LINER NOTES: HOUNSLOW TO BRENTFORD, PART 1 [1997-98]

1.     Me and the Black and White Dream – The Orchids

2.     The Stars of Track and Field – Belle and Sebastian

3.     On the Way – The Pastels

4.     Miss Modular – Stereolab

5.     Spanish Harlem – Aretha Franklin

6.     Thin Line Between Love and Hate – The Persuaders

7.     Down Down Down – The Chiffons

8.     Give Away None of My Love – Otis Redding

9.     Slipped, Tripped and Fell in Love – Clarence Carter

10.   Funky Nassau Part 1 – The Beginning of the End

11.   I Want You – Bob Dylan

12.   See Emily Play – Pink Floyd

13.   Coz I Luv You – Slade

14.   There, There, My Dear – Dexys Midnight Runners

15.   A Wave Crashed on Rocks – Felt

16.   Songs for Children – Belle and Sebastian

17.   A Living Ken and Barbie – The Orchids
18.   Sensitive – The Field Mice
19.   Over – Portishead

20.   Sexy Boy – Air

21.   Revolution 909 – Daft Punk

22.   Body Movin’ (Album Version) – Beastie Boys

11 Penderel Road, Hounslow, my fifth residence in as many years, not too dissimilar in size, shape and general state to 23 Carrington Avenue, an untidy and slightly squalid abode. After a fruitless search for a two-bedroom flat, my Cornish friend and I have moved in with two undomesticated first-year students. It’s a regression of sorts, and I will spend too much of my time playing Super Mario Kart on the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) with our new acquaintances. Glenryck Pilchards in Tomato Sauce replaces Heinz Baked Beans with Pork Sausages as my go-to brunch, which is no bad thing.

The nearest pub is The Warren on Hanworth Road (now a Tesco Express), which is a bit grim. It’s worth making the longer walk to the Pickled Newt on Staines Road (also deceased) if only because they have a free jukebox stacked with half-decent tunes. The Chariot has closed but will re-open as Shannon’s, which as the name suggests will be an ‘Irish’ pub. The Noble Half is also suffering a period of transition. To compensate, and buoyed by our younger housemates’ enthusiasm, we drink more often in Isleworth (The Town Wharf), Twickenham (The Cabbage Patch, The George), and Richmond (The Prince's Head, The Bull & Bush).

Although I am still in touch with both the guy with the indie tapes and the chap who introduced me to Sarah Records, actual contact is sporadic. We don’t possess email addresses and nor do we own mobile phones: they exist but are perceived as an extravagance, a luxury item. I know someone who owns a pager, but for most of us the landline is our only means of communication. (Pager guy will actually prove to be a very positive source of musical inspiration – but not yet.)

The tapes did not survive the migration to MiniDisc. Did they ever exist? I certainly recall listening to Stereolab within the context of a broader compilation – on the train down to Plymouth precisely – but my memory of what else was on that cassette is patchy.

Contemporary music was in a bad state. The Britpop scene had given way to whole host of average-at-best guitar bands, including, but not limited to: Mansun, Marion, Placebo, Texas, Kula Shaker, Embrace, Hurricane #1, Heavy Stereo, Catatonia, Dodgy, 60 Ft. Dolls, Space, Symposium, The Seahorses, Theaudience, and many of the bands that featured at some time or another on Chris Evans’s despicable vanity project TFI Friday. Groups like the Stereophonics and Travis were the next big thing. All The Verve’s latest singles incorporated strings. The kids were going mad for the novelty dance act that was Fatboy Slim. OK Computer was being held up as a work of genius. Tony Blair had recently taken office.

Stereolab’s Dots and Loops and Illumination by The Pastels – both released in September 1997 – offered succour. So did Belle and Sebastian’s If You’re Feeling Sinister, released in November 1996, which the guy with the indie tapes recommended to me. Dots and Loops was Stereolab’s most successful album to date, both commercially (sitting at no. 19 in the album charts for a whole week!) and critically. As is the story of their life, The Pastels’ album passed by almost unnoticed. Yet Belle and Sebastian had managed a breakthrough of sorts. The sports student I was now living with was strangely taken with them, perhaps on account of their song 'The Stars of Track and Field', which concerned itself with the physical prowess of athletes. In July and October of the same year, Belle and Sebastian released two EPs: Lazy Line Painter Jane and 3.. 6.. 9 Seconds of Light. I acquired both, the latter being the source of the unlisted 'Songs for Children'.

I’d been contemplating soul music and 1960s girl groups: Otis Redding, The Ronettes, The Shangri-Las, stuff like that. My lady friend picked up on this and for Christmas presented me with That’s Soul Volume 2 – an Atlantic Soul compilation – and Sweet Talkin’ Guy by The Chiffons. I played these records a lot, and whatever tape I put together back then would be bound to reflect this. Tracks 5 through to 10 are the most likely to have appeared on such a compilation.

Star of Track & Field

On leaving Penderel Road I entered what I refer to as my nomadic phase. I spent much of this period at my lady friend’s house in Isle of Dogs. Besides that, I stayed for a week with my parents in Plymouth, slept on the couch from time to time at Bulstrode Avenue, and spent nights here and there at the new house of the Cornish friend who stacked it in Debenhams and guy who liked The Stars of Track and Field, which they shared with the fellow who owned the SNES. I also visited the former cohabitant from Brighton, who had moved back there after a rough time of it in Tottenham. It was here that I made an association with the Bob Dylan tune 'I Want You', either by way of the album Blonde on Blonde or some greatest hits compendium.

At some juncture I purchased a tatty copy of Relics by Pink Floyd, but I couldn’t swear when it was. It could have been before, during, or shortly after my residence at Penderel Road, but it was no earlier than 1997 and no later than 1999. I’m not much of a Pink Floyd fan but I am of Syd Barrett, and 'See Emily Play' and 'Arnold Layne' were missing from my collection.

I’m not really a fan of Slade either but there’s something rather rousing about 'Coz I Luv You'. Oasis’s cover of 'Cum on Feel the Noize' a few years earlier had made it perfectly acceptable to like Slade, despite their preposterous appearance. Judging by the age of the clientele who drank in The Pickled Newt, this would have had no bearing on its inclusion on their jukebox. Actually, in 1971, before 'Coz I Luv You' was released, Slade looked vaguely presentable and were still relatively unknown. The tune went straight to number 1 and a lucrative career in glam rock beckoned.

It was the guy who introduced me to Sarah Records who introduced me to Dexys Midnight Runners. I’d heard of them, of course, but it hadn’t occurred to me that they were worth listening to – too many bad memories of 'Come On Eileen' being played down Ritzy’s nightclub. I think it was the album Too-Rye-Ay he initially pushed my way – he’d rant on about this amazing tune called 'Plan B'. I preferred 'Let’s Make this Precious', but he was right about Dexys being something special. Ultimately, it was their first album, Searching for the Young Soul Rebels, I listened to more, so in reconstructing the past I’ve opted for 'There, There, My Dear'.

Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch has expressed publicly an admiration for the band Felt. If asked, I would expect he would say similarly nice things about Sarah Records’ band The Orchids. I bought two of The Orchids’ albums – Unholy Soul and Striving for the Lazy Perfection – second-hand, on vinyl, in relatively quick succession. It’s possible that I actually purchased Unholy Soul when I lived on Bulstrode Avenue. What’s more, indie tapes guy had it on cassette and we used to listen to it at Hanworth Road. As such, it is 'Striving for the Lazy Perfection' that aligns itself in my mind with Penderel Road, the song 'A Living Ken and Barbie' in particular.

Regarding Felt, the chap who introduced me to Sarah Records loaned me the compilation Bubblegum Perfume and the LP The Pictorial Jackson Review. Over time, these records have merged in my mind and it took a lot of digging around to establish the name of the tune I wanted to include on this compendium. All I had in to go on was a rough memory of the line, 'I'm not your Jesus, so will you get off my cross.' It was enough, but very few Felt albums are available commercially and are rare and expensive bought secondhand, so I had to download 'A Wave Crashed on Rocks' off the internet.

I can't remember listening to Portishead's second album while living on Penderel Road, but I have a copy so I must have done. (It was a Christmas present, I know that much.) The last three tracks, however, are all evocative of the house my lady friend shared on the Isle of Dogs with a girl with whom she used to go to school. Daft Punk even reminds me of helping to paint their living room, which is appropriate because the album in question is called Homework. I had to rely on my lady friend for all of this – these were some of my poorest times – and I think she also paid for me to watch the Beastie Boys play at the Brixton Academy in June 1998, accompanied by our friend No Eyes, which is something that would have bowled over my 13 year old self.

[Listen to here.]