A brief primer if you are starting here: a CD swap is where you pick 12 tracks around a theme, burn them anonymously to a CD and post two copies to two other people. You then get two of their anonymous mixes to […]

Well thanks @mike_H myself and @kid-dynamite had great fun organising them, roughly two a year for the last three years. My own thoughts were – has it run its course, and do people want to go to the Post Office in […]

I would like to time travel to the Manchester Apollo for The Jam on the Sound Affects tour to see if it could strike me as it did when I was 15.

Her debut album should be up there with The Stone Roses, the Clash as an absolute classic.

In The Ghetto is a late period Elvis wonder. it’s a rare event when a Nick Cave cover falls flat in comparison to the original.

Yes completely agree. Another Girl Another Planet is a great song because it’s made up of many of those great moments – the first 10 seconds, the way the guitar lick kicks in like it’s the end of the song, the […]

See the thread on listening in reverse order with Oasis the perfect example of starting with the last album and climbing
The staircase of ascending quality to Definitely Maybe.

New Order, Pet Shop Boys and DEVO are my top 3 music video collections. The Jam have a good part live tv part videos set too. And REM road movie is a great document of them at the top.

Aisle seat a must once you get to a certain age.

Skate – or possibly Dover Sole
The Nightwatch.
Can’t help you with the last one.

Sent you a message on this @davebigpicture from the venue perspective.

Surely the answer is Wire. Amongst others. Mind Hive got some of the best reviews of their career. Saw them in Jan and they were ace.

Feel there is a straight and steep downward trend to all 3. Also both the second and third go on for ever.

I have said it before, but Crystal (track 1 Get Ready) was the precise point at which they stopped producing great music.

Other points: counter to received wisdom Waiting for the Sirens call is a stronger […]

I bailed on Stephenson after Cryptonomicon. Have Readme on the shelves but will I ever get round to it?

I think the point is proved. Clearly a great novel, but not for everyone.

Probably one of the largest gaps between the original recordings and the acoustic album would be Nirvana Unplugged – with the 10000 Maniacs one of my favourites from this series. When did the shark jump on […]

Can’t help but feel publishers are slightly dialling down the goodies from April, May, June…still, better for my bank account they are.

OK one Proustian fashion item in particular: aged 16 I had a pair of ‘Rising Sun flag’ jeans – ie jeans with the Japanese WW2 flag as a pattern all over them. Now I recall – I may be wrong – that these were […]