LINER NOTES: FEELGOOD BY NUMBERS [2004]

1.  Out on the Weekend – Neil Young
2.  Grand Fraud – Weird War
3.  Feelgood by Numbers – The GO! Team
4.  Sister Mamie – Yusef Lateef
5.  Thoughts and Words – The Byrds
6.  Think – The Rolling Stones
7.  Help Me Girl – Eric Burdon & The Animals
8.  All Summer Long – The Beach Boys
9.  Good to Me – Otis Redding
10.  Vonal Declosion – Stereolab
11.  Bag of Jewels – Lou Donaldson
12.  Elfin Orphan – Scene Creamers
13.  New Rose – The Damned
14.  Looking at You – MC5
15.  Wash in the Rain – The Bees
16.  Roadrunner – The Modern Lovers
17.  Marquee Moon – Television
18.  Reptilia – The Strokes
19.  Deeper Into Movies – Yo La Tengo
20.  Ramp of Death – Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks
21.  Goin' Back – The Byrds

2004: A terrible year for music. Debut albums by Razorlight, Kasabian, The Killers, Keane. Snow Patrol are milking last year’s record for all its worth, Bloc Party have come into being, and the release of their sophomore LP seems to have dashed any hope I had that The Libertines might jack it in.

Music is no different to any other art form. Just as bad novels, bad movies and bad paintings find a market, so too do bad songs. And just as it requires a deeper reading to appreciate good literature, good cinema or good art, so it is with music. One more than likely accepts that Vladimir Nabokov is a better novelist than, for instance, John Grisham (no disrespect to John Grisham), or that the movies of Stanley Kubrick are generally superior to those of Steven Spielberg (no disrespect to Steven Spielberg), and that Andy Warhol is a more interesting artist than Damien Hirst… so why feel uncomfortable with the idea that Franz Ferdinand aren't nearly as good as Talking Heads? That’s not say it matters if to your ears The Libertines are the same thing as The Strokes. Just be aware that there’s more to music than the ability to write vaguely catchy tunes coupled with a propensity for taking hard drugs.

The problem with contemporary rock music is that the music itself is often deemed to be less important than a band’s image or a musician’s personality. Rock and roll has never been a purely auditory phenomenon, but there was a time when groups actually put some effort into what they were doing, learnt their craft, paid their dues. When Keith Richards and Mick Jagger appeared before court on drug related charges in 1967, the Rolling Stones had released no less than SEVEN albums. Even if we allow that Richards, Jones and Jagger were probably getting high well before that, they’d existed as a drug free unit long enough to establish themselves as viable artists. With a lot of bands these days you get the feeling they’d rather not bother recording any music at all.

For the mainstream act the situation is different. More often than not they’re in it for the fame and adulation alone, in cahoots with their record company who probably take an even more cynical view about the whole business than they do. Together, they work to divest their product of anything approaching artistic integrity. To ensure that the unsuspecting listener doesn’t call out the cheap pop tune for the superficial drivel it often is, all aural distractions are erased. Everything is invested into the melody, which is typically conveyed via the vocal component of the song. Frequencies are equalised, textures are compressed, rhythm instruments are buried deep within the mix. You may struggle to identify the characteristic sound of any specific instrument whatsoever. The idea is to create something that is completely benign. Why? Because the music industry doesn’t consider that their art should demand anything of its audience other than slavish devotion. As far as they’re concerned, popular music serves much the same purpose as sport.

It’s mid-March. Myself, the guy who used to own a pager, the former Cohabitant from Brighton and his friend Charlie (also from Brighton) are leaving Monterey, California, in a Chrysler Sebring Convertible. We all have monstrous hangovers after an evening spent drinking more than we intended to at the London Bridge Pub down on Fisherman’s Wharf. Checking out of our motel was a mission in itself. No sooner had we managed it, we had to get one of cleaners to let us back into our room after realising we’d left something of value in there. I then had to deal with booking flights from Las Vegas to San Francisco (in person, from a travel agent). Finally, we paused to pick up supplies in a wonderfully spacious and air-conditioned supermarket before pushing on along the Cabrillo Highway to begin the coastal drive south.

What to listen to. How about Harvest by Neil Young? I’ve owned this album for almost a year, but it goes without saying I’ve never listened to in anything resembling my present environment. 'Out on the Weekend' kicks in and it becomes rapidly apparent that Big Sur was designed with country rock specifically in mind.

Big Sur

In the autumn of 2003 the former cohabitant from Brighton informed me of his plan to spend the spring of 2004 travelling around the United States of America. I received his proposition – for I was invited – with a restrained avidity. Although employed (at Nikon, since you ask) I was recovering from the economic damage my own Asian travels had inflicted upon me. At the same time I was itching to hit the road again, if only for a couple of weeks.

I made arrangements to meet the former cohabitant at a specific time and place in San Francisco, invited along the guy who used to own a pager, and then applied for credit. Less than a month prior to our intended departure I booked two return tickets at £240 a head, leaving from Gatwick Airport and only slightly soured by having to change planes in Charlotte, which sounds cheap, and was, but not ridiculously so. The economic conditions as they were, it’s possible that if I’d been more on the ball I could have found a cheaper deal still.

I’m in Haight-Ashbury browsing through records in Amoeba Music with the guy who used to own a pager, who’s off enquiring about lap steel guitars. I’m looking for If You Can't Beat 'Em, Bite 'Em by Weird War because I’ve not been able to find a copy in London. I am successful. Just as 'Out on the Weekend' is the first song off of Harvest, 'Grand Fraud' is the first song (proper) on If You Can't Beat 'Em, Bite 'Em. I find that such incipient energy is often transferable when compiling playlists.

Thunder, Lightning, Strike by The Go! Team hadn’t been released at this juncture, but I didn’t want to overload the front end of my compilation with tunes exclusively related to my two week vacation. My lady friend, the guy who passed out in Debenhams and I went to see The Go! Team play at The Spitz (supported by Field Music) in October. The song 'Feelgood by Numbers' reminds me of something Vincent Guaraldi might have composed for a Charlie Brown TV special. It’s an instrumental track which why is I’ve followed it up with jazz, although the tone of 'Sister Mamie' by Yusef Lateef is very different: a hard-bop groove with eastern textures. 'Sister Mamie' recalls our return to Lynton, North Devon, in the August, but it’s the only tune that does. The dye had been indelibly cast a year earlier and I will forever associate that place with the Rolling Stones' albums Their Satanic Majesties Request and Beggars Banquet.

We’ve not long left San Francisco, by way of an unplanned detour through downtown Oakland, and the guys from Brighton are flicking through their CDs. We are driving to Yosemite National Park on the first leg of a four-day road trip that will take us to Las Vegas (the long way around). After mildly enjoying Donovan’s greatest hits, it materialises that the guys from Brighton have with them Younger than Yesterday by The Byrds. I’ve played this record a lot, but I’m not tired of it. The song 'Thoughts and Words' now replaces 'Have You Seen Her Face' as my favourite – both are Chris Hillman's tunes. We will listen to the album again on the final leg of our journey: the drive from Santa Barbara to Las Vegas through the Mojave Desert.

Turns out I’ve not given Aftermath by the Rolling Stones the attention it deserves. 'Mother’s Little Helper', 'Lady Jane' and 'Under My Thumb' all made it onto my Best of the Rolling Stones MiniDisc compilation, but I’d left it at that. My loss, because there’s at least 'Think' to (re)consider. I’d imagined that a golden age era Stones’ album would be more suited to driving through California, but there’s something about Aftermath that seems to suit the mood – an innocence perhaps, or a particular type of sound. Whatever it is, it sits very nicely alongside Eric Burdon’s 'Help Me Girl', which was released the same year (1966 – although what we're really listening to is The Very Best of Eric Burdon & The Animals).

Coruscations of light bounce upward off the Pacific Ocean blue. Neil Young’s Harvest has drawn to a close. What’s next? The Beach Boys of course; All Summer Long. It may only be March but it looks and feels like July. The guy who used to own pager, who has had to do all of the driving on account of being the only one of us with a driving licence, thinks the song's hilarious.

Having exhausted my parents’ supply of 1960s and '70s rock and roll, as well as my father’s jazz, I’ve made a start on my mother’s limited supply of Atlantic Soul. (I never really understood why my parents decided to abandon their record collection. They only ended up replacing records with CDs, and the sound quality will have only suffered.) It’s The Soul Album by Otis Redding that’s caught my eye. It could well be that I’ve recently watched the film Catholic Boys (a.k.a. Heaven Help Us) for the hundredth time, which features the Otis Redding track 'I’ve Been Loving You Too Long', although that’s not on this record. My favourite track on The Soul Album is 'Good to Me', a similarly slow and plaintive tune. Within a year I will have purchased a copy of Otis Blue.

          Margerine Eclipse [sic] is the first Stereolab album that’s not lived up to my heightened expectations. Let it be known that there was never any question that something from it wouldn’t appear on my annual compendium, and it’s a very good record by anyone else’s standards, but I sense that the premature death of 'groop' member Mary Hansen in late 2002 has, understandably, taken its toll.

The quintet Lou Donaldson brought together to record Midnight Creeper in 1968 is quite something: Blue Mitchell on cornet, Lonnie Smith on the organ, George Benson on guitar, Idris Muhammad on drums, and the man himself playing alto sax. It’s another one of my father’s records, although funkier than most of the jazz he used to own. Jazz-funk is a mysterious genre looked down upon by some, but the calibre of the musicians that have indulged speaks for itself: Donald Byrd, Grant Green, Jimmy Smith, Herbie Hancock, Ramsey Lewis – even Miles Davis to some extent.

For a brief moment Weird War became Scene Creamers, subsequently reverting to their original name when an obscure French graffiti collective claimed legal ownership. Ironically, the album released under the Scene Creamers name is one of Weird War’s best (and if you google ‘Scene Creamers’ those Gaelic scribblers are nowhere to be seen). Released in January 2003, while I was bumming around in Southeast Asia, I Suck on That Emotion should have more rightly featured on the previous year’s compendium, but I didn’t get hold of it until late in the year and continued to listen to it well into 2004. [Incidentally, Ian Svenonius dedicated their performance of 'Elfin Orphan' at the Highbury Garage to me after I asked that they play it in return for the beer I bought him. (He’d actually wanted Grenadine, but it was off.) I hadn’t meant to hold him to ransom but the barman insisted he pay for his drink, despite the fact that Scene Creamers/Weird War were headlining, and Ian didn’t have any cash on him.]

Yosemite

The origins of punk have been attributed to innumerable sources. Did it begin with the Velvet Underground, MC5, The Stooges, The Sonics, The Seeds, The Monks, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, Dr. Feelgood, 'You Really Got Me' by The Kinks, 'Seven and Seven Is' by Love or 'Louie Louie' by The Kingsmen? No, it started with jazz. Or, more specifically, bepop.

The precursor to bepop was swing and big band jazz, which was driven by the individual, a bandleader or arranger: Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman. Early rock and roll was similarly individualistic: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bill Haley, Elvis Presley. Bepop was interested in advanced harmonics, rhythmic intricacies, modal chords, with less emphasis on melody. There was no longer any need for a large orchestra and so the role of bandleader was diminished. The beat combos that resulted – quintets and quartets mostly – were therefore more democratic. It was customary for each musical component to contribute not just towards the rhythm but also improvise a solo. The nominal leader of these combos might write a piece with a specific instrument, or even musician, in mind. The song was no longer the sum of its parts but a grouping together of singular strands, recorded live, be it in the studio or in a club or concert hall, where it is left to the individual musician to regulate the volume of their instrument. There was no technical Svengali sat in a control room, twiddling knobs, deciding what sound should predominate, emphasising melody and/or dampening rhythm: all sound was equal.

Despite not being literally recorded live, punk aspires to very much the same thing. The idea is to allow the timbre of each musical constituent to flourish in an attempt replicate a live experience. Less emphasis might be placed on a song’s vocal, and the bass line is as likely to carry the melody as the lead guitar. Traditional hierarchies are disposed of. This is music following the path of least resistance, a communion between the artist and the listener.

'New Rose' by The Damned was purportedly recorded in a day. Released in October 1976, it has the dubious honour of being British punk’s first ever record – dubious because I imagine that sort of thing brings with it a certain amount of pressure. Fortunately, 'New Rose' does not disappoint. I borrowed it from the friend who crashed to the floor in Debenhams, who owned the greatest hits compilation album The Light at the End of the Tunnel.

My first go at MC5 had not been a great success. I purchased Teen Age Lust in 1998/99 only to find the sound quality wanting. The album is a live recording of a gig they played in 1970, which goes some way towards explaining that. I was careful not to make the same mistake twice and opted against buying MC5’s seminal debut, Kick Out the Jams, also recorded live, and instead purchased Back in the USA, which they cut in GM Studios, Detroit. My opinion of MC5 improved immeasurably and I was able to appreciate why some have claimed them to be a progenitor of punk.

I can’t recall how I came by 'Wash in the Rain' by The Bees but it would be a while yet before I picked up their album. It’s possible that I heard it on the radio and then bought it as a 7” single, but I can’t be sure. I’ve acquired a lot of music this way, where I’ve not known enough about a band to chance it on an actual album but I’ve been desirous of owing a particular song. My uncertainty stems from the fact that singles are not really a thing anymore, and all mine are stashed away somewhere. It’s too much bother to manually recalibrate my record player to play at 45 rpm, so I rarely do.

It’s Friday night in San Francisco and we’ve ended up back at Delirium, the same club we went to on Tuesday. That evening they played an eclectic mix of classic rock, garage, new wave, heavy metal, punk and indie – ‘A Rock & Roll Party for the 20th Century’. Tonight they’ll be spinning punk and new wave. I get talking to the DJ and put in a request for 'Terry Waite Sez' by The Fall, which he fulfils. Between that and the Sex Pistols, The Stooges, The Cramps and The Clash, something catches my ear. I consult the DJ to find out what it is: 'Roadrunner' by The Modern Lovers.

Proto-punk – designation after the fact. The Modern Lovers took their cue from The Velvet Underground, so how’s that supposed to work? The Modern Lovers was the first album I bought once I got back to Blighty (although I bought the wrong version: The Original Modern Lovers, produced by Kim Fowley and not John Cale). If this was indeed punk then it was my sort of punk. My problem with a lot of punk is that it’s quite shouty. I can’t listen to the Sex Pistols because of Johnny Rotten’s voice, and when I’ve made forays in other directions I’ve come up against the same problem. I really wanted to like 'Holiday in Cambodia' by The Dead Kennedys but couldn’t get past the vocal. It’s the same with The Ramones, although I must confess to being disappointed with them generally. Towards The Clash I remain ambivalent. And then there’s the clothing. I don’t really go in for all that ripped denim, heavy leather and graphic sloganeering.

I suppose this is why I’ve always erred towards new wave. Whether Television qualifies as new wave is debatable – post-punk at least, which almost amounts to the same thing. I knew 'Marquee Moon' was a great tune and took myself to Richmond Library to follow up on my interest. Unfortunately, the album Marquee Moon left me slightly cold. As with Big Star’s Third (aka Sister Lovers) its reputation may have adversely preceded it.

A guy I worked with complained that the first single off of The Strokes’ second album sounded like the theme tune to the children’s television show Rainbow. I could see where he was coming from. The second single, 'Reptilia', was an improvement, but I still had no intention of buying The Strokes’ new LP. In the end it was my lady friend who decided that Room on Fire was worth a punt, and so 'Reptilia' made it onto this compilation.

'Delirium'

In June our landlord decided he wanted to sell up. Putting aside the rigmarole of having to find a new place to live – as well the loss of the Royal Oak as our local – it wasn’t such a bad thing. Douglas Bader House had always been a dark and isolated tenement with too little furniture. We found a top-floor flat in Isleworth with an iron staircase leading up to it, which lent a certain frisson. Down the road was St. John’s Stores, around the corner Isleworth Train Station, and The Red Lion a few minutes’ walk away. We were better off.

Yo La Tengo released the album I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One as far back as 1997, which was before I had even heard of them. I’ve long since forgotten what it was that brought them to my attention, but theirs is another album loaned from Richmond library. It’s a great record encompassing a variety of styles; I found the noise-pop of 'Deeper into Movies' to be of particular interest. On end of the same MiniDisc I recorded this CD onto, I added a couple of tunes from Pig Lib by Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, his second album since disbanding Pavement. 'Ramp of Death' is included here.

The last record I purchased before our move was The Notorious Byrd Brothers, also the last Byrds’ album to involve David Crosby (discounting 1973's eponymously titled Byrds, which brought the original line-up back together one last time). He'd fallen for the whole trippy hippy thing in a big way, much to Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman’s chagrin, who were by now exploring more traditional forms of American music: bluegrass, country and western, Appalachian folk. They also wanted to record the Goffin-King composition 'Goin’ Back', which Crosby thought was somehow beneath him. He had this smutty song called 'Triad' knocking about and wanted to cut that instead, so McGuinn and Hillman booted him out of the band.

Intended as a celebration of my trip to The States, these last three tracks were not present on the original MiniDisc. I appended them after making the transition to MP3, partly because they were discovered too early for inclusion on the following year’s compendium but also because they raise the overall quality of this one. I hope that you concur.

[Listen to here. To find out more about the 'American Adventure' go here.]

LINER NOTES: COME ON LET'S GO [2002]

1.    Five Years – David Bowie

2.    Captain Easychord – Stereolab

3.    Jo Jo's Jacket – Stephen Malkmus

4.    Hard to Explain – The Strokes

5.    Idioteque – Radiohead

6.    Fell in Love with a Girl – The White Stripes

7.    Walking With Thee – Clinic

8.    The Modern Age – The Strokes

9.    Have You Seen Her Face – The Byrds

10.  Late Night – Syd Barrett

11.  Sunshine Superman – Donovan

12.  It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue – The 13th Floor Elevators

13.  Too Real – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

14.  Powder Blue – Elbow

15.  Let it Run – Beachwood Sparks

16.  Come on Let’s Go – Broadcast

17.  Baby It’s the Best – Weird War

18.  Dancing Days – Led Zeppelin

19.  Can't You Hear Me Knocking – The Rolling Stones

20.  I Forgot – The Moldy Peaches

21.  Redfuchsiatamborine&gravel – David Candy

August 2001, in the beer garden of The Milford Arms. The Former Cohabitant from Brighton is regaling us with tales of his recent adventures in the Orient. He tells of Dionysian revelry on Thai beaches, of sharing rooms with rats and lizards and oversized insects, and the expediency of travelling light. It sounds exciting and terrifying in equal measure. The former cohabitant from Brighton is not the first of our friends to engage in activities of this kind. No Eyes has done a bit of it, as has the girl who used to live with my lady friend on the Isle of Dogs, and the brother of the guy who used to own a pager is constantly at it. Now, in our mid-twenties, there’s a sense that if any of the rest of us fancy travelling about the planet then we’d better get a move on.

Initially, I’m not very receptive to the idea but am gradually persuaded by my lady friend - as is the guy who passed out in Debenhams. The logistics of the whole operation are a mystery to me, and it’s something to get my head around. In the meantime I will need to rein in my spending. My lifestyle is by no means extravagant but I earn a mediocre wage and will require enough money to cover my airfare to wherever it is we end up going, living costs while away, and a reasonable amount of cash to tide me over on my return. Right now this doesn’t bear thinking about.

 My disposable income broadly goes towards four things: drinking in pubs, eating out, buying records, and holidays (I buy most of my clothes from charity shops). I am not prepared to forgo a social life for the next 12 months but am open to negotiation on the other points. I will sacrifice visiting curry houses and the procurement of full-priced vinyl and satisfy myself with the occasional fry-up and buying secondhand records of limited value. A third gite camp is regrettably out of the question, although I will scape enough together for a short weekend away in Amsterdam with the guy who fell over in Debenhams, my lady friend, the girl she lived with on the Isle of Dogs, the guy who used to own a pager, and Roz Childs.

Trip to Amsterdam

Come on Let’s Go is different to the compilations that immediately precede it: The Ladies of Varades and The Boys of Summer. Consider the chronology. My previous two compendiums were compiled with consecutive French holidays in mind – they were to be symbolic of them – and consequently adhere to an academic calendar. This means that Come on Let’s Go effectively begins in September 2001. Furthermore, it attempts to collate fragments of music deemed unsuitable for inclusion on the preceding playlist, for I hadn’t wanted to subject my fellow tourists to much indie music. As a result, there’s very little on Come on Let’s Go that was released in the year it purports to celebrate; only Weird War and Clinic fulfil this criterion.

There had already been signs that my enthusiasm for indie music was undergoing something of a revival. Perennial favourites Stereolab had pointed me in the direction of Broadcast, Make Up ensured I’d buy into whatever Weird War had to offer, and the ongoing renaissance of the band Delta awakened me to alternative-country bands like Beachwood Sparks and The Tyde. (One of my favourite musical memories is seeing Delta – in support of Beachwood Sparks at the 100 Club – paying homage to the then recently deceased George Harrison with a sublime rendition of what’s probably my favourite Beatles’ tune, 'If I Needed Someone'.) Finally, Radiohead were beginning to justify the praise lavished upon them with the release, in a very short space of time, of Kid A (October 2000) and Amnesiac (June 2001). The two albums resulted from the same recording sessions, in fact.

Many people are of the opinion that The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is David Bowie’s finest work. I purchased a copy, for next to nothing, to find out. I had decided in advance that 'Five Years' would feature on Come on Let’s Go after seeing footage of Bowie and his band performing it on The Old Grey Whistle Test. I concluded that although Ziggy Stardust might be Bowie’s most consistent work, it wasn’t his strongest. 'Five Years' isn’t even my favourite song on the album – 'Moonage Daydream' is – but it does make for a good opening number, so I went with it.

Readers of my previous liner notes will have observed a preponderance of tracks by ‘the groop’ Stereolab. I think I was introduced to them by the guy who used to own many tapes, but I can’t be sure. I do know that my first Stereolab purchase was the 10” EP Ping Pong, bought in July 1994. I’m by no means a completist when it comes to such things, but I own most of their studio albums, as well as one EP, a mini-LP and a couple of compilations. Sound-Dust is Stereolab’s seventh album. I purchased it on vinyl, one of only 1,800 copies pressed. Where I place a Stereolab tune on any playlist will depend on the tempo of the tune I want to place. 'Captain Easychord' is quite an upbeat number, a perfect antidote to the funereal tenor of 'Five Years', and so it becomes the second track of the compilation.

Pavement’s dissolution was sudden, although their final album, Terror Twilight, felt laboured at times. Stephen Malkmus didn’t hang about getting himself back in the proverbial saddle. Just two years passed before he released Stephen Malkmus, the same amount of time that separated the last three Pavement albums. It wasn’t a radical departure from his former band’s sound, but Malkmus seemed reinvigorated. 'Jo Jo’s Jacket', wherein Malkmus imagines himself as Yul Brynner, was the fourth single from aforementioned album, which seems excessive even if it might be the best of the lot.

One cannot underestimate the impact The Strokes debut album Is This It had on the musical landscape, capturing the hearts and minds of indie kids everywhere. It wasn’t just about the tunes but also the band’s image. At the time, indie music was going through one of its sartorially safe phases. The difference between this and what The Strokes wore is rather subtle. Boot-cut jeans were eschewed in favour of straight-legged slacks, stout Nike trainers were swapped for svelte Converse All Stars, T-shirts became tight and open necked, shirts were bought second-hand and sometimes worn with a tie, leather jackets were pure vintage, hair was all over the place. Basically, they looked like Blondie. It was almost a return to the early-to-mid 1990s and the way Britpop was before Oasis came along and made it all baggy. Bands like Travis, Stereophonics and Coldplay must have been all at sea.

A year earlier and Radiohead might have been too. Fortunately for them they’d already managed to disassociate themselves from the dreariness of the post-Britpop scene and could therefore coexist alongside whatever the latest thing might be. They deserved to. 'Idioteque' is an example of indie music transcending indie music and just being music – their best tune since 'Airbag' – and I put together a Best of Radiohead playlist off the back of it.

The White Stripes released their third album, White Blood Cells, at almost precisely the same time as The Stokes did their first (summer, 2001). Hence, both groups were seen as the vanguard of the post-punk revival. The White Stripes were in actual fact as rooted in the blues as they were garage rock – it was their image and pared down sound that associated them – but it was obvious that both bands were offering an alternative to current trends.

I think I came by 'Walking With Thee' by Clinic after hearing it on the radio (this was pre-internet). Under normal circumstances I probably would have proceeded to buy Clinic’s album, but I was saving my pennies. I bought 'Walking With Thee' as a 7” single, so they got something out of me. It’s an abrasive little number and far more interesting than most of the music made by their peers (The Coral, The Zutons, etc.). The Strokes second contribution to my playlist, 'The Modern Age', was also purchased as a single, albeit on CD very cheaply.

Trip to Plymouth

When I plundered my dad’s record collection for Stones records in 2001 I’d also grabbed a couple of Byrds’ albums: Mr. Tambourine Man and Younger than Yesterday. Aside from the contemporary groups bothering my turntable, I was slowly entering my second ‘60s phase, the first having occurred in and around 1995 (comprising the Rolling Stones, Love, The Beatles, Small Faces, the Blow-Up soundtrack). While I’d leant previously towards the Mod-ish face of that decade I gravitated now towards its more psychedelic and rockier elements: golden-age era Stones, Jefferson Aeroplane, Syd Barrett, Donovan, The Monks, The 13th Floor Elevators. Despite David Crosby’s best efforts, which would eventually see him kicked out of the band, The Byrds probably fell somewhere in between (as did Love really). Ostensibly, Younger than Yesterday takes it lead from The Beatles’ albums Rubber Soul and Revolver. There are touches, though, that are very much The Byrds’ own: the Tijuana brass on 'So You Want to be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star', the country and western inflections of 'Time Between', Roger McGuinn’s atonal guitar riffs throughout. I considered kicking off this compendium with 'So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star' but settled for the Chris Hillman penned 'Have You Seen Her Face'.

Syd Barrett presented another dilemma. I borrowed a copy of his debut solo album, The Madcap Laughs, from Hounslow Library, and my instinct was to represent it with the penultimate song, 'If It’s in You'. It’s a weirdly amusing ditty but Barrett’s strident vocal is indicative of his mental state. I’d recently watched The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story, a BBC documentary, and read his biography, Lost in the Woods, and formed the opinion that Syd wasn’t quite as ‘mad’ as is often made out. 'If It’s in You' suggests otherwise and so 'Late Night' made the cut.

Presumably Barrett wasn’t in town when Donn Pennebaker was shooting Bob Dylan’s peregrinations for the film Dont [sic] Look Back, but can you imagine? Instead, we get Donovan doing his best to impress with an acoustic performance of 'To Sing for You'. That’s no criticism or I wouldn’t have included 'Sunshine Superman' here (although lyrically it's all over the place). Coincidentally, Dylan responds with a rendition of 'It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue' which is the song that follows on this compilation, except this time it’s The 13th Floor Elevators doing the honours. Tommy Hall’s signature electric jug is conspicuous by way of its absence, but it’s no worse off for that.

'Too Real' (4 minutes and 55 seconds long) by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club calls to my mind maybe Spiritualized or Northern Soul era Verve, initiating a run of tunes that are fairly long, slow of pace and lugubrious in mood; I’ve built an anti climax as opposed to an anticlimax. I got quite into BRMC, as they were often known, and Peter Hayes in particular, who had good hair. 

Before they were semi-famous Elbow made pretty interesting music. I’d heard a particular song of theirs at a party, which turned out to be 'Any Day Now'. This was before they’d released their debut album, Asleep in the Back. I assumed that what I’d heard was their new single, 'Powder Blue', and so bought that and quickly realised it wasn’t. It would be many years later before I finally established the true identity of the song I heard at that party, but either track would have done in the circumstance.

 'Let it Run' by Beachwood Sparks lasts an epic 6 minutes 38 seconds, although its coda drags on for more than a minute and a half of that. By the time it’s over, at a mere 3 minutes and 17 seconds, the punchy 'Come on Let’s Go' comes as something of a relief. You’d think it might jar but the late Trish Keenan’s soft vocals connect satisfyingly with the gentle harmonies of Beachwood Sparks. [The acquisition of Broadcast's second long player, The Noise Made by People, came off the back of finding their compilation Work and Non Work in the library. If minidiscs had been longer in duration, I'd have probably also included something from that: 'The Books Lovers', say, or 'Lights Out'.]

The first Weird War album is not their best. I don’t think Ian Svenonius had fully defined his vision for his new band, or maybe I was just upset about finding out about Make Up too late to see them play live. According to the sleeve notes, 'By following the "Texas Instruments Calculator" theory of minimal circuitry and isolated components, Weird War has circumvented the transmission of responsible knowledge and the provocation to enact revision amid the delusion of representation.' How this relates to 'Baby It’s the Best' is anyone’s guess, but I liked their style.

Led Zeppelin: file alongside Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd. Acts of this ilk weren’t considered especially cool among the lo-fi loving indie aficionados of the late ‘80/early ‘90s (Syd Barrett-era Floyd excepted). Not that this would have bothered me much, it just meant I didn’t come across them. The guy who used to own a pager, on the other hand, had been exposed to Led Zeppelin from an early age and was aware there was much more to them than 'Stairway to Heaven', which is manna to the muso. It was Led Zeppelin III that I feasted on initially, courtesy of Hounslow Library. Thereafter I found a cheap copy of Houses of the Holy on vinyl, which to this day is my favourite Led Zeppelin album. I still can’t stand 'Stairway to Heaven' though.

In the latter of half of 2001 – too late to make an impression on The Boys of Summer – I purchased copies of the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed (a re-issue) and Sticky Fingers (an original copy). 'Gimme Shelter' originally featured here, but the song I really wanted to use was 'Can’t You Hear Me Knocking' off of Sticky Fingers. At over seven minutes long there wasn't room and so 'Gimme Shelter' got the nod. Since freeing myself from the temporal constraints imposed by MiniDisc, I've reverted to my original preference.

Opting for 'Gimme Shelter' left me with just under three minutes to play with, which was enough to accommodate any number of tracks from the eponymous debut album by anti-folk band The Moldy Peaches. The Moldy Peaches were associated with The Strokes and The White Stripes. It was all about the timing; their sound wasn’t remotely similar to either. My lady friend bought me their album for my birthday. If I’m honest, I wasn’t overly impressed, but 'I Forgot' holds a certain charm.

My mild disappointment with the Weird War album was ameliorated by the discovery of the record Play Power by Svenonius’s alter-ego David Candy. 'The best art attracts the best people, so I like to go see Supremacist artists like Kazimir Malevich or Vladimir Mayakovsky,' proclaims David Candy over the flamenco guitar of 'Redfuchsiatamborine&gravel'. Again, this track didn’t fit on my original compilation, but it was listened to more often than many of the tracks that did, so I’ve retrospectively tacked it on at the end. [I later discovered that the guy who played the guitar on this track - Matt Hulse - also directed the video for Broadcast's 'Come On Let's Go', which is an amazing coincidence.]

Trip to Brighton

There turned out to be many more curries, as well as afternoons spent drinking in the Portobello Star, evenings at the Dive Bar and the 100 Club, the occasional gig (The Darkness, Delta, The Dylan Rabbit, Arthur Lee), long weekends in Brighton and Plymouth and Nottinghamshire, camping trips, and excursions to various football grounds in support of Plymouth Argyle’s successful push for promotion into the Second Division. How I ever afforded my five months of travelling must be a testament to a healthier economy, a stronger pound and a more reasonable cost of living. I can barely conceive of it now but am glad I took the opportunity when it presented itself.

[Listen to here.]