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On 10 June 1980 the first Wah! Heat Peel session was broadcast for the first time. Where I actually was: my sister’s flat, recording it off the radio. In those days most people had no means of recording in good quality stereo off the radio; and when you recorded for the BBC you couldn’t have copies. You had to wait and hear it on the radio like everyone else.

John Peel always claimed not to listen to the sessions in advance, so that he heard them at the same time as the listeners did, and his unrehearsed reactions came out after each track. He absolutely loved this session and raved about each track in turn. After Otherboys [which starts at 13:54 in the YouTube video] he said “I can’t tell you, you know, how much pleasure it gives me to be able to play something like that on the radio for the first time.” In my opinion it’s the greatest thing Wylie has ever recorded and those 4 minutes 18 seconds are probably the thing in my whole life I’m second-proudest of, after my son.

He played Seven Minutes To Midnight a wee bit early, and at the end said the title and then “It’s actually, uhm, four minutes to midnight.”

Also on the show was the first play of the brilliant Bankrobber by The Clash - next day the rest of us were raving about it and Wylie was moaning that the Clash shouldn’t be making records like that.

The photos are from the recording session at BBC Studios in Maida Vale, 19 May 1980 - the day after Ian Curtis died, although we didn’t know that then. The first one obviously shows Wylie pretending to do his lead vocals. Sorry Rob Jones (drummer) - you’re not in any of the pictures, but credit for taking the one of the rest of us, well after midnight, waiting for Wylie to finish tinkering. L to R: King Bluff (front), me, Tempo (road manager) and Washington.

#WIW35YA #Peel Sessions #John Peel #Wah!#Wah! Heat #Pete Wylie #Rob Jones #The Clash

Even without the tell-tale drum roll underneath, these opening guitar notes would stand out even among the hundreds of blues tracks that start with a handful of guitar notes. Those of us who come down firmly on Clapton’s side, in the argument about who was the best of the 60s English white boy blues masters, still recognise that this is one of the key moments from that era.

Beautiful song - originally by Little Willie John, whose brother Mertis John Jnr wrote it, contrary to what it says on the label. Beautifully sung - by Peter Green, also the lead guitarist. And brilliantly played by all the musicians.

Edit: This single version is available without the vinyl scratches on Black Magic Woman, one of the numerous Fleetwood Mac compilation albums.

#TYCIIAS #Fleetwood Mac #Need Your Love So Bad #Peter Green

Where I Was 35 Years Ago Today #1: Cavendish House, All Saints, Manchester; 31 May 1980

This former shop premises in Manchester is the Righton Building; you can just about see the name written on the curved bit at the top. However, for a long time it was better known as Cavendish House, when it was the Students’ Union building for Manchester Poly (now MMU) from 1969-1982. It was the Poly’s main bar and disco and gig venue, and on 31 May 1980 I was there playing guitar with Wah! Heat.

That’s me on the right of Francesco Mellina’s picture, now included in his book Revealed. No one’s concentrating very hard except me because this was at the soundcheck, and the others [Washington and Pete Wylie] are waiting for me to tune up. Drummer Rob jones is concealed by my beloved leather jacket and my eldest brother’s hand-me-down stripy jumper. Keyboard player King Bluff did not attend the soundcheck.

We were second on the bill. Pink Military headlined and U2 were the openers.

The Righton Building is still there and still part of MMU. The screengrab is from Google Street View, updated last year.

#WIW35YA #Wah! Heat #Washington #Pete Wylie #Rob Jones #King Bluff #K J Tyrer #Pink Military #U2 #MMU #Cavendish House #Righton Building #Francesco Mellina

John Cale, one of those who contributed to making Leonard Cohen’s song Hallelujah much more famous than Cohen ever did, chose this extraordinary song as one of his Desert Island Discs. It’s called Alexandra Leaving and was co-written by Leonard Cohen and the woman singing with him here, Sharon Robinson. She has often sung it on her own in Cohen’s live shows, where it is a lot duller than this original studio version from the 2001 album Ten New Songs. (It’s a Cohen album, but Robinson co-wrote all the songs, sang lead on some, and is pictured with him on the front cover.)

The lyrics are somewhat based on a poem by Constantine P Cavafy (or Kavafis,) The God Abandons Antony. The Antony of that poem is Mark Antony and it’s about the Egyptian city of Alexandria - where Cavafy was born. He lived in many places, including Liverpool, but was of Greek descent and is thought of as a great Greek poet. Like Shakespeare, he died on his birthday. (29 April 1933, aged 70.)

#SYDHVO #Leonard Cohen #Alexandra Leaving #Sharon Robinson #Constantine P Cavafy #Kavafis #The God Abandons Antony #John Cale #Desert Island Discs

Hopefully just the first of many Game Of Thrones-appropriate treats. Maybe Reek Sausages will be next...

There are at least a million songs that start with power chords on an electric guitar, and yet this one is absolutely identifiable by those first three strums - no matter how bored Ritchie Blackmore may look, playing them. So that makes it all the more crazy that this official video a) pretends to be live, with all the fake applause, and stuff and b) makes you wait 20 seconds for the electrifying intro and then slightly muffles it.

In any case, sheer genius from first note to last. And another song by that most hit-making of unknown songwriters, Russ Ballard. He released it himself in 1976 and performed it on tv, but that version sounded like a half-assed demo for this one.

#TYCIIAS #Rainbow #Since You've Been Gone #Russ Ballard

Not that many tracks start with bass guitar, and when they do it’s often with repeated notes, like on Ace’s How Long, and/or with other sounds before it, like on Under Pressure (Queen & David Bowie) and Good Times (Chic.) The opening two notes on this ecstatic hymn to young love are absolutely unmistakable.

Back in the 60s people weren’t allowed to go “making love in the green grass” in the US, so in the last verse the radio version repeated the “laughing and a-running” line instead. In the UK it’s never been a hit, no matter how many times it got re-released in the 70s, so it didn’t matter. But the Clean version sometimes crops up on compilations all the same.

#TYCIIAS #Van Morrison #Brown Eyed Girl

That whistly-whiny synth is an absolute giveaway. Just one of The Undertones’ many urgent, bustling singles with great lyrics.

#TYCIIAS #Undertones #Jimmy Jimmy

One of the most joyous tracks of all time and one of the greatest intros. The proper single version starts with just that one hi-hat-closing shot, immediately before the thrilling bassline starts. But the few seconds of urgent hi-hat before that set it all up, and should be there. (They are present in this clip.) You could certainly make a persuasive argument for the album mix, which is more stripped down, being better. But equally, you could say the extra backing vocals and effects on the single version add to the careering euphoric feel.

There are far too many great moments spread over this few minutes to list, and too many great lines to quote. It’s about what it sounds like: feeling fantastic.

#PTBDOIE #Stone Roses #She Bangs The Drums

The mood this record sets is basically “mid 60s LA”. They sound like they could have been third on the bill at the Whisky a Go Go when The Doors were headlining.

In fact it was released in 2012. The backing is all on one brilliant note for over a minute from the start: it never gets much more complex than that, but in truth the moment passes the first time Lindsey Troy plays a proper chord. Drummer Julie Edwards knows the score and keeps it brutally simple throughout.

The duo have generated possibly my favourite sentence ever to appear in a band bio on Wikipedia: “Edwards met Troy at a crochet class.” I really hope that’s not a fake entry.

#MTRSAM #Deap Vally #End Of The World

This track was a hit twice in the UK, in 1973 and 1977. The later one was a slightly speeded-up, disco-ified mix: nothing particularly wrong with that, but whoever did it had Van Gogh’s ear for an intro. The first 15 seconds of this 1972 version are absolute perfection - beautiful bass (reminiscent of the bass part in Freda Payne’s Band Of Gold) plus great guitar and drums and horns. The last thing it needed was some banal rhythm guitar over the top like in the remix.

The Detroit Emeralds started out as just The Emeralds and added the Detroit part when they moved there, not to distinguish themselves from another band as The Detroit Spinners did in the UK. It’s a three-way toss-up between those two bands and The Detroit Cobras - of the mighty Hot Dog (Watch Me Eat) - as to which band with Detroit in their name has made the best record ever.

#RTCVS #Detroit Emeralds #Feel The Need In Me #Detroit Spinners #Detroit Cobras

Back in the day we always seemed to be watching things from Eurovision and hearing this stirring intro music, the theme tune for Eurovision broadcasts. Nowadays most of us go a year at a time without hearing it, till the Eurovision Song Contest comes around. As a result it stirs strange emotions in one’s soul.

Would you rather go back to Wogan’s tediously bitter, cynical voice over, or stick with Norton’s tediously flippant foolishness? (I swear he gets into costume and character as Fr Noel Furlong, his vastly irritating Father Ted character, for the show. But at least Fr Noel is meant to be annoying.)

Would you rather see a bunch of slightly bemused old women, a stunning transsexual, or a girl in a very-low cut dress pretending to be a milkmaid and making no pretence whatsoever at taking part in the musical performance?

Much that was strange had cropped up in Eurovision over the years. It felt like if you put every contestant down the years into a computer and asked it to spit out the average it would produce a winner that was a soppy ballad earnestly sung by a man with a luxuriant beard in an extravagant evening gown. And lo and behold, that’s exactly what happened last year. You can read more about the Austrian man who performs as bearded drag artiste Conchita Wurst on the great blog Clothes In Books today - http://bit.ly/1JJXpBI - and find out why you should never share a microphone with him and how CiB has had a hand in his career.

In the pantheon of weird winners, Wurst has probably now trumped even the masked Finnish heavy metal band Lordi. But both their songs were mundane at best, whereas this barnstormer by the official 3rd Most Unusual Winner, Diva by the transsexual Israeli Dana International, would probably have won no matter who sang it. I bet you didn’t remember that the UK were only narrowly beaten into 2nd that year. (It was in Brighton in 1998 because in 1997 the UK had won with Love Shine A Light. Sung by an American. I’m just saying.)

#MTRSAM #Charpentier #Te Deum #Eurovision #Eurovision Song Contest #Conchita Wurst #Dana International #Diva #Love Shine A Light #Rise Like A Phoenix

Frida is of course better known as Anni-Frid Lyngstad, one of the A’s from ABBA. Some people might say this thunderous 1982 classic is the only good record ever made by any of the ex-members of ABBA, but that would be unfair - there's at least one other fine track on the album I Know There’s Something Going On came from, confusingly called Something’s Going On.

Those drums are unmistakably by Phil Collins, who also produced the record. The song was written by Russ Ballard, who was in Argent and wrote loads of great pop singles, in particular Since You’ve Been Gone. It’s a national tragedy that this single peaked at No43 in the UK.

On the b-side was the second-best track on the album: Threnody. A beautiful poem, uncharacteristically soppy for the queen of the acid tongue, Dorothy Parker, set to lovely music by Per Gessle, who went on to be the male half of Roxette later in the 80s.

#PTBDOIE #Frida #There's Something Going On #Something's Going On #Anni-Frid Lyngstad #ABBA #Phil Collins #Russ Ballard #Dorothy Parker #Per Gessle

Boy band. 90s. Big label. Big promotion. Can’t fail? Well, to be fair this was only a very minor hit first time out. But when re-released a year later - in 1994 - it got to No2, as one of the records kept off No1 by the endless reign of Wet Wet Wet’s Love Is All Around. It was written by lead singer Richie Wermerling and it’s a terrific record, with a top intro, and some great sounds on it.

#TTWBTTNTB #Let Loose #Crazy For You #Richie Wermerling #Nik Kershaw

For more than 10 seconds this sounds like a stuck CD. After that it turns into a slow-burning but exciting dance track. And that’s that.

#MI #Strike Boys #The Rhyme

My team came third in a quiz tonight. Narrowly defeated. We were pretty sure we’d done better. It transpired that the other teams - including the ones we beat - had all five rounds marked whereas we were credited with the scores for only four. With our fifth round added in, we won handsomely - after most people had gone home.

#MTQ #Hives #Hate To Say I Told you So

[Repeating from 18 November 2013 - the recent death of BB KIng is a good excuse - this time with a link. This video is nothing to do with the band.]

You wouldn’t think there’d be another song with the same title as Bruce Cockburn’s 1978 album track Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand… and there isn’t. That I know of. But there is one called Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand. It’s by Primitive Radio Gods and is quite brilliant. It contains a sample from the BB King song How Blue Can You Get that’s so integral it may as well be counted as a mashup; and towards the end the vocalist does his own version of BB King’s chilling lines “I’ve been downhearted, baby, ever since the day we met.” So it’s kind of a cover version too.

[With thanks to Clothes In Books http://clothesinbooks.blogspot.co.uk/ for the hand-me-down CD.]

#SSOC #SWNCVS #Primitive Radio Gods #Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand #BB King #How Blue Can You Get #Bruce Cockburn

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