Synthesiser Patel

My hero!



Buy 'Look Around You'

Could be worse

Linking to five-year-old pop videos as if they were brand new; it's what I do best. In fairness, though, I've only just discovered this song this week and cannae get enough of it.

(Don't try this at home, kids)



Steso Songs - The Worse mp3

Capricornia

It's the new single from Allo Darlin'!

Allo Darlin' - Capricornia

First heard this last night on Gideon Coe's 6 Music show and didn't immediately place it as being an Allo Darlin' song, despite the fact that we go back years. But you know those rare occasions when something jumps out of the radio at you (not literally) the moment you hear it? That's exactly what happened to me with this song. And you can imagine what a pranny I felt at the end when Gideon revealed who it was by. (Also quite relieved to know that my critical faculties were still intact.)

It's the debut single from Allo Darlin's forthcoming, second album Europe, which, rather than being a musical tribute to Joey Tempest and his hard-rocking Swedish pals from the 1980s, is actually, as Elizabeth herself puts it, pitched "Somewhere between A New England by Kirsty MacColl and Cattle and Cane by The Go-Betweens. I think this song [Capricornia] is the closest to that.”

The album's not due till the spring but what a great start to the year this song is!

Song of the Day

There can't be many songs that would leave you feeling joyful, sad and nostalgic all at once. But the Divine Comedy's At The Indie Disco is definitely one of them, if you happen to be of a certain generation and disposition. Simply devastating.

Join in, swing your pants

The Monkees go A Cappella - with highly impressive results. Merry Christmas, pop chums!




Riu riu chiu, la guarda ribera;
Dios guardo el lobo de nuestra cordera,
Dios guardo el lobo de neustra cordera.

Riu riu chiu, la guarda ribera;
Dios guardo el lobo de nuestra cordera,
Dios guardo el lobo de neustra cordera.

El lobo rabioso la quiso morder,
Mas Dios poderoso la supo defender;
Quisola hazer que no pudiese pecar,
Ni aun original esta Virgen no tuviera.

Riu riu chiu, la guarda ribera;
Dios guardo el lobo de nuestra cordera,
Dios guardo el lobo de neustra cordera.

Riu riu chiu, la guarda ribera;
Dios guardo el lobo de nuestra cordera,
Dios guardo el lobo de neustra cordera.


Este qu'es nacido es el gran monarca,
Christo patriarca de carne vestido;
Hemos redemido con se hazer chiquito,
Aunqu'era infinito, finito se hiziera.

Riu riu chiu, la guarda ribera;
Dios guardo el lobo de nuestra cordera,
Dios guardo el lobo de neustra cordera.

Riu riu chiu, la guarda ribera;
Dios guardo el lobo de nuestra cordera,
Dios guardo el lobo de neustra cordera.

Pop Quiz, hot shots

Just in case you were in any doubt as to the the sheer wondrousness of the internet age, I give you, in its entirety, the Christmas Eve 1984 edition of Mike Read's Pop Quiz!

The Christmas Alternative (Spotify Playlist #10)

Chriiiistmas time, mistletoe and wiii- not on my watch! Have a good one!

Glam Chops - Born In The USA

Typically, I'm about three years late with this, but what a brilliant version!



Eddie Argos it

It's Wright but it's not good

We're very quick as a nation nowadays to become outraged by the latest insensitive or deliberately provocative comments from high-profile celebrities, gathering in our thousands on Twitter or newspaper websites' comments sections to register our displeasure and to demand a public apology and/or the culprit's immediate resignation or sacking. I can't usually get too worked up about this sort of thing as, well, I have a pretty inappropriate (or just plain puerile) sense of humour myself. Life's too short, and all that.

But this week there has been one instance of such ill-judged behaviour that has genuinely annoyed and, dare I say it, outraged me. It came courtesy of Channel 5 presenter Matthew Wright on his daytime magazine programme The Wright Stuff. During a review of the morning's newspapers, one of his guests pointed out an article about the murder last week of 16-year Liam Aitchison on the Isle of Lewis, the first such case in the area for some 40 years. Wright's reaction was to yell "There's been a mur-der!" in an ersatz Taggart-style comedy Scottish accent, before repeating himself and laughing heartily at the brilliance of his wit.

Now, quite understandably on this occasion, this provoked an outraged response from viewers of the programme - including Liam Aitchison's distraught father - and hundreds of complaints to the regulator; and this in turn led to Wright issuing a grudging, cursory, passive-aggressive half-apology on the following morning's programme. But he couldn't resist getting an Alan Partridge-esque hubristic dig in immediately afterwards, telling those who'd organised campaigns to report him to Ofcom to "Grow up, folks". Oh, the irony.

Weally wockin'

Right then, it's, what, December 7th, so I think I'm just about OK to start with the Christmas stuff. And what better way to begin than with Rock 'n' Roll Santa, a spot of inspired lunacy from Jan Terri. Yo La Tengo covered this song but I'd never have heard either version had it not been for resident Christmas songs guru Spike, so ultimately she's responsible! (I suspect this'll be a song that you'll either love or hate. Me, I love it!)



Jan Terri - Rock 'n' Roll Santa mp3

Goodnight Australia

November 23rd was a sad day for fans of light-hearted Antipodean TV music quiz shows as it saw the final edition of the Adam Hills-hosted Spicks & Specks, after seven years and 266 episodes. If you've never seen it, Spicks & Specks was basically Never Mind The Buzzcocks without the malice or a penchant for humiliating blameless members of the public. (Please tell me Buzzcocks doesn't still do that godawful identity parade.)

Anyway, here is the star-studded* final episode of Spicks & Specks in all its glory. (*Don't worry if you're from outside Australia and don't recognise many of the faces, as you'll enjoy the show regardless.)

Oh Brother

You may recall I linked to the worst, most-punchable Christmas advert in history the other month; well, quite by chance, whilst watching an episode of Homes Under The Hammer earlier (don't ask), I heard something that sounded ominously familiar; someone from days of yore singing about "My Brother" to the exact same tune as the punchable Littlewoods Christmas ad music!

Further investigation revealed My Brother to have been a novelty hit in the 1950s for Terry "and June" Scott, which, in time-honoured style, has ended up being appropriated (albeit half a century later) and bastardised by a bunch of advertising slags in order to attract the custom of the aspirational, avaricious masses. Yeah, thanks a million for that, you utter sods.

Anyway, here's Terry's whimsical, not at all punchworthy version of The Song That Littlewoods Killed. The next time you see that godforsaken advert on the TV, try to remember the song this way.



Bizarrely, I also caught a snippet of Anna Ternheim's What Have I Done during that episode of Homes Under The Hammer. Whoever's picking the incidental music for that programme has really upped their game.

Song of the Day

Just in case you were in any doubt that I'm a big softie.



Lavender Diamond - Open Your Heart mp3

UK Top 40 Singles 5th January 1980 (Spotify playlist #9)

This week's playlist sees us travelling all the way back to the first chart of the 1980s - or, if you're being finicky, the final chart of the 1970s; it's for the week ending 5th January 1980 anyway, so would actually have first appeared on 29th December 1979. Hang on, I'll start again...

This week's playlist sees us travelling all the way back to the final chart of the 1970s. And what a week it was! But don't just take my word for it - cop a load of these.

(as ever, click on the link below to listen)

40 The Nolans - I'm In The Mood For Dancing
39 Booker T & The MG's - Green Onions
38 Diana Ross - It's My House
36 Boney M - I'm Born Again
35 Lena Martell - One Day At A Time
34 M - Moonlight And Muzak
33 Sheila & B. Devotion - Spacer
32 Queen - Crazy Little Thing Called Love
31 Dr Hook - When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman
30 Kurtis Blow - Christmas Rappin'
29 The Clash - London Calling
26 E.L.O. - Last Train To London (Double A-side with 'Confusion')
25 Matchbox - Rockabilly Rebel
24 Billy Preston & Syreeta - With You I'm Born Again
23 Skids - Working For The Yankee Dollar
22 Madness - One Step Beyond
21 Chic - My Feet Keep Dancing
20 KC & The Sunshine Band - Please Don't Go
19 Moody Blues - Nights In White Satin
18 Status Quo - Living On An Island
17 The Beat - Tears Of A Clown (Double A-side with 'Ranking Full Stop')
16 Blondie - Union City Blue
15 Rose Royce - Is It Love You're After
14 Donna Summer & Barbra Streisand - No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)
13 Elvis Presley - It Won't Seem Like Christmas (Without You)
12 David Bowie - John, I'm Only Dancing (Again)
11 Michael Jackson - Off The Wall
10 The Three Degrees - My Simple Heart
9 Gibson Brothers - Que Sera Mi Vida
8 The Police - Walking On The Moon
7 Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight
5 The Pretenders - Brass In Pocket
4 The Tourists - I Only Wanna Be With You
2 ABBA - I Have A Dream

Listen here



The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that there are a handful of numbers missing from the list (including the number 1); this is entirely down to their lack of availability on Spotify, rather than any unilateral pruning on my part.

But, to fill in the blanks, below are archive performances of the missing songs. As with some of the tracks on the actual playlist, you might not thank me for them, but here they are all the same!

37 The Ramblers - The Sparrow



28 The Greedies - A Merry Jingle



27 Mike Oldfield - Blue Peter



6 Paul McCartney - Wonderful Christmas Time



3 Fiddler's Dram - Day Trip To Bangor



1 Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall



That's all for now, but don't forget to join Tommy Vance same time, same place next week. (That's except for viewers in 2011.)

Song of the Day

Annika Norlin covers fellow Swedes the Deportees' song The Doctor In Me. Nice.

Search me

Long-term readers of this blog will remember a series we ran a few years ago entitled Search Us, in which I'd catalogue some of the more unlikley and outlandish internet searches that somehow ended up landing the unwitting Googler (other search engines are available, albeit no one uses any of them) here.

These searches ranged from the pornographic (Keeley Hawes nude) to the pornographic and disturbing (Watch Paul Jewell Derby porn); from the curious (Is Wincey Willis dead?) to the speculative (Norwegian band's name, I remember the lead singer looked like Ole Gunnar Solskjaer); from the ones that answered their own questions (How do you spell Mezzoforte the jazz band who did garden party?) to the ones who simply couldn't recall Chris Moyles's actual name (bumptious tosser).

There was more porn (Keeley Hawes naked), nonsense (manager of newcastle bill chumbawamba), plain speaking (I don't like pie that much), and a whole slew of enquiries about University Challenge know-all and reluctant overnight sensation Gail Trimble (gail trimbles tits / gail trimble wears glasses / gail trimble dull).



But the two subjects that generated by far the most search traffic (still do) were/are Keeley Hawes (Keeley Hawes knockers remains a personal favourite. Someone - possibly a 1970s sitcom actor - clearly thought outside the box a bit with that one) and, for want of a better word, smut. Oh, and some of the plethora of apple pie-related searches would make yer eyes water! (All I'll say is, there seem to be an alarming number of people with apple pie fixations out there.)

The Search Us posts came to an abrupt halt (or more truthfully, fizzled out) in the summer of 2009 due to a combination of a lack of new and original searches coming in to the blog and a tad of laziness on my part. But due to non-existent public demand, I'm aiming to revive the series - just as soon as I've got enough new material to work with!

With this in mind, and to hopefully induce some more preposterous Googling from the denizens of the interweb, I shall now post a stream-of-consciousness load of random old crap to hopefully hurry things along re the aforementioned aim.

Cesar Romero, Soda Stream, Wimpole, cassocks, Breville sandwich toaster, Doris Schwartz, Steve Heighway, Harry Secombe's Highway, Vince Hilaire, Umberto Eco's giant space hopper, Bella Emberg, Mike & Bernie Winters, Dame Una Nescafe, Rainbow, Black Type, Betamax, Don't you know there's a war on, I should cocoa, Pete Beale's finest fruit and veg cor blimey guv do they mean us they surely do Derek Jameson, ra-ra-ra-ra-Razzamatazz Lisa Stansfield started out on that you know, Mrs Miggins's Pie Shop, I ain't going on no plane fool, flippin' 'eck nutjob, why are you still reading this nonsense, Tucker's Luck, Metal Mickey, Rod Jane & Freddy GCE CSE GCSE TSB Midlank Bank Young Savers cheque book a free pen to every new customer they don't like it up 'em Captain Mainwaring didn't they do well of course I remember when it were all fields round here never mind the Trossachs here's some spectacles, Bradford Park Avenue, Chris Tavare, Gladstone Small, Eddie Hemmings I don't think I actually know any celebrities post the 1980s oh Diane Louise Jordan she's one, this should get the numbers up, maybe if I'd said someone famous and modern that might have helped as well, anyway move along now nothing to see here, hope you like the mp3, it's a good 'un.

Zapp - It Doesn't Really Matter (Extended Version) mp3