1. Elected - Alice Cooper.
I used to work with a fifty year old Alice Cooper fan who apropos of nothing used to solemnly deliver the line "you and me together, young and strong" on tired Tuesdays afternoons in the office. Jim Smith looked like John Virgo and John Peel, a whole lotta Johns. He kept a picture of himself as he was when he started in the office in 1969. Hair down to HERE. I love the horns on this track.
2. Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles
I remember the incalculable thrill of first owning a bootleg of the sessions for this. After all their group and individual acid-drenched adventures in the staggering pop year of 1966 the boys get down to business at Abbey Road around the time Malcolm Campbell crashes Bluebird on Coniston Water and a baby Royster has his first verifiable memory (taking the top of his right middle finger in a swing door while waving at my family, Peacock Hotel, Newhaven, Christmas Day 1966. It grew back). I have this recurring image when listening to certain recordings of young men in groovy clothes making dusty old electrics work for them and for all time in old-fashioned studios, or sitting at pianos almost privately singing and playing their souls out after the screamfest, boozefest, pillsfest of their pop bacchanalia. I get that feeling from Eight Line Poem off Hunky Dory. I always see Bowie playing the Haddon Hall piano as he sits by a window, glass black with night on the English countryside, frame repainted white. Both elements matching the keys of the piano.
3. Drop Out - Pearls Before Swine.
It has long been my intention to cover this song live. Or cover it in even more thrift shop incense than it already possesses. It sort of swells up in a utilitarian way chordwise that's much more electrified folk process than Beatles or the Brill.
4.Whatever Happened To Saturday Night - Buffalo Springfield
Great spoken bit at the start - "tack tack tack". Stevie turned me on to this. He once spent half an hour in my room while I went out to the shops playing Flying On The Ground Is Wrong over and over off the Retrospective lp. That's the kind of thing I like. I still think the Springfield are a kind of well-kept secret.
5. My Lady Heroine - Serge Gainsbourg
Mais oui, this is good reggae meets pre-Les Beatles twisty Bobby pop.
6. All Mod Cons - The Jam
Title track from an album I borrowed from the Baird Hall record library. Since I first dropped the needle on the groove, this has always sounded like it was recorded one late autumn teatime after the clocks changed - a very studio season and time of day I'd say, akin to 2.
7. I See You - The Byrds
Oh yeah, this was used by Costello as a template for Lipstick Vogue and by Crosby as a template for Renaissance fair and Dolphins Smile. Which are both sublime. A track with seeds a-plenty to sew. Coolly psychedelic.
8. Do Right Woman - The Flying Burrito Brothers
I always expect that this, and Aretha's dare I say it definitive version, is going to start "Take me to Harlem" rather than "Take me to heart". Whatever way it commences, this song shakes the senses.
9. The Warmth Of The Sun - The Beach Boys
Written just after JFK and Officer Tippett, baby. I could even find it in my heart to love Mike Love.
10. No Salt On Her Tail - The Mamas & The Papas
Fabulous Like A Rolling Stone organ intro and beautifully rendered backing track. Calm, calm vocals - never has a band sounded so undruggy and taken so many drugs.
11. I've Got Dreams To Remember - Otis Redding
Beautiful. Reminds me of one of my favourite soul ballads. Gotta Make A Comeback by Eddie Floyd.
12. Gates Of Eden - Bob Dylan.
Live, 1964: "This is a love song". A tremendously stark yet vivid song.
13.Hollywood Baby Too - Win.
Ah, the genius of Davy Henderson. My friend Ian on the drums. Mr Russell Burn of the wonderful Spectorbullets and Bum-Clocks. A supremely catchy and overlooked track.
14. TVC15 - David Bowie
When I was thirteen a supply music teacher took us for a single lesson. He announced he was an atheist and played us Stationtostation. Strangely enough, DB's most religious album. Not this track, though. This is the Thin White Duke looking back in a way to the Mannish Boys and spouting some nonsense about the TV eating his baby. Like all amazing albums, the throwaway tracks support and strengthen the whole. And this album only has six tracks. Bowie at this point was beyond godly.
15.Kardomah Cafe - The Cherry Boys
Lost Liverpudlian classic from around 1984.I used to listen to this beneath the bed covers on Saturday nights when Janice Long would play it. Friday night was my night out night. Saturday was recovery and music in the dark.
I used to work with a fifty year old Alice Cooper fan who apropos of nothing used to solemnly deliver the line "you and me together, young and strong" on tired Tuesdays afternoons in the office. Jim Smith looked like John Virgo and John Peel, a whole lotta Johns. He kept a picture of himself as he was when he started in the office in 1969. Hair down to HERE. I love the horns on this track.
2. Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles
I remember the incalculable thrill of first owning a bootleg of the sessions for this. After all their group and individual acid-drenched adventures in the staggering pop year of 1966 the boys get down to business at Abbey Road around the time Malcolm Campbell crashes Bluebird on Coniston Water and a baby Royster has his first verifiable memory (taking the top of his right middle finger in a swing door while waving at my family, Peacock Hotel, Newhaven, Christmas Day 1966. It grew back). I have this recurring image when listening to certain recordings of young men in groovy clothes making dusty old electrics work for them and for all time in old-fashioned studios, or sitting at pianos almost privately singing and playing their souls out after the screamfest, boozefest, pillsfest of their pop bacchanalia. I get that feeling from Eight Line Poem off Hunky Dory. I always see Bowie playing the Haddon Hall piano as he sits by a window, glass black with night on the English countryside, frame repainted white. Both elements matching the keys of the piano.
3. Drop Out - Pearls Before Swine.
It has long been my intention to cover this song live. Or cover it in even more thrift shop incense than it already possesses. It sort of swells up in a utilitarian way chordwise that's much more electrified folk process than Beatles or the Brill.
4.Whatever Happened To Saturday Night - Buffalo Springfield
Great spoken bit at the start - "tack tack tack". Stevie turned me on to this. He once spent half an hour in my room while I went out to the shops playing Flying On The Ground Is Wrong over and over off the Retrospective lp. That's the kind of thing I like. I still think the Springfield are a kind of well-kept secret.
5. My Lady Heroine - Serge Gainsbourg
Mais oui, this is good reggae meets pre-Les Beatles twisty Bobby pop.
6. All Mod Cons - The Jam
Title track from an album I borrowed from the Baird Hall record library. Since I first dropped the needle on the groove, this has always sounded like it was recorded one late autumn teatime after the clocks changed - a very studio season and time of day I'd say, akin to 2.
7. I See You - The Byrds
Oh yeah, this was used by Costello as a template for Lipstick Vogue and by Crosby as a template for Renaissance fair and Dolphins Smile. Which are both sublime. A track with seeds a-plenty to sew. Coolly psychedelic.
8. Do Right Woman - The Flying Burrito Brothers
I always expect that this, and Aretha's dare I say it definitive version, is going to start "Take me to Harlem" rather than "Take me to heart". Whatever way it commences, this song shakes the senses.
9. The Warmth Of The Sun - The Beach Boys
Written just after JFK and Officer Tippett, baby. I could even find it in my heart to love Mike Love.
10. No Salt On Her Tail - The Mamas & The Papas
Fabulous Like A Rolling Stone organ intro and beautifully rendered backing track. Calm, calm vocals - never has a band sounded so undruggy and taken so many drugs.
11. I've Got Dreams To Remember - Otis Redding
Beautiful. Reminds me of one of my favourite soul ballads. Gotta Make A Comeback by Eddie Floyd.
12. Gates Of Eden - Bob Dylan.
Live, 1964: "This is a love song". A tremendously stark yet vivid song.
13.Hollywood Baby Too - Win.
Ah, the genius of Davy Henderson. My friend Ian on the drums. Mr Russell Burn of the wonderful Spectorbullets and Bum-Clocks. A supremely catchy and overlooked track.
14. TVC15 - David Bowie
When I was thirteen a supply music teacher took us for a single lesson. He announced he was an atheist and played us Stationtostation. Strangely enough, DB's most religious album. Not this track, though. This is the Thin White Duke looking back in a way to the Mannish Boys and spouting some nonsense about the TV eating his baby. Like all amazing albums, the throwaway tracks support and strengthen the whole. And this album only has six tracks. Bowie at this point was beyond godly.
15.Kardomah Cafe - The Cherry Boys
Lost Liverpudlian classic from around 1984.I used to listen to this beneath the bed covers on Saturday nights when Janice Long would play it. Friday night was my night out night. Saturday was recovery and music in the dark.
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