Chris Evans played this track yesterday am. I was the first time I heard it in years and whilst I love both the song and the band it does sound like they threw in everything but the kitchen sink. Usually I prefer more minimalist fare but this one will do quite nicely. Are you fans of less is more or do you prefer a fuller sound?

Let me start off by saying I love London, visit several times a year and this is not an attack. Well it is an attack sort of but meant to be constructive. Yesterday I visited London for Record Store Day with my brother. We always park at Perivale as it is next to the M40 and easy to get away if we leave late evening which we invariably do. It took 1 hour and 30 minutes from Solihull to reach the car park. Pretty good. All set for a nice day in sunny London except not at all. The tube station at Tottenham Court road was closed. No sweat we would get off at Oxford Circus and walk. Except that the Central line stopped at North Acton – two stops away from the starting point. Then we had to get a bus to Wood Lane, take the Hammersmith line to Baker Street and the Jubilee line to Oxford Circus. With an 18 minute wait for the first train at Perivale and all the shenanigans in between and the walk from Oxford Street it took one hour and 45 minutes. That’s right – longer than the 108 miles from Birmingham to » Continue Reading.

The fairer sex often chide us guys for being like big kids. On my trip to RSD in London yesterday I thought about my obsession with music in its physical format and mused that most if not all of my acquaintances with this same obsession have been guys. Then I recalled all the things I have collected throughout my life and though records/cd’s has been by far the most enduring obsession there have been many others. I will try to remember them in some sort of chronological order:-

Airfix soldiers Airfix model airplanes Marvel Comics Football programmes Aircraft reg numbers (as a plane spotter) Train number (as a train spotter – only a brief deviation from my obsession with planes) Beer mats Brooke Bond tea cards Aircraft Pictorial magazine

So guys (and girls) what have you collected over the years and what do you still collect?

The word ‘Classic’ can be easily misappropriated by Record labels trying to push their artists. However music magazines are regularly at fault too by applying the word to albums not worthy of such classification. Two often described as classics wrongly to my mind are Radiohead’s OK Computer and Nirvana’s Nevermind. Neither are bad albums but classic? Not a chance.

Often we see posts about bands coming from certain Cities/places in the UK and putting that place on the map for all the right reasons. Obviously the Beatles from Liverpool then all the Madchester bands etc. From my home city Black Sabbath, Moody Blues etc. But what about the bands/artists that we wouldn’t want to own up to. This was inspired by a comment Stuart Maconie made on 6 music this afternoon when he mentioned about Sade Cafe being from Manchester. Hardly a claim to fame for Manchester I would say. So which bands would we prefer not to be associated with our home towns?

For fans of Dexys there is a treat in store – their film Nowhere is Home is showing on BBC4 tomorrow night (Friday) at 10pm. Looking forward to it – I have the live album of the concert and it is very good indeed.

The Smiths were never my favourite band but had great song titles. As a teenager I always used to recite song titles like Pink Floyd’s .Several Species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a pict’. Also Caravan’s ‘If I could do all over again, I would do it all over you’. You get the gist. In recent years I always thought Jackie Leven had a pithy way with song titles such as:- The dent in the fender and the wheel of fate The sexual loneliness of Jesus Christ Rainy Day Bergen Women Swine Flu Fever Blues Spooky Berlin Hotel Song and my favourite: Song for Bass guitar and death.

Any other contenders?

On the old site it was easy to post Youtube clips but they way I used to do it doesn’t work anymore. Did I miss something about posting on the new site?

Am I the only one? A couple of posts on here about MH370 and Godspeed You Black Emperor album had links in the post. I can’t open them – is this just me or is it a hitch?

About 6-8 weeks ago I read news of a new Joe Henry produced Bill Fay album to be released in February. All of a sudden all brews of it has disappeared which is a little disappointing. I have googled about it and about Bill but can’t see anything at all. Odd. Anyone shine any light?

It’s all bollocks but it’s our bollocks and I for one am delighted we are all back together again. The admin people have my gratitude not least because I don’t have to sit with my wife while she is watching Holby and asking her ‘what is this shit?’. Had I have known today was the day I would have celebrated with a Fray Bentos pie. What joy.