Love Songs

Those that know me as a writer say I don't write many stories about love. I'd disagree with this and indeed in my latest collection there are a couple of heart-rendering love stories, but yeah it's true, they don 't end well. Actually, there's a third story "Eyes In The Back of His Hands" that's an intense portrayal of love with a blind lover. You can read it here.

So I thought my next music themed chart should be love related. But I'm not really one for the classic pap love song, sorry I meant pop love song. But here's ten of my favourite love tinged songs.

Ramones - "Baby I Love You"
Two-minute thrash rockers go all slow strings and syrupy on this track and I Loooove it!

Keith Rowe - "Groovy Situation"
When Keith belts out "This is how I feel" towards the end, it sends shivers down my spine. He means it he really, really means it. He's in love, with all of his soul. Mesmerising despite a reasonably unpromising beginning to the song.

Undertones - "You Got My Number (Why Don’t You Use It?)"
Hey I never said the love had to be requited in these songs did I? Love this song as I did of so many of the Undertones' output. Perfectly crafted 3 minute pop-punk, cheeky and belligerent at the same time, with catchy choruses, which when push comes to shove, no one really gets hurt in the end.



CSS - "Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death from Above"
Probably wins the award for best titled live song. Don't know if anyone else feels this, but it has the feel of a post-coital song to me, lying back on the bed, smoking a cigarette and letting your thoughts float free. Oh just me then...

Infadels - "Love Like Semtex"
The only song of theirs I really liked. It's not particularly coherent lyrics wise, but it manages to convince through the beat and the delivery.

New Order - "Love Vigilantes"
Joy Division wrote the searing "Love Will Tea Us Apart" with it's mea culpa and realistic sensibilities about the flaws and failings  within a relationship. New Order pen this potty ditty about a soldier returning home from war to his wife who believes him dead. It lacks any gravitas or even much in the way of credibility, but it's bouncy and hummable and I like it in spite of myself.

The Rezillos - "I love My Baby Cos She Does Could Sculptures"
What better reason could there be? Never overlook the significant part Art Colleges played in the rise of UK punk in the middle of the 1970s. Perhaps that's why Paul Weller penned such an acerbic song called "Art School" to distance people from the notion that The Jam were associated with punk. Anyway, hilarious intro to this song about how the band hated each other.

The Pogues - "Kitty"
Shane Macgowan was a master of writing aching love songs full of loss and regret, often tied up to exile and leaving your country behind. Of course everyone knows "Fairytale Of New York", but for sheer weary emotion I don't think you can top this.

Boss Hog - "I Dig You"
Husband and wife team Jon Spencer and Cristina Martinez pen a daft song pledging their troth towards one another. But I loved this band with their blend of swamp dirt blues and Spencer's later incarnation Jon Spencer's Blues Explosion that deconstructs and reconstructs the Blues with a particular 21st Century spin.



Gun Club - "Fire Of Love"
The primal sound of love, lust, concupiscence the whole shooting match. The fire of love, does exactly what it says on the tin.



Gang Of Four - "Love Like Anthrax"
Okay, so I just couldn't help myself and reverted to type. A song that deconstructs the notion of love as mythologised in 3 minute pop songs. Apart from what's going on musically, this is really interesting in the way the two vocal narratives cut across one another with no concern as to which one the listener gloms on to. A bit like a married couple having an argument, which kind of summed up the relationship of guitarist Andy Gill & lead singer Jon King who periodically broke up and came back together/. I think right now King has left the band again.

Music For The Eclipse - Songs about the sun and the moon

There was an eclipse today. Being this was my day off work, I slept through it, although most commentators in the UK said it just became a bit more cloudy and overcast so it was hard to tell the difference.

Nevertheless, since this event isn't due to happen for another eleven years, I thought I'd honour it with a themed chart that is out of this world (but not out of our solar system).


1) Creedance Clearwater Revival - "Bad Moon Rising"
Jaunty country inflected song about ecological disaster, who'd have thunk it?



2) New Order - "Sunrise"
You say New Order and immediately think of synth club dance anthems, but they could also rock out with guitars as this suggests



3) Grinderman - "Man In The Moon"
Nick Cave's offshoot project Grinderman put the rock and roll back into the music whereas his solo stuff was far more ballad based, yet this one could have been from either version.



4) Gun Club - "Give Up the Sun"
A bit more lyrically complex than most of their swamp rock bluesy stuff.



5) Jimi Hendrix - "Moon Turn Tides Gently Gently Away"
Hippyish title, but what the heck, once the song gets out of its psychedelic intro it ain't quite so serene



6) Pink Floyd - "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun"
Could have been "Dark Side Of The Moon" but I went for the slightly happier if still unsettling sunnyside up.



if you'd prefer the longer but more wonderful version Live from Pompeii - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIYvkHg114M

7) The Police - Walking On the Moon"
It's not often anything Sting related gets into one of my charts, but this is an okay song even if they do look like idiots in the video, but that was the 80s for you I suppose



8) Wu Tang Clan - "Sunlight"
Wu Tang get all spiritual and not even the metaphysics of drugs either.



9) The Ramones - "Howling At the Moon (Sha La La)"
This almost seems like the Ramones were pastiching themselves. Having string orchestras for songs works, having an organ in the band doesn't.



10) Royal Trux - "Sun on the Run"
US noise merchants down it down from 11 to 10.



13) "Roll Along Prairie Moon"
From the TV drama "Pennies From Heaven" with the inestimable late Bob Hoskins.



12) Arctic Monkeys - "When The Sun Goes Down"
When they were still Northern and good. Alex Turner has gone very Queen's English these days.



13) Neil Young - "Harvest Moon"
Never much of a Neil Young fan, (his voice always too reedy for my tastes), I find it interesting that most of the songs here about the Moon are 60s and early 70s, whereas the Sun songs range from all over. Something to do with The Age Of Aquarius I imagine.



14) Fat Boy Slim - "Sunset (Bird Of Prey)"
Fat Boy Slim produces mighty tunea, or at least half-tunes. When he has a good riff or diddle, he never revels in constantly reprising it, which is to be respected, but also means none of his songs quite hang together imho.



15) Violent Femmes - "Blister In the Sun"
I loved this band when they were around, but now find their music hasn't aged terribly well. Don't know what you think?



16) Dead Kennedys - "Moon Over Marin"
This is the final track on an album of unrelenting US hardcore punk and is a bit of a stand out oddity for its wistfulness.

Dreams - a Music chart

Well if it's good enough for Shakey (William, not Stevens) then it must be a subject rich for the arts. here's a music chart of Dream themed songs (but not David Essex's "Silver Dream Racer")


1) Sonic Youth - "I Dreamed I Dream"

An early SY song this, before their layered sound had really started to cohere. But it's still brooding with menace and the husband and wife swapped vocals is really effective. Kim Gordon's book "Girl in A Band" has just come out. She was anything but that in Sonic Youth.



2) London Underground - "Dreams Are Better"

Spacy, dubby soundscape does conjure up a dreamy sensibility.



3) Mamas And Papas - "California Dreaming"

Infinitely prefer this version than the Beach Boys, even prepared to overlook the fashion faux pas.



4) The Fall - "Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul"

If you're going to include a Fall song in any music themed chart, chances are Mark E Smith's sensibilities are going to cut against the grain of the theme and sure enough, here the Hip Priest warbles his disapproval of the Wigan Casino's soul capital reputation.



5) Gang of Four - "We Live As We Dream Alone"

A quote from Joseph Conrad and I always want to put a comma after the 'Dream' and before the 'Alone'. Talking of fashion faux pas... Still one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite bands.



6) Fire Engines - "Big Gold Dream"

Here's a band that somehow haven't featured in a chart of mine before even though I really like them. The perspective is very odd here, the band look like tall thin giants compared to the dancers in the front.



7) Magik Markers - "Bad Dream"

I only discovered this band relatively recently and their album "Boss" has gone into my all-time top 20. Usually wig-out noise merchants, this shows an alarming degree of disturbia through a much lighter touch. Fabulous.



8) Pauline Murray & the Invisible Girls - "Dream Sequence 1"

Pauline Murray sounding just like she did when fronting punk band Penetration, though with more poppy backing than the thrash 3 chords of punk.



9) New Order - "Dreams Never End'

Fascinating track that shows the partial emergence of the New Order sound from that of Joy Division, but still with its roots very much traceable. They all look so tentative here.



10) Suicide - "Dream Baby Dream"

If there was ever a soundtrack of nightmares, Alan Vega provided it.



11) Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This"

I wasn't really a fan of the 80s, most of my favourite bands expired in the early 80s. I always associate this song with the grim politics of the era. A kind of corporate sponsored vision of nightmarishness.



12) Supertramp - "Dreamer"

Before punk came along, I used to listen to stuff like this. Thank god for punk I say. These days this sounds like Leo Sayer  to me. Crime of the century? That this type of music held sway for so long.



13) Television - The Dream's Dream"

This was probably around a similar time to the Supertramp and represented a precursor of punk and new wave that swept away the old rock dinosaurs. But these guys could still play their instruments, apart from Richard Hell obviously!



14) Nas - "Sweet Dreams"

I like Nas, but he really needs to get himself a decent artistic director to make his videos. they're all the same and universally awful.



15) Chemical Brothers - "Dream On"

They're called the Chemical Brothers for a reason. Spacemen 3 would have killed for this song.



16) Electric Prunes - "I had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)"

Dressed like choirboys yet their sound was a distortion, fuzzed up glorious romp.



17) Tricky - "Bad Dreams"

And we're back with the paranoia latent in dreams. or not so latent in this case. Tricky regarded all life as a bad dream.




18) Lil Kim - "Dreams"

Oh do get on with it! Once she's 43 seconds in it really locks in to a remorselessly mean vibe.



19) The Bug - "Thief Of Dreams"

Dubstep is supposedly an edgy dreamy urban soundscape and The Bug is all that and more. But the vocalist in this spins a terrifying narrative that is anything but dream like.



20) Minutemen - 'Dream Told By Moto"

Or the 4 minute warning till the bomb drops... no dream this for us in the 80s, we really had these thoughts and anxieties.

Criminal songs - 10 songs about crime

I've published a music chart of Murder Songs but here's one of other crimes.


1) Genesis - Robbery, Assault And Battery"
You'd probably never believe it given my music collection as it currently stands, dominated by New Wave, Hip-Hop, Reggae & Art Noise, but Genesis were one of the first bands I ever got into. Peter Gabriel Genesis rather than Phil Collins Genesis of course. But still, I find them impossible to listen to now. Weren't videos made in the 1970s really rubbish?



2) The Prodigy - "Firestarter"
The album this comes from "The Fat Of The Land" is almost excellent, but as with this track I just feel each song on it threatens a lot sonically and musically but somehow always manages to truncate it without nailing it. Maybe that's why Liam sacked the rest of the band.




3) New Order - "Thieves Like Us"
Um I loved this period New Order (that yielded the album "Power, Corruption and Lies". Not my normal type of music, but I guess there was a sentimental attachment from the Joy division days. I wonder if they lost any fans who felt the synth-heavy sound meant that they had sold out the Joy Division legacy? I certainly felt similar when one of my favourite noise bands The Swans went all quite singer-songwritery and recently when my favourite contemporary band Liars produced a second successive album that ditched their art-noise roots for plinky-computer game soundtrack music.




4) Renegade Soundwave - "Probably A Robbery"
I can't remember anything else about this band. One-hit wonders? Probably.




5) The Jam - "Thick As Thieves"
Supposedly a concept album because 3 of the songs were linked, of which this was one. But ignoring that, Paul Weller's gift for longing back to a childhood of being able to belong to something never bettered than in this song.




6) The Clash - "Bankrobber"
 I never pass up any excuse to play this song really! I always thought it was just another one of their reggae covers before I discovered that no, they'd penned it themselves. Very hard to do white reggae well, but this is definitely at the top of the white reggae charts.




7) Ministry - "The Land Of Rape & Honey"
This band are from Texas. They don't fit in very well down there...




8) MC 900Ft Jesus - "The City Sleeps"
Criminally (get it?) under-appreciated artist, really sorry they stopped after a couple of killer albums. This is waaay more menacing than anything the cartoon gangster rappers might pontificate upon.




9) Pulp - "Joyriders"
Never really a Pulp fan, a mix of professional Northerner with auto-didact intellectual, just didn't strike a chord with me. Sort of Morrisey without the racial prejudice.



10) Swans - "Blackmail"
This period Swans when female vocalist Jarboe joined the band saw their enormous power sound teeter on the point of fracturing as her voice cut against it. It was brilliant these two divergent muscularities.



11) Beastie Boys - "Car Thief"
Well you know I love all things Beastie Boys. I chose this song because of the title, but let's face it, the video for their song "Sabotage" which spoofs Starsky & Hutch's opening credits is one of the best music videos every made, so I'm linking to that! Makes me a bit of a cheat, but not a criminal!



12) 50 Cent - "P.I.M.P"
The Caribbean steel band vibe of this is genius, no matter how desultory the song would be without it. #guiltypleasure



13) Gary Clail - "Two Thieves And A Liar"
Another artist like The Prodigy who has the germ of brilliant songs but never quite manages to see them through (I find this also with Adrian Sherwood's Tackhead from which Clail spawned). But this song delivers all the way through.




14) Slits - "Shoplifting"
Another band who teetered on the brink of great tunesmithery but always managed to pull back. All the elements are there, but somehow the song sounds slightly weedy, which for dub is a bit odd. I did like their track "New Town" though.



15) Ice-T - "Grand Larceny"
The granddaddy of blustering gangster rap and where is he now? Oh yeah in a police drama series on TV. Oh the irony.

Music Colour Therapy - Songs about colours

Color Me Badd, as if there aren't a host of bands with a colour in their name, Black Sabbath, White Stripes, Green Day, Blue Oyster Cult, Simply Red, Maroon 5, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry...

But here are songs involving colours rather than just the band names. Good and bad!

Enjoy

1) "Paint It Black" - Rolling Stones
Beatles or Stones? I was never really either, but I preferred the Stones' edge over the Beatles, though didn't really dig many of their songs. This however is a classic and has a real menace.



Honourable mentions:
"Black Candy" - Beat Happening
"Black Betty" Ram Jam
"Blackheart Man" - Bunny Wailer
"Black Night" - Deep Purple
Black Dog - Led Zepplin

Dishonourable Mentions:
"Men In Black" - The Stranglers makes David Bowie's "Laughing Gnome" sound meaningful


2) "Curious Oranj" - The Fall
Orange, the word that has no rhyme and therefore unlikely to lend itself to lyricism. Unless you're Mark E Smith, who echoed a 60s avant garde film from Yugoslavia and composed a score for a modern ballet (performed by Michael Clark's dance company) based on the colour divide in Northern Ireland. Barmy but fun.



Honourable mentions:
"Orange Crush" - REM

3) "Purple Haze" - Jimi Hendrix
'Scuse me while I kiss this guy'... Simply definitive song by the master. It's about drugs ya know? I see purple landing smoke canisters for helicopters in Vietnam whenever I hear this song. Like I say, definitive...



Honourable mentions:
"Purple Rain" - Prince

4) "All Cats Are Grey" - The Cure
After their debut album of low-fi pop pun, that difficult follow-up album was the doomy gloomy "Seventeen Seconds" from which this track was taken. It was the prelude to Smith's ridiculous White Rabbit meets Goth phase which was cartoonish in its sentiment, but this track represents them when they actually meant their angst.



Honourable mentions:
"Fade To Grey" - Visage
"Grey Day" - Madness

5) "Green Light" - Sonic Youth
From when Sonic Youth were still good and making interesting, discordant music. Although this song musically references another of their own songs "Death Valley 69" which is a bit cheeky methinks. There are many honourable mentions for this colour, the colour must conjure up lots of things. Note, rap artists singing about 'green' as in money were not considered for this category



Honourable mentions:
"Everything's Gone Green" - New Order
"Pretty Green" - The Jam
"Green Green Grass Of Home" - Tom Jones
"Green Onions" - Booker T & The MGs

6) "Golden Brown" - The Stranglers
I remember this with its whimsical harpsichord vibe getting into the charts. And yes it's about drugs. Colours... drugs, seeing a theme develop here.



Honourable Mentions:
"Golden Years" - David Bowie
"Fools Gold" - Stone Roses
"Brown Sugar" - Rolling Stones
"Don't It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue" - Crystal Gale

Dishonourable Mentions:
"Brown Girl In The Ring" - Boney M
"Gold_ - Spandau Ballet - always hated this song, even before it became the theme or motif music of 1001 quiz and sports' shows

7) "Blue Monday" - New Order
The Blues, well this colour clearly would have the most entries, but this is the daddy of them all.



Honourable mentions:
"Mr Blue Sky" - ELO
"Preaching The Blues" - Gun Club
"Gravedigger Blues" - Beat Happening

Dishonourable mentions:
"Mr Blue Sky" - ELO - sometimes it's just too damn cheerful for my mood. Music can be like that you know!


8) "Pink Turns To Blue" - Husker Du
A band of heavy guitar punk/new wave playing really muscular music, all three members of this power trio eventually coming out as gay which gave a whole new insight into their love songs. Fabulous.



Honourable mention:
"Pink Cadillac" - Natalie Cole
"Pretty In Pink" - Psychedelic Furs

9) "Violet" - Hole
I know it's heresy, but I actually preferred Mrs Cobain's band to Kurt's mob. If you'll excuse the implicit sexism, she had more balls in her music and lyrics than hubby.




10. "White Lines" - Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
Has this been bettered as early hip-hop? I don't think so. White, symbol of purity (and purity of powdered drugs) seems to be a very popular colour of choice in song titles. White noise? Don't you believe it.



Honourable mentions:
"White Rabbit" - Jefferson Airplane
"White Riot" - The Clash
"White Punks On Dope" - The Tubes
"Whiter Shade Of Pale" - Procul Harum
"Knights in White Satin" - Moody Blues
"Ride A White Swan" - T-Rex

10) "Silver Machine" - Hawkwind
Hawkwind were a band that divided (I mean check out this video for bubbles, flutes and strange mute women in astral make-up as to why) but still the greasers stuck to their preferred choice of music. I happen to be a punk who really likes this song.



Honourable Mention:
"Silver Rocket" - Sonic Youth
"Silver" - Pixies

Dishonourable mention:
"Silver Lining" - Stiff Little Fingers - what punk mutated to when they ran out of rage



Dishonourable mention - The colour red.
Red, colour of passion and flame and yet a strange paucity of songs honouring the colour. All I could think of was "Red, Red Wine", a ska reggae version by Tony Tribe which is pretty neat, but then later covered by UB40 which should have been named "Red, Red Whine".

Police & Thieves - 15 songs about cops or robbers

The rock and roll singer, the great outlaw pose. Lyrics and posture defying authority, guitars toted as guns, whipping the crowd up into revolutionary fervour, all the while taking the money to the bank.

From Stagger Lee folk criminal songs, through to "Jailhouse Rock", rock and roll has nailed its colours firmly to the lawlessness mast. The whole of Gangster Rap associates itself with the lethally criminal. Every second song by The Clash seemed to be about cops or robbers, "Julie's Been Working For The Drug Squad", "Police On My Back", "Police And Thieves", "Guns of Brixton", "I Fought The Law", "Bankrobber"...

So in rock and roll, the thieves generally get a sympathetic treatment, while the cops are uniformly 'Pigs', party-poopers coming down hard on music that's too loud or clouds of cannabis smoke, with the notable exception of Killdozer's "The Pig Was Cool". Do we have to invoke NWA's infamous "**** The Police" to underline the point? Then of course there was the band The Police with their anaemic white reggae just to apply the coup de grace.

So in a vain attempt to equal the balance, here are 14 songs alternating between the good guys and the bad guys as portrayed in rock and roll and the classic Junior Murvin song at 15.


1) "Sound Of Da Police" - Boogie Down Productions



2) "Thieves Like Us" - New Order



3) "Dream Police" - Cheap Trick



4) "Two Thieves And a Liar" - Gary Clail



5) "Police Truck" - Dead Kennedys



6) "Thick As Thieves" - The Jam



7) "Police And Helicopter" - John Holt



8) "Grand Larceny" - Ice-T



9)  "Cop" - Swans



10) "Thief Of Dreams" - The Bug



11) "Sheriff Fatman" - Carter USM



12) "Hazy Shade Of Criminal - Public Enemy



13) "I Shot The Sheriff' - Bob Marley & The Wailers



14) "Gypsies Tramps And Thieves" - Cher



15) "Police & Thieves" - Junior Murvin

Back To Work Music - 7 songs about Mondays

Sunday morning, it's freezing outside. I'm stretched out in the warmth of my bedroom, central heating blasting away. Don't have to even step foot outside today. And in 24 hours time, I'll be ensconced in an office where the temperature is either too hot or too cold, there will be 100 emails accumulated over the weekend to sift through, someone's purloined the coffee maker again... Ugh!

So here's a week's worth of seven songs all about Mondays, our favourite day of the week right? Take it away Sir Bob...

1) Boomtown Rats - "I Don't Like Mondays"
The song that suggested the Rats had come a long way since such punky titles as "Mary Of The 4th Form" and "I Never Loved Eva Braun". Similar vibe to "Mad World" which I have to admit I prefer.


2) New Order - "Blue Monday"
Another song that launched the band on to a new level. They had gone over to the USA and experienced the burgeoning Club scene there and worked with legendary producer Arthur Baker. They came back to the UK, helped set up the Hacienda club in Manchester and released this wondrous track that purged all the associations with Northern gloom that hung over them from their Joy Division days and Ina Curtis' suicide. They became a good time band and very badly behaved too! I saw them play at the New Hall College (Cambridge) Summer Ball and the rumours were that 2 of the band's leading members spent the day going around that all-women's college offering £50 for a sh*g to anyone they came across... From mere mortals, divine music


3) Stereophonics - "Bank Holiday Monday"
If only. Only 22 shopping days until Xmas bank holiday...


4) The Carpenters - "Rainy Days And Mondays"
The only records (& 8-Track cartridges, there that gives you an idea to my age) that were in my childhood house were my Mother's Classical, Opera and a few middle of the road artists like the Carpenters. Hence I associated all the above with years of ear pain in that oh so tolerant way of boys. But now that I've matured a tad, I've come to appreciate how great the Carpenters really were and Karen's astounding voice. This song perhaps doesn't show that voice off to its zenith like other songs, but it's still gorgeous and sumptuous, rather than easy, listening.


If you've never seen the amazing short Todd Haynes' film "Starlet - The Karen Carpenter Story" made with Barbie Dolls rather than actors, then here's a sample

5) The Bangles - "Just Another Manic Monday"
I was never a huge Bangles fan, although I did like "Walk Like An Egyptian". Still "Manic Monday" pitches the right sentiment. They look way better today without all the "big hair" I have to say!


6) Death Cab For Cutie - "Monday Morning"
The band with the best name in music, with a suitably elegiac song for the first working day of the week.


7) Billie Holliday - "Gloomy Sunday"
Yes I know it's not titularly a song about 'Monday', but in effect it is. According to TV Quiz Show, more people have been driven to suicide by this song than any other. And I think you can see why. I haven't listened to Bjork's version. Somehow that too I feel would be sacrilege.

'B' Is For Better - Some top B-sides

Remember vinyl records? Remember 7 inch singles? The ones you could put into a jukebox. Usually with an A-side backed with (B/W) a B-side. Or as the Americans referred to it, a flipside. In the days before EPs, 12" singles, CD Singles with limited editions, remixes and everything that undermined the art of a B-side.

Well sometimes, just sometimes, the B-side was actually far superior to the A-Side. Here's a list of 10. I've inverted with B/W with a F/B for fronted by.

Enjoy.

1) New Order "In A Lonely Place" F/B "Ceremony"

There was huge anticipation for the first post-Joy Division release and while Ceremony is good, "In A Lonely Place" is mean, moody and magnificent (helped in this video by Bernard's irritation with Steve Morris' slow tempo). But turns out both songs were actually penned by Joy Division after all, before Ian Curtis' death, since this one appears on some of their live bootlegs. Still great though.

2) The Jam "Butterfly Collector" F/B "Strange Town"

When they weren't rehashing old Motown numbers as B-sides, The Jam actually put out some great value singles because both sides were of high standard. Weller's ropey hitting of the falsetto in "Strange Town" put me off that track, but the B-Side is creepy, unsettling and lyrically quite brilliant.

3) The Birthday Party "Kathy's Kisses" F/B "Nick The Stripper"

"Nick The Stripper" is fairly routine BP sleaze fare, but when you scroll past the bog standard "Blundertown" which opens the flipside, you are caught completely off guard by the jazzy scuzz of "Kathy's Kisses" which hints at Cave's future solo direction. This track shows Cave has a fine sense of humour which BP die hards would not have permitted at the time, demanding music to shoot up in venue toilets by. I know, I saw them... I was at a joint headline gig of The Fall & BP. Half the audience were Nick Cave homaging in their look, the others all had Mark E Smith wonky bowl cuts. The Cave fans were complaining about the Fall fans slavishly resembling their hero; the Fall fans were moaning about the Cave clones. I kid you not...Me I liked both bands

4) The Cramps "You Got Good Taste" F/B "Faster Pussycat"

I love this track for the tease that permeates it top to bottom, in the music, in the lyric and in the delivery. Wonderful and burlesque.

5) The Ruts "Love In Vain" F/B "Staring At The Rude Boys"

If Staring was all Chart acsending tribal bop, Vain displayed The Ruts' other string to their guitar, of really rather noble white reggae. Added to that this is the song of singer Malcolm Owen's confession to his ultimately fatal battle with heroin and it's a criminally hidden masterpiece that always brings a tear to my eye.

6) Spizz Energi "Virginia Plane" F/B "Soldier Soldier"

Everything Spizz did was a bit throw-away, a bit jokey. But this is a wonderfully tongue-in- cheeky punk tribute to he who is the most far removed from punk, and Spizz does a fair Brian Ferry impression. Way better than the A-side.

7) The Clash "Armagideon Time" F/B "London Calling"

I like London Calling, but it's not as great as it's B-Side, even though it's a cover version of a Willie Williams song. The theme and sound of paranoia is common to both, but is so much more held under in Armagideon, that it is a far richer and denser song.

8) The Specials "Friday Night Saturday Morning" F/B "Ghost Town"

Ghost Town was obviously a seminal track for the Thatcher riot-blighted Britain of the 1980s, but The Specials never did a bad song and Hall's wistful delivery counterpoints the 'there must be more to life than this' tone of the lyrics here. This really is a hangover comedown song, but with such aplomb you know you'll go out and do it all again the following evening.

9) The Fall "Fantastic Life" F/B "Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul"

The Fall did honour the 7" format with many fine B-Sides, so it was quite tough to pick one, but I think the jaunty, sweep-along organ of this just clinches it for me. "People tend to let you down/ It's a swine". Quite.

10) Monochrome Set "Alphaville" F/B "He's Frank"

From disorder comes a really tight lead guitar riff and rhythm section. The vocal is pleasingly plaintive as well. Knocks the socks off the A-Side.

Dreams Are Better

Dreams.... Fantasies... Imaginings... Aspirations... Here's 10 songs on the theme of dreams. Because of the varying musical styles and genres, some may well be dreamy. Some may represent altered states. Some may be nightmarish. Let me know your faves.

1) New Order - "Dreams Never End"

2) Ozzy Osbourne - "Dreamer"

3) Supertramp - "Dreamer"

4) The Bug - "Thief Of Dreams"

5) Jay-Z - "A Dream"

6) Pauline Murray - "Dream Sequence 1"

7) Sonic Youth - "I Dreamed I dream"

8) Suicide - "Keep Your Dreams"

9) Jimi Hendrix - "Still Raining, Still Dreaming"

10) Gang Of Four - "We Live as We Dream Alone"

Let's face it, it wouldn't be a Sulci Collective chart without at least one Gang Of Four track included.

Sweet Dreams

X