother religious. The tortoiseshell is apparently a reference to cocaine and sex (or sex on cocaine) but let's not dwell on that right now, it might spoil the mood.
The Peel Session version of Seven Seas is a diverting take on the song, recorded in June 1983, the band still working the song out with Will's guitar front and centre and a drunken glockenspiel part that didn't make the final version.
A truly globetrotting post today, from the Far East to Europe, with two reviews I've done over at Dr. Rob's Japan based Ban Ban Ton Ton blog in the last month, a pair of albums that are lighting up summer 2026. Both albums have something in common in sound and outlook, a European cosmische sensibility, one from Italy and one from Germany.
First, Italian ambient artist Gigi Masin and an album called Movement which spans the electronic spectrum with ambient drones, heavenly choirs, cosmische excursions, sidesteps into jazz and breakbeats and more besides. My review is here and the album is at Bandcamp here.
Deception Dance is a seven and a half minute triumph, a marriage of the synthetic and robotic with the organic and human.
From Italy we head north through the Alps to southern Germany and Nuremberg's Konformer who have just released their second album, Konformer II. The band play instrumental kosmische, synths and drums following the bass guitar which usually takes the lead and creates the energy- loops of bass that become grooves, spacey, minimalist and motorik sounds. Three of the six tracks are named after places, Mont Ventoux, Marseille and Todmorden. The last of these three will host Konformer when they play a week long tour of the UK in late August/ early September, concluding at Manchester Psyche Fest.
My review at Ban Ban Ton Ton is here and the album, out now on Jason Boardman's Before I Die, is here and below.
In 2023 Andy Bell and Masal released an album, called Tidal Love Numbers- four long ambient pieces that wandered into psyche, folk, jazz and blissed out noisy drones and back again, Andy's guitar and Masal's harp and synths all blurring into a greater whole. Andy and Masal have a new album out in October called Common Primitives and ahead of it this single, The Morning Of The Trip...
The Morning Of The Trip is the soundtrack to something- a slow film about the passage of time perhaps, time lapse photography of the start of a new day, a long descent from the heavens by balloon. A theme tune. Visual music. Shoegaze/ ambient and harp.
You can buy it and pre- order the album at Bandcamp
In a handy moment of coincidence this is the morning of my trip too- I'm off to Glasgow for a couple of days where I shall meet up with JC (The Vinyl Villain) and a few other like minded folk. When I booked my train a few weeks ago I wasn't really thinking about the World Cup and which teams might have made it to the semi- final stage. It has transpired that tonight I shall be in Glasgow when England play their semi- final against Argentina, a place where an Englishman supporting England is unlikely to be particularly popular.
I have been drawn in by the World Cup despite my misgivings about it- about Trump's USA being the hosts, about the advert/ hydration breaks, about Infantino and FIFA (and some of those misgivings have been very much realised such as Trump pressuring FIFA to rescind a US player's red card not to mention their treatment of the Iranian team and Omar Artan, the Somali referee who was barred from entering the country).
The sheer variety the World Cup brings- teams and fans from countries as far afield as Japan, Morocco, Belgium and Mexico, the collision of styles and cultures, the colour and the spectacle- is very much to be applauded and soaked up. The world in all its varieties.
I often have an unease about supporting England- the flag, the national anthem, the fans dressed as crusaders, the endless recycling of that song and of 'football coming home'. It's all so, as the kids say, cringe. But in the current climate, a multi- cultural team of young men from a variety of backgrounds doing well is a good thing (three examples- Bukayo Saka, Nigerian parents, born in Ealing; Jude Bellingham, Irish and Jamaican parents, born in Birmingham; Djed Spence Jamaican and Kenyan parents, born in London; this is England and the racists, the Reform voters and the lamppost flaggers are having to deal with it. It's the England most of us are actually happy to be part of and to live in). When Jude Bellingham scored against Norway in extra time late on on Saturday night I was leaping round the living room like a lunatic. Fingers crossed we find a pub in Glasgow where we can watch England go one step further.
This was the sky on Sunday evening, taken from the back of our house- the sun being obscured by smoke and the air thick with the smell of burning moorland. There was a major fire on moorland around Dove Stone reservoir, east of Oldham twenty two miles away, started apparently by youths setting fireworks off. The fireworks were to commemorate an eighteen year old who died swimming in the reservoir last week. One depressing thing leads to another. The smell of burning was still in the air yesterday, depending on wind direction, there's a layer of ash everywhere and in the evening the skies became filled with smoke and dust again.
In 2009 a tribute album to Mark Mulcahy was released featuring covers by assorted stars from the indie/ alternative world- Thom Yorke, the National, Dinosaur Jr, Frank Black, Mercury Rev and Juliana Hatfield all contributed as did Michael Stipe.
Mulcahy was the frontman and singer in 80s guitar band Miracle Legion and then Polaris and a solo artist too. The tribute album was released to raise funds for Mark when his wife Melissa died unexpectedly leaving him to raise their then three year old twin girls single handedly. An expanded version of the album, Ciao My Shining Star, came out in 2016- you can find it at Bandcamp.
Everything's Coming Undone is a song from Mark Mulcahy's 2005 solo album In Pursuit Of Your Happiness, a visceral and misanthropic set of songs with J Mascis and Joey Santiago providing musical backup. It's also at Bandcamp.
R.E.M. were still active at the time of this cover. Michael's cover version has some lovely Velvets style organ drones, a rudimentary drumbeat and Stipe in very good voice, 'I know that I will be alright', he sings, the sort of line that sounds utterly convincing when coming out of his mouth. The chaotic, noisy end section is also a joy in itself.
Recently we watched the three part Kylie documentary on Netflix. I say recently, it was several weeks ago, before the World Cup and Love Island started (the football on in the back room for me, Love Island in the front room for Eliza). The series covered her life and had some affecting parts- her relationship with Michael Hutchence (clearly still something she feels deeply about), her cancer diagnoses and treatments, and the unreal level of animosity towards her from some of the tabloids in the late 80s are all covered. There's some amazing home video footage of her on the Orient Express with Michael Hutchence, seemingly just another young couple in love and in lust but also both at peak fame. The 90s when she freed herself from SAW and took control of her music and image, leading to her becoming even bigger eventually.
Celebrity documentaries can feel very 'curated', the level of production control clearly something that tilts the story telling. Kylie has been incredibly famous since 1987. In the series she is going through boxes of photos and letters, each one offering something that goes beyond the public image and there was the sense that she was allowing the film crew some quite intimate access into her life. At the same time, some of the interview sections felt quite controlled, Kylie presenting herself as a construct, as Kylie. Interesting stuff and in the 80s and 90s sections, a glimpse into a world that has long gone, the pre- internet, pre- social media world of the recent past.
Nick Cave turns up among the cast of interviewees and is witty, insightful and erudite. It sent me back to Murder Ballads, the 1996 Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds album, one I haven't listened to for a long time. My copy is on CD. I don't remember where or when I bought it but it must have been second hand. Inside the booklet on the first page, written in biro, is this- 'Andy/ Hope this doesn't Depress you too much! Best Wishes, Nick Cave'. The signature looks like examples of Nick's I've seen online so it seems genuine. I've no idea who Andy was or why he sold or donated his CD.
The album is veers between morose and high camp, traditional folk songs and blues, a Bob Dylan cover (Death Is Not The End, the only song where no one dies) and several Bad Seeds originals including the fifteen minute long O'Malley's Bar.
O'Malley's Bar was the song that kick started the album. It was recorded when the band were making Henry' Dream in 1992 but didn't fit on that album. The Bad Seeds had to make an album Nick Cave said, 'where the song could exist'.
The song starts with a vampy organ part, late 19th century saloon bar music, and Nick begins the lengthy song with the line 'I am tall and I am thin/ Of an enviable height/ And have known to be quite handsome/From a certain angle and in a certain light'. He enters O'Malley's Bar and within a few lines the murders begin- first O'Malley, then O'Malley's wife, then a customer, Caffrey. Mrs Richard Holmes is shot and a further five drinkers before the police arrive and Nick's narrator is taken into custody, counting on his fingers the number of people who died in O'Malley's Bar.
We're clearly not supposed to take all of this seriously, it's story telling and theatrical, a Hallowe'en version of death and murder, a macabre epic, cartoon violence mixed with liberal swearing and Biblical allusions. It's a world away from the Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds of Wild God. That's not a criticism of either work but it's difficult to imagine the Nick Cave of 2026 making Murder Ballads. He's just not that person any more.
When Mick Jones was kicked out of The Clash in 1984 he moved on immediately, a man with something to prove. His first post- Clash band was Top Risk Action Company (T.R.A.C.) with Topper and basisst Leo 'E- Zee Kill' Williams on board but Topper's health prevented that from going anywhere. Mick and Leo hooked up Don Letts and segued T.R.A.C. into B.A.D., recruiting drummer Greg Roberts and Dan Donovan (keys). That line up made four albums, between 1985 and 1989- This Is Big Audio Dynamite, No. 10 Upping Street (with Joe Strummer co- writing and producing), Tighten Up Vol. 88 (cover art painting by Paul Simonon) and Megatop Phoenix. All four are chock full of tunes, songs, wit, samples and the spirit of adventure, embracing new technology with an openness and joie de vivre.
In 1990 the line up broke up and Mick formed B.A.D. II with three new players (Nick Hawkins, Gary Stonadge and Chris Kavanagh), releasing singles and albums that showed Mick's songwriting chops were still more than evident (and once again tapping into the pop culture with Shawn Stussy on sleeve art and design duties). There's a long and messy Big Audio Dynamite tail (including 1995's F- Punk which has the wonderful two chord autobiography I Turned Out A Punk on it) before Mick wound B.A.D. down and moved on (again) forming Carbon/ Silicon with Tony James.
Such are the riches of the Big Audio Dynamite back catalogue that this forty five minute mix only really dips a trainer in. A couple more could follow. In the meantime, sit tight and listen keenly while I play for you a brand new musical biscuit...
B.A.D. Overture is the music B.A.D. would play three minutes before arriving on stage in a blur of baseball caps, overcoats, lights, Dalek guitars and grins. The Overture samples B.A.D.'s own songs and others, mashing them up with a chunky drum machine, sirens, screeching tyres, guitars and Sergio Leone samples, the full hyperactive, everything and the kitchen sink experience.
The Battle Of All Saints Road is from 1988's Tighten Up Vol. 88, a collision of rock, reggae, and dueling banjos and a story of battling street gangs united by a joint and their opposition to the police and the yuppies, all done with Mick's toothy grin and his love of West London.
The Bottom Line is from the 1985 debut album, an album that has three bona fide B.A.D. classics- The Bottom Line, Medicine Show and E = MC2. The Bottom Line with its stuttering bassline, chiming guitars and constant energy is a truly great song. Even the Soviets are swinging away.
Sony is from the same album, a day glo, drum machine and synths tribute to mid- 80s Japan, its clubs and technology, with Mick's trademark quivery vocals.
V Thirteen is from 1986's No. 10 Upping Street (the home according to Joe Strummer of an alternative 'funky Prime Minister'). Joe co- wrote V Thirteen, a glorious tune referencing DJs, Knock On Wood and street gangs.
Contact is from Megatop Phoenix, a 1989 single too, that showed Mick and the B.A.D. gang once again moving on, now soaking up house music. The album was completed and released following Mick's brush with death- he was hospitalised with pneumonia and seriously ill in 1989, hence the phoenix of the title. Contact was a Jones/ Donovan co- write.
The Globe was a B.A.D. II single, Mick sampling Should I Stay Or Should I Go, stitching samples and instruments together with a killer chorus and none- more 1991 rap.
C'Mon Every Beatbox is B.A.D. to the max, Mick and Don taking samples from TV and film and trading lines, words rattling by a hundred a minute, nicking a guitar solo from Jimi Hendrix and sounding like they're having the time of their lives.
A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion.
Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion wasLook closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify them.
This took me to the Beastie Boys and their embarrassment at Fight For your Right, a song which defined them in a way they did not like. It led us to Paul's Boutique and the 90s Beastie Boys so it all turned out OK in the end. The Bagging Area OS squad played a blinder with the following- Johnny Cash and A Boy Named Sue (Ernie), Are We Not Men? by Devo (Anonliz), Slade's How Does It Feel (Jake Sniper), Elvis laughing his way through a performance of Are You Lonesome Tonight? at Vegas (C)...
... Magazine's A Song From Under The Floorboards and Radiohead's Creep (Trail Of Bread), The Animals' Story of Bo Diddley (Al G), Half Man Half Biscuit's Petty Sessions (Rol), and Feel Good Hit Of The Summer by Queens Of The Stone Age, Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana and Prefab Sprout's From Langley Park To Memphis (Chris ZenArcade).
There was an interview with David Byrne this week at The Guardian where he was asked if they used the Oblique Strategy cards in the studio when Talking Heads worked with Eno. Byrne said 'The box of cards were present. I don’t know if they were ever really used, but they contain clever ideas, to help you break out of any ruts or ingrained thinking.'
Avoiding ruts and ingrained thinking, this week's Oblique Strategy suggestion is this- You can only make one dot at a time.
As a massive fan of One Dove and Dot Allison, one Dot is all we need.
Fallen originally came out on Soma, a Glasgow based record label. One Dove were a trio, Dot Allison, Ian Carmichael and Jim McKinven. When the group signed to Junior Boys Own, an enconter with Andrew Weatherall on a boat party in Rimini led to him producing their album, fresh from his successes with Screamadelica. Weatherall's version of Fallen lifted it to new heights, Dot's voice over the fractured intro, gasps and timbales, 'I don't know why I'm telling you any of this, one thing is don't ever tell anyone I told you this, don't save me, forgive me, I was only thinking of you... just you'... and just like that anyone hearing it was hooked.
After One Dove folded Dot released a solo album that was trailed y this gorgeous piece of mid- 90s soul/ pop...
The same album, Afterglow, had this song on it, Message Personnel which was remixed by Arab Strap, who slow it down and take the blissed out pop of the original and make it typically something a bit darker...
I think Kevin Shields is on guitar on that one too. I could go on posting Dot Allison tracks all day but I'll stop there.
Wire's 1978 debut had the song Dot Dash on it, two and a half minutes of post- punk brilliance and there's a guitar band from Washington D.C. named after that song who put out this in 2018 on an album called Proto Retro...
Dots also make me think of the printing process for comic books, the four colour process, using small dots of colour to create shades. Roy Lichtenstein took comic book imagery and dot printing and blew them up for his version of Pop Art, most famously with Whaam!
Paul Weller had a Whaam! Rickenbacker guitar which he used in The Jam and which I've seen in an exhibition but can't find my photo of it. Here's Paul with it...
Pete Wylie, a Bagging Area hero, had a Pow! guitar...
Sinful is an all timer for me, one of those songs that I can always go back to and if forced to make a list of my X number of favourite songs, would absolutely be on it.
Recently I was sent an EP by Ariadne's Labyrinth which is on my list of releases to write about at greater length but Eno's card and this track, Terminal Dot, came together at the right time- Terminal Dot fuses classical violins, a lovely string arrangement, with some thumping beats and distorted bass, a collision or rave and classical that works really well.
The portrait of the woman at the top of this post was above the fireplace in a pub we were drinking in, after the Protex Blue gig in Sheffield last weekend. I don't know who she is but she's definitely had enough of the person painting her or boring her with their constant banging on. Withering disdain.
Anyway, feel free to drop you own suggestions to You can only make one dot at a time in the comment box.
Today is the first day of my summer holiday. Yesterday I completed my first year at my new workplace, a 6th form college in Salford after moving there last summer (I spent twenty four years in my previous school). The move has been positive for me in so many ways- a much shorter commute, a different environment, an escape from a place that I needed to get out of for various reasons- and I genuinely enjoy going to work now, teaching history and politics to 16- 18 year olds. One of the reasons I wanted to get a new job was the feeling that Isaac's death had forced so much change on us and the consequences spun off in all sorts of directions. Getting a new job would be a change I had chosen, a taking control of change. Moving jobs is a gamble at any point, in any profession but a year on I can say that for me it's paid off. And now I have six weeks of holiday to enjoy without the slight sense of fear and unease that accompanied me last summer.
A Certain Ratio are touring in October playing two albums from their 1980s back catalogue in full, Sextet from 1982 and force from 1986. Force was the first ACR album in bought in real time, in the period when it was released. I got the compilation The Old And The New around the same time and have been following them live and on disc ever since. My copy of Force is on cassette, one of those beautifully packaged Factory cassettes that came in a book sized box wrapped in hessian with a fold out inlay card. I still have it. The imagery on the Force album- mountaineers, propeller planes, maps- really appealed to me,
ACR have announced two new versions of the albums too, The Joy of Sextet and Force Majeure. Force Majeure is a different version of Force (recorded at Strawberry in Stockport) with eight unreleased, different studio versions of songs from the original album plus the album's title track (which wasn't on the original album at all). These alternative versions were done with the late Stuart James, alternative arrangements and live run throughs. Martin Moscrop listened to them forty years later and thought they sounded good enough to put out as a companion version of Force. The only one available to hear so far is the FM version of Naked And White, ACR at their funk/ dance rock best, the band sounding urgent and live...
The Joy Of Sextet is a complete re- imagining of Sextet, ACR's bleak early 80s masterpiece, a record that is taut, abrasive and uneasy, the post- punk/ punk funk married to some art noise and African rhythms with vocals by Martha Tilson giving them a different edge. For The Joy Of Sextet they handed the master tapes over to Andy Meecham, The Emperor Machine, to remix and rework.
The Emperor Machine version of seminal ACR track Knife Slits Water, Martha singing about Manchester and sex, has been released this week, an eight minute 2026 update on ACR's edgy, paranoid dance music. Those times spent playing with Talking Heads had some impact on ACR- some of Sextet sounds like a hotwired Mancunian Talking Heads.
Back in January I featured the music of Glasgow born, Malaga based musician Solipsism, some very long and very beautiful ambient tracks inspired by natural phenomena- sunrises, woodland, birdsong... that post is here. Now Solipsism has released an album on the reborn and vital Exeter label Mighty Force, Herbalism, ten tracks that explore a different aspect of electronic sound, acid and techno, much more rhythm driven tracks.
The opener Los Estafadores en el Paraiso sets Solipsism's stall out early with rapid fire drums, deep bass and acid squelches. It's followed by Frequency Mercenary, the drums once again the foreground and the focus. Synth stabs and FX as the decoration around the kinetic energy of the drum pattern and the distorted bassline. Sun King Summer leads off with the dull thud of the kick drum, then a breakbeat joins in, two rhythm tracks coming together. Eventually, Detroit sci fi synth chords, wobbling and bending, slide in. Sun King Summer exists on its own, absorbing your attention and shutting ot the outside world.
The rest of the album continues in the same vein- physical sounding rhythm tracks, breakbeats and drum patterns, kick drums and snares, acid FX, sub bass, processed synth chords and a kind of pure focus. Nothing extraneous, no distractions, just the serious business of groove and techno. This is Plant Pot Conspiracies, five minutes forty seconds of energy.
I received recommendations for this album from two different sources recently, one being Spencer (reader and friend of the blog whose judgement is always good). Somewhere Good by Bristolians Tara Clerkin Trio came out in June, an eight song album of jazz- ish/ leftfield indie/ avant pop. Comparisons could include Saint Etienne, Broadcast, The High Llamas, Stereolab, some of Belle and Sebastian's earlier records, those sort of artists and songs.
The album starts with Lake Walk, led off by a Clangers like woodwind part that could be irritating if the piano didn't join in and the song come together, the soundtrack to a Sunday afternoon with not much to do. Lake Walk gives way to Lazy Daisy, the rat- a- ta- tat of drums and squelchy synth bass, acoustic guitar chords and then Tara Clerkin's voice. And suddenly I'm entranced.
The album moves on, a variety of styles and sounds, never sitting still for long, experimental but with a song focus. Ups And Downs is percussion and the shifting noise of a synth, some , piano runs. Silently opens with a choir and FX, then a drum machine. Whispers and softly sung vocals. The title track, Somewhere Good, has a lovely repeating guitar riff, more piano, modern classical crossed with mid- 90s avant- pop of some of those bands I mentioned above. The rhythm and playing are insistent, they draw you in. On Slow Island, one of the two men in the trio takes the lead vocal, the piano and drums nod slightly to Bristol's trip hop past- at the end an accordion or possibly a harmonium wanders past, and then the song stops.
The notes at the Bandcamp page, written by Ryan Davies in Chicago, suggest that if the AI overlords took all of Ryan's music, posters, mixtapes and heartstrings and made a perfect band based on those, Tara Clerkin Band's Somewhere Good would be the result. But AI could never come up with music as nuanced and as human as this, it cold only be made by actual people.
On Saturday night, 4th of July 2026, it was exactly fifty years since the Clash played their first ever gig, supporting The Sex Pistols at The Black Swan in Sheffield. The five man Clash- Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Keith Levene and a drummer (there appears to be some confusion about who occupied the drum stool, possibly Terry Chimes). The band were originally billed as The Weak Heartdrops but had become The Clash by the time they arrived in Sheffield. Paul Simonon said in the Westway To The World documentary that he was so nervous that he messed up the bass intro to Listen and an account by a reader in the NME a week or two later said they were 'a cacophonous barrage of noise'. As well as Listen it seems that The Clash played Rabies (From The Dogs Of Love), a song brought by Joe from the 101ers, a Mick Jones song Ooh Baby Ooh (It's Not Over) that was subsequently dropped and Protex Blue.
On Saturday evening we gathered at The Black Swan for a guerrilla gig by a Sheffield band named after that song, Mick's tribute to a brand of condoms. Protex Blue busked a six song Clash set in the street outside The Black Swan (now very much an ex- pub, formerly known to locals as The Mucky Duck).
Someone had fly postered the building. A blue plaque (later raffled) was pinned up. Bemused motorists and cyclists stopped at the traffic lights. A crowd gathered and sang along. The band powered through their set and it was all gloriously good fun. Joe Strummer would surely have approved. Sheffield's main police station was just across the road. I think everyone was quietly hoping they might have shown up and moved us along.
Protex Blue repaired to The Harlequin, a pub a few minutes walk away where at 9 pm they played The Clash's debut album in full to a raucous and appreciative, all ages, crowd, the pub getting hotter and hotter as they blasted and hollered their way through Janie Jones and White Riot, What's My Name and Career Opportunities and all those other songs from 1977 that make up that album, ending with the mighty Garageland. 'Back in the garage with my bullshit detector...'
An encore was demanded. Clampdown, London Calling and White Man (In Hammersmith Palais), all also played outside the Black Swan earlier, plus Clash City Rockers and I Fought The Law. One more song? One more song. Complete Control, one of the zeniths of The Clash's back catalogue, a righteous blast of fury, furious guitars, a high octane complaint about dirty record company dealings. Well played Protex Blue.
Another Monday, another long song, another Four Tet track to start the week... this one dates from 2009 when Four Tet and Burial released a two track 12" single. One of the two tracks was Moth, a nine minute excursion into the inner worlds of Burial and Four Tet. Moth starts out with ambient sounds, sounding like the noises that get caught when someone pocket dials you. A synth stab riff comes in and dubstep drums break through.
There's lots of detail, lots of sounds and FX that enrich Moth, make it what it is even if you can't put your finger what exactly they are. A snatch of a vocal. Background washes. A bell ringing. Drop outs where suddenly the drums are the focus. Sections where an electronic squiggle and wordless vocal become the foreground. Rumbles of bass. Signals. Abstract, shape shifting and repetitive but also never settling still for long.
A simple concept for today's Sunday mix- The Clash in dub. The band were steeped in their influences- dub, reggae, rockabilly, blues, rock 'n' roll, glam, garage rock, soul, disco- and once they got past Give 'Em Enough Rope and punk's orthodoxy they gave their influences free rein, their record collections filtered through the unique combination of Strummer, Jones, Simonon and Headon, each man bringing his own thing. Paul Simonon especially brought the dub and the bass.
The dub began to surface with Armagideon Times, London Calling's B- side and then with Bank Robber and an association with Mikey Dread that brought some genuine Jamaican vibes, vocals and production to the sound. By the time they got to Sandinista! and they'd decided it would be six sides of vinyl, each side six songs long, the dub experimentation became as much part of The Clash as anything else.
Mensforth Dub is a dub version of Something About England, a song that more and more seems like one of Sandinista!'s peaks, Joe and Mick duetting on a song about immigration, the 20th century, the impact of two world wars and post- imperial Britain. It fades in with FX and echo, Mick's voice in the distance and a swirl of radio static and noise. Possibly named after Menwith Hill, an RAF listening post in North Yorkshire that is operated by the US air force still.
Radio One was the B-side to Hitsville UK, a re- working of a Mikey Dread tune from his album Rocker Station, cavernous space and crashing echo. The Roland Space Echo is doing a lot of work. Gloriously dubbed out stuff.
Outside Broadcast and Radio 5 were two of four versions on the 12" of the 1981 single This Is Radio Clash, Joe on the mic like a radio announcer and then FX, New York radio station samples, backing vox, a laid back early 80s rap courtesy of a very English sounding voice, 'I am the Lord of the dance, the lord of the dance said he'. It goes on for seven minutes, as dub often does, before seguing into Radio 5.
Silicone On Sapphire is a dub of Washington Bullets, another key Sandinista! deep cut. Joe's lyrics are an account of superpower intervention and destabilisation in the developing world and the Cold War that gave the album its name. Silicone On Sapphire came out of the endless nights of dub experimentation during the Sandinista! sessions. Joe added a new spoken word vocal, a stream of consciousness piece that starts out wondering who holds the key that winds the clock on Big Ben and goes off into early 80s computer lingo, hardwired logic, RAM, data, input, system debugs and many other things that he possibly read out from a magazine or manual. One of those Sandinista! dubs that was overlooked for years and now sounds like a quintessential part of that album.
One More Dub is a Mikey Dread at the controls dub of One More Time. On Sandinista! they run together, Mikey Dread linking the two with a shout of 'stop wastin' time!'. Bass and phasing to the fore, Topper's drums as ever on point.
The Crooked Beat was a Paul Simonon follow up to Guns Of Brixton, his way of ensuring he got a cut of the songwriting income. Lovely roaming bassline and a tale of South London blues parties.
Robber Dub is a dub of Bank Robber that didn't make the single release, eventually coming out on the 1980 compilation Black Market Clash, a six minute version with drums and bass pushed up front and snippets of Joe's vocal. Classic Clash dub. One of the bar staff at The Golden Lion rushed up to us last weekend asking about it when I spun it as part of our seven hour long ALFOS warm up.
Living In Fame is another Sandinista! track, a Mikey Dread vocal commenting on the various ska bands the UK had thrown up at the time, challenging them to live up to their names. If you call yourself The Specials he reasons, you better be pretty special, and so on with The Selector, The Beat, Madness and then turns his attention to The Nipple Erectors and Blockheads. Gary Barnacle plays bursts of wailing sax, Strummer joins in with shouts and cries and there's acres of Mick Jones echo- treated guitar.
Justice Tonight/ Kick It Over were the first real Clash dub experiment, a dubbed out version of their cover of Willie Williams' Armagideon Time. Spooked late 70s dread and fireworks, and Joe shouting 'OK OK, don't push us when we're hot!'.
It often feels like we need The Clash more than ever.
A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion.
Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame.
Which led in a round the houses kind of way to Half Man Half Biscuit's Eno Collaboration from 1997, Pet Shop Boys in 1987, Talking Heads and Johnny Marr in 1988, and Bob Dylan with The Band back in 1971.
The joy of this series is in the comments box. Last week's suggestions from the Bagging Area Oblique Saturdays community took in Cowboy Junkies doing Sweet Jane (thank you Walter), Nick Drake's Bryter Later (Ernie, muchas gracias), Aztec Camera's Just Like Gold (courtesy of the shape shifting but definitely human LizLozLaz, and thanks to C for her questions about his comments), Matt Berry's cover of the Blankety Blank theme tune (thanks to Al G and Mrs G), Rol who offered Jason Isbell's 24 Frames, John Cage's 4' 33'' (ta The Swede) and over on social media Chris who jumped from Les Dawson to Andrew Weatherall via Field Of Dreams.
At some point there's an Oblique Saturdays mix/ compilation/ box set and your names are all on it.
Roddy's never re- issued (to the best of my knowledge) the two singles Aztec Camera did for Postcard, never included them on a any compilations. His view is they are best as they were, a pair of 7" singles from 1981, the magic found solely in those artefacts.
This week's Oblique Strategy from Mr Eno and Herr Schmidt is this- Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify them.
I can see how a band or musician in the studio could approach this. Take the mistake or the part that makes you cringe (a vocal yelp maybe or a hackneyed chord sequence) that you want to cover up or remove and make it the new centre of the song/ track/ recording.
I found it more difficult to apply the suggestion to songs to post here and spent some time while commuting to and from work thinking about it. I don't buy into the Guilty Pleasures thing much- you shouldn't feel guilty about liking any piece of music. If you like it, you like it. The fact that someone else doesn't is just that it all comes down to taste.
The Beastie Boys themselves became somewhat embarrassed by the success of this song, the fourth single from their debut Licensed To Ill. They became even more embarrassed, annoyed even, by the fact their audience were taking the song seriously, as a statement of fact. They spent a long time trying to distance themselves from it. One way or another it led them to the sampledelic brilliance of Paul's Boutique though so maybe it was worth it.
Everything about Fight For Your Right is amplified, from the opening guitar power chord and the shout of 'Yeahhh!', the instruction to 'kick it!' and then the riff, Rick Rubin turning everything up as loud as it will go. And then there's the lyrics....
I played Fight For Your Right while DJing at a friend's wedding reception, many many years ago. The groom's mother loved it, pogoing round the venue's dance floor,among the rest of the party rights fighters.
As a Saturday fourth of July bonus I'm posting this, Galaxie 500 back in 1990 with a song that is just wonderful in every way.
Sister Ray Davies are a duo from Muscle Shoals, Alabama and make a glorious shoegaze sound inspired in large part by the early Christian, pre- Norman world of the Northumbrian coast. If you think that all sounds unlikely for a band from Alabama, I'd agree. They released an album in late 2025 called Holy Island, named after Lindisfarne, Medieval home of Saint Aidan, an Irish monk who is said to have converted the Anglo- Saxons of Northumbria to Christianity in the middle of the 7th century.
Sister Ray Davies followed the album with an EP called Holy Island Baby in April, five new versions and remixes of tracks that include two Pye Corner Audio remixes. The Pye Corner Audio remix of Aidan is something else, a six minute channeling of the spirit of New York's Suicide crossed with Pye Corner Audio's analogue synth drones topped with blissed out, barely there vocals and Sister Ray Davies' guitar drones peering through. It's a beautiful way to spend six minutes of your life
Aidan was known for his strict asceticism and utter conviction in talking to the people of the region at their own level, taking an interest in their lives and slowly converting them to Christianity. What he would have made of 21st century ambient/ shoegaze is anyone's guess but I'm fairly sure if he heard it while near the altar in the monastery on Holy Island he'd have taken it as evidence of the divine.
There are more versions on the EP- a Pye Corner Audio remix of Morning Bell that shimmers and sways in a shoegaze drift. There is a guitar version of Big Ships that echoes Ride's Vapour Trail with nine acoustic guitar players creating an epic wall of strings and hollow bodied guitars, and a Malaphors version of Nave that is fractured and abstract. The EP is at Bandcamp, digital and vinyl (the vinyl is sold out at Bandcamp but there are copies to be found elsewhere).
A week of new album reviews hits a hat- trick today with the second album from Craig Bratley, an eight track excursion called Return To Bass. Craig's first album came out in 2014 so it's been a mere twelve years waiting for a follow up. In the time between the two he has put out some singles and EPs including Play The Game (with Danielle Moore) in 2016 which had an Andrew Weatherall remix, as did 2018's 99.9% (Andrew's remix was titled the 100% Remix, based on Andrew's advice to Craig that you should only put out music if you're 100% happy with it). You can find 99.9% (Andrew Weatherall's 100% remix) and the rest of the EP at Bandcamp.
In 2019 Craig released a four track Italo/ cosmic inspired EP called A Message From The Outpost and then in 2021 a fantastic 12" with New York singer Amy Douglas on vocals, No In Between.
No In Between turns up in dub form on Return To Bass, the slo mo, fuzzed out, dubbed out crawl of the Ashigaru Dub, Amy's voice fed through the delay FX as ghostly piano and guitar chords get the same treatment. The album is, no surprise given its title, a tribute to the properties and power of bass music in various forms- Jamaican, electronic, acid house and electro. First track Plasticine Dub marries deep Jamaican bass with North African melodies and vocals, dub from the souk and the Atlas Mountains. A voice gives instructions about love and harmony, living in unity, no more war.
Everybody Pushing is a nod to the halcyon days of the early 90s, the acid house vibes of The Beloved and Finitribe, the voice of Thomas Gandey recalling the singers of both those bands. On S.A.W. Craig gives us throbbing, buzzing Roland TB- 303 acid qne Thanks For All The Fish is a dance floor monster resplendent with four four drums, hi hats, pumping bass, a cackling voice and tumbling percussion- eventually synths stabs blare and sirens go off and a chant breaks out, 'you gotta beat the clock/ you gotta beat the clock'.
The album ends with Everybody Pushing Reprise, a version of Everybody Pushing, the drums, bass and vocals dropped out leaving just the synth chords, a New Age/ ambient cinematic ending that chills the album right down, a kiss goodnight.
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