This HAS to be in my top 10 singles of all time... I still play it about once a week to this very day!

Scottish band, Bourgie Bourgie were formed in 1983 & released this track in 1984 on MCA - I can still recall seeing it on The Tube one Friday teatime in our student house on Albert Ave in Hull, prior to a night on the beers. The song has stuck with me for almost 30 years... the night out has faired less well with the memories sadly.

It's simply magnificent... with stunning vocals from Paul Quinn and a string arrangement to shame the Pale Fountains, ladies & gentlemen, I give, you Breaking Point...

And here is the masterpiece 12" Extended Version

And the Demo version 

And the Peel session version

And finally the video!

Now if you want to find out more about the legendary Paul Quinn - please visit : http://www.duckworthsquare.com/paulquinn/index.htm 

It's very late... and I've missed the deadline but here goes anyway!

7 years ago this very night we were in Dewsbury hospital welcoming our youngest daughter into the world so undertandably I was in quite an emotional place.

As we drove home on the 26th, full of joy for our newborn, I heard the news on the radio of John Peel's passing - never before nor since have I experienced simulaneously, such opposite extremes of emotion.

So for Lily's birthday & in memory of my much-missed, musical mentor...

John introducing White Riot by the Clash

Buffalo Tom - Sunflower Suit - my definitive 90s band

Devoto's Magazine doing their version of Boredom Velouria from the Pixies

The Monochrome Set with Love Goes Down the Drain

Rockaway Beach - The Godchildren of Soul

I couldn't quite believe this track when I first discovered it... 2 of my favourite artists from opposite ends of the musical spectrum collide on a soulful swing version of a punk classic - I thought I'd made it up myself!

The legendary (and now sadly departed) General Johnson of The Showmen & Chairmen of the Board who sang many of the Northern Soul Classics I grew up on (and had been having hits since 1961), teams up with da brudda Joey Ramone on this amazing cover of one of his own band's early tracks... Rockaway Beach - the result is a sublime slab of soul-punk which... naturally flopped spectacularly...

Here's the video:

Here's the original: The Ramones - Rockaway Beach

And here's a couple of gems from The General's armoury:

Chairmen of the Board - Working On a Building Of Love

The Showmen - It Will Stand

Now please EVERYONE- go and purchase these tracks and MORE from your local independent record store, or supermarket, or digital online retailer... NOW!

(Thank you!)

A  mini series of quirky covers which deserve a wider audience - please share

This is great... one of those songs which you'd find yourself singing along to without realising how you knew it in the first place!

Greg Laswell - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (originally by Cyndi Lauper in 1983)

Greg's choice of covers is inspired... he delivers a fab version of The Bunnymen's Killing Moon too

As always - please go out & buy these songs on CD or vinyl from your selected independent retailer or find them online & purchase the downloads FFS!

BOB - convenience 1989, House Of Teeth, 7" HOT7002

I was living in Hull when this came out... working as Manager of the Our Price on Whitefriargate. The Pinnacle rep dropped it off one afternoon and I was hooked straight away - well who wouldn't be charmed by chiming guitars and whimsical lyrics? (Plus the band's logo was a great pastiche of the STP ident).

 It became such a shop favourite that we put it as our #1 in the "local" indie chart. We even went to see them play at the Adelphi the following year when they treated us to a heartfelt cover of Orange Juice's Blueboy.

It remains one of my favourite 7" singles to this day (didn't like the albums as much but was still very grateful to Chris Von Trapp for his thoughful birthday gift of Swag Sack on vinyl).

Here's the song as featured at #31 in John Peel's Festive 50 of that year...

And here's a video I hadn't seen before...

I was a late-comer to the Adverts... I heard and loved Gary Gilmore's Eyes but the rest sort of passed me by.

And when a friend's elder brother confessed he really loved gay adverts... I began to wonder which magazines he was reading.

So when John peel (yes HIM again) began playing tracks by TV Smith...  I didn't make the connection immediately.

However TV & his Explorers made a real connection with my teenage self - synths, guitars & anti-nuclear lyrics - a winner for me!

Enjoy this gem - couldn't find the superior Peel Session version (unless I imagined it!) but this is still superb!

Like most people who didn't live in Brighton, I came to know this song via the passion of the great John Peel...

It was a track featured on the compilation LP  - Vaultage 79 & Peel loved it - so did I... it was bloody great! The whimsical lyrics are delivered in a deadpan tour de force and still raise a smile with me to this day.

I was cheered to read that the band had reunited for a gig back in 2009 - good luck to 'em!

The Golinski Brothers - Bloody

So I once got a 7" Ramones sleeve signed by The Undertones when I saw them in Liverpool (for the second time) - see "More Songs..." post *down there* and today I discovered on my PC, this live gem from god knows where/when (but obviously in the reformed post-Feargal days) of the Undertones covering the Ramones' Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue.

This sort of all ties it together quite nicely doesn't it?

Rifling through a poile of my old gig tickets tonight, I rediscovered the Undertones Liverpool Empire ticket which I added to the More Songs... post below... but the biggest surprise for me was digging out tickets to gigs I don't even remember going to - so naturally I felt inspired to write about these "memorable" live events.

So... in chronolgical order, let's begin with:

Saturday 12 July 1986 - The Fall live at The Town & Country, Kentish Town, London: £5

I was working for Our Price on Oxford Street at the time of this gig so there's a chance a I went along on a freebie (*crosses fingers*). I've never been a massive Fall fan (couldn't keep up with the level of output for starters!) but I do enjoy a few early album, tracks (heard on Peel), and I've been known to tap my foot to one or two of the more popular of their singles.

I am guessing that I attended this gig with my music mates from that era, Mick, Neil & Mal but I've long lost touch with this crowd of ace people so I can't ask! A track recorded at this gig, Town & Country Hobgoblins, ended up on the UK cassette version of Bend Sinister... I have never heard this.

Sunday 11 November 1990 - The Wedding Present live at Tower (Ballroom) Nightclub, Hull: £6

OK so I had left Our Price in June of 1990 an by this time was working at the Odeon multiplex in Hull. I assume that I had been inspired to attend this gig by my friend Tim Maitland, now a resident of Hong Kong. I can only recall seeing 2 gigs at the Tower (famous for its "grab a granny" club-nights) - and one of those (Kitchens of Distinction) I still have the ticket for, so... unless The Cranberries were support for Gedge et al this night, my memory has been completely erased!.

This would have been their most commercial era following the release of Bizzaro on RCA... but to be honest I was more a fan of their superbly selected cover versions meself! 

Thursday 7 May 1992 - Carter U.S.M. live at Hull City Hall: £0

Right, so this was definitely a freebie! I guess Tim had pulled strings to get these tickets via his connections from Viking FM . He later became matey with the Carters & received a credit on their 30 Something Album. Me? ...well I used to get mistaken for Fruitbat (as I did by one fan at the Tower gig where my mate Chris Von Trapp also got mistaken for Jim Bob...I'm sure there's a tribute act in the making there!) And I though the only bands I'd seen at the City Hall were Motorhead (1982... I roadied that one!) and oddly enough, another freebie for Del Amitri.

Monday 14 December 1992: Sugar live at Leeds Poly Union: £7

I'm sure Tim will have driven over for this one & I vaguely remember our friend Matt Benton (now in Bristol) being a massive fan so perhaps he was with us. I can recall many great gigs at the Poly in Leeds over the years (Icicle Works, Billy Bragg, etc.) but this one brings back no memories at all for me. I am sure that Bob Mould & the boys truly "rawked" but alas, I'll have to stick to their recorded output for my kicks.

Wednesday 20 September 1995: Green Day live at Brixton Academy, That London: £8

Back in London by now... living in Harlesden (haven't found any of my Mean Fiddler gig tickets yet though!). I loved their Dookie album at the time, so I understand why I went to see Green Day but have no memory of who I went with (possibly my Italian friend Mita Aureli who was a big fan but I'm not sure) or any content of gig itself.

Wednesday 30 April 1997 & Tuesday 6 May 1997: Eels live at The Shepherds Bush Empire & Astoria (respectively): £8.50

This is unbelievable for me... must have been drinking too much at the time! I recently considered buying Eels tickets at the O2 Academy in Leeds on the basis of... "well I have never seen them live and I think I should". Turns out that I saw them TWICE in the space of just ONE WEEK... over 14 years ago! Who'd've thunked it eh?

Am I alone in this gig amnesia?

It's been a long time since my last full blog post and this one (to be fair) is only really a reprise of 2 previous posts. In an unusual (for me) bout of completism... I'm tidying up a couple of loose ends!

In More Songs About Chocolate & Girls from last September I mentioned a Ramones single which I got signed by The Undertones... well after exploring the lost treasures in our cellar here is my much travelled copy of Do You Wanna Dance on 7" - we've been through a lot together, I hope you appreciate it's existence.

More recently, in my Boy Wonder fan letter to the great Roddy Frame, I referred to a gig at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London on 30 September 2001, where Roddy & Edwyn Collins traded acoustic licks and had a jolly time forgetting lyrics of their back catalogue "hits". This gig was the only time I'd ever heard him play Just Like Gold live and here is the track from that night - complete with un-rehearsed cock-ups and improvised lyrics! (My mate Nick will often remind me how I was reduced to tears by this performance)

Next time... I promise I'll write a proper entry....