Month: May 2015

B-Side Beauty


Had another stroll down 45 memory lane the other day and pulled this plum out of the singles box. You probably all know the a-side “Plain Sailing” from her 1982 student-bedsit classic album A Distant Shore, but it was the other side I loved more. “Goodbye Joe” is a cover of a Monochrome Set song and is a beautiful little gem of a track. Those were the days when you were more likely than not to find such hidden treasure on the other side of a single. We got our money’s worth back then.

I have posted this track before but I think it was long enough ago — eight years! — to warrant doing it again. Another reason is it’s only available on a rather expensive Cherry Red boxset which is a shame. Such beauty shouldn’t be so rare.

Download: Goodbye Joe – Tracey Thorn (mp3)

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Something for the Weekend


Been listening to the new Róisín Murphy album all week so I thought I’d jump in my time machine and go back 20 years (blimey) to her very first record which is still terrifically sexy and goofy.

We play this a lot in the car and the kids sing along to it, thankfully they have no idea what ‘I dreamt that the bogeyman went down on Mr. Spock” means.

The Tribes of Britain



Download: Love Of The Common People – Nicky Thomas (mp3)


Download: Ain’t No Soul Left In These Old Shoes – Major Lance (mp3)



Download: Don’t You Rock Me Daddy-O – Lonnie Donegan & His Skiffle Group (mp3)



Download: Sweet And Tender Hooligan – The Smiths (mp3)



Download: Tear The Whole Thing Down – The Higsons (mp3)

In Xanadu


Not many bands have had a better year than the one Frankie Goes To Hollywood enjoyed in 1984. That year they became the first group since Gerry & the Pacemakers to have their first three singles all get to Number One, and at one point they occupied the top two charts spots — the first time that had been done since another little band from Liverpool called The Beatles. For a brief shining moment they were as big as the Fab Four and as thrillingly scandalous as the Sex Pistols. Even their t-shirts were a phenomenon.

But their story would be more perfect if they’d split up or all died in a car crash at the end of that year, because they had to go and spoil the ride by putting out an album that didn’t live up to the hype (how could it?), and they suddenly seemed like just another ordinary fallible pop group and not the fabulously provocative performance art piece they seemed in 1984. I guess the writing was on the wall when their fourth single was a dreadful flop that only got to number two in the chart. Still, it was great while it lasted.

Download: The World Is My Oyster (12″ mix) – Frankie Goes To Hollywood (mp3)

This was the b-side of the “Power of Love” 12″ single and is a much longer version of the track on their debut album. Besides those first three singles this is my favourite record of theirs.

Dark Chocolate


I once saw Errol Brown coming out of the Gents in a trendy Soho bar in the late 1980s and, while thinking he was shorter than I’d imagined, I just gave him a very cool smile as he walked past me while inside I was all “FUCKING HELL, IT’S ERROL BROWN!” because here was the man behind so many beloved pop hits of my youth — which is why his death upset me more than I imagined it would. While they were only modestly successful elsewhere, Hot Chocolate were a pop institution in the UK, having at least one hit every year between 1970 and 1984. With his distinctive bald head, Brown was as familiar a face on Top of The Pops as the DJs, one of the few regular black singers on the show who wasn’t American.

Hot Chocolate were a difficult band to pin down. Their records contained elements of soul, pop, glam, funk, dub, and psychedelia — sometimes all at once thanks to the production magic of Mickie Most. What linked some of them together however was a surprising bleakness, singles like “Emma” and “Brother Louie” are pretty grim for pop hits your mum probably liked, and even a love song like “Put Your Love In Me” has an edge of dark desperation about it.

They were such a singles band they didn’t release their debut album Cicero Park until several years into their hit-making career in 1974, and shockingly it was a flop despite containing the hit “Emma” and being a terrific album in it’s own right. The title track in particular is a fabulous piece of moody Blaxploitation soul-funk. If Curtis Mayfield had made this record it would hailed as a classic.

Download: Cicero Park – Hot Chocolate (mp3)