You Don't Know Me

Dear Daniel,

Jonathan Ross has just played this song on his Radio 2 show. I'd never heard it before, although I imagine it's a probably not hot off the presses. I've really drifted away from his stuff ever since it became clear he was a really good songwriter. Does that sound odd? What I mean is: when it became obvious he could pen a good tune. That if you asked him to write something for you, he'd be able to do it in a minute and it would be... good.

Hmmm. Try this: Ben Folds Five felt like a really fine cottage industry, putting a bit of blood sweat and tears into their goods and it was sometimes shoddy but you knew somebody had put a heap of love into it. Nowadays, he's bought a big factory and the product's similar, but I can see the machine-cut edges. It's a taste thing. I buy free range eggs.

There's a second reason I was moved to write about Ben Folds. He turned up on Sky news this week. In amongst the reporters kicking in doors and over-egging their pieces to camera, there was this report on a contest to find the best a capella rendition of one of his songs.

I like this one.



mainly for the lead vocalist's arm-brace (unfortunate 11th-hour free-running mishap? Or attempt to create himself a thing, i.e. "It's that guy! You know - with the arm-brace!"). Also for the fact that the camera-operators clearly had no idea he was going to give it quite so much and for the truly really-well-done instrumental section.

And for the guy at the end who thought they were going to shout cut a lot earlier...

Green Machine

Dear James,

Here's something odd: I just found this draft of a post which we'd both commented on but never got round to publishing. That's drink for you. We could start a whole internet conspiracy thing of "the missing 78records articles". I bet people are talking about it already.



Dear James,

I spend far too long thinking up posts for my blogs. I was trying to remember the time before July 2007 when I didn't have a blog, and wondered what I did with my time. I can't remember, but I'm sure it was less constructive. Today I read there's a new grunge scene in Leeds and was going to post one of the bands the article mentioned but thought you might like to do that instead, and thus remain on diplomatic terms with any band members you might know. Or just say what you really think, whatever.

So I was going to post something from my halcyon grunge days but couldn't find anything that would fit the unspoken cool of this blog. I nearly posted Barkmarket in the hope that Dave Sardy might now be considered cool, having produced a band they call The Duels, but then I remembered how I was into one cool band when I was 17, and they were called Kyuss.

As you can see, early 90s metal videos were rubbish. I think bands were reluctant to sell out by lowering themselves to the video format, but then they couldn't get on MTV if they didn't. One Metallica fan once spat in James Hetfield's face for making a video for the 1989 single One. On the other hand, grunge/metal was the only music you could play in your shorts. And then there were the bass solos.

According to the comments on youtubes, "Kyuss is for driving through the desert at 200 miles per hour in a souped up Chevy Van 20", so if you don't appreciate this song, this may be why. Another fan counters that "Kyuss is for getting high in the basement and I wouldn't have it any other way". Do you have a cellar in the new house? As you'll be able to spot, Kyuss featured Stone Age Queen Josh Homme on guitar, and our friend Jon Gomm on vocals, clearly.

Dear Daniel,

I like Kyuss. I wish you'd have played me them when you were 18, possibly instead of Attack of the Killer Bs.

Vexations

Dear James,

Yesterday I prepared for Buenos Aires 2009 by listening to Paris 1919 on a loop. This led me to read about Erik Satie and then I found this video. It's all fairly self-explanatory, except for the presenter's comment at the end where he appears to say "Mr Cale, you have a whim of iron." Have I misheard that? I hope I haven't.

South American Way

Dear James,

As you know, today marks ten years since I emigrated to Argentina. I was going to post this Gardel song, but everyone posts Mi Buenos Aires Querido on their music blogs when they reach ten years' residence, so you get the lovely Carmen Miranda instead. The Andrew Sisters did a great version of this song, but I can't find it on youtubes but they have got South America, Take It Away with Bing Crosby, and said if I call back next week they might have a South American Way in stock.

Carmen Miranda used to run a hat shop which, according to Wikipedia, was "quite profitable".

Meanwhile, here's The Nicholas Brothers with Down Argentine Way: nice tuxedos, elaborate tap-dancing and polite applause. Very much sums up my ten years here.

Meddle

Dear Daniel,

Woody Allen's new film is called Vicky Christina Barcelona. From that trailer alone, I wouldn't bother. But it features the combined talents of That One from Lost in Translation, That One from Vanilla Sky and That One from No Country for Old Men, plus That One Who Used to Write Hilarious Social Satires of New York New-Wavers. My brother dismisses it as Woody Allen trying again to write around a particular city, like he did in Match Point. I don't know what he's talking about: I don't remember Match Point. He says that's probably for the best.

Did we watch "Jamon Jamon" together during an ill-conceived film marathon at Sheffield Uni? I definitely remember "Golden Balls" which was supposed to be the sequel, right? I think you told me that. Well, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem were together in that, being all porno. Did you see No Country for Old Men? Not at all porno...

I can't tell you why Vicky Christina Ronaldo reminds me of Little Boots in this public arena (and I use the word "public" quite wrongly) but it's a decent enough way to introduce you to the UK sound of 2009 (copyright everyone), a talented young lady from Blackpool via Leeds who also happens to be another of my friends from the Leeds music scene who has leapt onto the rung of the music ladder where people leaning idly from upstairs windows can see you for the first time and start asking your name and listening carefully to the answer. "Hello, interesting new person," they say, "would you like some tea?"

Dear James,

Great stuff. You haven't made tea for Little Boots, have you? It'll put her right off the music biz before she's even got started. That is very good stuff, a bit like Ben Folds when he plays Smoke, only not like that very much. And also a bit like Victoria Wood, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. What's that little box she's playing with? Have you got one?

Match Point is the one where the posh chap who's supposed to be Irish kills the one from Lost In Translation and gets away with it, via a clumsy tennis metaphor. Apparently there's a ghost in the final scene; I've yet to see it. Sadly, it introduced a whole new generation over here to Woody Allen, as I sat groping my Hannah and Her Sisters DVD.

We did see Golden Balls together at the union cinema, I enjoyed Jamon Jamon later that summer with the curtains closed. I'm concerned that you think you were with me at the time. I'm now thinking of you in the erotic garlic scene. "¿Te gusta el ajo?" "Mmm, ¡venga!" That kind of thing would have lost No Country For Old Men the Oscar.

Pump It Up

Dear Daniel,

After the bass-talk I touched on earlier, I spent the whole day singing the bassline to this track. One of my favourite basslines ever - it transforms the whole song without you ever noticing it, until that moment when you do and it's with you for good.

It's hard to imagine the squat, beardy Costello of today ever really thinking the cripple-walk was a good idea. Indie bands for thirty years hence have taken note, though. This video reminds me, the new Woody Allen film is out this month and it's being hailed as a "return to form".

I know - again!

This time, though, they mean it.

Dear James,

Good to see you celebrating your own good news with a bit of Elvis Costello. This video isn't available in my domain, you know. To think, I have a domain. Now that I know, I can feel it all around me. Like that bassline (Argentinian viewers can hear it here).

Which Woody Allen film is out? Which form is it a return to? If it's Everything Else form, I'm not going.

I Can't Make It Anymore

Dear James,

There's a Uruguayan restaurant near here that has menus made from the jackets of old albums. One of them is the Woodstock album. I asked the waitress for a little help from my friends. I bet nobody ever makes that joke. She pretended not to get it, rather than treating me with the contempt I deserved. I was disappointed. Contempt is always infinitely preferable to indifference. Just as long as there's some kind of reaction.

After opening the Woodstock festival in the 60s, Richie Havens went on to compose and perform jingles for NBC, CBS and ABC. Isn't that wonderfully representative of the Woodstock generation?

And! It turns out this was a cover of a Northern Soul record by Spyder Turner. Covers better than the original? Got one right here.

If You Leave Me Now

Dear James,

It feels like months since our last 1970s MOR post, so here's Chicago with one of the few classics from the year of our births. And just look at the world we were born into, where Roger Taylor lookalikes with big hair, pained expressions when they do falsetto and 12-string guitars could be top of the pops. Chicago are second only to the Beach Boys for most singles and albums released in the USA, although given the standard of some Beach Boys albums this isn't saying much.

Chicago guitarist Terry Kath's famous last words were "Don't worry, it's not loaded", just before he shot himself in the head. I can't tell if he's in this video, as Peter Cetera hogs the camera and plays the guitar solo, even though he was the bass guitarist. Typical bass guitarist.

Remarkably, Chicago started out as a jazz-influenced, guitar feedback style band and their debut album was a double, like what Frank Zappa did. This is their debut single, Questions 67 and 68.

Dear Daniel,

Having done my fair share of hanging around vinyl-only second-hand stores, I've often seen the Chicago Transit Authority record and thought there's got to be something on it of worth. The logic is kinda: this song and Hard Habit to Break show some sort of wierd songwriting talent and suggest they're a slight-bit fractious too, so maybe their early stuff is quite bizarre and exciting.

With that in mind, I was quite eager to follow the link in your last paragraph (well, I was excited about the guitar feedback bit). What a let-down. It's the same as all the stuff my mum played in the car, only worse. The best part of the video is not the video, but the youtube info bit where chicagokid1969 reveals, "It's kinda psychedelic and also a little annoying."

Also, I remember Peter "et" Cetera from the Karate Kids III power ballad video soundtrack tie-in thing, the Glory of Love. I never realised his hair was quite so... so... so... beautiful.

Dear James,

The hair's all right. I really enjoyed Questions 67 and 68, but that shows what effect marijuana has on the musical mind. Our mothers must have been so out of it. Maybe we should get them to post a post each, yeah?

Gimme Some Lovin'

Dear Daniel,

Reading through your interesting notes on Kissing with Confidence below, trying to ignore the song playing the background, an unusual thought struck me. You mentioned Stevie Winwood and how his influence weaved through Island records like the rampant branches of an overgrown tree, and you are right. I am sad to report that he didn't have any influence on our time at Island. In fact, we decided to sign to Island over Sony - who were the other bidders, led by Muff Winwood seen here playing his trademark bassline style: piece of piss to play but defines the whole song. (Had I have seen this bit of film back when we were showcasing for him, I would have signed to Sony and asked him to introduce us in a similar way, every night on stage.)

That got me to thinking. Who was the mysterious accounts man who signed off our costs "Steven Finford"? Who can say for sure that the man with the chiselled features who dropped a hammond organ round to my brother's house one Sunday afternoon was really an ageing Yorkshire delivery man called Brian? Thinking back, did he whisper words of advice as he slipped delicately (alright, crashed noisily) out of the door? "Keep on runnin', boys..."

Dear James,

I can't listen to this song without thinking simultaneously of Queen's 1986 cover of it and the denouement to the film "Notting Hill". This is how songs get ruined.

Doesn't Steve Winwood look funny when he's singing? Almost as if he isn't singing at all.

Dear Daniel,

All I can say is thank goodness I've never seen or heard either of those things.

(It's all I can do to resist clicking on the Queen link, even though I know that only bad will come of it...)

(Remember) Walking in the Sand

Dear James,

Peach of a song for you here from the Shangri-Las, following the theme of the previous post and showing the world where Amy Winehouse got Back to Black for. But it's not just Amy who copied it: Sir Paul McCartney ripped off the verse, put it in the middle eighth of Free As A Bird and claimed John Lennon had written it. And can you guess which American hard-rock band covered it? It almost sounds like they wrote it.

I just checked my Revolution in the Head and Iain MacDonald pointed out that Shangri-La thing many moons ago. And I thought I was great. However, MacDonald makes no mention of Brian Epstein faking his own death, killing Paul McCartney and inhabiting his body and feeding on the blood of Michael Jackson, so I've still got some original ideas.

Mary Weiss was 15 when she sang lead on this song. I like how they had nothing to do with Phil Spector, even though they sound like they should, and how they're a lot darker than other girl groups of the 60s, as seen in Past, Present and Future, which is just this side of unsettling. This is a cover, I couldn't find the original.

Billy Joel played piano on the original demo to (Remember), which was seven minutes long. That's so Billy. It probably featured a Dixieland jazz section and lengthy saxophone solos. I don't know whether that drummer you like featured.

Dear Daniel,

Crikey. I was reading your text and watching the video and thinking to myself how attractive the singer of the Shangri-las was. Just then, you revealed me to be a dirty old peadophile. Thanks a bunch. Nice tune, though.

Shangri-la

Dear James,

We haven't had any Kinks on this blog yet, and we still haven't as technically this is just one of them with a whole load of other people, including lots of middle-aged choirboys. This is another one of those songs where I can't work out whether it's a fine performance true to the majesty of the original or just some old people rehashing great songs they're no longer capable of writing. I'll leave our readers to work out that one, just as soon as we get some readers.

I have before me an album titled "Golden Hour Kinks Lola, Percy & The Apeman come Face to Face with the Village Green Preservation Society... Something Else". I thought Shangri-la might be on it, but it isn't. I really should fix my record player. And here's a list of chords for all the Kinks' songs ever. This is another one of those songs it took me for ever to get into. I think I first heard it through you and ignored it. Then I heard it in the bar la Cigale and asked the barman who it was. "The Kinks", he said. Damn, I thought. I'm Enlgish, I should be telling them about The Kinks. And it turns out their best album ever is Arthur, not Village Green. And I don't even own that! This is all wrong, James.

The phrase Shangri-La originated in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton, which in turn was made into a film by Frank Capra, then remade in the Bacharch musical Lost Horizon, which was kind of where this blog started.

There used to be a beach resort near Montevideo, Uruguay, called Shangrilá, named after the place in the novel. True story.

Dear Daniel,

I rather like it, but then I think it's a great song. Two things about this version get my back up, however. Firstly, why anybody in music who ages enough to be re-visited in BBCtv retrospectives like the Electric Proms, or to appear on Jools Holland's show simultaneously peddling their ropey new albums and trading on former glories decides to use that horrible mushy "electronic" acoustic guitar sound.

Secondly, "professional" musicians often ruin music. See how the a member of the choir-for-hire beams radiantly through the line about a "mortgage hanging over his head", because she's on the telly. Suddenly, the song ceases to be a singular heartfelt take on 60s British suburbia and splits and withers, becoming a bunch of words and notes played and sung by idiots.

I think that's why Jean Luc Picard joins in (at 4'28"), trying to save them from themselves.

Doorway of a Dancehall

Dear James,

Look what I found on google.video! It's you, back when you were 19! Wonder what else google.video's got that youtubes hasn't.

Oh, nothing then. Still, that was hugely enjoyable. I waited five years to see that.

Kissing with Confidence

Dear James,

Another oft-overlooked song from my mother's 1987 Island Story, I still can't work out whether this song is a minor work of ironic genius, or just a bit naff. There's some clever lyrics, some original spoken word performance and Carly Simon, all these things are usually good, but there's also an annoying Billy Ocean beat and Carly Simon. And you know that Spanish-language bit in the middle? I only worked out it was Spanish today. All my life I presumed it was French. And it's spoken by a non-native Spanish speaker and all.

Due to my confusing all the names of the artists on the Island Story, I always imagine the man from Buggles with big glasses singing this while Sparks sing Video Killed the Radio Star. Julian Cope sneaks into this one too, albeit only in my imagination.

(Brief pause while I read numerous Wikipedia entries) Well cut my legs off and call me Shorty, it turns out Will Powers wasn't a bloke at all, but a photographer called Lynn Goldsmith singing through a vocoder, and the whole album was a self-help album set to music. AND Steve Winwood and Todd Ruddgren had a hand in writing this song. Was there any aspect of Island Records' business that Steve Winwood didn't have a hand in? Please tell me now that when you were signed to Island and recording Doorway of a Dancehall, he popped in and laid down a cool electric organ track, which was nice.

The Book of Love

Dear James,

Two terrible things happened today. First of all, I sat through the entirety of Richard Gere's "Shall We Dance". I could claim that I was looking for flats in the classified ads while viewing, but I still saw more than I wanted to see. The film is mentioned in my novel, so I did have a research basis for watching a film I'm supposed to have seen, but even so.

The second bad thing: Towards the end of the film, a strangely familiar song could be heard, but one that had clearly been bastardised beyond recognition. I thought it might be Rod Stewart. It turned out it was Peter Gabriel, doing this to this lovely song. He should know better. And I got through it all without smoking.

Hot Fun in the Summertime/Medley

One of the comments in the Traffic Paper Sun video below was that that song, along with The Beatles' Rain and this one here, were the three most influential 60s psychedelic rock songs, or something. Which is a convenient enough excuse for posting this video, replete with comedy sideburns and funny 60s people dancing. So that's where my mum learnt to dance...

Love Hurts

Dear James,

Well if you're not going to post anything then I suppose I'd better post something, or our reader will start to suspect there are other places on the internet for listening to music. Here we have a song that I only just managed to download the other day after years of searching on soulseek.com (I could've just paid for a download, but, you know). Lovely song. Especially the disco middle-eight. This song was one of many I've always loved because they were on my mum's Island Story collection. I'll be posting something here tomorrow about that.

The original version was recorded by the Everly Brothers. You can see the start of it here, with a handy guide to the song's evolution. Sadly, the song is best known for the cover by Scottish croakers Nazareth.

It turns out Jim Capaldi used to be in Traffic and wrote most of their songs. I had no idea. Traffic's Paper Sun also featured on that Island Collection album. Watch this great video, which appears to have been filmed in the Natural History Museum.

American Idol does Sgt. Pepper

Dear James,

You know it's been a slow day for me elsewhere when I post four posts in one day. But this one could not be left behind.

It all starts off fairly normally, with Joe Perry strumming along to Kelly Clarkson and wondering where the hell it all went wrong. Then a Coldplay impersonator destroys a Day in the Life before he's even given up the Coldplay impersonation. It starts to feel like one of those dreams you have where people are doing something your conscious self likes, but they're doing them all wrong. And you shout out "Stop" You're doing it all wrong! And I used to like that!" I have dreams like that.

Then we get Carrie Underwood. I used to think Syreeta's cover of "She's Leaving Home" was a contemporary cover. How wrong I was. Still, good old Ruben, eh?

And to finish it off, our American Idol friends show us that it really is possible to make "A Little Help From My Friends" even worse in this post-WWW world.

Harmour Love

Dear James,

It's back! I posted this video on the blog that dare not speak its name many moons ago, and then it got taken down by the copyright people. But now it's back! I really love this song, from the first chords to the bit which you think is the chorus but isn't. Great stuff. Incredibly it only reached #75 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1975. Maybe it's not as good as I thought.

At first, it looks like she's talking on the phone. Then it looks like she's singing in the studio. Then it looks like she's just holding a funny earphone thing in order to flip the viewer the V's.

Notice how her mouth doesn't move much. Is she stoned, or is she just doing a really bad lip-synch? That's Stevie Wonder singing the backing vocals, by the way. Maybe he just wears sunglasses so no one can tell that he actually sings out of his eyes.

Syreeta married Stevie in 1970 and divorced him 18 months later. She is credited as a co-writer of Signed, Sealed, Delivered. She was considered as Diana Ross' replacement in The Supremes. In 1974 she released her Wonder-produced album, "Stevie Wonder presents Syreeta". Do you think he used to say that to people at parties and other social gatherings, on introducing his wife?

Syreeta also played Mary Magdalen in a 1994 tour of Jesus Christ Superstar. I first found her after accidentally downloading her cover of "She's Leaving Home". I thought it was a modern song. Sadly, you can't find it on youtubes. There is this one of Paul McCartney doing it in 2002, but it's just a bit odd. Whereas Carrie Underwood's version...

Claire de Lune

Dear James,

You see? This is why I should do more work, rather than sitting around looking at computers without working on them. I end up deciding I'm going to buy a theremin. Last month it was a cello. The month before that it was a small island off the coast of Costa Rica. It's costing me a fortune.

Do you still have your theremin? Is it all that hard to play? Any chance of you posting a video of yourself playing I Just Wasn't Made for These Times, even though that wasn't really a theremin.

Thereminist Lydia Kavina was the grand-niece of Leon Theremin, the inventor of electronic music and of the world's first drum machine. Lenin was so impressed with Theremin's theremin he took up classes himself. On returning to the Soviet Union, Theremin was imprisoned and set to work in a sharashka, a secret science and research centre, where he invented the Buran eavesdropping system, used for bugging the US, French and British embassies in Moscow, and later "The Thing", a listening device placed inside a wooden carving of the Great Seal, which was presented to the US ambassador as a token of good will and used to listen in to conversations in the US Embassy for the first seven years of the Cold War until it was accidentally discovered. Meanwhile, Jimmy Page messed about with a theremin on Whole Lotta Love.

Up, up and away

Dear James,

It turns out there's a new film about the Wrecking Crew which has been doing the rounds of festivals but hasn't been released yet. (For readers who've just joined us, the Wrecking Crew were a shifting group of session musicians who contributed to several major records of the 60's and 70s, see River Deep... post below). Whilst enjoying this clip I heard a snippet of this song and did a search for it and it turns out it's by The Fifth Dimension, which is odd as I was about to post their Age of Aquarius yesterday and thought better of it.

How weird were The Fifth Dimension? Look at the bloke with the beard on the left. Surely he's in the wrong business? This single, written by Jimmy Webb of "Wichita Lineman" fame, won four Grammys. Clearly, the Grammy Awards have always been a joke, it's not just a recent phenomenon.

Then I looked at their Wikipedia page and it turns out they also recorded California Soul, a song I know from Marlene Shaw's version, and which was written by songwriting team Ashford $ Simpson, who went on to have that fine 80s hit, Solid. Beardy man looks even weirder in this video:


5th Dimension also had more success with Laura Nyro songs than Laura Nyro herself. Here's them doing Nyro's Stoned Soul Picnic. There's more. 5th Dimension started out as the Hi-Fis, who split up with half of them forming Friends of Distinction, who recorded the wonderful Jenny Wants to Know.

My other previous knowledge of The 5th Dimension was from reading that Nick Drake wanted Bryter Layter to sound like Pet Sounds, Tim Buckley's Hello and Goodbye and the 5th's The Magic Garden. I don't think I was impressed with either of the latter two. I'm still trying to work out if I like the 5th in a Bacharach kind of way, or whether they're just pure cheese.

Fools

Dear Daniel,

We've all got to be careful reading Bill Drummond. Calling for a new year zero for music is all well and good if you want to make a statement about innovation or shake up some cobwebbed pre-conceptions about what music should be. But if you end up feeling that guitars and drums simply bashing out a good tune is without merit, you're going to miss out on a whole world of enjoyment.

Here is Dodos playing Fools. Another fine song from 2008 featuring guitars and drums and just as valid as Justice or Hercules and Love Affair or, for that matter, the Justified Ancients of MuMu.

Dear James,

That's the thing though, isn't it? If you say that all music is dead and you have to start all over again, you're left with a fairly unlistenable mish-mash of Gregorian chant over a remixed KLF breakbeat. In fact, Drummond gives in at the end of 17 and slips on some Pet Sounds and, oh dear, James Brown as he drives his merry way to Scotch Corner.

I liked this one more than your other song of the year. I like any stuff with funny drums. And bands that are two-pieces. Like the mighty Scroops. Must dash, the milanesas are ready.

The Owl

Dear James,

Even though I've already posted it on the old blog, and purely because it's by the band with the best name ever, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness. The video is so good that you don't realise that the music really doesn't go anywhere at all.

I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness was decided on as a band name after a fan poll. Runner-up names included I Love You But I'm Tired and I Just Want To Watch The Telly, I Love You But Your Mother Has To Go, and I Love "I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness" But I've Chosen Brit Cock-Rockers The Darkness.

Dear Daniel,

Best band name ever? Agreed. I've always liked Half Man, Half Biscuit. There's a band in Leeds called Whores, Whores, Whores. I think The Arcade Fire is a good band name. The best thing about I Love You, But I've Chosen Darkness is that it's so strong a sentence the band could never eclipse it. The Sex Pistols, on the other hand, has overtaken it's meaning and rarely makes people think of cocks (aside from the band themselves).

River Deep, Mountain High

Dear James,

I've been listening to this song on repeat for the best part of the last two months, and have now worked it out on the piano, so you can all look forward to a very bad cover being posted shortly on Youtube. Tina Turner is now my favourite female singer, but I'm only saying that out of a Music Talliban inclination to dismiss all music recorded by women.

Note how this version isn't a patch on the original Phil Spector arrangement. I was reading that Phil Spector was well aware of what kind of person Ike Turner was in the recording studio, and so drew up a contract whereby the single would be credited to "Ike and Tina Turner" on the condition that Ike stayed the hell out of the studio. The single stalled at number 88 on the Billboard "crushing Spector's spirit and effectively causing him to close his record label down". Surely his spirit was further crushed on hearing Deep Purple's cover. It gets going after five minutes, after it stops trying to be the theme music from 2001.

Now, trivia time, pop-pickers. Can you tell me who or what connects this song with all the Grammy Song of the Year awards from 1966 to 1971, Good Vibrations and Mrs. Robinson? Click here for the answer.

Dear Daniel,

The first time I heard this song, it was Lenny Henry dressed as Tina Turner. Remember when the West Midlands ruled British comedy?

Deep Purple needed to add 5 minutes of nonsense to the beginning of their version to give the impression of being grown up and rock while distracting us from the fact that their rendition is pretty pedestrian and not unlike every pub rock act of the 1970s. Remember when the West Midlands ruled British rock?

Hal Blaine list of number ones is astounding. Can there be another non-Wrecking Crew musician to claim a direct link to that many? I like the suggestion that Dennis Wilson LET Hal do a large amount of drumming on Beach Boys records...

Suffer For Fashion

Of Montreal - New Music - More Music Videos

Dear Daniel,

Since you posted before The Christmas Of Barbeques, I have been mulling over my songs of the year. And, well, I have a shortlist. But it all exists in my head at the moment and since I've promised to write to you in this way tonight and not delay delay delay I shall have to do something different with the songs of 2008 and spread them out over various messages to you. Everyone's a winner.

Well, it's the new year. I don't usually put much effort into resolutions (neither the construction of nor the subsequent crashing failure to achieve) but this year I've decided to get out to some more gigs. More bands than ever are getting into vans and driving up and down the country (which is one reason we decided not to in 2008) but I've seen fewer than ever before. And so to Of Montreal's Suffer for Fashion which I think may have been one of my tracks of 2008 (time is passing really quickly - it may have been a track of 2007) and which I would very much like to seek out live in 2009.

Something you may not know about me is that I'm a big fan of the Elephant 6 collective. Ever since you left me for a year and I had to set up a radio station to fill my time. That's when I discovered and played the Olivia Tremor Control's Jumping Fences to everyone eating in The Park. Unfortunately for them, I didn't know how to operate the studio desk and was also playing bits of Dog On Wheels by Belle and Sebastian to them as I tried to line that song up, ready to play next. I'm better than that now. Of Montreal have strong links to those 90s psych fellows and it shows.

Dear James,

It's growing on me that one. But reading Bill Drummond has had a similar effect on me as listening to Coldplay for the first time: is this all we can do with guitars and drums? Maybe the rest of The Scroops songs should avoid using all these things, but then we'd be left with a very twee album of ukuleles and melodicas.

Do tell us more about Elephant6. Last year I went to a grand total of one gig (or three if I include friends' bands), so I'm obliged to say that Kaiser Chiefs was the best band I saw live last year. Maybe I should get out more too.

Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingest

Dear James,

So, I was reading this article about the loudest band in the world and was going to post this video by experimental metal band Sunn 0))). However, they are very dull. And they're not even the loudest band in the world, the Jesus and Mary chain are. Kaiser Chiefs come seventh in the list, just behind, er, MC Hammer.

But then seeing that the Sunn 0))) video was from Germany I remembered this song by Marlene Dietrich which I'd forgotten to post. This came to me via a search for more Bacharach stuff, he conducted some Dietrich recordings in the early 60s, though not the one in this video. The song in English is "Falling in Love Again" and, it turns out, has been covered by everyone from Bryan Ferry to Cristina Aguilera. That is literally everyone.

Written by Friedrich Hollaender, the English lyrics were written by Sammy Lerner, who went on to write Betty Boop's "Don't Take My Boop Oop-a-Doop Away" and Popeye's "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man". Seriously.

Dear Daniel,

Your last sentence tests the theory that ignorance is bliss. Shall I find out whether you are being entirely truthful? I could risk finding out it's not entirely true. No, I'm happier believing something which sounds like claptrap is the unequivocal truth...

I'm going to lose my hearing. I've spent too long going to very loud gigs, playing directly in front of a stupidlly loud amp and now I spend the whole day with headphones on, listening to the sound of my own voice way too loudly. Imagine being a drummer. No, just imagine it. Awful isn't it? AND you just have to listen to the horrible smacking of drums and cymbals all the time.

Dear James,

And you'd only get to bathe once a week. Anyway, it's true about Popeye, I read it on Wikipedia, so it must be.

Iggy / Thing

Dear James,
Have you ever been, have you ever been, to Acoustic Ladyland? Two songs for you from this intriguing jazz metal quartet, who sometimes have a singer but I prefer the noise they make without her. This is another recommendation from Ian, who is on holiday and therefore has even more time on his hands than me. Imagine! You can tell this is one of his recommendations, because it's the kind of thing that others might view as unlistenable avant-garde dirge, but not us, clearly. Even Josefina likes some of these songs, and she hates avant-garde dirges.

Drummer Seb Rochford has been in lots of bands, including Babyshambles and Polar Bear, who I thought sounded familiar, until I realised I was thinking of the Smile (pre-Queen) song of the same name. I'm so down with the kids. There's a Guardian review here. And here's a clip of Smile's Polar Bear for a chance to see Brian May with short hair.

Tiny Children

Dear James,

I asked Ian to recommend me a song by The Teardrop Explodes or Echo and The Bunnymen and he gave me this. Ian was in Liverpool more or less at the same time as Bill Drummond so I defer to his higher knowledge, in the absence of a greater wisdom.

Ian says: Heaven up here by E&TB was one of the two best albums of the 1980s in my opinion (the other being Remain in Light by TH). TTE only cut two or three albums but, although Kilimanjaro was the seminal one, Wilder, the second, contained even better and more varied songs. 'Tiny Children' (lyrics here) is faux naif expressionism. (Julian Cope, was a Brummie in a Scouser's backyard if I remember right.) The solo albums that followed TTE were few but brilliant.

Best album of the 80s? Ian has clearly never heard Queen's Hot Space. Surely you've delved into these bands in all your music-delving years? I always dismissed them as the rubbish that was made in the 80s, but then I used to like Echobelly, so, you know.

Man of the World

Dear James,

Happy New Year, although I see you haven't yet finished 2008 by putting up your songs of the year. I've got my friend Ian in one ear and Bill Drummond in the other telling me to listen to Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac. I've just finished the latter's 45 and there's a bit towards the end where he talks about meeting an ageing Peter Green on a plane. I'd copy the relevant parts here for you, but I can never find the bits I'm looking for. I could start highlighting interesting parts with a pencil, but then I'd be one of those people who highlights interesting parts of books with a pencil. The same goes for Alwyn W. Turner's Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s which I read before Drummond. I'm sacrificing my own wisdom for the preservation of books I'll never read again.

Anyway, back to the music, and I thought we'd start 2009 with a song from 1969. This is the best of the bunch of Fleetwood Mac songs I was instructed to check out, and even then I'm not that impressed. Sounds a bit like Cat Stevens. I could've posted Albatross, the best instrumental since Telstar, says Drummond. But it just sounds a bit dreary and one of those songs that fails to make an impression after so many years hearing on the radio. I bit like masturbating with the same hand all your life, but not really like that at all.

Other songs rejected from this post are the Mac's Oh Well and Green Manalishi but they're just not hitting the spot this afternoon. In fact that Telstar video was probably the most entertaining of the bunch. Sorry, Ian and Bill.

Dear Daniel and James (Ian writes),

Pace Peter Green, you aren't listening to the exquisite music of his guitar-playing: the dynamics, the melodic genius, the unfailing rhythmic sense, the studied but felt blues classicism, the tension between the rehearsed and the improvised, the quiet life-or-death drama, not to mention his voice.

This clip of an improvised concert moment might change your mind (don't look at the white man; listen to the soul of blues.) The lyrics ("gotta keep my feet on the ground, etc.") are tragic in light of his later illness. I'd say he's the second best R&B/Rock guitarist of the 60s after Hendrix.