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I watched a documentary about Duran Duran last night and can’t wait to get my ‘best of’ cd out. I’ve always liked them. Other than that, the new Alt J is being played a lot, although I can’t decide if I’m slightly disappointed with it.
Kyuss – Space Cadet
The video is not theirs but "fuzzyjunky" who made it, did a nice job.
Love this band.
Kyuss – Space Cadet
The video is not theirs but "fuzzyjunky" who made it, did a nice job.
Love this band.
Oooh Yeah! Love Me some Kyuss….
Saw the New Pornographers in Manchester on Monday. They were great. New album Brill Bruisers is the best since Twin Cinema. Top powerpop!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yixh_chlyw
Aaarrgghhh – I was going to go to that very gig, Grey Dolphin, but got double-booked for something else. Gutted isn’t the word!
Brill Bruisers
is outstanding, and the title track probably still my favourite track of the year. Or at least, it’s vying with
Rimbaud Eyes
by Dum Dum Girls and
Boy, Look At What You Can’t Have Now
by Darren Hayman and Emma Kupa.
I could listen to Carl Newman’s various output all day. Personal favourites of which being:
AC NEWMAN – I’m Not Talking (2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiecx_qqRiITHE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS – Sing Me Spanish Techno (2006)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwE5eB3SXUkgc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
I bought what I thought was the latest Metronomy cd the other day, only to find it was one from 2011. Bit brassed off about that
Aaarrgghhh – I was going to go to that very gig, Grey Dolphin, but got double-booked for something else. Gutted isn’t the word!
Brill Bruisers
is outstanding, and the title track probably still my favourite track of the year. Or at least, it’s vying with
Rimbaud Eyes
by Dum Dum Girls and
Boy, Look At What You Can’t Have Now
by Darren Hayman and Emma Kupa.
I could listen to Carl Newman’s various output all day. Personal favourites of which being:
AC NEWMAN – I’m Not Talking (2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiecx_qqRiITHE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS – Sing Me Spanish Techno (2006)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwE5eB3SXUkgc
Good to find another fan! The highlight of Monday’s gig was that Dan Bejar was there. Carl said he was in Europe for the first time with them – he certainly wasn’t the only other time I saw them – at Koko in 2007.
My personal favourite: The Bleeding Heart Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqwCe5tL3iU
I’m no great believer in life targets, objectives, New Year’s Resolutions, etc., as enough about the last few years in particular reminds me that life’s vicissitudes can frequently derail them in ways unforeseeable or unimaginable.
One thing I did get round to doing last weekend, however, was finally make good on a promise to myself to reactivate my music blog That Music List after a hiatus of an unintentionally long seven and three quarter years.
It’s taken a while to get back to writing about music, and indeed enjoying listening to music it to its fullest again, after somehow, somewhere along the way, falling out of love of doing both at the turn of the decade.
Writing my annual Eurovision analyses, plus a short-lived occasional Twitter feed reviewing every UK chart entry for a given week in history, were both persevered with, but each often felt like a chore at times.
For the latter in particular, there’d frequently be more songs I disliked than liked, and writing quite so much about those felt unrewarding, a drain of energy and broadly at odds with my generous disposition.
CDs were still being bought and downloads downloaded, but more of them were finding their way onto the unplayed pile and staying there. Gigs were still being sought out and tickets bought for, but ultimately only two gigs were attended in four and a half years from the start of 2020 (a length of time lockdown alone can’t legislate for), with every excuse possible dreamed up for not going out.
Was this marked disengagement a manifestation of depression? I’m not convinced. Most of my other interests continued to receive attention in a way they wouldn’t have were it that.
Was music a victim of significant other competing distractions, notably adoptive parenthood? Unlikely. The kids love music, and love when we compile them playlists for holidays.
Who knows where that attachment went. It certainly wasn’t borne out of a lack of anything interesting to listen to, as there’s *never* not good new music being made, if one knows where to look with a sufficiently open heart, along with a musical past so big that the task of exploring it all in our lifetime will defeat every one of us.
Either way, the ennui evidently just had to run its course, and run it it did.
It was my wife Linda who spotted my returning enthusiasm first; initially when I was agonising over a three-way clash of gigs in Manchester/Middlewich/York last July in a way I hadn’t for an eternity (I plumped for Nev Clay in York and regretted it not one iota), and then when catching me using every conceivable opportunity to have Spotify playing playlists of Europop favourites in the holiday home of our French break a few weeks later.
The fire had been relit. Since then, it’s been a case of catching up with my backlog (a long way to go yet), seeing what else is new out there, and reawakening my old penchant for serendipitous discoveries on mailing lists and YouTube.
I’ve also felt a stronger desire to revisit the various nooks and crannies of my music collection than I can remember for a long time. It’s eye-opening to consider my absolute peak record-buying years – 1993 to 2004, I suppose – started more than half my lifetime ago now. Ah, anno domini.
There are scores, hundreds even, of albums and singles from that decade-long glut of purchasing that deserve to be working harder than they have for a good while, and all the more so with the kids likely to want to start exploring them in the round before much longer – hints are often dropped.
These reawakened behaviours cumulatively informed my thoughts on restarting That Music List, and I spent a good bit of time over Xmas determining how I envisage it nowadays.
Very much not as the slavish, rote exercise to find as many new songs as possible every week which the List sometime became in the latter period of its original lifespan (2009-2018), not always engaging fully with what I’d find.
Instead, rather, I see it now as a love letter to the music in my collection, and to the music I intend to add to it, or am in the process of doing. I see it as a more thematically driven resource than previously, in the hope of keeping it interesting for compiler and viewer/listener alike. And I see it as a thankyou, direct or implied, to the people who led me back to a place of loving music again, whether they actually knew they had or not.
Anyhow, this (rapidly becoming last) week’s List includes some personal 2025 highlights from Cardiacs, Lightning in a Twilight Hour and Stereolab; some Eurodisco brilliance from your favourite deadpan Belgians; some Lemonheads loveliness from over three decades apart; tracks from Nev Clay and Duck as an expression of love and gratitude; some Peel-endorsed progressive house; a psychedelic mariachi ensemble (their words) from the first Indietracks I attended; a tribute to Dave Ball; and plenty more. I hope you find something you enjoy in there.
I don’t recall at this remove what the theme of the early Family Cat single Remember What It Is That You Love was all about, but shorn of any context that’s a song title that works well as a mantra for life.
And remembering what it is that I love is music is something I’m very glad I’ve been able to do.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Thanks for resurrecting the thread gc. I was only, the other night, sitting in the living room looking at the cd’s that are everywhere pondering on why I no longer play them. And I put Radio 6 on two days ago but didn’t really hear any music that I liked ( I am missing Tom Ravenscroft from R6, though). Part of it is having a dog that doesn’t like loud music being played while she’s trying to sleep ( which is 23 hours a day). Do you remember how we both liked Hazel Winter back in the day? I’ve been trying to find her cd’s which don’t seem to be on the shelf so I assume they must be copies and, being case less are in a case somewhere. If I no longer like Hazel then I must be musically doomed. Every now and again I hear something new that sparks my interest and I still love folk music but get frustrated in that the old arthritic knee prevents me from Morris dancing round the living room these days…
What a lovely post GC and nice to see you again in this dusty old vault. How are you scribe-supreme? Still pointing hither and yon from your base in Steel City I trust
These are not easy times for an eternal optimist such as yourself and it’s good to know that your spell of melencholia (mid-life crisis?
) is behind youAnd remembering what it is that I love is music is something I’m very glad I’ve been able to do
Spot on: in an ever-changing world music remains the never-changing solace
You’re very kind, Drone, thank you! I’m not sure last week’s post heralds a step up in posting activity to anywhere remotely close to my mid-late 2000s levels, life being very different now; but it’s nice to know there are still longstanding posters who remember me, and me them.
Still in the Steel City, aye, though with the family commitments still on the intense side I rarely venture further from home than the Yorkshire and Midlands for pointing these days. Kimble last Easter Saturday was very much an outlier in the present reality, the family having made a weekend of it with a stay in Oxford.
Music blog updated again this weekend just gone, and will be again this Saturday.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Moe, it sounds as if you’re going through a little rut music-wise at present not dissimilar to mine. This will pass, trust me; the good stuff will find you once more.
Hazel continues to write and perform, musically as one half of alt.folk.rock dup The Jesus Bolt. Two EPs and two albums in almost eight years so far, so not wildly prolific. She’s had poetry published in the recent past also.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
That Music List continues. Edition #237 includes music from Cardiacs, Lightning in a Twilight Hour, Nev Clay, Stereolab, Duck, Telex, Red Pony Clock, David Leach, The Lemonheads, L Dopa, Martha, Labradford, Nina Nastasia, I Jordan and many, many more.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
That Music List continues. Edition #238 includes music from Hydroplane, Miki Berenyi Trio, Robyn, The Field Mice, Bill Nelson, August Actually, Care, Die Ärzte, Ming, Dry Cleaning, Manu Chao, The Yummy Fur, Lande Hekt, Dubstar, Future Bible Heroes and many more.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Sally Maclennane, a great dance tune.
RIP Andrew Ranken drummer of the Pogues. Great band from the 80s, manic mayhem tap yer feet and away yer go!!
At the moment I’m in a classic mood , it’s classic fm on the early morning drive to work , way home it’s the classic playlist with this at no 1
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
At the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall tomorrow night for Dvorak, Tchaikovsky and a new piece for saxophone to be performed by the fabulous Jess Gillam.
I have been enjoying the repeats of “Face The Music” on BBC4 recently. I just about remember it from when I was young. An interesting glimpse into television’s past.
) is behind you
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