"sumer of rock n roll" - outl4w

"don't wanna drive a bus or train catch a thief or fly a plane - i only wanna rock n roll"




what is it about the summer that makes people more willing to forgive inanity?
this song is sheer unadulterated drivel. even considering the fact i was written by small children, it is unbearably infantile. its even less clever than their stupid extraneous number in the band name [did someone just call me a hypocrite?].
the original remit for the competition on xfm that this song won was that it had to include the words "summer" and "beergarden". so there i was sitting in a beergarden in the summer and the train of thought left me thoroughly earwormed with this.

now, i want to rock n roll at least as much as the next man, but i don't want to do so soundtracked by a bunch of pre-pubescent punk-wannabes

"thou shalt always kill" - dan le sac v scroobius pip

"thou shalt not use poetry, art or music to get into girls’ pants. use it to get into their heads."


this song is going to be huge.

i heard it twice on xfm yesterday and various bits of it have been in and out of my head ever since. a glorious slice of intelligent lo-fi.
that said, by the time it's been played to death this summer - and it will be - i will surely be sick of it, but for now i just want to be excited by it.


i don't think i've ever got into a girl's pants (or head for that matter) using any other method - which is the trouble with this song - it is too busy telling you what not to do without offering advice on replacement activities

"the radio still sucks" - ataris

"every now and then i turn it on again but it's plain to see that the radio still sucks"


i remember the death of xfm.

it had been a gloriously uncommercial, eclectic station prepared to take risks, to play stuff noone else was playing, to not be rigidly trapped in a playlist. it had had to make a few compromises to get a permanent licence, and i still didn't like all of the wide range of stuff they played, but it was great because they played bad stuff, sometimes barely listenable stuff, in amongst the fantastic stuff.

it came as a shock to me, though i later found out industry people were well aware of its imminence, when in late august of 1998 it just disappeared - with a short loop of mor repeating endlessly on the frequency.

a couple of weeks later it had turned, through some black magic, into a weak virgin radio clone, and it took many years for it to re-evolve into its current state which is at least listenable, particularly at night. but it can never again, i fear, be the revolutionary force it tried so hard to be.

the world would probably be a slightly better place if it had succeeded

"hedonism (just because you feel good)" - skunk anansie

"how do you remember me, the one that made you laugh until you cried. i hope you're feeling happy now"



stuck in a traffic jam on the south circular and this came on xfm. i had no choice but to crank it up and sing along (though i have to drop out the really high bits). hours later i was still singing it. it probably only just scrapes into my top 10 tracks of theirs but its great. the band is great. the songs are great. if you don't own either of their first two albums then shame on you.

i used to be really bothered about how people remembered me. surprisingly much more so than what people thought of me in the moment - which i never really cared about. i remember writing long quasi-deep meanderings in the school leaving books of people i had barely given a second thought to most of the years we had coexisted. it always meant more to me if someone mentioned a long time later that they enjoyed one of my gigs, rather than straight after which meant quite little. being memorable was its own way of ensuring i was being significant. being memorable is a far greater aspiration than being popular, or even than being liked.

go out there and be memorable, readers, go.

"desperate guys" - the faint

"you were warming the bass up, your hair covered your face up, i was acting indifferent at the merch booth putting on make-up"



for a brief period about a year ago i was a bit obsessed with this song. i first heard it on xfm walking home from the train station at night after a jazz workshop. the snatch of lyric above almost literally stopped me in my tracks - even with its dodgy scansion and not-quite-as-clever-as-it-first-appears word play i just found it so evocative. theres a sort of swagger to this song that is strangely aspirational. and those ridiculous string samples. and that squelchy bass riff.
as i write its been in my head for the last five and a half hours. its that kind of song. i recommend anyone to listen to it, but only if theyre prepared for the earworm consequences.


i was never that cool, but i did at least used to be cooler than i am now. acting indifferent. putting on make up.

"a girl like you" - edwin collins

"this old town's changed so much, don't feel like i belong, too many protest singers, not enough protest songs"

when this was one of those pleasant-enough-but-radio-saturated indie songs that characterised the mid 90s i could take or leave it, but when i heard him play it acoustically for an xfm session, where he dumm-ed the guitar riffs, it was strangely haunting - especially this third verse.

and its still true now - maybe it always was