Episode 100 - Extended Anniversary Edition with All New Artists

Can it really be 100 episodes?

Apparently so.

Times change. 

I’ve become a freelancer, written a novel and become a cricket commentator. Two of my kids have been through university, while one’s left home and moved in with his girlfriend. My football team has risen like a phoenix from the ashes and stands on the brink of the playoffs leading to the beautiful, ghastly metaverse of the Premier League. Talking of the Ashes, not much has changed there for England. Our pub trivia team finally won again last month after several years off the podium. I’m now in a Book Club, a Music Club, and as of next month a Movie Club. There’s been travel back to England, to Ireland, Kenya, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. There’s been bushfires, there’s been Covid.

5 years ago when we started there were 100,000 podcasts. Now there are two million and 40 million episodes. So you’ve got other options. But it’s great that quite a few of you stick around and before you know it, we had a community. 

You tend to find your own demographic after a while, whatever your original intention might have been. I think, to start with, I vaguely had in mind a younger listener who might also be interested in the music of the last 60 years. How it’s worked out, I think, is that the typical listener is someone a bit older, but with a genuine curiosity for and love of the byways of popular music. Typically, lovely people too.

I asked people on the FB site to write in with suggestions of bands that have not been on the pod before, and this is the result. There are plenty of other loyal listeners, and I’d like to extend my thanks to every one of you. There are also, no doubt, people listening, often in far flung places, whose identity I’ll never know. This makes me a bit sad, but also a bit happy at the same time.

Our 100th Playlist:

Moral Fibre, LIFE (Mick Street)

Toe Cutter, The Oh Sees (Gerry Frizelle)

Moving Targets, The Hole (Sean Tracey)

Summerstock, Imaginary People (Paul Howarth)

The Perfume Garden, The Chameleons (Richy Hetherington)

I only drink when I’m drunk, BC Camplight (Graeme Myles)

Road Head, Japanese Breakfast (Doug Evans)

The Raven, Destroyer (Tim Dennis-Jones)

The Highest Flood, Forest Swords (Luke Finley)

Press Gang, TV Priest (Gerry McKiernan)

Serious, Damien Dempsey (Karen McHugh)

Love like blood, Killing Joke (Ian Brann)

The Feast, Katie Kim (Lewis Lyons)

Alone Omen 3, King Krule (David Hughes)

The Strangle of Anna, Moonlandingz (Steve Amphlett)

Roll it, Nap Eyes (Guy Haslam)

She past away, Rituel (Eric Gagnon Poulin)

She Is Mine, Psychedelic Furs (Pinko Fowler)

Fairy Tales, Stockholm Monsters (Michael Moss)

Don’t touch me there, The Tubes (Helen Cooper)

I didn’t know, Skinshape (Alex Forth)

Cliff has left the building, Insecure Men (Scott Forth)

Cover my eyes, The Little Quirks (Tamsin Forth)

I lost you but I found country music, Ballboy (Ian Moore)

Episode 99 - Happy Alternative Valentine's Day

Romantically speaking, school days are a mess. I mean, they were for me, at any rate. Perhaps others found a partner and treated them right and chastely dated between the years of 14 and 16, and now can look back with nostalgic affection at those far off days. That wasn’t me, and as far as I can remember it wasn’t anyone else I knew either.  

So Valentine’s Day for the unattached teenager takes on a nightmarish dimension, only mitigated by the convention of anonymity. I think I’m right in saying I never received one legitimate (i.e. not an obvious joke) Valentine as a teenager. And you can laugh all you like at Valentine’s Day commercialism, but it would also be nice to catch someone’s gaze.

There are Valentine’s Day movies – I expect. I haven’t seen any. But there aren’t many songs about Valentine’s Day; just a handful. Which is odd, given its subject matter. I have however tracked down a Valentine’s Day song (included on the episode) which anatomises the grisly reality of teenage Valentinedom. Well done, Pedro the Lion.

Own Valentine  

Found a new companion
But I couldn't read the signs
Carnations and chocolate
For my first real valentine

Making her feel awful
For her plan to break it off
I knew I could shield her from hard feelings
If I could abandon mine

Passed her a note in history
Through her best friend by her side
You can't help not liking me

I let her off the hook
Expertly erasing
How badly shook I was

Cause something heavy
Wouldn't let me
Be my own valentine

Always on the TV
A better way to be me
Hoping someone finally sees

Well how about that best friend
Who sees me being sweet
The scorned flowers and candy
She's delighted to redeem

While the one who loves me waits
Withering inside

Quieter than ever now
Unseen, languishing
While I chase anyone
Who even looks at me

Cause something heavy
Won't let me
Be my own valentine

Tracklist:

New rose, The Damned

Feeling called love, Wire

Happy Valentine’s Day, Outkast

My funny Valentine, Elvis Costello

Own Valentine, Pedro the Lion

Archie, marry me, Alvvays

Girl from Mars, Ash

You you you you you, The 6ths

Anyone else but you, The Moldy Peaches

Alison’s starting to happen, The Lemonheads

Something changed, Pulp

In power we trust the love advocated, Dead Can Dance

Punk rock girl, The Dead Milkmen

The last beat of my heart, Siouxsie and the Banshees

Guess how much I love you, The Lucksmiths

Passenger seat, Death Cab for Cutie

Episode 98, Remembering The Associates 25 years on

December 18th 1980.

Owen Owen department store. I was seeing out my tenure in Clocks and Watches after brief forays into Toys – a tour of duty to avoid the week before Christmas, let me tell you – a nerve-racking stint in Hardware, a subject about which I am none the wiser now than I was then, Menswear and Boyswear, my spiritual home.

Owen Owen is now, I regret to reveal, a Primark. Although it is remembered by the handful of people who have read a draft of my counterfactual novel in which the dramatic denouement takes place with the sniper aiming his sights from the fifth floor amongst the emptied blanket boxes while the motorcade rumbles into sight below.

I left Coventry station on the 6.45 and got into Euston around 8. Here I met my friend Peter who had secured tickets for a special Christmas party taking place just off Leicester Square, hosted by up-and-coming new wave outfit The Cure. I was still in my store uniform with the Lloyd’s Bank statement I’d picked up before leaving home in the inside pocket.

As per Chekhov’s gun, this is going to be relevant.

It turned out the concert really was special. We had tickets 95 and 96 and only 100 people got in. On entering Notre Dame Hall, I immediately spied the Cure’s lead singer, a Robert Smith, at the bar and made a beeline for him. We talked of this and that, and I recall him mentioning the effect Ian Curtis’s death had had on him. Or maybe I asked the question and he said yes. What else? I can’t remember. But he did sign the back of my Lloyd’s Bank statement, as did Simon Gallup.

Later The Cure played a fun set which, I think, dissolved into Christmassy hi-jinks involving roadies singing and the like. But I do recall Robert having to switch from the keyboard bit quite rapidly to the guitar during A Forest, which I found impressive. During their set John Peel stood in front of me, which was fine because he wasn’t that tall. He did the strangest dance which involved him simply rotating his head.

But before that I was delighted to discover The Associates were one of the supports. I had discovered The Affectionate Punch in the Herbert Art Gallery record lending section and did not hesitate to take it out, based on a very favourable review by Paul Morley in the NME.

I was impressed. The TDK C90 tape I made of it went straight into regular play alongside Seventeen Seconds, Entertainment! and Metal Box. (You couldn’t buy all the albums you wanted; not on my Owen Owen wages.) Whomsoever was in charge of commissions in the library profoundly affected my musical tastes at that time and for ever after.

Of The Associates I remember little specific. Billy McKenzie was centre of attention and I think Paul Dempsey played bass for both them and The Cure that night, though I may be misremembering. Billy’s voice went through its multi-octave pyrotechnics, but there were only a couple of tracks from the only album I knew. Already the world was moving on.

When I got to university the following year I was having coffee with a fellow student of achingly alternative musical tastes. He nearly spat his coffee out when he saw I had The Wall and Tapestry on tape – this was a guy who’d sent off for Joy Division’s fabled Dead Souls/Atmosphere 7 inch and received a copy. The only time I impressed him was when I revealed I’d seen The Associates. I have to say though that two years later he was wearing espadrilles and had abandoned post-punk altogether so our friendship didn’t last.

Anyway, The Associates. They were the future before their time.

Tracklist:

Logan time, The Associates

Deus, The Sugarcubes

Amused as always, The Associates

My finest hour, The Sundays

Q Quarters, The Associates

Crown of love, Arcade Fire

The affectionate punch, The Associates

You’re dreaming, Wolf Parade

Paper house, The Associates

A lady of a certain age, The Divine Comedy

Party fears two, The Associates

Episode 97, Guest Host Terry Edwards

Whilst chatting to Pinko Fowler last year, he recommended I interview Terry Edwards. I’m very glad he did. Terry gained a degree in music from the University of East Anglia in 1982, where he was also in The Higsons, named after lead singer and eventual Fast Show comedian Charlie Higson, a band of which I harbour fond memories from Peel shows of the time - as it turns out so did Robin Hitchcock who wrote a song about the experience, featured in the show. Terry’s had his own bands, The Near Jazz Experience with Woody from Madness, and the underrated Gallon Drunk, as well as being an integral member in the bands of Jerry Dammers, PJ Harvey and Glen Matlock.

What I had not anticipated was the vast number of collaborations Terry has undertaken as a session musician. Who’s Terry appeared with, you ask. Here’s just a few. Madness, Tindersticks (with whom he’s intending to tour in 2022), Spiritualized, Siouxsie, The Creatures, Nick Cave, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Department S, Lydia Lunch, Faust, Tom Waits, The Blockheads, Hot Chip, Lydia Lunch and, indeed, the aforementioned Robin Hitchcock. More recently Terry’s performed with the David Bowie supergroup, Holy Holy with Tony Visconti, Woody Woodmansey and Glenn Gregory of Heaven 17.

Our chat showed Terry’s enthusiasm for music to be undimmed since his days scouring record stores and weighing up whether he could afford the extra 20p for a John Cale album. He’s a much sought-after multi-instrumentalist with hugely eclectic tastes, and while many of the groups here fit our pod vibe, there’s a couple of more off-centre choices as well, such as jazzman Earl Bostic and finally, after 97 episodes, an appearance for a member of The Beatles.

I think you’ll enjoy the show.

Tracklist:

Flamingo, Earl Bostic

Heartbreak hotel, John Cale

Voodoo child, The Near Jazz Experience

Conspiracy, The Higsons

Listening to The Higsons, Robyn Hitchcock

Give me love (give me peace on earth), George Harrison

I love rock and roll, Jesus And Mary Chain

Walking Spanish, Tom Waits

What I like most about you is your girlfriend, The Special AKA

Wild America, Iggy Pop

Episode 96 - The Festive Forthy 2021, Pt 3: 13-1

So here we are at the end of another strange year where I have to say that music has never been better. Technically that is always the case. Unless there was literally nothing you liked listening to, just place this year’s releases on top of all the previous years, and hey presto, the best year ever.

I felt in 2021 that although there was no obvious winner – which is to take nothing away from English Teacher’s excellent number 1 – there was more I liked listening to from a greater range of artists. The artists in this episode are pleasingly widespread as well. Virginia, Connecticut, Brisbane, Montreal, Cork City, Essex, Leeds (twice!), Cambridge, North and South London and Newcastle are represented here. Japan and South Korea are source material in the previous two episodes.

It seems that the canonical genres are also disintegrating. I’ll take two examples. Madlib are described as hip-hop / instrumental / soul / jazz fusion / funk / electronic / psychedelic. Matty Pywell of GigWise’s description of Sorry could equally stand for many of the other artists here: "Listening to Sorry's discography is to hear a safari of different sounds, as eye catching as the next. One area might contain the grumbled discontent of punk and rock, whilst if you look close enough you can catch a flash of hip-hop and jazz. Grouping them into a single genre is a fool's errand".

People often ask what my plans for expansion are, and how am I going to make money out of this podcast. I’m not particularly interested in either. It would be nice if we spread the net a little wider each year, of course. But we’ve created a community now. And the plan was never to make money. If I’d wanted to do that I’d have invented a machine that allows you to look inside other people’s heads and finds out what they’re thinking. On second thoughts, if you have just perfected that machine, keep it to yourself. It’ll only cause trouble.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to all our listeners.

Tracklist:

Porcelain slightly, Lil Ugly Mane

Did my best, Xenia Rubinos

In the Stone, The Goon Sax

Moment feed, Land of Talk

You are wrong, The Altered Hours

Send me, Tirzah

Land of the blind, Yard Act

Instrumental, Black Country New Road

Cigarette packet, Sorry

Strong feelings, Dry Cleaning

Anything at all, Bachelor

Lily, Richard Dawson with Circle

R&B, English Teacher

Episode 95 - The Festive Forthy 2021, Pt 2: 26-14

It’s Antigone. 

It’s Mallrats.

It’s Gormenghast.

 It’s Dawn of the Dead.

 It’s The Eye in the Door.

 It’s For a Few Dollars More.

 It’s No Longer At Ease.

 It’s The Libation Bearers.

 It’s Judgement Day.

 It’s Bring Up the Bodies.

 It’s Oldboy.

 It’s The Empire Strikes Back.

 It’s The Two Towers.

 It’s Aliens.

 It’s The Year of the Flood.

 It’s Three Colours White.

 It’s The Subtle Knife.

 It’s The Matrix Reloaded.

It’s Ghosts. 

The second part of trilogies are perhaps the most forgotten. People remember beginnings and endings. But Sophocles’ ‘Antigone’ is the best of the Oedipus trilogy, for me. Ditto ‘For A Few Dollars More’.

 In this episode some old friends re-emerge to say g’day. Why, there’s grumpy old misanthrope Luke Haines, still with us, and now he’s imagining what it’s like to be a Stasi spy relocated to the west. After 25 years, Mogwai have had a number one album. Husband and wife team Low have produced their most intriguing album ever.

And while few would accord such an accolade to Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s ‘Barn’, it has its place. In recent weeks Guy Haslam has reminded me of his love for Neil, while Doug Evans has done the same for Bob Dylan. I feel the same about Mark E Smith. We need to cherish them while they’re still around.

But plenty of brand new stuff, as ever. All now, all great.

Tracklist:-

 John L, Black Midi 

Chaise longue, Wet Leg

Waiting in line, Kiwi Jr

Simple stuff, Loraine James 

Ritchie Sacramento, Mogwai 

Ambrosia, Rosie Tucker 

Sunshowers, Yasmin Williams 

Beautiful world, Parannoul 

A woman, Qlowski 

They might be lost, Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Ex Stasi spy, Luke Haines 

Thumbs, Lucy Dacus 

White Horses, Low

Episode 94 - The Festive Forthy 2021, Pt 1: 40-27

The more you listen to music, the more you realise that this is as good an era for it as any.

During lockdown, without a great deal of work on my plate and with a podcast to provide content for, I’ve probably listened to more contemporary material than at any other time since my late night John Peel regime during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. 

Those years yielded a magnificent smorgasbord of post-punk gems, many of which are still instantly recognisable and have provided the canon against which the remainder of our listening life has been judged. Plenty of post-punk is to be found in the Sombrero Fallout Forty for 2021: in this opening episode Du Blonde, Goat Girl, Parquet Courts, NOV3L, Pynch and Anorak Patch deliver in spades.

But these days there’s a whole lot more happening.

The major development for SF during 2021 has been the introduction of the occasional interviewed episode. One such guest was my old friend, flatmate and fellow band member Rajan Datar, now something important at the BBC. Remarkably his band Maroon Town are not only still going but still going strong and their single Bullitt is in with a bullet at number 39.

Elsewhere Madlib reimagine Young Marble Giants with the help of folktronica guru Kieran Hebden of Four Tet; Juliana Hatfield reprises early ‘90s lo-fi; Let’s Eat Grandma create their own genre of soi-disant sludge pop; Lael Kneale updates country; Newdad do Irish shimmery shoegaze; Nana Yamoto channels kitschy daydream pop; while Arooj Aftab pulls off the biggest genre mash-up of all with her blend of jazzy minimalist neo-Sufi, tinged with reggae.

What will the next two shows have in store?

Tracklist:

I’m glad that we broke up, Du Blonde, Ezra Furman

Bullitt, Maroon Town

The crack, Goat Girl

Walking at a downtown pace, Parquet Courts

Dirtknock, Madlib

Mouthful of blood, Juliana Hatfield

Last night, Arooj Aftab

Group disease, NOV3L

Do you wanna, Nana Yamato

Karaoke, Pynch

Hall of mirrors, Let’s Eat Grandma

Blue vein, Lael Kneale

I don’t recognise you, Newdad

Irate, Anorak Patch

Episode 93 - Australian Post-Punk Today

What even is post-punk?

Post-punk was once a thing we could all get behind in 1978 (those of us who were there then). It was the bits that were left over once punk had had its say and shuffled off. Well, not quite shuffled off entirely. There were some tired originalists recycling the same 3 chords left over; a radical left starting to use punk as a tool to express anarchist sentiments; and a (mostly US) cohort starting the process of converting punk into the hardcore strand of the early ‘80s.

The tribe who evolved out of punk though were a similarly motley crew, who themselves started fissiparating into a further kaleidoscope of factions. This was based on the fact they all had different record collections, frequently within the same group.

This tendency didn’t last as long as many of us would have liked, and was replaced by the New Romantics en bloc some time in late 1981.

Post-punk then disappeared underground for the best part of twenty years before re-emerging like a river which has been bricked over in New York at the turn of the century and hanging around for rather longer this time.

Now it seems to have come back to stay. The remaining problem is, then, as stated at the top – what is post-punk? Like postmodernism it’s turned into anything you want it to be, more or less. So in compiling this episode I’ve taken the view that this is the music I would have been pleased to hear on the John Peel Show in 1978 or 1979. And, I genuinely think none of it would have been out of place.

Refreshing in this episode is the unique Australian interpretation of post-punk. Hybridisation was always a core element of what kept post-punk fresh: a good example is the song Country by Good Morning which takes the Go-Betweens heritage and crafts it onto an endlessly repeating chord sequence in the approved repetition, repetition, repetition style. We get a lot of post-punk-on-post-punk now: in this episode the echoes of the Banshees and the Human League, the DIY ethic of 1978 and the Dunedin Sound of the early ‘80s.

And while we’re foregathered, let’s hear it for the debut on any broadcast medium (as far as I know) of the legendary Underwater Jesus. If you weren’t there when they were at their peak at the Espy in St Kilda ten years ago, you’ll have to settle for this document. Don’t bother looking on Spotify, they’re above such nonsense.

I am indebted to a conversation and a playlist provided by David Pisker from which I curated this list. If anyone knows this scene, David does.

Tracklist:

Fem chem, Nice Biscuit

The land of the fire, Power Supply

Low desk : high shelf, The Green Child

Nets, Sachet

Into the void, Buzz Kull

Far from ideal, Divide and Dissolve, feat Chelsea Wolfe

Country, Good Morning

Taken away, Underwater Jesus

Eternally, Mere Women

Double negative, Love of Diagrams

Keep on, Loose Tooth

Back to you, Twerps

Best and fairest, Primo!

Floored, Delivery

Episode 92 - MBV's Loveless 30 Years On

Listening in to the music scene of the mid ‘80s was not always a very happy experience. What we had in the charts was: 

-       Former post-punkers who’d sold out (if they’d ever really sold in), e.g. Feargal Sharkey, Annie Lennox, Sting

-       Cul-de-sacs, e.g. Harold Faltmeyer, Paul Hardcastle

-       Ageing Stalwarts: Phil Collins, Mick Hucknall, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, etc etc

-       Female songstresses, Elaine Page, Jennifer Rush, Whitney Houston …

-       Madonna and Prince in their prime

At the margins, things weren’t that interesting. Public Enemy were emerging, sure. The Smiths, REM, The Fall, New Order, the Bunnymen, the Jesus and Mary Chain and The Go-Betweens were on top. C86 created what we now know as indie.

But what is this shy species over here? Like the proto-humans on the African plain, scavenging for the marrow of dead wildebeest after the apex carnivores had had their fill, one band, barely noticed at first, was emerging blinking into the noonday mid-decade sunshine with a generic sound and little to distinguish them.

My Bloody Valentine.

But you never can tell.

Just as no one could have seen the journey from Warsaw to Atmosphere and from Atmosphere to Blue Monday, nor was anyone quite ready for You Made Me Realise and Feed Me With Your Kiss in 1988. Then the game changing album, Isn’t Anything. And then in 1991, 19 studios, 47 engineers and one bankrupt record label later … 

Loveless.

It is, when all’s said and done, just an album. And yet. The last track on this show is from Alvvays in 2017 and sure ‘nough (‘n’ yes I do), there’s that signature Loveless sound. The soaring blur, the wall of attrition, the delicate vocals. It’s the blueprint (and like all blueprints not all the facsimiles have helped further the cause).

I’ve chosen here a few which I think are fine in their own right. Robust children of the Loveless mother or, like say, Mogwai and the Boo Radleys, imprinting their own stamp on proceedings. Enjoy the experience of lullabies over jet planes.

Tracklist:

Only shallow, My Bloody Valentine

Winona, Drop Nineteens

Lazarus, The Boo Radleys

Alison, Slowdive

Sometimes, My Bloody Valentine

Crasher, Astrobite

Glasgow Mega-Snake, Mogwai

Last rites, Swervedriver

When you sleep, My Bloody Valentine

Stare at the sun, Ringo Deathstarr

Blaster, Pinkshinyultrablast

In undertow, Alvvays

Blown a wish, My Bloody Valentine

Episode 91 - Berlin

I’m not sure how much I’ve got to say about Berlin. For one thing, I’ve never been and now it may be too late. I mean, it’s not going anywhere but then again neither am I.

What comes to mind when I think of Berlin?

I remember being very confused about how the Berlin Wall worked. If Berlin was on the East-West border, why weren’t there walls in all the other cities on the border? I’m pretty sure there weren’t.

Why was there a Berlin Wall in the first place – there and only there? I’ve read about it since and I’m not sure I totally get it. When you build a wall it usually has to go on and on and on. Like the Great Wall of China or Hadrian’s Wall. Why didn’t people just go round the side? In fact the Germans ought to be aware of this precedent, as that’s exactly how they dealt with the Maginot Line.

The thing I love best about Berlin is in fact not the clubs, although we’ve got two great club tracks – Peggy Gou’s ‘It Makes You Forget’ and Thieves Like us’ ‘Drugs In My Body’. I really love these tracks, although the thought of being an anonymous member dancing in a massive Berlin night club does somewhat fill me with dread. Maybe if I could cycle home, it wouldn’t be so bad. I always get anxious about how to get home.

No, the thing I love best is The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John le Carre. My days, that’s one of my favourite books and no argument. So well written, so cleverly constructed, with embittered, morally compromised characters for whom there are only least bad options. I couldn’t recommend it more strongly if I tried.

This episode is notable for almost (but not quite all) new artists. How long can I keep this up? I don’t know really. For a while yet, anyway. It’s hugely enjoyable, and thanks once more to my amazing Friends of Sombrero Fallout community for keeping my spirits up. Or until I get taken down, like an unsuspecting eland at a waterhole.

Tracklist:

Berlin, Lou Reed

17 Berlin, My Favorite

I’m leaving Berlin, Teenage Waitress

Prenzlauerberg, Beirut

Berlin, Stanley Brinks and the Wave Pictures

Berlin got blurry, Parquet Courts

Berlin, Adult Mom

It makes you forget, Peggy Gou

Drugs in my body, Thieves Like Us

Berlin Hi-Fi, Botanica

Berlin without return …, Voxtrot

Road movie to Berlin, They Might Be Giants

Rock music, Pixies

SOSOS, Ling Tosite Sigure

Train, Paul Kalkbrenner

Burning, The Whitest Boy Alive