This is a Recording

Here's another of the compilation cassettes I bought this summer, having taken home a Denon twin-deck hi-fi cassette player from the local charity shop. All Wrapped Up is a 1983 compilation of singles by The Undertones, with Side One filled with A-sides, and B-sides on Side Two. A cassette must be the least desirable medium for such an arrangement, with a long rewind required if one just wants to hear the hits repeatedly. The Undertones were unapologetically provincial and anti-fashionable, with their songs sharply-written slices of life that pointedly avoided any mention of politics, or of the then-continuing violence in their native Derry. My favourite tracks are the obvious choices: 'Teenage Kicks', 'Jimmy Jimmy', 'Here Comes the Summer', 'My Perfect Cousin' & 'Wednesday Week'. Their later singles showed increased sophistication but lack the some of the straightforward charm of their earlier work. The B-sides, not unexpectedly, are mo...

A few years too young to properly absorb the impact of punk when it was new, I feel now as if I've aged my way past it to some extent, much more often inclined to reach for the musical equivalent of a pipe & slippers than anything shouty or confrontational. In between, I was very much a fan, more so of the pop-punk side of things (The Ramones, Blondie, Buzzcocks, The Undertones) than of its angrier or more politicised aspects. I first bought Singles Going Steady on cassette when I was twenty-one, and it was already ten years old. At that time it felt like the perfect album. I'd mentioned my erstwhile affection for it to my sister, who subsequently (about five years ago) found a well-worn vinyl copy that she kindly gave to me. It turned out to be a US first pressing. Thrilled as I was to hear it all again, I've not often revisited it. Despite that, I don't think I'll be letting it go in the forseeable future, unlike my copies of Never Mind the Bollocks... and t...

Here's a 7" on bright yellow vinyl from toward the end of my phase of buying new singles of individual songs that I'd heard on the radio & taken a shine to. It was released in 2018, and was the third single from The Lovely Eggs' fourth LP This is Eggland . The Lovely Eggs are a Lancaster-based punk duo with a DIY ethos whose music all comes from "one vintage guitar amp, one Big Muff distortion pedal, a guitar and a drum kit." I'd become aware of them a few years beforehand, around the time of their album This is Our Nowhere .  'Wiggy Giggy' is an infectiously catchy number based in part on a children's story about a space traveller who discovers great treasure but finds he has no way to spend it & no-one to share it with. The B-side, 'My Dad', is a more leaden affair - in which singer/guitarist Holly Ross describes a dream wherein she saw her late father.

If the prices on Discogs are anything to go by, 'New Rose' by The Damned is by far the most valuable record I own, with their median selling price currently at £250. Presumably this must be due to its being a first pressing of the first British punk rock release. It was one of a batch of six singles I bought at the local charity shop last summer for £2, the others being 'Lucky Number' by Lene Lovich, 'Denis' by Blondie, Talking Heads' 'Love Goes To Building On Fire', Stiff Little Fingers' 'Alternative Ulster' and 'United' by Throbbing Gristle. That was a lucky day's shopping, but it could have been luckier still had I decided to also buy the copy of the 'Capital Radio' EP by The Clash they had, for which the Discogs median value is £165. "Who wants to listen to a record with band interview clips on it?" I thought. Having belatedly realised what I'd missed out on, I returned to the shop a couple of hours l...

  I have the 2004 CD version of this album. While CD bonus tracks are often superfluous and even unwelcome additions, here we have such fine extras as the band's collaborations with The Dubliners: 'The Irish Rover' and 'Mountain Dew'; 'The Battle March' medley; and a spirited rendition of 'South Australia'. As for the album itself - it's a slightly unfocussed collection which, for all the good things in it, doesn't quite hit home with the same force as did Rum, Sodomy and the Lash . Among its moving parts is, of course, 'Fairytale of New York'. When first released, it seemed like a breath of fresh air: a song about Christmas that didn't partake of the of usual festive clichés. This held true the first several dozen times I heard it; and even, some years later, when it began to creep into mainstream Yuletide playlists. Now, though, I've heard it so many hundreds of times that it's become a cliché despite itself, and I perso...

Here is another attempt at starting a blog. A few weak attempts over the last decade & more have come to nothing. The idea this time is that I'll start writing a little about LPs and CDs from my collection, as suggested by the 'Random Item' button at Discogs. Up first is Happy Birthday to Me by The Muffs. I now have a copy of the 2017 issue from Omnivore Recordings on white vinyl, but I first bought this album on CD, not so long after its release some twenty years earlier. My recollection is of picking it up in Birmingham, where I'd sometimes stop briefly while travelling by train from Tamworth or Nuneaton back to Cardiff. I would have first listened to it on my 'Discman' while reading some magazines: such quaintly dated pastimes now. I was already a Muffs fan, and a proud owner of Blonder and Blonder , and this album was in no way a disappointment: both were well-loved, and well-travelled - and both CDs ended up badly scratched with their cases broken, hen...