The Bardots - Sad Anne

Because I'll never get tired of plugging the Bardots, even if not one person in fifty who visits this blog has ever heard of them.

This is an early single, and was also on the first ever Wilde Club records release.

Bad Brains - Pay to Cum

Just for a bit of variety, here's a classic piece of early American hardcore. A lot of people I know who are into this sort of thing reckon this is one of the greatest punk records ever released. I can't really argue with that.

The Red Rose Café - Lines

The Red Rose Café is really singer-guitarist Philip Morrow, a Donegal native, who seems to be performing under his own name now. I've only seen him once, several years ago at the Hard Working Class Heroes festival; he was the first act on the line-up and there were maybe half a dozen people in the audience for his set. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that we were the luckiest half-dozen people in Ireland that night. Shame he doesn't seem to gig very often, at least not in Dublin.

This is from his 2006 album, The New Year Tapes. If quiet, delicate indie-folk is your thing, you really don't want to miss this one.

OMD - Julia's Song

OMD's early music was so beautifully atmospheric, it's really a pity they didn't split up before they started making the bland rubbish that characterised their later works (eg "If You Leave").

This is a particularly lovely track from their 1980 debut album.

Slight intermission

I'm working on a big project this weekend and won't have any time to devote to the blog, so there will be a temporary intermission. See you on Monday.

Wire - Reuters

The very first song on the very first Wire album. Picture a teenager in 1977 buying Pink Flag, bringing it home and putting it on the turntable for the first time... and this comes out of it. I'm trying to imagine that teenager's reaction. As immense as it still sounds all these decades later, what must it have been like back then before we were all so thoroughly accustomed to punk and post-punk and apocalyptic war tunes? Sometimes I really wish I'd been around for that era - how exciting it must have been - but then again if I had been, I'd be even more of an old fart than I am now. So maybe it's just as well.

But janey mack, what a song this is. Still.

Arab Strap – Islands

Arab Strap can be a difficult band to listen to, unless you’re in exactly the right mood - and frankly, if you are in that mood, you’re probably better off trying to get out of it. You could say, in other words, that their music isn’t really in keeping with the overall theme of this blog. Despite being Scottish.

I like this one (from their second album Philophobia) because for once, the lyrics match the sheer beauty of their music. The opening lyrics, that is. Being Arab Strap, they lower the tone a bit after that.