LINER NOTES: JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE MIND [2003]

1.  Adeus Maria Fulo – Os Mutantes
2.  Turn! Turn! Turn! – The Byrds
3.  In Another Land – The Rolling Stones
4.  Heart Failed (In the Back of a Taxi) – Saint Etienne
5.  Femme Fatale – The Velvet Underground
6.  Harmonic Generator – The Datsuns
7.  Incense and Peppermints – Strawberry Alarm Clock
8.  Good Fortune – PJ Harvey
9.  Willow’s Song – Magnet
10.  A Man Needs to be Told – The Charlatans
11.  Old Man – Neil Young
12.  Everything Flows – Teenage Fanclub
13.  For You – Big Star
14.  Hanging Around the Day – The Polyphonic Spree
15.  Journey to the Center of the Mind – The Amboy Dukes
16.  Freddie’s Dead – Curtis Mayfield
17.  Sing This All Together – The Rolling Stones
18.  Citadel – The Rolling Stones
19.  Lonesome Tears – Beck
20.  LA Women – The Doors
21.  The Girl I Knew Somewhere – The Monkees
22.  Let’s Make this Precious – Dexy’s Midnight Runners
23.  The Trees – Pulp

On arriving in Bangkok, November 2002, I purchased a pair of small, cheap speakers for my old Sony Walkman, which I deemed to be expendable (unlike my MiniDisc player). I brought along only a couple of tapes, including an extended copy of Come On Let's Go. I utilised this apparatus just once, in Haad Yao on the Island of Koh Phangan, before deciding that carrying these trashy amplifiers around in my undersized backpack wasn't worth the bother and leaving them behind in the next hotel room I vacated. In any case, it became increasingly clear that a soundtrack of sorts was writing itself and I would need to compile something from scratch once I returned home.

There were four artistes that seemed to prevail during my travels: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, and The Doors. I can't stand the Red Hot Chili Peppers, can take or leave Bob Marley, don't mind a bit of Hendrix, quite like The Doors. Beyond that, what you heard predominantly was dance or chill-out music. Very occasionally something else would break on through, maybe via a television in an internet cafe or in a bar off the beaten track. I started taking notes, but when it came to collating this material I found I hadn’t accumulated nearly enough to compile a playlist of the requisite length. I was thus obliged to source tunes from elsewhere; my compilation would have to represent the whole of the year, and not just the part of it that was given over to travelling.

The friend who passed out in Debenhams ended his travels prematurely, returning in early January. My lady friend and I came home in April as planned. By the end of May we’d located to a flat on Gibson Close off of Bridge Road on the border of Hounslow and Isleworth. Natural light was in short supply, as was furniture, but Douglas Bader House was a clean and decent sized dwelling. The Royal Oak was our new local, a pub that I’d frequented often during my first year at university and sporadically since. With its low ceiling festooned in rugby memorabilia, it used to be one of the cosiest boozers in the whole of West London.

Having exhausted the supply at Hounslow's library I decided to defect to Richmond's. One of my first withdrawals was the Brazilian Tropicalia of Os Mutantes by Os Mutantes. I‘d read about them in a magazine – more than likely Mojo – and they sounded right up my strasse, offering up ‘tropical psychedelic rock’. Looking back I'm surprised I chose to begin my compilation with a tune with no direct link to my long holiday (although an erroneous association has formed retrospectively), but once it finally kicks in 'Adeus Maria Fulo' comes across like a statement of intent.

The inclusion of 'Turn! Turn! Turn!' by The Byrds was inspired by the five weeks we spent in New Zealand. I heard it there on numerous occasions, nearly always on a nearby radio. It's not my favourite Byrds' tune, but I can picture myself listening to it in a hostel in Taupo to this very day. Moreover, it inspired me, on my return home, to give the album Mr. Tambourine Man a proper listen and to acquire other albums by The Byrds thereafter.

A common friend who owned a flat in Lynton, North Devon, offered the property for a shared holiday: to myself, my lady friend, the guy who used to own a pager and Roz Childs. As well as evenings in The Crown, games of crazy-golf in Lynmouth, night walks to the Beggars Roost and hikes across Exmoor, we spanned time listening to music and playing table football in the flat itself. I can’t recall which tunes I brought along, but the guy with the pager came up trumps, providing the Rolling Stones' albums Their Satanic Majesties Request and Beggars Banquet. So taken was I with Satanic Majesties that no less than three songs made it onto Journey to the Center of the Mind, which is unprecedented. 'In Another Land' was written by Bill Wyman, and hats off to him, not just for the quality of the track but for managing to get it approved by Jagger and Richards.

Exmoor

White Sands Beach on Koh Chang. At the shore’s southern point there is a restaurant called Thor's with a splendid view over the Gulf Of Thailand. We dined there thrice, and on each occasion the same ambient/chill-out compilation played out in the background. Catching the dulcet tones of Sarah Cracknell, I asked ‘Thor’ if he/she/they could provide me with the track listing, which he/she/they did, and 'Heart Failed (in the Back of a Taxi)' was duly noted. The Saint Etienne album it’s taken from (Sound of Water) has a more ambient feel than their earlier work, but 'Heart Failed...' could have sat quite comfortably on 1993's So Tough.

Like Os Mutantes, The Velvet Underground & Nico was another post-travel acquisition loaned from Richmond Library. When I'd borrowed the same cassette during my first year at university, from the guy with the indie tapes, it had been mainly because I wanted a copy of 'Venus in Furs', and so I never gave the record the attention it deserved. The album is a fairly even split between experimental and discordant songs, such as 'Venus in Furs' and 'All Tomorrow's Parties', and more mainstream moments, like 'I'll be Your Mirror' and 'Femme Fatale'. I would have preferred to have included 'All Tomorrow's Parties' on this compilation but at 6 minutes it was just too long. 'Femme Fatale', on the other hand, lasts a mere 2 minutes 38 seconds.

The Datsuns emerged out of the post-punk thing that The Strokes kicked off (although credit should perhaps also go to Swedish band The Hives who'd nailed their colours to the mast a whole year before The Strokes did). Deprived of my record player, I bought 'Harmonic Generator' as a CD single. Before embarking on my travels, I left most of my possessions with my brother and told him that if he was pushed for space he could ditch the hi-fi but should keep hold of my speakers. In the intervening period he moved from Acton to Wandsworth and was indeed pushed for space. The garage rock revival of The Datsuns compliments the authentic garage rock of Strawberry Alarm Clock, courtesy of the ex-cohabitant from Brighton. Neither track was heard on my travels.

I noticed when Polly Harvey adopted a more glamorous image to accompany her new single, 'Good Fortune', in late 2000. I should have more than noticed, I should have bought the album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. If you’re not aware of it, the video for 'Good Fortune' sees PJ Harvey nocturnally flitting around London in a black dress. The cover of the album saw her in a similar get-up, this time swanning around what looks to be New York. One only notices because PJ Harvey didn’t ordinarily wear stuff like this. She’d previously presented either an austere image or a very garish one: black leather with no makeup; luminous dresses and jumpsuits with lots of makeup. I allude to all this because while drinking in an ‘Irish pub’ in Koh Samui the video for 'Good Fortune' appeared, courtesy of MTV, on the modest television hanging off of the wall. I allude to this because at the time I was feeling slightly out of sorts, stuck in Lamai, surrounded by expats and sex tourists, drinking pints of imported draught lager with my fainting friend. PJ Harvey came to me as some sort of vision, not so much of loveliness but of a kind of sophistication totally lacking within the present milieu.

I noticed when Tim Burgess adopted a falsetto vocal style on The Charlatans' new single, 'A Man Needs to Be Told', in late 2001. I allude to this because while having lunch at Anong Villas in Mae Nam the video appeared, courtesy of MTV, on the modest television hanging off of the wall. My lady friend could also hear it from her position of the beach directly behind me, as could my fainting friend from the balcony of his bungalow straight in front. It was a wonderful shared moment between the three of us.

In between is 'Willow’s Song' from The Wicker Man soundtrack. While working for the audio-visual wholesaler in Brentford, who sold plasma screens and LCD/DLP projectors to high-end retailers and private customers, the friend who used to own a pager availed himself of the opportunity to purchase through me an ex-demo projector on the cheap. One of the first films we watched on it was The Wicker Man, which inspired the guy who bought the projector to buy The Wicker Man soundtrack. It consists of folk music mainly, much of it amusing, and some of it sinister.

The folksy ambiance of Willow’s Song complements the country feel of 'A Man Needs to Be Told'. Tim Burgess’s vocal may take its lead from Curtis Mayfield but the steel guitar is pure country rock, which is why I've followed on with Neil Young. I first heard 'Old Man' in the car of our friends from Acton, driving down to the New Forest to watch Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me on our other friend's projector. Alas, the generator we hired to facilitate this scheme ran out of petrol not even half way through. It was still worth the effort of digging a shallow trench for the generator and breaking our backs lugging the thing through the woods to find an appropriately remote clearing to set the whole thing up, if only because I can barely believe we attempted such a thing.

On returning to England I discovered that our fainting, Cornish friend had purchased Four Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty-Six Seconds - a Short Cut to Teenage Fanclub, which introduced me to 'Everything Flows', one of their earlier records – their first, in fact – and not so typical of the sound they would become more associated with. Teenage Fanclub are big fans of Big Star, whose song 'For You', which I have included here, is neither particularly representative of their sound. Nor have either group’s musical aberrations strayed in the same direction: 'Everything Flows' is more abrasive than the work that followed, whereas 'For You' is gentler than what preceded it. I was coming at Big Star from the wrong angle, but their third LP, entitled Third (aka Sister Lovers), was all that Richmond Library had. 'For You' aside, I recall feeling a little underwhelmed by the album, and I haven’t listened to it since.

The nascent Acton and Chiswick scene of 2001 really started to take off in 2003. It was to do with a friend of my lady friend and her boyfriend moving to Acton (let’s call them by their now married name: ‘The Wilkinsons’) and friends of theirs subsequently moving to Chiswick. Two of these other friends shared a house, known to us as The Grosvenor, just west of Turnham Green. Its position brought us into contact with other drinking establishments: The (World Famous) John Bull, The Pilot, The Bell & Crown down by the river in Strand-on-the-Green, as well as The Raven up the road in Stamford Brook. Parties at The Grosvenor became a thing of legend. When I think of that house now I am reminded of The Flaming Lips and The Polyphonic Spree. I never got around to recording a copy of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips, but I did The Beginning Stages of... by The Polyphonic Spree. Within the context of this compilation, 'Hanging Around the Day' provides a bridge across from 'For You' by Big Star to...

The sixth episode of the first season of the television series Six Feet Under – entitled The Room – sees Nate finding out that his late father used to occasionally trade funeral services for favours, among them the supply of marijuana and the use of an apartment above an Indian restaurant. Having been completely oblivious to any of this when his father was alive, Nate visits the room in question and has a look around before placing the needle onto what was presumably the last record his old man ever listened to, which turns out to be 'Journey to the Center of the Mind' by The Amboy Dukes. Diegesis fades into non-diegesis as Nate imagines what his father might have got up to there: getting stoned with a group of hell’s angels, being pleasured by a hooker, firing a high powered rifle from the window at passers-by below. The song itself is comprised of a poppy melody backed by 60s garage-rock guitars and frantic drum work.

The Grosvenor

Vang Vieng, Laos. While having lunch in Xoyoh Cafe I’m privy to the music playing in the restaurant across the road, which will include the Beastie Boys, Curtis Mayfield, all of Rubber Soul by The Beatles, and 'Wild Horses' by the Stones. I am already familiar with much of this music but not so much Curtis Mayfield, although my Cornish friend does own a compilation of his, which I assume is from where I obtained 'Freddie’s Dead'.

          Back to North Devon. I couldn’t decide which I liked more: 'Sing This All Together' or 'Citadel'. The fact that a split-second separates them on the album gave me a mandate to include them both. They are very different tunes. The former is indicative of the experimental psychedelia that was fashionable at the time, the latter points towards the rock that would occupy the Stones for the foreseeable future.

          I am mostly indifferent to Beck, but I think Sea Change is good record. My lady friend bought a copy on the Khao San Road in Bangkok. It wasn’t long before this cheap forgery started jumping and twitching, but not before I’d recorded 'Lonesome Tears' onto my MiniDisc, preserved for posterity. (This was also how 'The Trees' ended up here, off of a dodgy copy of Hits rather than the original We Love Life.)

         As I’ve said, I like The Doors, but I didn’t own any of their records prior to travelling. This was probably a good thing because they might otherwise have been deprived of any previous association. Instead, The Doors recall bars in Bangkok and beaches on Koh Phangan and driving around New Zealand’s North Island, which are nice connotations to have. Indeed, there was an actual ‘Doors Bar’ in Haad Rin, which offered welcome sanctuary from the relentless dance music that played in the surrounding establishments. Furthermore, the song 'LA Women' is in keeping with the strain of Americana that features throughout this compilation: Neil Young, Big Star, The Byrd’s and The Amboy Dukes, as well as Beck and The Charlatans doing country and western. And then there’s The Monkees, although I’m not sure they’re imbued with so much Americana, given the band’s conceptual nature. A toss-up between 'For Pete's Sake' and 'The Girl I Knew Somewhere', derived from some greatest hits collection, possibly borrowed off of my de facto in-laws.

After wandering around Southeast Asia for just shy of four months (encompassing two weeks in Laos, almost three in Cambodia, and the rest in Thailand) my lady friend and I flew to New Zealand, which was a culture shock in reverse. The first week in Auckland was all well and good: the America’s Cup was wrapping up, the sun was shining and there was a buzz about the place. The girl who used to live with my lady friend on the Isle of Dogs flew in from the UK to embark on her latest round of travelling, and after a few days of mild revelry we hired a car together and headed south.

By the time we got to Rotorua it was teeming it down. Everything seemed very bleak all of a sudden. I began to suffer a mild depression, not to mention alcohol withdrawal; it was too expensive to drink like I’d done in Southeast Asia, which was excessively. I was tired of living out of a very small rucksack, always wearing the same shabby clothes – attire geared towards a sunnier climate. At the same time the idea of returning home wasn’t very appealing either, to find a job and to live nine-to-five and endure the British weather and all the rest of it. I wanted to be back in Hua Hin, sat out on a jetty late in the evening, watching electrical storms creeping along the horizon.

We were sat in an Irish bar in Rotorua, me nursing a solitary pint, when 'Let’s Make this Precious' by Dexys Midnight Runners began to play. It meant something, although I’m not sure what. Let’s make this precious. New Zealand is a beautiful place and I enjoyed my time there, just as I would eventually go on to enjoy the company of friends, and maybe even the British weather, once I returned home and settled down to it.

Rotorua

[Listen to here.]

LINER NOTES: THE HEROES OF HANWORTH [1995-96]

1.     Main Title (Blow-Up) – Herbie Hancock

2.     Just When You’re Thinkin' Things Over – The Charlatans

3.     Anesthesia – Luna

4.     Breather – Chapterhouse

5.     Something and Nothing – The Wedding Present

6.     Stroll On – The Yardbirds

7.     Lamento – Antonio Carlos Jobim

8.     The Nile – A Guy Called Gerald

9.     Percolator – Stereolab

10.   The Game of Eyes – Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci

11.   Only Love Can Break Your Heart – Saint Etienne

12.   Sick and Tired – The Cardigans

13.   Do the Strand – Roxy Music

14.   The Joy Circuit – Gary Numan

15.   Moonlit Lungs – Sandy Dirt

16.   Underwear – Pulp

17.   Across the Universe (Wildlife Version) – The Beatles

18.   Tere Siva Duniya Mein – Nahid Akhtar

19.   Token Collecting – The Pastels

20.   So it Goes – The Verve

21.   Planet Telex – Radiohead

22.   Sugar Kane – Sonic Youth

23.   Twisterella – Ride
24.   Peaches – The Orchids

25.   F=GmM(moon)/R2 – Man or Astro-man?

26.   Rozmaryn – Hana A Petr Ulrychovi
27.   Be My Girl – James Taylor Quartet

28.   The Ipcress File – Roland Shaw and his Orchestra

29.   Alright Hear This – Beastie Boys

30.   Pinto’s New Car – Money Mark

There are many ways to while away the hours in Hounslow in the year 1995. Charity shops abound and are well stocked: Fred Perry tracksuit tops, brown leather jackets with collars courtesy of the 1970s, Gabicci polo shirts in man-made fabrics, all liable to attract the wrong sort of attention when out and about.

Let the lad who lent you The Sound of the Suburbs pay for a few games of snooker at Rileys off Bell Road, which you will invariably lose, and then head down to Inwood Park for a kick about with whoever else is around.

Wander around Hounslow with the guy with the tapes, who has bought himself a secondhand camera, posing for photographs with the chap who introduced you to Sarah Records, standing in front of mirrors.

Hang out in the Treaty Centre café drinking cheap tea with the chap who introduced you to Sarah Records and the lad who lent you The Sound of the Suburbs, or maybe even the pretty girl who lives across the road.

Stroll across to The Rifleman for a few pints and games of pool. Banter with the landlord, who suspects we might be local band The Bluetones, will often ensue.

The cohabitant from Brighton had bolted back to Brighton and the guy with the indie tapes offered to fill the vacuum. We employed the same tactic as the year before but batted a little straighter: we asked around for three bedroom houses or flats, and failing that for somewhere with four evenly sized rooms. We would then give tapes guy the option of moving in with us, should the property be to his satisfaction, which it more than likely would be.

And so it came to pass. We found a terraced house on Hanworth Road with a little more character than the last, in middle of Hounslow town centre, around the back of Argos, opposite The Rifleman, around the corner from the Noble Half, and only a few minutes’ walk from the bus station and thus The Chariot. The guy with the tapes took what was ostensibly the living room at the front of house, whereas I took the territory at the back beside the kitchen. The lad who lent me The Sound of the Suburbs was upstairs-front and the Cornish friend who swooned in Debenhams upstairs-back next to the bathroom. There was a pipe that travelled up through my room into that of my Cornish friend which we tapped to alert each other to our awakened states, a signal to open our windows and discuss exit strategies. The guy with the indie tapes was best avoided early in the day. Rarely hungover and with boundless energy, he could be very demanding of one's attention.

Marks & Spencer, Hounslow

The former cohabitant from Brighton arrived bearing records: Chop Suey Rock - Songs about the Orient Vol. 1, Decade of Instrumentals: 1959~1967, Rare Tunes Chapter One “From Latin… to Jazz Dance, Mission Impossible and The Money Spyder by the James Taylor Quartet, Stereolab's Refried Ectoplasm [Switched On Volume 2], and Intravenous Television Continuum by Man or Astro-man?. He also had a tape to give to me: the soundtrack to the film Blow-Up. 'Main Title' lasts a little more than a minute and a half. Short songs introduce playlists better than long ones do.

'Just When You’re Thinkin' Things Over' by The Charlatans rips off 'Torn and Frayed' by The Rolling Stones. I didn’t know this at the time but when I purchased Exile on Main Street some years later it was immediately apparent. 'Just When You’re Thinkin' Things Over' was released on the 7th August 1995, exactly one week prior to 'Country House' by Blur and 'Roll with It' by Oasis. The kids down at JFKs on Union Street, Plymouth, went mad for all of this, but 'Just When You’re Thinkin' Things Over' is a much better tune than either 'Country House' or 'Roll with It', in spite of its plagiarism.

Luna was the group Dean Wareham put together after dissolving Galaxie 500. Lunapark was played a lot during that first term at Hanworth Road. I say term but I was actually on a sabbatical. I’d semi-flunked my sophomore year, swapped American Studies for English but wasn’t due to recommence university until February. So I signed on and spent a lot of time in the room of the guy with tapes – the only room with a sofa and a television – drinking tea and sifting through his back-catalogue – hence 'Breather' by Chapterhouse and 'Something and Nothing' by The Wedding Present. I’d already been beguiled by Bizarro earlier in the year so it was no surprise when I fell for George Best, or that I then bought the Mini EP on its release in January.

The soundtrack to Blow-Up is mainly the work of Herbie Hancock but also includes a contribution by The Yardbirds: the hard, psychedelic rock of 'Stroll On'. Perhaps this dichotomy explains Britpop’s bizarre fascination with easy-listening jazz and orchestral pop, exemplified by acts like The Divine Comedy and My Life Story, and the canonisation of Burt Bacharach as some sort of musical saint. I didn’t have much time for The Divine Comedy or My Life Story but I didn’t mind a bit of easy listening. While the guy with the tapes bought second-hand Herb Alpert records and Bruton Music from charity shops, I reverted to my parents’ record collection to see what I could find, and found Wave by Antonio Carlos Jobim. It might seem odd to follow on from this with A Guy Called Gerald but it makes the transition from the ‘60s loungecore of Jobim to the avant-garde pop of Stereolab a smoother one.

At some point over the summer, an acquaintance of mine called me up to ask if I wanted to go and see Pulp at the Brixton Academy in December. I tried to be evasive but I suppose politeness got the better of me, because the next thing I knew she’d bought us both tickets. It wouldn't have cost more than ten pounds, but a pint back then was easily less than two and I was short on funds. With the vague hope that the acquaintance might offer my place to someone else with a little more disposable income, I agreed to accompany her on the condition that I could pay for it nearer the time. (In all probability, she would have invited the chap who introduced me to Sarah Records before approaching me, so I had no cause to feel guilty about any of this.) Different Class had yet to be released, although I'd seen Pulp perform 'Monday Morning' and 'Underwear' on The White Room in April, a live music programme on Channel 4 hosted by Mark Radcliffe, and was impressed – less so by the single that followed ('Common People'). When Different Class came out in October it failed to live up to my expectations. I didn't think it was bad, just not of the same high standard as His 'n' Hers. But I'm a man of my word so come December I paid up and off we went. This being 1995, I had no idea who was supporting; 'Plus Special Guests' according to the ticket. It turned out to be Stereolab, whom I rated by now more highly than Pulp. Their short set was worth the price of admission alone, especially ‘Percolator’ from their forthcoming album Emperor Tomato Ketchup.

Gorky's Zygotic Mynci’s 'Game of Eyes' off of the charming Bwyd Time, which the guy with the taps had purchased in the summer. This is not the sort of music that the chap who introduced me to Sarah Records much appreciated but was right up the street of the friend who lent me The Sound of the Suburbs. Saint Etienne was another product of Mr Tapes’ archives, but it was Mr. Sound of the Suburbs who provided The Cardigans.

What the hell was Romo? Whatever it was the guy with the indie tapes was into it and insisted that the former cohabitant from Brighton and I accompany him to Club Skinny in Camden to find out. Apart from that one night, I don’t recall hearing anything directly associated with this Melody Maker championed scene, but we did suddenly find ourselves listening to Telekon by Gary Numan, For Your Pleasure by Roxy Music and Hunky Dory by David Bowie, all delivered by the guy with the tapes.

27 Hanworth Road

In the autumn of 1995, Blur, Oasis and Pulp each released albums, their fourth, second and fifth respectively. Of these three records the only one that was played with any degree of regularity at 27 Hanworth Road, with wood-chip literally on every wall, was (despite my reservations) Pulp’s Different Class. Oasis’s (What's the Story) Morning Glory? – possibly the most overrated album of its time – was ubiquitous: heard on the radio, television, in bars, out of cars, in shops. Blur’s The Great Escape was the oddest of the three. Almost impenetrable, I didn’t know what to make of it. What's more, I didn’t like that Blur had suddenly embraced sportswear, nor the loutish persona the band seemed intent on cultivating (against Graham Coxon's better judgement, as it turned out).

It is often assumed that The Verve, Radiohead and Suede were actively part of the Britpop scene. They have in fact been affiliated in retrospect. All three groups were doing their own thing before the term was invented. When it was, they did not affect an about face, a change of musical direction or artistic reinvention of any kind. The accusation that any of them adapted their sound to exploit the fashion cannot be made. Only Radiohead somehow managed to shrug off the association, but whenever a magazine runs a retrospective piece on the Britpop movement, the mugs of Messrs Ashcroft, Yorke and Anderson will more often than not present themselves among the accompanying montage of images.

The opposite might be said of Stereolab and Saint Etienne, despite them understanding better the essence of Britpop – 1960s hairdos, the films of Michael Caine, vintage synthesizers, La Nouvelle Vague – than many of the more visible protagonists. As we have seen, Stereolab supported Pulp on their UK Christmas tour, while Saint Etienne were profiled alongside Suede, The Auteurs, Denim and Pulp in that April edition of Select magazine that prophesied Britpop’s coming. Stereolab covered the theme tune to Get Carter; Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs had the right hair. Nonetheless, time appears to have freed both groups from Britpop’s shackles, probably to their advantage. As with Radiohead, they have amassed bodies of work that have been allowed to stand on their own merit.

Then there are groups that were willingly subsumed into the movement having previously been associated with entirely different genres: bands like The Charlatans, Lush, The Boo Radleys, maybe Ride. I’m guessing the reason why, at least in part, is because they integrated socially and were party to the empty decadence that came to typify the Britpop scene.

When I’d visited Mr. Tapes at his old house in May he’d impressed me with The Verve’s new single, 'This is Music'. Now he had their latest album, A Northern Soul, an expansive work anathema to the poppy urbanism that typified Britpop. Nick McCabe’s guitar work is more expressive, more measured and the overall sound more textured than was fashionable at the time, and the drum work is of a higher order entirely. The Verve had more in common with Radiohead, who also eschewed the cheap thrills of Britpop for something more ambitious. I’d contest that A Northern Soul has the edge over Radiohead’s The Bends, but both albums have dated far better than much of what fell under the umbrella of Britpop. I also liked the way the band presented themselves – shabbier and darker than their contemporaries – and Richard Ashcroft came across as genuinely eccentric; he claimed he could fly. In fact, so impressed was I that one of the first things I did after cashing my first giro was buy A Northern Soul on vinyl from HMV on Hounslow High Street. (The first thing I actually did was go for a pint in The Chariot with the chap who introduced me to Sarah Records.)

Ashcroft would ultimately succumb to the fascistic elements of Britpop just like the rest, for what was Britpop if not a syncretistic, quasi-fascist movement? Consider the evidence. Just as Italian fascism eschewed peace, Britpop repudiated both the ethos of independent music and the concept of ‘selling out’, rejecting the perceived nihilism of the contemporary indie scene and creative liberalism that had hitherto typified the genre. As with National Socialism, Britpop simultaneously looked backward to an idealised past – a cult of tradition, doffing its cap to the 1960s* – yet regarded itself as relevant and current. Self-appointed Britpop commander-in-chief Damon Albarn admitted as much when he professed that, 'The whole thing about pop music is that… you’re ripping off as many people as you possibly can, and the trick is just to listen to the right people.'

Fundamentally a populist movement, Britpop embraced youth, flirted with violence and promoted masculinity (the Gallagher brothers presenting themselves as a physical force to be reckoned with, Damon Albarn getting into football). It exploited a fear of difference by encouraging its followers to dress a certain way, shedding more obscure sartorial references – desert boots and blazers – and replacing them with items of clothing that appealed to the man on the street – trainers and anoraks. A looser fit was also appropriated. (Jarvis Cocker somehow managed to circumvent this issue, qualifying him as Britpop’s very own Hermann Göring.)

Just as Hitler and many of his cronies were wacked out on barbiturates and amphetamines, the taking of heroin, ecstasy and cocaine became de rigueur, supplanting what had previously been a minor association with drugs such as speed, acid and marijuana. The film Trainspotting – essentially an extended trailer for the Britpop movement – featured a drug addict as its protagonist. Those involved don’t like to admit it, but the use of heroin soared off the back of that film. Members of Elastica, Blur, Suede and Marion all confessed to taking the stuff, others to ingesting prodigious quantities of cocaine. This mindset perpetuates the idea that everybody can become a hero, just like Ewan McGregor/Renton.

Treaty Centre

The Beatles Anthology documentary series was first broadcast in November 1995. The television at 27 Hanworth Road wasn’t up to much, so tapes guy and I would walk around to the house where the Scottish bloke who resembled the control freak from the Volvo ad lived and watch it on their much bigger set. A period of heavy Beatles rotation followed: 'The White Album', 1967-1970 (aka 'The Blue Album'), and Rarities, wherefrom I obtained the World Wildlife version of 'Across the Universe'. Take 7, as it’s also known, begins with the sound of tweeting birds and incorporates the backing vocals of two teenage girls who were found loitering outside the Beatles’ studio on the day it was recorded. Apart from that it’s just a slightly speeded up rendition of the original, but without the strings.

As well as lending me his copy of Rarities (which on vinyl is itself quite rare), the Scottish bloke introduced me to the culinary delights of curry. He didn’t mean to – he just wanted something else to drink – but we ended up sharing a chicken madras and a few pints at the Khyber Pass after hours. My Cornish friend was taken aback when I suggested we make our own curry, but very willing, and it became a semi-regular thing, normally on a Saturday when the guy with the tapes was out of town and we felt relaxed enough to commandeer the kitchen. The chap who introduced me to Sarah Records soon got wind of our new ritual and would begin to call around late in the afternoon looking for a free feed – he even bought us a large curry pot from a charity shop to facilitate his extra portion. To get us in the mood we’d put on the Nahid Akhtar tape that the house had gifted the guy who collapsed in Debenhams for his 21st birthday. Nahid Akhtar was a Pakistani playback singer and the music on the tape derives from various Urdu and Punjabi film scores, 'Tere Siva Duniya Mein' being my favourite.

The chap who introduced me to Sarah Records had aborted college by this stage and his lifestyle had become peripatetic. I don’t know where he kept his records but he was able to lend me a couple of The Pastels’ albums after I took a shine to their latest, Mobile Safari, which was loaned to me by someone else entirely. This in turn led me to the Sandy Dirt EP, a collaboration between The Pastels and Al Larsen of Some Velvet Sidewalk, which I purchased from Rival Records in Plymouth over Christmas. Comprised of five tracks, the last is the most interesting, incorporating the line, 'and the mechanisms for transporting oxygen to the cells which require it, is the same for you and me.'

The guy with the indie tapes’ contribution to this playlist probably stands at something like 40%, which is comparable to the impact he had upon The Sounds of Baden Pearce. Sonic Youth was him, as was Ride, The Orchids and Man or Astro-man?. He didn’t own a record player, but the Hana A Petr Ulrychovi LP was his and so too was The Return Of James Bond In Diamonds Are Forever And Other Secret Agent Themes by Roland Shaw and his Orchestra, from which The Ipcress File theme was taken. But 'Pinto’s New Car' by Money Mark wasn’t from him. That was from the pretty girl who lived across the road, as was Radiohead, while my brother fixed me up with copies of Check Your Head and Ill Communication by the Beastie Boys, and swapped his spare copy of Paul's Boutique for my spare copy of One For All by Brand Nubian.

But this period cannot be adequately conveyed via one compilation alone. Rather than just being something heard at parties, or maybe through headphones, I began playing dance music at home. For this reason I felt the need to complete a sister compilation entitled The Hanworth of Heroes, which never existed at the time but does fairly encapsulate what we listened to:

1.    Saint Angel – Goldie

2.    The Reno – A Guy Called Gerald

3.    Energy Flash – Joey Beltram

4.    Shuffle – Dave Angel

5.    Turbulence – Sonic Solution

6.    X-Trak 1 – Percy X

7.    Purple Road – DJ Misjah & DJ Tim

8.    Mathematics – Barada

9.    Ecsta Deal – Emmanuel Top
10.  Dodeccaheedron – Aphex Twin

11.  Storm 3000 – Leftfield

12.  Break and Enter – The Prodigy

13.  Chemical Beats – Chemical Brothers

14.  Pearl’s Girl – Underworld

15. The Girl with the Sun in her Head – Orbital

The first seven tracks were provided by my brother. He copied the whole of Timeless by Goldie and Black Secret Technology by A Guy Called Gerald for me, and the others appeared on a mixtape he compiled under my direction – he played a number of tunes he thought I might like and I told him which ones I did. Tracks 8 and 9 came from a cassette entitled Journeys by DJ: 60 Minute non-stop dance mix by Justin Robertson that came free with Select Magazine, which I would often put on after a night down the pub. Aphex Twin was also from my brother, as was Leftfield, but I purchased Music for the Jilted Generation by The Prodigy myself. The Chemical Brothers and Underworld records were recorded off of the girl across the road, and my brother gave me the Orbital album In Sides for my birthday.

The bigger picture was this: the dance and indie scenes were converging. The Prodigy was perceived to be punk rock, at least in spirit. The Chemical Brothers invited Tim Burgess from The Charlatans to add vocals to the single 'Life is Sweet' and would ask Noel Gallagher to contribute to their next album. Everybody was into the Wu-Tang Clan all of a sudden. Big Beat, year of the trainer, Loaded magazine, football's coming home. And away with it went all notions of political correctness and integrity. Sarah Records folded in the summer of 1995 in an act that now seems symbolic.

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*In an essay entitled ‘Eternal Fascism’ the author Umberto Eco proposed 14 ‘qualities’ that could be said to typify it, including the cult of tradition, the rejection of Modernism, fear of difference and that everyone is educated to be a hero. While we’re at it, we might also like to consider an appeal to a frustrated middle class and selective populism.

[Listen to here.]

TRAVEL: SOUTHEAST ASIA 18 - KOH CHANG

03/02/03: Minibus to Koh Chang, stopping off at motorway services along the way, with L, ‘A’ and F – Welsh L & K to follow. Book into the last bungalows in town, eat at Thor’s, and drink on the beach with F.

Koh Chang feels a bit like Au Nang but with less traffic. They are building actual hotels. The intended prey is the 30-something holiday maker away for a few weeks’ peace and quiet. There are ‘travellers’ but not the sort you generally find in Koh Samui or Koh Phangan. They could be taking time out in-between a stint on the nearby islands of Koh Kut and Koh Samet, perhaps after returning from a tour of Vietnam and Cambodia, or maybe fleeing the licentiousness of Pattaya, which is not far away. Or, like us, they’ve pretty much finished with Thailand and fancy a week or so relaxing before exploring Cambodia’s hinterland.

The beach at White Sands is shallow but just large enough for games. An emaciated man practises yoga in a modest hut overlooking the beach. His extensive collection of new-age paraphernalia suggests that he’s put up home here.

L is coming to Koh Chang with us, and ‘A’ and F are coming too. It is said that Welsh L & K and K’s brother, G, plan on doing the same, although nobody has seen them since we arrived in Bangkok more than two days ago. Apparently O might join us but we can't be sure. Koh Chang isn’t far and L has booked us on a minibus to take us there. It’s an early start, but not too early: favourable terms.

Minibuses haven’t featured very heavily on my travels up until now; we’ve used just the one, on our journey from Chumphon to Surat Thani. This is also a good opportunity to bask in the magnitude of Bangkok’s sheer scale. As with any megacity, it takes some time to exit its inner circle, the first hour or so spent negotiating gridlocked traffic under and over the many flyovers that weave in and out of each other. Bangkok’s suburbs give an indication as to the impact of the 1997/98 Asian Currency Crisis. In the run up to this financial calamity, Thailand had been regarded as a Tiger Economy and did much to open itself up to foreign trade. And then things went all wrong and financial institutions crumbled, businesses went bankrupt and people became unemployed. As a testament to this, redundant concrete brackets strike out into the countryside, like giant H’s, intended to support flyovers that will never be built. (Probably irreparable but too expensive to pull down, many of these stanchions remain in place to this day.)

The journey to Koh Chang is long enough to justify a pause at a roadside service station. I like service stations immensely, although it would be mistake to assume that they’re the same the world over. Here they comprise of little more than a petrol garage, a 7-Eleven type establishment and a forecourt with a few stone benches. But it is a service station none the less, and I am glad we stop there.

Our transport bypasses the town of Trat and takes us directly to the ferry terminal. We’ve just missed one, so we’ll have to wait a while; more coffee. As it was when we sailed to Thailand’s southern islands, there appears to be a variety of boats servicing a number of destinations, but we need one to take us to Hat Sai Khao (White Sands Beach) on the island’s west coast. There is no pier there, so the quickest route is by way of a weathered fishing vessel, taking about an hour, capable of anchoring within wading distance of the shore. Fish are caught along the way – big fish – and many of the travellers on board wince at the sight of them being clubbed to death. I wonder to myself whether these same travellers intend on eating any during their stay on Koh Chang.

White Sands Beach is deceptively calm. The beach huts are all booked up, there are hotels shooting up along the main drag, and swanky villas beyond. Struggling to find accommodation, we split up and broaden our search, until L reports back that she’s found somewhere with room to spare. We had it pretty good in Laos, renting reasonable rooms in solidly built hotels, but it looks like we’ll have to slum it again. The hut on offer is not small but the bed looks like it’s about ready for retirement, and I reckon I could punch my fist through the dividing wall without too much bother. We have a front porch but that’s on the verge of collapse, and in front of that there’s a rockery of rubble. It occurs to me, what with the construction going on up the road, that White Sands is probably in the process of gentrifying itself and these dilapidated bungalows have probably been slated for redevelopment in the not too distant future, so why invest in maintaining them?

No matter: L knows a lovely place to eat called Thor’s, which serves the best red curry I’ve had thus far. Thor’s establishment is located at the end of the beach, where the sand segues into rocks, with an unobstructed view west over the Gulf of Thailand. It’s nice to be on the coast again.

04/02/03: Cookies for breakfast with L, F and ‘A’. Hang out on beach. Welsh L & K, G and O arrive. Thor’s again with all; get drunk on buckets.

05/02/03: Very hungover. Cookies with partner, random bar, plus L and ‘A’, to play cards, Thor’s and 15 Palms with all except O and F. Drinks at guesthouse with L and G.

Koh Chang was just what I needed without having realised it. Beaches aren’t my thing generally – I’m too easily bored – but I do like being beside the sea, listening to the water and studying the horizon. And I could put up with our ramshackle hut, to whose inventory I could now add bedbugs, rats, seawater and a large lizard. It took a while to be sure about the bedbugs, but then little red dots started appearing about my person, and on my partner’s too. I dealt with this by covering my bed with a dramatic flourish of DEET, which seemed to put a stop to the little red dots appearing about my person.

The scurrying about in the loft I assumed to be nesting birds, but what birds? Other than the gallinaceous kind, I’d not noticed much in the way of wild fowl anywhere in Thailand, and the birds I had observed were too spindly in leg to produce this racket. Must be rats, so I sprayed more DEET into every point of access anywhere in the room that I could find.

It took a while to discern that what I was washing in was not fresh water but something more brackish. Whether it came directly from the sea or the tide backed up into the water supply I could not tell, but I didn’t at any point taste the salt. What alerted me to its presence was the absence of soapsuds, although it took two showers for me to notice.

And on top of all that was a large lizard, although not as large as the one that S suffered in Haad Rin. It was a welcome addition anyway: a sort of sentry to guard against the insects and rats.

Our first full day on Koh Chang sees the arrival of Welsh L & K and K’s brother, G. I like the way these people are so spontaneous in their travels. It always takes me at least a day to update my itinerary, and when I do get around to it I’ll then normally book something for the day after that. This held true even when we were using public transport, where booking in advance is not normally required.

Welsh L & K and K’s brother, G, have arrived and they are in good spirits. They apologise for not meeting up with us in Bangkok but they’d high-end accommodation to enjoy. They’d also wanted to show G some of the sights, and the Khao San Road wasn’t among them. I could have done with them around in Bangkok, if I’m honest. Or failing that, I could have done without L and her Welsh friend B being around.

So Welsh L & K and K’s brother, G, have arrived, and O’s on his way too. L’s looks a little put out by that last snatch of information. Turns out that she’s not so keen on O. You would have thought that she’d like another American among the rank and file, but no, she thinks that O’s a ‘bit weird’. She’s not ingratiating herself towards me with statements like that, as she didn’t when she turned on M (Mk.2) in Luang Prabang.

Welsh L, K and K’s brother, G, are up for a few drinks tonight, and so is O now that he’s arrived. It’s great to hear L advocating a return to Thor’s because it really is the perfect place to make merry. There are global flags hanging from the rafters, wooden picnic-bench style seating, reasonably priced drinks, a toilet embellished with (gay) porn, and Thor plays good music. [Saint Etienne’s Heart Failed (in the Back of a Taxi) is a highlight, featuring on some ambient compilation that plays on rotation.]

After dinner, we work our way along the beach in search of watering holes. The thing with Koh Chang is that the entertainment isn’t as concentrated as it is on other beaches – it’s not that sort of place. None of the bars are particularly busy, but there are people drinking and there are plenty of bars to choose from. And to hit the point home, some bright spark goes and buys a Bucket of Joy, and then somebody else buys another after that – maybe even me.

Thor's

It’s not surprising that I’m hungover the next day and nor is it surprising that I’m not the only one. What’s slightly more confounding – only slightly – is that the following evening offers up a repeat performance of the one before. O and F aren’t involved this time around, the latter on account of the nasty headaches he’s been experiencing from the anti-malarial drugs he’s been taking [Larium]. I’m not sure what O’s excuse is.

Come the end of the night, it’s me, Welsh L and G battling it out for supremacy back at The Meeting Place – our guesthouse’s sorry excuse for a bar. We’re joined by two English lads who have just completed a two week tour of Cambodia, where they paid money to liberate ammunition from an AK-47 selective-fire assault rifle. Good fun, you would think, and if/when we end up in Cambodia then I might have a go myself, but one of the guys is traumatised by the experience. Sounding genuinely disturbed, he tells how delicate he now realises life really is, an epiphany that dawned on him the moment he squeezed the trigger and fired the rifle. The rest of us find this hilarious, but he stands firm and assures us that his life has been irrevocably changed.

06/02/03: 15 Palms for breakfast. Stroll about town, back to 15 Palms for coffee with L and ‘A’, dinner at Cookies – barbequed fish on the beach. Drink and a game of cards at Pens with all – a rather subdued evening.

07/02/03: 15 Palms for breakfast, beach, Pens for a small drink with F, G, Welsh L & K, dinner at Tonsai with L and ‘A’. Oodies to see a band with L, ‘A’, F and O, and drinks on the beach.

08/02/03: 15 Palms for breakfast; post postcards – getting very hot now. Thor’s for tea with L and O. Oodies plus Welsh L, K and G, drink on beach with Welsh and G, and make man-trap.

09/02/03: 15 Palms for breakfast. L departs. Tonsai for tea with partner, play cards back at Welsh L & K’s bungalow, with F too.

I have found an establishment that can cater for my hangovers. Up until now I have been ignoring L when she knocks on our door at 10:00, pausing for 10 minutes or so and then moping off to the local store and for crisps and Gatorade (or my partner has – we’ve been taking it in turns). Then I’ve been taking a cold shower, and, finally, I’ve been going to Cookies and battling with an American Breakfast. But even the mighty American Breakfast has been coming up short of late. I must have seen something at 15 Palms last night I liked, or maybe I just can’t be bothered to walk any further, but that’s where I find myself seeking succour today.

My new breakfast is this: 1 bacon and egg roll, 1 serving of fries (with chilli sauce to taste), 1 lime and mint shake, 1 cup of coffee. If I can get the egg and bacon roll down my throat before my gag reflex kicks in then I’m home and dry (fries are never a problem, and the chilli sauce merely adds flavour). Solids ingested, I get to work on the lime and mint shake. I’ve been drinking these shakes regularly since I chanced upon them in Bangkok. Made from crushed ice and real fruit juice, they’re a great form of rehydration and hugely refreshing. Some folk prefer a Lassi, which adds yoghurt to the mix, but I don't them them to be as rejuvenating. Then I finish off with the coffee at my leisure.

Like some sort of bonus feature, 15 Palms also plays Mezzanine by Massive Attack and Once in a Lifetime – The Best of Talking Heads without fail, and sometimes on the bounce. This will ensure that from now on I will take breakfast here every day regardless of my physical state of being. [Incidentally, O’s parents were/are friends of Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz – the bass player and drummer from Talking Heads respectively – and O has met them. The music in 15 Palms, and my fondness for it, enables him to reveal this fact to me with a gratifyingly insouciant air.]

After those first two nights of intense revelry things began to settle down a bit. As a group we’d be pretty fragmented by day. Welsh L, K and her brother, G, hired a motorbike at one point and ventured off to explore the island’s interior. My partner and I attempted a long walk but found nothing of particular note, so spent most of the time reading or playing cards with whoever was about. I recall that I struggled with dinner at a place called Tonsai but quite enjoyed the barbequed fish at one of the pop-up restaurants on the beach, and was very glad when we made one last trip back to Thor’s place – especially so when it prompted a final night of heavy drinking and the construction of man-traps with an inebriated Welsh L and G.

And then, on our sixth full day on the island, L parted company having finally realised than the rest of us had our hearts set on travelling to Cambodia. The skirmishes on the border had abated, but there was no time now to launch an offensive into Vietnam. I was relieved that she was gone if only because her presence seemed to scare off Welsh L & K, and I very much wanted for them to accompany us to Cambodia – at least until I got a handle on the place.

But was it as simple as that, now that L was out of the way, so to speak? We made it clear to our friends that we were ready to leave and that it was to Cambodia that we would be travelling, and we’d probably be catching the earliest ferry back to the mainland the next day. Yet no invitations were extended and no plans were shared. Maybe it wasn’t L who was the problem after all?