Episode 110 - Great Songs on TV Soundtracks

During my advertising years, we sometimes happened on a track which received a renewed boost of success from one of our commercials. We used Peters and Lee’s Welcome Home on the original Gary Lineker ad for Walkers crisps when he came back from Japan. We also got ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother’ to number one off the back of a Miller Lite ad.

But it wasn’t a deliberate strategy. We used to sit around and think of tracks that might fit a script then see if the rights could be negotiated. It just sort of happened.

When Running Up That Hill appeared on Stranger Things and subsequently topped the chart, I don’t sense that it just happened. My guess is that there were an entire squad of PR people, marketing teams, data science gurus, publishers, microbloggers and nano-influencers involved.

However it did inspire me to do this episode, so it’s not all bad. The other things that proved a catalyst was Richard D Butterworth, old colleague, pal and playwright. He suggested an episode devoted to musicians who had gone on to score soundtracks. I thought I’d start with the easier option, i.e. this show you hold in your virtual hands, first.

It was good fun to organise though I don’t suppose I’ll ever watch most of the shows themselves. Mexican teen drama, Control Z? Pop me down as a no. Though it does afford us the opportunity to have a listen to the excellent “mutant disco” Mind Your Own Business by Delta 5. Letterkenny looks intriguing though and arguably has the best soundtrack.

Meanwhile there quite a few debutants late in the Sombrero Fallout day here: Band of Horses, Real Estate, Ini Kamoze, The Pack A.D., Lykke Li, The New Pornographers, Japanther. You are most welcome, one and all.

Tracklist:

Everybody’s down, No Age (from Letterkenny)

Pink turns to blue, Husker Du (from Halt and Catch Fire)

Everyone looks like everyone, The Pack A.D. (from Letterkenny)

Mind your own business, Delta 5 (from Control-Z)

World-A-Reggae, Ini Kamoze (from Luke Cage)

No one’s gonna love you, Band of Horses (from Chuck, One Tree Hill, Numb3rs, Zombieland, etc)

Here I dreamt I was an architect, The Decemberists (from How I Met Your Mother)

Funeral, Phoebe Bridgers (from 13 Reasons Why) 

Challengers, The New Pornographers (from Atypical)

Shot down, The Sonics (from Sex Education)

Tender people, Japanther (from Letterkenny)

I’m good, I’m gone, Lykke Li (from The Hills, Grey’s Anatomy, You’re The Worst)

Beach comber, Real Estate (from How I Met Your Mother)

Spellbound, Siouxsie and the Banshees (from Stranger Things) 

Episode 109 - Cameras and Photos

I’ve always liked the idea of becoming a photographer, but must now accept I have a poor visual eye. It’s good to know your failings. Doesn’t matter how much I try to art direct a presentation, it always ends up looking horrible. Other things I’m terrible at include, but are not limited to, cooking, not allowing my eldest son to wind me up and remembering where I’ve put the visa documents on arriving at customs. And golf.

Considering how closely aligned the world of the visual aesthetic and music are, it’s perhaps surprising there aren’t more songs about photography. But what there is provides plenty for a neat little episode.

There are a number of long-overdue debuts on this programme. (One of the biggest linguistic differences between Australian-English and its mother tongue is the difference in pronunciation of ‘debut’. Aussies opt for ‘d’boo’.)

Spoon. Big favourite of podcast listener Adam Buxton.

Ultravox. We all know ‘Vienna’. But how many of us know ‘Mr X’, which is possibly about erstwhile member John Foxx, the man behind ‘No one driving’? The answer, according to Spotify, is 660,039, so more than I thought.

The Tragically Hip. Rather like Australia’s Cold Chisel, say, this is a band whom Canadians completely revere – there was a motion in parliament to give the lead singer a state funeral – and about whom the rest of the world are in almost complete ignorance. I shall investigate them further, as this is a corking tune, possibly about the Anglo-French divide in Quebec, and possibly not.

Loudon Wainwright III. Father of Martha – and Rufus and Lucy. Lovely observation concerning a Proustian throwback he gets from an old photo of him and his sister.

I Am Kloot. “Oddball pop trio based in Manchester”, according to them.

Weezer. A song from their more commercial post-Pinkerton era. A band I’ve partly neglected over the years on account of their irritating name.

Alex Cameron. Big favourite of my son, Scott. Great lyrics. Comedy song, done well.

Tracklist:

I turn my camera on, Spoon

Poster of a girl, Metric

Mr X, Ultravox

Picture on the wall, The Naturalites and The Realistics

Pigeon camera, the Tragically Hip

Superstar, Beach House

The photograph, Loudon Wainwright III

Stop taking photographs, I Am Kloot

Photograph, Weezer

Camera-shy, The Lucksmiths

Photo Jenny, Belle and Sebastian

Blackmail, 10cc

True lies, Alex Cameron

Picture this, Blondie

Episode 108 - Jowe Head (Swell Maps), Guest Host

Those with a casual interest in post-punk tend to stop at the usual suspects: Joy Division, The Fall, The Gang of Four, PIL, Wire. But Swell Maps were just as influential as any of them even if the man on the street with his casual interest may never have heard anything by them.

It was great to catch up with Jowe Head, Swell Maps’ bassist for the duration of the band’s existence from 1972 to 1980. The two albums they produced, A Trip to Marineville and Jane from Occupied Europe can proudly take their place alongside Unknown Pleasures, Grotesque, Entertainment!, Metal Box and Chairs Missing in the Post-Punk Pantheon.

And please do buy a copy of Jowe’s excellently reviewed book “Swell Maps, 1772-1980” via the www.swellmaps.org website.

What struck me most about Jowe when we enjoyed a highly relaxed chat over Zoom one Sunday night was that he didn’t give a toss about fame and fortune so long as he could carry on writing, playing, painting, designing and fulfilling his artistic curiosity. He very much retains that late ‘70s DIY spirit. Thank you to Pinko Fowler for effecting the introductions.

As for Swell Maps’ legacy, here’s a few of the things very famous musicians have said about them:

"Slicing, slabbing and all out fuzzifying off that crackling vinyl groove … you know you're gonna rock. It's the best of both whirls: fist-in-the-heart guitar burnin’ rock and ahead-of-its-time songsmith awareness” (Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth)

"Swell Maps was a big influence on our early records ... they had these songs they fucked up somehow to make sound really dirty and low frequency, but they had these great songs underneath all this mess" (Scott Kannberg, Pavement)

"I must have played A Trip to Marineville a hundred times or more, just to listen to every single second of it" (Tim Gane, Stereolab)

“Swell Maps … where one crazy guy thinks he can make a record. The whole point … is that the vocals are distinctive, a bit weird, not exactly right, everything’s a little bit off. That’s part of the charm, that it’s not Pink Floyd-perfect. I’ve always been a fan of that DIY punk style. When Pavement started out it was basically as a tribute to Swell Maps, Desperate Bicycles, Television Personalities, really.” (Steven Malkmus, Pavement)

And here’s the tracks Jowe chose as being particularly influential on him (he also chose After the end of the world by Sun Ra, but unfortunately I was unable to find a suitable version of it to play. Do check Sun Ra out, nonetheless, a true maverick):

Tracklist:

The man who sold the world, David Bowie

Why are we sleeping, Soft Machine

The Be Colony, Broadcast and the Focus Group

Jennifer, Faust

Mother sun, Can

White chalk, P J Harvey

Nobody’s business, Peter Hammill

Submission, The Sex Pistols

Cripple creek, Buffy Saint Marie

Let’s build a car, Swell Maps

Episode 107 - Two Tone and its Jamaican Origins

Coventry has been nominated City of Culture. People tell me it’s changed a lot recently. I haven’t been there for 17 years, so it’s not for me to comment. The last time was for the penultimate match at the old Highfield Road stadium. Coventry beat Nottingham Forest 3-1 and two weeks later they started pulling the old place down.

 “I just looked round and my youth it was sold.” Not for the first time Mark E Smith sums it up best.

I may have mentioned this on previous blogs (there have been over a hundred, so it’s easy to lose track), but Coventry at the end of the ‘seventies was grim. It was a city that had been rapidly reassembled after being flattened in the war, had managed to claw its way back to some economic prosperity in the ‘sixties, but then had fallen victim to economic trade winds. Compounding the economic anxiety was a city with a large, but largely unintegrated, ethnic community. Racial tensions were rife.

Into this maelstrom stepped The Specials, Jerry Dammers and the Two Tone label he founded. The idea was simple. Fuse the elements of ska, reggae and rocksteady from Jamaican music in the sixties with elements from new wave and punk. Fuse black group members with white. And break down barriers and suspicions in the process.

As a young store assistant in Owen Owen, I was charged with selling the new Two Tone merchandise. The elderly ladies I served with in Boyswear were bemused, but I explained the thinking and, to their credit, they bought into it. Even more so when the cash tills started ringing.

The movement remains charged with great cultural significance. It showed that young people were not divided, given the right catalyst. That hatred and antagonism were not inevitable. Two Tone reached its apotheosis when Ghost Town hit number one in the summer of riots that burnt through the nation.

Now there’s a Two Tone Museum in Coventry. We can talk of these things as if they were part of history, like the war itself. But the music remains vital, upbeat and infectious – here’s an episode to showcase all that was best in Two Tone and its Jamaican origins.

Setlist:

Do nothing, The Specials

Madness, Prince Buster

The prince, Madness

A message to you, Rudy, The Specials

Train to Skaville, The Ethiopians

Tears of a clown, The Beat

Street corner, The Skatalites

Missing words, The Selecter

Take it easy, Hopeton Lewis

Friday night Saturday morning, The Specials

Sea cruise, Rico

Ruder than you, The Bodysnatchers

Alipang, Don Drummond

Rukumbine, Bobby Aitken

Ghost town, The Specials

Episode 106 - Milestone Birthday Episode

I have experienced a milestone birthday this week. I’m not delighted by this turn of events but it very much is what it is. It’s pretty obvious which milestone, but on the off chance I have any Gen Z or Millennials who haven’t cottoned on to how old I am, I’m keeping it a not very closely guarded secret.

To ‘celebrate’, here is an episode in which each track starts with an initial that, when amalgamated, spells out B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y E-P-I-S-O-D-E.

Cute, huh? I think it’s a good idea and not a gimmick, but if it’s the latter, let me quickly throw my wife under the bus and point out it was her idea.

Tracklist:

Birthday, Junior Boys

The best song called simply ‘Birthday’? Not much to choose between this and The Sugarcubes, in the end.

I love Perth, Pavement

They say you can do any great pop song in two and a half minutes. Well, this little beauty lasts 1:04 and is brilliant. Time to raise your game if you’re fiddling round with a lead guitar solo after the second chorus.

Rano Pano, Mogwai

Basically, the same riff for six-plus minutes. But what a riff. Some people think Mogwai do the same album over and over, but they’re wrong. A must-see live.

The Dean and I, 10cc

Some of you won’t take to this. But I can’t disentangle this song and Rock On by David Essex as the soundtrack to my first days at senior school. Listening to it now it’s obviously some sort of satire, but when you’re 11 you don’t necessarily know what it’s parodying. I liked it for what it is and still do.

Help the Aged, Pulp

Yes, please do.

Disorder, Joy Division

The first track on the first album. And the world was never quite the same again. As Steve Morris, the drummer, pointed out, the studio was the first time any of the rest of the group had heard the lyrics to the songs they were playing live. He also points out that playing this and Transmission back-to-back killed his arms.

Archie, Marry Me, Alvvays

One of the towering contributions to indie rock. Charmingly you can hear their Canadian twang.

Your ace from space, U-Roy

1971 and a wonderful splice of golden era reggae. It’s funny how strange and off-kilter reggae sounded back then – it kind of still does, but has aged significantly better than Noel Edmonds’ glittery jacket and flares he was so proud of.

Eighties fan, Camera Obscura

“I'm gonna tell you something good about yourself / I'll say it now and I'll never say it about no one else”. How uplifting to discover that Camera Obscura are back in the studio recording a new album.

Piazza, New York Catcher, Belle and Sebastian

Odd title, brilliant acoustic song. In fact, I’ve looked it up and it’s not as odd as I’ve previously imagined – the title is in the lyrics. He’s a baseball catcher called Piazza who may or may not have been gay. Which reminds me of classic number ones whose title is not in the lyrics: Bohemian Rhapsody, The Ballad of John and Yoko, A Space Oddity.

Irate, Anorak Patch

Can’t wait for these guys to be massive. Once they’ve taken their GCSEs.

Suburban homeboy, Sparks

I say “yo dog” to my detailing guy – don’t we all?

Outdoor miner, Wire

Ridiculous to think the track on the album doesn’t even have the keyboard solo. It was added by the producer Mike Thorne who plays it himself to pad it out to single length. A tribute album to the song was released in 2004 on the 25th anniversary of the song, A Houseguest's Wish: Translations of Wire's "Outdoor Miner" featuring 19 different interpretations of the song. Sadly the sniffy suits at the BBC suspected EMI of chart rigging and refused to countenance that the song could have got into the Top 40. Donny and Marie Osmond took their place on Top Of The Pops.

Debe, Ali Farka Toure, Toumani Diabate

The sound of young Mali.

Eighties Scheme, The Fall

The sound of young Prestwich.

Tracklist:-

Birthday, Junior Boys

I love Perth, Pavement

Rano pano, Mogwai

The dean and I, 10cc

Help the aged, Pulp

Disorder, Joy Division

Archie, marry me, Alvvays

Your ace from space, U-Roy

Eighties fan, Camera Obscura

Piazza, New York Catcher, Belle and Sebastian

Irate, Anorak Patch

Suburban homeboy, Sparks

Outdoor miner, Wire

Debe, Ali Farka Toure, Toumani Diabate

English scheme, The Fall

Episode 105 - 30 Years of Slanted & Enchanted

“I’ve got style / Miles and miles / So much style that it’s wasted”

When Melody Maker selected their albums of the year in 1992 it was a slight surprise to discover that Pavement’s Slanted & Enchanted had ended up as Number Two. It looked like a classic case of music journos being hypnotised by the hip and transient. But it’s hard to predict these things. 30 years on the legacy of REM (who Pavement once wrote a tribute song to) is far less secure and they were at #1. The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy were at 3, and I can’t remember what they sound like (possibly their name is the clue).

“Fruit covered nails / lies and betrayals”

Pavement had been around for a few years on the California scene and the in-crew already knew these tracks when the rest of the world got to hear them. There’s also a pre-S&E world which features Debris Slide and Box Elder, that are great, but the effortless insouciance of the debut album is still a quantum leap. Like Unknown Pleasures, Entertainment! Marquee Moon, Colossal Youth and Is This It?, it emerges fully formed as a statement of intent. Not to say there aren’t many brilliant moments on Crooked Rain Crooked Rain, Wowee Zowee and Brighten All Corners, certainly. It’s only on Terror Twilight that they sound less than inspired, and by that stage Stephen Malkmus was appearing on stage handcuffed to the mike stand, like Prince when he had “Slave” tattooed on his forehead, so perhaps not surprising.

“Ex magician / still does his tricks”

What was the magic formula of S&E? Alchemy, a happy hybrid. No one inhabited the slacker ethos more snugly: underachieving and proud of it, a time when Homer Simpson ruled the zeitgeist. Malkmus and co weren’t alone in identifying Hex Enduction Hour as the cornerstone of the early ‘80s from which to build a mansion. But reaching behind that they located Swell Maps as their key influence, with their angular experimentalism rather than the austerity of Joy Division or the punk-funk of Gang of Four, the minimalism of Young Marble Giants or the neo-psychedelia of the Bunnymen and the Teardrops. That was a masterstroke, but in the wrong hands could have sounded merely shambolic.

“I’ve been crowned / The king of it”

Pavement songs never quite did what you thought they were going to do, except for the ones like Two States! that did. Sure, Perfume-V sounds like New Face in Hell and Our Singer is a photocopy of Hip Priest. But, you know, have a listen to Elves by the Fall or, more absurdly their tribute to Spinal Tap, Athlete Cured. Pavement still sound like Pavement even when they’re trying to sound like The Fall, and anyway it’s more Midget Submarines and Read about Seymour.

“I was dressed for success / but success it never came”

The groups that came after Pavement tried channelling their off-kilter breezy-cynical riff, but it’s an impossible act to replicate. Some discovered their own thing over time, like Built To Spill and Yo La Tengo, even, arguably, Beck, whose launch effort Mellow Gold has many of the hallmarks of S&E (check out Pay No Mind, a reinterpretation of ‘Here’). Some were a couple of inches away from distinctiveness but that’s all it takes in this game. You can see why Pavement are the mythical band, but it’s still a surprise that Plastic Ashtray by Urusei Yatsura only has 18,000 listens.

“Someone took in these pants / Somebody painted over paint / Painted wood”

I’ve added on a couple of tracks from Watery, Domestic, the EP that followed S&E, and Gary Young’s last contribution. Steve West is a better drummer but something was lost in the mix. Never quite the same after this.

Tracklist:

Summer babe, Pavement

Get away, Yuck

No life singed her, Pavement

Plastic ashtray, Urusei Yatsura

Shoot the singer, Pavement

The skills of the star pilot, Butterglory

In the mouth a desert, Pavement

Nerves, Silkworm

Here, Pavement

Secret for Julie, Eric’s Trip

Texas never whispers, Pavement

Web in front, Archers of Loaf

Loretta’s scars, Pavement

Had a fantastic, Clearance

Zurich is stained, Pavement

You’re so great, Blur

Baptist Blacktick, Pavement

Licensed to confuse, Sebadoh

Episode 104 - Collaborations

There ain’t half been some cynical collaborations over the years. But surely taking the biscuit is the occasion when a messed-up David Bowie, delirious after some nights of crazy excess with Iggy Pop or another one of his mad cronies, guests on Bing Crosby’s Christmas Special. There’s Bing in his cardigan writing some last minute Yuletide cards when the doorbell rings. Behold, it’s the Man Who Fell To Earth! Bing doesn’t seem to know who “David” is - he barely knows who he is himself - but he manages to introduce himself as a new neighbour who’s just moved into the ‘hood. Five minutes later they’ve decided to burst – well, not burst, languorously lurch, more like – into a duet of The Little Drummer Boy. They’ve wisely decided to eschew a cover of Hey Santa Claus by The Sonics or Merry Christmas I don’t want to fight tonight by The Ramones, as being something of a stretch for Bing. At least they both having being thin in column. Bing from a sensible diet, Dave from rampant cocaine enthusiasm.

Anyway. 

Here’s some genuinely great collabs.

My favourite discovery was the Malian combo of Al Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate. Though I knew some of Ali’s solo work, what a pleasure it was to come across this magical hybridisation of West African guitarwork.

This is the era of the Sparks, so it was a no-brainer to choose a track from FFS, their collab with Franz Ferdinand. If you haven’t seen the documentary The Sparks Brothers yet, do yourself a favour.

 As the years have gone by, I’ve come round more to Thom Yorke. I know he’s a bit whiney, and prone to resort to cliches as profundities when repeated, but his hook-up with Flying Lotus works a treat. He once worked with the wonderful Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse as well, whose wonderful Piano Fire with PJ Harvey also appears here.

We bump shoulders with some rap on this ep with Sage Francis and POS collabing, to great effect. And I was pleased to include a couple of female electro pioneers in the work of Trish Keenan from Broadcast, and Delia Derbyshire, the true genius behind the Doctor Who theme.

Altogether, most enjoyable.

Tracklist:

East wind, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn

Cish cash, Basement Jaxx, Siouxsie Sioux

Johnny Delusional, FFS

Piano fire, Sparklehorse, PJ Harvey

And the world laughs with you, Flying Lotus, Thom Yorke

Monsieur le Maire de Niafunke, Ali Farka Toure, Toumani Diabate

Moviescapes, Poemss

Peter Gunn, The Art of Noise feat Duane Eddy

Safety in speed (Heavy metal), P.O.S.

Left handed kisses, Andrew Bird

4 ½ Inch, The Fall feat DOSE

I see, so I see so, Broadcast, The Focus Group

Quest, Brian Hodgson, Delia Derbyshire, Don Harper

Sea lion, Sage Francis

Revolver, Isobel Campbell, Mark Lanegan

When the road runs out, Blonde Redhead, Devastations

Episode 103 - Guy Haslam Guest Host

There are some people we meet in life and, for one reason or another, our paths don’t cross again, even though we had plenty in common and enjoyed each other’s company. It could be we live miles from each other, didn’t quite establish a strong enough bond early on in life, moved in different social circles, or even felt a bit hesitant about reaching out to say how’re you going.

Guy Haslam falls into that category for me. Let me introduce you, as we have many things in common. We met at university. I was dating a friend of his and got to know him that way. But post-dating, we fell back into our own social circles. However one pal we do have in common from those days is previous interviewee, BBC correspondent Rajan Datar.

Football. I last bumped into Guy walking back to the railway station after we’d watched our respective sides play each at the old Highfield Road. Him, Villa, me, Coventry. We had a good chat about how the season was going, how rubbish our left backs were, then literally went our separate ways.

Cryptic crosswords. We didn’t actually talk about this on the episode, but Guy is the youngest ever winner of The Times Cryptic Crossword competition. When people joke that someone is so bright they can crack the Times crossword in five minutes, that’s a slow day for Guy. He once solved 2,000 clues in a day for charity. For context, I like cryptic crosswords as well, but hardly ever get out a complete Times crossword if I’ve been staring at it all day. Guy is now overlord of a range of puzzling magazines.

I recall back in 1983 having chatting after he’d returned from a trip to Pompeii (not Portsmouth football club, the volcano place). He’d found out Lou Reed was playing nearby and busked with a friend to raise the money for a ticket. I recall a conversation about The Dream Syndicate in his room. Fragments from the past. I’m sure he won’t mind me mentioning that Guy comes from a music household, the brother of the renowned music journalist, author and DJ, Dave Haslam. He reveals he was a big fan of Snub TV, the brainchild of previous interviewee, Pinko Fowler. These days he goes to see Lord knows how many bands each month and is a passionate believer in the primacy of live music.

Through the medium of Facebook we’ve been reconnecting over the last few years, and I’m proud to say Sombrero Fallout made the cut of five music podcasts when he enacted a cull recently. It was a pleasure catching up with Guy again. We really must do it again some time in the next 30 years.

Setlist:

Theme from Shaft, Isaac Hayes

Double barrel, Dave and Ansel Collins,

Don't be denied, Neil Young

Here she comes now, The Velvet Underground

Highway blues, Roy Harper

Europe endless, Kraftwerk

Tell me when it's over, The Dream Syndicate

I love my leather jacket, The Chills

Evangelist, Ut

Poor boy, John Fahey

Bill Norrie, Martin Carthy,

Penelope Keith Blue, Peter Bruntnell

Episode 102 - Music from Ukraine

When I was a child there was a small freestanding bookcase on the upstairs landing. It contained the works of Walter Scott. Over the years my mother attempted to sell these books – they were handsomely bound in leather casements and we were always short of cash – but without success. People had stopped reading Walter Scott.

Sometimes, since this this was the era before the internet and I had some time on my hands, I would pluck one of the volumes off its shelf and inspect it further. One was called ‘Woodstock’, which I found amusing. Another ‘Kenilworth’, of interest because this was the name of the next village along from where I lived.

I noticed on these occasions that the novels were heavily stained in places, perhaps water damaged. I finally got round to asking my mother why, as someone who famously took scrupulous care of her few material possessions, this was the case.

It was, I discovered, the fault of the Luftwaffe. On the night of November 14th, 1940, my mother was evacuated to her aunt’s house in nearby Leamington Spa, which was just as well, because that night saw the blitz on Coventry. By the next morning my mother’s home, along with 4,300 others had been destroyed. Two thirds of the city’s buildings were damaged. At the time of the blitz she was ten years old.

I would ordinarily say I can only imagine what it must have been like to return to the place where your house had stood the day before only to find it detsroyed, but that’s not true. My mother, quite understandably, needed no second invitation to recall that awful morning. Human nature being what it was, every time her mother and brother returned to the property to retrieve what they could, the looters had got there first.

The crowning element of her narrative was always the prodigal return of one of her cats who had somehow survived the night. The other one did not.

The reason I bring this up is because citizens of Ukraine are undergoing the same old wretched story right now, their homes reduced to rubble. Tragically, these events cast a very long, very dark shadow. Left homeless and forced to stay with relatives, already having lost her father before the war began, my mother’s uncertain existence began. I get the sense that the small family of three never really recovered from the mental shock. My mother’s mother died just a few years after the war ended. My mother, quite apart from a very long list of medical problems which eventually led to a relatively early death in her fifties, was a bundle of nerves her whole life.

Quite why my mother or her mother decided to retrieve and keep the Walter Scott novels is a little mysterious. The looters had certainly not been interested. But, maybe it meant a lot to the grandmother I never met.

So this episode, dedicated to everyone in Ukraine, is an attempt to humanise the musicians and artists of that country as something more than victims. I’m sure you’ll enjoy their efforts.

Tracklist:

Takataka, Slava Dyadyun

Ocean, The Pleroma

Glass, Smurno

Plastic, Palindrome

Rozy, Dakh Daughters

Davni Chasy, The Wedding Present

Plasticine dream, Stereopalto

Ni, Kurs Valut

Salt, Zetetics

Ya buv, ty bula, Peredmova

On this side, The room without sun

Hello ocean, Make like a tree

Ash earth, Morwan

Episode 101 - International Women's Day

The number 101 has unfortunate connotations. Most obviously Room 101 in Orwell’s 1984: the rats, the boot stamping on a human face for ever as a symbol of what humanity has in store. I write this during the second week of the invasion in the Ukraine (March 2022), so that seems realistic.

More personally Room 101 was the number of the room in which I spent a somewhat terrifying year (1973-74) as my form room in the second year at senior school. Still, what does not destroy us … actually scrap that, I was certainly not strengthened by that experience.

But Episode 101 has nothing but positivity associated with Sombrero Fallout, I’m happy to say. We embark on our second century of episodes with renewed vigour. It is traditional for us - I say ‘traditional’ but really ours is a rather recent tradition - to run a Women To Watch episode early in the calendar year. For 2022 I noticed that it’s International Women’s Day this week, so that’s the link this time round.

It’s a bit but not very international, if I’m honest. The US and UK feature heavily, but The Netherlands and South Korea are there also. And Nilufer Yanya is of Turkish, Barbadian and Irish heritage, so she’s doing some heavy lifting there.

I can remember back in the ‘80s when NME ran a poll for Best Female Artist each year. Either Kate Bush or Annie Lennox seemed to win it every single bloody year. Now look where we are. My Music Club - ‘Banned For Life’ - which is composed of mostly curmudgeonly middle-aged men, managed to vote for a female Number One in our End Of Year Poll. Even more gratifyingly it was Strong Feelings by Dry Cleaning, receiving some sort of a vote from 7 out of 9 of us. Well done, guys.

There’s a long way to go, of course, but I hope I’m right in saying that the world of alternative music has been at the forefront of advancing the female cause recently. Certainly this tracklist stands comparison with any that we’ve run in the first 100 episodes.

Tracklist:

Fruitcake, Subsonic Eye

Stabilise, Nilufer Yanya

6 week party, Anorak Patch

50/50, Jockstrap

Sick and tired, Lime Garden

Deepfake, Deep tan

Falls on me, Sylvie with Marina Allen

Everybody hates me, Coach Party

Come home, Pip Blom

Burglar, Honeyglaze

Woman, Little Simz, Cleo Sol

Let’s sing, let’s dance, Sun Hye Jin

Baby don’t cry, Sunflower Bean