
Come down
Your tea's on the table
Nothing
Seems to matter anymore
And if you're good we'll go out on Sunday
Spend the whole day thinking of you
Take you sailing across the water
To a faraway place
Remember
When life was lovely
Forever
Was captured in your smile
When we were young and life was hopeful
No-one threatened our existence
We were laughing
They couldn't stop us
No-one in the world
The Jam - 'No-One In The World' (demo) (1980)
Sunday, May 25, 2008
50
Friday, May 23, 2008
Meanwhile...Holiday!
Gilberto Gil - 'O Eterno Deus Mu Danca' (1989)
Too Hip For Eurovision
OK, so here it is and you have just over 36 hours to grow to love it and tell all your friends to vote, vote, vote for it, though I reckon you'll only need 3 minutes, such is its electropop Beach Boys loveliness.
For me, it really does join the mere handful of half-decent pop songs ever entered for the annual fete de fromage.
Sebastien Tellier - 'Divine' (2008)
Though I have fond memories of this and Auntie Barbara liking it, it's pretty cringeworthy now...
...and I still remember this despite myself (45p from Ronnie's in Torquay Market, but isn't Lynsey De Paul a proto Kate Bush here??...And check out Ronnie 'Steed' Hazlehurst!)...
....and I really only like 'Waterloo' so much because of this ('you're terrible Muriel')...
...you all know by now that it's Vicky that does it for me every time and damn it, but I'm going to re-post her.
Vicky Leandros - 'Apres Toi' (1972)
Meanwhile, with the weather outside set to be traditionally UK Bank Holiday-esque this weekend (i.e. it will piss down), I shall be pouring a defiant rosado, spinning this solid gold nu-Balearic classic and transporting myself back to Cafe Mambo in 2005, sand in my toes, salt in the air and hope in my heart.
Douze points!
Sebastien Tellier - 'La Ritournelle' (2005)
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Derek Runs The Numbers
That nice chap Derek from the Computer Room (pictured here with the lovely Maureen from Personnel) has been crunching my stats all week and I'm thrilled to report that according to his very impressive 'print-outs' The View From Her Room by Weekend has been by far the most downloaded record I have posted recently, which just goes to show 1) what great taste you all have (hurrah!) and 2) how infernally difficult it is to get hold of. Probably.
Friday, May 16, 2008
TSOP
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
1-2-3-4
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Ah, por que estou tão sozinho?
Strangely we seem to be at a Christmas ski-lodge swimsuit party in this clip, but hey! nothing can stop me wanting to play this loveliest, oldest and famousest Brazilian pop song (written by the great Antonio Carlos Jobim) in my current mood.
You know, it really doesn't matter how many cheesy marimba/rubbishy Hammond, easy-listening, shopping mall muzak or elevator chop-up versions of this I hear, I will always love that interplay of Joao, Astrud and Stan on the definitive recording.
Yet maybe you are beginning to tire of even that loveliness through over-familiarity; and if so, may I offer the original cast's 1964 'in concert' take from Carnegie Hall as a way of helping you hear it all afresh (again)?
From the way Getz holds back on his entrance (fnaar) to allow for Astrud's applause then turns it into a new little riff, through the slightly off timing and duff vocal mic'ing in parts (louder with Astrud's second verse than her first) it all speaks rough and live, and of course it's those little imperfections that make me love it even more. *sigh*
Stan Getz (with Joao & Astrud Gilberto) - 'The Girl From Ipanema' (live at Carnegie Hall) (1964)
Friday, May 09, 2008
Rosado Time

It's rosado time in London, England - the sun is bright and the temperature's high.
Continuing our Brazilian theme, here are some Latin-inflected Housey bar tunes in a handy takeaway threepack, just for you.
Be gentle with me pro-mixers, it's my first time.
Davy H's Latin House Threepack (Just For You) (mp3)
Ingredients
S.Tone Inc - 'Saudade' (1999)
Ian Pooley (featuring Rosanna & Zelia) - 'Coracao Tambor' (2000)
Can 7 - 'Cruisin' (2000)
Isto e um repost
Mondo's been airing his Brazilian Wax and now everyone wants a go. I'd missed the last shards of direct sunlight last night by the time I'd got barefoot in the garden and poured the rosado but with the air warm I could still open all the windows and shove this on the stereo nice and loud. So I did.
It's my second ever re-post here, but it's a so this time of year and type of weather record and it also seems kind of apt in this funny week in our corner of the interweb when so many companeros have been busy or away and balls of tumbleweed have blown through many a blog.
If it has been a hard day's night give thanks my friends, for the short week is done and your Friday is already here, amen.
Joyce (& Banda Maluca) - 'A Hard Day's Night' (2003)
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
One Of Those Days In England...
...we've been saving up to spend.
Roy Harper - 'One Of Those Days In England (Part One)' (1977)
Backing vocals - Paul & Linda McCartney.
Picture - me, today, Barnes Common x
Friday, May 02, 2008
Hello Sandie
Thursday, May 01, 2008
If Johnson Wins Today, Will The Last Person To Leave London Please Turn Off The Lights?
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Is This Any Good?
Well hey, they were giving away Johnson's Smooth Orange Juice at Waterloo Station this morning too.
Coldplay - 'Violet Hill' (2008)
Monday, April 28, 2008
He Say Yes!
"We were wondering if you'd write the sleevenotes for our next single. We know you don't like us but you'll think of something to say..."
OK, here goes: of all the bands ever called after fictional citrus-fruit buyers, The Man From Delmonte are among the best! Easily.
They are also, incidentally, engagingly eccentric, humane, charming, and brave. Yes, brave! This group has summoned the iron courage to survive both the ludicrous clobber and coiffure of singer Mike West and being saddled with The Worst Name In The History Of Rock! But then, The Man From Delmonte (see!) seem not to worry about such mundane technicalities, preferring instead to soak up and fuel themselves on Pop's indefinable holy spirit. How many bands get that balance right?...
I first met TMFD last Spring in Valencia, Spain. They exuded a self-contained effervescence that separated them from the other, more intense Britbeat combos there gathered. Their sole aim, relentlessly pursued, seemed to be the launching of one another, fully clothed and at every opportunity, into the Med! To my perfectly sensible question - 'do we need another Monkees?' - I never got an answer. A gobful of seaweed, yes, but no answer!...TMFD, are about good times, and they start with themselves...
What's this record like? I, naturally, have no idea but I'll be very surprised if it features a guest timpani solo by Mark Knopfler, an Acid tinge to the mix or even the most fleeting of references to Quantum Physics. It will however, harbour a spunk and a funk, a verve and a nerve, a ring and a swing that will simultaneously confirm The Man From Delmonte's uniqueness and ensure they'll never be as big as Bon Jovi!
All of which makes the disc you're currently holding, in the street jive of their native Greater Manchester, the full (Del) Monte!
.
Danny Kelly, Jan '89 [original sleevenotes]
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I first heard 'Australia Fair' as Track One, Side One of the Manchester North Of England cassette, and promptly rushed out to buy this E.P it's from. The song also worked brilliantly as the opener to a tape I did for my mate Carlos when he went off on a Big Trip since 1) he was indeed going to Australia and 2) he was born in Lancashire (though to his chagrin they changed the county borders soon afterwards, so now he has to say he's from Cheshire). Is this really nearly twenty years old? Lumme. Anyhow, these are very Spring day (and possibly tea-break and HobNob) kinds of songs, so enjoy.
The Man From Delmonte - 'Waiting For Ann' (1989)
The Man From Delmonte - 'Australia Fair' (1989)
Friday, April 25, 2008
The Fine Columbian
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The Actual Red Bulb
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
And finally...

Weekend for sunny mornings, YMGs when it rains.
My favourite track from lo-fi pioneering, deliciously cheap beat-box using, £1,000 recording Rough Trade Rough 8.
Young Marble Giants - 'Music For Evenings' (1980)
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Something More From Weekend
Monday, April 21, 2008
Listen, Listen
It's thirty years to the day that Sandy Denny died, aged just 31, after a massive brain haemorrhage triggered by a fall, collapsing at a friend's house just a mile or so down the road from where I live. She was a SW London girl, of proud Scottish ancestry - grew up in Wimbledon (that's her parents house in the Village on the cover of Unhalfbricking), went to school in Kingston, is buried at Putney Vale Cemetery (but we've done that - perhaps I'll get down there again later today).
The web's chock-full of Sandy fan and 'tribute' sites of varying quality (can I point you to this good one though, especially as Philip's been kind enough to comment here in the past?) and you know where to look for the biographical stuff if you want it, so I won't rehash it all here. This is a fine read, if you can find it.
Really I just wanted to post this, the opening track of the first Fairport album she played on, and possibly the greatest of her songs that is not 'Who Knows Where The Time Goes'.
Such sad resonance in the spare lyric (about Mary Queen Of Scots' last day), the inexorable processional of Richard Thompson's guitar, that clear, crisp vocal...
How often she has gazed from castle windows all
And watched the daylight passing within her captive wall
With no-one to heed her call.






