TVV IN 800 SONGS : CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF BLOGGING (Part Six)

Welcome back to the continued and prolonged postings marking the upcoming 20th anniversary of the blog.

#600: Semisonic – Closing Time

I posted about this song in July 2015.  It attracted nine comments.  I don’t recognise just over half the names of the folk who contributed, which indicates just how the level of engagement with long-form music blogs has fallen off the proverbial cliff in recent times.  Incidentally, I’m still happy to describe this 1998 offering as one of the great alt-rock love songs, even if most of everything else by Semisonic that I’ve listened to has underwhelmed me.

#599 : PAWS – Catherine 1956

PAWS were one of many great new bands to emerge out of Scotland in the late 00s and into the next decade.  Their music was a bit louder and punkier than almost all their contemporaries. ‘Catherine 1956’ is the opening song on debut album ‘Cokefloat!’, released in 2012 and is an extraordinary tribute to the late mother of lead singer Philip Taylor after she had died of cancer at a young age and when he was just 18 years old himself.

#598: Kate Bush – Cloudbusting

I’ve been more of an admirer of her music than an ardent lover.  Thankfully, The Robster did his bit for the blog back in January 2026 with ICA #403 that was full of ‘deep cuts’ – ie no singles.  ‘Cloudbusting’ is therefore today making its long-overdue debut appearance on TVV.

#597: Gil Scott-Heron – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

My university years (1981-1985) exposed me to a lot of musicians from previous years that I had not been aware of.  Gil Scott-Heron was one such performer.  It was also timely that in 1985, a rekindling of interest in his work led to his record label issuing a new ‘Best Of’ collection promoted by a 10″ EP of some of his best protest songs from the 70s.  It’s an EP I’ve held onto ever since.

#596: The Adventure Babies – Camper Van

The last band ever to be signed to Factory Records….with a sound that’s a very very long way from the Hacienda.  Fate hasn’t been kind to The Adventure Babies in that their songs have dated badly, but I’ll always have a soft spot for this, the lead track from their debut EP back in September 1991 as it was part of a number of homemade cassettes that got me through the daily commute between Glasgow and Edinburgh for more than four years in the early 90s.

#595: The Catenary Wires – Mirrorball

Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey will feature a few times in this rundown, and here they are as The Catenary Wires, whose music that perhaps can best be summed up as 80s indie-pop packed with lyrics based on a lifetime of experiences rather than from the perspective of naive but excited youth.

#594: Eels – Novocaine For The Soul

An extraordinary record. It has the most downbeat, almost helpless sounding of lyrics which mention, among other things, living with the undead and being told by your mum that your birth was a mistake, but it is set against the most catchy and sing-a-long of tunes.

#593: Flowered Up – Weekender

I missed out on the hedonism celebrated in this Top 20 hit from May 1992.  I was nearly 30 years of age, working hard to make ends while settling into a new relationship that I’m delighted to say remains intact to this very day.  I could only look on from afar and wish good things to those who were fully immersed in the lifestyle, all the while knowing there would come a point in time when those very revellers themselves would wake up of a morning with a realisation that they had passed their partying peak.

#592: The Beloved – Up Up and Away (Happy Sexy Mix)

Talking of revellers……here’s an album track from a remix album called ‘Blissed Out’ that was released in 1990.

#591: The Pogues – Fiesta

There are great tunes such as #592 in this rundown which make me smile. But I’d argue with that ‘Up Up and Away’, being a hymn to the age of  and this a pharmaceutically supported sort of happiness, can’t be classified as real euphoria.  For that, you need to seek out things such as this madcap music complete with comedy whistle. And apologies to Pogues fans as I know the band wrote and recorded many ‘better’ and more socially/politically aware songs that were probably more worthy of inclusion in this rundown…….

#590: The Men They Couldn’t Hang – Gold Rush

A fair few of the singers and bands I picked up on in the 80s came from their appearances on TV shows like ‘The Tube’ and ‘Whistle Test’.  The Men They Couldn’t Hang were one of them, and while I never became that big of a fan, this will always take me back to their solid, unpretentious appearance on Whistle Test back in 1985, The footage is easily found online.

#589: McAlmont & Butler – Yes

A song I never fully appreciated till quite a few years after its release thanks to it being played at high volume, over a sensational sound system, at one of the Little League nights in Glasgow. Joyous, glorious, anthemic and wonderful to dance to.

#588: St Vincent – Now Now

A few days after I arrived in Toronto where I was to spend almost six months working in the summer/autumn of 2027, I stumbled across a venue called The Horseshoe Tavern.  Not having anything else to do that night, I went inside and bought a ticket for the show, which is how I ended up being lucky enough to see St Vincent play a very small venue promoting her debut album. It was also my introduction to the fact that most gigs in Toronto often started long after shows in Glasgow ever ended. I’m sure this one didn’t finish till 1.30am.  Just as well, the city had a decent enough through-the-night public transport system to get me back home to my condo flat some 14 miles away!

#587: Ian Dury & The Blockheads – What A Waste

He could have been a lorry driver, poet, teacher, soldier, lawyer, doctor, writer, ticket collector, revolutionary, inmate or dreamer. But his career of choice was the fool in a six-piece band…and it most certainly was a welcome one as he and his mates brought untold pleasure to fans of new wave music in the late 70s.

#586: The Big Moon – Trouble

Another band introduced to the blog via a guest ICA, and once again, it was thanks to The Robster with #370 back in June 2024.  In his words…” Seriously good musicians fronted by a brilliant songwriter (Juliette Jackson) – what more could you ask for? The Big Moon are one of my ‘happy’ bands,. They just sound warm and comforting.”   JC adds – he’s bang on with those observations

#585: Drugstore – El President

Drugstore were around for much of the 90s, highly regarded and respected among their peers. They were the sort of band that more established acts loved to have as special guests while out on tour, which is why fans of the likes of Radiohead, Tindersticks, Jeff Buckley and The Jesus and Mary Chain would have had opportunities to catch them.  Thom Yorke provided a guest vocal for this, the only Drugstore single to reach the charts, being a #20 hit in May 1998.

#584: Handsome Boy Modeling School – The World’s Gone Mad

Another that has the presence of guest vocalists, but in this instance couldn’t help the song become a hit single. Handsome Boy Modeling School was a collaboration between hip hop producers Dan the Automator and Prince Paul.  Jamaican reggae superstar Barrington Levy, American rapper Del the Funky Homosapien and the then king of UK indie-pop, Alex Kopranos all sang on this one back in 2004. It didn’t crack the Top 75.

#583: Carmel – Bad Day

I think many of us who were aged 20/21 in the early-mid 80s went through a spell where music with a touch of jazz and soul crept into the collection.  Was it down to being subconsciously influenced by the direction Paul Weller was heading or was it the fact the NME, the music paper of choice, had a number of writers extolling the virtues of singers like Carmel McCourt?  Can’t answer those questions in any definitive way, but this one still gets my feet tapping and my fingers clicking.

#582: Sade – Smooth Operator

I can’t deny that I really liked Sade, as her debut album sound tracked of a lot what was going on in my life in 85/86, having left uni and now working and living in Edinburgh, all too often on the lookout for Love und Romance.  If I had courage, I’d write a blog post about it…..

#581: Supergrass – Alright

The opening piano notes make this one instantly recognisable. It’s often the case that over-exposure to a tune can make any listener grow sick and tired of it. Alright was everywhere in the summer of ’95, being played on the radio for months on end, as well as having a brilliant, funny and memorable video that was on heavy rotation across different channels, but somehow it never quite reached the irritating stage.

#580: Underworld – Moaner

The same applies to Underworld’s best known-song, ‘Born Slippy (Nuxx)’. But, and this will come as no surprise to regular and long-time readers of the blog, the big hit has been nudged out of this rundown to be replaced by a flop single from August 1997.  I’ve written about ‘Moaner’ on countless occasions, but even I was surprised that the first time was as far back as February 2009.  It was a post called ‘In which your humble scribe tries to show that there’s more to him than jangly-guitars, indie-pop and great haircuts from days of old.’

#579: Y’All Is Fantasy Island – With Handclaps

Again, regular and long-time readers will be aware that I’m a huge fan of the work of Adam Stafford, and he will appear a bit later on in the rundown.  In the meantime, here’s a throwback to the first time I ever heard him play, as frontman/main song-writer with this indie-rock band from Falkirk.  A cracking single from 2008.

#578: Dream Wife – Hey! Heartbreaker

SWC brought this lot to my attention.  “Dream Wife take all the best bits of timeless indie pop, throw in some attitude lifted almost directly from the days of L7 or Bikini Kill add a bit of colour and then sprinkle brilliance over the top of it. The end result is utterly brilliant.”  Sadly, there has been a bit of diminishing returns with each of their three albums, but this, from their eponymous debut back in 2018, still makes for a great listen.

#577: Rhoda Dakar – The Man Who Sold The World

In 2023, Rhoda Dakar released ‘Version Girl’, a covers album on which she only included songs that, as far as she was aware, had no previous definitive Reggae, Ska or Rocksteady versions.  Like many covers albums, some songs work better than others.

#576: Heaven 17 – Let Me Go

Heaven 17, more or less, dropped the politics and went for the pop on their sophomore album, ‘The Luxury Gap’, released in April 1983. The change of direction paid off as it yielded two Top 10 hit singles and another that went top 20. This beautifully crafted break-up song is one, however, which didn’t crack the Top 40.

#575: Longpigs – She Said

March 1995 was when Radiohead first took the album ‘The Bends’ into the charts.  Four months later,  Sheffield-based Longpigs debuted with a tune sounded like a  Radiohead off-cut.  The single flopped, but when re-released in June 1996, it took the band into the Top 20.

#574: Martha Wainwright – Bloody Mother Fucking Arsehole

Martha Wainwright’s father, the 70s folk singer Loudon Wainwright III, used to speak to her through his songs, so she decided to return the favour in 2005.  She had been particularly angered by ‘I’d Rather Be Lonely’ a song he’d written about a year in which he had spent helping to raise Martha when she was 14.

#573: Smashing Pumpkins – Cherub Rock

Another of my guilty pleasures….well, the early stuff anyway from ‘Gish’ (1991) through to some of ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’ (1995) when it all began to go a bit sideways.

#572: The Wake – On Our Honeymoon

The self-released 1981 debut single from a Glasgow-band who would later be able to make the unique boast of being the only act to record for both Factory and Sarah Records.

#571: Tricky – Hell Is Round The Corner

The rapper chose to leave Massive Attack after the first album as he felts his talents were being not being fully utilised.  I think it’s fair to say that the split benefitted both parties as not only did Massive Attack enjoy continued success, but Tricky went on to have six Top 40 albums between 1995 and 2001. This is the lead track from the ‘Hell EP’, a partial collaboration with American hip hop group Gravediggaz, which reached #12 in the singles chart in July 1995.

#570: Swell Maps – Dresden Style

A single from February 1979.  I’ll own up that, at the age of 15, I wasn’t all that aware of Swell Maps.  I possibly had the time heard this, their second single (but their first on Rough Trade) when it was released but at the time I would very much have dismissed it as tuneless rubbish.  Nowadays, without ever getting to ever fully fall for the ‘charms’ of the band, I’ll admit to quite enjoying this one, which I picked up via someone else’s blog (forgotten who) waaaaay back in time

#569: Prefab Sprout – Lions In My Own Garden (Exit Someone)

In an era of a number of very clever wordsmiths fronting gentle-sounding guitar bands, Paddy McAloon took the crown as the cleverest of them.   This catchy sing-along number seems to make no sense whatsoever until someone whispers in your ear that the first letter of each of the words in the title spell Limoges, the city in France where Paddy’s girlfriend had moved to live, breaking his heart in the process.

#568: Modest Mouse – Float On

A band whose UK sales never matched the critical acclaim offered them.  Even the presence of  Johnny Marr, between 2006 and 2009, didn’t deliver any chart success. The best they ever achieved was this catchy, almost indie-rock by numbers (which I offer as a complement as it’s not an easy thing to do!!), that reached #46 in July 2004.

#567: Jetstream Pony – Sixes and Sevens

There haven’t been too many interviews carried on the blog over the past 20 years, but there was a genuine thrill back in March 2022 when the legendary Beth Arzy took the time to speak to The Three Masketeers (a name adopted by myself, flimflamfan and strangeways for a short three-part series).   Jetstream Pony have been responsible for a lot of very fine music over the past decade, including this single from 2023.

#566: Grinderman – Get It On

Grinderman came into being in 2006, consisting of Nick Cave and three of his Bad Seeds, Warren Ellis, Jim Sclavunos and Martyn P. Casey. The first ever release was this snorting piece of low-fi garage rock that had many of us panting immediately for more. But then again, a few of the more recent Cave converts, perhaps brought to the party by the duet with Kylie and much of the melancholy stuff that he was recording around the turn of the century, were a tad bamboozled.

#565: Ash – Goldfinger

The fourth single to be lifted from their debut album.  OK, the opening few bars owe something to the grunge acts of the day but once the lyric kicks in and the song slows down there’s a real sense that the 18-year old Tim Wheeler was, again, proving to be highly capable of writing stuff well beyond his tender years.

#564: The Lilac Time – The Girl Who Waves At Trains

A perfectly polished piece of radio-friendly pop from 1989, a time when there was almost exclusively a focus on baggy/Madchester and thus the sounds being offered up by The Lilac Time were deemed by many to be old-fashioned toe-tapping stuff belonging to a different era.

#563: Memphis – You Supply The Roses

In 1985, James Kirk, part of the original Orange Juice line-up, rather surprisingly came out of what had been self-imposed retirement and, adopting the name Memphis, wrote and recorded what rather sadly turned out to be a one-off 45 for the Swamplands label that was being run by Alan Horne (ex Postcard).  One of the great lost 45s of the indie/twee-pop genre.

#562: A Tribe Called Quest – Can I Kick it?

Sampling.  It’s such a dangerous area to be involved in.  A Tribe Called Quest used ‘Walk On The Wild Side’ for this Top 20 hit from October 1990.  They didn’t ask for clearance in advance.  The inevitable outcome is that Lou Reed (via his rapacious lawyers) was able to claim 100% of the song’s royalties.

#561: Girls Aloud – Something Kinda Oooh

A lenghty extract from a blog post back in December 2006.

“Something I saw today got me thinking about music. And the shallowness of anyone who slags off any song as ‘shite’ just because they, as a person, don’t like it, the singer or the band.

“My organisation holds an annual Christmas party for around 200 young kids with physical handicaps or learning difficulties. A load of our staff get dressed up in costume as cartoon characters; we bring along all sorts of kid’s entertainers; and of course at the appropriate magical moment, Santa makes an appearance.

“But the mainstay of the three or so hours that the party goes on is the disco. And believe me, song after song after song after song would normally have had me screaming in agony and racing for the nearest exit. The thing that stopped me was the sheer joy on all of these kids’ faces. They were on the dance-floor having a real blast. Most of them needed help and support from the adults, whether it was the folk in fancy-dress or the teachers/parents/volunteers who are with these kids every day. Many of the kids were wheelchair-bound, but that didn’t stop them making their way onto the dance-floor.

“Now if the DJ had spun something that I was wanting, there is no question he would have cleared the room, far less the dance-floor. He knew his audience, and he gave them exactly what they wanted. And they loved him for it.

“Music is there to be enjoyed. If what you or I hear every day on the banal radio stations or on prime-time television annoys us, we can always find an alternative station, or turn on the PC and surf for a while.

“So let’s not just have a go at someone else because their taste is wholly different from ours.

“Here’s one that filled the dance-floor earlier today. I had to ask a work colleague who and what it was”

I like to think the lesson I learned that day has played a big part in the way TVV has developed over the past 20 years.

 

 

JC