I'm just back from Leeds, where a small group of us blogging types (and available partners) assembled for a couple of days to hang out, waffle relentlessly, amble aimlessly, imbibe fine ales and scoff top scran. These occasions are always over far too quickly and, before we knew it, hugs and handshakes were being exchanged as we headed off in separate directions for home. In spite of working in a busy supermarket, my life these days is a fairly solitary one, so I particularly treasure such get-togethers with like minded souls - a pinprick of brightness in an increasingly dark and unpleasant world.
As my train trundled south-eastwards out of Leeds, I cranked up some tunes to soundtrack the passing scenery and my melancholy mood. By chance one of the first to hit my eardrums was 'Spin Me Endless in the Universe' by Richard Youngs, which perfectly suited my disposition in that moment. As of 2026 Youngs has put out close to 300 albums, ranging from electronic squalls to banging drum & bass, musique concrète to epic ambient drones. This 2013 performance, however, finds Richard alone in a studio with just an acoustic guitar and his own untreated voice. It's a thing of beauty and is dedicated to the BlogCon'26 posse.
A couple of phone shots from my Edinburgh wanderings (click on either to enlarge)
Last week's Edinburgh blogging meet-up was an overwhelming experience for someone whose life these days usually revolves around either working, walking or sitting in a room listening to records. The whole trip has already attained a mystical status in my mind and I've thought of little else since arriving home. Half a dozen bloggers of this parish and a couple of their respective partners, the very finest of company one and all, some coming face to face in the real world for the very first time, others renewing old friendships. It really was was an absolute joy from start to finish. Then there's Edinburgh itself - what a magical place. I'd only visited the city once before, very briefly, about 15 years ago and had always wanted to return, though even with this longer stay I feel I've barely scratched the surface.
After deciding that I was going to travel to Nottingham and join in the fun at John and Bright Ambassador's inaugural Sunday Vinyl Session, I had a poke about the interweb to find out what might be going on in town during the evening, by way of entertainment. Amazingly there was a gig of interest at the Running Horse, in the very same room where I'd be spending the afternoon discussing all things Bowie. Johnny Dowd was in town. So after dinner and a brief pit-stop in another cool little bar, John, Jenny and I headed back to the pub where we'd met just a few hours earlier.
I knew only a little about Johnny Dowd before the show, but what I did know definitely ticked my boxes. Prolific, maverick, alt-country oddball doesn't begin to adequately describe the man and the music he makes. He's a dark poet, as funny as hell and as serious as your life. After the show we chatted to a couple of fans who are following Johnny's tour around parts of the UK. 'Completely different every night' said one. 'A totally different set from yesterday's' said another. I'm linking a short documentary on Johnny's 2015 UK tour at the bottom of this post, which is worth 18 minutes of anyone's time and will probably tell you more about him that I ever could. Johnny Dowd is 71 and already visibly more frail than when 'Disco Sausage' was filmed. If he tips up in your town anytime soon, I'd highly recommend that you give him a go. I really hope that I can catch up with him again one day. It was late, I'd had a long day, done a lot of driving and (for me) a lot of drinking. I was bushed. Hugs were exchanged between myself and my wonderful hosts and I headed off down the hill to my hotel. I suspect that I was asleep before John and Jenny had even caught their bus home.
On Monday morning I wandered into the centre of Nottingham in search of sustenance and enjoyed the most delicious breakfast/brunch in the Cartwheel Cafe - Roasted cauliflower, chickpeas, sun-blushed tomatoes, potato hash, roasted beetroot houmous, red amaranth and spring onions drizzled with garden pesto. It really was amazing, as was the Rwandan coffee that accompanied it. After ambling around for another half an hour, I necked an espresso at Outpost Coffee for the road and headed off to Cambridge.
David Thomas Broughton is part singer-songwriter, part avant-garde performance artist - the clipped Northern diction of his sonorous baritone (think a 21st Century Jake Thackray), guitar and various electronic gizmos are looped, dissected and reassembled to inject sometimes spontaneous elements to each individual performance. He's a baffling prospect to many, but once you fall under his spell, it's hard to look away. He had the entire room in his hands on Monday evening in Cambridge. On Tuesday morning I bumped into him in the hotel lift as we were both on our way to check out. Not wishing to come across as a weird stalker type, I merely thanked him for a great show the previous evening and told him I'd catch up with him later in the day in Norwich.
I was in Cambridge and, as it was my birthday, I figured that I deserved a treat or two, so I made tracks for the frankly magnificent Relevant Records. I'm so glad that this place isn't my local record shop. I could have easily dropped a months wages without even starting to dig deep into the bins. As it was I behaved myself, coming away with Nursery Rhymes by Bill Wells & Friends (a physical copy of which I've been after since posting about it here), second hand copies of John Cale's 'Paris 1919' and 'Future Songs' by The Doozer, plus the Joe Strummer RSD 12" of 'Forbidden City'. Then there was more food, more coffee and a drive onto Norwich, where David Thomas Broughton's performance was in a public bar and free of charge. Unfortunately this meant that a contingent of the audience were not only not there to see him - they simply didn't get what he was doing. This resulted in much peripheral chatter from sections of the crowd, which was a shame as they were missing a terrifically engaging show. After the gig, I wearily drove the last 20 miles home through the night, the first day of my 60th year completed.
Broughton didn't play 'Silent Arrow' at either of the shows I caught on this tour, but it's become something of a personal favourite of mine and illustrates what it is he actually does pretty well.
On Monday evening I stood towards the back of a small Norwich venue as Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs hurled their splendidly unholy racket in my general direction. And that was just for starters. Five nights later, downstairs in the larger room, Sleaford Mods made their third visit to the Fine City. While 'Moptop', Tweet Tweet Tweet' 'Giddy on the Ciggies' and 'No-one's Bothered' have all disappeared from the band's current setlist, newer songs like 'TCR', 'Stick in a Five and Go', 'Kebab Spider' and 'Discourse' have quickly become live favourites. Another grand night out.
The rarely seen Double McSwedeface
The following morning I was up with the larks and on the road early to reach a 2pm appointment in Nottingham. After a 150 mile drive, I stepped through the doors of the Running Horse public house to be greeted by a chap adjusting the levels behind his mixing desk. The event in question was the inaugural Sunday Vinyl Session and the chap twiddling the knobs was our mutual friend John Medd. Crucially, he didn't know I was coming and his casual nodded greeting told me that he didn't recognise me from Adam, so I did the only thing I could think of and held up the LP I was carrying so that it covered the bottom half of my face in a Swedey McSwedeface stylee. If anyone in the Nottingham area heard a clunking sound around that time, it was probably the sound of John's jaw hitting the floor. Along with his co-conspirator Bright Ambassador (he of Modern Gutnish), John introduced, played, then led an informal discussion on, David Bowie's 'Hunky Dory' LP. The three hour session was an absolute joy and fairly flew by. Exciting plans are well underway for future Sunday Vinyl Sessions, which will take place at the same venue on the second Sunday of every month. Watch John's blog / twitter account for further details - there's even a Facebook group you can join. Is there anything better than sitting in a good pub for a few hours with a group of like minded, friendly people, while listening to a few records? I can't think of anything.
My drive to Nottingham was punctuated by a couple of long roadwork related tailbacks, which meant that by the time I eventually arrived at the Running Horse, I hadn't had a chance to grab a bite to eat as planned. Consequently, by the time the Sunday Vinyl Session wound down at 5pm, I'd consumed a few beers on a stomach that had seen no food since a bowl of cereal at 8 o'clock that morning and was in imminent danger of sliding off my chair. Step forward John and Jenny, who marched their unexpected guest off to The Angel for a big plate of delicious grub and the first of many more beers that we enjoyed throughout the evening.
JC, our mutual friend and Blogfather of this little corner of t'internet, has once again done me the great honour of featuring an Imaginary Compilation Album of my curation over at his place today. This time around, the subject of my attention is the one and only Robyn Hitchcock, a man whose music I've been digging for a frankly terrifying amount of time - 40 years! As I note in the post, the ten songs selected only scratch the surface of such a long, prolific ongoing career and I have every intention of following up with a Volume 2 in the fullness of time. I'm off to catch an intimate show on his UK tour in a few weeks, so expect more Robyn related gubbins soon. Meanwhile, enjoy the ICA here plus this bonus cover version from the 1990 Anti-Poll Tax compilation 'Alvin Lives (in Leeds)'. Thanks again JC.
A little over a week ago, our mutual blogging chum Alyson (of What's it All About?) posted the latest instalment of her fascinating series in which she celebrates every full moon throughout the course of the year - the one due last Thursday (June 28th) was apparently known to Native Americans as the Strawberry Moon. So far I've managed to miss all of the previous full moons in 2018 thanks to either inclement weather, work or simply by being asleep, but, on Thursday evening, as I wearily climbed the wooden hills to Bedfordshire, I glanced out the window and there it was, hanging in the inky blackness, very large and certainly somewhat unusual in colour. I grabbed my faithful point and press and fired off these couple of shots to capture the moment. Perhaps not so much strawberry, as tangerine!
I can't imagine that Alyson will use today's tune at anytime during the course of her series, particularly as the month in question has now passed. 'The Moon in June' originally appeared on the third Soft Machine LP in 1970 and featured a semi-improvised vocal by Robert Wyatt that alluded heavily to an adulterous romantic fling. This version, however, was recorded for John Peel's Top Gear radio programme and features a completely different, though equally rambling lyric from Wyatt, this time concerning The Soft Machine themselves, their contemporary pop-star pals and previous appearances at the BBC and on Peel's show.
'...so to all our mates like Kevin,
Caravan, the old Pink Floyd
allow me to recommend 'Top Gear'
despite its extraordinary name
yes, playing, playing now is lovely
here in the BBC...'
'...music-making still
performs a normal function
background noise for people
eating and talking and drinking and smoking
that's all right by us
don't think that we're complaining
after all it's only leisure time, isn't it?...'
Two days short of what would've been David McComb's 56th birthday, our mutual friend JC has done me the great honour of posting my Triffids Imaginary Compilation Album over at The (New) Vinyl Villain (here). As always when attempting to choose just ten tracks from a favourite artist, the final selection proved excruciatingly difficult to whittle down. In the end I tried for a representative mixture of the band's lighter and darker moments, sequenced into what I hope is a really balanced listen. Among the many other great Triffids songs that came under consideration as I fiddled and faffed with the final running order, was epic live favourite 'Field of Glass', which eventually only failed to make the cut by the smallest of margins. So imagine, if you will, that this is the hidden bonus track on the CD version of the compilation.
In a couple of days, a bunch of longstanding online friends who hang out in this little corner of the internet, will be meeting up in the real world, many for the first time. Blogging chums are literally flying in from around the globe to enjoy a weekend that promises to be high on music, conversation, alcohol and laughter - and quite low on sleep. A tip of the hat is due to all who've helped to pull this seemingly impossible thing together, the Scottish contingent in particular, but none more so than Dirk, who took an improbable dream shared by many of us and pushed and prodded it into becoming a serious proposition. I'm completely gutted that I won't be joining the gathering, but look forward to reading all about it as soon as the hangovers clear.
I feel sure that it was one (or more) of my blogging chums who initially introduced me to Glasgow/London duo Sacred Paws and just lately, everytime I hear that brassy intro to 'Rest', I realise I'm well and truly hooked too - it's a poly-rhythmic post-punk joy . Their debut long player, 'Strike a Match', arrives on January 27th on Rock Action Records.
Charity Chic's weekly 'Dylan Covered' series pitches an original Bob Dylan recording in direct competition with another artist's version of the same song, leaving the reader to cast a vote for one performance or the other. Most of the time (see what I did there Bob aficionados?) this doesn't pose a problem for me. I've spent more hours of my life listening to and thinking about Bob Dylan than is probably healthy for a man of my age, so Bob will usually get the nod. He's far from infallible though and I'm happy give credit to a good interpretation where it's due. But Charity Chic has twisted the decision making knife a little further on a couple of occasions, by pitching Bob directly against another of my favourite artists. Already in the series I've had to mull over Dylan vs Robyn Hitchcock (see here for the result of that encounter) and this week, Dream Syndicate's fabulous reading of 'Blind Willie McTell' is up for the popular vote against Bob's sublime original (here). I've been a fan of The Dream Syndicate since 'The Days of Wine and Roses' in 1982, which seems an awfully long time ago now that I come to think about it. The band split in 1989 and I've continued to follow Steve Wynn's busy career as a solo artist in the years since. I'm slightly horrified to note the paucity of Steve's music in my back pages, so by way of recompense, here's the title track from his 1999 LP, a personal favourite and a song which was the highlight of a concert I caught around the turn of the century.
Alyson over at What's It All About, Alfie recently published a post about 'Flaming Star' by Elvis Presley, the title track of the first LP she ever purchased - a great song, too often overlooked. An early, lyrically darker, version of 'Flaming Star', unreleased until the 1990's, was titled 'Black Star' and was thought to have been a reference point for David Bowie's song of the same name. But I digress. Alyson's post got me thinking about the band who presumably took their name from Elvis' hit, when they formed in 1994 - The Flaming Stars. I've got the first two Flaming Stars LPs and they're great, so it's a bit of a mystery to me how I allowed them to slip off my radar around the turn of the century. To date the band have released seven studio albums plus a double compilation of John Peel sessions and, only in the last few days, returned to the stage following a period of hiatus. They've been described as being '...like a fistfight between Jerry Lee Lewis and the Voidoids...', though I seem to recall recommending them to one of my own customers many years ago, as a cross between The Jesus & Mary Chain with a sense of humour and The Godfathers. Frontman Max Décharné certainly has a keen turn of phrase. See what you think.
Back in March, Frank Jive (over at the always excellent Blues All Kinds blog) posted 'Slippin' Around' by Floyd Tillman and it was quite the revelation to your humble author's ears and eyes. Firstly, the song itself is a doozie. A hit in 1949, it was subsequently covered by all manner of artists from Jerry Lee Lewis to Perry Como. In the same post Frank also linked to a slightly later filmed live performance of 'Slippin' Around' and this is where it gets really interesting. In my experience, most country music singers on TV from this period stood stock still, permagrin in place, showing no actual real emotion, while he or she sang of heartache, tragedy or disaster. Floyd though, lived every word. Check this out.
What a performer! Since Frank's post I've been tracking down as much of Floyd's work as I can find and have my eyes on a rather splendid Bear Family 6 Disc compilation, but at £100 it's a bit out of my reach (though if you're reading this Santa Claus, you know where to find me).
Floyd Tillman died in 2003 at the ripe old age of 88. Here he is at a sprightly 76, with the fabulous 'I Am Music'.
Scattered, in various stages of completion, around the many nooks and crannies of my laptop, are tracklistings for half-a-dozen different Imaginary Compilation Albums that I one day hope JC will consider for inclusion in his excellent ongoing series over at The New Vinyl Villain. One of the said compilations (and, coincidentally, the nearest to completion) features Australia's mighty Triffids. Such is the strength in depth of the band's catalogue, 'Too Hot to Move, Too Hot to Think', from 1989's 'Black Swan', isn't currently a contender for the final running order, though all that could change of course. The song lurches gradually into being, as if emerging from a dense, stifling swamp. It's been the soundtrack to my life this week.
It did my old heart good to see so much love being shown for Ron Sexsmith over at Charity Chic Music the other day (here) - in a just and proper world he'd be a huge star. Ron has released over a dozen fine albums in the past 20 years, though he has also produced a vast hidden archive of acoustic performances that many are unaware of. On his Rawnboy YouTube channel, Ron regularly shares his own solo stripped back cover versions, filmed live, straight onto his laptop, recorded wherever he happens to be in his house or hotel room, whenever the mood takes him. He started sharing these intimate performances three years ago and is still adding to them once or twice a week. The songs Ron chooses to sing range from the classic; Beatles, Stones, Motown, Cohen, Dylan, Kinks etc, to the less predictable; Pink Floyd, Horslips, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Boston, Culture Club, Deep Purple, Kiss, Genesis etc and touches on all points in between. In addition to the covers, Ron also takes the time to revisit his own repertoire, offering up bare-bones solo readings of the majority of his back catalogue.
Here are just a few samples from Rawnboy, but I warn you - once you start digging through the huge archive, it's very hard to stop.
Back in January, Brian, over at Linear Tracking Lives, announced his intention to take us on an ambitious 12 month A-Z journey through his record collection. The good news is that he's been digging out some absolutely belting tunes along the way, many of which I've never previously encountered. The bad news from his point of view is that it's already July and he's only got as far as the letter 'C'. So the very, very good news for us then, is that his cracking series should run and run, hopefully - and long may it do so.
The most recent entry in Brian's journey (here) finds me on more familiar terrain than usual, as his featured slab o' wax is the 'London Calling' LP by The Clash. During the course of the post Brian asked us, his readers, to nominate our own respective favourite Clash tracks of all time. It's just this kind of question that could easily see me lose a whole day while I cogitate on the matter, though on this occasion, in a moment of extraordinary discipline, I plumped for the very first tune to jump into my head - 'Bankrobber'. My default version of the song is this extended one, lovingly crafted by a fan and downloaded from a blog many many moons ago. I've seen a few similar mixes crop up here and there in subsequent years as the technology has improved, but this one'll do for me.
Some blogs are given an off the wall moniker, while others do exactly what it says on the tin. Step forward Rol, over at My Top Ten. Once a week he pulls together and posts ten songs on a theme or subject of his choosing, inviting and welcoming comments and further suggestions after the event. It's a simple and thoroughly entertaining idea. This week, his theme is the humble taxi and I have to say that he's picked ten corkers - check here if you don't believe me. After a bit of head scratching, I managed to come up with a couple of additional tunes that he hadn't already selected. One, 'Cab It Up' by The Fall, just missed the cut by all accounts, while the other, 'Taxi Driver' by Tanzanian dance band The Mlimani Park Orchestra, eluded Rol's best efforts to track it down. I've got 'Taxi Driver' on a well-recommended budget-price compilation, 'The Rough Guide To A World Of Psychedelia', click on the title for more info.
While at a terrific Sam Lee & Friends concert last night, retired blogging pal and fellow Sam fan, Singing Bear crossed my mind. I resolved to drop him a line when I got home, to report on the gig and have a general catch up. When I flipped open my laptop a couple of hours later, I was surprised to find an email from the very same Mr Bear awaiting my attention. His unexpected missive contained excellent news - the blogging Bear is back in action! Check out his sparkling new gaff here. Welcome back Singing Bear, the old place ain't been the same without you. (You missed a blinder last night mate).
