Episode One – 9.2.16

This playlist is 91% vinyl friendly. Near perfect.

Philips, The Tina Century Bluetooth Turntable room.. A £350-£400 retro look to blend in with your wood panelling room, it reminds me of a car grill from the 1960s. Built-in speakers with deep (how low can you go) bass and crystal-clear highs.

Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms tweak/edit/chop and the occasional tune might sound a bit dodgy, quality-wise. On top of that, the switch between different decades and production values never helps in the mix here.

Lyric of Playlist 154

Tim Hardin’s lyric and song title.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Dreams Never End (John Peel session: 16.2.81) – The Peel Sessions 12″ EP – Strange Fruit – 1987

Diary for Jan 16, ’81 says ‘Karl W round. NEW ORDER JOHN PEEL…‘ Those caps signal something special and the journey had begun at Heaven, London a week earlier. Two good mates called Karl were there, though I hadn’t realised the one at my house listening to the first broadcast of the session was a Carl.

03.45

THE TEARDROP EXPLODES – Second Head – Kilimanjaro, LP – Mercury – 1980

Listening to this album now it’s got a bit of a bubbly and bouncy feel.

Judging by a set list suggested for the Manchester Poly night’ that followed ours/mine it doesn’t look like Second Head made into our night here. Packed with Kilimanjaro tracks though.

06.55

TOM PETTY and THE HEARTBREAKERS – I Need To Know – 7″ – Shelter – 1978

Still with a fair amount of ‘rock’ in my world at this point in time, for some reason I thought I’d had a 12″ of this but that would have been a bit daft. At just 2mins 22 plus, a fiery new wave feel that could have made it as an Elvis Costello tune.

09.17

FORMAL SPPEEDWEAR – Who Needs Spain Ball – Punch Card, LP – Melodic – 2026

“Who Needs Spain Ball?”. ‘On the surface, the single functions as a highly accessible, synth-forward New Wave track featuring the record’s biggest, most infectious pop chorus. However, the title and the song’s inner mechanics are intentionally surreal, designed to “pull the rug” out from under the listener‘. – Apologies, I forgot the source. An early Talking Heads vibe going on? They’re pulling the rug even more with their merch – with the band’s name the only lettering… album t-shirts!

12.28

BIG JOANIE – It’s You – Sistahs, LP – The Daydream Library Series – 2018

So post punk!

14.48

EGOSLAVIA – Twist Face – Self-titled, (mini) LP – 9 1/2 x 16″ Records – 1982

Not that many will have debated it but I’ve always pronounced this band as ‘Egoslayvia’ and it’s only just dawned on me it was likely ‘Egoslahvia’. Better late… and a band I was introduced to by a US guy who dropped in on John Peel’s radio show somewhere in the ’80s. Very unusual for Peely to have anyone else in the studio with him but his guest was picking tracks from three or so US bands that Peely had never heard of, something that irritated the latter, slightly.

20.08

BIFFER BONKER – 4 Prong, Fucked Up, 2 Potato Thing – Biffer Bonker Is…Unabashed, download album only – ? – 2026

Anyone with a decades long history of Bedford, UK’s musical landscape stretching back to punk bands of the mid to late 70s will have knowledge of Biffer in a former life or three fronting a wealth of different bands but his present world view is available here, with something from the man for me currently getting waylaid by various postal services. ‘No god is required… ‘ Ain’t that the truth and if there isn’t a lyric sheet involved somewhere I might be requesting one :), as he’ll be back here at some point. He’s also the man who introduced me to Click Click via an early demo tape of theirs somewhere around 1984.

23.17

BROKEN SPINDLES – To Die, For Death – Fulfilled / Complete, LP – Saddle Creek – 2004

Content with having spun Induction on an earlier show, and as it turns out, rightly guessing on the album’s diversity I hadn’t been rushing to grab the physical vinyl… but here we are! One Joel Peterson, from Omaha, Nebraska.

25.35

TARWATER – 20 Miles Up – Silur, LP – Kitty-Yo – 1986

From the US to Germany and there’s a far wider breadth to this duos ‘catalogue’ than the two tracks now spun on 41 Rooms would suggest.

29.35

RIPPLE – I Don’t Know What It Is But It Sure Is Funky – 7″ – GRC – 1973

I don’t know about I Don’t Know… but with no UK release it’s unlikely our mainstream radio of the time spun this, though maybe a DJ or two down the Pilgrims or in the Anglers (Inn) Lair across the road could have. I have strong memories of hearing Willie Henderson’s Dance Master at the latter.

32.53

MARY KENT – Lost Generation – 7″ – CBS – 1969

It’s a slower, darker take than the version the song’s writer, Jim(my) Webb put out himself a year later and though Mary’s intro needed red carding for the show her version has some gravitas and feels ‘worthier’ now than it may have done to the UK’s record buyers back in 1969… what with the Vietnam war being… yep, somewhere else. The intro brings to my mind Common Sense’s Resurrection ’95.

36.57

LADY BLACKBIRD vs CROOKED MAN – Whatever His Name (Pt 1) * – Crooked Spirituals Remixes, 12″ – Foundation – 2025

She’s rightly got her soul audience but I much prefer her vocals set against some electronic goings on, as with the already 41 Rooms’ spun Athletes Of God and some remixing bods, including here, Crooked Man. They seem to give her vocals more of an edge for me.

42.18

ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ (feat. MAX C) – About This Love (Crazy P Remix) (Dub) * – 12″ – Compost Black Label – 2009

The vocals are incidental but the track just keeps building, dropping, shifting. A head-nod-a-thon of slight unease.

45.42

CLICK CLICK – Stay Out Of The Water – 12″ b-side – Rorschach Testing – 1985

Great times in the summer and autumn of ’85. Our RT label is off and running with a party at Winkles (Bedford), a P(roduction) and D(istribution) deal with Rough Trade, 500 copies of the initial yellow and blue sleeved 12″ pressing head straight to the US off the back of A-side (Sweet Stuff) getting CC Single Of The Week in Sounds and with spins on John Peel’s radio show there are one-off gigs in London, Brighton and Northampton and rehearsals are sounding great.

Gig poster for 28.11.84.

Part of a Rorschach Testing ad, The Catalogue #29, Aug ’85.

49.24

SIMPLE MINDS – Premonition (John Peel session: 7.1.80) – Silver Box, 5CD – Virgin – 2004

Having already seen them on the OGWT (live from Hurrah’s New York) and live at the Marquee the previous month I must have heard this session but for whatever reason I definitely didn’t record it.

A ropey photo below of mine from London’s Hammersmith Palais, 26.8.80.

54.28

THE FALL – Dktr. Faustus * – Bend Sinister, LP – Beggars Banquet – 1986

It’s about time Mark E Smith (RIP) and his gang made it back here… so they have.

00.01.00

ECHO and THE BUNNYMEN – I Bagsy Yours (John Peel session: 22.8.79) – The Peel Sessions 12″ EP – 1988

This show’s third Peel session track of the era and the song renamed Monkeys in time to nestle next to the track Crocodiles months later on their debut album. I’m with ‘Bagsy’, though. Even us southerners used the term back then, though it might be best to not remember how it was being used here.

01.02.47

THE MOVE – I Can Hear The Grass Grow – 7″ – Deram – 1967

‘An early, proto-psychedelic freakbeat masterpiece‘ in some modern day circles but a fab bit of wild pop back then. As the years rolled on though, the ‘weedier’ (sadly) Roy Wood’s guitar interjections have sounded.

01.05.52

PETULA CLARK – The Other Man’s Grass (Is Always Greener) – 7″ – Pye – 1967

Husband and wife writers, Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent (or in this particular case, Jackie Trent and Tony Hatch :)), with their key and tempo changing swirler giving ‘Our Pet’ her last Top 20 hit. So idiosyncratic it never got covered by anyone else or maybe offered as an exclusive to Petula? Either way, I bet Trent (no mean singer herself) forwarded a guide vocal version and I’d have been interested in hearing that.

And it’s taken me a week to realise I’ve placed two songs next to each with ‘Grass’ in the title. Very unintentional but spooky and true.

01.08.49

BROOKE COMBE – Tears Won’t Lie * – 7″ – Fontana – 2026

I reckon Northern soul’s younger followers will dance and some older purists will very likely pick at the production but Combe and co-writer, James Skelly have nailed it, and if this song had been recorded in the mid 1960s – and maybe on the label this 7″ now pays homage to (with say Kiki Dee?) – there’d be an even bigger price tag on it than this barely out of the 2026 pressing plant £18 7′ already commands. Also, all involved in the Combe camp will have been as meticulous on the look for the dancers in the video as was MT Jones for his I Don’t Understand. Paying homage can be tough stuff.

01.11.19

TERRY CALLIER – Ordinary Joe – 7″ – Cadet – 1972

Terry and producer, Charles Stepney with a ‘skipping along the road’ feel. An even more expensive buy than the above… and I have neither.

01.15.17

CHAIRMEN OF THE BOARD – Give Me Just A Little More Time – 7″ – Invictus – 1970

INV 501. Did Invictus kick off their UK releases with a homage to Tamla Motown’s UK singles catalogue. Five years earlier the latter had also started with (TMG) 501, via The Supremes’ Stop In The Name Of Love.

01.17.57

JACKIE WILSON – I Get The Sweetest Feeling – 7″ – Brunswick – 1968

1968 for Jackie but the mid ’70s for me. Putnoe, Bedford… sunshine… Gill H…

01.20.49

THE CONTROLLERS – Somebody’s Gotta Win, Somebody’s Gotta Loose (7″ version) – 7″ – Juana – 1977

I didn’t knowingly hear this til maybe twenty years ago. With the amount of music that bypasses us, is it possible I’ve never heard the greatest song I could ever hear?

01.24.42

UMBRA MOON – Don’t Let Me Down – Download only – 2024

This Australian girl is seemingly taking longer to break out than I would have imagined but though stylistically aside of my normal listening, this is a gem.

01.28.02

SHAWN PHILLIPS – Solitude – 7″ b-side – Columbia – 1965

With my copy bought for this side alone, there are few artists I’ve come across who have been both super jaunty and deeper than deep in the songwriting department and 41 Rooms can be with Shawn in both moods.

01.30.48

JOHN and BEVERLEY MARTYN – Primrose Hill – 7″ – Warner Brothers – 1970

In 1970 approximately 1% of the American population had a passport, so aside thinking (at best) Primrose Hill maybe had some Civil War battle reference for them they were going to struggle to warm to this London landmark being referenced, even though somebody at Warners US – as opposed to their UK counterpoints – thought this Carole King-like tune had legs as a single. Sadly, they were wrong, with the promo 7″ likely more common than the stock copy.

01.33.40

TIM HARDIN – You Upset The Grace Of Living When You Lie – 7″ promo only – Verve Forecast – 1967

Yep, lyric and title of show 154 goes to… though at 1min 45 it’s nearly over by the time he’s got through singing the line. A ragged, slightly altered take of the song was part of Hardin’s performance at Woodstock but his set only got to make it to an official release of the festival in 2019.

01.35.22

JOSE FELICIANO – Dirty Work – For My Love… Mother Music, LP – RCA – 1974

It’s likely I’d be outnumbered with my thinking here but Jose’s passion makes Steely Dan’s own recorded version, sung by their then main vocalist, David Palmer, sound lack lustre.

01.38.08

VANGELIS – He-O – Earth, LP – Vertigo – 1973

Back in Vangelis’ big years I only got around to wanting his 1976 single, Pulstar but then hearing the Beatfanatics Balearic Boogie Remix of Let It Happen in 2007 led me backwards to this album and it’s the vocals (of one Robert Fitoussi) on both tracks that seem to make the difference for me.

01.42.05

STEVIE WONDER – Pastime Paradise * – Songs In The Key Of Life, 2LP – Tamla Motown – 1976

I bought the album at the time but my youthful ignorance didn’t fully take in the scale of Stevie’s accomplishment and looking now at the full tracklisting there were only six tracks I regularly played, with Pastime Paradise being one of them. The American buyers who took Songs… to No 1 in the Billboard album charts will have delved deeper.

01.45.21

KOICHI OZAKI – Petal Of The Cherry Blossom * – Novo Tempo / Koichi Ozaki: Novo Tempo Meets Eurasian Suite Vol. 2, 12″ – Eurasian Suite – 2004

If I could dip into the whole of the soul/(acid)jazz/beats etc etc world of the Japanese from the ’90s onwards there’d be a basket full of great tunes I’ve yet to hear. So little time…

01.51.22

KEITH JARRETT (TRIO) – Dancing – Changeless, LP – ECM Records – 1989

‘Original material which is deeply subversive (though also respectfully aware) of the whole tradition of jazz as a system of improvisation on ‘the changes’… On Changeless, there are no chord progressions at all; the trio improvises each section in a single key, somewhat in the manner of an Indian raga‘. – The Penguin Guide to Jazz.

‘These pieces – not written, rehearsed, thought out, sketched, or arranged – ‘came up’ in the middle of four distinctly different concerts. Process is swifter and more accurate than thought.‘ – Keith Jarrett’s album liner notes (edited).

Show 155 arrives Sept 6.

Dec x

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This playlist is 73% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

The ‘cack handed’ HMV 1507 portable radiogram. When from? It’s old.

An online post from nearly two decades ago… ‘… came across this rather strange record player, though quite admirably I resisted buying it! The casing is a bit weird in that the lid seems to cover the entire thing rather than sitting on a bottom half. Then a closer look at the record deck itself made me wrinkle the noble brow in surprise. The pickup arm rests at 90 degrees to the usual resting place. It looks almost back to front! Unfortunately it didn’t have a maker’s or model name, so unless someone can identify it and leave a comment then it will have to remain a mystery for another ten years or so… ‘

And then a decade later, the answer… ‘Your cack handed record player is an HMV 1507 portable radiogram. The type C cartridges almost never work when found now. It’s a cack handed design alright. The radio part is a transformerless AC/DC design but the record deck motor is AC only.

Lyric of Playlist 153

Gil… by a mile!

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – World (The Price Of Love) (Perfecto Mix) * – 12″ – London – 1993

Nineties house music legend and a fave remixer of the band, Paul ‘Perfecto’ Oakenfold adding some clout and drive to an already sparkling song that, if I’m honest, didn’t in its era always transfer successfully to a live setting.

Some of what was floating Oakenfold’s DJ’ing boat back in the day. DJ mag article, 15.10.94

06.51

BESERK IN A HAYFIELD – Club Paris – Cold Waves Of Color Volume 3, v/artists LP – Color Disc – 2016

‘Packaged in a fancy pants paper cut

Whoever Beserk In A Hatfield was/is, their mid ’80s output has regularly featured on re-activated label, Color Disc’s compilations… and they’ll be back here.

10.03

CHRISTIAN PROMMER (feat JUSTINE HOERWARTH) – Tryin’ Times – Rhythmique Nocturne, 2LP – Compost – 2026

Tryin’ Times? Ain’t they just!

Maybe not a stream of consciousness in the vocals/lyrics department, at times they’re on more like a bit of a languid ramble… up against busying keyboards that occasionally remind me of Keith Jarrett… but it works! Classy Prommer over some ‘transparent splatter’ vinyl, with a ‘silver particles print’, to boot.

15.24

WATER FROM YOUR EYES – Nights In Armor – It’s A Beautiful Place, LP – Matador – 2025

That’ll be tears then. A duo out of Brooklyn, New York with more motif biziness and on exclusive ‘Clear Blue Smoke’ (with a signed 12″x12″ print, 500 copies) or ‘Coke Bottle Green’ vinyl.

18.34

LA RISSA – Surrender – Download only – 2026

Still with duos but from Brooklyn to Bradford, and never has ‘I wanted to knock your fucking lights out… ‘ sounded so dark wave pop.

22.45

BLONDSHELL – Heart Has To Work So Hard – Download only – 2026

Vocalist, Sabrina Teitelbaum is for some unclear reason doing her best to physically show us her heart on the accompanying promo shot (upcoming Violins album cover?) and I get the feeling her sound is possibly influenced by a bunch of bands in the ’90’s and noughties that passed me by. Could be wrong.

25.53

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Just Fascination (live) – But What Time Is It Really? LP – MemeTune – 2026

Given that the whole album was ‘Recorded on the UK tour Oct-Nov 2025’ and I was at four of the six dates, there’s a 66% chance I was at this performance and that of each of the other tracks. And as it stands right now, I’ll be at the last three of their last ever gigs come October 2026.

An iconic and groundbreaking band bowing out, forty four years after I first saw them, below in 1982.

29.46

A CERTAIN RATIO – And Then Again (Flight 12″ version) – 12″ b-side – Factory – 1980

Simon Topping’s vocal on any ACR is such an era capturing moment for me. I can nearly feel the people, ‘sense’ the places etc I knew then. Thanks to the band’s gigography it seems though this track is not one I heard them play live in the times (including the above) I saw them before Topping’s departure in late ’82.

32.14

LONELADY – The Catcher – Former Things, LP – Warp – 2021

Julie! New music, if you please! Best, Dec.

36.29

THE DURUTTI COLUMN – Liars – Renascent, LP – London – 2026

Vini Reilly’s first album in fifteen years… and with maybe more lyrics on this track than on his entire back catalogue! Good to have him back.

40.13

BROKEN SPINDLES – Induction – Fulfilled / Complete, LP – Saddle Creek – 2004

A 180g vinyl album maybe before they became all the rage? Dunno, I lose track of time. Anyway, Broken Spindles was one Joel Peterson and the many layers Fulfilled / Complete was the second of six album sized projects he/it/they released in the noughties. I often wonder what peeps do when they stop making music… and I always hope it’s ‘keep being artistic’

43.01

RAE & CHRISTIAN with TEXAS Vs THE WORKS – Hush (The Works Remix) – Grand Central Vs The Works-The Soul Sessions Vol-1, download only – ?? – 2026

The ‘Texas’ being wholly that band’s driver Charleen Spiteri, and here with a tad more motion/movement/swing than the original beaut. Hush is still lush.

46.51

GIL SCOTT-HERON (with PRETTY PURDIE and THE PLAYBOYS) – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – 7″ – Flying Dutchman – 1971

Boy, would he have something to say if he were still alive.

49.50

SHY FX & KINGH – La Prima (B-side) – Download only – 2026

With a third of the utuuuube views that the dub-step’y and longer version has attained in the two months since release but this funkier take is the proper version.

51.16

DOROTHY ASHBY – Soul Vibrations * – 7″ – Cadet – 1968

In her time, a jazz harpist of some standing, with both the album (1968’s Afro-Harping) this cinematic feel track leads off and the single itself now costing serious money in their original form.

54.24

PATRICK COWLEY (feat PEGGY GIBBONS) – Ice Age – Hard Ware, 2LP – Dark Entries – 2025

Whether Ms Gibbons sounding a lot like Donna Summer was a coincidence or Cowley ideally would have liked the latter to get involved on this simple plodder I’ll never know but at least he got to later remix I Feel Love.

01.00.27

SHEILA CHANDRA – Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram – The Struggle, LP – Indiepop – 1985

After her Monsoon ‘Ever So Lonely’ days but she was still crossing over.

01.05.09

JAZZ THE GLASS – MeMorY PalacE – Download only – 2026

Dunbar in the area! Averaging a 41 Rooms appearance roughly every ten shows but in case there’s any suggestion of nepotism, with a whole bunch of tunes I haven’t played.

01.08.12

JC-001 – All My Children (Mother’s P-Phunk Mix) (41 Rooms – edit) * – 12″ – Anxious – 1993

A massive 41 Rooms edit to be honest… and if I was ever to have carried on DJ’ing, I’d have maybe opened any set with the a cappella of ‘All my children now… ‘ An idea to others? You’re welcome.

01.11.39

SIOUXSIE and THE BANSHEES – Happy House – 7″ – Polydor – 1980

Siouxsie once said of this, the band’s second top 20 hit: “It is sarcastic. In a way, like television, all the media, it is like adverts, the perfect family whereas it is more common that husbands beat their wives. There are mental families really but the projection is everyone smiling, blond hair, sunshine, eating butter without being fat and everyone perfect“.

01.15.03

EYELESS IN GAZA – (Across The) Pulse Of The Rain – Mania Sour, CD only – Ambivalent Scale – 2014

Often performed live in early EIG gigs but it took thirty plus years for them to lay down a studio version… and apologies for the slightly brutal intro I edited.

01.17.25

THE SOUND – Unwritten Law (Mike Read session, BBC Radio 1, Oct 1980) – The BBC Recordings, 2CD only – Renascent – 2004

Those BBC sessions – produced in just a few hours – very often turned up superior versions and though I’d possibly be outvoted on this, with more edge in the production and presence in the vocal I prefer this take to the one on their debut album, Jeopardy.

01.21.00

MISTY IN ROOTS – Wise & Foolish (John Peel Session) – The John Peel Sessions, CD only – Strange Fruit – 1995

For me, they were absolutely flying in their earliest (1979-1980) JP sessions, with Wise… being from the third of the nine they did for the great man.

01.25.49

MOUTH – Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea – Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, 12″ EP – Emotional Rescue – 2016

Released thirty five years late(r) but added here to their only ever releases (2 singles)… and that’s definitely Mark Stewart ranting in there at the end.

01.32.24

BLACK UHURU (feat MICHAEL ROZE) – Party – 7″ – Ajang – 2000

A tough reworking of the band’s Party Next Door from 1983.

01.35.43

LADY BLACKBIRD vs CROOKED MAN – When The Game Is Played On You – Crooked Spirituals 12″ EP – Foundation – 2025

The power of electronics – in this case Sheffield-based Richard Barratt – reeeeally adding to a great vocal.

01.41.09

CARON WHEELER – In Our Love (Club Remix) – 12″ – EMI Records USA – 1992

One of a number of tunes she released after her Soul II Soul days proving she was making some top tunes post Jazzie B.

01.44.58

MARXMAN – Theme From Marxman – 33 Revolutions Per Minute, LP – Talkin’ Loud – 1993

‘Marxist Hip Hop group, formed 1989 in London. Consisting of Bristol MC’s Hollis Byrne (H) and Stephen Brown (MC Phase) and Oisin Lunny and DJ K One from Ireland‘. – Discogs

Were they the first hip hop act to play on the ‘revolutions per minute’ thing?

01.48.11

TALKING HEADS – Take Me To The River – 2×7″ – Sire – 1978

David Byrne sounding in less of a hurry to get to the water than Al Green on the original.

01.52.58

SOUL II SOUL – Back To Life (Club Mix) * – 12″ – Ten Records – 1989

Just a couple of tunes along, Caron Wheeler returns with the song she’ll always be remembered for.

Show 154 will be with you Aug 2.

Dec x

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This playlist is 87% vinyl friendly. Impressive.

Döhmann Helix One MK III Turntable with Vacuum Hold-Down

Previewing at The 2026 AXPONA Show, I’m not sure whether the $150,000 price tag included the Wilson Benesch Graviton Ti arm, Tessellate Diamond cartridge, Supatrac Nighthawk 12** arm with DS Audio Grandmaster EX cartridge, analog front end feeding the ARC Ref 10 phono (or DS Audio TB-100 tube equalizer), the new ARC Ref 20 preamp, ARC Ref 330 mono amps, Wilson Audio XVX loudspeakers, cables from Transparent and the Olympus Ultra racks from Critical Mass Systems… or not.

Lyric of Playlist 152

Sad Alex!

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – The Village (Kilkenny Rose Hill Hotel, 24.4.83) – Power Corruption and Lies, Definitive Edition – Warner Music – 2020

It gets off to a slightly shaky start at what was a legendary night in early years New Order history, with Barney and Hooky acting as a modern day comedy double act for the evening.

The onstage antics were definitely inspired by seeing the hotel’s flyer in the afternoon… and I don’t remember Liam turning up.

Me on photos duty, none of which I would have remembered until Steve Morris sent me photos I’d taken this night… with my writing on the back… followed by the above Movement Definitive Edition then including the video. I remember the afternoon soundcheck chat and Ozzy leaving the mixing desk mid gig and standing next to me but the things you forget…

05.03

PAUL HAIG – Trip Out The Rider – 7″ – Impotent Fury – 2010

‘Packaged in a fancy pants paper cut sleeve that is hand screen-printed, foil embossed and limited to 500 copies. Rumoured to be the first of six vinyl releases… ‘ – Discogs

His albums surface only very occasionally these days and any teaser singles even less so. This 7″ – driving with the zest of his early years – appears to have been the most recent but he’s a ‘signature’ voice we should hear more of.

07.41

LINES OF SILENCE – Lines In Opposition (Radio Edit) – Lines In Opposition, LP – Sprechen – 2026

These sleeves aren’t getting any easier to look at. An experimental krautrock band (Can? Neu?… ) out of Todmorden, UK – ‘a hotbed of UFO activity and home to the UK’s highest ever beach‘ – and I slightly cheated the vinyl thing here, as the Radio Edit is only downloadable, with the full version on the just released vinyl album. Should have gone with the latter.

11.12

SILICON VALLEY – X-Cell – Cold Waves Of Color Volume 3, v/artists LP – Color Disc – 2016

Whoever they were/are, they seem to have only released six singular tracks over a period of forty two years(!) * and on Color Disc label, v/artist albums only. A side hustle, the SV releases are not.

Makes Got-Ta-Scatta look prolific.

15.09

CLOCK DVA – 4 Hours (7″ Version) – 7″ – Fetish – 1981

Adi Newton is a voice that sits you up but they’d had a bucket load of self and semi released material before I tuned in with the Thirst album that includes this their debut 7″.

18.59

THE EVENT GROUP – Approach Work (Pt B) – Approach Work, self released, cassette only – ? – 1983

For any kids picking up on this, the voice you hear here is of England cricketing legend of yesteryear, Freddie Truman, also featured on the main Approach Work track already playlisted on 41 Rooms and the cassette’s cover, obviously, where he nearly looks like he’s got his ever present pipe on the go. And as for the church bells on the track… maybe adding to the image of a village green setting? Search out the band’s Feb ’82 Riverside TV appearance at some point. An entertaining watch at the time and another release for me to upload (the images anyway) to Discogs at some point, maybe.

25.11

UT – Evangelist – Split 7″ – Blast First – 1989

Yep, also the lead track from the 1987 album, In Gut’s House but I’ve gone for the, split with Dinosaur Jr., 7″ and as mentioned before here at 41 Rooms, a band I’ve grown to like more now than I maybe did back then. Cheers for the 41 Rooms iD snippet, Nina!

Supporting The Fall, Bedford Boys Club, 1.10.83

Photo credit: Dec Hickey

27.57

YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS – Include Me Out – Colossal Youth, LP – Rough Trade – 1980

In YMG world this is them nearly rocking out!

29.50

KAREN MARKS – Cold Café – 7″ – Astor – 1980

Out of Australia and her only release at the time but the price tag the single has acquired through the years since (one of a few on this show), brought about a 2019 EP of tracks also recorded back in the day. Definitely an ‘indie’ sound.

32.42

DEENA WEBSTER – Scarborough Fair – 7″ – Parlophone – 1968

A folk standard I seem to remember hearing fairly regularly when I was young, so in one guise or another it must have cropped up on the radio and TV, though I never had the urge to buy it until I heard Deena’s version in more recent years and though she maintained the tempo of the song’s more traditional singers it’s everything backing her wasting no time in getting ‘busy’ that helps this version get my vote. ‘Bustling folk’, so let’s hear it for Deena and her arranger…

“I chose none of the singles (from the album Is Tuesdays Child) apart from Scarborough Fair.” The track was one of the first arrangements for another artist by Barbara Moore. She was best known for her work as a singer with The Ladybirds and, when she arrived at the studio, many of the musicians thought that she’d come to help with backing vocals. She remembers that when she got onto the rostrum to conduct,
the baton “it fell out of my sweaty little palm and ended up on the bass drum – that relaxed the whole atmosphere”. At the end of the session, Moore received a standing ovation from the 60 string and
horn players present. – Record Collector/Ian Shirley, #424, Jan 2014 edit

35.38

AL STEWART – Turn Into Earth – 7″ b-side – Decca – 1966

The flip may from Stewart’s debut release and his vocal ‘swagger’ makes this a rarity, in that it’s the only time I can think of where I’ve preferred a Yardbirds song performed by others… not that there are many of those.

38.29

MASSIVE ATTACK – Angel (Live) – Stream only – 2006

Performed as part of UK Channel 4’s first season of Live from Abbey Road series, with the Bristol band and Horace Andy managing to give the track even more gravitas and tension than on the its studio recording. No small feat.

43.15

CALLERS – Bloodless Ties – Life Of Love, LP – Western Vinyl – 2010

Sara Lucas’ vocal is just sublime, even if that bass guitar keeps hitting a note that I DO NOT LIKE.

47.39

PLATON DAVYDOV (feat OLEG KIRILKOV) – Sadness * – Stream only? – 2019

Violins…

49.02

MARTYN BATES – I’ll Wrap Your Hopes – Letters To A Scattered Family, LP – Integrity – 1990

Poetry, with a rippling outro.

53.01

FINK – Memorise Your Senses – The City Is Coming To Erase It All, LP – R’COUP’D – 2026

It took this his ninth album for me to have even heard of him, so I might have to rewind on him.

56.41

BÔA – Duvet – 7″ – Cinema-Kan – 2018

Or bôa… and on listening to the 1998 debut album, The Race Of A Thousand Camels, that first included this song, a band even at that point sounding like they might have been fighting to be two bands? I’d never heard of them until this track recently bumped into me but you then do a bit of a dig and Duvet has 43million Youtube hits… so you have to do a bigger dig. Here they sound not unlike The Sundays but that bigger dig explains some of the above.

01.00.00

RENAISSANCE – Back Home Once Again – 7″ – Warner Brothers – 1977

And what were the chances? Looking for something to follow Boa’s Duvet I decided on this 1977 single from Renaissance, a ‘prog folk’ band who for a couple of years in the late ’70s I had a real liking for. It turns out that Bôa’s drummer, Lee Sullivan is the son of Renaissance’s former drummer, Terry Sullivan. Who’d have thunk, eh?

01.03.03

HANNE HUKKELBERG – Do As I Do – Little Things, LP – Leaf – 2005

Promo’d (albeit as a CD only) as the single off the album at the time, so this was the ‘teaser’ – and it’s easy to see why. Cute!

01.06.39

08/15 – 1000 Gelbe Tennisbälle – 7″ – Sterbt Alle – 2025

If you had thoughts of releasing music on the subject of 1000 yellow tennis balls then someone’s beaten you to it. A 300 run re-release of their 1981 and only single.

01.11.25

COLDCUT – Beats + Pieces (Mo’ Bass Remix) – 12″ – Ahead Of Our Time – 1987

With a nod to Steinski, they were ahead of most of the others.

01.17.15

RAE & CHRISTIAN – Check The Technique (feat Tony D, Jazzy Jeff and Agent 86) (edit) – Mercury Rising, 2LP – LateNightTales – 2013

Minus the wonderful Veba’s vocals but with Mark Rae’s hip hop credentials they still produce.

01.21.10

THE JUJU ORCHESTRA – What Is Hip (Mo’ Horizons Hipstyle) – 12″ – Remixes – Agogo Records – 2006

TC (RIP) spending some time in the studio with the youngsters.

01.26.55

SAD ALEX – Ice Ice Baby (But You Have Anxiety) – Stream only – 2025

The only way Vanilla Ice was going to get on 41 Rooms was via som break borrowing… and songwriter Alex Saad has done just that.

01.28.59

SIMPLE MINDS – King Is White And In The Crowd – 12″ b-side – Virgin – 1982

Thankfully still here holding on to their futurist feel, even if the sound is housed in a contender for Worst Record Sleeve of all time. So, you’re only get the reverse… and that’s bad enough.

01.34.27

WAMDUE PROJECT – King Of My Castle (Original Version) * – 12″ – Eruption – 1998

More kings! Unusual for a dance track with nothing special in the vocals department to chart mainstream but this did just that. Maybe some intrigue and charm in the ‘Must be the reason why I’m king of my castle‘ lyric as it chugs along? Sometimes there’s just no knowing…

01.39.04

JOHNNY MAESTRO & THE CRESTS – I’m Stepping Out Of The Picture – 7″ – Scepter Records – 1965

If there’s a world in music I won’t stop finding ‘new’ gems it’s the rare/northern etc soul scene. I heard this gritty and restrained-in-equal-measures brassy belter for the first time only recently, via Beth Arzy (Jetstream Pony and others) capturing herself in front of a DJ spinning this tune.

Re-released a couple of times in the intervening years, I won’t though be getting an original copy any time soon, as that could be anywhere between $800 and for a promo copy, $1700!

01.41.17

JIMMY RUFFIN – It’s Wonderful (To Be Loved By You) – 7″ – Tamla Motown – 1970

Motown still in their prime in these years and come the mid-late 70s I had the grand notion of collecting every UK Motown single between TMG 501 and TMG 801… but I soon gave up the ghost, though this one made it into the fold.

01.43.58

McFADDEN & WHITEHEAD – Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now * – 12″ – Philadelphia Int – 1979

Reminds me of Bedfordshire clubs of the time, and footballing mates and girlfriends and not a care in the world.

01.49.53

THE TYRREL CORPORATION – Going Home (Original Mix) * – 12″ – Cooltempo – 1992

Had three or four biggish tunes that gave them an identity of sorts.

Not sure why great train robber, Buster Edwards is here but this was a 15.8.92 ad, most probably in Record Mirror.

01.55.08

NEW ORDER (Again!) – World In Motion (1990 No Alla Violenza Mix) * – 12″ – Factory – 1990

It’s World Cup time again! So, for only the second time (I think) in 41 Rooms’ history it’s New Order twice in one show – and the last time was Show 1! With a break in there nicked from somewhere I can’t quite grasp and Barney’s vocal deservedly getting some real breathing space here in between the Italo piano, will it do the job for us footie fans this time around? Who’d be an England fan, eh? If we’re still in the mix by show 153 we’re doing OK.

Show 153 will be alive July 5.

Dec x

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This playlist is 73% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

From 2016, the TechDas Air Force One Premium turntable might well have been aimed initially at the present user of said plane, if features like vacuum clamping, pneumatic bearings, the Disc suction system and an impressive Wow & Flutter ratio of 0.03% (WRMS) were his or her thing and depending on the spec required it retailed at between $140,000 and $152,000. You read that right.

Lyric of Playlist 151

Nearly as good as captured cinematically. A busy day in the life of Joni.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Sunrise (Writing Session Recording) – Low-Life, Definitive Edition box set – Warner Music – 2023

Yep, slower than the version most will know – either from the album or when played live, or indeed the equally vocal-less ‘Rough Mix’ take the band generously gave me for the Discreet Campaigns v/artist cassette that kickstarted the short-lived Rorschach Testing label – but it’s another where you’re practically hearing the band getting to grips with a rhythm and/or the shell of a song. My money’s on Hooky being the one who suggested the tempo should be taken up a notch or two.

04.48

THE WAKE – The Calendar (demo) – Unreleased – 1983

Onwards to become The Torn Calendar but here it was one of three tracks demo’d (along with ‘Places’ {pre Send Them Away} and Rise and Shine) on a TEAC 4-track reel to reel the band borrowed from me. They certainly made far better use of it than I ever did.

The written lyrics given to Bedford’s Katie Possum at some point, along with her review in the local paper of the band’s second gig at Winkles… and that’s Stephen, my dog, Flanagan and Mac at my house the day before said gig.

08.10

A CERTAIN RATIO – And Then She Smiles – Force, LP – Factory – 1986

It’ll be no surprise to those that know me that I’m a bigger fan of the ‘tougher’ earlier ACR but here Jez Kerr’s voice is so sublime over a more ‘reflective’ sound.

11.59

THE OUBLIETTE – That’s Enough – Stream only – 2026

This is a complete first! Here – by complete accident – sits the first ever AI generated track to feature on 41 Rooms! And who knows re the video? It’s not an area I intend actively searching out, so expect them very infrequently but The Oubliette’s Youtube channel has a bucket load of tracks if you fancy your ’80s indie and darkwave-sounding tunes on the ‘artificial’ side.

15.18

LOVELAND (feat RACHEL McFARLANE) – Let the Music (Lift You Up) (Full On Vocal Radio Edit) – 12″ – Big Beat – 1994

‘The Full On Vocal Mix, with its pounding piano and hackneyed lyrics, is undeniably old-fashioned and is about as cheesy as a lorry-load of Wotsits. But it comes with a guarantee to create absolute mayhem on all but the most elite of dancefloors. For those DJs who are more concerned about their own credibility than their audience’s enjoyment levels, there is also a much cooler garage-style remix from Olympic’s Bottom Dollar crew plus some deep and funky dubs‘. – Andy Beevers, Record Mirror (Music Week), 5.3.94

There are times when storming vocals, ‘less than critical’ lyrics and hands in the air are all you need… and this Big Beat belter had me smiling back then.

18.30

MARCO BENEVENTO – Houdini – Glera, LP – Big Crown Records – 2026

A bit of a broken beat and summery, Latin thing going on here, like someone taking a late ’60s Sergio Mendes vocal snippet on a wild ride.

20.59

MIDNIGHTROBA – Day’s Gon’ Come – Raise A Symphony, 2LP – Sonder – 2026

Roba El-Assawy has been heard far too infrequently since her days fronting Attica Blues.

22.42

THE ISLEY BROTHERS (feat RONALD ISLEY and ANGELA WINBUSH) – Float On (Bad Boy Remix) (Instrumental edit) * – Floatin’ On Your Love, 12″ – 4th & Broadway – 1996

I cut out all the ‘bump and grind’ lurrrv thang lyrics, as it was the beats, bv’s and ad libs stuff on this mix that made me buy the 12″ in the first place. Oh, and Ronald Isley could always sound like he was just itching to break into Summer Breeze any second. No bad thing.

24.31

HONEY DIJON (feat. JACOB LUSK) – Satisfied – The Nightlife, download only – Someothershit -2026

On first listen I briefly thought that Anohni (previously of Antony and the Johnsons) was on board here sounding soul sexy but it’s ‘competitor in American Idol’ (Season 10, apparently), Jacob Lusk quivering and sailing high on Ms Dijon’s production. African beat vibes sparkling all the way.

28.32

THE YOUNG DISCIPLES – Apparently Nothin’ – 12″ – Talkin’ Loud – 1991

Early in the Gilles Peterson and Norman Jay’ label catalogue and one hell of a funky strut.

The wonderful Straight No Chaser mag was always a must read, even if a lot of the sounds and artists passed me by. I could still find tunes I’d never happen on anywhere else, unless I’d stood all day in London Soho’s Mr Bongo’s shop (or the likes) back in the day.

32.55

RÓISÍN MURPHY – If We’re In Love – 12″ – Echo – 2005

Strut Part 2! Between her Moloko days and solo career the Arklow, Ireland girl is a regular of sorts at 41 Rooms. Not sure about that sleeve cover, though.

37.20

CAN – I Want More – 7″ – Virgin – 1976

‘German experimental electronic artist makes the UK’s Top 30 singles chart’ shock, horror probe.

40.34

FINITRIBE – Catch The Whistle – Promo 12″ only – Finiflex – 1993

First heard by me as a Tommy Vance-spoken ‘One FM exclusive’ on the Beeb’s lead radio station, though my mixtape forever played it slower than intended. Still rather it a tad pitched down. Squelchy sounding snares were often the order of them days.

46.14

ZIN MIYAKEZAWA – A Sanctuary Of Twilight Filled With Tranquility * – Classical Music, Vol. 108- Instrumental BGM – Download only – Audiostock – 2025

BGM = Background music, but ‘Incidental’ sounds so much classier, don’t you think? I’m slightly doubting whether Zin Miyakezawa is a real human but either way A Sanctuary… brings to mind Richard Harvey’s Elegy (the theme from TV’s 1983 Shroud For A Nightingale) and to a certain degree, parts of Harry’s Theme – Terminus (Silent Witness, S10, E10), and as all three have now made it to 41 Rooms you’ll instantly remember them all, I’m sure. You’re welcome, though a proper musician would tell me where exactly I’m right or wrong on all that.

48.39

ROBIN TROWER – Bluebird – Robin Trower, 12″ EP – Chrysalis – 1977

With a lot more guitar here than is usually found on 41 Rooms, for me with any Robin Trower I heard back in the day it was always Jimmy Dewar’s vocals that I took to.

54.07

KELELA – Idea 1 – Download only – Warp – 2026

A wash of a sound from the decade-long Warp label artist.

57.23

CALLERS – Young People – Life Of Love, LP – Western Vinyl – 2010

Dark Folk, I reckon. When Sara Lucas’ vocal gets earthy and ‘gutteral’ and let’s loose. It’s a switch that used to get me with Liz Fraser, though her ‘switch’ sounded more polarised.

01.01.01

THIS MORTAL COIL – Strength Of Strings – Filigree & Shadow, 2LP – 4AD – 1986

The first of two times vocalist Dominic Appleton fronted TMC, and I have to admit that I got the title wrong on the show. So, without time to correct it you got no title and I’d have better gotten away with it (or sounded less vague?) if there hadn’t been twenty five TMC tracks on the release, all with different personnel involved. Sod’s Law.

01.05.11

DRY CLEANING – Sliced By A Fingernail – Download only – 4AD – 2026

And from the 4AD label in 1986… to their 2026 output and I’d be slight wary of anybody saying ‘Happy birthday’ in this tone to me.

01.09.10

GNAG OF FOUR – He’d Send In The Army – Solid Gold, LP – EMI – 1981

Always saying it like they saw it.

01.12.56

YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS – Cakewalking – Final Day, 7″ – Rough Trade – 1980

In a most understated manner they sort of made a statement when they appeared on BBC 2’s Something Else in late ’80.

01.15.42

OSCAR FARRELL – Tripping Up In A Rush – I’ve Already Called, 12″ EP – dh2 – 2025

I might have to keep an eye and ear on this chap.

01.18.40

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Sleepwalking (John Peel session track, 1984) – Radiation (BBC Recordings 84-86), LP – Get Back – 2001

Having earlier been Cakewalking, now we’re Sleepwalking. All part of the service. Though actually released three years earlier (but only on CD) the above Get Back-label vinyl release has been followed up in 2026 by a bootleg version. The people dictate… and I’ll be with them catching the very last CV gigs ever, near the end of the year.

01.24.03

GIFT – Pinkhouse Secret Rave (Redux) – Download only – Self-released – 2026

A track from their 2022 debut album, Momentary Presence given a 2026 rework/remix, sorry ‘Redux’ and according to Discogs there are at least 33 acts called Gift! In this day and age – what with both the clamber for attention and the availability of info out there – you’d think…

01.28.16

GANZHEIT – Bolt It Down (Why Work?) * – Summer Of ’84 (demo cassette only) – Self-released – 1984

Out of Bedford. Clattering and driving punk electronic stuff. From the same time-frame, this one reminding a bit of Portion Control, a band who’d played the town earlier in the year above.

01.34.21

SUPER EXTRA BONUS PARTY (feat SORCA McGRATH) – Some Dark Forces – LovesVinyl Issue 02, v/artist 12″ – LovesVinyl – 2019

Ex-Ships vocalist sails over a Running Up The Hill-like drum pattern.

01.38.30

TRACEY THORN – Easy – Out Of The Woods, LP – Virgin – 2007

On the quieter side, One of the ‘signature’ voices,

01.41.49

BETH HIRSCH – Miner’s Son (Aquatic Mix) – 10″ – Artefact – 1997

Bang Bang’s mix sets Beth back a bit in the mix but if lesser known than Ms Thorn above, it’s yet another signature voice.

01.46.43

JONI MITCHELL – Song For Sharon – Hejira, LP – Asylum – 1976

Epic storytelling in a single song.

01.54.46

WAR (feat JOSE FELICIANO) – East L.A. – Peace Sign, 2LP – Avenue – 1994

This show had to be totally put together on the fly, between daily meet ups with friends back in Bedford and London, but the weather was brill right through and the piecing together ended up in the Leytonstone sunshine… even though that’s nowhere near East L.A. There’s a longer, more up front vocals version of the song where Jose also takes on the verses and given my JF leanings I could have placed that one here, but I actually like him ‘countering’ to War vocalist, Lonnie Jordan. Everything about Jose’s vocal when he first drops in here is why I first loved the man back in the late 60’s/early ’70s. I once reminded Jose of the track’s two versions and also (importantly) why I liked this one more… and maybe understandably he seemed a bit disappointed.

Show 152 will be here June 7.

Dec x

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This playlist is 68% vinyl friendly. Poor.

Teenage Engineering’s PO–80 Record Factory turntable.

In a move to avoid wrecking their dads’ pride and joy, maybe an inexpensive (approx £300) route to young kids getting the feel of spinning vinyl? Beyond maybe playing a Factory Records record on this Record Factory turntable, with six black five-inch blank records plus sleeves included they can even cut their own recordings! That’s all after you’ve built the thing… as it comes in a kit.

Lyric of Playlist 150

‘And the award goes to… ‘ Tracey Thorne and Ben Watt… A long, long time ago some of their words would have rung true here.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Crystal (Lee Coombs Remix) * – 12″ – London – 2001

Fresh from the release of the band’s Get Ready album, both its opening track and their set opener on all three of the Brixton Academy, London gigs I caught in 2001, this version is maybe weighted more on the remixers side than usual when kicking off 41 Rooms with New Order but this one really drives.

08.13

MESOSAUNA (feat DANIELE GAS) – Rotta Calabra – Download only – Factory Flaws – 2025

Out of Milan and Italy (albeit with a bit of a Teutonic feel) the title translates as “Calabrian Route”, ‘naming the path many take across the sea, hoping for something better on the other side‘. That fish below though needs to stick to the water.

13.46

FOUR TET – A Joy (Album version) – 7″ – Domino – 2005

The ‘Album version’ on a 7″ single and to these ears, Kieran Hebden sounding a long way from anything joyous.

16.42

WIELORYB – Iron – Stream only? – ? – 2026

‘Spongey industrial’ sounds from Poland and best explained, aurally and visually, within his regular Meta/Fb page posts.

19.08

CHOZE x BARBARELLA – Heartbeat Drums – Stream only – Facebook – 2025

‘Built from the ground up, written, recorded and filmed in a single five hour session‘… with, as I hint on the show, Massive Attack’s Bristol, UK in their bones it would seem, even though with far flung ancestry they’re based in London.

22.40

MASSIVE ATTACK – Safe From Harm (12″ Version) – 12″ – Wild Bunch – 1991

And to the slow beats bosses themselves…

‘Wailed like ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ by Shara Nelson, this wind swept strange very densely rumbling slow swaying tugger is out first (contrary to the sleeve listing) in Nellee Hooper’s (0)-81.6bpl 12″ Version and 0-81.4bpm Instrumental, plush group’s 0-82.3bpm Original, with apparently a Paul Oakenfold remix to follow‘. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 1.6.91

29.13

RAE & CHRISTIAN – Anything U Want – 12″ – Grand Central – 1998

The instrumental dub side made it to 41 Rooms eons ago but contrary maybe to the ‘antennae’ of a hardcore rap fan, this vocal version is an example of how my senses tend to pick up on any counter vocals or sounds to the rap – and here it’s that soulful bv. If they weren’t there this tune would have passed me by without much fuss – even though it’s Mark Rae (and Steve Christian) at the controls.

32.47

ADDIS ROCKERS – Enter Addis Ababa – Enter Addis Ababa, LP – Warriors International – 1985

An album I only honed in on decades after John Peel played the album’s Broadwater Farm Affairs track and if ever anyone can find a near mint copy of this album, they’re a better soul than me. It’s the sleeve that’s always the bigger problem. Lamination of some sort might have done the trick.

37.06

MISTY IN ROOTS – Soddom and Gomorrah (Peel session, 27.11.79) – The John Peel Sessions, CD only – Strange Fruit – 1995

Importantly for me, The John Peel Sessions covers four of the seven tracks recorded for the band’s first two (and best?) visits to the Beeb’s Maida Vale studios, with the second being right up there with any or most done for Peel’s radio show, and before the dawn of Discogs I had the notion the above release might have been on vinyl as well. Sadly, to date it’s not the case.

41.42

MAE McKENNA – Sayonara – Nightfallers, LP – Virgin – 1988

Find me another online playlist where Mae McKenna has sat next to Misty In Roots. It won’t be happening. Somewhere soon after this album came out I was on a holiday back in Ireland and after an evening in the pub with cousins we reconvened in my mum’s childhood home and were playing ‘Rings’ (look it up, kids) on a Ring Board on the door down to the ‘parlour’ and this tune came on the radio. The things you remember…

47.04

RAIN TREE CROW – Every Colour You Are – Rain Tree Crow, LP – Virgin – 1991

With all four (ex)members of Japan involved, Rain Tree Crow was seen at the time as ‘a long term project, with a fresh artistic start‘. Keen to avoid any notions of a nostalgic Japan reunion, David Sylvian, especially, was aiming to ‘create improvised, atmospheric music departing from their past commercial sound.’ Unsurprisingly, I’ve gone for the track that maybe could most happily have sat on any new Japan album of the time. :)

50.44

DAVID BOWIE – Right – 7″ b-side – RCA – 1975

This mistakenly slipped off the 41 Rooms radar til now. Gold star quality from my fave Bowie era.

54.55

CHAKK – Falling – 10 Days In An Elevator, LP – MCA – 1986

From the early doors, tougher industrial funk of Out Of The Flesh through to the ‘10 Days… ‘ album and Falling, where he’s absolutely soaring, Jake Harries was well suited as Chakk’s vocalist, even if (it seems) singing didn’t transpire to being a long term career path.

58.35

TERRY CALLIER – Love Theme From Spartacus – Timepeace, LP – Talkin’ Loud/Verve – 1998

Folk… soul… class… The film’s instrumental theme tune re-imagined.

01.03.01

LYNDA SLOANE-CUSACK – Dreams (part) – Stream only – 2026

I’ve side-stepped matching the track after this, here with the more obvious Fleetwood Mac reference point (Rhiannon) – and albeit a short, one-time take, this is a beaut of a FM cover. Cork, Ireland-based, Lynda’s actually a wedding ceremony singer and guitarist, so that accounts for the church acoustics in the mix.

01.04.50

KELLY JEAN CARTER – Yellow-Back Novel – Yellow-Back Novel, download only – Red Bird Music – 2025

Seemingly out of nowhere (though there’ll have been an algorthymic reason) this quality song popped up on my Fb/Meta feed and seeped into my brain. A sleeper of a song that maybe mostly hits the mark with anyone who grew up in the ’70s hearing singer-songwriters regularly on the radio.

01.09.53

DAVID McWILLIAMS – As I Used To Know Her – Livin’s Just A State Of Mind, LP – Dawn – 1974

The first of two artists from Northern Ireland on this show and until recently, McWilliam’s signature tune, Days Of Pearly Spencer was the only single/track of his I (back in the ’70s) ever owned. If I’m honest, this was one of those grab-the-album-for-the-one-and-only-track-I-like sketches… but I recently spotted and bought this acetate, so that added some appeal. Maybe half a dozen at most ever cut?

01.14.11

THIS MORTAL COIL – I Want To Live – Filigree & Shadow, 2LP – 4AD – 1986

Deirdre Rutkowski owns it here but I remember thinking F&S was a single album at best and listening now to the two LPs it still feels ‘patchy’ and like a project that fell short of its initial goals. Could be wrong, of course.

01.18.04

JAZZ THE GLASS / GOT-TA-SCATTA – The Journey – Demo, unreleased – Stream only – 2015-2025’ish

Dave Summersgill and myself (GOT-TA-SCATTA) with the ‘ingredients’ here and judging by the working versions I have, this track is only(!) a little over a decade old, though this version was fine-tuned in more recent times by Dave (Jazz The Glass). With our favourite unwitting contributor of the time, Maya Angelou on the mic and samples from elsewhere.

01.22.16

BUNNYDRUMS – Ugh

and…

01.25.13

BUNNYDRUMS – Sleeping – P.K.D., LP – Red Music – 1983

Such is the way I put these shows together I was smugly thinking Sleeping very neatly fitted after Ugh before I realised it was the same band! So, an accidental and rare ‘double tune’ outing on 41 Rooms.

01.29.28

JOY DIVISION – The Only Mistake – Still, 2LP – Factory – 1981

Yep, my copy of Still sadly water damaged along the way. As for the ribbon that ‘wrapped’ it in 1981, that would have been low on my radar to conserve back then.

01.33.28

MOUNT PALOMAR (feat ENOLA GAY) – Feeding Frenzy * – Stream only – 2026

Tuff!!!!! Something akin the traits I mention above with Rae & Christian, I’m a bit of a sucker for a verse and chorus structure that wildly contrasts… and this really smacks.

01.37.04

ATRIC & FRIDA DARKO – My Dog – Download only – 2025

Even though they’re from Leipzig, Germany, this sounds darker than some of their profile pics and track visuals would suggest.

01.42.13

SHIPS – Where We Are – Precession, LP + 7″ – Self released – 2017

Actually, the a-side of the (blue vinyl) 7″ part of the package – with the album being clear vinyl. With my copy currently residing in California, let’s hear it for the bespoke packaging approach! The Dublin-based duo, Sorca McGrath & Simon Cullen’s first and only album, to date.

01.46.47

EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL – Missing – Amplified Heart, LP – Blanco y Negro – 1994

It’s maybe hard to remember there was a time – before Todd Terry’s intervention took the song global – when Missing was (just) a track on an album, as classy as the duo, Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn are. If I’d gone for the purest ‘least cluttered by other tracks and/or mixes’ vinyl to get this original version, it would have been on an expensive Italian promo only 7″… but I haven’t.

01.50.25

FAYLEINE BROWN – You Know I Missed You (Todd Edwards Remix) – 12″ – Azuli – 1996

‘Device and Devibes deliver a mature-sounding vocal with a smokin’ underground break which continues in the dub with whirling vocals and swinging drums. The Todd Edwards mix has his typical anagramatic vocal arrangements and although it will not win him any new fans, it will certainly keep a confused but contented smile on the faces of his existing ones. Finally, there is D&D Tribal dub which will work well for those who prefer harder repetitive house‘. * *Jeremy Newall, Record Mirror (Music Week), 2.3.96

And from a song with the line ‘and I miss you’ to one with the title, ‘You Know I Missed You’. Totally coincidental… with Todd Edwards in the ~~house~~ garage! Maybe with a bit of a nod to M(ark) K(inchen)’s vocal cut up style, this had me bouncing and cheery in its time, as it did with the London underground scene… and yet it’s another 12″ you can now pick up, still in mint condition for less than the price of a pint.

01.55.32

ST. GERMAIN – Alabama Blues (Todd Edwards Vocal Mix) – 12″ – F Communications – 1995

‘This label’s best release gets another chance with some more radio friendly mixes that feature a lot more vocal and mixes by Todd Terry that make the blues/house combinations less effective but still catchy. The sparser deeper original mix is still the best with its simple moody organ creating the atmosphere, but this groundbreaking tune deserves a re-release and the new versions at least give it a new angle‘. – Tim Jeffery, Record Mirror (Music Week), 11.11.95

‘Todd Edwards is New York’s fastest rising production star. Here, he helps the leading light of the French new school jazzers to forge stronger links to the dancefloor. With his distinctly smooth yet hyper style, the MK-like vocal snippets work particularly well on the dub, where Stevie Wonder cut-ups jump off the vinyl. And for those who missed out on the first release of this in 1993, the oh-so-cool original is also included‘. *1/2 *Michael Morley, Muzik #6, Nov ’95

Yep, with the wrong Todd noted in the first review, it’s a Todd Edwards reprise as he works his skills on the French producer’s original.

Show 151 will upload May 3.

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This playlist is 63% vinyl friendly. Very poor.

The Vertere DG-1 Dynamic Groove.

One commentator queried whether ‘the design wandered in the direction of form over function‘, but this, the company’s entry level version, was voted in What Hi-Fi‘s updated 2025 ‘20 very best turntables of (the magazine’s) lifetime‘… but it had detractors elsewhere.

My first thought was ‘sandwich’ and lo and behold the review mentions the plinth’s ‘three layers of acrylic reinforced with a steel chassis to give a rigid yet well-damped structure‘ with that middle layer, from a distance, reminding me of some marbled cheese. Near £2k for one standard version spotted on eBay and £3550 for a DG-1S updated model, with a bullet pointed spec to match. When you get up to these prices (and way, way beyond) manufacturers are duty bound to work overtime to justify their prices.

NB: Apologies. A bit of a glitch in recording my parts for this show but they just about do the job.

Lyric of Playlist 149

On another day and in another frame of mind it could have gone to Baby Rose but much aided by a gorgeous key change backdrop, the gold star sticker goes to Banderas! It’s hard to tell though if their ‘There is no rehearsal. No second chance. No false start. No better circumstances… ‘ words of wisdom would change much with the type of peeps in their video.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Doubts Even Here (Instrumental) (Cargo Demo) (2019 Remaster) – Movement, Definitive Edition Boxset – Warner Music – 2023

Doubts Even Hear? I should coco, and if you want ‘tentative’ in your music then this has it in shed loads. My guess is this maybe wasn’t Hooky’s first stab at the track in the band’s rehearsal room but you can nearly hear him finding his way into and over the ARP Quadra’s strings.

05.15

COCTEAU TWINS – Road River and Rail (Live) – Stream only – 2026

Live in 1991 but only very recently uploaded to the net, a mixing desk recording from The Warfield, in San Francisco and a rare treat to hear Liz this clear in a gig setting. At your leisure, search out the rest of the gig.

There’s no visual from the above show, so here’s a barely rescued – but previously unseen/unpublished – photo of mine. Liz and Simon soundchecking at Newcastle’s Tiffany’s, 19.4.84.

Photo credit / copyright: Dec Hickey

08.37

JOHN CALE – Thoughtless Kind (M:FANS) – M:FANS, 2LP – Double Six – 2016

A pedestrian, sledgehammer beat and a more forceful take on the lyrics than found in the ex-Velvet Underground man’s original. To my ears, they’re better suited here.

13.59

EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER – Take A Pebble * – Emerson, Lake & Palmer, LP – Island – 1970

I bought this album maybe four or five years after release and without doubt after having heard maybe just one of the three tracks on it I had taken to. I wouldn’t have been listening to any radio that might have played this album, so I’m guessing I borrowed it from a mate – very likely Phil Harris or Tom Locke (RIP). Greg Lake’s vocals were the thing for me back then and on my National Panasonic SG-1070L I’d have skipped Keith Emerson’s often lengthy rock-orchestral leaning keyboard workouts from all three… and likewise it’s a massive edit on the show for Take A Pebble.

17.33

BABY ROSE – Stop The Bleeding – Through And Through, LP – Secretly Canadian – 2023

If I thought the vibrato in Baby Rose’s vocal on the last 41 Rooms’ show entry (‘Go’) reminded me of Anonhi/Antony and the Johnsons then this does so with knobs on… as it maybe sounds even more of a song and arrangement the latter could have penned.

21.17

A RACE OF ANGELS – Golden – Broadcast No. 1, CD only – Luv Classics – 2005

It’s not often a CD gets a visual look in on 41 Rooms but the majority of Broadcast No. 1’s tracks have been or are on course for inclusion… and there was no vinyl. A 21st century left field folk soul beaut. Saluting Yeofi Andoh once again.

23.56

KRAFTWERK – Boing Boom Tschak * – Electric Cafe, LP – Kling Klang / EMI – 1986

The German maestros with some playful mid ’80s electro. Who else could it be?

27.01

BESIDE (with BERNARD FOWLER) – Odeon (Dance Mix) – 12″ – Celluloid – 1984

In 1984 the only place I’d have heard this was on John Peel’s radio shows – and he was partial to some electro. With the other side playlisted on 41 Rooms years ago, that would make this Afrika Bambaataa-produced 12″ a bargain to me these days, at less than the price of a pint on Discogs. Back in 1984, ordering it on import from Bedford’s HMV (as I did) its £5.29 price tag would seemingly have between five and ten pints plus worth!

32.37

MIDNIGHT STAR – Midas Touch (Vocal Extended Remix) – 12″ – Solar – 1986

With Electro roots, some breezy mid ’80s glitzy dance which has aged far better than – ‘Look away now’ (or don’t look at all) – the clothes and hair in the video.

38.42

ROZALLA – Born To Luv Ya – 12″ – Pulse-8 – 1990

At some point, when I do get to wade through the Record Mirror‘s I have from the the late ’80s/early ’90s I’d put a quiet fiver on the late James Hamilton having used ‘bubbling’ in a review of this particular mix of the tune. Par for the course lyrics but given some decent beats Rozalla has a voice that more than matches.

43.00

THOMAS LEER – Forgive and Forget – 1982, CD only – Klanggalerie – 2015

When I first happened on the 1982 CD recordings I thought Leer had re-found his youthful energy in the ‘now’. It’s in the title, Dec… so, a ‘series of tracks for unreleased album circa 1982‘ states the man himself. That would put them around the time of his Letter From America and Contradictions EPs but way before the ‘pop’ album, The Scale Of Ten. Forgive and Forget is though definitely a dry run for that album’s belter, Control Yourself.

47.23

MINT ROYALE – I Don’t Care – See You In The Morning, CD only – Faith & Hope Records Limited – 2005

Aagghh, it’s another CD… but needs must, as no vinyl surfaced and by this point Neil Claxton was flying solo as Mint Royale.

51.48

OSCAR FARRELL (feat SAMPHA) – Dream Therapy (George FitzGerald remix) – Download only – ? – 2026

The So Far South EP original rightly has many admirers but I’m more with this moodier take.

Screenshot

55.22

NOSTALGIX – Mess With Me – Download only – Confession – 2019

Out of Vancouver, British Columbia, she seems through the years to have occasionally just digitally floated singular tracks out there.

58.32

SUICIDE – Ghost Rider – Self-titled, LP – Red Star Records – 1977

There’d be a bunch of my early ’80s mates who’d have gone for the album but it’s only this track that grabbed me.

01.01.01

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Nag Nag Nag (Live 2025 Single Edit) – Download only (for now) – Mute – 2026

‘Updating’ and then capturing – just ‘right’ – this classic track’s first live outing in forty five or so years could have gone wrong but all involved nailed it, and seeing as I caught four of the Cabs’ six gigs last year there’s a good chance I was in on this actual recording. In fact, given the advances in sound technology Nag is likely sounding better in the room than it would have done live back in 1979-82… something I never witnessed.

01.05.10

THE SOUND – Heartland (Mike Read session, 1980) – The BBC Recordings – 2CD only – Renascent – 2004

If Adrian Borland and crew were pushing for a radio session in their early throws (who wasn’t) I’d have thought John Peel would have got in there first. The band did subsequently do a Peel session but here Mike Read edged it and the band were firing.

01.08.19

JOY DIVISION – Warsaw – An Ideal For Living, 7″ EP – Enigma – 1978

I never owned this original 7″ but somewhere around 1980-81 and through the back pages of the inkie press I bought the subsequent 12″ from an ‘MJ’ in Crewe who reckoned in an enclosed note he’d leant Steve Morris £60 to pay for the sleeves. When I sold the single years later I thought I’d kept the note… but if I did, it then went AWOL.

01.10.40

TURNSTILE – Dreaming – Never Enough, LP – Roadrunner – 2025

They’ve eased up here on their early hardcore leanings which might go some way to why this tune gets a thumbs up from me and those who take occasionally take a punt on an album because of the sleeve could still be in for a shock.

01.13.00

TV21 – Ideal Way Of Life – A Thin Red Line, LP – Deram – 1981

Other tracks on the album have already graced 41 Rooms as indeed they did back in Winkles in 1981-82.

01.15.27

THE TEARDROP EXPLODES – Went Crazy – Kilimanjaro, LP – Mercury – 1980

Julian in 1980. Sounding ‘quirky pop’ in 2026?

01.18.03

NATURAL SCIENTIST – See Through You – 7″ – Dental Records – 1982

Even though I bought their Terminal Velocity debut 12″ at the time, this their follow up somehow by-passed me for four decades.

01.22.07

IRMA THOMAS – My Heart’s In Memphis – My Heart’s In Memphis – The Songs Of Dan Penn, CD only – Rounder Records – 2000

Criminally, only seven thousand plus peeps have ever viewed the fan video online of Irma on an outside stage, live in New Orleans from 2003 and I nearly went with its muffled sound here, as the more she gets in to the song the more she really lives it.

01.25.53

STEVIE WONDER – (I) Don’t Know Why (I Love You) – 7″ – Tamla Motown – 1968-9

For the UK release Motown couldn’t quite make up there mind on the title – but this stark outpouring and arrangement is still a killer, even though it was maybe trumped for radio play by the lusher, romantic appeal of the b-side, My Cherie Amour.

01.28.25

MT JONES – I Don’t Understand – Joy, LP – ? – 2026

New(ish) blue-eyed retro soul with as much effort on the visual. A fab single but I’ve got a feeling an album of his accentuated vocal might be too much for me. We’ll see.

01.31.49

WILLIE HUTCH – Hurt So Bad – Season For Love, LP – RCA – 1970

Before his switch to maybe his more spiritual Brother’s Gonna Work It Out home of Motown.

01.34.39

BANDERAS – This Is Your Life (PanoΣigma Edit) – Stream only – ? – 2019

Just the one album, squarely aimed at the mainstream, and some cerebral tunes from these two shaven-headed girls. I’m not sure how much the decent lyrics and sumptuous key change helped but this was their biggest UK hit. Even in the sometimes throwaway nature of ‘pop’ charts, quality will out.

01.39.36

DIANA BROWN & BARRIE K SHARPE – Eating Me Alive * – 12″ – FFRR – 1992

‘Weaving together many different dance music sounds of the late sixties/early seventies, including such as vintage Jackson 5 and Norman Whitfield era Temptations, Timmy Thomas beats and Chicago Transit Authority guitar chords (“I’m a man, yes I am, and I love you so”), this brilliant intensely driving jiggly chugger has been promoed as a twinpack with 0-104.7-0bpm Undisputed Mix Part 1 & Part II, 0-104.7bpm Original Groundbeat, 0-105.25-0bpm Funky Funky Sugar Heavy Groundbeat Mix, 0-105.4bpm One Trip Too Many Mix, more recently influenced grooving 115.8-0bpm Groundbeat House Ensemble/Instrumental, hi-hat hustled 118.7bpm Undercover Dub Mix 1 and 118.6bpm Undercover Dub Mix 2, Dianamite!‘ – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 20.6.92

Any time I re-edit etc I really should remember the source of the original… and there’s a heavy 41 Rooms re-edit going on here. Whatever. James Hamilton’s ‘vintage Jackson 5’ reference is spot on and the bridges and chorus are so strong they make the verses sound absolutely tepid. Weird.

01.45.08

RHYTHIM IS RHYTHIM – Strings Of Life (‘Original Piano Mix’) – 12″ – Transmat – 1987

‘So enduringly popular and still steadily selling that it could follow A Guy Called Gerald up the chart, Derrick ‘Mayday’ May’s synthetic strings stabbed and sawed techno pioneeringly jerky instrumental leaper is now out here in its frantic acidic 130/129 1/5-130-0bpm Exclusive Remix, more scrubbingly hustling organ accented 128 1/5-127 4/5-128-128 1/5bpm Flam-boy-ant Mix, and piano emphasising jerkier 122 1/5-122-121 2/5-121 1/5bpm Piano Mix, flipped by the washing machine ‘sizzled’ 129-129 1/3bpm ‘Kaos’ plus the ‘Magic Juan’ Atkins created jiggly wriggling Model 500 ‘Off To Battle’ in its 125 2/3-126 1/5bpm 2emix and 126 1/5-126 2/3bpm Original Version‘. – James Hamilton, Jocks, 3.89

‘Based on a piano sequence by May’s friend Michael James. He dropped in for a visit at May’s house and sat down to play a piano ballad he had been working on called, “Lightning Strikes Twice”. This piece went into May’s sequencer and was kept there until May decided to listen to it all the way through. He found some portions which interested him, and he started to work with it. The song was originally at 80 BPM before May increased the tempo, chopped it up into loops, and added percussion and string samples’. Wikipedia

The history of this stark track is interesting. I called this ‘near punk like, house / techno’ on the show, what with its crude/rough arrangement feeling like it nearly takes four minutes to settle… just in time for it to sound like it’s breaking down on the outro! And it’s become a classic! Enough to warrant a bunch of remixes and the mighty ‘live with orchestra’ version that follows.

01.52.18

RHYTHIM IS RHYTHIM – Strings Of Life (Live, Weather Festival, Paris, France) – Stream only – 2015

Derrick May, with Francesco Tristano (ex-Aufgang) loving it big time on extra keyboards, with the weight of the full Philharmonic Orchestra Lamoureux, under the direction of Dzijan Emin… and all beautifully captured by ‘producer, Amos Rozenberg and Paramax Films in 4K with 9 Cinema cameras by Samuel Petit for Arte TV‘… it says somewhere. Strings Of Life, indeed. Catch the video in the usual places.

Show 150 will upload April 5.

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This playlist is 72% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

The SL-1300G in 2025. Technics keeping it simple with the design, if not with the spec trying to convince punters they need one.

‘Coreless Direct Drive Motor Achieving Stable Rotation

The use of a coreless direct-drive motor with no iron core eliminates uneven rotation of the turntable known as cogging. Also, the twin-rotor construction reduces the bearing load while maintaining high torque and reduces minute vibrations during rotation. Furthermore, the SL-1300G’s motor was redesigned to eliminate subtle vibrations that could affect sound quality. To improve rigidity, the same reinforcement pattern as the Reference Class SL-1000R/SP-10R was used for the coil mounting base‘.

NB: THIS PLAYLIST INCLUDES EXPLETIVES.

Lyric of Playlist 148

For the reality…

Courtesy of Crooked Man, Jarvis’ by a country mile, but…

For the idyll…John Sebastian.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Turn – Waiting For The Sirens’ Call, 2LP – London – 2005

With Barney’s lilting, slightly forlorn vocal, a little gem nearly lost on one of the band’s least successful albums.

05.02

LITTLE NEMO – A Day Out Of Time – Past And Future, LP – Domestica – 2013

Though the track originally surfaced in 1987 on the 500 run, cassette-only format of the (debut) album. Even back then it could have been seen as yet another ‘sound’ out of Europe that seemed to echo the UK alternative/new wave scene of a few years earlier.

08.48

KIM GORDON – Not Today – Play Me, LP – Matador – 2026

Get past the intro – where it very momentarily sounds (to my ears anyway) like the batteries ran out – and Kim Gordon drifts nicely across the wash of sound.

12.03

THE COMSAT ANGELS – The Eye Dance – Sleep No More, LP – Polydor – 1981

Judging by a known set list for late Nov ’81 and the fact the band were then promoting the recently released, above album, this track was likely in the set list for my Bedford Corn Exchange gig promotion earlier that month. Big smiles when I hear them… though I’ve sadly never heard a tape of the Bedford night.

15.40

BUNNYDRUMS – Holy Moly – Holy Moly, LP – Fundamental – 1984

The short-lived, mid ’80s Philadelphian band with a quirky mix of ‘new wave’ vocal and a belting soul vocal bv in the backdrop of a low slung, punk country’ish workout. Maybe it’s the ‘yippee-ki-yay’ and pseudo peddle steel guitar? The band have been here before – and will be again.

21.30

COSTUME – Once I Loved (Original Mix) – Download only – 2021

Claudia Placanica’s slightly disconcerting delivery is always the thing for me!

23.54

THE IRONSIDES – The Web – Changing Light, LP – Colemine – 2023

Cinematically soundtracking the ’70s like a good’un! The Streets of San Francisco and its like… which is apt… as that’s where The Ironsides are from.

28.57

BABY ROSE – Go – Through and Through, LP – Secretly Canadian – 2023

My fave 21st century track of the show, Jasmine Rose Wilson (to her mum and dad) with a quivering/vibrato indie soul vocal – on this tune anyway – that Anonhi/Antony and the Johnsons could have penned and rolled out, albeit with a slightly different sound, no doubt. And that really is the sleeve, honest. I could be wrong but I reckon it’s a photographer’s dud that someone subsequently had a weird liking for. I struggle to actually look at it!

31.56

THE DRIFTERS – Like Sister and Brother – 7″ – Bell – 1973

I had this single in the mid ’70s but with the years since maybe ‘softening’ the senses, this made-to-measure ballad (with lead vocalist, Bill Fredericks sounding more like Johnny Mathis than I’d have remembered) sounds better now than it did back then but in the world we now live in there will be few if any songs written like this again.

I had to run the idea past one of my teenage years mates but I reckon that, along with Jimmy Ruffin’s What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted (and others, no doubt), this was a last-dance-of-the-night/grab-a-girl-type tune at Bedford Rugby Club’s Saturday night ‘discos’. I’m making this actually sound like the ’40s but it was the era and I was in my late teens… and until I find my membership card, this’ll have to do.

‘Swing to Boomerang’ indeed. I don’t think they came back.

34.52

EYELESS IN GAZA – Flight Of Swallows – Back From The Rains, LP – Cherry Red – 1986

The intro to my 1984 Rorschach Testing article below sums up my thinking on Flight back then – and though the track was being played live at the time it was a couple of years before it surfaced on the above album.

EIG article, Rorschach Testing, 1984

39.22

JONI MITCHELL – Eastern Rain – Archives – Volume 1: The Early Years 1963-1967, 5CD – Rhino – 2020

Truly a legend, such is the quality of the lady’s songwriting this beaut – from a Folklore Radio broadcast, of March 19, 1967 – never even made it to an official album and though it was covered by others and turned up in Joni live appearances of the time it took until the above retrospective to be released officially. And she’ll be back here quicker than you might be expecting.

43.13

SÓLEY – I Will Find You (Live, at the KEX Hostel in Reykjavik: 30.10.13) – Stream only – 2013

With a whole different tone to Liam Neeson’s ‘I Will Find You’ :), a production from the classy KEXP and a song only found on Sóley’s 5 track, 10″ EP, Don’t Ever Listen. This take however is a far more endearing version.

45.54

NORMA TANEGA – Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog – 7″ – Stateside – 1966

Was Norma ‘indie’ before there was such a thing? Sadly, she died in 2019 but search out a short Youtube interview and snippets piece (and the comments that followed) from a decade or so earlier. It was meant to be included in a proposed documentary that never then got going.

48.06

THE ELECTRIC FLAG – Look Into My Eyes – A Long Time Comin’, CD only – Columbia – 2003

From a handful of tracks that possibly didn’t make the cut for the initial 1968 release of the Chicago soul rock band’s second album, this is one of two that were first added to the above reissue.

50.52

LOVIN’ SPOONFUL – Summer In The City – 7″ – Kama Sutra – 1966

Maybe the best known tune on the show, with a forceful sounding John Sebastian and his/their ‘city’ being New York and its Greenwich Village hub back then.

53.13

THE FORTUNES – Here It Comes Again – 7″ – Decca – 1965

Innocent ’60s ‘pop’ with a classy arrangement, and another the likes of which will never be made again… and certainly not by anybody aiming for the charts.

56.09

THE MINDBENDERS – Groovy Kind Of Love – 7″ – Fontana – 1965

Wayne Fontana at the helm (and co-written by a pre-Sager Carol Bayer, I’ve just noted) I think this might have subconsciously stuck with me enough in its chart days (I was 8), to then make it to my record collection in the early ’70s. It felt then like a great many happily got rid of their records (certainly singles) after just a few years coz every second hand record shop had loads of chart stuff from just the 5-10 years prior. I was too young to have been buying the height of ’60s ‘pop’ during its time but picking it up a decade later was dead easy. Bet this cost me 10p or thereabouts.

58.05

SPUDDHA – Ton – Unreleased demo – 2014

‘Recorded in a single take with a pair of £100 analog groove boxes (Korg Volcas) and there’s no multi tracking, effects or post processing. One of the boxes is a three voice paraphonic synth and the other is an analogue drum machine.

‘At the time I was interested in making big, immersive music with an organic quality with sparse loops and a minimal setup. There’s a lot of live tweaking and you will notice that the limitations of the synth mean that 1) only 3 notes can sound simultaneously and 2) the voices interrupt each other. Also presets couldn’t be saved… if I didn’t record what I was doing I couldn’t move onto making something else without losing it all‘. – Spuddha.

‘Spud’ to me.

01.04.46

LONELADY – Hinterland – Hinterland, LP – Warp – 2015

Julie Lonelady groovin’ a tune and lyric that should have been here before now.

c/w Julie ‘helping out’…

01.09.32

JONI MITCHELL – River (acapella)

01.13.30

ATRIC & FRIDA DARKO – Hide & Seek – Download only – 2023

‘Always trying to combine genre fluid compositions, qualitative mixing and to take the whole process with a good sense of humor‘. – Them, via Bandcamp

01.17.26

A CERTAIN RATIO – Knife Slits Water (Peel session, June ’81) – Sextet, 2LP reissue – Factory Benelux – 2013

Yep, with Martha ‘Tilly’ Tilson’s oh-so-right vocal, the slightly epic Knife Slits Water. Very coincidentally, the day ACR recorded the above Peel session (according to the Keeping It Peel site) I saw them live supporting Cabaret Voltaire at Leicester Uni and the day the session was broadcast my diary says I had a long phone chat with Rob Gretton – no idea about what, other than re what New Order were up to at that point.

01.25.11

EARL16 – Changing World (Remix) – Cyber Roots Reggae, LP – Merge Records – 2001

I caught this on a late night KISS FM radio show. His conscious sounds here taken up a few BPM.

01.30.05

COURTNEY BUCHANAN – R U Conscious (Album version) – 12″ – Conscious – 1993

And speaking of ‘conscious’…

‘Courtney has one of the most soulful, spiritual voices to come out of the UK. His music here combines jazzy acoustic sounds with delicate use of technology on a rhythmic, down-paced head nodder. I various mixes, the track’s ‘conscious’ lyrics and impressive vocals are a fine showcase for this British talent.‘ – Ralph Tee, Record Mirror (Music Week), 3.7.93

01.34.42

DELTA HOUSE OF FUNK – Lovers & Losers – 12″ EP – Go! Discs – 1996

Decided to playlist this before I remembered it was another of Ashley Beedle’s works. So, this is with a big nod to a top lad who’s been going through the health ringer in the last few years.

01.39.38

DRAX – Middle Earth – Drax Two, 12″EP – Trope – 1993

Clear vinyl gentle German techno.

01.44.51

CROOKED MAN – Cunts – Crooked Stile, 2LP – Viscous Charm – 2026

The reimagining here courtesy of Richard ‘Parrot’ Barratt.

‘Jarvis Cocker released Running The World in 2006
The line ‘cunts are still running the world’ is more relevant than ever…

20 years on and Crooked Man thought it needed to be said again
His razor-sharp reimagining is a call to arms with added electronic bite
He’s skipped the niceties and titled it CUNTS.
Out today on Vicious Charm today.

The track is accompanied by an Agit-Prop video directed by British contemporary artist Dominic McGill, who, armed with a photocopier and a scalpel, has cut & pasted a perfect accompaniment to the song – breathless and furious.

They are still running the world.

It’s a work of “northern genius”, Jarvis’ words, not ours‘. – Bandcamp.

01.47.21

DESPERATE JOURNALIST – 7 – No Hero, LP – Fierce Panda – 2024

Driving indie rockers ever present on Simon Williams’ Fierce Panda label, with a nod to Jo Bevan’s confident vocals.

01.50.22

GANZHEIT – Motions – ‘Summer Of ’84’ demos cassette, unreleased – 1984

With a couple of this cassette’s tracks now playlisted on 41 Rooms, there are more to come from this lost Bedford-based band.

Show 149 will be here March 1.

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This playlist is 67% vinyl friendly. Poor.

‘In the year 2021, few turntables have captured the essence of that time the way that the Old Future Turntable and Speaker has. The silhouette of the player itself pays homage to ’70s architecture in Seoul. Slanted roofs were common during that era, and when you place the turntable and speaker side-by-side, they look like part of a ’70s city skyline. Some vinyl-lovers may not like this product initially because a flat, horizontal turntable would be preferred for sound quality. For those who care about audio quality over aesthetics, the turntable’s legs are adjustable, so you can make the table more even‘. – yankodesign.com

Looks like it could more readily blow out hot and cold air than music.

Lyric of Playlist 147

‘Observational, not sexist‘ noted Jean-Jacques Burnel.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Face Up – Low-life, LP – Factory – 1985

Face Up? More like Jump up, given the NO audience reaction when the chorus kicks in.

05.25

THE YOUNG GODS – Mes Yeux De Tous – Appear Disappear, 2LP – Two Gentlemen Records – 2025

Given that in the mid ’80s they were initially loosely bandied around in the same ‘industrial’ bag as my ‘charges’ Click Click I’ve heard very little of their lengthy and regular catalogue. This though is a mighty tune.

09.19

BLAWAN – Toast – Dismantled Into Juice, 12″ EP – XL Recordings – 2023

Nicely odd, with a ‘chorus’ that makes me smile.

11.56

BASETANK – Got Some Skills – The New Breed, v/artists promo only CD – Detonation – 1999

If it wasn’t for the 35 year age gap I might have said the vocalist on Got Some Skills and the modern day Microwave Man and his electric dirt bike online ‘Let Me Tell You Something, right?‘ words of wisdom sketches were of the same family.

15.44

9 LAZY 9: Turn Me Loose; UP, BUSTLE & OUT: Nightwalk; DJ FOOD: Klutes Groove; DJ TOOLZ: Rusty Goes GaGa; FUNKI PORCINI: It’s A Long Road –The Morning After The Night Before (one half of a CD free with DJ magazine – 1994

Old skool mixing from Cold Cut. ‘It’s (been) a long road… ‘ indeed.

22.00

HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR (feat HIPS & LIPS) – Someone Else Is Calling, 12″ EP – Stratasonic – 2025

The sort of hypnotic beats that could have fitted in with a Winkles, Bedford set list back in the ’80s… although someone might point a sound or two here didn’t exist back then.

26.12

FUNKY GREEN DOGS – The Way * – 12″ – Twisted – 1997

‘Anyone who ever liked That Sound from the Murk camp will like this just as much, even if they do whinge that it’s very similar to their previous favourite. The original is the heart-winner with its quivering vocal and acid-meets-funk groove, but the mixes are all attractive in their respective ways – Farley & Heller plod sweetly, Canadian Crash Productions do something along the same lines. Dirty White Boy rock and roll and Club 69 kick up a noisy messy rumpus. The best track of all is possibly the excellent FGD way-out beats. * *Daisy & Havoc, Record Mirror (Music Week), 10.5.97

Tough, liquidy goings on from the Murk camp. I was a fan.

32.51

JOY – Fragile Space – 7″ – DB-Low – 2000

‘Isaac Hayes meets Led Zeppelin‘ ran the press release for Joy Jones’ one-off (at the time) dip into music, and there’s something sad about a single of substance that didn’t do enough for the artist to build on.

35.52

TALKING HEADS – Listening Wind – Remain In Light, LP – Sire – 1980

Just checked. This is the last in a near complete run of the album’s tracks making it to 41 Rooms. So, that must make Remain In Light a bit of a classic to my ears.

39.36

THE SOULSAVERS –Rumblefish – Promo only 7″ – Ghost Ride Music – 2002

The sort of drifting beats thing that would crop up late night/early morning on KISS FM or maybe Ross Allen radio shows of the time.

43.28

BETHANY & RUFUS – 900 Miles – 900 Miles, CD only – Little Monster Records – 2005

With Bethany being the daughter of ’60s folk group, Peter Paul and Mary’s Pete Yarrow, an ancient tune reworked. And it’s a cello apparently, not a double bass.

46.48

STARGARD – (Theme Song From) Which Way Is Up – 7″ – MCA -1977

As funky now as the day it was delivered. I was 20… and this would have been hitting someone’s decks at Bedford’s Nite Spot, Spectrum, Pilgrims, The Anglers’ Laird bar and elsewhere out of town I went.

51.29

THE STAPLE SINGERS – I’ll Take You There – 7″ – Stax – 1972

They never let on where exactly ‘there’ is but with their gospel background we can maybe guess. Good luck with it.

55.30

CARLA THOMAS – Things Ya Make Me Do (Summer Mix) – 12″ – Ruff Justice – 1994

Not the ’60s Stax label Carla Thomas but it’d be nice to think this CT’s parents had that lady in mind when naming this lady. What might have been tagged ‘street soul’… and possibly out of Manchester, UK.

59.06

THOMAS DYBDAHL – All’s Not Lost – That Great October Sound, CD only – Checkpoint Charlie Audio Productions – 2001

Delicate sounds from Norway.

01.04.06

PURESSENCE – Don’t Know Any Better – 7″ – Reaction Records – 2008

James Mudriczki’s vocal…

01.07.22

DAVID SYLVIAN – Nostalgia – Brilliant Trees, LP – Virgin – 1994

Post Japan, his first solo album making its mark in fine style. It was unlikely to do otherwise.

01.12.57

JOY DIVISION – Insight – The Peel Sessions, 12″EP– Strange Fruit – 1986

Peel sessions sort of mimicked a live gig recording at its crystal clear best… this one included.

01.16.50

SIOUXSIE and THE BANSHEES – Christine (Warner Chappell demo) – Kaleidoscope, CD only – Polydor – 2006

With everyone and everything here ‘battling’ to be the most understated – and with it all quite possibly recorded in a rehearsal room, on the likes of (say) a 4-track Portastudio – this is as demo’ish as a major act’s demo could sound back then.

01.19.32

THE FLAMINGOS – Shone Like The Sun #3 (unreleased demo) – 1984

With Cliff (Peacock) in Scott Walker-mode there were a few versions of this tune and to these ears it sounds even better now than it did back then – and a link here to the song being performed live when the Flamingos supported New Order at Leicester Palais, May 21, 1984.

In effect the above might have doubled as my 27th birthday party and Shone Like The Sun was very likely on the Flamingos set list.

01.24.12

THE WAKE – Make You Understand – Here Comes Everybody, CD only comp – Factory Benelux – 2015

Recorded for a Feb ’84 BBC Radio 1 session for David/Kid Jensen and played live but the former only ever surfaced on the above.

Stephen, Mac, Carolyn and Caesar: Winkles, Bedford, 13.11.83

Photo credit/copyright: Dec Hickey

01.26.33

LITTLE NEMO – Bed In Summer – La Cassette Froide, split cassette (with Rain Culture) – self released – 1986

Not the first European band in the mid to late ’80s to have sounded as if heavily influenced by UK bands of the early ’80s and with a track only to be found on this cassette. I won’t be acquiring one any time soon.

01.30.27

THE STRANGLERS – London Lady – 7″ – United Artists – 1977

Yep, Jean-Jacques Burnel with a lyric or two (well, one in particular) that we youth most probably laughed through back in the day but now would maybe slightly wince at. The times…

01.32.52

ELVIS COSTELLO – (I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea – 7″ – Radar – 1978

I had a brief moment with Declan’s singles around this time… and you had to admire the balls of a musician who wanted to strike out as an Elvis.

01.35.53

THE SUB ENSEMBLE – Faster Than The Sun (Domu Remix) – Download only – 2008

Very short-lived crew aided and abetted here by acclaimed Bedford-based (then, anyway) DJ, producer, remixer, Domu.

01.41.01

JAZZ THE GLASS – 16 Seconds – Download only, Soundcloud – 2019

A 41 Rooms regular, with another winner. Dave reminded me it uses a sample from a US boy band. I think it was a white label 12″ with anonymous writing (just initials?), that I took a punt on at no more than 20p.

01.44.47

FPI PROJECT – Come On (And Do It) (TC Funky Mix) – 12″ – Synthetic Records – 1993

‘Tremendous funky Italian offering as ever from those talented members of Ital’s most consistent band. Chocca full of good alternative mixes, including a wicked guitar ladened TC Funky mix… ‘ – Kenny Grogan, Mixmag Update, 28.4.93

‘Everything you love/hate about Italian records in double helpings. Very FPI Project but bang on time with its riffing flamenco-style guitar and a bundle of irresistibly funked up mixes firm Mother-man Lee Fisher, which include a wonderful reinvention of the bouncy original into a big booming beast of a track‘. Matthew Cole, Record Mirror (Music Week), 10.7.93

‘Girl chanted powerful Hamilton Bohannon-ish happy party pounder’s original Gypsy Kings-like guitars strummed 125bpm Official, 125.2bpm Gipsy, TC 1993 wukka-wukked 125.2bpm TC Funky Mixes, new sax squawked jerkily percussive building 124.9bpm Mothers At Work Remix and Dub‘. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 7.8.93

As mentioned on the show, a one and a bit trick pony but sometimes a funky break and some vocal snippets is all you need for some head nodding bizniz.

01.49.36

CHEZ DAMIER & CO-INSIDE – Give A Little Love (Made In Detroit Mix) – The United States EP, 12″ – t:ime – 1993

‘Nottingham’s Sine boys have always (worn) worthier US influences on their sleeves. This time they make a more permanent connection with two excellent transatlantic collaborations. Their Made In Detroit Mix of Give A Little Love by Chez Damier & Co-Inside is a supremely cool organ-washed garage groove with the repeated title line drifting in and out of the mix. It becomes less mellow and more dubby as it progresses…‘ – Andy Beevers, Record Mirror (Music Week), 4.9.93

And yet another tune with a minimal use of different lyrics… and here you’re not getting the full nine minutes they’re spread over on the 12″. Still, jaunty US house with a bit of a UK ’90s garage’y feel… and I think I edited out some frogs sounds.

01.53.15

THE REESE PROJECT – The Colour of Love (Groove Corporation Trance Mix) * – 12″ – Network – 1992

‘Even by his own standards, Kevin Saunderson is having a good year. With Inner City firmly re-established as one of the world’s leading dance acts, he now takes the limelight under his alter-ego for what will be one of the biggest tunes of the year. The Deep Reese mix (featured on the Network ‘Elixir Vitae’ double pack extravaganza that some might say is their apology for KWS) is still the one for me. The coffee table intro soaring into a menacing groove with the hookiest of vocal samples… bliss. But wait, let us not forget Groove (aka Electribe 101) Corporation’s four mixes full of true British grit and trance appeal… ‘ – Dave Seaman 1/2 Mixmag Update, July 9, ’92.

‘Kevin ‘Master Reese’ Saunderson’s powerful Rachel Kapp wailed Club Chart topper is now out on one single in brilliant swimming bass pulsed wriggly warbling 121.6bpm Magic Juan Atkins Mix, gospelishly started hypnotically chugging (0-)123.4bpm Deep Reese Mix, piano plonked 121.6-121.5bpm Underground Resistance Mix, repetitively stuttered Kym Sims-ish 122-122.1bpm MK Deep Dub, good insistently rolling 114.7-114.8bpm Groove Corporation Trance Mix and bass bubbled blippy 114.9-114.8bpm Groove Corporation Wobble Dub, while the first of the separate promos had its throbbing somehow then steady 115bpm Vocal (Trance Mix) and 115-114.9bpm Acid Revival (Wobble Dub), plus alternative swirlingly chugging 115bpm Plae Blue Mix and Instrumental Groove Corporation 021 Remixes‘. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 1.8.92

Slinky Saunderson… and albeit it the same theme, a thousand miles from Terry Callier’s What Colour Is Love in every other way.

Show 148 should surface here Feb 1.

Dec x

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This playlist is 65% vinyl friendly. Very poor.

Scorchio!

‘1960/1970 Vintage Stereo Design Record Player, in bright orange, the emblematic colour of the 1960 and an example of Mod Ultra Space Age Pop Art Raymond Loewy? France French Designer Museum-worthy‘ says the Etsy seller, adding ‘It has a few cracks, one of the speakers has a small tear in the cloth and may need an overhaul, a full check up to see how and if it works and if it is complete… WE HAVE NEVER TRIED TO USE IT AND I DO NOT KNOW IF IT WORKS OR PLAYS.‘ Thank flip it’s down to
€4600, from €7100.

And a bit of a croak in my voice here and there. A temporary glitch, hopefully.

Lyric of Playlist 146

Trickery involved but it has to be The Bots!

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Ruined In A Day (Reading Festival, 1993) – In Concert – 577, CD – BBC Transcription – 1993

I and my four-year-old, Alice were there, on what was a triumphant return, with the wonderful ‘Ruined’ in amongst new numbers from the band’s then recently released Republic album nobody would have previously heard in a live setting. BBC Transcription Services recordings – produced to service radio stations and usually for a very limited time frame for broadcast – had moved from vinyl to CD but with runs still only in their low hundreds New Order completists would be struggling to own a copy of this one… and I don’t.

04.42

MERIC LONG – A Small Act Of Defiance – Kablooey, LP – Polyvinyl Record Company – 2025 Book-ending a bunch of releases through the years as a member of The Dodos, Kablooey is seemingly Long’s first solo release under his own name since 2006.

07.43

BIOCHEMICAL DREAD – False Kings Of The Earth – 12″ – Pulsolid – 2004

Besides Richard H. Kirk’s work with Cabaret Voltaire this 12″ demonstrates there have been gaps in my knowledge of his lengthy discography elsewhere. RIP, Richard.

13.21

DARKSIDE – One Last Nothing – Download only – Matador – 2025

Including a past member of the 41 Rooms playlist parish, Nicolas Jaar, a US trio currently NOT releasing a 12″, though their Bandcamp visual hints otherwise.

18.32

AGENTS WITH FALSE MEMORIES – Agents With False Memories (extract), CD only – Ash International / Soleilmoon Recordings – 1996

Extract, indeed as Richard H. Kirk promptly returns to show 146 with this four minute snippet from a 53 minute track.

22.34

HUMANIZER – Shinobi – ? – ? – 2000s?

Ignoring the slight Liam Gallagher drawl and with zero connection to any Death Metal band of the same name, this might have been Manchester sourced… and maybe with a Peter Hook connection. That’s what I’m vaguely remembering… from over a decade ago. Dunno… A ‘demo’ version, minus vocals, might also get an outing here at some point.

27.08

DIFFERENT GEAR – A Little Bit Paranoid (Extended Mix) * – 12″ – City Rockers – 2002

Courtesy of a ‘Phil Dirtbox’, the vocal is the winner here.

32.59

MERZ – Sorrow In The Sky (Nightingale Vs The Crow) – 7″ b-side – Lotus Records – 2002

The stuff that people sing about… and here with gusto and passion, to boot!

36.55

LUSCIOUS JACKSON – Why Do I Lie? (Sessions at 54th, 11.97) – Stream only – 1997

Vocalist, Jill Cunniff’s tale of lying sounding best live!

40.13

THE POPPY FAMILY – I Was Wondering – 7″ – London – 1971

A bit of a strange arrangement, this one. Albeit with a key change in there – verses with no choruses! Weird and wonderful… and maybe a bit brave in the pop world of the early ’70s, where the only PF track I remember hearing as a young teen was Which Way Are You Going Billy? That won’t be getting a 41 Rooms spin.

42.43

SOPHIE JAMIESON – Camera – I Still Want To Share, LP – Bella Union – 2025

Being over in Brighton recently it seemed appropriate I buy her clear vinyl album from the Bella Union shop and re Camera? It’s the subtle build in Sophie’s vocal and she’ll be here again at some point.

46.59

MARTYN BATES – The Rhyme Of Miracles – Arriving Fire, CD only – Ambivalent Scale – 2014

Martyn instils presence in a tune like few others for me.

50.28

JOSE FELICIANO – First Of May – 7″ b-side – RCA – 1969

‘Feliciano seems to be on a heavy Bee Gees kick… after ‘Marley Purt Drive,’ he now does ‘First Of May’ and ‘Gotta Get A Message To You.’ And with his highly stylised projection, Jose manages to make them sound totally removed from anything the Gibb brothers originated’. – Disc (edited review of the album, 10 to 23), 15.11.69.

As far as I know the Bee Gees tune was only ever released on a 7″ (my ‘format of choice’) for Jose in Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines and Spain and never as an A-side and arranger, Al Capps most probably winced if he ever got to see the NZ pressing below.

Strangely, Jose’s very rarely performed the song live. I’ve only noted it three times, including two at London’s Jazz Cafe, in 1996 and again in 1998 and at the former it surfaced nearly under duress. With the audience (maybe unsurprisingly) constantly shouting out for past JF favourites Jose countered, ‘You know there’s a lot of songs you people ask me for that unfortunately… and I’m not being rude, a lot of artists are rude, they do it on purpose, but some of the songs that you ask me to sing, do you know that I haven’t sung them in years and I’ve forgotten the words and rather than make an ass out of myself that’s why I don’t sing them, OK? So, don’t take it personal… I don’t sing those songs anymore. But I’ll tell you what though there’s some that you ask for that I do remember, like this one. I hope that this one will satisfy you.’ That rare sighting was even more surprising considering Jose had taken the rare move of including his own recording of the song when guesting on Brian Matthew’s My Top Twelve for BBC Radio 1 back in June 1974.

54.11

JAPAN – Alien – Quiet Life, LP – Ariola Hansa – 1980

Bedford: Heronscroft, Putnoe, 1980 and Winkles, 1981… with a few Japan gigs thrown in at the time.

58.47

JOHN CALE – Chinese Envoy (M:FANS) – M: FANS, 2 LP – Double Six – 2016

‘Approached as a reinterpretation of Cale’s 1982 improvisational album, Music for a New Society… M:FANS is something of a funhouse mirror reflection of that work, using the basic song-structures of the original album as a starting point and using time, experience and the technological advances of the ensuing years to bring a new focus to the tunes. Some selections are comfortably familiar, while others have a significantly different footprint‘. – KCRW

01.02.32

ICEHOUSE – No Promises (Dance Mix) * – 12″ – Chrysalis – 1990

Fully five years after the track had seemingly done its thing it got an extended outing in Spain.

01.07.58

DAVID BOWIE – This Is Not America (BBC concert) – Bowie At The Beeb, 2CD – EMI – 2000

Part of Bowie’s special set for a small invited audience at the BBC’s Radio Theatre, in London, June 2000.

01.11.29

JOHNNY KEATING – Theme from Z-Cars (Johnny Todd) – 7″ – Piccadilly – 1962

Did I realise the grittier scripts involved here than had been delivered by Jack Warner’s strolling forerunner, Dixon Of Dock Green? Nah, I was five when Z-Cars kicked off but the theme (based on the traditional folk song, Johnny Todd) still brings a fuzzy feel. And Wikipedia will give you the full story on why Everton FC players come out to the tune at home games.

01.13.22

MARC COHN – ‘Walking in Memphis (Mahna Mahna)’ – Stream only – 1990’s?

Cohn definitely wouldn’t have seen this coming, as the self proclaiming Mahna Mahna and the Snowths duo upstage him in a short but cheeky mashup (of sorts) I happened on via Youtube a couple of decades ago. I’ll openly admit I was a Muppets fan when they first aired on UK TV back in the mid ’70s and with Statler & Waldorf the stars for me I remember walking my girlfriend of the time, Jill home from work and then running up the hill to my house to record the show. Pre the age of video recorders, at one point there was a stack of ten to twenty AGFA(!!) cassette tapes of the shows in my bedroom. Getting back to Cohn, the fact he’s ‘racing’ a bit here actually adds to the cheeriness and I salute whoever was involved.

01.14.44

BERNARD CRIBBINS – The Hole In The Ground – 7″ – Parlophone – 1962

And like the Z-Cars theme I was five when this was released and I’d have definitely been singing this one in the years close after – and weirdly, although it’s the second tune from ’62 on this show, it’s not the last.

01.16.27

THE BOTS – Fuzzy Math – George W. Bush Greatest Hits, v/artists, CDr only – Spin The World – 2004

I heard this cut and paste work of art somewhere around its ‘release’ and as of 2004…

‘… utilizing the revolutionary Presidential Truth Filter(PTF). The PTF operates like this: All presidential statements are recorded, and made into a huge database. The database is searchable by speech, phrase, keyword, emotional intensity, etc. In parallel, an analysis is made of the historical circumstances of the particular presidency. The question must be asked, what is this man (all men so far…) really all about? What is a defining characteristic of this presidency? The final question which must be addressed by the PTF is, how can we use the assets in the database to concatenate the truth, and make the President speak it? The first attempt was Bushwack, in 1992. This turned into a huge hit before the Presidential election in 1992, though BMI denied that it was ever on the air at all. Through October of that year, stations such as San Francisco’s Live105 were playing it almost hourly. In 1997 Rock The House was a popular download at an early digital music download startup, muzic.com. In 2003 Bushwack2 was released at about the start of the Iraq war. The mood of the song is quite grim, as the truth of those times was interpreted by the PTF. In 2004, the PTF was reprogrammed to emphasize economics and general silliness, and Fuzzy Math was born. We think it’s the best one yet. Judge the results for yourself’. – thebots.net

01.19.26

DREXCIYA – Black Sea – The Journey Home, 12″ EP – Warp – 1995

First heard on either of Colin Faver’s or Colin Dale’s techno shows on KISS FM. Sounds more likely it was the former.

01.24.58

E-DANCER – Heavenly * – 12″ – KMS – 1997

The Inner City (‘Big Fun’) man, Kevin Saunderson with his techno head on.

01.28.51

CHARLES WEBSTER – Your Life * – 12″ – Peacefrog – 2000

Pitched up a bit (‘+3%’ says my file iD) this is a class slice of soulful techno/house.

01.33.11

CHARLOTTE DAY WILSON – Selfish – Download only – Stone Woman Music – 2025

This r&b musician has been around for a decade or so but I wouldn’t have guessed, judging by this slight departure to a ’90s UK garage feel (first half anyway). It suits her.

01.36.48

BENCH – Felice – Bliss, 2LP – Cylinder Recordings – 2000

The fifth appearance on 41 Rooms to date for this pretty much forgotten duo.

01.39.36

BLUE STATES – Your Girl – 12″ EP – Memphis Industries – 1999

First heard on a compilation CD a mate of mine, Sid put together, of fave tracks forwarded by mates of his. Not their own tracks, you understand.

01.43.45

THE MIRACLES – I’ll Try Something New – 7″ – Tamla – 1962

Hellfire! Those breakdown strings mid way are a bit of a jolt! Easy, Smokey! Writer, Robinson’s own version is actually the third to make it to 41 Rooms and his vocal arrangement sounds more like a remake than either Kiki Dee’s ‘straighter’ take or even the Supremes and Temptations stab at the song, when chronologically they both followed this Miracles single.

01.46.14

SMITH & MUDD – Blue River – 2LP – Claremont 56 – 2007

Electronic… downtempo… shuffling… drifting… or maybe flowing.

01.48.38

MERZ – A.M. (Good Morning) * – Single-sided, white label 12″ only – 1995

The second artist to return this show, multi instrumentalist and songwriter, Conrad Merz and his at times very idiosyncratic vocal (‘Many Weathers Apart’, for instance) seem to have trodden their own path through the years.

01.53.45

CRAIG ARMSTRONG (feat ELIZABETH FRASER) – This Love (& The Life That I Have) * – 41 Rooms Soft Mash Up only – Early 2000s

I grabbed the extra voice – Virginia McKenna as Second World War spy Violette Szabo, reading the code poem The Life That I Have at the end of the film Carve Her Name With Pride – fully thirty plus years ago and I had a stab at floating it over This Love a long time ago but recently had another go. Aided by Jazz The Glass, we pitched her down slightly and then I took out a chunk of the poem in the second half. Not that it’s going to happen but I reckon it would need the song itself re-arranged/edited to work perfectly but methinks the idea is still a cool one.

Show 147 hopefully surfaces Jan 4.

Dec x

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This playlist is 73% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

Anonymous ‘radiogram’, 1960s… and even at its size, the sort of set up that most families of the time had when music was really just a household component. Ours followed on from a legless Dansette-type turntable and was initially used primarily for the radio, with Dad wiring it through to the kitchen where one or two very discreetly hidden grills under a cupboard relayed Worldwide Family Favourites to the family Sunday lunch.

Lyric of Playlist 145

‘You could be laughing sixty three percent more of the time… ‘ When Grant’s in the house he’s a likely contender here.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Hey Now What You Doing – Waiting For The Sirens’ Call, 2LP – London – 2005

On what is arguably the band’s weakest album, a gunslinger strum of a song that’s easy to skank around to on the dancefloor and if I ignore the ‘rock drawl’ that Barney sometimes gravitated to in later years (and touches on here) I’d suggest it’s one of his finest vocal performance, with some beaut guitar to boot.

05.40

PRESENCE – Better Days (Presence Vocal Mix) – 12″ – Pagan – 1997

One of producer Charles Webster’s many monikers, here with some class house music peeping out of a genre that’s been littered with sterility through the decades since its inception. He’ll be back here.

09.37

DISCLOSURE (feat JESSIE WARE) – Confess To Me – Settle, 2LP – PMR/Island/Method – 2013

Saw this pairing delivering this on Later With Jools.

13.37

SERMONS BY THE DEVIL – Synesthesia – Exorcismo Electronico, LP – Library Of The Occult – 2025

A ‘Sermons By The Devil’ search online is likely to lead to no good I tell ya, and the album’s imagery etc doesn’t grab me either but this is some cheery funky electronica.

20.42

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Yashar (John Robie Mix) – 12″ – Factory – 1983

This would have been here a good few years earlier if it hadn’t slipped through the initial 2016 ’41 Rooms Potentials’ folder. Richard and Mal pretty much namechecked Robie’s mighty work here as having single-handedly opened them up to the possibilities of ‘branching out’ and it’s a tune and mix that’s as synonymous as any with Wednesday nights in Winkles, Bedford back in the day. Even Pete Care’s video was ever present with the times.

The US acetate below is likely to be the Robie mix and the owner (not me) will know.

27.58

BLAWAN – NOS – SickElixir, LP – XL Recordings – 2025

Given the music he’s been knocking out since 2010 a move to Berlin for northern producer, Jamie Roberts isn’t such a surprise.

31.01

THE HUMAN LEAGUE – Being Boiled (Album version) – Travelogue, LP – Virgin – 1980

Faster and definitely ‘funkier’ than the already playlisted original but it’s a toss up…

34.51

DEEP PURPLE – Emmaretta – 7″ – Parlophone – 1969

I had the stock/shop copy of this back in my mid ’70s ‘rock, pop and soul’ years when I saw DP at Wembley Empire Pool and though classic rock rarely gets a look in on 41 Rooms this sounded more than fine. I’d maybe even have a belated stab at buying the demo/promo copy (below, and reminiscent of Motown demos of the time ) if it hadn’t gravitated to a £150 and well beyond price tag.

37.29

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE – White Rabbit (Ursula 1000 remix) – Stream only – 2000-2010?

This mix turned up on some radio show… and has since disappeared. File Alex Gimeno’s efforts here under Psychedelia Plus.

41.30

RADWIMPS (feat TOAKA) – Suzume – ‘Suzume’ Motion Picture Soundtrack, 2LP – All The Anime Music – 2023

The sonics you can bump into on the net…

| | |

45.24

LANA SOY – Mind Games – Stream only – 2021’ish

‘‘Pure’, ‘softest’ and ‘soulful’ are usually the words thrown to describe Svetlana’s voice. Originally from Moscow and Londoner since 17, Svetlana’s music has been inspired by Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Regina Spektor, Evanescence, Des’ree, Brandy and Sade‘. – Soundcloud

On a recent whistle stop trip back to Bedford I caught Lana at an open mic night and the best grouping of her songs is possibly her Apple Music presence. However, this version of Mind Games is one of two that are elsewhere, certainly including Soundcloud.

48.28

AIR (feat BETH HIRSCH) – You Make It Easy – Moon Safari, LP – Virgin – 1998

Any excuse to feature the voice of Beth Hirsch… and here it’s the avenue that most of the world got to first here her through.

52.06

JOHN GRANT – GMF – Pale Gree Ghosts, 2LP – Bella Union – 2013

With Grant’s usual wit and Sinead O’Connor (RIP) guesting, a few TV appearances of this song also included the latter on BVs, and certainly on Irish TV also Sinead’s daughter, Roísín’ where the phrase ‘The G(reatest) M(other) F(ucker)’ is still not one you’ll hear clear as day too often.

57.16

JAKE NAJOR and FRIENDS – Midnight In A Perfect World (live) – Stream only – 2021

‘American drummer, active as musician for numerous bands and band projects… ‘ says Discogs and here Najor faithfully recreates – in a video’d 99% live setting – to within a hair’s breath of DJ Shadow’s already 41 Rooms playlisted original.

01.01.54

DONOVAN – Hurdy Gurdy Man – 7″ – Pye – 1968

Another of the songs that when heard at the time, stood out over the Radio One airwaves, amongst its diet of pop music. Donovan himself even seems to be at odds with others involved in the session as to who added the electric guitar. Check the song’s Wikipedia entry for all the fun. I do know from research in a slightly different area (musicians playing live in the UK, but in the same time period) that sessioners were known to sometimes get paid in cash, with the deal and details being kept off the books for whoever it suited.

01.04.58

KIDDA – We, Do, Da Dirty Soundbwoy – Fresh Mess, DJ mix CDr – Catskills – 2005

The only place to find this barely 2 mins bouncy hip hoppity skit.

01.07.09

D’ANGELO – Unshaken – Red Dead Redemption II, video games soundtrack, 2LP – Lakeshore Records/Rockstar Games – 2019

“Produced by Daniel Lanois, co-writer of the track along with D’Angelo (RIP) and Rocco DeLuca, and on transparent red, should vinyl soundtracks be your thing.

01.10.59

MARK S. WILLIAMSON – Encounter On The Moor – Folklore, Facts And Fables 5: The Eve Stone, CD only – Forged River Recordings – 2025

‘For the fifth instalment in folklore, facts and fables series, we finally get a fable. We return to Todmorden and the story of Rob o’Harry’ot’Deans and his encounter with the fairy people up on the moors above the town… ‘ – Bandcamp

It quickly gets on a sonic plain and just stays there but I’m not qualified to work out whether multi-instrumentalist Williamson’s one string biscuit tin violin made it to the proceedings.

01.17.38

BREAKBEAT ERA – Breakbeat Era – 12″ – XL Recordings – 1998

And from one of my fave 21st century sounding albums (d&b is just that way). even though it was made a shade earlier.

01.21.51

??? – ??? – ??? – 1997?

Taped off a d&b show on London’s KISS FM radio of the time, I had this down as Comin’ Down by Kapricorn… but in amongst the swamp of anonymous and/or barely iD’d white label/promo/acetate/DAT tape etc tunes DJs on these sort of shows were buried in, this one was maybe confused with the aforementioned on a playlist, and it’s not anything Shazam can identify either. If you know… then let me know!

01.26.38

MATRIX – The Message 96 – New Identity Recordings – 12″ – 1996

One Jamie Quinn with some sparkling d&b!

01.30.05

LONDON ELEKTRICITY – Fast Soul Music – Billion Dollar Gravy, 3×12″ – Hospital Records – 2003

Given the title I’d have expected LE’s near-resident vocalist, Liane Carroll to have featured more here than with the occasional scat.

01.35.45

PARANOID LONDON (feat JENNIFER TOUCH) – Fields Of Fire – Arseholes, Liars, And Electronic Pioneers, 2LP – Paranoid London Records – 2024

The shuffling ‘hi-hats’ drive the stark beats like a real driving thing. If this had come out in 1981 I’d have made a home for this on the turntables for a good few week at Winkles.

01.43.01

MEAT BEAT MANIFESTO – Radio Babylon – 12″ – Play It Again Sam – 1990

Any year but 1990 certainly and I may have heard it at the time.

01.49.21

MERZ – Many Weathers Apart (Album version) – Merz, LP – Epic – 1999

A remix of MWA featured here a few years ago and it’s not the last time you’ll hear Conrad Merz’s idiosyncratic vocals here.

01.54.00

JOHN MARTYN – I’d Rather Be The Devil (Scrimshire Edit) – Download only – 2016

Adam Scrimshire adding beats and things to the already beat’y.

Show 145 hopefully surfaces Dec 7.

Dec x

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This playlist is 68% vinyl friendly. Poor, and the first show to hit that exact mark… though with a likely future vinyl release it should inch up at some point.

‘A German (Dieter Rams) design classic… that caused uproar in the ’60s as one of the first light-weight record players to eschew the heavy wooden cabinet design, the Braun Audio 1 was the company’s first fully transistorised combined hi-fi system. At just 67cm wide, it’s remarkably petite… ‘ – The Vinyl Factory, 2017

Lyric of Playlist 144

‘I realized u were my demise… ‘ OK, so there’s little competition.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Crystal (Unpasteurized version by Ivan X) – Stream only – 2025

‘Crystal is a super song, but, to me, a lot of the “heys” and “oohs” are distracting, and conceal the excellent music underneath. I also don’t love the intro, or the repetitions of “keep it coming.” So I made this version that cuts out all of those, leaving a spare vocal and great music. Maybe you’ll like it, maybe you won’t. Here it is!‘ – Ivan X

The barely 400 yoootoob views at the time I clocked this mix suggests this Naked/Unpasteurized mix is from recent times rather than from when the band offered out Barney’s vocal for anyone to build a (re)mix around. If so, it’s maybe in the light of AI making track/stem separation, errr… ‘easier’, and whether you like your remixes to pay purist homage or go the ‘out there’ route that house music remixers have so often championed (both can have their winners)… this is gold star.

06.38

CLOCK DVA – Consent – White Souls In Black Suits, LP – Italian Records – 1982

First released on vinyl in Italy in 1982 but now…

‘Available for first time in over 35 years, Clock DVA’s White Souls in Black Suits – originally released in 1980 as a limited-run cassette on Throbbing Gristle’s Industrial Records – now returns newly remastered and reissued via The Grey Area of Mute and expanded with four bonus tracks from the same era‘. – Mute, October, 2025

It would have jelled better if the drumming had been higher in the mix.

11.08

HULA – Walk On Stalks Of Shattered Glass – 12″ – Red Rhino – 1985

Only released as a 12″ but someone online recently grabbed a 7″ test pressing for all of about £3.50!

15.38

THE SISTERS OF MERCY – Adrenochrome – 7″ b-side – CNT Productions/Merciful Release – 1982

Bought new but I don’t remember ever having the pic sleeve to this Body Electric single. If I did have it I lost it early on and very possibly during its many outings at our Winkles club nights when both sides rightly got played a lot. The photo below might suggest otherwise but the state my copy has been in since the mid ’80s is not good and a long way off the €300 or so it might have attracted if I’d vaulted the bugger away the day I bought it. Of course no one did that sort of thing back then, even if they do now.

18.33

STRETCHER – Mocktober – Unreleased – 2002’ish?

He’s known as Spud to me… and he’s given me as much info as when his other 2002’ish demo, Mousehold cropped up on 41 Rooms, back in 2021… which is diddly squat :)… so here’s a photo of a pink fairy armadillo!

23.31

HOT LIZARD – 165 Drop (Love From San Francisco Mix) – 12″ – Pacific Records – 1996

‘Probably the strongest release yet on the label, 165 Drop is a superbly crafted atmospheric piece of deep house, though just to place it in this category doesn’t do it justice. The simple swishing hats provide a rhythmic background to a procession of interesting, arpeggiated synth lines that blend beautifully, all the time gradually building into quite a pacy groove. Love From San Francisco’s mix is slower, gentler and effective in a more easy listening manner but there are more mixes to follow on this track in the coming months so this package may get stronger still‘. ** Tim Jeffery, Record Mirror (Music Week), 1.3.97

Hey! Less of the ‘Easy Listening’!

31.35

SOUND OF MUSIC – Feel The Music (Part One) – 12″ – Emotive Records – 1992

‘Feel the music’ indeed. There’s nothing profound in the lyrics but the beats and sounds of a handful of Emotive 12″s from around this period lifted the spirits. ‘Need the release‘? Both physically and mentally, at this time I did… and the £4 I paid for the 12″ in ’92 is about as much as a decent copy will cost now.

38.09

SILICONE SOUL – Right On! (Original Instrumental Version) (Pitched down!) – 12″ – VC Recordings/Soma – 2001

Given the sampled narration included, to this day this ‘instrumental’ take sounds a shade too chirpy cheery for me… so to give it some extra ‘presence’ I pitched it down on the show.

43.09

ISAAC HAYES – Theme From ‘Shaft’ – 7″ – Stax – 1971

Given its reason for being (a soundtrack) I’ve spun the full version rather than the subtly edited 7″ take. Arguably the most recognisable Blaxploitation sound(track)?

47.34

PART TIME HEROES – All This Time – Realise, 12″ EP – Mums The Word – 2006

I remember these guys doing some great radio shows, possibly stepping in for I’m not sure who – Gilles P, Ross Allen? It’s a blur. As of right now, a UK-sourced VG+ vinyl copy of the Realise EP (with this the second 41 Rooms playlisted track) on Discogs… at £1!

51.56

ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF – Stardust – Download only – 2025

‘Reverb’ setting to ‘huge empty church’ or the likes in the recording process – or it was actually recorded in a huge empty church, and an ‘interesting’ use of a family photo for the sleeve below. There’s something in the water in Sweden.

58.29

HARMON BETHEA – Anonymous * – 7″ b-side – Creole – 1976

I spent a few years with only half of this track grabbed from somewhere online… and the wrong title! That never helps.

01.02.42

TOM BROCK – I Love You More And More – I Love You More And More, LP – 20th Century Records – 1974

‘Lurv thang’ mid ’70s soul and from the only album Brock made… and one with two 21st century re-releases. Not that its version of ‘I Love… ‘ really goes anywhere different beyond the 2mins 46 edit used for the US 7″ but seeing as a 1975 Brazilian 7″ pressing was mastered at 33rpm (they often cut singles that way over there back then and it would have giving them ‘space’ for more music) I’d be interested to know whether they went with the full length version. Nice touch, if they did… but I bet they didn’t.

01.06.32

MARVIN GAYE – That’s The Way Love Is – 7″ – Tamla (Motown) – 1969

Marv Top 10’ing in the US with a punchier, moodier version than the Isley Brothers’ uptempo take from two years earlier.

01.10.01

STEELY DAN – Do It Again – 7″ – ABC Records – 1972

I playlisted the full version that lead off the band’s debut album, Can’t Buy A Thrill but I should have edited out the keyboard doodling… so using a 41 Rooms ‘trick’ I did the next best thing. With show 144’s time again I would go for the 7″ version, as it was the one that did it for me back in the day… as No. ‘977’ on the 7″ shelves of this then teenager’s bedroom, the log of the time still tells me.

01.15.16

(THE) PENTANGLE – Travellin’ Song – 7″ – Big T / Joc – 1968

Unless you lived in a folk music strong household, anyone nearing teenage years in the UK in the late ’60s most probably first heard Jacqui McShee’s signature vocals on the band’s Light Flight guesting as the theme to the BBC comedy drama, Take Three Girls but Travellin’ Song pre-dated that as their debut 7″. The copy below? To be picked up by me the next time I’m in Bedford.

01.18.08

THE B-52’s – Roam – 7″ – WEA International – 1989

Don’t ya just smile when you hear their vocals? Oh, and the apostrophe. It would hang on in their name for a few years more.

01.22.35

JAY B. SELLS (feat JOSHUA HAYES) – Pulling Strings (unreleased demo) – 1998’ish

I got given this demo by ‘Jay B. Sells’ maybe sometime soon after I left working at the Westminster Uni’s Commercial Music department but when on a return visit to see folks. Give this song and arrangement to some young soul(s) with pop stardom in their sites and a 2020s production mindset and I reckon this is a nailed on’ hands in the air’ winner. Indeed, after Rod Thomas gravitated to becoming Bright Light Bright Light (and maybe somewhere in between his first two BLBL albums) I did wing this track to him but he’s very much an ‘own song’ man… or maybe he just thought I was mad.

01.26.05

JAZZ THE GLASS – Main Squeeze – Output2023, EP – Bandcamp, download only – 2023

The motif pulling it back wins out but the drive is there. Cinematic and classy!

01.30.52

COMMON FACTOR (+ JOHN REDMOND) – World Is Mine – 12″ – Planet E – 2000

Every few years I seemed to latch on to a track on Carl Craig’s label and here Redmond’s on a mission. Building from half way through, it feels like madcap gospel on speed.

01.36.35

LAYO & BUSHWACKA! – Deep South – 12″ – End Recordings – 1999

Rumbling sounds and some borrowed, rambling ‘Satan’s waiting for you all‘ snippets, making for a good groove and from back in the day when, in this case, a £4 purchase fairly quickly turned into an £18.50 sale. Music & Video Exchange’s many shops in Notting Hill, London were (certainly in the ’90s), a regular destination for mover and shaker DJs and journalists offloading their unwanted promo vinyl and the chain’s dance and beats shop/department just overflowed, so it wasn’t hard to pick up gems… and every little helped to buy some more vinyl.

01.42.39

DEMOCUSTICO – Grito (Seiji Remix) – 12″ – Far Out – 2006

Brazilian at birth but musically they’re happy to move around a bit, even before Seijo’s remix takes this particular tune further afield. They’ve been here before and will be again.

01.47.49

EMILY’S CHAIR – Just Before I Go (unreleased) – 1998’ish

Just the one single under this moniker and this was in the mix of tracks they were producing at the time. Their only subsequent release – as One Mile Per Hour – was a 2012 self-tilted album which included a couple of tracks I recognised from the above period.

01.51.28

KUTIMAN (feat PRINCESS SHAW)- Give It Up * – Stream only – 2014

‘I would like to thank all the musicians that are in this project and to all of you out there for sharing your knowledge and talent on the internet‘. – Kutiman, Youtube

And search out the video below, as much for the info on Ophir Kutiel’s collaborators (unknowing at the time?) and the subsequent work involved in pulling this track together, and also elsewhere for the knock on effect his work has. 41 Rooms salutes the man.

01.55.42

ALABAMA SHAKES – Another Life – Download only – 2025

In the age old ritual of lead-person-goes-solo-and-then-years-later-the-band-reconvene, judging by the live video of Another Life (filmed at Colorado’s Red Rocks) this time around main gal, Brittany Howard will be no less the focal point. Old skool soulful rock songwriting.

Show 144 hopefully surfaces Nov 2.

Dec x

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This playlist is 79% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

The Vertere SG-1/Xtrax! Named by designer and founder, Tourag Moghaddam like a very expensive thing… and at nearly £45,000 in 2023 it was.

With its ‘strategically placed LEDs embedded in the sumptuous acrylic plinth‘, when What Hi-Fi reached their 50th birthday earlier this year the turntable made it into their ‘20 very best turntables of What Hi-Fi?’s lifetime‘ and described it as ‘a true musical chameleon, one that changes character with the recording being played. Such a talent is rare in hi-fi, and should be cherished.‘

Lyric of Playlist 143

Could have gone with Devo’s ‘Afraid nobody around here, understands my potato. I think I’m the only spud boy looking for a real tomato‘ but I guess you needed to have been there.

Instead, I’m going with ‘Diamond in the back, sunroof top, diggin’ the scene with a gangsta lean, wooh-ooh-ooh‘, a line anyone of a certain would likely know.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Heart and Soul (Reading Festival, 1998) – 3 16, DVD – Warner Music Vision – 2001

Aside Ceremony and a version of Love Will Tear Us Apart in Birmingham back in 1983, if you weren’t at the Manchester Apollo gig a month before this Reading Festival appearance, to that point you’d have been waiting nearly two decades for New Order to perform any Joy Division songs and this evening – after yet another five year gap in performing live – they ran through Isolation, Atmosphere, Heart And Soul, Ceremony and Love Will Tears Us Apart.

My daughter, Alice now at her second New Order gig, aged nine and a tall kid for her age back then, went jostling down the front once again, remembering ‘rolls and rolls of toilet paper being thrown through the crowd’. At the Rivermead party afterwards, being in the same room as Neil Tennant, Pete Shelley and Keith Allen meant zip to her when there were kids to be running around with and she spent most of the time playing video games with a boy and girl, both slightly older than herself. A very young Lily and Alfie Allen? We’ll likely never know. She did, though, remember me introducing her to Rob Gretton… which, of course, was far more important an event.

04.11

MEDIUM MEDIUM – Freeze – 7″ b-side – Apt Music – 1979

More ‘indie/new wave’ than the previously playlisted a-side, Them Or Me which rode the funk slant they’re best remembered for from their initial short incarnation.

07.07

LONELADY – Intuition (home studio version) – Stream only – 2022

A wonderful abrasive live version of an early Warp Records single and track from her debut album, Nerve Up. Seek out unique Lonelady content from Julie at Patreon.

10.21

THE SOUL OF 81 WINKLES – Look My Way (Radio Edit) – 10″ – So… Sparkle! – 1998

Where to start? From my time working within the Uni of Westminster’s Commercial Music Dept out in Harrow, London and a label project involving the students. I chose the tune, a cover of Mira Pa Ca by ’70s US Latin rockers, Chango and with one of the course’s heads, Alan Fisch/Fisher (ex Cabaret Voltaire) producing, we handpicked some of the best students. All pre internet, I remember sourcing Spanish and Portuguese peeps at the Uni to try and decipher the lyrics of the original (only partly successful, I think) and I even wrote an extra verse myself. I remember Alan F clocking the recording covering 174 tracks(!) and we ran with the adrenalin/enthusiasm that can overtake bands when playing live gigs – in that the finished track moved tempo and basically sped up… a lot(!) something that was later pointed out with great enthusiasm and admiration by DJ, Andy/Mr Scruff.

For the uninitiated, the band ‘name’ was a sort of nod to the Bedford alternative club started in early 1981 at a club called Winkles, whereby although predominantly the alternative/indie/new wave of the time we did move around genres and should this ‘Look My Way’ project have carried on to other releases we may have moved across a genre or two. Indeed, my initial idea for a follow up (if one had come) was to cover One Fine Day, a single by ’70s Canadian rockers, Lighthouse… and we’d have pulled it off, too.

Originally a 500 run, hand numbered, orange vinyl promo 10″ the reaction to Look My Way was brill. Fuelled massively by Patrick Forge on his Kiss FM radio show, a whole host of other buzz builder etc DJs (see below, including Pete Tong’s Radio One Essential Selection show) followed suit. Thanks to the facilities at the Uni we produced a video (it’s on Youtube), got a couple of A&R along to the filming and ended up performing the track live just the once, a 12 minute version at Patrick Forge’s 333/Off Centre club night’s first anniversary shindig. Oh, and a 12″ pressing followed as an official release.

So, least we forget: Kirsten, Sahara, Adam, Vid, Buster, Dan, Phil, Ed, Calum, Shanks, Wills, John, Ivan, Alan, Colm (RIP) and no doubt others… and from 2020, my Facebook page for a slightly different take and more photos.

Kirsten and Alan

Pass to the recording of the video.

14.00

JOSE FELICIANO – Day Tripper (live) – 7″ b-side – RCA – 1969

Besides coupling with Windmills Of Your Mind on the above mentioned Turkish single – the only known official release of Jose’s Day Tripper on a 7″ – it did feature on a US promo 4-track 7″ that was used to promote the 1969 live at the London Palladium double album, Alive Alive-O, the best known source for Jose’s cover but though a massive Beatles fan he rarely played the song live beyond the release of the album.

In a Rolling Stone interview with Jonathon Colt in Nov ’68 John Lennon was asked if there were any other versions of his songs that he liked and he replied: ‘Jose Feliciano does great things to ‘Help’ and ‘Day Tripper‘. As this was a year before Jose’s London Palladium performance and I’m reasonably sure Jose hadn’t performed Day Tripper on UK or US TV I can only assume Lennon had either caught Jose playing live at one of his low key club nights on his debut UK visit in May ’67 (The Scotch Of St James, a likely contender as it was a Beatles haunt and Macca certainly saw Jose there) or a far bigger concert when Jose began blowing up large in the US in the second half of ’68.

17.46

JOSE FELICIANO – Day Tripper (GOT-TA-SCATTA’s DT Ripper) – Unreleased – 2009’ish

Unreleased for obvious reasons, although when I played a slightly earlier version of our ‘take’ to Jose years ago he loved it and said we ought to release it. And as it happens, I’ll be winging this version to Jose tomorrow, as it marks his 80th birthday!

One half of GOT-TA-SCATTA (Dave, far right), with Jose (second left), here with Cliff Peacock and my daughter, Alice during the recording of Jose’s inclusion on The Flamingos’ Icarus Descending 1998 single.

21.04

ECHO and THE BUNNYMEN – Stars Are Stars – Crocodiles, LP – Korova – 1980

Hell, they were a class act.

23.45

D.A.F. – Kebaubtraume – 7″ – Mute – 1980

Easy to see why they passed through on Daniel Miller’s label.

27.14

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Landslide – Red Mecca, LP – Rough Trade – 1981

The one minute plus video of CV2025 (Mal, Chris Watson, Eric Random and Benge) rehearsing Landslide in preparation for their upcoming UK dates will have driven even greater interest in their return, one though that, as Mal freely admits, wouldn’t have happened had Richard Kirk not passed away in 2021. At that point Richard was the only member of Cabaret Voltaire and refrained from playing any old material in live performances… and maybe as important, Richard and Mal sadly weren’t exactly on speaking terms. With Richard’s passing and the void it left, coupled with a fiftieth anniversary looming since the first CV gig, it’s maybe understandable that Mal and Chris, as the other two original members, might want to celebrate… and I and whole bunch of others will be doing just that with them. RIP, Richard.

29.15

DEVO – Smart Patrol/Mr DNA – Duty Now For The Future, LP – Virgin – 1979

Were they not men? They are Devo!

34.47

RINGDOWN – Crazy – Lady On The Bike, LP – Nonesuch – 2025

Willie Nelson’s song taken in a Patsy Cline-type of way.

36.57

SPOKANKI – Ceann Dubh Dilis (My Sweet, Dark-Haired Love) – Stream only? – 2019’ish

‘Ever heard traditional Irish music like this? Composed by Michael McGlynn and performed by Spokanki — a magical a cappella group of 8 sisters blending haunting harmonies with heart. Turn the volume up and tag someone who needs to hear this! ’ – Irish Daily

‘… a “multi-genre musical, theatrical a cappella group” (their words, and honestly? accurate).
Their sound is so unique, haunting and warm at the same time — I have sooo many questions According to legend (aka their website), they’re 8 sisters from the mystical land of SpokanLand, traveling the world to share the music of all peoples and becoming friends with the entire human world…‘ – dailychoirs

Out of Russia a “multi-genre musical theatrical a cappella group” According to their website, they are eight* sisters from the mystical (and fictional) town of SpokanLand.

37.55

COCTEAU TWINS – Dear Heart – BBC Sessions, 2CD – Bella Union – 1999

This track has become so ingrained in my psyche through the years that I was convinced there was a studio version… which there isn’t. Maybe hearing this version (from the second of three sessions the band did for Peel) and from numerous live tapes from ’83-’84 – including my own promotion at Bedford Boys Club in November ’84 – I’d daftly appropriated it having been on vinyl.

Above: Robin and Liz’s responses to the questionnaire when I interviewed them at their then Muswell Hill flat. I gave the same to other bands I interviewed for my one-off 1984 fanzine, Rorschach Testing… and very coincidentally, there’s a track Robin and Liz mention here that will crop up later. They also similarly embellished my copy of the Head Over Heels album in the same fashion but somewhere along the years that beauty mysteriously disappeared.

41.23

TONY CHRISTIE – Nobody In The World – 7″ – Acid Jazz – 2010

A long way from either Amarillo or Avenues and Alleyways but in regularly releasing albums ever since his his ’70s chart era it’s been Eddie Piller’s ‘mod’ sensibilities at Acid Jazz that’s gotten the most out of the man.

44.21

THE ELGINS – Put Yourself In My Place – 7″ b-side – V.I.P. – 1965

But so good it then gravitated to parent label, Tamla Motown and a UK A-side four years later.

46.41

THE PARTING GIFTS – (Walkin’ Thru The) Sleepy City – split 7″ – Norton Records – 2010

In between main girl, Lindsay Hames’ other projects, The Parting Gifts produced one album and this split 7″ where they possibly sounded more authentic to the song’s mid ’60s era than its writers, the Rolling Stones did with the tune, and should the latter have released the song as a US 7″ at the time (which they didn’t), The PGs mimicking the label design it would have had was a nice extra touch. The Mighty Avengers did give the song a shot back in the day but it didn’t chart and it was left hidden until the Stones resurrected it for their mid ’70s compilation, Metamorphosis.

48.29

PAGES – Heartaches & Pain – 7″ – Sunstruck – 1979

Their only ever release and to my ears, sounding older than its 1979 vintage. Potentially a $1500 asking price if you find an original… and I won’t.

50.37

REUBEN BELL with THE CASANOVAS – It’s Not That Easy – 7″ – Murco – 1967

I’d have put money on this being a female vocalist, and that money wouldn’t go far in trying to buy an original copy of the 7″. It’s in the hundreds.

52.58

PAUL WELLER – Cold Moments – 22 Dreams, 2LP – Island – 2008

About as trusted an artist as there can be when it comes to a new release, I’m reasonably sure there isn’t a Weller solo album I couldn’t find a track to want to spin on 41 Rooms.

57.39

GOT-TA-SCATTA – Safe Train – Unreleased – 2012’ish

An idea that first learned to walk a few years earlier and if you know your Sergio Mendes vocalists, one that might have given us problems if we’d had wanted to release it officially. I think the starting point for the track was at one time far moodier but then Dave and I got into a brighter take. His partner, Holly guested an early ‘counter’ vocal… that we then slowed to a crawl and another fave sample source of ours cropped up for the outro. Also, looking at the myriad of versions we had, one was co-titled ‘Cowdenbeath’ for a reason neither of us can remember… but I’ll guarantee we were both laughing to ourselves when it happened.

The GOT-TA-SCATTA lads windswept on a mid ’80s ferry. You’re welcome.

01.02.09

JOHN FOXX – Touch and Go – Metamatic, LP – Virgin / Metal Beat – 1980

A track that I played a lot at our early ’80s club nights so it should have been somewhere in the 1hr Winkles specials that cropped up in many early 41 Rooms shows, and at the end of the week following this show going live I’ll be catching a John Foxx Q&A and signing session at London’s Rough Trade East, hosted by Cabaret Voltaire’s Mal, so there might be a photo to add here at some point.

01.07.44

FACTORY FLOOR – Tell Me – 12″ – Phantasy Sound – 2025

A cracking sound that would have been sooooo on my Winkles turntables in the early ’80s, if it had been released then. Of course the electronic nerds will tell me that some of the sounds weren’t around then but ya get me drift.

01.11.45

UNDERGROUND HOP – Make It Without You (Rawmix) * – 12″ – Bass Boy – 1992

Coincidentally, the second track on this show to run the lyric ‘I can’t make it without You’ and here it’s a hefty 41 Rooms re edit on some minimalist beats I would have been blasting loud in late night headphones back when the likes of Kiss FM’s Sarah HB or Steve Jackson was spinning the track over the airwaves. Sampling a line from the Robert Owens-led Jus’ Friends, Massive B label 12″, As One (out the same year and he’s not credited on either) I’d have followed here with the latter if I hadn’t thought I’d already playlisted it. I hadn’t… so, another time.

01.14.07

STEVIE R & CERPINTXT – Red Lemon (Ed Davenport Edition) – Madilo 12″ – Chapter 24 – 2018

Building and dropping in all the right places. Storming.

01.21.24

TRAXMAN – See Things My Way – Teklife Vol. 3: The Architek, download only – 2013

Although I knew of the Traxman name I hadn’t heard any of his stuff until recently but I recognised the Carpenters straight off here on what is a vocal sample as brutal as the track’s breaks and arrangements are crude and simple… but it works!

For my own divilment , and not a million miles away from what’s going on here, an idea I had back in 2010 involved totally mangling a Joe Cocker tune and if I or we (GOT-TA-SCATTA) ever fine tune it you might hear ‘Cockered Up’ on 41 Rooms.

01.24.02

TRAXMAN – I Need Some Money – Da Mind Of Traxman, 2LP – Planet Mu – 2012

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an old Traxman DJ mix somewhere where he’s mixing in and out of this and the above See Things My Way tune.

01.27.02

ACTION & TENSION & SPACE – Skåredalen Funhouse – Skåredalen Funhouse, LP – Kapitän Platte – 2018

A Norwegian trio starting as ‘low-fi post-rock, moving to free rock jams‘ it says somewhere. ‘Water’ – the wet stuff – is what springs to my mind here for me. No idea why.

01.30.04

JOHN FOXX & LOUIS GORDON – Smoke – Crash And Burn, LP – Metamatic – 2003

The fourth returnee this show, Foxx moves from the earlier Touch and Go to Crash And Burn… sort of. Smoke has real ‘character’.

01.36.01

WILLIAM DEVAUGHN – Be Thankful For What You Got * – Be Thankful For What You Got, LP – Chelsea Records – 1974

I’d be stunned if this wasn’t on the jukebox in Bedford’s Pilgrims Inn in my earliest pub drinking days and/or being spun in the Laird of the Anglers Inn across the road on Saturday lunchtimes.

01.41.01

SOUL II SOUL – Keep On Movin’ – Club Classics Vol. One, LP – 10 Records – 1989

On the album but not the same as the 12″ Club Mix. If I had a Top Ten list of gigs I wish I’d caught in my old home town, Bedford this crew would be right up there. Caron Wheeler and Jazzie B on the stage of the Corn Exchange…

01.46.41

MARVIN GAYE – Where Are We Going? (Alternate Mix) – split 7″ – Motown – 2016

Jazzie B! See Marv here. He was happy keeping the ‘g’ in. Originally recorded for Gaye’s shelved 1972 album You’re The Man the track subsequently through the years saw the light through various compilations and deluxe editions (e.g. 2001’s Let’s Get It On Deluxe Edition but being a singles fan I’m giving the nod to this 7″ even though it’s unlikely I’ll ever own a copy.

01.50.18

TODD RUNDGREN – Fidelity – Nearly Human, LP – Warner Brothers – 1989

Todd gets soulful and although a lot of differing traffic in between, maybe not a huge leap from his late ’60s Nazz and Hello It’s Me days.

01.54.25

DONNA SUMMER – State Of Independence – 12″ – Warner Brothers – 1982

From the ’12” for the price of a 7″ single’ pushing-for-the-charts days and I most probably paid best mate, Dob/Dave Lewis the £1.35 the cover states, as he was managing the Bedford WH Smiths’ record department at the time.

Yet another track that I remember blasting loud and on repeat whilst walking my dog, Flanagan around a pitch black Bedford Park after DJ’ing at Winkles back in the day. Maybe not the smartest move at 2am but I was most probably slightly drunk. Re Donna, she sounds way more passionate about the lyrics than the writers Yes’ Jon Anderson and Vangelis managed. They sound like they just provided a guide vocal to sell the song on. And I’ll refer here again to Bob Conti, someone I know from his three decades playing live with Jose Feliciano. He was also Donna’s percussionist and co-writer of very long standing and you’ll find a fab Daieda Magazine article/interview with Bob on his website, where he spoke beautifully of his time with the lady.

Show 144 hopefully surfaces Oct 5.

Dec x

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This playlist is 76% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

RCA Victor, 1950s. ‘No frills’ would be an understatement. Did the job though, no doubt.

Lyric of Playlist 142

‘Trigger happy policing. Panic is spreading. God knows where we’re heading… ‘ Marv, via The Flams.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Paradise – Brotherhood, LP – Factory – 1986

The album’s lead track. Played live late ’80s through the ’90s and though I would get the very slightest wiff of c&w with the occasional ‘mid period’ New Order song it’s unlikely Barney’s ‘Jolene’ is the same as Dolly Parton’s.

04.16

ASHNYMPH – Saltspreader – Download only – 2025

A glorious, chugging, fuzzy racket from South London that band member, Jonny sees as ‘service station dance music.’ It’s also a rare example of a(nother) vocal rising from the bottom of a big barrel… that sounds OK!

07.43

CHAKK – No. 3 SOUND (Peel session) – stream only – 1984

‘Industrial funk’ back then and just as much so now. At the time of recording for their one and only John Peel session this track sounded like a sketch of an idea with vocalist, Jake Harries slightly ad-libbing/winging it. So new maybe, it had no title… other than it was the third track recorded for the session. Tough, whatever and hello to anyone else who saw them at London’s Portobello Rd Electric Cinema or supporting The Smiths at Warwick Uni, both in early ’84 I think.

11.04

ZAINICHI FUNK – Bakudan Kowai – 爆弾こわい, CD only – P-Vine Records – 2011

Bonkers Japanese homage to James Brown, with the vocalist throwing in the slightest of Godfather of Funk moves in the video. They do it their own way over there and on the evidence of this alone it’s hard to know whether it’s a deep love of funk, a total spoof or somewhere in between.

15.04

NEW STREET ADVENTURE – Hangin’ On / Hangin’ Up – 7″ – Unmasked Recordings – 2012

Having had a stint as a solo artist Nick Corbin is currently back in 2025 action within his full band moniker. Here though it’s their mod-tastic debut single from back in the day. Sharp, especially with the flip side making it to the mega 7″ Heaven show 100.

17.41

THE STYLE COUNCIL – Money-Go-Round (Part One) – 7″ – Polydor – 1983

Paul Weller’s soul collective knocked out a cracking version of this live on UK TV back in the day (possibly not The Tube?) and though this is a slight cheat on the ‘play only once on 41 Rooms’ rule I set myself (the 12″ was spun about a hundred shows ago) it’s a set of lyrics as on point today as it was those forty plus years ago.

21.19

BOBBY BYRD – I Know You Got Soul (Original Full Album Version) – 12″ – S12 – 2001

If I’m honest, I wasn’t aware of Byrd’s original – either this album version or the original three minutes only 1971, King label 7″ – until after buying Eric B. & Rakim’s slightly slower 1988 cover but it still feels like I heard it a few years before the full version got released on this 12″.

25.46

TROUBLE FUNK – Trouble Funk Express – 12″ – D.E.T.T. Records – 1982

The Washington D.C. Go-Go train chugging along the tracks slightly slower than its Dusseldorf-based inspiration. Suggesting (as it appears to do) that it’s actually a Trouble Funk written track is something Kraftwerk may have had something to say about.

31.54

GURU (feat D. C. LEE) – No Time To Play – 12″ – Cooltempo – 1993

‘Another jem from the ‘Jazzamatazz’ set, this crispy two-stepper boasting a C.J. MacKintosh remix of a chirpy rap tune featuring infectious backgrounds from D C Lee and jazzy guitar licks from Ronnie Jordan. Elsewhere in the proceedings string stabs, a warm bass line and live drum feel add to the joyous nature of the track, DC Lee’s chorus backgrounds definitely being the particularly effective riff that lodges in your grey matter‘. – Ralph Tee, Record Mirror (Music Week), 16.10.93

‘CJ MacKintosh remixed jauntily jiggling 100bpm groove with Guru muttering through D.C. Lee’s mantra-like refrain and Ronny Jordan’s jazz guitar… ‘ – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 6.11.93

Yep, featuring in no small measure, D. C. Lee and with a big nod to the sounds bubbling underneath, yet another rap that passes me by as my ears wait to pick up on the chorus.

36.36

SOUL II SOUL – Just Right (Video version) – Stream only? – 1992

Not the first version of the song to grace 41 Rooms and it might not be the last, so props to all involved, most notably guest vocalist here, Rick Clarke and his melodies, and I’m wondering if it was nailed on that Jazzie B’s rap had to stay in, no matter who was remixing.

40.14

DONOR LENS – Inside Outside – As Warm As Summer, cassette only – My Pet Flamingo – 2025

Amazing how the kids have taken to a decades old format. The album is also available digitally but as of right now the now sold out cassette version is the only hard copy format out there. Re their ‘Vaporwave’-tagged sound? See their entry on the last show.

43.12

SCALER (feat AKIKO HARUNA) – Salt – Endlessly, LP – Black Acre – 2025

Upcoming in September and we’re in slow beats terrain that you may not be surprised to hear, emanates from Bristol, UK.

‘Scaler (Alex Hill, Isaac Jones, James Rushforth and Nick Berthoud, alongside visual artist Jason Baker) are the electrifying Bristol-based band hailed as the city’s “next national breakthrough” thanks to their pulverising live show and meticulous, mind-warping sound. Now they’re back with ‘Endlessly’, a sublime and stylistically expansive new album. 10 potent tracks written and recorded more collaboratively than ever before, as SCALER explore what it means to make music with no ceiling… ‘. – Spindizzy Records

46.32

LEON VYNEHALL (feat POISON ANNA) – Mirror’s Edge – Download only – 2025

Dub… step…

50.28

SANDOZ – Inner Rhythms – Intensely Radioactive, 2LP – Touch – 1994

The late Richard H. Kirk sounding cinematic.

59.34

JOI CARDWELL – What It Feels Like (Quentin Harris Club Mix) * – 12″ – BPM King Street Sounds – 2006

Not an R&B-style track then taken on a remix journey but co-written with and produced by Quentin Harris.

01.05.40

TASHAN – Love Is Forever (Shadow Zone Vocal Dub) – 12″ – Columbia – 1993

‘Now here on import with mixes to suit every persuasion. The three A-side soul-cum-swing versions are certainly reflections of the bum and easily the highlight here, sophistication and subtle urban flavours lending to its potential at an adult rather than street level. The three B-side mixes house it up‘. – Ralph Tee, Record Mirror (Music Week), 4.12.93

‘Soulfully moaning guy’s superb wriggly cantering 123.8bpm David Shaw, lush jiggly swaying 109.8bpm Radio, chunkier rolling 110.2bpm Joe ‘The Butcher’ Mixes‘. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 4.12.93

I say ‘weirdly tagged’ on the show coz this ‘Vocal Dub’ sounds like a full vocal to me. Back listening to this at the time on KISS FM (London style) it was the clattering snares that caught my ear first.

01.09.51

BULLION – Long Promised – Young Heartache, 12″ EP – One-Handed Music – 2009

Depending on how you’re wired, this juttery approach may not be to everyone’s liking.

01.12.31

EYELESS IN GAZA – John Of Patmos – Photographs As Memories, LP – Cherry Red – 1981

Martyn Bates sounding as like some distant folk style got hijacked by punk with bare bones electronica to hand.

01.16.41

NORRIS MAN – Home And Away * – 7″ – Vertex Productions – 2005

I can’t stand the intro to this, so it got binned for the show. Apologies to Norris Man but after that it sounds great.

01.20.06

MORGAN HERITAGE – Crying Out – 7″ – Firehouse Crew – 1998

Checking out Discogs, you never had long to wait for the next Morgan Heritage single, as there are 230 listed on there – on nearly as many different labels!

01.24.00

COURTNEY BUCHANAN – Heaven – 12″ – Conscious – 1994

Actually this was first out on MCA but then shifted to the above short lived label where gems shone in their few releases.

01.27.49

THE FLAMINGOS – Inner City Blues (Extended Blue) – 12″ b-side – Robs Records – 1994

Maybe not for the soul purists and I can’t remember how we (Cliff, Dave and to a lesser extent myself) decided on having a stab at Marvin Gaye’s catalogue. All of us were fans… and that maybe included Rob(s Records) Gretton, too and it’s another set of lyrics that stands the test of time.

01.32.48

ANGÉLIQUE KIDJO – Agolo – 12″ – Mango – 1994

By total coincidence, the third tune in a row from 1994 but in no way accounts for why this follows The Flamingos so well.

01.37.05

DONOVAN – There Is A Mountain – 7″ – Pye – 1967

A Buddhist saying turned into a cheery poptastic tune and one of a lot of ’60s 7″ singles I as a teenager was belatedly catching up on five to ten years after their release. These days, Donovan sort of lives up the road from me (well, twenty miles of rural Ireland) and the chances are that from home he can actually see a mountain! Mount Leinster, in fact.

01.39.35

GNAG OF FOUR – Damaged Goods – 7″ – Fast Product – 1978

From Donovan to Damaged Goods… a link not often made over the ether. One for Damaged Goods label boss and mate, Ian Ballard (yes, the label was named after Gof4 and the song).

01.43.00

NASMAK – Nothing But The Lyrics – 4our Clicks, LP – Plurex- 1982

I distinctly remember that any Nasmak track I played in our early ’80s Winkles (Bedford) club nights sounded particularly strong ‘sound system’… though I didn’t play this one… as I didn’t have the album.

01.45.50

JOY DIVISION – Transmission – The Peel Sessions, 12″ EP – Strange Fruit – 1986

A shade slower than the Strawberry Studios version but the blending of two greats as the band rolled in here for the first of their two 1979 sessions for Peel. Eventually released with a bunch of other artists’ visits to the Beeb’s Maida Vale studios in Strange Fruit’s first year, this release actually followed the New Order one in the sequencing.

01.49.52

NUYORICAN SOUL – I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun – Nuyorican Soul, 2LP – Talkin’ Loud / Giant Step – 1997

Written in 1971 by Rotary Connection’s Charles Stepney and Richard Rudolph, and featuring Minnie Riperton (the latter’s then husband) but more than confidently taken on here by Jocelyn Brown and Nuyorican Soul’s helmsmen, Louie Vega and Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzalez. Epic in both camps.

01.54.46

MUCHO MACHO (feat JON LUCIEN) – Easy Living (41 Rooms Radio Edit Extend) * – Nuyorican Soul, 6×12″ box set – Talkin’ Loud / Giant Step – 1986

My ‘Extend’? Somewhere between the only-available-on-CD Radio Mix and the 12″ Full Length Version take… which dawdles a bit too much. Whichever, as minimal as they are, it’s Lucien’s silky tones that are the key within this slinking groove.

Show 143 should be here Sept 7.

Dec x

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This playlist is 52% vinyl friendly. Worst ever! Apologies to all vinyl enthusiasts.

The Miniot Wheel is as minimalist a stab at the record turntable as can be. ‘A modified Audio-Technica cartridge plays the record from underneath, with the spindle in the centre used to turn it on and off, skip tracks and adjust the volume if you have a pair of headphones plugged in‘. In action whilst laying flat or standing upright the original €650 model (above) has been superceded by subsequent Wheel 2, 3 and Black Wheel editions, the latter costing €4000.

Temporary Glitch! ENCORE!

A slightly different problem to the last problem means that my vocal input still isn’t quite what it should/could be. Here’s hoping, next time I’ve got it sorted.

Lyric of Playlist 141

In Pete J, maybe the delicate sounding souls have it.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Ruined In A Day (MK Extended Remix) – Stream only – ????

Nothing to do with the more famous ‘MK’ remixer, Marc Kinchen but someone chancing his arm on Youtube with some sympathetic (to New Order’s music) unofficial reworking. It helps that for me it’s a top class mid period (sort of) NO track to start with.

06.44

DERADOORIAN – Digital Gravestone – Ready For Heaven, LP – Fire – 2025

Multi instrumentalist out of California here with the lead track from her fourth album.

11.10

CLOCK DVA – Piano Pain – Thirst, LP – Fetish – 1981

At the time this album came out I wasn’t aware just how much material they’d released to that point and with the help of better production Adi Newton’s vocals maybe took until Thirst to sound as ‘threatening’ as they did.

13.51

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Diffusion – Gasoline In Your Eye, VHS video – Virgin – 1985

Quite possibly a track never played live. Not at any of the seventeen or so gigs I saw them at, anyway.

21.35

CHAKK – Sedative Ends (Peel session: 7.10.84) – Unreleased – 1984

For a couple of years around their tour de force, one and only session for Peely they were majestic.

25.31

THE BLOOD BROTHERS – Transfusion – 12″ – Big World Records – 1990

The alter ego of the London downtempo, beats duo, Pressure Drop and seems like it could have sat next to their PD Back2Back 12″ release in the same year without a name change. I have three copies of this 12″, which will have been down to two of them languishing in the mid ’90s in a 10p section of Notting Hill’s Vinyl & Record store emporium… and me wanting to save them from the landfill they could easily have ended up in.

30.37

INCOGNITO – Castles In The Air (Vikter Duplaix Afrotech Remix) – Life Stranger Than Fiction, 2×12″ – Talkin’ Loud – 2001

A thumping remix that way outweighs the original for me.

35.59

THE GREENHORNES (feat HOLLY GOLIGHTLY) – Season’s End (Max Josef Edit) – Tonic Edits Vol. 2, 12″ – Toytonics – 2014

Featuring Holly Golightly, The Greenhornes’ There Is An End, from their 2001 Dual Mono album, on Telstar, then remixed and namechecked on Soundcloud as ‘Holly Golightly – There’s An End (Max Josef Edit), from a Tonic Edits Vol 2 vinyl EP’… where on, it’s actually titled Season’s End. Phew!

39.25

CALIBRE (feat CIMONE) – Time To Breathe – Feeling Normal, 4 x 12″ LP – Signature – 2012

D&b heaven. Subtle and classy.

44.21

TRICKY (feat MARTINA TOPLEY-BIRD) – Black Steel (Sessions at West 54th, 1997) – 1997

From the first season of a multi genre TV show, this live performance lets loose the ‘unease’ of the song better than the album take.

47.52

2PAC (feat DR. DRE & ROGER TRAUTMAN) – California Love – 12″ – Death Row – 1995

As it might have suited me better, there’s a cool instrumental take to be had but it’s none of the two official ones out and about. An idea… I’m thinkin’.

52.29

BIG BLOOD – When I Was Young – Operate Spaceship Earth Properly, LP – Feeding Tube Records – 2018

They can be relentless in a tune the way I maybe wouldn’t take to with most others. Colleen Kinsella’s vocals are a big part of that.

59.03

EMILIO PIANO (feat LUCIE) – Maison – Download only – 2025

Early teen’er (I’m guessing) with seemingly her first song… and search out a couple of live ‘shopping mall/airport/train station-just passing by’ versions that aren’t maybe as ‘chance situation’ as they appear. Either way, a beaut of a collaboration.

Video: Director/Camera/Editor: Marcel Stefanowski

01.01.52

THE MEMORY BAND with GRANTBY – The Ballad Of Imber Down – Further Navigations 10″ EP – Static Caravan – 2014

Sounding like incidental music to a ’70s-’80s James Herriot-sourced TV drama, it’s Folk… of the rural kind… what with ‘The Ballad of… ‘, Imber’s lost village Salisbury Plain setting… and rabbits on the menu… sorry, big in the ‘lyrics’, and in salute of the 10″, it was 500 copies via Record Store Day 2014.

01.07.26

THE SUNDAYS – Through The Dark – Cry, cassette single, extra track – Parlophone – 1997

Maybe a 41 Rooms first? A track only available on a cassette version, this of the band’s 1997 UK single, Cry and Japanese CD versions of the Static & Silence album the same year.

01.11.41

MANU DELAGO (feat PETE JOSEF) – A Step – Metromonk, CD only – Tru Thoughts – 2017

Josef appearing at 41 Rooms on others peeps’ tracks as much as on his own.

01.16.15

JON LUCIEN – Creole Lady – By Request, CD only – Shanachie – 1999

Better than the 1975 version original, I reckon.

01.19.58

JETHRO TULL – Living In The Past – 7″ – Island – 1969

Classic folk rock… not ‘arf.

01.23.03

MODERN NATURE – Pharaoh – The Heat Warps, LP – Bella Union – 2025

‘A track influenced by Andrew Weatherall who, before he passed away in 2020, played Modern Nature on his NTS radio show and inspired them with his motto “Fail we may, sail we must”.

Commenting on the track, Jack Cooper says: “It’s a song about the men we’re conditioned to respect and follow and it’s a song about the people who inspire us to think differently. It’s as much about Pharaoh Sanders as it is about the kings and politicians we’re meant to believe in. ‘Pharaoh’ makes the case for finding a personal philosophy and trying to live a life that might inspire others or at the very least not hurt them.” ‘ – wildfiremusic.net

01.27.48

DANA GAVANSKI – The Wind (Blew You Away) – Spring Demos, Cassette only – Fox Food Records – 2017

‘Alternative, Experimental, folk‘ says Bandcamp, for songs that got a cassette release in the UK and Japan in 2017 and 2018, respectively before a UK CD issue the next year. The Wind? It’s wonderful.

01.32.35

DONOR LENS – Open Your Eyes – As Warm As Summer, cassette only – My Pet Flamingo – 2025

Slow beats doing it! The duo of Thom (Love in Dust, Wichita LimeWire) and Jay (Kid Neon, Timeshare 94) making ‘both sample-free and sampled music across a variety of vaporwave and vw-adjacent styles‘.

‘Vaporwave is an electronic music microgenre and aesthetic that emerged in the early 2010s, characterized by its nostalgic and surreal atmosphere, often drawing from 1980s and 1990s corporate muzak, smooth jazz, and early internet culture. It frequently utilizes slowed-down samples, chopped and screwed techniques, and a visual style that incorporates glitch art, retrofuturism, and corporate imagery‘. – AI Overview

Vaporwave… ‘slowed down samples‘. In the vocal department it’s been a favourite trick in the Got-Ta-Scatta camp for as long, and there are two complete tracks (both singles) by noted artists (one in the ’80s, the other a bit later) that have been in the 41 Rooms possibles bag for the whole nine years waiting for me to be brave enough to spin at the wrong speed… coz they sound absolutely fine. Also, any John PeeI fan will know that he occasionally played a record at the wrong speed (he definitely did with Click Click) and it must have sounded ‘right’ to him for a certain amount of time. I think even I might have consciously done the same once or twice at Winkles back in the day. It might have involved lots of alcohol but Portion Control springs to mind. Could be wrong there.

01.36.04

ACOLYTE – The Blue Dark – Download only – 2025

‘An Edinburgh four piece comprising of lead-vocalist and poet Iona Lee alongside Lost Map regular Gloria Black (of Maranta) on synth and vocals, producer/multi-instrumentalist Ruairidh Morrison, and percussionist Daniel Hill. A cinematic dreamscape formed of shimmering synths and ominously unfolding rhythms – The Blue Dark is the perfect introduction to Acolyte’s singular sound‘. – Lost Map’ Facebook page

The Isle of Eigg ref I mention on the show is for the Lost Map label. Their PostMap Club releases involve ‘printed postcards from the Lost Map collective, that come with download codes, containing exclusive tracks‘ – The Blue Dark being PostMap Club 217

01.40.06

RIVAL CONSOLES – Theme – MindsEye, 12″ EP – Erased Tapes Records – 2025

A feel of a plodding, stuttering and strained walk… encased in the most minimalist (visually) record sleeve ever to be seen on 41 Rooms.

01.44.38

MASSEY & SUPERNATURE – Walk…Now Walk – Download only – 2025

On to a more purposeful, striding and strutting Mancunian walk, maybe.

01.51.45

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Crackdown (12″ version) – 12″ – Virgin/Some Bizarre – 1983

A band encore within the same 41 Rooms show is a rarity but as I’ve only just realised it’s the first sighting of any version of Crackdown sighting on 41 Rooms (I can only apologise), it had to happen.

Show 142 should be here Aug 3.

Dec x

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This playlist is 66% vinyl friendly. Very poor.

‘Reimagining the classic portable turntable and designed for DJs, vinyl enthusiasts, and creative performers in 2025, the Korg Handytraxx combines portability with cutting-edge features, including unique Korg digital effects, a built-in audio looper, and with a high-quality fader included‘, says the promo blurb. Another dealer added, ‘Optimised for scratching and portablism performances.’ £350 or thereabouts and if you’re questioning the word ‘portablism’ bit, it’s ‘the practice of DJing with easily transportable gear‘.

Temporary Glitch!!!

A late on problem with the mic means I’m not sounding quite the way I should on this show. Normal service will be resumed next show, hopefully.

Lyric of Playlist 140

Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip. In… yer… face!!!

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Ecstasy – Power, Corruption and Lies, LP – Factory – 1983

Certainly never performed live in my time of hectic NO gigging but maybe a track that would have suited as a backdrop to some cheery ‘transition’ or incidental section of a film, etc.

04.50

JOHN FOXX with LOUIS GORDON – Walk This Away – Impossible, CD only – Metamatic – 2008

Reminds me of… nope, can’t think. Kraftwerk?

10.08

CAN – Vitamin C – 7″ – United Artists – 1972

Not the format these German electronic heads are maybe most remembered (and revered?) for … but Vitamin C is from a whole bunch of Can singles that, with the wind blowing in their direction, suggested they’d have happily ‘infiltrated’ a pop chart or two, given the airplay/chance.

13.09

DERADOORIAN – No No Yes Yes – Ready For Heaven, LP – Fire – 2025

Out of Los Angeles, it sounds like multi-instrumentalist, Angel Deradoorian has travelled a few journeys and ‘spaces’ in the fifteen years or so she’s been releasing music.

17.43

U2 – Salomé (Zooromancer Remix) – 12″, promo only – Island – 1992

Supposedly released to promote the single, Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses (though said track is nowhere here to be seen or heard) I remember this deep and eerie 1000 copies only promo 12″ being a major WTF! moment across the dance radio shows I was listening to at the time, and what with U2 being worldwide rock gods and (Pete) Heller & (Terry) Farley serious go to’s for a house/dance remix, I suspect the fee the latter got, paid the bills for a month or ten.

25.27

THE ITCH – The Influencer / Co-Conspirator – Download only – Oh You Records / Fiction Records – 2025

Sounding like a revved, electro funkin’ Human League, duo Simon Tyrie and Georgia Hardy with a ‘twofer’ easily heard/mixed maybe as a single track!

32.21

DAN LE SAC Vs SCROOBIUS PIP – Thou Shalt Always Kill – 7″ – Lex Records – 2007

Even though they’d said all they needed to with 1min 50 of the track still to run this wonderful rant was blaring everywhere at the time, such was the aural impact of its UK culture-centric rap diatribe and though a healthy 7″ run of 1000, it’s still hugely collectable, and should you feel the need for a locked groove, side A has one.

37.21

AVALON EMERSON – On It Goes * – Download only – Another Dove – 2025

More solo girls out of the US, with Avalon having skirted San Francisco, Berlin and New York. Snappy and punchy samples cut here in a style reminiscent of a certain period of Akufen.

42.36

MYLES KAYNE – Visions of Love (Scat’s The Way To Do It Mix) – 12″ – Tomahawk – 1993

As with far too much house through the years, nothing sensational here but the summery scatting and the soaring vocals grabbing the ears back then lifted the spirits!

47.06

JOSE FELICIANO – The Sad Gypsy – Souled, LP – RCA – 1968

Written by Carole King’s oft writing partner, Gerry Goffin, along with Barry Mann, who with his wife, Cynthia Weil wrote the Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling. Recorded on the same day as Jose’s cover of Cream’s Sunshine Of Your Love (initially mooted as a follow up to Light My Fire… and then never released), The Sad Gypsy appears never to have been covered by anyone else. Never even on a 7″ b-side but on the Souled album that jiggles with Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On as my all time fave ‘long player’, I’ve adored this song since I was a kid and fifty five years down the line because it’s Jose it’ll always be ‘right up there.’

Souled 1pg ad — Billboard, Nov 30, ’68.

50.44

HELICON – Château H (D.ross Remix) – Download only – 2025

Warning! Do NOT approach the original of Château H expecting some semblance of recognition. You will be disappointed.

55.56

JALEN NGONDA – Just As Long As We’re Together – Download only – 2025

Back with his ’60s soaked soul and likely previewing a second album for Daptone Records.

58.45

BERES HAMMOND – Do This World A Favour (Album Version) * – 7″ b-side – 17 North Parade – 2010

Maybe best known as a Lovers Rock/roots reggae artist, this tune was originally to be found on his 1979 album, Just A Man but we’ll go with the new lease of life it got via a 7″ in 2010, cut at 33rpm to give the album version some breathing space. For the show I edited out some of the doodling keys bridge but to make the 7″ cut cooler I’d have taken the lot out… and called it an ‘Album Version Edit’. No problem for the soul fraternity, though. As rare as hens’ teeth it’s likely to be over £100 as and when a copy next turns up.

01.03.54

MELBA MOORE – Do You Really Want My Love (Club Version) * – 12″ – Capitol – 1990

Funky, spacey and moody sounds.

01.09.31

THOMAS LEER – Saving Grace – 12″ – Emotional Rescue – 2019

In reality, the melodies and arrangement of his lush 1982 debut single, All About You, minus the/any vocals.

01.14.40

BLAINE L. REININGER – Playin’ Your Game – 12″ – Les Disques Du Crépescule – 1983

Not unlike Thomas Leer in the lush vocals department.

01.18.46

RINGDOWN – Run (part) * – Lady On The Bike, LP – Nonesuch – 2025

‘Ringdown’s music is like calling your first love on a rotary telephone, percussively tearing out the hammers from a 1924 vintage upright, and flinging each of them into space while you wait for every heartache you’ve ever felt to quietly return‘. – Bandcamp

I could easily die of old age before I decipher the above but Portland, Oregon duo, Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee are concocting some interesting music, and though I truncated Run very heavily here they’ll be back later.

01.20.10

THOSE DANCING DAYS – Home Sweet Home – In Our Space Hero Suits, LP – Wichita – 2008

As frantic as they always seemed to be, and a very slightly different (in the vocals dept?) version to the one on the flip of the Run Run 7″.

01.22.49

PENETRATION – V.I.P. – 7″ b-side – Virgin – 1978

Pauline Murray’s vocals!

01.25.21

SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES – Love In A Void – 7″ b-side – Polydor – 1979

The high priestess of punk? Maybe.

01.27.51

THE COURETTES – Here I Come – The Soul Of… The Fabulous Courettes, LP – Damaged Goods – 2024

White, clear or orange and ‘getcha, getcha, getcha, someday…‘ as opposed to Blondie’s ‘getcha, getcha, getcha, one way or another…‘ I saw them recently at a maybe sold out Set Theatre in Kilkenny (Ireland to those further afield) and they rocked.

And for a Bedford connection. Damaged Goods boss, Ian and his label charges outside The Bear during the second of their three (I think) gigs to date at Esquires. The pub has sort of been Outsiders Central for a whole bunch of alternatives through the decades and was certainly a home from home for me in the late ’70s through all the ’80s.

Photo credit: Alison Wonderland

01.30.24

THE YARDBIRDS – Heart Full Of Soul – 7″ – Columbia – 1965

For me, not many better than this lot from the ’60s. Looking back from nearly sixty years, with Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page in their ranks at various points, their singles feel just a shade too… ‘cerebral’ and ‘arty’? to have worried the charts but five did make the Top 40 and this one went to No. 2!

01.32.48

? – ‘Little Miss Nancy’ – one-sided 8″ US acetate – Unreleased – Late 1960s

I’ve no idea who this is… and if I bid on what was an auction item I sadly didn’t win it. AI Overview reckons ‘Little Miss Nancy can refer to a few things: a vintage doll, a character from a children’s television show, or a slag term for an effeminate person. It could also be a specific title for a Nancy Ann doll from the Storybook collection, like Little Miss Sweet Miss #110.’ Whatever, its late ’60s feel hints it could/should have soundtracked some psychedelic visuals/imagery.

01.36.10

YEASAYER – Final Path (unknown version) – ? – 2008-2010?

I say ‘unknown’ but more the fact I can’t place it. It’s certainly not the version that backed the band’s second single, Wait For The Summer and updating on/repeating from the band’s only other 41 Rooms playlisting to date, I still can’t find a Yeasayer gig at the (Heavenly) Social in London in any gigography but via a mate of a mate who was personally overseeing their first ever UK visit, that’s definitely where I saw them. Indeed, as an introduction to the media, it might well have been their first UK gig. Recollections… singer, Chris Keating climbing on and around something on stage and looking slightly confused afterwards when I referenced (to him) that their sound reminded me of a band he’d never heard of… and one I still can’t remember.

01.39.27

THE BEATLES – Eleanor Rigby (Loo & Placido Mash Up) – Stream only – 2014 approx

It’s the Wild West out there even if you’re The Beatles. Not the smoothest of links ups but the idea works… and the news clip I threw in over the top was for real. Only in America…

01.42.40

ASHLEY THOMAS – Serenity * – A Tale Of Two Cities, CD only – Wah Wah 45s – 2008

Blue-eyed soul Pt 1, with a jaunty folk slant… sort of.

01.47.35

CLIVE GRIFFIN – Head Above Water (Full Length Version) * – 12″ – Mercury – 1988

‘Extremely classy huskily tremulous attractive 107-0bpm swaying blue eyed soul jogger in Michael McDonald/Hall & Oates/George Benson-ish style, a bit amorphous as a song maybe but strong on atmosphere… ‘ – James Hamilton, Jocks, 6.89

Blue-eyed soul Pt 2, this with an r&b slant… sort of… and there’s no mistaking the late ’80s major label sheen (visually and aurally) and hopes of the crossover that never came Clive’s way.

The following though is worth repeating from Clive’s debut on 41 Rooms just a few shows back… As a child and obviously long before three major label albums and a subsequent move then into session work, back in his very young days Clive provided the vocal for the Cadbury Fudge TV ad jingle, ‘A finger of fudge is just enough‘!

01.53.08

JONI MITCHELL – Sweet Bird – The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, LP – Asylum – 1975

Has strumming ever underpinned such wonderfulness? ‘No’ is very possibly the correct answer.

01.56.54

RINGDOWN – Thirst * – Lady On The Bike, LP – Nonesuch – 2025

Back, as I promised earlier, with some ambling and stark moodiness. First class!

Show 141 will be here July 6.

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This playlist is 81% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

‘Winner of Best Domestic Design at the Wallpaper Design Awards 2023, this Brian Eno turntable has a stunning LED light feature that changes according to your music. Created in collaboration with the Paul Stolper gallery, the psychedelic turntable sold out back in 2021 but hasn’t become any less popular since. You might not be able to buy it, but there’s no shame in staring‘. £ price not disclosed. – muddystilettos.co.uk*

Lyric of Playlist 139

‘Be Kind To My Mistakes‘ – Maybe more worthy as a usable turn of phrase, seeing as it only turns up once in the song.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Hurt (Inst.) (Peppermint Lounge, New York: 22.11.81) – Movement, Definitive Edition boxset – Warner Music – 2019

Still being titled Cramp at this stage, but reminiscent of the dark new electronic tracks the band were road testing whilst still in development (here, with lyrics yet to surface), along with sometimes simultaneously also grappling with the equipment. It all gave the band’s gigs an edge and an air of the unknown but they’d have wanted for less stress.

06.22

KATE BUSH – Be Kind To My Mistakes – 7″ b-side – EMI – 1989

In actuality, a track that was ‘released’ – on a split (with Brian Eno) German, promo only 7″ – two years earlier than on her The Sensual World album but was also available in the less-cluttered-by-other-tracks setting of another 7″… albeit as the b-side of the fully released This Woman’s World A-side. The version on the show though is actually the lead track from the soundtrack of the 1987 film, Castaway. With the old skool * record company ideal of singles being looked on to promote albums, here it might have been a battle between the artist going for the more stylish and sophisticated album track as the A-side… when the A&R and promotional team must have surely wanted Be Kind… to lead the way.

So old skool, there was even a picture disc 7″

10.07

TALK TALK – My Foolish Friend – 7″ – EMI – 1983

As might have been confirmed by Mark Hollis’ later releases before his untimely passing, maybe his band’s earlier ‘synth pop’ era was a shade too cerebral for the kids, and this wasn’t one of the few TT singles that did make the UK top 20.

13.24

JOHN FOXX with LOUIS GORDON – Hiroshima Mon Amour – Glimmer: Best Of John Foxx, 2CD only – Music Club Deluxe – 2008

A faithful recreation. I reckon this Best Of should have been titled Glimmer / Just For A Moment. IYKYK.

18.09

CRASH COURSE IN SCIENCE – Cardboard Lamb (Original Club Mix) – Signals From Pier Thirteen, 12″ EP – Press Records – 1981

With a quirkiness that seems to have leant towards the US new wave/no wave scene of the time, this EP has found a way to regularly get re-released through the decades since… but up until a month ago I’d never heard of them.

20.36

EYELESS IN GAZA – China Blue Vision – 7″ b-side – Ambivalent Scale – 1980

41 Rooms royalty, with the homepage 7″ back out for an airing! Stark punk folk!

23.24

NASMAK – Toy-Line * – Split 7″ flexi-disc – Vinyl – 1983

Ah, the dreaded flexi disc, this time via Dutch magazine, Vinyl‘s own label. Bit of a Nick Cave thing going on with these 41 Rooms regulars?

27.25

JOY ORBISON – Hyph Mngo * – 12″ – Hotflush Recordings – 2009

Was JO’s Peter O’Grady a fan of Joy Division or Roy Orbison, or both, or neither? Dub step? D&B? Who cares! It’s a jittery earworm here.

31.07

THE FLAMINGOS (feat JOSE FELICIANO) – Icarus Descending – CD single only – So… Sparkle! – 1999

I’m biased but this is a lost epic… and it could easily have been in show 1.

I may have known the seven time (at this point) Grammy award winning, Jose for twenty years plus at this juncture in time but it maybe still took some balls to ask him to guest with guitar on the recording… and it took a bit of co-ordinating to actually get it done. Firstly, no winging files via the internet back then, so Jose needed to be in the country, and I think that came about in between a run of dates he was doing at London’s Jazz Cafe and elsewhere around the rest of the UK.

Having given him the track beforehand, I do remember realising in the car with him heading from central London to the Uni of Westminster’s Commercial Music dept, out in Harrow (where I was working at the time) that he hadn’t actually gotten around to listening to the track! A moments panic before I thought ‘He’ll be just fine’.

Also, with Cliff’s lead vocal already done, when we got Jose in to the studio we mic’d him up just for guitar. Maybe I at least should have know better. As soon as the track started rolling it only took maybe a couple of takes for Jose to get in the groove and lay down more than enough guitar… along with some simple but just right backing vocals!… the latter caught slightly in the distance… through only the guitar mic. Doh! If only I’d been thinking. Another thing, we were a hairsbreadth from making the Radio 2 playlist.

Blues & Soul, Tony Rounce 11.1.99 review…

‘Flamingos’ Icarus Descending is only their fourth single in 12 years. They obviously like to get things right if this remarkable release is anything to go by. Unreservedly recommended, it features Jose Feliciano and sounds like George Michael fronting Joy Division‘. – Paul Connolly, Metro, The Times on Saturday, 5-11.12.’98

Below: Flamingos’ Cliff Peacock and Dave Summersgill, with Jose and my daughter, Alice: Uni of Westminster, Harrow, June ’98.

Below: Jose in the studio, guesting on Icarus Descending and engineer, Mark Cash doing exactly what was asked of him, mic’ing Jose up for guitar… only.

34.45

GLEN CAMPBELL – Lonely, My Lonely Friend – 7″ b-side – Capitol – 1969

The abundance of 7″ single b-sides that get spun on 41 Rooms must come from the days (in my case, the very early ’70s) when buying a 7″ was an ‘event’ and getting your money’s worth meant also giving the flip side some serious attention. In amongst all the pop, glam and soul, I was more than happy to also do that with Glen back then.

36.59

PETE JOSEF – Utopia – Download only – 2023

Only two of his own albums to date in over twelve years of activity but Josef is a regular folk soul vocal gun for hire, having started to make his mark via Germany’s Sonar Kollektiv label. He’ll definitely be back here.

41.20

DIONNE WARWICK – Walk On By – 7″ – Pye – 1964

A classic… and the sort of songwriting and production we may never hear again? I suspect this world’s equivalent of Dionne and Burt are surrounded by too much crap to tread this way.

44.04

SHAPE NAVIGATOR (feat EVON BRENNAN) – Flow (Like A River) (Mellow Delta Mix) – 12″ – Almo Sounds – 1995

Co-written by one Evon Brennan (though she’s only credited for her guest vocals on the CD formats of the single) but seeing as she for the most part changed careers, I’ll confidently claim 41 Rooms is the only show of any kind to spin two of her tunes. See show 115 for the other, plus her back story.

48.49

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY – Maybe Nowhere – Weirdo, LP – ??? – 2025

Rather strangely the track first off the grid in promoting Weirdo, as it’s not only a bit ‘rockier’ than her previous leftfield soul, jazz and beats etc leanings, it’s also the only ‘rockier’ track on the album… which is all more down the (usual) road of her previous etc etc etc.

53.34

SOAP&SKIN – Me And The Devil – 7″ b-side – Play It Again Sam – 2013

Not unlike Nico in the vocals, Austrian, Anja Franziska Plaschg with a sought after 7″.

56.34

YHWH NAILGUN – Animal Death Already Breathing – 45 Pounds, LP – AD93 – 2025

Their debut album’s second sighting at 41 Rooms… and there’s nothing quite like ’em around.

59.06

? – Fate Twisted & Turned – Unknown – 1980s

I have absolutely no idea. Early Portion Control or the likes?

01.04.10

CLICK CLICK – 15 Minutes – Rorschach Testing, LP – Play It Again Sam – 1988

And they would have deserved their 15 Minutes…

01.09.49

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Searchin’ – Groovy, Laidback and Nasty, LP – Parlophone – 1990

Marshall Jefferson… Ten City… Stirling Void vocalist, Paris Brightledge. House was in this industrial Sheffield house!

Diary hints that I hired a car and was in Sheffield visiting ex-Cabs drummer, Alan Fisch and wife, Linda on June 4, ’90 – the same day the Cabs were playing their home town, and that would all but confirm we went to the gig… only for the fact that I travelled up with girlfriend, Dan and our just 1yr old daughter, Alice. Maybe all the girls stayed in and us lads went on the town! I think the backstage pass for the next night at the Hacienda in Manchester (albeit a photo copy here) was ex-girlfriend of both me and Alan, Vivien’s.

01.15.20

TEN CITY – Whatever Makes You Happy (New York City Mix) * – 12″ – Atlantic – 1990

And speaking of Ten City. Summer’s coming… Summer’s coming? Although I should have edited it a bit more, the sort of tune that feels right on a sunny beach.

01.22.48

BLAZE – If You Should Need A Friend (Friendship Mix) – 12″ – Debut – 1987

Originally on the US label, Quark and arguably their biggest hit. Skippety and bouncy.

01.28.50

THE B-52’s – Channel Z (Rock Mix) – 12″ – Warner Brothers – 1987

Another apostrophe alert! Channel Zeeeeee sounding better than Channel Zed could ever have done.

01.34.40

TALKING HEADS – Girlfriend Is Better (live) – 12″ Stop Making Sense, 2LP – EMI – 1999

From the genius Stop Making Sense film soundtrack gigs and album from 1984 but to get this longer version on vinyl you have to hunt around the re-issued/revamped/Special New Edition etc releases that followed from ’99 onwards.

01.39.42

OH WELL – Oh Well – 7″ – Parlophone / 8ighty 8ighty Records – 1989

Yep! Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac fans look/listen away now! German (tongue in cheek?) chancers here with the first of a bunch of ‘classics’ they covered. To be fair, it’s a funky ‘kitch’ groove that might well have sounded better as an instrumental… and I just know I’d never want to see any TV performance they might have blagged.

01.42.54

ELVIS COSTELLO & THE ATTRACTIONS – Pump It Up – 7″ – Radar – 1978

Thumping pop. I had an Elvis ‘moment’ with some of his singles in ’77 and ’78 but never owned an album. Also, another Declan, to be sure, to be sure.

01.46.03

ELECTRONIC – Tighten Up – Self-titled, LP – Factory – 1989

Pure coincidence but from Pump It Up… to Tighten Up… and with that crowd ‘jump up’ chorus lift, it should have been a single.

01.50.22

ADELE – Hometown Glory (High Contrast Mix)/ BROOKES BROTHERS – Tear You Down/CHASE & STATUS (feat TAKURA) – Streetlife – Live radio mix – 2008’ish

D&B heaven!!! Jeeeeez, after all these years I still just love this! And it might still have or have had Chase & Status’ Hurt You in there somewhere at some point. A slightly ropey sounding but still blistering mix – by someone unknown – from a UK national radio show and along the way it was bounced a format or two down (including the compression of mini disc!)… and then I think, even slightly edited by me. For all that it’s still glorious!

Show 140 will be here June 1.

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This playlist is 82% vinyl friendly. Impressive.

The Gearbox MKII Transparent Turntable, made in Europe by Pro-ject to North London’s Gearbox Records’ specifications and retailing around £549. Plays at both 33 rpm and 45 rpm and in being equipped with Bluetooth it can also play through desktop speakers.

Just a thought… the transparent body showcasing the internals gives the impression of a drone looking down by a helipad onto a cityscape.

Lyric of Playlist 138

It’s that man, Ian C again…

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Angel Dust (Pier 84, New York, 1987) – Brotherhood, Defintive Edition boxset – Warner Music – 2024

A track that slightly passed me by back in the day but our heroes are sounding particularly on it here.

03.51

THE SANDALS – Feet (Dust Brothers Vocal Mix) – 12″ – Open Toe Records – 1994

The Dust Brothers were the Chemical Brothers, in waiting – the name change needed due to an act with a similar name, if I remember rightly… and years before you could do a quick Google or Discogs search to see if anyone else has already used your chosen moniker. I took to a lot of these ’90s, tougher ‘progressive house’ dance tunes at the time.

10.42

ARNOLD JARVIS – The Way U (Ricky Montanari Vocal Club Mix) – Promo only split 12″ – Freetown Inc – 1998

Moody and edgy stuff, a mix that didn’t surface at the time of the tune’s initial release and one that myself and Dave S (as Got-Ta-Scatta) quietly errr… ‘borrrowed’ from one time.

16.13

DIALECT – Sitting in the Sun (Derrick Carter’s Winter Crazy Dub Reprise) – 2×12″ promo only – Distance – 1998

Snappy garage mix from one of the genre’s classier exponents. Not the US mid ’60s ‘garage’… obviously.

19.48

SERGIO MENDES & BRASIL ’66 – Ye-Me-Le – 7″ b-side – A&M – 1970

Albeit a few decades after its release, I think I may have happened on this tune being performed on a US TV show and although it’s been well serviced on SM&B Greatest Hits releases through the years since, it quietly sat on the above UK 7″ where a stock copy is way harder to find than the promo. One of the lead female duo, Lani Hall was later to marry one half of A&M, Herb Alpert… and very coincidentally she’ll be back here later.

21.52

JETHRO TULL – Alive And Well And Living In – 7″ b-side – Chrysalis – 1970

More 7″ b-sides and it’s easy to see how Ian Anderson’s vocal and storytelling fitted snugly into a ‘folk’ setting, though the band’s rock side throws in a strident passage or two.

24.33

JONI MITCHELL – The Hissing Of Summer Lawns * – The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, LP – Asylum – 1975

Maybe somewhere around the very late ’70s and certainly a couple of decades (at least) before the internet slowly helped to spread the anecdote that this song’s lyric was storytelling the life(style) of my boyhood hero, Jose Feliciano I got told the same from someone that knew Jose very well and a few years later I asked him myself and he confirmed as much. I’ve never seen Joni admit it’s the case, though.

27.23

MIA DOI TODD – What If We Do? – Manzanita, LP – Plug Research – 2005

A track that’s made it to 41 Rooms before – though in a different take – and Mia’s been making albums constantly ever since.

30.53

ROBIN GUTHRIE – Prayer – Download only – ?? – 2025

‘Prayer’, another little something that’s been uselessly gathering dust for a few years. It became orphaned when the scene that I wrote it for was cut (from a soundtrack back in 2018). Now it’s found a new purpose, that of cheering people up in these uncertain times. Every little helps, right? The photo, taken on my kitchen window here in Bretagne‘. – Robin, via Bandcamp / Discogs

A game of two halves from the ex-Cocteau Twin’er and I notice from a recent interview that anyone hoping on a CT reunion shouldn’t be holding their breath. He won’t see this but Mr G, I hope life is treating you well.

33.03

ECHO and THE BUNNYMEN – Read It In Books (Original 7″ version) – 7″ b-side – Zoo Records – 1979

The enthusiasm of yooof as the Bunnymen launched their recording career… and a track that bounced between Ian Mac and his ex-Crucial Three colleague, Julian Cope and his subsequent crew, The Teardrop Explodes.

35.57

JOY DIVISION – She’s Lost Control (Peel session) – The Peel Sessions 12″ EP – Strange Fruit – 1986

Recorded Jan 31, 1979 at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studio 4 for John Peel’s radio show and broadcast on Feb 14. A to be iconic track in an iconic setting.

40.02

THE SOUND – I Can’t Escape Myself – Jeopardy, LP – Korova – 1980

The Jeopardy album has been well serviced here.

43.43

THE KINKS – Till The End Of The Day – 7″ Pye – 1965

Even within the best of British ’60s pop/beat bands, The Kinks are maybe held in higher regard with a lot more listeners than with me but this was a highlight when I was backtracking and collecting from the ’70s. I even had the Pye white label demo 7″ back then.

45.53

THE SPENCER DAVIS GROUP – Somebody Help Me – 7″ – Fontana – 1966

Half a dozen or so singles in at this point and vocalist, Steve Winwood was still only 18!

47.45

THE YARDBIRDS – Shapes Of Things – 7″ – Columbia – 1966

The Jeff Beck era and a track that suited vocalist, Keith Relf’s style more than most, I’d say. He was never a rocker of a vocalist.

50.07

SMALL FACES – Lazy Sunday – 7″ – Immediate – 1968

Possibly at the top of the list of my ’60s bands and with an absolute fave of mine… and I certainly wouldn’t mind owning the acetate below… but I don’t.

UK 2-sided 7″ acetate…

53.12

LANI HALL – Ocean Song – Sun Down Lady, LP – A&M – 1972

The lady returneth… and all is calm.

56.32

LUCY ROSE – Pale Blue Eyes – Download Only – Communion Records – 2025

Slow pop beats for now.

59.29

MASSIVE ATTACK (feat TRACEY THORN) – Protection (The Eno Mix) – 12″ – Wild Bunch Records – 1995

Nothing radical done to the input of either the band or Ms Thorn. A classic sound, whichever which way.

01.05.03

FOOTSHOOTER (feat ALLYSHA JOY) – Folding – Download only – ?? – 2025

Soulful, electronic d&b-style.

01.10.18

DOCTOR BIONIC – Put The Work In – The Island of Doctor Bionic, LP – Chiefdom Records – 2025

Bouncy instrumental head nodder.

01.13.01

NEW STREET ADVENTURE – Why Should We Do Anything? – Stubborn Sons, LP – Acid Jazz – 2017

With the band now into their second era, here it’s mainman, Nick Corbin’s social commentary consciousness during their first.

01.16.17

PASKAL & URBAN ABSOLUTES (feat. PETE JOSEF) – Bits Of Me – Lux, 2LP – Sonor Kollektiv – 2013

European beats with class guest vocalist.

01.19.28

JACANA PEOPLE (Feat TEMM) – Fall Again – Download only – ?? – 2025

Buckinghamshire, UK calling. ‘Caught halfway between city noise and rural British landscapes, producer-duo Jacana People meld bittersweet electronica with sprawling organic textures‘. – Bandcamp

And by including the voice of Temm, here on this track, more than the sum of its parts, I’d say.

01.25.59

LUSCIOUS JACKSON – Naked Eye – Jukebox (promo?) only 7″ – Capitol – 1996

‘This US import is the first track from the girls’ new album and features perhaps the catchiest chorus this year. The original is bass-heavy pop with a breakbeat feel and this is accompanied by another five mixes ranging from beat heavy crunchers to tripped out instrumentals. Definitely worth catching. * ‘ – *Brad Beatnik, Record Mirror (Music Week). 2.11.96

01.26.38

ETERNAL – Sweet Funky Thing (DHL Mix) – Sweet Funky Thing – The House Promo 12″ – EMI / 1st Avenue – 1994

‘ ‘Juicy Fruit’ type wailing groin grinder in 98bpm Album, New York City Radio, 97bpm K&T Atlanta, K&T Southern and trickily unsteady 99(intro)-98.3bpm WBLF New York Radio Remixes, with (separately promoed) a gospelish strong romping 0-122.9bpm Una Clio Remix or just chorus prodded cantering 124bpm West End Master, monotonous throbbing Puff The Blunted Dragon, better bassily burbling 123.6bpm DHL Mixes‘. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 29.10.94

I’m not even sure the Eternal girls are anything to do with the voices on here but it’s an urgent groove.

01.31.04

STREET CHOIR – Rock Steady – 12″ – Street Choir – 2003

Most probably masked as it’s a less than legal release, but let’s hail the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, for it’s her Rock Steady that’s holding court here.

01.35.55

RALFI PAGAN – Make It With You – 7″ – Fania / Wand – 1971

A David Gates and Bread tune, sounding vocally more ‘soulful’ than the very fine original?

1.39.29

SPRINGFIELD – Different Sky – Unreleased – Late 1990s

Unreleased indeed, and from a Leeds-based duo. Only to hand to me right now is a short note and fully hand written lyrics to what looks like five newer tracks that followed Different Sky. In a short ‘A&R’ role I had at the time, I certainly remember talking to the male half of Springfield on the phone and I remember he mentioned the live audience applause on this track was actually lifted from a well known recording :)… but whose is now lost in time. I think the demo CD or tape with Differently and at least one other track is possibly around here somewhere but for now it’s the return of the tumbleweed!

Differently? A class track that I reckon, in the hands of a well established female singer/songwriter of the time (or maybe even now?), would have more than stood up for itself.

1.43.30

JAH WOBBLE and JULIE CAMPBELL – Phantasms Rise – Psychic Life, CD only – Cherry Red – 2011

Another highlight from the album as I hint on the show, the feel of Julie’s approach slightly reminds me of Italian sometimes duo, Costume.

1.54.00

WORKFORCE – Cut To Pleasure (Peel session) – Unreleased – 1986

Recorded Jan 5, 1986 and broadcast eight days later, I and Mick Lowe (Rorschach Testing) were in the throws of releasing the band’s second single, Back In The Good Books 12″ and getting some European dates together and even though this is the only John Peel session I ever attended I can’t remember next to nothing about it (extremely poor on my part), with my diary adding ‘London. Peel’s Workforce session. Viv and the lads (gave me) lift home.’

Drummer, Alan Fish had the foresight to acquire a reel of the session from the BBC, so here’s the cassette tape I copied the unedited session tracks to.

Early ’86 promo and tour poster

1.51.39

DAVID SYLVIAN – Pulling Punches – Brilliant Trees, LP – Virgin – 1984

In a purer form (for 41 Rooms purposes, anyway) the track was also on a UK 12″ – the same ‘extended’ version as used on this, his first solo album after the Japan years.

1.56.41

MRCY – Man – Volume 2, LP – Dead Oceans – 2025

How many peeps will kick this track off thinking something’s up with their player? UK duo, Barney Lister and Kojo Degraft-Johnson with Latin’y soul jazz vibes and the most uplifting tune on this show, downloadable now but also on a coloured vinyl release coming in May.

Show 139 will be here May 4.

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This playlist is 93% vinyl friendly. Near perfect.

New in 2025, the Korg Handytraxx is a funky looking lad. A portable belt drive motor turntable ‘aimed at both DJs and vinyl enthusiasts’ that can run either via AC power or AA batteries and features a 2.5w built-in speaker. From £359 through to £1099, depending on the model/spec.

Lyric of Playlist 137

Maybe it’s Martyn and maybe it’s Stevie.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Bizarre Love Triangle ’94 – ‘the best of’ NewOrder, 2LP – London – 1994

Or maybe ‘Bizarre Love Triangle-94’. This title stuff gets tricky when you’re reworking songs… and as for the album title? My proof reading department of a very long time ago would have thrown a wobbler. don’t get me started. The song? A huge fave with the band’s following as a whole but another from their mid to late ’80s back catalogue/period that, if I’m honest, makes me smile more now than it did back then.

‘Very cheerful sounding dance/pop muzak remixed by Shep Pettibone. It even has a sort of ‘set it off’ rhythm beat (quite popular in discos last year) and a great instrumental version for mixing. This will be played to death in clubs especially the more eurobeaty ones – and just when you thought they’d never get their act together again‘. – Mark Moore, The Catalogue #43, Nov/Dec ’86.

04.18

THE CURE – All I Ever Am – Songs Of A Lost World, LP – Fiction/Polydor – 2024

Robert Smith in reflective voice as the ongoing years give us all more to be reflective about.

09.31

DEPARTMENT M – Bad Formulae – Deep Control, LP – Hide & Seek Records – 2016

From their only full album release and the last musical sighting of mainstay, Owen Brinley.

13.36

SAVANT – Using Words – The Neo-Realist (At Risk), LP – Palace Of Lights – 1983

Their Stationary Dance 12″ is right up there with my absolute fave sounds from the whole post punk etc etc period, but I missed this back in the day and the vinyl (and original) format version of the album does not now come cheap.

20.36

JAZZ THE GLASS – GracE – Output 2025, Download only (Bandstand) – 2025

Mate and ex one half of The Flamingos (This Heat, Reason For Living, Original Colour, Icarus Descending) with IMHO one of his best to date.

23.48

MARTYN BATES – Sad Song Of Almost – The Return Of The Quiet, LP – Cherry Red – 1987

Folk… soulful… beautiful.

27.11

LIKE MINDED SOUL(S) (feat CARA) – Seventythree – Cookin’ EP 10, 2×12″ EP – Cookin’ Records – 2002

The name depends on where you look and years after the above release the track cropped up as ‘Seventy Three’ by Methodblack, another pseudonym of the same guy, Irish DJ/producer, Rob Swain. Whatever, it took me over two decades to work out anything about the track – as it was as anonymous grab off the radio. The interweb! Shazam! Innit all brilliant? As that Paul Whitehouse character might nearly have said.

32.01

STEVIE WONDER – My Cherie Amour – 7″ – (Tamla) Motown – 1967/68

Late teens… Putnoe, Bedford… sunshine… oh, and very likely a girl in mind.

34.53

JAPAN – Canton – Tin Drum, LP – Virgin – 1981

If you go looking we can safely narrow down the Canton being evoked here… and it’s none of the twenty five plus(!!!) Cantons in the US, alone.

39.46

BEATMASTER – Lipservice – 12″ – Tommy Boy – 1984

Near comical/cartoon vocals, but with Keith LeBlanc producing, his tumbling drum programming – borrowing heavily from his not so comical vocals, Malcolm X ‘No Sell Out’ production the year before – hints heavily at the Tackhead sound then to come.

44.29

TWO SISTERS – B-Boys Beware (Club Mix) * – 12″ – Sugarscoop – 1983

Very much me riding a wave of enthusiasm for electro in these years.

49.38

WARP 9 – No Man Is An Island (12″ Remix) * – 12″ – 4th & Broadway – 1983

‘Norman is an island‘… as the joke used to go in these parts. Also, see above.

54.44

ERIC B. & RAKIM – I Know You Got Soul – 12″ – Cooltempo – 1987

Funky! Bobby Byrd’s 1971 original in no small measures but maybe noted as much for the ‘Pump Up The Volume!’ line which, courtesy of M.A.R.R.S and elsewhere went onto have a life of its own.

59.22

GOAT + MC YALLAH – Nimerudi – 7″ – Rocket Recordings – 2024

With much menace in that rumbling bass and attitude in the vocal… ‘400 copies available with Rocket Recordings 25th anniversary book ‘Out of the Void – The Art of Rocket Recordings: 1998 – 2024‘… and should you be able to get your hands on a copy (and I haven’t, yet) it’s A side @ 45rpm and B side @ 33rpm for the ‘turntabilists’.

01.02.53

KASSIE KRUT – Reckless – 12″ – Firetalk? – 2025

Kassie Krut’s debut, a self-titled, self-produced EP on a limited run of 300 vinyl, shipping sometime in 2025, but could be gone… by… now. A lot of music these days – importantly spread across a few genres – seems to be weighted with vocals/melodies written by Millenials… but targeting (subconsciously?) an audience a good few years younger.

01.06.24

FREEFORM ARKESTRA – Freeform Theme (Raw Deal remix) – Freeform EP, 10″ – Straight Ahead – 2000

Fat, fuzzy and brutal jazzy d&b-like… and heard via a Patrick Forge or Gilles Peterson KISS FM radio show of the time. There were real musicians involved in this, me thinks.

01.10.47

FACTORY FLOOR – Between You – 12″ – Phantasy Sound – 2025

First music since 2018? This recent, 300 copies only vinyl release sold out immediately. ‘Original and Extended Mix feature… presented in a riso printed sleeve, each of which are hand numbered by the band‘. Bandcamp

01.15.00

10,000 MANIACS – Planned Obsolescence – Human Conflict Number Five, 12″ EP – Press – 1984

Released originally in the US in 1982 and a track containing a sound so irritating there MUST have been a debate over whether it stayed in the mix. So irritating but I’m guessing someone involved thought ‘We need to weird this up a bit… ‘ and the ‘cranky wheeze’ – accentuated in a bridge – was it! A fab slice of leftfield pop but it takes nothing less than Natalie Merchant’s enchanting voice to trump the pain.

01.19.16

THE WAKE – Of The Matter – 7″ – Factory – 1985

New Order’s then live sound man, Ozzy in the producer’s seat here, a relationship partly built through the Scottish band often supporting their heavyweight label mates.

The Wake (Carolyn, Stephen, Mac and Caesar), outside Winkles, Bedford after their gig, Sept 7, ’83

Photo credit/copyright – Dec Hickey

01.22.03

FIAT LUX – The Moment – Ark Of Embers, LP – Splid Recordings – 2019

I remember seeing the band perform this live on TV at the time but Ark Of Embers was their ‘lost’ (unreleased) 1985 album. It also doubled up with all their earlier and better known material for a 2CD, Cherry Red label release, also in 2019.

01.25.03

GENERAL LEE – Pleasure – 7″ – Lost Weekend – 1979

And speaking of ‘Lost’. On the Lost Weekend label, not some northern soul obscurity but a disco-influenced 7″ that someone with both cash and conviction paid £2000 for! The groove reminds me a bit of Candido’s Jingo, which funnily enough came out the same year. Who came first, I wonder.

01.29.04

PATHLESS – Goddess – Glücklich III (A Collection Of Brazilian Flavours From The Past And The Present), v/artists 2LP – Compost – 1999

Like the Freeform Arkestra track above, definitely heard via either a Patrick Forge or Gilles Peterson KISS FM radio show (I’d guess more it was with Patrick) and combined with the Straight No Chaser mag being a must read at the same time(s), you got your info where you could.

01.33.19

THOMAS LEER – Letter From America – 4 Movements, 2×12″ EP – Edigsa – 1982

The above release mentioned on the show but back a year earlier included on a Cherry Red label four track 12″ that (pictured below) I had/have. ‘Electronic jazz’ I’m thinking these days re ‘Letter… ‘, I possibly went for spinning the EP’s track ‘Don’t in our club, rather than this.

01.37.12

YHWH NAILGUN – Castrato Raw (Fullback) – 45 Pounds, LP – AD 93 – 2025

But out later this month, costing just £22 this track is the band in a lighter vein! Oh, and a shout out for their 2022 cassette-only EP, No Midwife And I Wingflap… for the title alone.

YHWH, short for Yahweh, a word I hear a lot these days, as I’m very regularly bumped into by the Facebook reels of one Dan McClellan. I have no time for religion (other than the takes of the late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry and the likes) but McClellan knows his shit like few others and is a fascinating listen when it comes to addressing others on that there Bible thing. He gets pointed to videos of the ‘less well informed’, shall we say to say. And his ‘OK, let’s see it’ is usually just the precursor to another demolition job. YHWH Nailgun? I’m not sure where they stand on all this… if at all… and I won’t be looking to find out, either.

01.39.15

THE BOX – No Time For Talk – The Box, 12″ EP – Go! Discs – 1983

As in yer face as anything coming out of Sheffield’s late ’70s/early ’80s ‘industrial’, new wave, alternative scene, due in no small part to Pete Hope’s angsty vocals.

Pete (with shades) in a more chilled out state, at Cabaret Voltaire’s Bedford Boys’ Club soundcheck, Aug ’84.

Photo credit unknown. I’d have said it was mine… only for the fact I’m in the photo.

01.41.57

SHRIEKBACK – A Kind Of Fascination – Tench, 12″ mini LP – Y Records – 1982

Sounding to these ears now like it could have been funky but quirky New York no wave.

01.46.18

WARSAW/J.D. (JOY DIVISION) – Novelty – Warsaw, LP (+ 7″) – RZM Productions – 1980

Unless you had close connections with the band at the time, this bootleg of May ’78 studio recordings (made, as I’d only learn a few years later, for RCA) was a bit of bolt out of the blue to me when I got hold of a copy – in nearer ’82 than ’80, I reckon – and such was the speed with which these young lads were writing, only three of the tracks made it to Joy Division’s debut album proper, Unknown Pleasures, recorded just eleven months later, with Transmission appearing as a 7″, and needless to say, the recordings have been bootlegged ad infinitum since.

01.49.54

SLAB! – Mars On Ice (John Peel session: 12.8.86) – Unreleased – 1986

More driving sounds as the band perform their first single during one of my fave Peel sessions. From long after their exit here’s an insight into the rarely spotted Slabbers as (ex) band members enter the conversation further down.

1.54.00

PIGBROS – Not A Lot (Long Version) – Just Call Me God, 12″ – Cake Records – 1987

At the time, I think I caught the first of their two mid ’80s John Peel sessions… and not much else but this tune, from the last of their handful of releases, clatters along with some purpose.

Show 138 is a comin’ April 6.

Dec x

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This playlist is 73% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

A teal/turquoise background will always catch my eye but the Audio-Technica AT-LP60XBT Fully Automatic Wireless Belt-Drive Turntable, at just $219 or thereabouts, is highly regarded.

Lyric of Playlist 136

‘Oh I want you, like a kangaroo… ‘ Indeed.

Or maybe ‘I’ve come to wish you an unhappy birthday… ‘ You don’t want him turning up at your bash.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – We All Stand (live, L’Ancienne Belgique, Brussels: 15.4.82) – Streaming only…

Reminded of this recording just recently by Jon Wozencroft and it’s right up there as one of the band’s greatest live recordings… of any track.

The photo below? My then living room wall in 1984, and with my dog, Flanagan overseeing, the only sighting I can offer of my poster to the above gig, along with the one for the L’Encienne Belgique New Order gig the year before, which I was at. Both these two and another eleven very early NO posters of mine were lost/stolen (depending on who’s story you believe) in the early early 2000s.

06.58

RIHANNA – Stay (Marius Hörsturz Remix) – Streaming only… 2013’ish

Beyond the many mixes the single officially courted, this one probably didn’t get considered for release, if it even made it to the table. Maybe seen as too ‘left-field’ I imagine it wouldn’t have computed with Rihanna’s audience… but its plodding dreaminess certainly does it for me.

11.44

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Do The Mussolini-Headkick – Extended Play, 7″ EP – Rough Trade – 1978

From their debut release and the personification of the Cabs’ early fuzzy electronic period – here with some reggae and dub in the mix.

Possibly not the first Cabs tracks I ever heard – as I probably went scouting backwards after hearing Nag, Nag, Nag – but via the tiny sticker I’ve just noticed (maybe for the first time in forty years?) on the inside of the sleeve, I bought this EP on March 21, 1980 at Andy’s Records, in Bedford for 99p. It was also the day of this below, the second or third attempt at trying to kick start something alternative/new wave/indie in the town, so a track from the EP might be the closest I can get to a definite on the playlist on the hour or so I lasted before we realised the night was usually a bikers gathering and packed up and left. These two (20×30″ish) posters – artwork courtesy of mate, Gary Goodman – were one-offs with one or both of them doing the not-so-hard sell in our HMV shop.

On a tangent, check out Roger Quail’s My Life In The Mosh Of Ghosts – Gig 68 podcast at some point. Having worked with the Cabs the ex Clock DVA and The Box drummer charts his Sheffield-era gigging history and I contributed info to this just broadcast show, revolving around the Cab’s second gig in Bedford, in August 1984, both of which I promoted.

14.32

PRINCE – When Doves Cry – 7″ – Warner Brothers – 1984

I thought when he lost the shackles of major label… dom he’d have gotten more ‘interesting’, musically but the freedom, control, self A&R’ing and maybe crucially the sheer volume of releases did the opposite for me. Still, he was a bit of a genius.

Below: Somebody has gotten a bit creative with the 7″. At least it’s a move on from turning labels into drinks coasters.

20.08

3 Teens Kill 4 – Hold Up – No Motive, LP – Point Blank Records – 1983

To my ears, it sounds like a Casiotone 201 leading into a strong early Talking Heads strain here with these 41 Rooms favourites.

23.56

POLYROCK – This Song – Self-titled, LP – RCA – 1980

Frantic stuff from the late ’70s New Yorkers.

26.10

a.P.A.t.T. – Matter Of Fact – Fun With Music, LP – Pickled Egg Records – 2016

As a 60th birthday present, long time mate, Nigel Turner presented me with a couple of his label releases… and the CD version of this album was one of them.

30.16

JOHN GRANT – TC & Honeybear – Queen Of Denmark, 2LP – Bella Union – 2016

Lush quirkiness, with a bit of a late ’60s sound and a lilt of innocence.

35.12

KEVIN McDERMOTT – The Faintest Sound – Discreet Campaigns, v/artists compilation, cassette only – Rorschach Testing – 1985

In the song, arrangement and production, definitely a ’60s thing going on here.

Promo parts for the release.

I can’t remember how I came across Kevin’s 1984 demos cassette tape below – six studio songs and one live track, all a year or two before his debut album surfaced, where only two of the cassette’s tracks (including The Faintest Sound) were included. Different recordings, though.

38.49

THE MELONS – Eskimo – 7″ – Pickled Egg Records – 1997

Ex-pat Bedford mates, Nigel and Vanessa Turner were half of The Melons (the latter presently in The Silver Biplanes) and here the last of their four singles doubled up as the first release on Nigel’s Pickled Egg Records label.

42.04

PEGGY MARCH – If You Loved Me (Soul Coaxing) * – 7″ – RCA – 1968

There’s a hefty price on both the US and UK original RCA 7″ releases of this English-language cover of Michel Polnareff’s Âme Caline, all very much down to the northern soul/mod scene picking up on the track in the late ’70s, when RCA UK duly re-released it. Whether it’s ‘lost in translation’ or it’s March’s ‘Englishness’ (or both) the vocal doesn’t quite flow (convince?)… but that’s part of the appeal for me. A great of-its-time voice, to boot.

44.41

THE BEATLES – Getting Better * – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, LP – Parlophone – 1967

Well, they were omnipresent to any kid listening to the radio in the mid ’60s and although I later mopped up their singles, somewhere in the mid ’70s a copy of this album – complete with the card ‘cut outs’ inner – was one of only two Beatles albums (apart from compilations) I’ve ever owned. A stereo or mono copy? No idea.

47.33

SMALL FACES – Itchycoo Park – 7″ – Immediate – 1967

One of my fave ’60s bands and I just smile when I think of this single and look at the label. Sunshine… Heronscroft, Putnoe, Bedford bedroom… mid ’70s…

And if you’re the owner of this UK 7″ acetate you’re a very lucky bunny.

50.07

THE SMITHS – Unhappy Birthday – Strangeways, Here We Come, LP – Rough Trade – 1987

The Smiths haven’t made it to 41 Rooms too often and though it hasn’t helped, I don’t think it’s primarly to do with some of Morrissey’s media outpourings through the years. I was a fan of the band, and even interviewed the man and took a few photos of them but a lot of the times I go to include a Smiths track in a show here it somehow doesn’t feel ‘right’, next to whatever feel I’ve got going on at that point in the proceedings – and it’s not the only band I have the problem with. Dead weird. The man does have a way with a song’s storyline and melody like few others, though.

The Smiths – Westfield College, Hampstead, London, 17.11.83. Photo copyright/credit: Dec Hickey

52.32

ABC – Show Me – The Lexicon Of Love, LP – Neutron – 1982

The once industrial sounding Vice Versa fully fledged into class pop.

55.50

CLIVE GRIFFIN – The Way We Touch – 7″ – Mercury – 1988

As a child and obviously long before three major label albums of blue-eyed soul and a subsequent move into session work, Clive provided the vocal for the Cadbury Fudge TV ad jingle, ‘A finger of fudge is just enough‘! You didn’t see that coming.

59.40

DAVID BOWIE – The Secret Life Of Arabia, (Magnums Extended Mix) * – Streaming only – 2023

An extended mix, then given a 41 Rooms edit, with Bowie still ruling and riding around the handclaps.

01.03.57

KRATWERK – Trans-Europa Express – Trans-Europa Express, LP – Kling Klang – 1977

Aside the title, these gents also nailed the sense of travel in the music. A chugging steam train and lots of snow on view out of the window, I’d like to think.

01.08.42

ALEX GOPHER – The Child (Album Version) – 12″ – Disques Solid – 1999

Via her God Bless The Child, Billie Holiday ‘guesting’ on vocals for the French producer/artist four decades after her passing.

01.12.41

MARXMAN – Father Like Son – Dark Are The Days, 12″ EP – Talkin’ Loud – 1993

They were never frivolous in the words department.

01.16.58

DESTROYER (feat FIVER) – Bologna – Dan’s Boogie, LP – Merge Records – 2025

Out of Vancouver, Canada ‘Dan Bejar started Destroyer as a solo home-recording project in the early to mid-nineties. Exploring and overturning genres such as glam, MIDI, yacht rock, & even underground Spanish independent artists.’ – Bandcamp.

Not Dan’s first sighting on 41 Rooms either, as with him on vocals Destroyer had successfully taken on New Order’s Leave Me Alone for the Mojo magazine covers album of the band’s Power, Corruption and Lies in 2012.

01.20.58

AUGUST – Pushin & Shovin (Line Of Flight Mix) – 12″ – Clean Up – 1994

One single and one single only… but it was a good one. Trip hop tones heard by me via a Gilles Peterson radio show, no doubt pre release.

01.26.03

THIS MORTAL COIL – Kangaroo – 7″ – 4AD – 1984

Within the interchangeable line ups of TMC this one featured most notably, Cindytalk’s Gordon Sharp and Cocteau Twins’ Simon Raymonde. A Big Star/Alex Chilton tune, likely suggested by 4AD boss, Ivo.

01.29.27

DEPARTMENT M – Air Exchange (Live Anthologies Session @ The Nave, Leeds, 6.3.16) – Streaming only – 2016

Though the studio version is available on the band’s second (and sadly, last) album, Deep Control, this live version sees main man, Owen Brinley riding solo.

1.33.21

THE ITCH – Ursula – Download only – 2024

‘I’ve been reading a lot of Ursula Le Guin‘ goes a lyrics line from London duo, Simon Tyrie and Georgia Hardy as the track builds * to making it an ideal live set finale, which if it isn’t already turning up there, it should be.

Reminds me of The Dears’ We Ca Have It, a tune I hadn’t heard in years*… but then just played to check. Yep, I’ll stick to my observation.

1.40.00

ROZALLA – Faith – 7″ Pulse-8 – 1991

‘Selling better than the original now, her infectious 123bpm breezily galloping wailer is in even friskier Coola Vibes and twittery instrumental Rainbow Bridge remixes by the Band of Gypsies‘. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 25.5.91

‘… the wailing Zambian’s earlier frisky galloper from April is reissued in its jumpily jangling original 123.1-0bpm The Chic Mix, plus producers the Band Of Gypsies’ stereo panned plinking calmer 123-0bpm Space Station and Joe T Vannelli’s jaunty Spanish flavoured 0-123-0bpm Musik Out Of Control Mixes, all catchily punctuated at times by spacey saxophone-like synth tones. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 9.11.91

Faith (In The Power of Love)? ‘To do what?’ would be my first question. The bigger its goal the less its chances but in Rozalla’s case – a girl who belted out a few massive ’90s hits – I’d like to think the lyrics, though not written by her, had her in mind. In the land of ‘hands in the air’ throwaway dance at least she had a solid story to convey here. Interestingly, in a previous life (musically) one of the writers, Nigel Swanston was in a band called Airstrip-One who I’d have possibly seen supporting New Order at Walthamstow’s Assembly Hall in Sept ’81 if I and a Transit load of others hadn’t just been failing miserably trying to order food in a local curry house pre gig. Fellow Bedford mate, Budge (a man not in the van) did catch Airstrip-One on the night and though not a lad easily swayed I seem to remember he enjoyed them. So, on a couple of fronts, Nigel Swanston… you did good.

1.43.23

MK – Feel The Fire (MK Burn Up Mix) – The Get It Right 12″ EP – Network – 1991

‘On a four-tracker by Detroit’s Mark Kinchen… the gritty girl-wailed jazz-funk tinged fluttery loping 122.8-123bpm ‘Feel The Fire’ (MK Burn Up Mix)’, which was hottest when originally on import‘. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 29.6.91

I already had the tune’s original outing, as lead on a US Retroactive label 12″ but I remember buying this release later in the early-mid ’90s in one of Soho, London’s myriad of dance shops, just for this mix (hidden as a b-side track) and the young, female assistant serving me made eye contact, quietly uttered ‘Feel The Fire’ and then nodded a sly smile of content as I said it was the track I was after.

1.48.36

HAPPY LITTLE CLOUDS – Higher – Download only – 2025

More driving sounds… of a sort.

‘Boston (USA)-based rainbow rust, power pop band with songs that stick, rain or shine, blending 90s nostalgia with modern indie sound. Unfiltered, heartfelt lyrics entwine with bluesy vocals and catchy-AF melodies, like frosting on a post-grunge cake oozing with authenticity, creamy bass riffs, and chunky guitar. Unique, expressive drums is the cherry on top. The best slice of heaven you’ve ever heard‘. – Bandcamp

1.52.35

THE CURE – At Night / A Forest (Theatre de l’Empire, Paris, 8.12.79) * – Streaming only

Some full-on Cure fans seem to really go for this early take of A Forest and I’m with them. Besides the possible unknowns in being live, it’s got snap and bite!

1.55.47

LOU REED – Walk On The Wild Side – 7″ – RCA – 1973

“And the colored girls go, ‘Doo, do-doo, do-doo, do-do-doo, doo, do-doo, do-doo, do-do-doo… ‘ ” as did also David Bowie, Mick Ronson and a female bv trio called… Thunderthighs. The song could rightfully insert itself into any story of the ‘progression’ of rock ‘n’ roll through the decades but it’s hard to remember now how ‘left field’ this was escaping a ban and coming (albeit with slightly altered lyrics) over the airwaves back in the day.

Show 137 will hopefully march out on March 2.

Dec x

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Counting an acetate as vinyl (of sorts), this playlist is 97% vinyl friendly. Soooo close!

Oi! Shelves is for vinyl, numptie! I can see right through it! It’s a Turntable Transrotor Leonardo Doppio 25 25 40 Rega and it’s yours for €3500 or Best Offer right now on eBay.

Lyric of Playlist 135

‘There’s a man with a gun over there. Telling me I got to beware… ‘ The gun and Stills’ lyric both loaded.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Evil Dust (2024 Remaster) – Brotherhood, Definitive Edition box set – Warner Music – 2024

Yep, indeed included on the latest in the line of New Order Definitive Edition boxset beasts but this in house remix (the band’s own, I’m assuming) of Angel Dust originally crept out only as an extra on the 1985 PAL format, UK 5″ C(ompact)D(isc)V(ideo) (phew) of True Faith (the Remix 12 Inch), with the samples (David Byrne and Brian Eno’s tunes, Regiment and The Carrier) more upfront in replacing Barney’s lead vocal.

And again while we’re here in New Order land. Below: Another photo of Dave Simpson (The Guardian) MC’ing myself, Jon Wozencroft and The Beloved’s Jon Marsh (he’ll be back this show) on stage at London’s Rough Trade East last November reminiscing around my recent From Heaven to Heaven – New Order Live, The Early Years (1981-1984) At Close Quarters republication.

Photo credit: Ian Damaged

04.11

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Kino – Drinking Gasoline, 2×12″ EP – Virgin – 1985

Industrial… funk… electronic… heavyweights

12.12

MARIE DAVIDSON – Sexy Clown – City Of Clowns, LP – Deewee – 2025

Within a Limited Edition Transparent vinyl LP, some minimal wave bizniz underpinning dry spoken word, and like a multitude of tunes in the modern age purporting to inhabit Edgy Town, using melodies (here it’s the chorus) that sound as if they’re chasing the 10yr-olds demographic. Discuss… no, don’t.

16.57

CORAL WAY CHIEFS – Release Myself (13th Ave Mix) – 12″ – Murk Records – 1992

‘This is a label that just keeps getting better. Their fifth release has a male vocal laid over the ever classic deep Purk-y bass sounds – this one’s a must‘. – CJ Mackintosh, Record Mirror (Music Week), 3.10.92

I reckon you can’t go wrong with an early Murk Recs 12″.

22.30

FINGERS INC. (feat ROBERT OWENS) – Mystery Of Love (Club Mix) – 12″ EP – D. J. International Records – 1986

Stark early house with Larry Heard at the controls, that I didn’t hear until the early ’90s.

28.40

aNAIIS & GRUPO COSMO – B. P. E – Self-titled, LP – 5dB Records – 2024

Within the grooves of the ‘Exclusive Sea Blue coloured heavy weight vinyl‘ (in gatefold sleeve, Including accompanying booklet and limited to 250 units – Bandcamp is the place). It’s a ‘builder’… and that end high note? Doooof!

32.16

EYELESS IN GAZA – You Are Grace – Butterfly Attitude, 12″ EP – Downwards – 2012

It feels like I missed this beauty first time around, which given that it’s EIG/Marty Bates it was very shoddy on my part.

34.27

JAKI WHITREN – Oh Little Boy – Raw But Tender, LP – Epic – 1973

For some strange reason I only ever visited Croydon’s much remembered second hand record store, Beanos once. As it was a massive set up, I got there at opening time… spent a lot of hours digging… and weirdly, came out with just one record… the above album.

36.57

PORRIDGE RADIO – God Of Everything Else * – Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me, LP – Secretly Canadian – 2024

Out of Brighton, UK and the vehicle of Dana Margolin. The longest track title of the show, coupled with the most disconcerting track ending. I have personally been involved in ending a track quirkily but this one just doesn’t sound ‘right’.

40.18

COCTEAU TWINS – Fifty-fifty Clown – Heaven Or Las Vegas, LP – 4AD – 1990

Very coincidentally, 41 Rooms’ royalty giving us the the second clown on show 135.

And one of two photos of mine, Simon (Raymonde) asked to include in his recent memoir, In One Ear – Cocteau Twins, Ivor and Me. Honoured, I was.

43.19

THE BELOVED – Spirit – Conscience, LP – East West – 1993

Originally released in 1993, Conscience went Gold in reaching no. 2 in the UK album chart but pictured here is the 180g, white double vinyl, late 2024 re-release through New State Music. ‘Remastered from the original analogue studio masters (by John Davis at Metropolis Studios) boasting louder and clearer audio than the original release‘. Within the limited edition run of 700 copies, 100 via Bandcamp included a postcard of the cover art signed by Jon Marsh.

47.51

TOWA TEI – Luv Connection (The Angel Remix) – 12″ promo – Elektra – 1995

‘Towa Tei is the keyboard and computer programmer of Deee-Lite and this cut is taken from his LP Future Listening – a blend of everything from boss to hip hop, salsa to soul. Luv Connection covers all these styles in an assortment of mixes, embellished for the dancefloor by Maurice Joshua in a spirited house style and Masters At Work in a more avant garde dub house concotion. The female lead vocal is uncredited, but brings a cool soul flavour to the plodding LP version, and a jazzy air to the off-the-wall and brilliant big band boss style Angel Remix‘. ** Ralph Tee, Record Mirror (Music Week), 19.8.95

‘No less than nine mixes accompany this two 12-inch release from the Deee-Lite man. They vary from the slamming, soulful hip hop beats of Towa’s own refreshing mixes to Height 611’s hard house version, Masters At Work’s Brand New Heaveies-style groove, Georgie Porgie’s piano-let house stormer and The Angel’s Jazzy Jam. There’s also a drum and bass heavy mix of Technova by Smith & Mighty and a Building Groove mix of the same track, by man of the moment Josh Wink, which is typically acidic and pounding‘. – Brad Beatnik, Record Mirror (Music Week), 4.11.95

Part number.… I don’t know how many, of 41 Rooms’ I Don’t Do Jazz… But… ‘ but back in the day, I heard the Angel Remix of the track first and subsequently felt zero affinity with any of the song’s main/lead mix(es) I then heard. Let’s face it, it’s not the greatest set of lyrics but at least this track gives them a cool backdrop.

54.46

ESTHER PHILLIPS – Just Say Goodbye – 7″ – Atlantic – 1965

The song’s mid ’60s release as a 7″ b-side(!) in both the US and the UK are well beyond me, so this split release 7 from 2000 will do. Bought on hearing a dealer playing it at a London record fair in the Noughties, it’s no wonder the track has gravitated through the years to have a life of its own.

57.03

DEE EDWARDS – Why Can’t There Be Love – 7″ – GM – 1971

Never a hit first time around, Edwards passed away in 2006 and didn’t live to enjoy the kudos (at least) when the song hit pay dirt for the publishers in a heavyweight 2010 Adidas Originals ad.

59.45

BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD – For What It’s Worth (Stop, Hey That’s That Sound) – 7″ – Atco – 1966

‘Often considered an anti-war song, Stephen Stills was inspired to write the song because of the Sunset Strip curfew riots in Los Angeles in November 1966, a series of early counterculture-era clashes that took place between police and young people on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, California, the same year Buffalo Springfield had become the house band at the Whisky a Go Go.’ – Wikipedia

Stephen Stills sounding stark…

01.02.15

DAVID CROSBY & STEPHEN STILLS – Long Time Gone (1968 demo) – Demos, LP – Atlantic – 2009

The album pulling together demos from the C. S. & N. camp, both solo and together in various combinations, with Long Time Gone a lot ‘earthier’ than the version to which we would later become accustomed to.

01.06.47

ASHLEY THOMAS – Serenity – A Tale Of Two Cities, CD only – Wah Wah 45s – 2008

Classy blue-eyed ‘folk soul’.

01.12.17

NAFFI – D’ya Hear Me! (Original Version) – 7″ – Rum – 1981

Three decades later it would be iD’d as the Original Version when included on the Brenda Ray (it’s her) 2012 compilation LP, D’Ya Hear Me! : Naffi Years, 1979-83 but she masqueraded as Polly Rithm on the above 7″. Definitely sounding of its time, with a bit of a Marine Girls feel (and maybe others I can’t think of right now) and it took a Japanese label to release the compilation.

01.15.42

YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS – Searching For Mr Right – Colossal Youth, LP – Rough Trade – 1980

They sounded like no one else at the time.

01.18.25

GNAG OF FOUR – Ether – Entertainment, LP – EMI – 1979

One of the great albums. It’s very nearly all been on 41 Rooms.

01.22.13

THE STRANGLERS – Toiler On The Sea – Black And White, LP – United Artists – 1978

A track that goes on a bit of a journey.

01.27.19

SKIN SIDE OUT – The Shredding Of The Skin – 7″ b-side track – Lost Moment Records – 1984

A big Bedford mates connection on this frantic, bustling tune, with the band’s engine room of guitar, bass and drums – Mike Wallis {RIP}, Jem Noble and Andy Mackechnie, respectively – all resident there back then.

01.32.18

THE SEX PISTOLS – Submission – Never Mind The Bollocks Here’s The Sex Pistols, LP – Virgin – 1977

Iconic.

01.36.27

T. REX – Children Of The Revolution – 7″ – T. Rex – 1972

She won’t see this but a nod goes out to ex-girlfriend, Gill Hulatt (as was) and one of what would have seemed like millions of girls who adored Marc Bolan back in his whirlwind years. Her and I later saw T. Rex on their Futuristic Dragon tour, at St. Albans City Hall in Feb ’76 and although Bolan’s fame factor was then in decline and his audience had shrunk in size he gave like he was back a few years and in front of 10,000 at Wembley Empire Pool. As some sort of social history link I nearly included a photo here of Gill and I partying in our ‘exuberant youth’, sometime around the time of the St. Albans gig but opted against. Maybe some other time.

01.38.47

STEVIE WONDER – Superstition (UK acetate) – one-sided 7″ – Emidisc

I happened on this 7″ acetate on line by chance and it won’t be hard to work out why it flew under the radar. I can only assume the seller either didn’t have a turntable to hand to glean some(any?) extra info or did spin it and still didn’t realise it was indeed Stevie Wonder’s Superstition. Listed as a £25 Buy Now I took a punt, on the visual alone. Exactly the same mix as the released single version but missing (crucially?) the hi hat that somebody rightly felt gave the track slightly more ‘swing’.

1.42.41

FINGATHING – Dogs – G, LP – ?? – 2025

‘Shipping out on or around January 17, 2025’ – Bandcamp

Fingathing’s personnel – classically trained double bass player, Sneaky (aka Simon Houghton) and DJ/turntablist, Peter Parker – have seperately featured on 41 Rooms before, so it’s not great leap to this tune, and if I was still DJ’ing and in some alternative club I’d have a stab at mixing it in and out of Adrian Sherwood’s remix of Einstürzende Neubauten’s Yü-Gung… as you do… or… as nobody else ever likely would.

1.45.58

JOSE FELICIANO – Virgo – 7″ b-side – RCA – 1974

Not widely known for his electric guitar leanings but Jose can ‘rock’ out with the best of them – something that seems to constantly surprise the ears of Youtube comment(ator)s when they happen on his version of (say) Purpe Haze from a live show. To get Virgo on 7″ you’re going to have to fork out quite a bit more than average prices for his vinyl catalogue, as it’s only ever found (in the nine territories that I know pressed the single) on the flip side of the much sought after Golden Lady, Jose’s uptempo and Latin’esque take on the Stevie Wonder tune. A cheaper alternative is the And The Feeling’s Good album on which both tunes feature.

And when you get into collecting particular artists – especially those on major labels in the ’60s-’70s halcyon years of vinyl – it… is… never… ending.

1.48.53

TURNTABLE ORCHESTRATION – You’re Gonna Miss Me (12″ Version) * – 12″ – Music Village Records – 1988

‘A piano-led, Latino jazz romp through some similar territory and roots… lifted from the label’s NY Garage double LP, doubtless due to its accessibility, danceability and general all-round pop sensibility. A classic tale of love betrayed and betrayal repaid (yep! a real song – surely a sign of thangs to come) which should work as well on radio as on the floor. A classy ‘n’ classic ‘spic hit pick‘. – Richard Boon, The Catalogue #66, Jan ’89

‘Hippie Torales & Paul Scott co-created Excellent subtle piano nagged and mournfully droned unhurried 115 1/2bpm burbling jitterer with a ‘phonecall halfway from Anna Quiñones, now finally out here commercially (in four mixes) and – as a total stranger standing next to me in a sandwich bar said when it came on the radio – “THE club dance hit of 1989” ‘ – James Hamilton, Jocks, 2.89

With its unusual staccato-like vocal phrasing maybe part of its appeal (though I took out the phonecall bridge, as it just sounded… pants), The Turntable Orchestra will have come to the attention of a lot of the late ’80s post punk crowd via Snub TV, an offshoot of the then indie music’s trade magazine and Rough Trade published The Catalogue, whose editors Richard Boon and Brenda Kelly I got to know well during the time our Rorschach Testing label had a P&D deal with RT and I was getting label news included in the mag. It’s also Brenda’s voice that narrated Snub TV. Check out at some point the edition on Youtube that features this track. In fact, check out all the editions. It’s a neat barometer of the then indie scene mixing with the growing dance culture of the time.

| | |

1.53.52

THE SONGSTRESS – See Line Woman (See Line Vocal) * – 12″ – Ibadan – 1997

In reality, Nina Simone’s vocal over a Kerri Chandler construction, though in not having been the writer or (in turn) the publisher of her original recording it is possible Ms Simone had no say in the proceedings. I hope she got to gain somehow before her passing just six years later.

Show 136 should be uploading Feb 2.

Dec x

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This playlist is 87% vinyl friendly. Impressive.

Via The New York Times at the beginning of 2024, this Fluance RT85N turntable was voted the best under $600, so in this day and age that’s spinning economy-style. Modern… in a non flashy kind of way… apart from turntable’s finish, of course.

Lyric of Playlist 131…

When Joni’s in the area it’s hard not to give the rosette to her but even with the most awkward song title of the show this time I’ve gone for the Gof4.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Senses (Cargo Demo) – Movement, Definitive Edition Boxset – Warner Music – 2019

One of the eight or so tracks, from January ’81 sessions in Rochdale’s Cargo Studios that made up their live set of the time, was included in a John Peel session the same month and would be the basis of this album’s initial release at the end of the same year. I always thought the way Senses builds to the outro definitely suited the song’s place more often than not towards the end of a gig’s set.

05.12

INERTIA – The Screen – 7″ – Inertial Records – 1980

The work of one Douglas Benford and in what the electronic heads of today might call the ‘minimalist’ bag – ‘stark’, even.

When I bought Douglas’ second release, the 7″ EP, Dancebeat Attitude (heard on John Peel’s show, with the DJ quite possibly giving out Duncan’s address to send off for it), here’s the note I got back. It refers to this first release, but I’m 50/50 on whether I then sent off for that one, too. I don’t have it now and unless I’d actually heard the track at the time, I might not have taken the plunge.

08.16

THE HUMAN LEAGUE – The Black Hit Of Space – Travelogue, LP – Virgin – 1980

‘Minimalist’… ‘dark wave’… and no doubt a few other tags might be pinned to this these days but none of them used by anyone of the time. It was just ‘electronic’ to us.

12.18

PYE CORNER AUDIO – Circuit Rot – 7″ – Polytechnic Youth – 2022

This might have been in with the occasional series of great double sided 7″ singles often spotlighted in earlier 41 Rooms shows… if it had been released.

14.42

NYAM NYAM – Fate/Hate * – 12″ – Factory Benelux – 1984

Produced by Peter Hook and driven faster than the anthemic sounding album version, I would have had a stab at including the latter’s vocal outro. Maybe they did give it a go. Whatever, this version’s made it on to a couple of modern day compilations, including New Order’s 2017 double album for Factory Benelux, Be Music.

19.18

PAUL HAIG – Heaven Sent – 7″ – Les Disques Du Crépuscule – 1983

How did this slip through the Winkles early ’80s 1hr specials of some of the earliest 41 Rooms shows? A nailed on fave with us, it rightly or wrongly conjures up a dancefloor vision of ‘more girls than boys’ and a wonderful mix of Haig’s backing singers (check out – not right now! – Heaven Sent on the TV prog Switch) and the Human League’s female members.

24.01

HEAVEN 17 – Pavement and Penthouse – 12″ – Virgin – 1981

Some social comment lyrics with these lads back then and from what I’ve seen on the net, seemingly well able to sound the part performing it forty plus years on.

27.46

QWALIA – Majolica – Abbreviations, LP – Albert’s Favourites – 2024

41 Rooms’ fave Adam Scrimshire’s label…

‘Qwalia is the experimental, improvisational home for a quartet of some of London’s most prolific and inspiring musicians. Led by drummer Yusuf Ahmed (Joy Crookes, Unknown to Known) and featuring Ben Reed on bass (Frank Ocean, David Byrne, Richard Russell’s Everything Is Recorded), Tal Janes on Guitar (Jordan Rakei, Cherise, Waaju) and Joseph Costi on keys and synths (Cat Stevens, Tom Herbert, Heidi Vogel), the band’s music is an instinctive aural expression of how things seemed in the moment of creation‘. (Edit) – Bandcamp

31.20

FLORIDA MAN – Twilight Filter – Florida Man EP – Download only – 2021

A 41 Rooms regular might recognise something in the tone of Florida Man’s vocalist (and guitarist), Quinnisa. Daughter of Big Blood’s mainstay couple Caleb Mulkerin and Colleen Kinsella, she’s increasingly involved in the latter’s work.

33.53

BENCH – Anxious – Bliss, 2LP – Cylinder Recordings – 2000

Bench didn’t survive to gain the acknowledgement of a wider public but Kris Jenkins and Rachel Thomas seem to have continually cropped up as a producer and session singer, respectively ever since.

35.56

NAILAH HUNTER – Bleed – Lovegaze, LP – Fat Possum Records – 2024

Limited to 300 copies for the ‘sweetart’ vinyl 1st edition and 100 for the ultra clear 2nd edition.

‘Lovegaze is one of the most wholeheartedly beautiful records I’ve heard in quite some time‘. – Bandcamp

‘Uniquely intoxicating‘. – Uncut

‘She’s a harpist!’ – 41 Rooms

39.29

LE FUNK MOB – Ravers Suck Our Sound And Get Fuck – Tribulations Extra Sensorielles 2×12″ EP – Mo Wax 1994

‘MC Solaar’s producers and guests on Jimmy Jay’s ‘Le Cool Sessions’ album do their thang over four sides of tripped-out jazzy funk vinyl. Awe-inspiring stuff it is too, with everything from deep phat hip hop on ‘La Doctoresse’ to the ambient jazz doodling of ‘Ravers… ‘ Highly innovative and highly intoxicating, this is an EP that begs to be heard. Funk, acid jazz, hip hop, triply fusion – whatever your bag, it’s all here‘. – Brad Beatnik, Record Mirror (Music Week), 19.3.94

The term ‘Trip Hop’ can get a bit of a roasting these days but James Lavelle’s Mo Wax put out some mighty sounds and beats – especially in the above era.

42.13

ERIC and THE VIKINGS – Get Off The Streets Y’All – 7″ b-side – Soulhawk – 1970

To be honest, a single that’s most probably regaled/revered for the sweet soul A-side, Vibrations but I was only after this madcap romp on the flip. Sounding like a one-off studio jam that just happened to be caught with the tapes running, John Manship subsequently noted it as ‘very in-demand Detroit Northern Soul‘, to which one fan commented ‘Straight up all intro badassery‘… errr… quite. It certainly sounds like it might appeal crossing over to the mod and ’60s r&b end of things. A bunch of near mint expensive promos on sale from different UK sellers on Discogs hints at a box laying under someone’s bed for fifty years, but with three different labels? That’s a bit ‘weird’. My copy will be picked up and on here after my next UK visit.

47.37

LED ZEPPELIN – Trampled Underfoot – 7″ promo only – Swansong – 1975

FUNK ROCK FUNK! Back in my mid-late teens rock years these lads ruled – albeit with a few others very close behind – and not without the influence of best mate, Dave Lewis (‘Dobber’ to me and others), now with many LZ books to his name, regarded as a world expert on the subject. This promo only release was only available to UK retailers and dependent on the number of copies of the band’s album, Physical Graffiti they ordered in… so being a record retailer, Dobber went the full tilt… and I and a bunch of mates were the lucky recipients.

It’s maybe the ‘excesses’ of ’70s rock that 41 Rooms shies away from but Trampled Underfoot is storming and succinct and was most notably experienced by Dob, myself and some other mates from the first row of a 19,000 sold out London earls Court in 1975. And yep, those were the front seats at Earls Court. We actually had B Row tickets but for some reason no one was sat in Row A.

And a nod to Dob’s much renowned Zep Tight But Loose fan/magazine – my first six editions.

51.40

DOVES – Space Face (Glastonbury 2003) – Streaming only

With the vinyl version of this 1991 rave fave (as Sub Sub) already spun on 41 Rooms, here years on in a live band setting, it’s the same three lads line-up sounding back to their ‘dance’ era.

56.12

CHRIS JOSS AND HIS ORCHESTRA – Bombay By Bus – Present: Bombay By Bus, 12″ EP – Pulp Flavor – 1999

Maybe heard via Russ Allen on KISS FM? He seemed a likely contender. Gets a bit big beat’y and aciiiiiid’y mid way through but though I’ve never been to Bombay the track’s start does the job of seeming to capture what I reckon the city might sound like… if that makes any sense.

01.01.38

GATTO FRITTO – Invisible College * – 12″, single-sided – Dissident – 2007

The full version is 11 minutes long but 41 Rooms chopped and edited to a 4mins 30 highlights version. Still jaunty, though.

01.04.41

KIT SEBASTIAN– Metropolis – New Internationale, LP – ? – 2024

Upcoming on their third album due about now, Metropolis sounds like a backdrop to Audrey Hepburn careering around bendy roads on a Swiss Alps summer’s day, and such is the technology and software now around, duo Kit Martin and and Merve Erdem will have found it far easier these days creating the wibbly wobbly and fuzzy authentic ’60s feel to this track’s video than in previous times.

01.08.09

THE DAUGHTERS OF EVE – Hey Lover – 7″ – USA Records – 1966

Even though it includes my pet hate – a talking bit! – the initial (and best, methinks) release of the five or so singles from the all girl Chicago band, but unless I get really lucky I won’t be owning a copy of this anytime soon… or at all – with the last sighting of a sale being for $450 in Jan ‘2023. The fab vocals are sooooo ’60s, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Rachel Sweet had covered it on her late’70s debut album Fool Around.

01.11.43

HALEY HENYDERICKX – Seed Of A Seed – Download only – 2024

Seemingly her first release in six years, with the sound and the title and unsurprisingly, a promo shot hinting at foliage. ‘Green folk’ maybe. Even back at her debut album, 2015’s I Need To Start A Garden, she was sowing the…

01.15.24

JONI MITCHELL – See You Sometime – For The Roses, LP – Asylum – 1972

It’s Joni bloody Mitchell! Nuff said. Incidentally, there’s an old GOT-TA-SCATA demo (Strange Day) lurking in the vaults that sort of takes a similar lyrical journey.

01.19.31

LEE ABRAHAMS – song47 – Unreleased demo – ????

‘All I can say is that I have recorded hundreds of tunes simply as ideas to use for future projects maybe, but which I have never returned to. All demo ideas I guess. This was one such one, that got simply named as song47, because… it was. I came across it in a bunch of files on my pc and decided to add some visuals and post it up as it was on FB, warts and all. I’m glad you like it enough to spin it. thanks again‘. – Lee, August, 2024

01.25.07

SOUL FAMILY SENSATION – Other Stuff – New Wave, LP – One Little Indian – 1991

A bouncy and cheery instrumental from the perfect-pop-that-was-Perfect-Life crew.

01.28.30

‘THE JUMPSTART MAN’ – ‘Because’ * – ????????

Under the above info, Discogs has zero and Shazam doesn’t recognise it either, but then again I could have got the details down wrong in the first place. The track was initially taped (maybe three decades ago?) very likely from a KISS FM (London) show, with me then searching out the 12″ from London’s many dance shops being the usual next move. The vinyl though never surfaced. If I could dig out the cassette I could at least nail down the year. If you know… let me know. Anyway, instead of the usual tumbleweed in these occasional situations on 41 Rooms, here’s a pink fairy armadillo.

01.33.51

SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR – 13 Little Dolls – Wanderlust, LP – EBGB’s – 2014

On the ‘indie pop’ side of things she’s royalty of sorts and was also well suited to Spiller’s massive dance hit, Groovejet. Me? I’m more a fan of her vocal than I am of her songs but 13 Little Dolls is an urgent racket of a tune.

01.37.22

GNAG OF FOUR – Natural’s Not In It – The Peel Sessions Album, LP – Strange Fruit – 1990

I bet the number of bands who felt their John Peel sessions didn’t quite live up to their recorded work is a very small number indeed. Those engineers knew how to work under the pressure of just a few available hours. So, from Feb ’79 and the Gof4’s first session for Peel, this packs a punch.

01.44.02

DAME AREA – Si No Es Hoy Cuando Es – Toda la verdad sobre Dame Area, LP – Mannequin Records – 2024

The duo of Silvia Kostance and Viktor L. Crux, with Cabaret Voltaire’s Nag Nag Nag and No Escape somewhere in their thinking, I reckon.

‘Toda la verdad sobre Dame Area (All the truth about Dame Area) will be released in two different editions on Mannequin Records and Humo Internacional on the 13th of September‘. – Bandcamp

01.49.27

HEROES OF ANOTHER LIFE FORCE – I Don’t Need You (Vocal Club Mix) * – 12″ – Slip ‘n’ Slide – 1993

It’s easy to hear how the vocal sample works so well.

‘This is the wobbling, wobbling, stomping progressive number that’s got them all excited, specially when they hear the “I don’t need you anymore” vocal sample. Take it from me, it works. I played it to the cat and the poor puss shot out of the window. Two more acidy instrumentals on the flipside‘. – Dom Phillips 1/2, Mixmag Update 4.8.93*

‘A strong truancy housey groove that builds and builds with throbbing baselines before bursting in with the sampled vocal. A kind of Britis-meets-Wild Pitch production that will have dancefloors leaping around in a frenzy‘. – Tim Jeffery, Record Mirror (Music Week), 21.8.93

01.53.25

NAKED ROOMMATE – Bus – Pass The Loofah, LP – Trouble In Mind Records – 2024

For vinyl heads, the album is arriving in 1) Limited “Disco Ball” white splatter on metallic silver and 2) black vinyl versions and both are housed in full-color jackets and include full-color inserts.

Bus… Pass The Loofah… Do The Duvet. There’s a playfulness with this crew. Good to see.

01.58.23

LALI PUNA – Harrison Reverse – Micronomic, 12″ EP – Morr Music – 2004

It really is as short as it sounds here but it’s a cool 41 Rooms’ show ender.

Oct 6 for show 132.

Dec x

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This playlist is 97% vinyl friendly. Soooo close!

One of two turntable plus mixer that made up artist Fabien Clerc’s unique (as in totally one-off) ‘Back in the Good Old Days’ creation and if your great great grandmother had been into DJ’ing she might have taken a shine to the set up. Fully functional and made up entirely of decorated and glazed earthenware it was shown at an exhibition which investigated the idea of luxury. Hopefully it stayed there.

Lyric of Playlist 130…

I want to speak another language… but I don’t know how to say. ‘Excuse me, how do you say sandwich?’ Or could it be ‘Parlez vous français?’ I just like to say my way…

Playful… if I got it right.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER –All Day Long – Brotherhood, LP – Factory – 1986

One of New Order’s most unusual arrangements, as Barney’s languid verses are initially met with instrumental choruses and then all but forgotten in the sweeping build. There couldn’t have been a ‘front man’ less worried by this.

05.12

BIG BLOOD – Never Ending Nightmare – First Aid Kit, LP – Feeding Tube Records – 2023

The 50 run only Deluxe Edition (with 7″ lathe) was most probably sold before it was pressed, but vinyl heads also had a separate 1000 Limited Edition run, with Colleen and Caleb’s daughter, Quinnisa having grown from the adolescent fronting the Big Blood 41 Rooms show iD to… here fronting Big Blood! Girl, it’s most definitely in the genes…

08.16

HULA – Torn Silk – Voice, LP – Red Rhino – 1987

For some reason I never can fathom I seem to struggle to program Hula into 41 Rooms shows as much as I’d like. One of a number of Sheffield bands of the era I really took to and when I was still living in Bedford in the late ’80s I was for a brief period involved with, towards the end of their existence. Years later I’d bump into John Avery and partner/late period Hula member, Jo Cammach often enough for us to then realise we were living just a few hundred yards from each other… in Islington, London. Sadly, don’t expect any ‘mastered from the original tapes’ Hula compilations to surface anytime ~~soon~~… at all! Ron Wright recounted to me a few years back that all the band’s tapes were lost in label, Red Rhino’s sinking under its distribution wing going under.

12.18

VEX RUFFIN – Front – Conveyor, LP – Stones Throw – 2017

He’s been sounding in a lighter frame of mind in more recent years but back here he had a tougher ‘industrial’ feel.

14.42

SIOUXSIE and THE BANSHEES – Israel * – 7″ – Polydor – 1980

Winkles, Bedford on a Wednesday night in 1981. Definitely a club fave that got spun a few times by me.

19.18

CAMPBELL * MALLINDER * BENGE – Dereliction Magical – Clinker, mini album – Les Disques Du Crépuscule – 2021

If this wasn’t influenced by elements of Will Powers’ Adventures In Success I’ll possibly eat the hat I don’t own.

24.01

AU PAIRS – Sex Without Stress (John Peel session) – Equal But Different – BBC Sessions 79-81, CD only – RPM – 1994

The CD should have been titled 79-82, as this track comes from 1982 and their last session for the great man.

27.46

LILIPUT – You Did It – 7″ – Rough Trade Germany – 1983

A style that still has a ‘kindred spirit’ audience and in the case of this single, a £60 price tag.

31.20

NANCY AMES – Cry Softly – 7″ b-side – Epic – 1966

A US b-side but if only off the back of its storming/belting chorus it was rightly flipped to the A when released in the UK, and its collectibility in anything approaching mint condition will be down to the northern soul scene (and specifically Blackpool Mecca, it would seem) taking it to its heart in the ’70s.

A UK 7″ acetate with someone somewhere, there were only two words to spell correctly.

33.53

THE FASCINATIONS – Girls Are Out To Get You – 7″ – Mayfield – 1967

Written for this Detroit girl group by Curtis Mayfield and released on his label, this was a sound that I seem to remember hearing a good bit a few years later after its release. Either it was on a jukebox in the Pilgrims pub in Bedford or got spun at various mainstream ‘discos’ in my late teens socialising, as I wasn’t a northern soul regular.

35.56

CAROL ANDERSON – Sad Girl – 7″ – Fee Detroit – 1979

Sounding more like a tune the ’70s northern soul scene might have ‘cratedug’ from a decade earlier but in fact it was new in ’79 and is still revered now.

39.29

THE SUPREMES – Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone – 7″ – Tamla Motown – 1966/1967

Talking bit alert! Still fronted by Diana Ross at this point, it’s a Motown classic in spite of the ‘narration for dramatic effect’ noodling.

42.13

MR DAY – Queen Of The Minstrels (Taggy Matcher Disco Mix) – V/a: Disco Reggae Volume Two, LP – Stix – 2014

My mate, Barry Wom put me on to this recently with the note that ‘(It) appears to have a little something that one Mr D Hickey might be partial to!‘ In my head initially was certain Misty in Roots sessions for John Peel’s radio show but now I’m thinking it’s somewhere else I can’t quite pin down. Mr Day was the vehicle for Frenchman, Eric Duperray, with his 2012 soulful but pedestrian rock cover of the Eternals tune from 1969 given a more ‘Jamaican backdrop’ via Taggy Matcher. Apologies for the dated thinking in the sleeve design.

47.37

THE TWINKLE BROTHERS – Free Africa – 7″ – Front Line – 1978

A gem.

51.40

SPACEK – Language – Curvatia, 2LP – Island – 2001

Wonky soul? Steve Spacek on a trip of his own making and I remember Gilles Peterson and Ross Allen being UK ‘tastemaker’ DJs that were early on to him, the latter so much so that as Island Blue label boss, he signed Spacek.

56.12

BENCH – Regardless * – A Trip And A Twist, LP – Placid Casual Recordings – 2002

Little remembered duo of Kris Jenkins and Rachel Thomas but they had some cool tunes that might have seen more daylight in the ‘triphop’ era a decade or so earlier.

01.01.38

BREAD – Make It With You – 7″ – Elektra – 1970

I’m not sure there’s ever been a US singles chart No 1 on 41 Rooms… til now but that’s where David Gates, previously a successful songwriter for others, found himself and his band with this single. I was just too young to be buying when this was released but Gates’ up-front-in-the-mix vocal definitely pricked my ears enough over the radio (maybe both Radio 1 and 2?) to have me grab the 7″ second hand just a few years later – for anywhere between 10 and 30p, I reckon.

01.04.41

GORDON LIGHTFOOT– Sundown – 7″ – Reprise – 1974

This would have been more of a Radio 2 sound back in the day, so my mum and her knitting (Aran jumpers her speciality) would have heard this more than me. Incidentally, the Canadian singer/songwriter’s first ever US gig was at the 200 capacity Cleveland coffeehouse, La Cave, supporting a teenage Jose Feliciano, around 1962 or 3.

01.08.09

THE MEKONS – Dear Sausage – I Mekons, LP – Quarterstick Records – 1993

Though I’m guessing licensed to the above as well as Rough Trade, Germany via promo cassettes Paul Smith produced with catalogue numbers from his own label, Blast First. Do fans refer to the album as ‘I Love… ‘ or ‘I Heart… ‘? Dunno.

01.11.43

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY – Mr. Clarinet – 7″ – Missing Link – 1980

Nick Cave and Co with a single that got me beyond Release The Bats for the ‘Goths’ at our Winkles club nights in Bedford in the early ’80s.

01.15.24

KILLING JOKE – Kings and Queens – 7″ – EG – 1985

I don’t remember hearing this first time around but there’s always been just too much to hear.

01.19.31

BAUHAUS – She’s In Parties – 7″ – Beggars Banquet – 1983

Maybe a brave move to release as a single and though I was happy to occasionally clear a dancefloor with a ‘slowie’ this wasn’t one of them.

01.25.07

LOVE AND MONEY – Whisky Dream – Dogs In The Traffic, LP – Fontana – 1991

Maybe it’s the Celtic in me (albeit the Irish side in my case) that had me take to this song, whilst nothing else on the above album grabbed me. With its whiff of ‘traditional’ and strong storytelling it’s no surprise the song has been regularly highlighted on social media through lead man, James Grant’s onstage appearances in the intervening years since.

01.28.30

M&M – Talk To Me (Bonus Telephone) * – 12″ b-side – Atlantic – 1992

The main vocals massively dispensed with, this is head nodding doodling cheeriness… and no more. Not to be confused with M + M, the Black Stations/White Stations alter ego of Martha and The Muffins at one point.

01.33.51

LONELADY – (There Is) No Logic – Former Things, LP – Warp -2021

Funky electronics from Julie Lonelady’s album of reflection.

01.37.22

ELECTRIBE 101 – Talking With Myself (Original Mix) – 12″ – Club – 1988

Aarrgghh! ‘Talking bit alert, Pt 2!’ Diana Ross was at it earlier in the show and now Billie Ray Martin’s ‘sense of theatre’ goes for it as well. That apart, this tune and E101 as a whole was/were a class act, enough so to warrant (with Martin seemingly the driving force) the re-release in recent years of their one and only album – plus a separate remixes package. Thankfully, the gal is also still musically active with ongoing projects.

01.44.02

DEEP 6 – We’re Going Deep (W/Piano) – 12″ – D.S.R. – 1989

Predating his and Oscar Gaetan’s liquid funk Murk workouts by a few years this was Ralph Falcon in 1989 – then as ‘Deep 6’ but, for some reason, ‘Deep Six’ for a 1994 re-release.

01.49.27

ROBERT OWENS – Was I Here Before? (Fire Island Vocal) * – Was I Here Before (Remixes), 3×12″ – Musical Directions – 1996

One of the doyens of house music, to me he’s always been at his best when he’s riding beats with an undercurrent of ‘unease’… as in here with the Fire Island duo of Pete Heller and Terry Farley providing the mix needed. Owens’ slightly leftfield phrasing and tone just seem to add to the mood, not to mention (but I will) his lyrics mostly swerve the mundanity.

Some of what the Fire Island lads were listening to earlier in the ’90s.

Record Mirror article, 3.9.93

01.53.25

NU COLOURS – Tears (Frankie Knuckles Mix) – 12″ Wildcard – 1992

‘This gloriously wailing girl and soulful guy led UK vocal quintet’s smoothly harmonised throbbing 121.7bpm melodic lush garage/house remake of Frankie Knuckles’ 1989 classic (promoed for the past two months flipped simply by its 121.5-121.7bpm Instrumental should cross over easily as it’s actually got a strong song, superbly sung‘. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 23.5.92

‘… the Tottenham based superb soulful Fay Simpson and Lawrence Johnson led gospel quintet’s lushly harmonised bounding 121.6-121.8bpm joyous garage/house remake of Frankie Knuckles’ melodic classic proves to be flipped on its commercial pressing by a more subtly keyboarded 0-121.3bpm actual Frankie Knuckles Mix, plus the similarly sanctified jogging 0-102.2bpm ‘Want Your Love 2 B Mine’ (like the Emotions or Jones Girls singing The SOS Band’s ‘Just Be Good To Me’ – in other words, hot!‘ – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 30.5.92

Satoshie Tomie, Robert Owens and Frankie Knuckles’ original is a bona fide house classic and with London Community Gospel Choir beginnings in the Nu Colours’ ranks it was no surprise this version more than stood up. A worthy show ender.

Sept 1 for show 131.

Dec x

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This playlist is 79% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

From 1959, if you fancied a carpet look on your portable suitcase turntable casing and platter(!), the Philips AG9148 mono gramophone was for you, maybe.

Lyric of Playlist 129…

Maybe Marxman’s history lesson, Joy Division and Nick Cave all on the victory rostrum… but in which order?

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Round & Round – Technique, LP – Factory – 1989

Technically it’s the Technique (Booh Boooom!) band produced, album version on the show, though as their 17th single (or 18th, depending on your source), released in early 1989, we’ll go here with the track in its ‘purist’ form and a visual of the co-produced with Stephen Hague UK 7″. Last heard live (by me anyway, I think) at the 1993 Reading Festivalt, the band’s triumphant return after four years.

Extract from From Heaven to Heaven, New Order Live (The Early Years 1981-1984) At Close Quarters

Hints in the music press of the band’s potential demise in the lead up to Reading ‘93 certainly added some emotional weight to the proceedings and I guess it seemed as much about (once again?) catching, potentially the last New Order gig ever, as it was about catching, for most fans, their first one in nearly four years so, along with Alice (aged four) and ex-New Order roadie and now video director, Angus Cameron (aged more than four) I took in New Order’s very momentary return to a UK stage, as they, in effect, limped to Reading ‘93. Besides the ‘mum’s tummy’ appearance Alice had made at the Manchester G-MEX show, this was her actual gigging debut, and I wonder how many a parent has, with a kid on their shoulders at times like these, quietly thought, ‘even if you don’t really understand it, years later at least you can say that you were there.’ And there she very much was, as at some point Angus takes her right down to the front of the crowd. I could be a Reading Festival or two out here but I do also remember sitting, drinking and catching up with Gillian’s sister, Kim and her hubby, and that was always a cheery chat. As an aside, with every able-bodied New Order fan likely to have been in that field, wasn’t there a Paul Morley/South Bank Show, New Order documentary scheduled on the TV the same evening? ‘Roll the VCR’… but I didn’t.

05.10

HUMAN TETRIS – Insanity – Happy Way In The Maze Of Rebirth, CD/download only – self released – 2012

What it must be like to be a young Russian musician drawing inspiration heavily from a, largely free thinking, world beyond Putin’s grip I can only wonder at but even with the band’s stop start state of existence it’s managed releases (notably nearly all just digital) since 2009. Maybe surprisingly, they’ve built a large following in South America and somehow have toured there for the last three years.

08.55

JOHN FOXX – Underpass – 7″ – Metal Beat / Virgin – 1980

The first of a couple of tracks on this show that could or should really have made it to one of the early ’80s Winkles club night 1hr retrospectives heard on some of the early 41 Rooms’ shows… but somehow didn’t.

12.17

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Magic (Cabaret Voltaire Remix) – Remixed, CD only – EMI – 2001

Cock up alert! The above album is mentioned on the show but the remix was actually first issued as part of the extra 12″ EP included with their pictured here 1990 Groovy, Laidback And Nasty album. Though that era (their ‘house years’, as I like to call them) might have lost the band some early admirers I was a still a fan. The track? Originally written with Marshall Jefferson, I’d suggest the band’s own remix is arguably (surprisingly?) funkier than MJ’s.

18.25

WALLACE – Papertrip * – 12″ EP – Rhythm Section International – 2024

Following on from the above I’d also argue the point with anyone who’s heard house music for the last thirty five to forty years that it’s a genre steeped in ‘formula’ like very few others, so getting from the tried/tired and tested to the parts that prick the ears enough for 41 Rooms often means an edit. So, once again… I have. Still funky.

21.03

GOLDEN TEACHER – Golden Chalice – Bells From The Deep End, 12″ EP – Optimo Music – 2013

‘Recorded live in Glasgow at the Green Door Studio‘ with various limited edition pressings of the EP from this Scottish ‘all sorts of beats’ crew active in the mid 2010s.

24.24

CHAKA KHAN (feat MARY J. BLIGE) – Disrespectful – unknown mix – ???????

With an a cappella version on official releases around 2007 it would be stunning if a chancer or ten hadn’t also grabbed the vocal to turn out versions beyond a full remixes official release. If this is one of those, whoever you are, you… were… on it!

29.09

MARXMAN – Ship Ahoy (Acoustic Mix) – 12″ b-side – Talkin Loud – 1992

Conscious rap lyrics, a passing appearance from the sadly now departed Sinead O’Connor, a low/tin whistle… and a ref to Maya Angelou. As is often said, ‘What’s not to like?

34.52

ANNE CESSNA & ESSENDON AIRPORT – Agua Por Favor – 7″ – Chapter Music – 2022

200 copies pressed on black vinyl with wraparound printed cover… and most probably sold locally before the wider world knew it even existed. And ‘nope’ another I’m guessing I won’t be finding anytime soon. Also, the tone of the spoken vocal slightly reminded me of a Lee Maracle track from a very early 41 Rooms show.

38.37

LOS BITCHOS – Don’t Change – Streaming only (for now)… 2024

To be included though on their upcoming (in August, via City Slang) Talkie Talkie album. I still can’t help wondering if this instrumental foursome isn’t sitting around in rehearsals with one of them, at least, thinking ‘I wanna SING something!‘

41.47

ECHO and THE BUNNYMEN – The Pictures On My Wall (Original 7″ version) – Zoo Records – 1979

Like John Foxx’s Underpass above (is that some sort of oxymoron?), another nailed on gem that didn’t make one of the early ’80s Winkles club night 1hr retrospectives heard on some of the early 41 Rooms’ shows… but could have. I can nearly smell the club.

44.32

JOY DIVISION – Passover – Closer, LP – Factory – 1980

Solid gold. Though I never came across any such debate, it no doubt cropped up in someone’s conversation in the years after Ian Curtis’ death as to whether the album title was pronounced with an ‘S’ or a ‘Z’ sound. I most probably had had the album for fully thirty years before one day out of nowhere I suddenly queried the same myself. I had always been a ‘Closer’ lad. ‘Closer’ it was… though it could have worked well as the other version, sadly.

49.08

THE BEATLES – Tomorrow Never Knows (2022 Mix) – Revolver, LP – Parlophone – 1966

The Fab Four were growing…

51.50

WORKFORCE – Drowning Pool (John Peel session) – Unreleased – Jan 1986

Early at this stage but I’ve been told there are plans for an official Workforce retrospective release, combining both sessions the band did for John Peel, plus maybe ‘other stuff’, including our (Mick Lowe and myself), Rorschach Testing 12″ Back In The Good Books. Not sure when, though. Watch someone’s space. I think I remember standing in a middle island of two way Sheffield traffic looking on at this photo (shoot). Happy days.

Photo credit: Mick Lowe

56.49

DEAD CAN DANCE – Children Of The Sun – Anastasis, 2LP – (PIAS) Recordings – 2012

Re the show dialogue, it’s very true. I genuinely didn’t plan DCD’s inclusion here to coincide… but it does just that. Forty years ago to the day of this upload I promoted them at Bedford Boys Club. Seven DCD tracks in 129 41 Rooms shows, so maybe only a 5% chance they would right now turn up here.

A ‘Dead Can Dance’ search on all the 41 Rooms shows (under which track, I can’t remember) will throw up a fuller account of the day and I’ve also posted it on my Facebook page today. Also, here’s a link to some of the soundcheck.

01.04.19

NICK CAVE Nick & THE BAD SEEDS – Frogs – Limited Edition 7″ – PIAS – 2024

Ahead of its release later this month, the 1000 run, green vinyl 7″ is already pre sold out. No surprise. An epic sounding second single from Cave’s also upcoming (at the end of August) album, Wild God.

01.08.45

COCTEAU TWINS – Seekers Who Are Lovers – Otherness, 12″ EP – Fontana – 1996

The only track from the four on the EP included on the band’s Milk & Kisses album from the same year. Robin, Liz and Simon still in fab form.

Btw, look out for Simon’s memoir, In One Ear – ‘Cocteau Twins, Ivor and Me‘, out in September. It will certainly be including a photo (or two?) of mine, from the band’s UK Spring ’84 tour.

The surviving ticket of mine nearest to the Milk & Kisses era.

01.13.14

LEE GAMBLE– Blurring – Models, LP – Hyperdub – 2023

Sounding like it wouldn’t have been out of place in the ‘trip hop’/slow beats era of three decades earlier.

01.17.27

EYELESS IN GAZA – Only Whispers – Rust Red September, LP – Cherry Red – 1983

When this album was released I’d had a video machine for about four years, so I’d gravitated to augmenting lots of home video stuff with (any) audio of choice and Only Whispers always brings to mind footage of my dad, unknowing, sitting below the house in the evening sunshine, having a quiet moment. A year or so earlier, the last Hickey family photos had been taken in the same spot, a couple of months before Mum died of cancer.

01.21.57

SUZANNE LATHAM – Clarity – ?????? – 2000-2010’ish

A few question marks above coz I’m not sure where I sourced this lost gem from. Given the timeline it could have been MySpace. A demo, some intended release or maybe from a session from one of the myriad of bespoke ‘live in the studio’ session-type set ups online? No idea. Suzanne only appears on Discogs as a guest vocalist on someone else’s album but she has a handful of live recordings on Youtube, including one with her (I’m confidently guessing) sister, Louise – and completely separately I’d also taken to a track of hers a few years earlier.

01.25.08

NIECY BLUES – Violently Rooted – Exit Simulation, LP – Kranky – 2023

‘Folk soul’… maybe… out of South Carolina, USA.

01.28.48

VALERIE ETIENNE – I Wanted – On The Down Low, 12″ EP – Clean Up – 1999

Presently back in action with Galliano after a few decades, aside of a suck it and see tester gig in Bristol in 2023, a tour starting in Brighton this very night (July 7) will be their first live dates in as long a gap.

01.33.53

LIZZY PARKS – Raise The Roof – 7″ – Tru Thoughts – 2008

Brighton again, with the label Tru Thoughts having released two of the three Parks albums in the mid noughties. With no 12″, in single form the full track was actually split over two sides of the 7″. Has a bit of a Jazzanova feel, I reckon.

01.39.01

PRINCE CHARLES and THE CITY BEAT BAND – In The Street(s) * – 12″ – Solid Platinum Records / Boston International Records – 1979

With a hugely rare and expensive 7″ version out there (yet another split over two sides), for some reason the track’s title extended to more than one street as the track and Prince Charles moved on to Casablanca Records a few years later.

01.44.06

ELEKTRONS – Get Up – 12″ – Wall Of Sound – 2007

Very coincidentally, sitting as track no 24 on this episode of 41 Rooms – as they did on the last episode!

01.46.40

THE PRODIGY – Poison – Music For The Jilted Generation, LP – XL Recordings – 1994

Align yourself with/via an album title… and then Side 1, Track 1, sonically slap your audience in the face.

01.51.51

JUST MUSTARD – Seven (Live In Dreams version) – Youtube stream only – 2021

From the slightly darker side; captured via that there Youtube, recorded live on home soil at Dundalk Town Hall.

01.56.17

NIHILISTS – Wallspace – 12″ – Classic Album Club Records – 2016

Under this guise, James Mudriczki with the first of only three singles in eight years since the demise of (hiatus from?) Puressence in 2013.

Aug 4 for show 130.

Dec x

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This playlist is 86% vinyl friendly. Impressive.

A Columbia GP-3B Portable Record Player, out of Japan. Teal! Relatively available second hand at £150-£200 but not as old as they appear, coming from the ’90s… and very weedy sounding, judging by a play through on Youtube. Possibly aimed at cratedigging DJs, I saw a few with these in tow in the same time period and one digger – in a Notting Hill Music & Video Exchange store – happened to be Japanese. Clear and lime green versions, at least, were also available.

Someone elsewhere online is currently offering a red GP-3 model for… $250. Form an orderly queue?

Lyric of Playlist 128…

Joni maybe pipped by the one liner, Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But The Rent?

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Hurt (live, instrumental) – Movement, Definitive Edition boxset – Warner Music – 2019

From the band’s seven track performance at London’s Riverside Studios for BBC2’s live arts programme, Riverside on Jan 4, 1982 and a night I just couldn’t get time off work to be along to. The programme’s credits rolled with New Order only into second track, Chosen Time (Death Rattle) and I’d only know of the remaining five tracks when Jon Wozencroft sent me a tape a few months later, him having grabbed tickets for the show at Rough Trade the day before – and it would take another forty years before I got to know the remaining tracks beyond the show’s transmission end had been recorded and the footage had survived.

04.29

INNER CITY – Hallelujah (Leftfield On High Vocal) – 12″ – 10 Records – 1992

From a period of some dark years for me but where dance and beats and in particular, London’s KISS FM radio and house music managed to raise the spirits – here with no one’s god invoked.

11.56

HOPE + HARROW – Crowbar – Crowbar EP, Lathe Cut 8″ – Do It Thissen Records – 2021

50 copies only, with lyric sheet. Long sold out via Bandcamp – ‘Four tracks of experimental electronica from ex-Sheffield & Croydon fellers (Pete Hope and David Harrow) now located in New Zealand and Los Angele respectively!‘

15.11

GRACE JONES – Cry Now, Laugh Later (Album version) – 12″ b-side – Island – 1983

Her three disco albums never quite made a mark so all power to Chris Blackwell and Island for persevering long enough to find success via Sly and Robbie’s intervention and Compass Point Studios in 1980, with Warm Leatherette. Cry Now, Laugh Later’s snappy beats would come from Living The Life, two albums further on in 1982 album when she was really on a roll.

20.11

GIULIO CERCATO – Good Intentions – Download only – 2024

‘I make music for your stories‘, says Giulio.

22.08

KUTIMAN – Vanishing Point (41 Rooms Extra Intro Edit) * – Open, LP – Siyal Music – 2022

Black, clear and ‘Blue Curacao‘ coloured vinyl versions pressed.

25.30

PM DAWN – Paper Doll (Club Mix) – 12″ – Gee Street – 1991

Roughly around its release, this reminds me of sitting in the sunshine in London, Ladbroke Grove’s small park area by Portobello Rd market.

30.58

WEEKEND PLAYERS – Subway – Pursuit Of Happiness, CD only – Multiply Records – 2002

Or a cassette… via Indonesia. ‘Weekend Players was an electronic music duo from England. The musicians were vocalist Rachel Foster, who has provided vocals and songwriting on Bent’s Ariels album, and producer Andy Cato, one half of Groove Armada.The duo hit number one on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in 2003 with “I’ll Be There”. Tracks from their debut album, Pursuit of Happiness, have been featured in numerous episodes of the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and CSI: Miami.Their biggest UK hits were “21st Century” and “Into the Sun”.‘ – ArtistInfo

34.57

SCRIMSHIRE (feat STAC) – Pep Talks – Download only – 2024

‘Pep Talks is an epic, electronic ballad that has been in the making for over 12 years. Scrimshire writing with frequent collaborator Dave Koor originally created the sounds and basis of this song back around the time of his 3rd album Bight in 2012. But the song coincided with a temporary break from the Scrimshire project and the original demo stayed quietly on a hard drive for years.

‘In 2017 as he began the production of 4th album listeners, Adam decided to resurrect the song and invited another long-time collaborator, Stac to write the vocals for the piece. But as Listeners evolved, the song struggled to find its place on the album. Time and again, it resurfaced, for Believers Vol. 1, then as a completely reproduced piece for an unreleased album in 2024.

‘But now it sees light of day as a part of a forthcoming Forgotten Songs EP, Scrimshire’s occasional compilation series of songs that slipped through the gaps.

‘Cosmic, spacious, with stuttering beats reminding us of his earlier more electronic influenced productions, Pep Talks is a jewel of a track that we’re so glad is finally out in the world‘. – Bandcamp

A forgotten jewel, indeed. Artist, producer, DJ, record label boss Adam Scrimshire and Stac shining.

39.12

MELIKE ŞAHIN & KUTIMAN – Ellerin Hani? – Download only – 2023

And Kutiman’s back! This time with Turkish singer, Melike Şahin, it’s sounding soothing, though I don’t know if the lyrics are relaying as much.

42.15

JONI MITCHELL – Shadows and Light – The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, LP – Asylum – 1975

Checking out the goddess’ albums in the ’70s was a regular move for me.

46.30

BENCH – Bliss – Bliss 2×7″ EP – Cylinder Recordings – 2000

Sounding like it would have faired better a few years earlier when the ‘trip hop’ slow beats thing was… a thing.

51.26

RAHUL DEV BURMAN – The Burning Train – The Burning Train, LP – His Master’s Voice – 1979

Out of India’s forever rampant film machine and a title track, sounding a bit Blaxploitation… a bit Streets of San Francisco… and a little Spaghetti Western… with a drunk bloke gatecrashing at the end. Although 1979, the album’s labels look like they came from some 1950’s classical release. And to see the whole film, go here! In between the Batman-like fight sound effects, unless you speak Hindi, the occasional phrase spoken in English (for no good reason) is pretty much pointless, so you might as well watch it all at double speed. That gets it down to just over the hour. A bomb… and a burning train…

54.52

JAMES BROWN – Living In America (R’n’B Extended Mix) – 12″ – Scotti Bros. Records – 1986

Phat slappin’ beats and the king of funk still on it in the mid ’80s.

01.01.04

ATHLETES OF GOD x MSW (feat LADY BLACKBIRD) – Fontella – 7″ – Foundation Music – 2023

With the b-side of this Record Store Day having made show 127, the a-side turns up quicker than maybe I planned. An orange vinyl ‘Limited Edition’ hand clapper!

01.05.11

GWEN GUTHRIE – Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But The Rent – 7″ – Polydor – 1986

Written and produced by the lady herself, with the sort of title that just begs a listen.

01.08.25

NAKED ROOMMATE – Repeat – Do The Duvet, LP – Trouble In Mind – 2020

Their one and only album to date has more than held its own on 41 Rooms.

01.11.50

LOU REED– Vicious – 7″ – RCA – 1972

Being 14 or 15 at the time I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t have known of Lou Reed until this and its predecessor UK 7″, Walk On The Wild Side turned up on poptastic Radio 1. Roughly the year I’d have started buying the NME, etc to start ‘educating’ myself.

01.14.40

MINK DEVILLE – Spanish Stroll – 7″ – Capitol – 1977

Maybe we were still in the era of fascination with 12″ singles coz I actually bought the ‘Limited Edition’ 12″ of this. A waste of time though, as it was the 3mins plus single version stretched across all the grooves. Thinking about it now, I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly heard another Deville track since.

01.18.00

FELT – A Wave Crashed On Rocks – Forever Breathes The Lonely Word, LP – Creation – 1986

I did my best to bury Lawrence and Co’s deceptive and disconcerting intro to ‘A Wave… ‘ in the show’s mix.

01.20.32

CLANNAD – In A Lifetime – 7″ – RCA – 1986

With Bono guesting on vocals, whatever the visual/cinematic theme – and the Irish do love to wander around countryside looking very thoughtful – there was definitely a better video to be made than what surfaced for this. Blurred vision? And then some. Even with some Irish mist (mizzle/drizzle) maybe on show, it makes me think I need an eye test.

01.23.14

EMANATIVE – When On Earth (Marc Rapson Remix) – Spacebeats EP, 12″ – Futuristica Music – 2008

Sometimes it’s the little things. The treatment on vocalist, Liz Elensky’s chorus entry (and it works even better on the faster, original version that saw out an earlier 41 Rooms show), a tune that Sergio Mendes would have been proud of.

01.27.26

SMITH & MIGHTY (feat ALICE PERERA) – I Don’t Know (Mix 2) – DJ-Kicks EP, 12″ – !K7 Records – 1998

Bristolian slow beats merchants (no, not those ones) taking a huuuuuuge leaf out of Cool Breeze’s Can’t Deal With This from three years earlier I reckon, and if the latter hadn’t already made it to 41 Rooms they’d have been side by side here.

01.30.48

SOUL II SOUL – I Care (Soul II Soul) (Album version) – Volume V Believe, LP – Virgin – 1995

For whatever reason, Jazzy B’s crew swerved a Vol IV but six years on from the highs of Back To Life they still had the vibe with I Care. Interestingly, though Caron Wheeler fronts some of the songs on Vol 5 this is however fronted by Charlotte.

01.35.24

ELEKTRONS – Hurry On Down – Red Light, Don’t Stop, 2LP – Wall Of Sound – 2007

Along with some anarchy in the album title, there was a sort of playfulness in its tunes.

01.39.28

ATTICA BLUES – What Do You Want? (Album version) – Test. Don’t Test, 2LP – Columbia – 2000

| | |

The fact that a major label like Columbia took a punt on signing the band from their time on Mo Wax tells you something but in the way that these things sometimes play out, the respect that Charlie Williams, Tony Nwachukwu and Roba El-Essawy had earned from the time on James Lavelles’ label didn’t quite translate to the level of sales they deserved.

01.43.31

FELIX DA HOUSECAT – Nu-World (Housecat Destruction Mix) – Nu-World 12″ – Guerilla – 1993

Likely heard via Sarah HB’s house show on London’s KISS FM (or maybe Steve Jackson’s). ‘Progressive house’ was in the house a lot back then and the Guerilla label provided a few gems.

01.52.46

BJÖRK – Human Behaviour (Bassheads Edit) – 12″ – One Little Indian – 1993

The Icelandic One in amongst some thumping beats.

July 7, 2024 for show 129.

Dec x

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This playlist is 87% vinyl friendly. Impressive.

B&O Beocenter 7700…

If I remember rightly, back in the ’70s when me and my mates were getting beyond the Dansettes of our parents’ time, Bang and Olufsen was a bit too expensive. That didn’t matter much with me. I just didn’t like the sleek, minimalist look. My mate, Tom (see playlist end) would have said ‘Not enough knobs and lights… ‘

Lyric of Playlist 127…

‘And the prize goes to… ‘ The mind of David Byrne.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Ecstasy – Power, Corruption & Lies, LP – Factory – 1983

For me, one of a few NO instrumentals that could have neatly kicked off a gig but never got played anywhere in a set… or indeed anytime.

04.55

THE WAKE – Uniform – Harmony, 2LP re-issue – Factory Benelux – 2013

Though first included in 2001 on the Harmony & Singles CD only compilation James Nice put out on his LTM label before his above vinyl compilation. Taken from a John Peel session, broadcast in July ’83, with Bobby Gillespie still in the band (just) and a couple months before the first of two gigs the band did in Bedford at Winkles before that year end.

Rare promo shot of The Wake including Bobby Gillespie.

10.23

LITTLE NEMO – L’Heure D’Hiver – Turquoise Fields, LP – Lively Art – 1990

French new wave…

14.34

THE CURE – Boys Don’t Cry – 7″ – Fiction – 1979

The exuberance of youth… not to mention the prolificness, whereby it swerved being included on the band’s debut album.

17.05

THE SLITS – Instant Hit – Cut, LP – Island – 1979

Girls doing it for themselves.

19.43

AU PAIRS – Tongue In Cheek – Sense and Sensuality, LP – Kamera – 1982

41 Rooms faves, Lesley Woods and crew shuffling and slinky.

22.42

ESG – You Might Be The One (Album Mix) – What More Can You Take? CD only – ESG Records – 2017

They were no less interesting the second or third time around.

25.34

ATHLETES OF GOD (feat LADY BLACKBIRD) – Don’t Wanna Be Normal – 7″ AA side – Foundation Music – 2023

Out of Sheffield and the production work of Richard ‘Parrot’ Barratt, a Record Store Day, Limited Edition, Orange. Vocalist, Lady Backbird reminds me of Rae & Christian front girl, Veba. High praise in these parts.

28.50

SAULT – Fearless – Untitled (Rise), 2LP – Forever Living Originals – 2020

A collective that seems to work in mysterious ways – eleven albums and mini albums in the space of four years being just one of them – and with the ‘lifts’ in Fearless feeling so euphoric this could easily have been a show ender.

32.29

BENCH – Manic Suspension – 12″ – Oxygen Music Works – 1997

Yep, a definite comparison to London Elektricity’s brand of soulful drum and bass.

37.04

RONI SIZE REPRAZENT – Watching Windows (Ed Rush & Optical Version 2), 12″ – Talkin’ Loud – 1998

The remixers take the original into serious drive mode, getting to 41 Rooms first in the process.

43.32

SANDOZ – Digital Lifeforms – Digital Lifeforms, 12″ EP – Intone – 1993

For a a few years after their releases Richard Kirk’s quality EPs under this name could be picked up for near original prices and being a fan and friend of the late great man I did just that… but somehow missed this one. Price-wise, it’s now the most sought after and the one copy on Discogs will cost you €150.

50.58

DEFINITION OF SOUND – Moira Jane’s Cafe (E-Smoove’s Groovy Mix) – 12″ – Circa – 1992

Reminds me of daytime KISS FM in London, when released. Sunshine seems to spring to mind.

56.51

ADDIS BLACK WIDOW – Innocent (Album Version) – 12″ promo only – Breakin’ Bread – 1995

Laidback, in a De La Soul and PM Dawn sort of way? Whatever, I didn’t hear this at the time.

01.00.53

LENA (FIAGBE) – You Come From Earth – 7″ – Mother Records – 1993

Just the year before, Tasmin Archer and her Sleeping Satellite had come out of nowhere to top the UK Top 40 but even with Radio 1 playlisting this beauty of a song… sadly stalled at #69. Nowt as queer as folk.

01.04.08

CLYDIE KING – The Thrill Is Gone – 7″ – Imperial – 1965

She released music in her own right for two decades but was maybe equally well know in the industry as a backing singer of very high regard.

01.07.26

IRMA THOMAS – Some Things You Never Get Used To – 7″ – Imperial – 1965

I can’t remember but maybe hearing this tune is why I bought her 1983 Kent label compilation, Time Is On My Side on release and though back here at 41 Rooms I had no idea Some Things… was both the same year and label as Clydie K above, it just sounded right to follow.

01.10.09

DIANA ROSS & THE SUPREMES and THE TEMPTATIONS– I’ll Try Something New – 7″ – Motown – 1969

The Miracles’ 1962 original (and importantly Smokey Robinson’s very own work), so you can’t argue with ‘the boss’ in these sort of situations – but I just might. Here the song is taken on by a couple of label mates and after The Miracles’ and Kiki Dee’s takes it becomes the third version to rock up on 41 Rooms. To my ears, Kiki’s version, although the last released (in 1974), sounds the most natural and easier flowing version, whereas both Smokey’s and the Supremes and Temptations’ versions took the melody slightly more around the houses than was really needed. That would have been understandable if they were following after Kiki’s version… but they weren’t.

01.12.19

BEN WESTBEECH – Inflections – There’s More To Life Than This, 2LP – Strictly Rhythm – 2011

Caught this on one of Gilles Peterson’s BBC6Music shows. Soulful vocalist working in the beats arena.

01.17.49

IZO FITZROY – Give Me The High (Live, studio) – Youtube – 2023

I’m in the country but sadly not in Bedford when she and her old skool soulful songwriting touches down at Esquires on May 10, playing off the back of her 2023 album, A Good Woman. A slot on a recent Later With Jools… show performing the above tune did it for me.

01.21.31

TALKING HEADS – Psycho Killer – 7″ – Sire – 1977

We’re all just guests in David Byrne’s head.

Anyone for the time we nearly got early Talking Heads to Bedford, UK?

On a scout around online a few years back, and with what info seemed available at the time, I thought the idea of Talking Heads even having been potentially booked to play in Bedford back in 1977 (and at the cabaret venue, the Nite Spot!?) seemed pretty unlikely but having done a search in more recent times it appears it really did nearly happen.

For those that never graced the place, the Nite Spot was an easy ‘in’ for a change of scenery late drink – especially as freebie tickets weren’t hard to come by for quiet/mid week nights – and myself, mates Dave ‘Dobber’ Lewis, Phil Harris and three others just happened to be there on Oct 20. The layout of the place was ideal for seeing a band. An ex cinema (it sloped downwards, in a slight amphitheatre kind of way, to a clear as day stage) but now ‘Cabaret’ themed, it supposedly had the longest bar in Britain. My diary for the night says ‘disco rubbish’ (damning of the night, not the genre in general :)) and I was home and in bed by 11.30 but I can’t now remember what exactly I made back then of the listing on the flyer/ programme I grabbed (see below) for Talking Heads to have been there on the same night.

The band’s first ever UK gigs had been a handful supporting The Ramones in April ’77 but dates in their own right were then intended for the Autumn – with the Greyhound in Croydon on Oct 9 certainly provisionally booked. Everything for the UK would however then be shifted to early in ’78 but judging by set lists of gigs they subsequently did play in October (in the US) we’d have definitely got large chunks of the just released Talking Heads: 77 album (including Psycho Killer) plus Take Me To The River (no need, the Nite Spot was right on one – the Ouse!) and others.

01.25.45

FORMAL SPPEEDWEAR – Bunto – Download only, for now – 2024

Sounding uncannily like David Byrne’s mob to me.

01.29.28

EYELESS IN GAZA – Clear Cut Apparently – Photographs As Memories, LP – Cherry Red – 1980

Jagged punk folk from 41 Rooms faves.

01.30.53

GNAG OF FOUR – At Home He’s A Tourist – 7″ – EMI – 1979

And not many off their Entertainment debut album that haven’t now made it to 41 Rooms.

01.34.23

LES PANTIES – Porkshop – 7″ – Fantomes Records – 2011

300 hand numbered, white vinyl and thirty years on post punk. Still a dreadful band name.

01.37.02

ULTRAVOX – Dislocation – 7″ b-side – Island – 1978

The John Foxx era is the only true Ultravox… even if the later hits might suggest otherwise.

01.39.37

MOTHERLOVERS – Ring My Bell – Unreleased – 2020’ish

Although an album or two’s worth of Motherlovers’ takes on a good few others’ past glories were on Youtube they’ve now disappeared. I must ask…

01.43.00

DJ SHADOW – What Does Your Soul Look Like (Pt 1) – 12″ – Mo Wax – 1995

Classic period Mo Wax?

01.48.20

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Haiti – The Crackdown, LP – Virgin / Some Bizzare – 1983

Not on the setlist for their gig/my promotion at Bedford Boys Club in ’83 but The Cabs in the slow and instrumental lane is fine with me.

01.50.40

4 HERO – Planetaria (Hefner Remix) – 12″ b-side – Talkin’ Loud – 1999

The leftfield beats Hefner, not the indie one adding a dreamy touch. Trip hop’py.

01.57.03

BLACK SABBATH – Laguna Sunrise – 7″ b-side – Vertigo – 1972

Due to its A side (Tomorrow’s Dream), this was certainly on my 7″ shelves when I was in my late teens, though not a band to be heard too often on 41 Rooms aside here and now when I’d realised this show was due to upload on May 5. It would have been the birthday of my very good but now departed mate, Tom Locke. Indeed, along with the band’s Evil Woman 7″, which I definitely did sell him back in the ’70s, this 7 might have gone in the same direction. We were very good friends for nearly fifty years, so this one’s for him.

Tom. RIP.

Hopefully June 2, 2024 for show 128.

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This playlist is 78% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

An early 1970s BSR P195, courtesy of Birmingham (UK) Sound Reproducers – with an eye maybe on reel to reel tape machines they would then make a decade later? They were more bullish with their turntables though, having grown the company in the 1960s to employing 2,600(!) and at one point further along they cornered 87% of the market in supplying turntables and autochangers to record player manufacturers worldwide. In my eternal search to identify the first record player I had (it’s extremely dim in the memory) there’s something about the handle and speaker grill on this lad I think I ‘recognise’… but if I ever actually see a version of mine I’m hoping I’ll instantly know.

Lyric of Playlist 126…

It’s a tie between Lambrini Girls and Marv. Polar opposites in their eras, ages, ‘approach’ etc but their subject matters are connected. Elsewhere and on a less serious note, there’s a nod also to Norman Singh and his track title ‘Rain, it very rarely goes up‘.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Mission Impossible – Unreleased – 1999

I can take or leave the film franchise but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone of a certain age that doesn’t recognise the brand’s signature tune, and New Order’s stab at it – recorded somewhere in the ’98 The Beach soundtrack and ’99 Get Ready album sessions – is damn fine.

“We had been told Tom Cruise was a huge New Order fan and that supplying the track beforerhand was just a formality. It was fun to record, turning out a lot better than I expected. I was able to really let rip on the bass sound. Unfortunately we lost out to Limp Bizkit, who were huge at the time.” Peter Hook, Substance : Inside New Order.

03.49

LAMBRINI GIRLS – Gods Country – Download only – 2024

As this show uploads, this is likely though to make it to vinyl via their record label, Big Scary Monsters sometime soon. Smart words out of Brighton, UK, which sort of brings to mind Marlon Brando’s Johnny Strabler character’s response in The Wild Ones to the question, ‘What are you ranting against’?… ‘Whadda you got?’ I get the feeling there could easily have been another few verses.

6.03

THE STRANGLERS – Burning Up Time – No More Heroes, LP – United Artists – 1977

They were no spring chickens when they emerged out of the punk scene but memories of a couple of great nights watching them in this era, in Cambridge and Dunstable, and my mate, Gary F strutting air guitar (in his case, a left-handed bass) and drawling Hugh Cornwell’s words in my bedroom to this album.

08.19

PENETRATION – Nostalgia – Moving Targets, LP – Virgin – 1978

Glow in the dark vinyl that I seem to remember being less than impressed with at the time – the glowing that is, not the sounds. I really took to Pauline Murray’s voice early on. Still in my ‘rock’ years I went along June 29, ’77 to London’s Marquee, purely to chat with Ian Gillan who I knew was going to what was a (Mike) Heron headlining gig. I remember being at the bar and hearing this screech of a voice coming from the stage. Enough to get me to go have a look, I found Penetration as support, at their first ever London gig. Murray was maybe trying to grab the attention of what might have been a crowd apathetic to the punk onslaught… and Nostalgia was very likely on their playlist.

11.44

SIOUXSIE and THE BANSHEES – Jigsaw Feeling – The Scream, LP – Polydor – 1978

Class punk. Is that some sort of paradox?

16.09

NASMAK – Me Rex – 7″ b-side – Aura – 1983

Loping, plodding sounds out of Holland that are definitely in the post punk bag. Maybe even akin to some of the no wave sounds coming out of New York in these early ’80s years?

20.29

NORMAN SINGH – Rain, It Very Rarely Goes Up – The Suck & The Blow, self-released cassette – 1985

Norman’s third playlisting at 41 Rooms. In reality, one Martin Shouler, the bass player for early ’80s Bedford band, Actors & Famous People. Seemingly he had too much sonic stuff going on inside to be restrained by the band’s output alone and he produced at least three (I have three, anyway) C60 cassettes worth of outpourings, so tracks from Stop Talking To The Pig (1984, his first) and Some Geese Have All The Luck (1985) could also be coming your way at some point – if only to namecheck the ‘album’ titles again. There’s a lot going on in the recordings but all managed via maybe a Tascam 4-track Portastudio?

23.20

THE SHINS – Sealegs – Wincing The Night Away, LP – Sub Pop – 2007

The more melodic side of Sub Pop’s thinking.

27.43

VALERIE ETIENNE – Wasteland – For What It Is, CD only – Clean Up – 1999

Or a cassette version… out of Indonesia only! Maybe best known for fronting Galliano or (more for me) Two Banks Of Four, For What It Is has to date been her only solo album release.

31.25

INCOGNITO – Keep The Fires Burning – Positivity, LP – Talkin’ Loud – 1993

Looking indeed for some positivity, main man, Jean-Paul ‘Bluey’ Maunick co-writing and producing here with Ray Hayden, another prominent player on the soul, jazz, Straight No Chaser scene of the time and a previous 41 Rooms playlister in his own right.

36.17

JAZZ THE GLASS – Welcome Home WJ (Mash Up) – Unreleased – 2020

Walter spotting…

39.48

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE – Comin’ Back To Me – Surrealistic Pillow, LP – RCA – 1967

Maybe better recognised when fronted by the Grace Slick’s vocals but here it’s some Marty Balin introspection and reminiscing.

45.03

THE BEAUTY ROOM – Shadows Falling – II, LP – Far Out Recordings – 2012

DJ/Producer, Kirk Degiorgio’s crew, sounding like they lived just down the road from the above West Coasters – when it might have been nearer Ipswich, UK and a few years further down the line.

49.25

RAYMOND LEFEVRE – Soul Coaxing (Âme Caline) * – 7″ – Major Minor – 1968

French singer/songwriter, Michel Polnareff’s Âme Caline (Cuddly Soul) turned into an international, instrumental hit by Lefevre – the way I constantly heard it as a kid, on the BBC airwaves; World Wide Family Favourites (soundtracking the Hickey family Sunday lunch like so many) and Mum’s fave, Radio 2.

51.55

PEGGY MARCH – Losin’ My Touch * – 7″ – RCA – 1965

And on to a lady who coincidentally turned the previous track into a vocal that’s either oddly charming or a slightly awkward mismatch (I’m still not sure which). Here though, she created a cracker and my copy is yet another to go in the extra suitcase returning from the next trip to Los Altos Hills, California. A more wistful, laid back version (but never released at the time?) by Maxine Brown sounds as if it was recorded in the same era.

54.44

ELISA – Come Speak To Me – Asile’s World , CD only – Sugar – 2001

Only surfaced as an extra track a year later on the album’s re-promotion but I first heard this song via 4 Hero’s shuffling vocal remix. For me, the vocals sit better on the latter, already 41 Rooms playlisted version but the original still gets a nod here.

58.54

HOODLUM PRIEST – Deep Dance – Heart Of Darkness, LP – ZTT – 1990

Industrial rap and hippety, trippety-hop.

01.02.13

AGENT PROVOCATEUR– Kicks (Album version) – Where The Wld Things Are, 2LP – Wall Of Sound/Epic – 1997

I think I may have first heard this via a session the band did for a Robert Elms, BBC London radio show of the time.

01.06.30

TALIZMAN – Only You (Original Mix?) – 12″ – Cowboy – 1993

‘ ‘Only You’ is exceedingly different to all previous quality musical ministrations from our partners down at the ranch. For a start, it’s not a banging’ house track as you may have expected. There’s a lot more to it than that. It’s a ‘real’ song, with verse, chorus and middle eight structure that bounces along with acoustic strumming, gated electric guitars, banjos, violins, shimmering sitars, hoedown pianos and some smashing vocals that lie somewhere between Robert Wyatt and Stone Roses’ Ian Brown for style. As it’s not your regular 125+bpm-er, some may find it hard to programme, but the more innovative DJs will drop it somehow. For those who can’t make the barndance, there’s a rather superb house mix on the flip‘. – Gordon Kaye, Mixmag Update, 11.2.93

‘What a heady hydrid with, in order of appearance: a wonderful spacey guitar riff; big beats as funky as they are chunky; rough and ready synths; a cery catchy anthemic male vocal; a percussion-laden dub section leading into a disco chant; and a totally wild banjo picking funky intro. All in all, this is a balearic beauty that’s more refreshing than a cold Budweiser on a summer’s day in Death Valley‘. – Andy Beevers, Record Mirror (Music Week), 20.2.92

‘Unusual bumpily rumbled jiggling clever pure pop 101.7bpm Original… ‘ – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 3.4.93

A bit Flowered Up, a bit Happy Mondays, a bit Ibiza? a bit oooh and a bit aaahhh? All in all, a bit of carefree, bonkers skanking around a dancefloor! The Cowboy club promo dept rightly flagged up the original mix, albeit with some slight over confidence, as this sounds to me like it was made by chancers who found themselves in a mate’s studio after a night down the pub… and you might not be surprised to learn this was their only release.

01.10.35

THE COACHOUSE RHYTHM SECTION – Nobody’s Got Time – 12″ – Ice Records – 1977

I’m not sure whether it’s the same version split over two sides on the 7″ release or not but it is the work of Eddie ‘Electric Avenue’ Grant – not forgetting his time in The Equals. This punk disco/proto house workout maybe unsurprisingly went down well with New York’s Paradise Garage crowd of the time – courtesy of DJ, Larry Levan – and maybe for that reason alone, in the 2020s 12″ copies sell for anywhere between £25 and £100 plus, depending on nothing obvious, it appears. I’d nearly guarantee that in the hundreds of thousands of 12″s I flicked through in my younger days I’d have been able to pick this up for a fiver or less :), apart from the fact the ICE label was just one of those I took zero notice of and skipped by. With Nobody’s Got Time there are a bunch of sounds I imagine you wouldn’t have heard on any other track of the time that Grant was maybe trying to align it with/feed off at the time… and maybe (in a punk style way) he didn’t care! ‘I need a synth/snare/backing vocal/etc on this‘… It sounds like he just used the first of each he could program or get together.

01.16.08

ARTHUR RUSSELL – See My Brother, He’s Jumping Out (Let’s Go Swimming #2) – Corn, LP compilation – Audika – 2015

Not unlike the above Eddie Grant tune, to my ears this is more off kilter/left field production values but given Russell’s life was cut short at the age of 41 I’d question whether some of the subsequent releases under his name weren’t in fact just demos. Whatever, some of the people he rubbed shoulders with in his musical journey has done his legacy no harm with the later generations.

Faith #3, 2001 article. Words: Chris Menist

01.21.28

THOMAS LEER – Control Yourself (Demo) – 1982, CD only – Klanggalerie – 2018

With the whole of Leer’s (all demos) 1982 album previously available as downloads, this version of Control Yourself seems to differ from that of the already 41 Rooms playlisted b-side take on his 1984 Heartbeat 7″ in one very small but significant way. Come inclusion on the single, Leer must have realised the synth stabs after some of the verses sounded too… ‘limp’, so he switched to a far more uplifting sound. In having heard and loved the 7″ version first, the said synth stabs here – in what is still a great tune – are indeed glaringly ‘drab’. It’s the little things…

01.27.29

A CERTAIN RATIO – Yo Yo Gi – Loco Live at Hope Mill Studios, LP – Mute – 2022

With some of this session’s other tracks catchable on uuutuuube, here the modern ACR hark back to the edgy unease of their early days. And just the 43 years after I tried and failed, props to mate and Bedford Esquires promoter, Kev Bailey for getting the band to my old home town on May 3. I’ll be crossing the sea to see whoever there!

01.31.42

ECHO and THE BUNNYMEN – Villiers Terrace (John Peel session) – cassette – Korova/WEA – 1983

Below I went with the first time their Aug ’79, debut session for Peel got an official release – on a cassette, free with the Cutter 7″, though it did surface on vinyl five years later via the Strange Fruit label.

01.35.51

JOE COCKER – Delta Lady – 7″ – Regal Zonophone – 1969

The ex-Sheffield gasfitter’s flailing arms, Top Of The Pops appearances were a bit eye catching back in the day.

01.38.33

JETHRO TULL – My Sunday Feeling * – Living In The Past, EP – Fontana – 1969

More readily available as the lead off track to the band’s debut album, This Was (and before my ‘JT years’, as such) but as I try to favour 7″ vinyl in these playlists I went for this Portuguese EP, especially as it seems to have been the only territory to house My Sunday Feeling on the single format. Surprisingly, once heard by me on a radio show of Acid Jazz head honcho, Eddie Piller, as it happens… but then, we all have our musical pasts.

01.41.44

LULU – Morning Dew – 7″ – Epic – 1968

The third version of the song to make to 41 Rooms and that’s without the original or the most famous versions. My demo copy of this one is yet another to go in the extra suitcase returning from the next trip to Los Altos Hills, California.

01.44.19

LIME GARDEN – Popstar – One More Thing, LP – So Young Records – 2024

2024 Brighton, UK in the area once again, this time with some indie cheeriness.

01.47.11

PETULA CLARK – You’re The One * – 7″ – Pye – 1965

Helping Petula and the song to soar, the sort of chorus backing vocals that were particular to the ’60s.

And because it’s from my old home town, let’s here it for the girl backstage at Bedford Granada in 1962. Photo credit: Gloria Saunders.

01.49.29

SHAWN PHILLIPS – Lost Horizon – 7″ – A&M – 1973

Sounded to me like a soundtrack tune years before I got the record and realised it was just that! Doh!

01.51.28

ENGLAND DAN and JOHN FORD COLEY – Love Is The Answer – 7″ – Big Tree – 1979

When it came to these two recording Todd Rundgren’s tune, whoever decided to move the title/chorus line more upfront and proud than on the original was definitely looking to the charts. By 1979 my head was generally a world away from these gentle swayers but this did grab me. Love Is The Answer? Workable in small groups but forget it on a global basis. We’re doomed.

01.55.58

MARVIN GAYE – Inner CIty Blues – 7″ – Tamla Motown – 1971

Unintentionally, there was a sort of theme with these last few tracks and the twist the show’s ending took brought Marv in to play well before I realised the 40th anniversary of his passing was just rolling by. Back in the ’70s when I had a bunch of these beautiful green UK Motown demo 7″s if this one had been in there I’d have kept it.

Hopefully May 5, 2024 for show 127.

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This playlist is 79% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

From 2022, with this being the Pro-ject Metallica Limited Edition turntable – though I have the band, Kiss in my head for some reason – it’s the only time you’ll see either group mentioned on 41 Rooms. This set up came in at around $1600 and I can’t help thinking that as soon as you put the needle to the vinyl, the record would stay still, with the turntable then doing the spinning. You could even play 78s on it as well… but who would?

Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms ‘tweak’/edit/chop and the occasional tune might sound a bit dodgy, quality-wise. On top of that, the switch between different decades and production values never helps in the mix here.

Lyric of Playlist 125…

‘As the veneer of democracy starts to fade… ‘

Is there a country on this planet run by something other than true democracy that can be trusted?

Not closely followed by ‘Doo-doo-wop, hey-hey-hey, doo-doo-wop, whoa-whoa-whoa… ‘

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Spooky * – Republic, LP – London – 1993

The fourth single from its parent album, this is fab in my world but possibly one of the band’s own least favourite friends? I’ve never clocked it having been played live (though I could be wrong) and it was also to be eight years before they put out another, so maybe when you live and breathe the actual making of music some of it maybe later on reminds you too much of tough times – and in New Orderland these were. I often get the same feeling with my library shuffle throwing up sounds I had zero to do with in creating but straight off remind me of ‘uncomfortable’ times. Time to shuffle, indeed.

05.16

LONDON GRAMMAR – Hey Now (Bonobo Remix) – 10″ – Metal & Dust Recordings – 2014

A limited edition Record Store Day single from 2014, in ‘Transparent Black & Blue Marbled’ versions, with this Bonobo remix definitely on the mark.

10.13

W. H. Lung – High Pressure Days – Download only (for now?) – Melodic – 2023

I mistakenly mention on the show this was from 2022, which would have seemed a bit of a large’ish gap for a band still building an audience. An album later in the year?

14.01

MIEKO SHIMIZU – Tobira Ga Akanai – 桃天夢-Totem-, CD only – Wolf Records – 1988

A thirty year or so disconnect between the sound and the photo here but the former was only on CD and their visuals pretty much get given short shrift round these parts.

17.43

Vee VV – Keepbeat – Boomslump, 12″ EP – Vinyl Drip – 1986

Mid ’80s indie from Blackpool; with a nod to some Bristol sounds from a year or five earlier, plus the Gang of Four?

21.46

GNAG OF FOUR – Why Theory? – Solid Gold, LP – EMI – 1981

Speaking of the daddies of them all?

24.17

LONDON POSSE – Jump Around – Gangster Chronicle, LP – Mango / Island – 1990

Some dubious imagery, lyrics and testosterone flying around, but groundbreaking UK rap all the same. I maybe first heard this on London’s KISS FM a couple of years later, with a DJ live mixing in a bunch of the station’s jingles. Did a fine job, too.

29.17

MARXMAN – Dark Are The Days – 12″ EP – Talkin’ Loud – 1993

Faith in the rap lyric quickly restored here…

34.17

STEVE MILLER BAND – Fly Like An Eagle – 7″ – Mercury – 1976

Heard and bought at the time, a sound you just knew hadn’t been made in any rain swept UK city.

38.48

STEVIE WONDER – You Haven’t Done Nothin’ – 7″ – Tamla Motown – 1974

At this point in time he was on a roll and I was buying pretty much every single he released in the UK.

42.09

EYELESS IN GAZA – Twilight – Back From The Rains, LP – Cherry Red – 1986

Even within their canon of material this was a big EIG tune with me and an image that springs to mind is it blasting from my headphones as I walked my dog, Flanagan around Bedford Park back in the day.

So, one for her. Here back in the time and place.

46.01

BETH GIBBONS – Floating On A Moment – Download only (for now) – 2024

Leading off her forthcoming debut (deluxe edition, vinyl) solo album, Lives Outgrown, on Domino and ‘housed in a tip-on sleeve with 4-page booklet and 12-page scrapbook booklet’ to boot.

51.23

DR. ROBERT – Circular Quay – 10″ – Heavenly – 1993

There was a time in the ’90s that you couldn’t avoid Blow Monkeys RCA label 12″ promos in the 50p racks of the various Music & Video stores in London’s Notting Hill and I was never a fan but let’s hear it for the 10″ and this subsequent, more introspective, solo tune. Thinking about it, I’m pretty sure he was in front of me in a London post office queue one time a few years later… as you do.

55.08

THE DURUTTI COLUMN – Madeleine – Lips That Would Kiss, 12″ – Factory Benelux – 1980

This Vini Reilly tune always invokes a memory of summer for me, and weirdly, more so than his already 41 Rooms playlisted Sketch For Summer.

58.07

JORDAN RAKEI – Freedom – Download only (for now) – Decca – 2024

Another of those artists that appeared on my radar, only for me to find out he’s been around for years. There’s just too much ‘stuff’ out there. His new album, The Loop will be out in May.

01.02.15

JON LUCIEN – The War Song – Rashida, LP – RCA – 1973

A tip-toe’ing Caribbean groove, the backdrop to a protest song? It was the Lucien way.

01.05.26

CURTIS MAYFIELD – Freddie’s Dead * – 7″ – Curtom – 1972

Theme from the film, ‘Superfly’ and lifted from Mayfield’s album of the score.

Faith (mag/fanzine) #2, Summer 2000 and Dr. Bob Jones and Ashley Beedle reminiscing on Mayfield’s then recent passing.

01.10.41

BUDDY MILES EXPRESS– Train – 7″ – Mercury – 1968

Very likely unknown to me when bought in (I think) a job lot of singles in my late teens… but I then thought it was good enough to make it to the singles shelf in my bedroom. Full track split over the two sides.

01.15.08

MISS(?) – East India(?) – ??? – Early 90s?

Well, if you know… you know… and I don’t… so the tumbleweed is back. Heard on a Jo Whiley Radio 1 show sometime in the ’90s, where she was possibly heard saying ‘Miss’ and definitely heard saying ‘East India’ but attributing any of that to a title, artist and maybe the label have been beyond me to date. Squelchy beats underpinning an atmospheric, dense feel… in a progressive, trip hop sort of way.

01.18.07

LUKE SLATER’S 7TH PLAIN – Forest – radio session only – 1994

A track that seemed to only ever feature in leading off Slater’s Sept ’94 lone session for John Peel’s radio show.

01.23.19

KIM GORDON – Bye Bye – The Collective, LP – Matador – 2024

Is this a Gordon check list for travel? I keep one but there’s no soundtrack to mine. An ever present member of the defunkt-since-2011 Sonic Youth it’s Ms G with a new album, as of right now. A coke bottle green vinyl edition plus signed poster via selective routes has been and gone but clear vinyl and black editions are still available. Bye Bye.

01.27.24

JOY DIVISION – Candidate – Unknown Pleasures, LP – Factory – 1979

Well, my copy of the album was looking this knackered by the early ’80s but besides provenance, I wonder when some enterprising record dealer will start bringing ‘petina’ into the mix to sell such shagged relics.

And she’s back. Flanagan possibly listening to the album, in Feb ’80.

01.30.02

MARK STEWART – As The Veneer Of Democracy Starts To Fade – 7″ b-side – Mute – 1985

He smacked a verbal punch. RIP Mark Stewart.

01.35.39

8UP – Not Cometh Nor Goest – Lay Down And Stay Calm, LP – Soul Jazz – 1994

Often fairly anonymous in personel terms, there were a lot of leftfield, slow beats merchants in the ’90s.

01.40.54

RAE & CHRISTIAN – Anything U Want (Inst) – 12″ b-side – Grand Central – 1998

I’m not a rap fan but that’s not why I go for the instrumental of this. It just seems to work with the occasional vocals.

01.44.30

NATASHA KMETO – Eyes * – Download only – Future Archive Recordings – 2019

This would not sound out of place on some mega selling kindred spirit artist’s album. Belting…

01.47.02

READY MADE (F.C.) (feat DAVID SYLVIAN) – Sugar Fuel * – Bold, 2LP – F Communications – 2001

I reckon the queue of peeps wanting Sylvian guesting on a track would have been a long one down the years but maybe Jean-Philippe Verdin’s film soundtrack work helped sway the deal here.

01.51.31

LUSCIOUS JACKSON – Radiating – City Song, 12″ EP – Grand Royal – 1994

I first heard this track on a UK Radio 1 session they did, no doubt around the time of this release.

01.54.51

BETH ORTON – Stars All Seem To Weep – Central Reservation, 2LP – Heavenly – 1999

Her name will always bring to mind her unannounced appearance on stage at London’s Jazz Cafe duetting with Terry Callier on Fred Neil’s Dolphins. I got lucky that night.

April 7, 2024 – show 126.

Dec

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This playlist is 79% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

As you can see, the Electric Banana Stereo Phono had some bold claims made on it back in the ’70s. Originally costing $40, these days you might have to pay nearer $900 if you’re daft enough to want one, with the above version residing in the International Banana Museum (yep, it does exist), Mecca, California. You can’t though currently go marvel at their 25, 000 items, as it seems to be closed.

Lyric of Playlist 124…

Ian Curtis may not be singing them here but it’s still his prize.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – We All Stand (Kilkenny, 23.4.83) * – Power, Corruption and Lies, Definitive Edition boxset – Warner Music – 2020

I’m amazed how little I noticed the road crew capturing the action via a video camera on a lot of the band’s early ’80s gigs… but then again I swore blind to Steve Morris that I hadn’t taken any photos at this gig, until he sent me some with my writing on the back… all further reinforced by me cropping up with a camera in my hand, stage side, in the Kilkenny video. For a couple of reasons it was a night like very few others. You’d have to understand something about Ireland’s musical history and to a lesser extent, their culture to get to grips with how and why Big Tom (and the Mainliners?) playing in town the same night would play a part in this being one of the smallest crowds I’d ever see New Order in front of… but they were privy to an ‘onstage approach’ the band never adopted anywhere else. We All Stand? One of their finest and their ‘Riders Of The Storm’.

05.43

CHRIS WICKHAM – Snake Eyes (Ishmael Ensemble Remix) – Shamal Wind Remixed 12″ EP – Lovemonk – 2018

It only takes a jazz chord to enter the fray and I’m gone – as in off and out the door – but this moody remix gets my vote for taking some choice elements to go somewhere else completely. Incidentally, I nearly used the sleeve here for the show’s ad but it would have been a tad too much on the eyes. Give it a shake to see what I mean.

13.31

KRAFTWERK – The Robots (2009 Remaster) – Download only? –

Originally a single in 1978, not only will it never age, it’ll always sound ‘now’.

18.56

COSEY FANNI TUTTI – Tutti – Tutti, LP – Conspiracy International – 2019

Rumbling and a rolling, with enough quietly entering and exiting to keep it interesting.

23.13

CABARET VOLTAIRE – (Shakedown) The Whole Thing (Dub) – The Drain Train, 2×12″ – Doublevision – 1986

Stuttering electro disco dub funk…

30.39

TALKING HEADS – Once In A Lifetime * – 7″ – Sire – 1981

Released and charting around the time our Bedford, Winkles’ club nights started, in Jan 1981… and the video helped the single’s trajectory in no small measure. The first of six (I just checked) UK top 30 hits in this show. Not likely to happen again, if I’m consciously aware of these things.

34.36

STEVE JANSEN – Impossible Until It Happens – Yukihiro Takahashi and Marco Machera – Soundcloud only – 2024

Well, the obvious vocal to look to put on this track would have been Jansen’s brother, David Sylvian but that didn’t transpire, for whatever reason. Maybe it was a bit too ‘jaunty’. Anyway, here’s Jansen’s full storyline.

‘Recently I mentioned that I had a cassette tape from over 40 years ago when The Takahashi Band of 82 made a demo track for a potential TV commercial. The track was only worked on for a day or two and then abandoned. I think we all had a busy year and for whatever reason this recording was discarded.

I also talked about sharing the recording one day just for nostalgic reasons, however the mix was a very basic end-of-day progress mix and no vocal part was conceived. Sharing it in this form would not do the potential of the work any justice.

The track began with chords and synths that Yukihiro Takahashi recorded, the basic building blocks of his composition. I added the drum part. Having been intensively rehearsing and performing Takahashi material this triggered a distinct blend of my own style as might appear on tracks such as ‘The Art of Parties’ and Yukihiro’s style on tracks such as ‘Glass’. Haruomi Hosono added his brilliance on bass, as well as Masami Tsuchiya overlaying guitar parts and Hajime Tachibana adding a saxophone solo.

Fast forward over 40 years….

At the end of 2023 I sent the demo to singer/songwriter Marco Machera, someone I’ve collaborated with a few times in the past and whose vocal style I felt would compliment the music. Yukihiro also enjoyed Marco’s music, including it on his own radio show. I asked Marco to consider adding a vocal which he was happy to do, also composing lyrics too.

I used an AI program to break down the stereo mix of the original cassette recording into individual tracks (this is a relatively new technology and although the quality struggled it allowed for a little bit more flexibility with the mixing and blending of new overdubs). The performed parts were retained, and to which I recorded some additional instrumentation as well as joining Marco on the chorus vocals. I made a new mix of the track. So what we have here is the finished piece: “Impossible Until It Happens”.

Marco and I share this as an homage to Yukihiro who passed away this time last year and is greatly missed. We can feel the essence of Yukihiro’s writing style in this track and we hope that you enjoy it‘. – Steve Jansen, Soundcloud.

Music by Yukihiro Takahashi / Song & Lyrics by Marco Machera

Yukihiro Takahashi – Keyboards
Haruomi Hosono – Electric Bass
Steve Jansen – Drums & Percussion, Additional Sequencers & Synthesisers, Chorus Vocals
Masami Tsuchiya – Electric Guitar
Hajime Tachibana – Saxophone
Marco Machera – Lead Vocals, Samples, Additional Synthesiser
(for more information www.marcomachera.com)

39.22

MOBY – Sandpaper – Destroyed, bonus track on one or two (inc Japan) CD versions – EMI – 2011

It’s a long standing trait that Japanese record companies like to include extra (and particular to their territory alone) tracks on their releases. So, Moby obliged.

42.28

NAKED ROOMMATE – Mad Love – Do The Duvet, LP – Trouble In Mind – 2020

‘Naked Roommate is a desiring-machine that embodies the union of opposites pointing towards the ever-becoming, ever-real utopia of flows. We are not symbol or representation. We are imaginary, we are real, we are virtual and we are impossible.‘ Bandcamp

All duly noted… the band are/were from Berkeley, California and as it happens my Do The Duvet album is currently just an hour away and yet another that will be in a large case full of vinyl coming back with me the next time I’m over at my sister’s. She’ll be glad of the space.

46.35

SUBURBAN LAWNS – Cowboy – Baby, 12″ EP – I.R.S. – 1983

Very coincidentally we’re still in California but just the near forty years earlier… and maybe with a lean to what was coming out of the UK in those years?

50.35

THE JUNE BRIDES – Comfort – There Are Eight Million Stories, LP – The Pink Label – 1985

Jangly stuff! A band that very good mate, Nigel put on in Bedford, upstairs at the George & Dragon… and one that might have had John Peel in attendance. I’ve have gone too but I was holidaying where I now live, in Ireland.

52.51

HELEN McCOOKERYBOOK – Let’s Make Up – ‘Songs From The Kitchen’ version, Youtube only – 2018

A lovely lady, I worked with Helen at the Uni of Westminster for a while in the late 90s and here with one of her old songs from her younger days fronting The Chefs.

55.43

THE AUBERGINES – Traffic Warden (demo) * – Unreleased – Mid ’80s

Bedford’s finest… could have been a contender, etc etc… and very good mates of mine. For the line-up of this demo and pictured here (during a Lazy Sunday, Bedford gig) – Kev Taylor, Phil Wright, Andy MacKechnie, Karl Bergin (RIP) and Jem Noble.

59.27

SWANS – Love Will Tear Us Apart – 7″ – Product Inc – 1988

‘Certainly better than Paul Young’s version, yet adds little to the original apart from a delightful late-Iggy Pop drawl and some pleasant harmonies. A pleasant enough version, powerful even, but I still cling to the notion that LWTUA was of less interest as a song (despite its classy melodies and so forth) than as a sound and clutch of emotions. In this it differs from your average coverable song. It should either be desecrated or left alone, for it cannot be improved upon‘. – David Quantick, The Catalogue #58, Apr ’88.

The ‘Swans featuring Jarboe on vocals’ version (black vinyl) made it to an earlier 41 Rooms’ show but here (red, transparent vinyl version) it’s main man Michael Gira leading the way.

01.02.53

BRENDA RAY – Take Me In Your Car (Original Full-Length Version) – D’Ya Hear Me! : Naffi Years, 1979-83, LP – EM Records – 2012

And because she can, in the ’20s she’s still knocking out her slightly left field recordings (with some on vinyl) and possibly with no great expectations. I wonder if she still has all that old skool analogue gear… or she’s now doing it all of a laptop?

01.05.29

RECIPE – Waterglide – 7″ – Inertial Records – 1984

Very far removed from Douglas Benford’s stark minimalist electronic releases from a few years previous under the moniker, Inertia, this is ‘charming pop’, but adrift of the production values/record label/£££ weight that propelled Aztec Camera and Prefab Sprout in the same era. Maybe though, all these years down the line it’s now sounding ‘cuter’.

01.08.23

NICK LOWE – Cruel To Be Kind * – 7″ – Radar – 1979

I bet Lowe (a quality songwriter) knew that a well worn turn of phrase – as a song title – was no bad starting place for moulding together some catchy pop in the late ’70s, and even though my general tastes were then mostly coming from John Peel’s world I’d have been humming along to this on TOTP.

01.11.39

WAYNE FONTANA– Pamela, Pamela – 7″ – Fontana – 1966

I could most probably put together an hour playlist that if you’re of a certain age might bring back memories of summers long gone… that maybe we never actually lived… but would at least neatly soundtrack them if we had. I hope Pamela actually existed. Writer, pre-10CC Graham Gouldman will know. He recounts, ‘While we were playing back this track Steve Marriot came into our control room. He had a lovely smile on his face while listening and when it finished he turned to me and just said “nice” ‘.

01.13.47

SIDI BOU SAID – Twilight Eyes – 7″ – Ultimate – 1993

Around for long enough in the ’90s to make four albums and a bunch of singles, with a dense sound not unlike Throwing Muses.

01.17.38

BIG BLOOD – Everything Is Improving – Radio Valkyrie 1905-1917, 2LP – Feeding Tube Records – 2013

The above was dense… but this is wonderfully more dense.

01.20.46

A CERTAIN RATIO – Forced Laugh (A Factory Video {FACT 56} version) – Factory / Icon – 1982

I cannot hear this without picturing the young ACR wandering lonely as a cloud in the video on this VHS release. It got hammered to death round my house back in the day… as might be guessed by the packaging below. Bring on Esquires, Bedford, UK on May 3!

01.26.10

THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS – Sister Europe – Self-titled, LP – CBS – 1980

One of a handful of albums that’s had all or nearly all its tracks played on 41 Rooms… Here, it’s not quite.

01.31.41

DAVID BOWIE – Black Tie White Noise (Speed Mix Version) – Youtube only? – 2021’ish

If not referring to the version above… ‘Moroder-ish twittery synth pulsed scampering fluttery 127.7bpm Club Mix of an otherwise gloomy slow 81bpm roller‘. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 12.6.93

01.35.47

TUBEWAY ARMY – Are ‘Friends’ Electric? – 7″ – Beggars Banquet – 1979

It’s easy to forget what an impact Gary Numan had on a new wave of electronic music in the late ’70s. With this, a UK No 1 single, he certainly did his bit to bring it to the masses.

01.40.42

THE HUMAN LEAGUE – Blind Youth – Reproduction, LP – Virgin – 1979

Empire State Human was the only single from the album but I’d have gone for this instead.

01.43.44

COLOURBOX – You Keep Me Hanging On (7″ Version) (Remastered) – 7″ b-side – 4AD – 1985

From the outside, Martyn and Steven Young seemed like mavericks within the whole 4AD set up and with Lorita Grahame on vocals just about keeping up with their beats and stuff on the ‘keeping hanging on‘ etc, banging out this very passable electronic take on a Holland/Dozier/Holland classic (to then hide it on a 7″ b-side) was no mean feat. Not for soul purists though, we’ll assume.

01.46.10

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD – I Only Want To Be With You * – 7″ – Philips – 1963

I wouldn’t have guessed at this being Dusty’s debut single as a solo artist but it was. Co-written by Cocteau Twin, Simon Raymonde’s dad, Ivor it would have had the floors of dancehalls full of carefree, arms flailing teens going for it. Quite right, too.

01.48.43

NATASHA KMETO – Pour Down – 7″ – Self released – 2016

My copy is currently in California, so here’s the gal herself with some of hers. Sadly the tune was lost to the wider world (and 99% of us with any sort of record release history have been there) but this is a strident gem that I only happened on recently.

01.52.17

GRACE JONES – Slave To The Rhythm (Hot Blooded Version) – Private Life Sampler, 12″ – Island – 1998

Previewing what was the Private Life: The Compass Point Sessions compilation… A lush production maybe befitting of the Nassau, Bahamas setting it was recorded in. Maybe with a bridge too many here but, hey… it’s Grace Jones!

March 3, 2024 – show 125.

Dec

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This playlist is 79% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

What sort of witchcraft is the Mag-Lev ML1? With no moving parts inside, no belt and no motor, its magnets that keep the platter hovering in place and rotating. Balancing on its feet when not in use, once the tonearm is moved into position, the feet retract, leaving the ABS plastic and glass fibre platter suspended in mid-air. £2500 and the magic is yours, though that ‘keeping in place’ thing would worry me.

Lyric of Playlist 123…

‘From where I stand, I see a broken land… ‘ Take your pick.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – 586 * – Power, Corruption & Lies, LP – Factory – 1983

Video 586 made it to the very first 41 Rooms show and here the album take becomes the fourth version of the trackl to get playlisted. As with all original ‘back in the day’ New Order, it’s also most recently available in the Definitive boxsets series of their albums the band are making their way through. As I’ve mentioned before, beyond their debut, Movement, for a few years after, I far preferred hearing most of the new material live (especially the electronic driven tracks), rather than on the subsequently released albums, having very often already heard the tracks live a few times and then played any live tape I had a bunch more. So, having ‘lived’ those moments they were the versions that ‘registered’ with me way more and as such it took me a few decades to grow more accustomed to the album version of 586… but here we are!

06.26

JOHN GRANT – Pale Green Ghosts – 2LP – Bella Union – 2013

Maybe a signpost to his later hooking up with the Wrangler lads as Creep Show.

12.24

LES AMAZONES d’AFRIQUE – Kuma Fo (What They Want) – Streaming only, for now – ? – 2023

But part of their Musow Danse vinyl LP, available in Feb 2024. I’m a sucker for this sort of mixing and matching of cultures and technology and great voices are everywhere.

15.49

DEMOCRATIQUE ET POPULAIRE DE SAUVAGE (SAVAGE REPUBLIC) – Jamahiriya – Jamahiriya, LP – Fundamental – 1988

Industrial sounds out of Los Angeles and given the era I’m surprised I didn’t hear this at the time.

20.15

DOJOJI – Additief – Meets The Fungle, cassette only – D.J.J. – 1984

Re the cassette’s title, I guess you had to be there… and it’s unlikely a copy will be appearing for sale any time soon.

28.49

POWERMAN – Lost Tribe * – Lost Tribe, 12″ EP – Battery Sound – 1983

With the much lauded Arthur Russell on cello, a bit of a New York no wave type of thing going on. Also, you got lucky with the edit on the show, as the full track is thirteen plus minutes.

36.02

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM – 45:33 – Part 3 – 45:33, 2×12″/LP – DFA/EMI – 2007

Funky electronica from Mr. Murphy.

42.49

SIMPLE MINDS – The American – 7″ – Virgin – 1981

This could easily have been included in any of the ‘Winkles hours’ in those early 41 Rooms’ shows that captured the sounds of our Bedford ‘alternative’ club nights in the first half of the ’80s and somewhere around 1980 I actually sounded out (through their agents) getting the band to Bedford. Sadly, the fee guarantees for them, the Bunnymen and (I think) U2 were all around £100 beyond my comfort zone. Tears and laughing emoji.

46.23

THE HUMAN LEAGUE – Seconds – 7″ b-side – 1981

Avoiding the A-side – which I always thought was complete pants – but from the same era and vague ‘style’ as the above, though for no reason I can remember, I hardly spun Seconds on the decks. Should have… could have… but don’t think I did. Someone once mentioned as we were driving by Phil Oakey’s house in Sheffield that at one point you could see a bank of televisions in one room, something maybe akin to Bowie in The Man Who Fell To Earth?

51.08

THE FALLOUT CLUB – Pedestrian Walkway – 7″ b-side – Happy Birthday Records – 1981

With Thomas Dolby in their ranks at this point, and if there had been any video of the band performing either this or its A-side, Dream Soldiers, I reckon they may well have had a very ‘earnest’ look about them… that maybe wouldn’t now have dated too well. A great couple of tracks but I could have seen Midge Ure in his early days fronting Ultravox hamming it up to the cameras on this.

54.02

DAVID BOWIE – Young Americans – 7″ – RCA – 1975

His best era… if you’re me. And yep, he did his fair share of pouting to the camera too but in these times at least he could maybe blame the drugs.

58.51

FOX – Imagine Me Imagine You – 7″ – GTO – 1975

‘Doo lang doo da lang a lang doo lang‘, indeed. Or maybe not, in 2023. Still, it’s Noosha Fox and I was a fan of her kookie style back then.

01.02.13

MARU & MIKAEL – Portrait Of Sorrow * – Destination Nowhere, LP – Hi-Hat – 1975

Finland calling… with a bit of a Karen Carpenter thing going on in vocalist, Maru. Noticing that there are a handful of guitar solos littering this show I tried editing out this one but there’s only one verse – and it’s repeated(!), so it sort of had to stay in to break up the obvious lacking in the words department. Maybe that’s why Mikael got on the case with his guitar, coz some slacker couldn’t be bothered to write a second verse. Too chilled out in Finland…

01.05.29

PMXPER – Lavender Milk * – Self-titled LP – Smalltown Supersound -2023

And coincidentally, we’re still in the Nordic part of the world. A bit hypnotic, it’s Norway calling!

01.09.44

TIRZAH – No Limit – Trip9love…??? LP – Domino – 2023

Uneasy and jittery wonderfulness from the English artist’s fourth album – all of them on the solid as a rock, Domino label – but to ram home the fact there’s just too much music out there to keep track of, I’d never heard of her. Must do better in 2024.

01.12.41

COSTUME – There Is Only To Live – Unus Spiritus, Vol II, download only – ? – 2020

And another ‘uneasy’ sound, this time with a slow leftfield jazzy backdrop, from the returning to 41 Rooms Italian duo.

01.15.12

MOUNT KIMBLE – Dumb Guitar – 7″ – Warp – 2023

No doubt there’s a strong mailing list with the well established MK, as this 500 run 7″ is already done and sold out before its late Jan ’24 release.

01.19.29

KAETO– No Body – Download only – ? – 2023

Or ‘katieeyo’ if you catch her on Instagram.

01.21.50

CAMPBELL MALLINDER BENGE – Condition Collapsing – Clinker, LP – Les Disques Du Crépuscule – 2021

With both Julie ‘ Lonelady’ Campbell and Stephen ‘Mal’, ex Cabaret Voltaire, Mallinder on vocals.

01.26.41

LAMB – Gold – 12″ promo – Fontana – 1996

‘This track lacks the immediate appeal of the Manchester duo’s debut single Cottinwool but it turns out to be a real grower. The jerky offbeat vibes-based jazz sound of the Original Mix sounds like the Modern Jazz Quartet conducted by Jarvis Cocker. Mr. Scruff takes the song a step forward with his smoother remix which has classical strings, vibes, hip hop snatches and Louise Rhodes’ delightfully distinctive vocals riding on waves of double bass. The Hipoptimist’s remis is a tougher hotchpotch of drum and bass, hip hop and acid twitches that tries a bit too hard at the start but settles into a nice techno-tinged groove in the second half‘. – Andy Beevers, Record Mirror (Music Week), 16.3.96

01.31.27

JOSÉE (HURLOCK) – U Should Be – Lost Souls Dancing, CD only – Inertia – 2004

I’d be confident in saying very few peeps bought this album but it’s one of my faves in having more great tracks (to these ears) than most albums I’ve ever heard. In the world of leftfield soul/jazz/beats that her previous ‘band’ Hefner moved she was gloriously suited and she carried things on well to this album.

01.34.24

HORN – 3 Minutes – Naked @ Westminster, v/artists, promo CD only – 1998-’99’ish

Not often you see a CD visual on 41 Rooms but in being its only evidence of this stylish track (and there are no photos either) this is the second on this show. Students within the Commercial Music course at the Uni of Westminster, Harrow, London getting together for a collective promotion of their talents.

01.38.30

SEAWIND – Free – Light The Light, LP – Horizon -1978

I only first heard this and the following Brainstorm track in more recent years, or if I did hear them back at the time (unlikely, given the radio I was listening to) they could easily have passed me by – as there was too often just too much ‘musicianship’ involved in the ‘fusion’ world for the young me. Front it with a sympathetic vocal, though and you might have me…

01.42.49

BRAINSTORM – Journey To The Light – Journey To The Light, LP – Tabu – 1978

Sea… wind… brain… storm… and from a Light The Light album to a Journey To The Light… in the same genre and year. Who followed who here, I wonder. Everyone’s looking for the light, it seems – and a 7 minutes plus version can actually be grabbed split over two sides of a 2017 7″ ‘re-release’ out of Japan.

01.47.41

DIONNE WARWICK – Much Too Much – Friends Can Be Lovers, LP – Arista – 1995

She was never an ‘Aretha’ but she’s always been class… and she just seems to glide over this. Astoundingly, this wasn’t one of the three singles taken from the album and if you were ever to listen to what Arista decided were those singles you’d be forgiven for thinking someone was in the wrong job.

01.51.24

SYBIL – Make It Easy On Me – 7″ – PWL – 1990

Yep, PWL tunes are unsurprisingly rare at 41 Rooms (second ever, I think), and this one’s itching to get to its belting, ‘size of a planet’ and hands in the air chorus like few do.

01.55.17

THE ADVENTURES – Broken Land * – 7″ – Elektra – 1988

‘The most played song on BBC Radio 1 in 1988’ is a startling fact, but its anthemic feel maybe never graced the festival stages it might have seemed destined for. Broken lands? Ten a penny, these days.

With a bit of luck – Feb 4, 2024 for show 124.

Dec

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This playlist is 81% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

The idea of Istanbul, Turkey based industrial designer, Pelin Özbalcı, the ‘Ripple’ turntable surfaced at the end of 2021 and continued what he’s sees as a line of ‘joyful products, experiences, and product-user interactions… ‘ If it had been a 1960s design it wouldn’t have looked out of place next to my mum’s baking tins and pudding bowls during one of her kitchen cake making sessions but Yanko Design towed more along the line: ‘A clever play on how sound emanates from a source like ripples from a single point, t he Ripple Turntable turns audio waves into literal waves, with its surface treatment. The pristine white tur ntable comes with a rippled surface, with waves emanating from the spindle at the center of the platter, as well as from the origin of the swing-arm, and intersecting in the middle to create that perfect bit of visual drama… ‘Annoyingly, the only place I could find mention of the Ripple is on design websites – and none of them quoted even a manufacturers recommended price. Maybe the public just forgot to put in an order… for even one.

Lyric of Playlist 122…

I’ve never bought in to the sheer ‘hugeness’ of Dylan but purely as a wordsmith he’s definitely ‘up there’ and though Rolling Stone only clocked the song at #48 in their list of Dylan’s 100 Greatest it’s a love song that may well have moved its subject, Dylan’s then wife, especially as she was unwittingly present at its first performance, the one and only take for the recording.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Who’s Joe (Glasgow 2006) – Live In Glasgow, 2DVD – Warner Music Entertainment – 2008

Even with the band’s earliest gigs manager, Rob Gretton made more of a point of getting a cassette tape into the mixing desk than I remember. Caught out, at soundchecks us Bedford crew were present at he once or twice certainly asked if we had any spare tapes but back then it would have been for no more than a reference for the band. No one was thinking, ‘This will be useful in a few years.’ As the years rolled on though and the technology improved every gig became fully recorded, with only the band’s own performance the likely issue in any debate when material is looked at for (in New Order’s case anyway) Definitive boxsets, etc. Here, with Hooky’s departure from the band not too far away, it’s a plaintive song particularly suited to Barney’s vocal.

07.24

MARC ALMOND – Tears Run Rings – 7″ – Some Bizzare / Parlophone – 1988

‘Dramatically orchestrated inoffensive sloothly sung 134bpm canterer‘ – James Hamilton, Jocks, 10.88

Class pop to me.

10.54

JIMMY SOMERVILLE – Heartbeat (Radio Edit) – 7″ – London Records – 1995

Soaring falsetto pop!

14.24

ICEHOUSE – Hey Little Girl (Extended Version) (but a big edit) – 12″ promo – Chrysalis – 1983

If not quite with this tune, I thought main man Iva Davies had a bit of a Bowie thing going on back then.

17.50

THOMAS LEER – Change Of Heart – 1982, CD only – Klanggalerie – 2018

From a ‘Series of tracks for unreleased album Circa 1982‘ says Bandcamp, so I’ll assume from that, roughly around the time I was lapping up his Contradictions and Letter from America releases and maybe a fertile writing period for the man.

22.09

FRANKIE PAUL – Worries In The Dance – 7″ – Hit Bound – 1983

As with possibly all the roots reggae playlisted on 41 Rooms that emerged in the ’80s, I’d have heard this first via John Peel’s show. Such was the media back then, if there were radio shows airing around the UK purely for the genre the wind wasn’t blowing in the right direction for them to reach me in Bedford. Come the ’90s, when I was in London, David Rodigan’s show on KISS FM came in to play.

28.44

SEN(Y)A (and the WAILERS BAND) – Children Of The Ghetto (Discomix) – 7″ – Impact! – ?????

Yep, Sena or Senya, depending on the pressing… and produced by (and again depending on which pressing) also co artist, Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett. If you know your stuff (and I don’t) you could write long articles attempting to pick the bones out of the chronological release history of reggae singles out of Jamaica, though you’d nearly have to have been in the pressing plants themselves at the time to get it right. In its starker form, ‘Children’ is a tune possibly traceable back to a 1973 release but again it was John Peel spinning this on his radio show that I caught. He’d have fairly quickly spun the pressing he received, so if at some point I dig out the cassette tape and the show that I grabbed it from I might be better able to timeline at least one of its many pressings.

33.14

MORGAN HERITAGE – Exalt Jah – Protect Us Jah, LP – VP Records – 1997

I could be wrong but given their commercial success from the off (a 1994 Grammy award winning debut album) the purists might have slightly ‘mistrusted’ the band? It’s worth noting though that they then relocated from the US to Jamaica, to better soak up the vibe and it’s from there the Protect Us Jah album sprung.

37.53

SALIHA – Moment de Gloire (Compacted Edit) – 12″ – Virgin 1992

Without looking I’ll nearly guarantee I pretty much said the same thing when playlisting another mix of this a few years back – the French language suits rap way better than most.

41.37

ROB BASE & DJ E-Z ROCK – It Takes Two – 12″ – City Beat – 1988

Platinum selling, the beats were so head noddingly infectious you could have got away with spinning the instrumental.

45.31

COLDCUT – Say Kids! (What Time Is It) – 12″ – ‘white label’ – 1987

Slightly less than legal but possibly their earliest vinyl release, and though I never taped it off John Peel’s radio show at the time this would have been a revelation coming out of the UK (as opposed to the US hip hop scene) and I’m sure Peely would have been on this like a shot. I’d have certainly only heard it via him, that’s for sure, rather than any pirate radio set up of the time.

US mag…

53.35

TROUBLE FUNK – Pump Me Up – 12″ – SugarHill Records – 1982

And from where Coldcut took much of their inspiration – and the odd sample – the party music of Trouble Funk’s go-go infused funk.

56.53

JIM CROCE – You Don’t Mess Around With Jim – 7″ – Philips – 1972

Jumping out of daytime Radio One at the time and maybe even Radio 2, if Mum was in control of the dial.

59.10

T. REX – Ride A White Swan * – 7″ – Fly Records – 1970

Solid gold (easy action? pop… and more to the point than My People Were Fair And Had Sky In Their Hair… But Now They’re Content To Wear Stars On Their Brows.

01.01.17

COCTEAU TWINS – From The Flagstones – Sunburst and Snowblind, 12″ EP – 4AD – 1983

A track count suggests Robin, Liz and Simon crop up, on average, every six 41 Rooms shows. Quite right, too.

Simon, soundchecking – Liverpool Uni, Mountford Hall: 18.4.84

Photo copyright/credit: Dec Hickey

01.04.28

JOSE FELICIANO – Nature Boy – 7″ – RCA – 1968

The wider (and very much older) world will know of this Eden Ahbez tune for the massive hit it gave Nat King Cole in the late ’40s but with maybe a huge swathe of bias, this is the version for me, and whatever else that might be in the weighing up, the then 20 year-old Jose’s version certainly has more ‘soul’. Included on his 1966 album, Fantastic Feliciano, the only places you’ll handily find his version on a legal 7″ is either via Turkish (below) or South African singles or a Portuguese EP. Look into Ahbez’ life, it’s an interesting one… and if he was getting his publishing royalties, one maybe cushioned by the regular cheques. Writing just one massive hit can sort a lot in life, and here’s hoping the royalties from this Turkish release did indeed get to him… and not the Swedish four piece… who weren’t actually to be in action for another few years.

01.07.21

BOB DYLAN – Sara – 7″ b-side – CBS – 1977

Well, it was in Spain anyway. Recorded in 1975 but in nearly all vinyl collections it’s best known as a track on the 1976 album, Desire, the one and only Dylan album I’ve ever owned.

01.10.30

THE LOVED DRONES (feat LAETITIA SADIER)– Contact (Live in Brussels) – Soundcloud only – 2011

Yup, the uncredited photo is pretty ropey but it is seemingly from the night. Possibly an unannounced appearance from the Stereolab vocalist?

01.15.39

THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS – Flowers – Self-titled, LP – CBS 1980

Most of the album reminds me either of a car journey (girlfriend, Jenny driving, with me looking at the countryside, in the early evening sunshine) to The Paddock in Northampton in Jun ’80 to see the Furs live… or DJ’ing at Winkles in Bedford in 1981.

01.20.25

THE FALL – Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul – 7″ – Kamera Records – 1981

Most of the damage on my copy’s sleeve was done back in my DJ’ing days (again at Winkles), though the vinyl itself is quite easily the worst I own! In between the proper grooves, if the eras and geography had aligned, Tarantino directing a video to these or any Mark E Smith ‘observations’ would have been interesting.

01.23.39

THE SHRUBS – Blackmailer – 12″(EP) – Ron Johnson Records – 1986

Nick Hobbs attacking the mic in his usual style… with the show’s only whistling to boot.

01.26.52

CLAIRE – Wife Lover Killer – The Hauntings of Lady Anne’s Bed, cassette only – ? – 1985-1986

A bunch of demos, which if I’ve got the order right, followed on from another, untitled cassette’s worth of tracks I was given by the (Milton Keynes-way?) band back around the years above. To my ears, shades of the previous two bands above… or maybe neither, if you happen on either of the Williams’ brothers involved.

01.30.30

LUCY ROSE – Could You Help Me – Streaming only (for now) – 2023

Feels like an indie-topped d&b feel going on here… and likely the only song ever to make it to 41 Rooms written around trying to get a (I think) bad back fixed.

01.32.29

TIGA & HUDSON MOHAWKE (feat JESSE BOYKINS III) – Silence Of Love * – Download only (for now) – 2023

Oh so slightly dark electronic bizniz mixed with a soulful vocal. I’ll take that!

01.35.40

CHEZ DAMIER – I Never Knew Love (MK Club Mix) – 12″ – Network – 1992

‘Mark Kinchen at home and on form with this superb house “love” song, and Chez Damier proves he is no one-hit-wonder. This is very bit as firing as ‘Can U Feel It’. MK Club Mix contains the full vocal with its memorable chorus and beautiful harmonies while the bubbling bass and organ give the track its momentum‘. – Rhythm Doctor, Hot Vinyl, Record Mirror 12.12.92

Yep, the early ’90s was my era for house. Even with the very oft near throw away lyrics, right then I needed its carefree feel.

01.38.17

STEVIE WONDER – Think Of Me As Your Soldier – 7″ b-side – Tamla Motown – 1970

Right around the time I was beginning to hoover up Stevie’s 7″ singles – and he never put duff tracks on b-sides.

01.42.42

THE LOVELITES – How Can I Tell My Mom & Dad – 7″ – Lock Records – 1969

The ‘Help me explain’ is weirdly cute, in a story played out for real a million times.

01.48.25

EDDIE HOLMAN – This Can’t Be True – 7″ – Parkway – 1965

And spotted on the net at 75 still hitting these notes just a couple of years ago.

If the owner of this UK acetate is offloading anytime I’ll happily accept…

01.54.01

MACY GRAY – Do Something (Album Mix) – 12″ promo – Epic – 1999

Sassy and smokey.

01.54.01

ROÍSÍN MURPHY – Sow Into You – 12″ – Echo – 2005

I’ve already spun a couple of versions on 41 Rooms but this got through sort of ‘by default’, as its an unedited version that keeps in a bridge I never liked. Still, it’s some bouncy quirkiness from the Arklow, Wicklow (‘up the road’) born gal.

01.54.01

HEAVEN 17 – The Height Of The Fighting – 7″ – Virgin – 1982

With vocalist, Glenn Gregory sounding ‘serious’ consider the ‘He-La-Hu’ as… optional. The song ‘acts as both a satire of gung-ho militarism and a rallying cry for anti-capitalist insurgency‘ wrote one review… nowhere near Smash Hits.

01.54.01

YAZOO – Don’t Go * – 7″ – Mute – 1982

The sort of snappy synth pop I attach a visual of girls back in the day dancing at our club nights.

Show 123 uploads on Jan 7.

Dec

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This playlist is 78% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

From the 1990s and certainly in one sense, solid as a rock! Dual’s Golden Stone turntable was as chiselled as any turntable is likely to be and if you wanted your music centre to blend in with your driveway or patio it was a contender. Checking in at $4000 just a few years back it was also costing nearly as much as a patio but it’s obviously maintained some gravitas.

Lyric of Playlist 121…

‘I tried my hand as a butcher but I cut my hand with a knife. I had a go as a milkman too but I was caught withn the vicker’s wife.’ For those of a certain age this is sounding a bit like a bawdy Robin Askwith sketch from the ’70s.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Hurt (Le Palace, Paris: 17.4.82) – Movement, Definitive Edition boxset – Warner Music – 2019

Though back then, Hurt was still being called Cramp by all in the NO camp. Yep, a gig I was all set to be at… until I had some dislocated shoulder nonsense set in. Things weren’t looking good from an operation three weeks earlier to fix what was a recurring problem as I then got an infection in the wound from the operation and I ended up back in hospital as New Order’s Paris gig was getting nearer. With just three days to go I sign to discharge myself, only to find girlfriend, Viv decides (quite rightly, really) to not entertain having to potentially nurse me on a journey to Paris. I give my guest list slot to mate, Budge… and with my tale between my legs I then check back in at the hospital. The staff most probably thought, ‘What an idiot… ‘ Not one of my cleverest episodes. When Budge gets back to Bedford he has great tales and a tape of the gig, including this version of Hurt/Cramp, sporting a longer ‘intro’ than normal.

07.24

JOY DIVISION – Shadowplay – Unknown Pleasures, LP – Factory – 1979

The New Order trio in their earlier lives entertaining, as it happens, another long intro. Unarguably, an iconic track.

10.54

KILLING JOKE – Wardance – 7″ – Malicious Damage – 1981

At our Bedford club, Winkles this fitted in well with the ‘goth’ crowd who, on a broad level, also got out on the dancefloor to Bauhaus, the Birthday Party and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

14.24

(THE) AGE OF CHANCE – Motor City – 7″ – Riot Bible – 1985

The Leeds band’s second single and maybe around the time mate, Nigel Turner put them on at the George and Dragon in Bedford.

17.50

KOSHEEN – Catch – 12″ – Moksha – 2001

Their own ‘trip hop, breakbeat and rock’ description on Discogs nails it really, with singer, Sian Evans’ stage strut providing the latter element – and maybe this Bristol, UK outfit were another just a hair’s breath away from that foot-on-the-monitor ‘Good evening, Los Angeles!‘ move to ingratiate an audience and ‘rock out’. Evans’ voice really suited, though.

22.09

DNOTE – Lost and Found* – Self-titled, LP – Dorado / VC Recordings – 1997

You usually get the self-titled album out at the start of their journey but D*Note got there with their fifth. Skittering and ‘spiritual’ d&b.

28.44

SILVER PYRE – Born Metallic – AeXE, CD only – Sedgemoor Recordings – 2012
There had been a couple of low key Silver Pyre CDr EPs years earlier but this was from the only album produced… with one Gary Fawle sounding like the bastard son of John Foxx. Born Metamatic, maybe.

33.14

LEWIS TAYLOR – Bittersweet (Album Version) – 12″ (EP?) – Island – 1997

Shades of Marvin Gaye.

Jazid article: Sept-Oct ’96

37.53

BETH GIBBONS & RUSTIN MAN – Sand River – Out Of Season, LP – Go! Beat – 2002

‘Folk soul’ from the Portishead vocalist and Paul Webb, once the bass player with Talk Talk.

41.37

MARY McCASLIN – You Keep Me Hangin’ On * – Goodnight Everybody, LP – Barnaby Records – 1969

Her unique and isolated ‘ Know I Really Love You… holding my sail‘ line might say a lot.

45.31

PLACEBO – Pseudo Silhouette – England’s Trance, LP – Aura – 1982

They weren’t around for long and besides the already spun on 41 Rooms Poppy Dance, this was the only other track on the album I liked.

53.35

FLIP TOP HEAD – Alfred Street – Download only (for now?) – 2023

Their Facebook page is an example of the enthusiasm of youth… maybe helped by them being based in Brighton, UK.

56.53

LIZZY MERCIER DESCLOUX – Wawa – Press Colour, LP – ZE Records – 1979

A singer, musician, writer and painter who passed away through cancer at the too young age of 47.

59.10

THE WOLFHOUNDS – Sandy – Unseen Ripples From A Pebble, LP – The Pink Label – 1987

Still listening to John Peel’s radio show in the mid to late 80s I wasn’t hearing much from the indie side of things that grabbed me but via their second session for JP this track did.

01.01.17

HELP STAMP OUT LONELINESS – Angelyne – Self-titled, CD only – Where It’s At Is Where You Are – 2011

And onwards nearly three decades to more indie. Jaunty sounding, I reckon.

01.04.28

VAUGHAN THOMAS – I Wanna Be Famous Like My Dad – 7″ – DJM – 1971

Without doubt first heard blasting out of BBC Radio One, I bought this around the time of its release. Definitely at the forefront of my buying records years and in the days of a 7″ single costing approx 50p.

01.07.21

TOMMY JAMES – Draggin’ The Line – 7″ – Roulette – 1971

From the same year as the above (but bought a few years further on, I think) and nearly as many ‘la la la la la la la‘sssss’ as Angelyne, two songs above. 41 Rooms isn’t just thrown together.

01.10.30

ALICE SMITH – Love Endeavor (Maurice Fulton Remix) * – 12″ – BBE – 2006

I hint at ‘strangely structured’ on the show but I did throw in again at the end the lone vocal verse Fulton used. Either way, I reckon his approach gives way more punch to her message than her whole full song.

01.15.39

LAMONT DOZIER – Going Back To My Roots – Peddlin’ Music On The Side, LP * – Warner Brothers – 1977

For no greater reason than it fitted better at the time, Richie Haven’s cover made it to 41 Rooms before (here) the writer’s own version. Not much between them, to be honest.

01.20.25

A RACE OF ANGELS – It’s Just Begun (Rework by Theo Parrish, Dego & Akwasi Mensah) (Edit) * – 12″ b-side – Wildheart Recordings – 2014

In reality, a remix of Just Begin, the other side of the 12″ – but a huge (1/3rd) edit at that… and it’s hard to nail down who was involved in each of what are the wildly different ‘thirds’ that make up the complete remix.. No matter, it’s Yeofi Andoh on vocals.

01.23.39

JAZZ THE GLASS – There – Output 2021, download only – 2022

Nine tracks down on 41 Rooms, JTG continue as show faves.

01.26.52

WORKING WEEK – Sweet Nothing – 7″ – Virgin – 1985

‘There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch… ‘ sings Julie Roberts. She ain’t wrong.

01.30.30

BILL WITHERS – Ain’t No Sunshine – 7″ – A&M – 1971

Wayyyyy before its inclusion in the film Notting Hill, this was a nailed on classic of ‘modern’ music… though nobody involved in the song’s initial surfacing seemingly thought so at the time, as it initially surfaced (in the UK anyway) as the b-side to his Harlem 7″. Something tells me that I might though have actually got hold of Michael Jackson’s single version of the song before Withers’. That’s how a 14yr old DH rolled back then.

01.32.29

SLEAFORD MODS – Silly Me – Key Markets, LP – Harbinger Sound – 2015

‘Opaque Mint Green’ vinyl from the Nottingham duo who I’m confidently guessing will never run out of subject matter as long as the society we all live within continues to breakdown.

01.35.40

ESG – Can You Be It? – What More Can You Take?, download only – ESG Records – 2017

Though a CDr or ten (with dreadful artwork, I reckon) may have been floating around Bandcamp at one point.

01.38.17

SUDETEN CRECHE – Nightlife In Köln – Nothing Is True, 12″ EP – Slow Club Productions – 2019

More prolific with releases in the 21st century than they ever were in the last, but still sounding here like they did on their only other 41 Rooms appearance, 1982’s Are Kisses Out Of Fashion?

01.42.42

INERTIA – Abstain * – Confection, cassette only – Inertial Records – 1981

Having bought the two singles Douglas Benford put out in 1980 I can only guess I didn’t catch wind of this release. Too late and too expensive to get a hard copy now, should one ever turn up for sale.

01.48.25

THE SLITS – In The Beginning There Was Rhythm * – Spilt 7″ – Y Records / Rough Trade – 1980

Ari Up on one side and Mark Stewart on the other – vocalists to take note of.

01.54.01

SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES – Icon – Join Hands, LP – Polydor – 1979

She’s Siouxsie, so she’s always gonna be alright at 41 Rooms… and it’s fairly iconic a post punk track, whether it’s called Icon or not.

Show 122 uploads on Dec 3.

Dec

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This playlist is 82% vinyl friendly. Impressive.

Early Technics decks custom coloured, courtesy of digifunktechnics.co.uk. Wasn’t there a colour of Spangle a few decades back that nearly matched the above? Pimping up and beyond also available… and no, I’m not an affiliate for them.

Lyric of Playlist 120…

If I’m honest there are precious few contenders this month. At one end, maybe Mr Callier for the simplicity. At the other? Green Gartside. He’ll never sing his without them laid out in front of him.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – The Game (Mark Reeder Spielt Mit Version) – Music Complete: Remix EP, promo CD only – 2017

Berlin-based but very long time friend of the band from his Manc days, Reeder takes the slower/break down passages of the original as his starting and finishing point.

07.00

THE BEATLES – Come Together – 7″ b-side– Apple – 1969

A bit of a mid ’70s Heronscroft, Putnoe, Bedford ‘sense’ surrounds me when I hear this. A track that led off the Abbey Road album but played second fiddle to Something on the single.

10.57

SCRITTI POLITTI – Lions After Slumber (Single version) – 12″ b-side – Rough Trade – 1981

If you’re a ‘singalong on the chorus’ kind of guy there’s nothing to see/hear here.

15.33

MARIBOU STATE – Blackoak – 12″ – Ninja Tune – 2023

Warm sounds, limited and numbered to 300 pressed on eco-vinyl, white label copies. All hand-stamped and signed by the duo.

20.20

OUTLINES – Listen To The Drums (Clignancourt Edit) – 12″ – Sonar Kollektiv – 2006

Still sounding a very idiosyncratic release.

24.50

KODŌ – Ibuki Reconstruction (DJ Krush – Extended) – Remix 2, 12″ – Columbia – 1998

The Japanese drum troupe’s beats a rolling, courtesy of their hip-hop’er fellow countryman.

27.48

ERIC RANDOM & THE BEDLAMITES – Mad As Mankind – 12″ – Doublevision – 1984

Some won’t be surprised to learn this was recorded at Cabaret Voltaire’s Western Works studio and produced by Richard and Mal.

34.09

ELECTRIBE 101 – You’re Walking (Peeping Tom Mix) – Electribal Memories, LP – Mercury – 1990

Such was the money floating around in the late ’80s, dance music had its fair share thrown at it. Courtesy of every name US house producer/remixer of note, these Birmingham lads and Billie Ray Martin’s class electronic torch pop managed to straddle both the house/club scene and the charts, and along with the latter having kept vocally active ever since, the band’s ‘lost’ second album, Electribal Soul managed to finally surface in 2021, three decades after their first.

39.25

KHERAL – I Loved You First (Rawhouse Mix) – 12″ – Freetown Inc – 1992

‘Kheral’s soaring vocals are driven along by Pierre’s incessant melting and moulding of all the musical elements. A combination guaranteed to send shivers down your spine – one to play from start to finish. Deeper!‘ – Rhythm Doctor, Record Mirror (Music Week), 20.3.93

DJ Pierre at the controls, it sort of plods but it also quietly builds, with the man himself also letting loose. Another first heard back in the day on late night KISS FM – with a nod here to Sarah HB’s show.

44.09

MR FINGERS – Waterfalls – Amnesia, 2LP – Jack Trax – 1989

Hearing this for the first time won’t have been too far from the above – possibly Steve Jackson’s house show.

48.44

SMALL FACES – Tin Soldier – 7″ – Immediate – 1967

‘Pop’ gold! My fave ’60s band when catching up as a teenager a few years later… and they still are. Apologies if I’ve told this one before somewhere on 41 Rooms but in those early collecting days I used to get excited seeing acetates, indeed any acetate… and even after decades they can still have a very distinctive smell. In the mid ’90s I was cratedigging (not called that back then, but… hey) one day in Music & Video Exchange’s London’s Notting Hill stores – in particular the store floor they’d devoted purely to ultra cheap 20p/bargain basement kind of vinyl – and in a cluster of about four racks I could smell an acetate… but the more I couldn’t find it, the more I was confused… until I then started searching inside some picture covers… and for whatever reason, lurking in a children’s 7″ EP sleeve (something like a Pinky & Perky banger) was a one-sided acetate of Tin Soldier – no Pinky & Perky vinyl, just this rarity. It had a slight kink on the edge and it was the single version and not a demo/alternate take, and even though I remember where I later sold it, neither it nor indeed any Tin Soldier acetate has to date made it to Discogs.

52.02

CREAM – N.S.U. – 7″ b-side – Reaction – 1966

Listening to the verses it sounds the sort of song structure idea that started from a dressing room jam… and after a few drinks etc.

54.36

COLLATE – The Product – Generative Systems, LP – Domestic Departure – 2023

Upcoming as we upload, and yet another with the personal touch. 500 copies pressed, recycled chipboard jacket with two paste-on CMYK risograph prints, includes photocopied insert.

‘Portland’s Collate play music that recalls late ’70s/early ’80s minimalist post-punk, and loops through the styles and genres influenced by that music a million times until you end up with a sound that is evocative of the past but also modern—kind of like when you photocopy and re-photocopy something until it distorts and becomes something new and weird. The lyrics are sometimes blatantly political but always wry and clever. There are still plenty of the danceable, catchy bass-forward kind of songs you heard on their previous recordings, but in songs like “Stocks,” there’s a hint of more straightforward punk and it starts to kinda ROCK. Just a bit. But in the end, Collate always handles themselves with cool restraint, even when frustration, anger, and joy are palpably bubbling under the surface.’ – Rachel Courtney (on Bandcamp)

57.21

THE WAKE – Favour – Harmony, LP – Factory – 1982

Enough of a band favourite to have made to the setlist on rare gigs performed nearly thirty years on.

01.01.33

VICE VERSA – Democratic Dancebeat – Electrogenesis 1978-1980, 4LP – Vinyl-on-demand – 2014

Looking to ‘up’ the vinyl numbers on this show I’m slightly cheating here, as the track was originally ‘released’ on a 1980 cassette (two versions)… that I didn’t have… and that looks like it maybe was more of an in house reference point for the label (Neutron) than an actual release. I’d been using blank cassettes myself for a few years by then and I’d have had to have been way more than down on my luck to have used a Compact Cassette or Dictaphone tape. Or maybe the band used decent TDK tapes and stuck the aforementioned labels over them to exude an extra DIY lo-fi feel – all a long way (musically if not time-wise) from the highly polished and chart bound ABC they were to become. The highly valued, out of Germany and everything-and-the-band’s-kitchen-sink 2014 quad LP (again, two versions, totalling 699 copies) looks like the ultimate in the personal touch.

01.04.47

GRACE JONES – Demolition Man – 7″ – Island – 1981

Sting-written… but to these ears, Jones ‘owned’. Nothing that would have worried the Police-man’s publisher, though.

01.08.41

ESG – Dance – ESG Says Dance To The Beat Of Moody – 12″ – 99 Records – 1982

The South Bronx no wave, punk funk, proto indie hip hop, etc etc Scroggins sisters and a release that gathered enough kudos through the years to possibly have been faithfully bootlegged sometime in the ’90s?

01.13.05

LIQUID LIQUID – Rubbermiro – Self-titled 12″ EP – 99 Records – 1981

The soundtrack to (or recreation of?), the bustling traffic of an eerie New York twilight? Seeing as they were label mates on a very bespoke label, maybe not the first time (I won’t check) they have sat next door to ESG on 41 Rooms.

01.16.32

UPSKIBOO – Summer Heat – 12″ – Melting Pot Music – 2006

I’m assuming it’s a sampled vocal. Enchanting, either way.

01.20.21

ROBIN O’BRIEN – Looking For Daniel * – Apple, cassette only – SHM Tapes / KFR – 1988

Three cassette variations of this album in existence and this near-a cappella track was also included a year later on the v/artists compilation cassette, USA Goes Pop (18 Underground Songs). The latter led off with a Daniel Johnston track – so either Robin’s Daniel is one and the same… or the label was being cute. The lyrics don’t give too much away, so I dunno. Some will, though.

01.23.02

SNOWGOOSE – Shifting Sands – Harmony Springs, LP – Open Hearth – 2012

A bow to the world of Pentangle/Fairport Convention/Renaissance?

01.27.23

CURT BOETTCHER (feat MICHELE O’MALLEY) – Sometimes – Misty Mirage, LP – Dreamsville Records – 2001

Soooo mid to late ’60s… unless someone tells me it actually wasn’t. And for a personal post on Boettcher, a nod to an O’Malley-tagged piece from The Gentlebear.

01.30.20

TERRY CALLIER – If I Could Make You (Change Your Mind) – 12″ b-side – Erect Records – 1982

Championed a few years later (1990) by Eddie Piller and his Acid Jazz label, Callier always seemed to sail his vocal effortlessly. A weird use of parentheses on the title though.

01.34.08

? – ‘The Gong’ – ? – ? – ?

Grabbed off maybe KISS FM (and possibly a Dr Bob Jones show?) in the noughties, I didn’t catch enough info to go hunt down the record… and even with Discogs, Shazam etc I’m none the wiser in the ’20s.

01.39.43

‘THE IDIOT’ – ‘Nassau Street’ * – ?

Putting this show together has involved more ‘muddiness’ than most… and here’s some more. Wherever I grabbed this one from, it certainly doesn’t sound like an artist who’d call himself ‘The Idiot’… and the lyrics don’t hint at any reason for the track to be called ‘Nassau St’ either… yet that’s what it’s down as. A decade or two back though, I did have a handful of tracks in my iTunes library (nothing blatantly obvious) that seemed to get ‘retagged/iD’d’ by forces unknown. Whatever, a track that feels like I bumped into something unknown recorded in the ’70s or it’s someone decades later totally at odds with anything then musically around him… who’s wishing he was back in the ’70s, and I mean that as a compliment.

01.44.13

PATRICK COWLEY – (I Need) Somebody To Love Tonight – Muscle Up, 2LP – Dark Entries – 2015

The demo and ‘tougher’ version of the subsequently Sylvester sung gem (already playlisted on 41 Rooms) and reportedly the only track on this the second compilation of Cowley’s porn film soundtrack work where the machines/instruments actually keep time!

01.51.28

K-9 CORP (feat PRETTY C) – Dog Talk * – 12″ – Capitol – 1983

With George Clinton at the controls, and for 41 Rooms severely edited and chopped around from its full 9 plus mins, no socio-political rant for these guys.

01.56.56 (sort of… )

SOUL II SOUL – A Dreams A Dream (Club Dub) * – 10 Records – 1990

Does an apostrophe ruin the look of a song title? Maybe even more of a 41 Rooms scalpel used on this show ender than most.

Show 121 uploads on Nov 5…

Dec

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This playlist is 87% vinyl friendly. Impressive. ‘The Voice of Music’, Model 270-0 looking like Second World War in car entertainment the US Army never had. Would have been a tad bumpy. Currently a $185 eBay Buy It Now, out of Florida, USA but ‘missing needle or wire that allows music to play‘. Any track […]

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This playlist is 72% vinyl friendly. Not bad… which once again translates to ‘equal worst ever’. Auditorium’s €3500 Auftakt turntable – begging for an ice sculptor to hack away at it. Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms ‘tweak’/edit/chop and the occasional tune might sound a […]

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This playlist is 91% vinyl friendly. Near perfect. Even I as a non musician would recognise something here. Built in 2021 to catch the eye and $3,500 of one thousand Fender Precision Bass… errr, bass players – with its ash wood, 3-color sunburst finish and treatments transformed into The Fender x MoFi PrecisionDeck turntable. Step […]

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This playlist is 87% vinyl friendly. Impressive. As a joke used to go a few decades back – ‘I had one of those… but the wheels fell off‘. RD Silva saw his Turnstyle turntable as being “As simple as it gets: The motor that spins the record. The needle that reads the record. The speakers […]

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This playlist is 80% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

The portable turntable collection of one ‘strobemusic’, on Reddit a few years back. In the collective make up of some of these are the component parts to one I think I had, in the late ’60s, in between maybe using firstly the family Dansette then radiogram as a very young lad and the National Panasonic music centre I bought in the early ’70s and which fronts the 41 Rooms site.

Lyric of Playlist 115…

Courtesy of Mr. Sumner… Mr. Curtis’.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Atmosphere (1998 John Peel session) – In Session, CD only – Strange Fruit – 2004

Hearing the session at the time was as cheery for catching New Order and Peely chatting as it was for the tracks themselves – and this the era when the band finally dropped their ‘avoidance’ of performing Joy Division tracks – with a performance at Manchester’s Apollo the same year being one of the great later/latter day gigs on from my era with their early years. Pre-gig, I remember Gillian (then on a long term sabbatical from the band) and sis, Kim standing behind me at the bar… so I bought them both a treble of whatever wine they were drinking. Atmosphere and Isolation had been (secretly) newly resurrected for the night and the place went wild and Gillian even popped onstage to ‘guest’ on keyboards at one point.

05.01

SUNGOD – Find Your Energy – Starscape, cassette only – Crash Symbols – 2023

A bit too much noodling in the psych/(prog?)/space rock department for me on the other tracks on this ‘album’ but Find Your Energy has some anthemic drive about it. Coming soon to the twilight slot of a summer festival near someone… maybe.

08.56

SLAB! – Yukon – Parallex Avenue, 12″ EP – Ink – 1987

The UK industrial funkers’ sound of the mid ’80s sounding as good now as it did back then.

13.01

EYELESS IN GAZA – Wildcat Fights – Answer Song & Dance, CD only – Monopol Records – 2010

And another band still fab after all these/those years – but with newer sounds as Martyn drifts beautifully over a sturdy stomp from the Nuneaton trio.

16.22

THE CHAMELEONS – Nostalgia – 12″ – Statik – 1985

Coupled with In Shreds, the two tracks were originally from 1982 but were also added to promote the CD release of their What Does Anything Mean? Basically album.

21.25

DAUGHTER – Swim Back – Stereo Mind Game, LP – 4AD – 2023

On one of the labels I kept a very keen eye on just the forty years or so back in time, it more than likely holds more interesting sounds these days than I tend to happen on. This ‘indie folk trio’s tune will do for now.

25.28

THE JUNE BRIDES – In The Rain * – 7″ – The Pink Label – 1984

This their debut single passed me by at the time and mate, Nigel (in his pre Pickled Eggs Records days) certainly promoted one June Brides Bedford gig, but I wasn’t there. So, all in all, a poor performance on my part.

29.22

THE SMITHS – Bigmouth Strikes Again – 7″ – Rough Trade – 1986

This is here more for the melodies than for Morrissey’s lament on the media’s treatment of him… and that’s well before he reeeeeeeally got going on annoying them – a state of play that’s definitely tainted his and sadly the band’s legacy.

32.20

THE CONNELLS – Darker Days – Darker Days, LP – Demon – 1985

A song (if not a band?) influenced by the above Mancs and one of many John Peel plays where you then buy the album, only to find it’s practically the only track that grabs you. In truth here though there was one other, already a 41 Rooms spin.

35.26

3 TEENS KILL 4 – Visitation – US 7″ acetate, b-side, unreleased – ? – 1982

Possibly the rarest track played to date on 41 Rooms – being as the only place to find it was on the flip side of this 7″ acetate, coupled with a version of Stevie Wonder’s Tell Me Something Good. Probably less than a handful cut, this one sold on eBay for $900+ a year or so ago but Visitation didn’t then surface on the band’s only official release, their 1983 mini album, No Motive.

And here’s a 1983 Danceteria, NY flyer that sold in March for its starting price of $99 to one lone bid. Hard to tell whether it was a Madonna fan, a clubber historian or – given the above’s startling winning bid – maybe someone actually in the 3 Teens Kill 4 camp.

40.02

THOMAS LEER – Touch My Screen – From Sci-Fi To Barfly, CD only – Future Historic – 2015

Downloadable first in 2007 before gravitation to a CD release this loping and stuttering tune is here despite Leer’s very slight lapse into an American drawl… because… well, because it is Thomas Leer… and he’s alright.

43.21

TERRY CALLIER – Alley Wind Song – I Just Can’t Help Myself, LP – Cadet – 1973

I didn’t hear this til an early to mid ’90s KISS FM radio show and I might not have even known it was Callier at that point, but it sort of said ‘serious/conscious’ vibes to me. This guy was definitely on his own path and I’m just very glad I managed to catch him live twice – both at London’s Jazz Cafe. He managed to quieten down the noise from the glass collecting/serving bar staff to the side of the room… and not many could do that.

51.44

BRIGID MAE POWER – Dream From The Deep Well – Dream From The Deep Well, LP – ? – 2023

Not released in hard copy form til June 30. From Waterford, Ireland, the next county down the coast from me, as it happens, but I still haven’t bumped into her.

55.06

EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL – On My Mind – 7″ b-side – Cherry Red – 1982

I can’t remember which surfaced first – this single or Pillows & Prayers, the Cherry Red (‘Pay No More Than 99p’) compilation LP on which On My Mind featured – but it was enough in the summer of ’82 for me, on a summer holiday in Ireland, to ‘field record’ the neighbour’s flock of kids singing along to On My mind. It isn’t quite the same now but back then it didn’t take much for Irish country folk to break into song and the Cannings (previously known nationally for providing three sets of twins in their ranks of eight) happily obliged. I still have the recording… and maybe should have segued into it here?

Rorschach Testing fan/magazine, 1984. Also using the Testing Characters template on New Order, The Wake, Cabaret Voltaire, and Eyeless In Gaza I captured Ben and Tracey here watching The Smiths at Hampstead Westfield College, Nov 17, 1983 – a photo they felt at the time, was their fave of themselves.

58.10

WORKING WEEK – Venceremos (We Will Win) (Jazz Dance Special 12″ Edition) (massive edit!) * – 12″ – Virgin – 1984

Tracey Thorn again, this time guesting, but with a nod to the band’s earlier ‘Thornless’ version as well.

01.01.19

JOSE FELICIANO – Nena Na Na – 7″ b-side – RCA – 1968

Brazilian samba artist, Jorge Ben’s tune, Nena Naná, though why it’s credited to ‘Beam’ – as it also was on Feliciano’s self-titled breakthrough album – I’m not too sure. Whatever, it’s in a more ‘structured’ arrangement here, I’d confidently suggest. It’s a version a few ‘Acid Jazz’ tastemaker DJs of the ’90s took to rekindling, but they’d have to have done some serious crate digging to get the tune into any DJ’s 7″ vinyl box. Jose’s catalogue is the only one I might claim a greater knowledge of than what lies in Discogs’ vast listings and though even with different JF pressings still coming to light worldwide after nearly sixty years, it seems they’ve never sold a copy of this single – nor indeed even listed one – and we both presently reckon the only place you’re going to find the track on 7″ vinyl is on the b-side to the Peruvian pressing of Light My Fire (titled Enciende Mi Fuego).

01.03.47

JETHRO TULL – Life Is A Long Song – 7″ EP – Chrysalis – 1971

The ’70s was my time for Tull’s folk rock. Being a 7″ singles lad I’d collected a bunch of theirs, before then gravitating to the Thick As A Brick and War Child albums and I even caught them live at the Hammersmith Odeon in ’78 but as punk and what followed that came along, it was my time to move on. Still have a soft spot for Ian Anderson’s vocals and their early sound, though.

01.07.02

BETH HIRSCH – P-Town Rubies (Bang Bang Remix) – P-Town Rubies, 12″ EP – Dorado – 1999

Giving Beth’s vocals more space to shine/breathe than on the original take.

01.11.16

JAMIE WOON – Lady Luck – 7″, single-sided picture disc – Polydor – 2011

A special format release for Record Store Day in 2011. £6! Sadly, labels since have really gone to town with maximising the pricing of releases for this ‘event’. I’ll always claim that Ed Sheeran’s stratospheric rise to fame is not totally unconnected with having grabbed a listen to Woon’s material at a particular point in time.

01.15.11

CREEP SHOW – Modern Parenting – Mr Dynamite, LP – Bella Union – 2018

The Wrangler boys and John Grant teaming up… to let their hair down. Along with a sizeable nod to Will Powers’ Adventures In Success that I suggest on the show, maybe they also had K-9 Corp’s Dog Talk in their sights? Funnily enough, for well over a year I’ve had the latter in a ‘scaled down’ working file for each 41 Rooms show but I didn’t make the connection in time here. Had I, it would have been next.

01.18.20

LANDSLIDE – Tumbling (Down Beat Version) * – Drum And Bossa, 2LP – Hospital Records – 2000

Slinky, head nodding stuff… with a submarine passing by.

01.21.52

THE DISTRIBUTORS – Keep Looking Ahead (17.12.81 Peel session) * – 1981

Recorded as one of the four new tracks that made up the second of two sessions they did for John Peel, but in being broadcast after their last ever release, this seems to have been their swansong.

01.25.44

TWO SISTERS – Right There – Two Sisters, LP – Streetwave – 1983

Early ’80s electro in full flight and very belatedly I feel like getting me an original US 7″ of this.

01.29.57

SHRIEKBACK – Into Method * – 7″ b-side – Warner Brothers – 1983

Only if you search out the US 7″ version of My Spine Is The Bass-line, that is.

01.34.59

LITTLE AXE – Out In The Rain And Cold * – The Wolf That House Built, 2LP – Wired – 1994

In effect, the full Tackhead crew on bass player, Skip McDonald’s solo project.

01.41.00

A CERTAIN RATIO – 1982 – 1982, LP – Mute – 2023

Orange or Smoked Clear vinyl versions. For logistic reasons I had to get this show together pretty much straight after the last one, so my snippet on the show rang true when I subsequently heard Martin and Donald recounting this track’s genesis during the band’s recent BBC 6Music session. Knife Slits Water… indeed, come on down!

01.44.19

VEX RUFFIN & FAB 5 FREDDY – The Balance – 12″ – Stones Throw – 2017

Vex has been here before, he’s here now and he’ll be back.

01.47.28

YELLOWTAIL (feat RUSSELL MORGAN) – Changes * – Split 7″ – Dancing Turtle Records – 2008

One of millions of tunes that all involved having time, toil and £££ spent on them, only to have the world pretty much pass their efforts by… but very occasionally they still get to momentarily shine!

01.51.40

KATE BUSH – Running Up That Hill * – 7″ – EMI – 1985

The girl had long made it before EMI gave her her own personal KB 1 catalogue prefix for the release of this 7″ but I can confidently say she hasn’t got a car with a similarly striking number plate. Very, very rarely can I remember exactly where I was when I first heard a track but I do know with this one. In the car of a mate who gave me a lift to work, we were just turning in the gates of Bedford County Press, to start an afternoon shift in the Reading Room … and this, newly released, thundered on the radio. Weird thing, the memory…

01.56.23

EVON (BRENNAN) – Don’t Cry (Gonna Be A Revolution) – Unreleased – Mid 1980s’ish

Sonically, a neat link to KB, I’d like to think. Maybe two decades plus before her, seemingly, only release – the 2006 album, Small Mercies – ‘Evon’ (as she was then billed) appeared as an unknown on a UK Sunday afternoon TV show, if I’m remembering rightly. Sat at a piano and accompanied by some live strings, she performed this gorgeous tune… and I happened to grab it on video. Copied to a cassette at the time is though the only reason I managed to still have any recording of it… so here it is. Lyrically, it might not be unconnected with the tough upbringing Evon endured as a mixed race child growing up in Ireland in the ’60s and ’70s, and as a co-founder of Mixed Race Irish she’s campaigned in more recent years to have the Irish State acknowledge the suffering she and seventy plus other known mixed race children went through in those times. In the years since ‘Don’t Cry’ she’s more recently mixed fashion modelling with her songwriting but if this tune grabs you as much as it still does me, maybe give the lady a social media ‘wave’ of some sort.

Show 116 uploads on June 4.

Dec

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This playlist is 77% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

‘Good if you love wood!’ From Australian company, Classic, sometime after 1941. Thinner in depth than it looks here, you maybe wouldn’t want to be playing anything valuable on that turntable, but the beast would look fine in a very large complimentarily looking log cabin. Nope, me neither.

Lyric of Playlist 114…

She may not have written it, but for the performance Betty might as well have.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Sub-Culture – Low-Life, Definitive Edition Boxset, LP – Warner Music – 2023

A bit slow remembering that the track was on this album, so it’s an accidental repeat (from the last show) plug for the recent boxset – single album versions, both old and new, are also available. In any gig I saw, it always felt like a bit of a breather for the band, with Barney ‘coupleting’ lyrics like the idea is in danger of extinction.

05.34

JOSEF K – Citizens – The Only Fun In Town, LP – Postcard – 1981

Their usual freneticism, with something of an ‘indie funk’ twist. Not Paul Haig’s only sighting on the show.

08.31

MARASMA – Pimp In Velvet – 12″ – Freerange – 1998

With some early’ish electronic keys to hand this sounds like it could have been made in the ’70s. Like Can (the German band) on a funky wig out, maybe… rather than Willesden, North London in the late ’90s.

13.38

PYE CORNER AUDIO – Pocket Disco – 7″ b-side – Polytechnic Youth – 2022

Bubbling electronic goings on… in a tracing paper sleeve. Nice. Retrieving my recently bought copy next time I’m back in my birth town, Bedford.

16.50

LIQUID LIQUID – Groupmegroup – Self-titled, 12″ EP – 99 Records – 1981

If there was a ‘Top 100 Tunes Evoking Dec’s Post Punk/Early ’80s Years’ list (there isn’t) Liquid Liquid would have to be in there with… something.

19.56

NENEH CHERRY – Fallen Leaves – Broken Politics, LP – Smalltown Supersound – 2018

Not the last coincidence of this show but having mentioned broken politics re Lyric of Show 113, an album with that title comes out of nowhere in the next one, and there’s a melodic sweetness here I’ve never noticed in Neneh’s vocals before. Great cover visual, btw… and as it’s Neneh I’ll guess that bus stop is somewhere near Ladbroke Grove.

23.02

GJON’S TEARS – Pure * – Download only (for now) – 2023

He’s an ex Eurovision Song Contest’er and that alone would normally have him on a hiding to nothing with me but in the mix of his astounding vocal range this fab bit of pop is not unlike something Christine and the Queens could have birthed.

26.27

JOHN CALE – Close Watch – Music For A New Society / M:FANS, CD only – Domino – 2016

Somewhere close to a Click Click gig in Portugal (I think) in late ’89 we were at a party in a garden and I heard a Cale song and had to ask who it was. He has that sort of voice. Here it’s a 1975 tune fuelled for a future.

31.27

SCOTT WALKER – Tilt – Tilt, LP – Fontana – 1995

A million miles from the Walker Brothers strutting to Everything’s Gonna Be Alright, that’s for sure.

But from mentions of buffalo… to a bullfight… and yet another innocent coincidence.

35.23

DAVID SYLVIAN – Before The Bullfight – Gone To Earth, 2LP – Virgin – 1986

Yep, released in ’86 but by ’89/’90 one of a number of this album’s tunes I’d grouped together on the side of a cassette that did its best to do a regular bath time ‘Radox’ job of relieving stress. Not only was the jury out on that, it never came back in.

42.31

THE DUTCH RHYTHM, STEEL & SHOW BAND – Down By The River – 7″ – Negram – 1974

However it happened I’d heard three other versions of this Neil Young song before catching his own, and a couple – including this condensed, ‘rock soul’ stab – definitely wing it for me.

47.24

BETTY LAVETTE – Let Me Down Easy (90’s version) – Not Gonna Happen Twice, CD only – Motorcity – 1991

Soul purists might disagree but Motorcity’s Ian Levine is well able to tweak a classic soul sound, here with Lavette sounding not a day older than her first version twenty five years earlier.

50.09

THE ROYALETTES – It’s Gonna Take A Miracle – 7″ – MGM – 1965

With shades of the earlier era Doo-Wop thing going on, the tune they’re best known for.

53.17

VALERIO DELPHI – Lauda – Fenomeno, cassette/download only – Spalato Wyale – 2023

You’ve got to admire someone whose album’s only hard copy format is… cassette! Head nodding, instrumental hip-hop.

Somewhere around here I’ve a decades old ‘Lauda-related’ cartoon strip involving two vultures and even though it’s got nothing to do with this track, it’ll be here when I find it.

55.18

THE MEXICAN (2) – Yoghurt Mudflap * – The Fantastic Four Part II – The Heroes Return, 12″ v/artist EP – Catskills Records – 1999

More of the above, and to be honest, this show’s take of the track is a combination of the 12″ and a version with ‘overlaid soundbites’, courtesy of a radio DJ’s cut and paste mix at the time.

59.58

THE FLAMINGOS – Flatland (De-Ess) – 12″ b-side – Robs Records – 1992

Maybe because he was a soul head in his youth, New Order manager, Rob Gretton took a shine to the vocals of Flams’ Cliff Peacock … with me managing them maybe being some sort of added ‘bonus’ for him to want us in his ‘camp’. In reality, this ‘De-Ess’ mix of Flatland was a barely buffed up demo of a tune that originally had a racier, more upbeat and totally different feel, but this is the version I always favoured… and still do.

The sleeve idea was routed through a graphic designer mate of mine, Antony ‘Wal’ Wallis and his then recent working with photographer, Kerry Wilson, who I think had previously used a variation of our sleeve’s style on some advertising for/with tennis star, Andre Agassi… and I may have even seen an Agassi ad on the London Underground that gave the game away. Personally, apart from just loving the look, I conjure(d) to link the sleeve’s ‘appearances can be misleading’ feel to Cliff and Dave (Summersgill) both having grown through the post punk ‘scene’. Whatever, Rob’s camp loved the sleeve and it did what sleeves can do (get the contents noticed) by grabbing coverage in the heavyweight design mag, Creative Review.

01.04.15

MEDIUM MEDIUM – Them Or Me – 7″ – Apt Music – 1979

Their debut release, with the angular funk a shade punkier than we’d see a year or two later on their only album, The Glitterhouse.

01.07.55

A CERTAIN RATIO – Son and Heir – Do The Du (Casse), 12″ EP – Factory – 1981

A sound that for me evokes the era just about as much as any. I can practically sense rooms, people… that zeitgeist thing.

01.10.33

JOY DIVISION – Colony – The Peel Sessions, 12″ EP – Strange Fruit – 1987

Dooooooof! Powerful!

01.40.31

SPARKS – The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte – Download only (for now) – 2023

The Mael brothers pull on celebrity pal (one assumes) Cate Blanchette for the video and though I’ve never been a Sparks fan, they acquire a thumbs up for the track from me.

01.17.23

WORKING MEN’S CLUB – Cook A Coffee * – Self-titled, LP – Heavenly – 2020

From latte to Coffee! Again, totally coincidental. You’re welcome.

01.20.05

LONELADY – Intuition * – 7″ – Warp – 2010

Having first appeared as the B-side to an earlier self-released 7″ Julie re-records and promotes to an A-side. One in five of the vinyl run contained a (post)card taken from a series of images of 20th century Manchester, courtesy of the Manchester Modernist Society. Here’s #001 (front only) and #004 (front and back). The hunt goes on for the others.

01.23.38

AU PAIRS – Dear John – Playing With A Different Sex, LP – Human Records – 1981

And here stalls this album becoming the first (I think) to be fully played on 41 Rooms – as I never took to Come Again, the one remaining. Gotta stick to the show’s ethos.

01.26.17

PAUL HAIG – Never Give Up (Party Party) * – 7″ – Les Disques Du Crépuscule – 1983

This has definitely grown on me through the years, even if back at the time I think the ‘if that’s not good enough‘ chorus line somehow put me in mind of the early ‘poppy’ Depeche Mode.

01.31.37

PIG OUT – This Boy * – Unreleased – 1987

Unreleased Bedford indie from very good mates. Kev had been in The Aubergines (the best I’d seen from our home town) and would go on to play in Mecca, fronted by The Shrubs ex-head honcho, Nick Hobbs.

Kev: “Recorded in the attic at St Augustine’s Road about the same time as Alan’s videos . Just too late to appear on the Verging on the Porky cassette but always part of a live set. The words are pretty self explanatory. It’s about that time when you are besotted with someone who hardly knows you exist and you’re trying hard to ‘play it cool’, which inevitably ends in disaster. Usual players; Andy MacKechnie on drums, Paul Miller on bass and me guitar and vox. Don’t think Did (second vocalist on the videos) is on this one.*

Rehearsing: Bedford, 1987. Youtube, search ‘Pigout Live in Kev’s flat’ for various clips, uploaded by ajselecter (Alan Johnston, RIP).

Pig Out’s 1987 cassette private release.

01.35.39

FOETUS ART TERRORISM – Calamity Crush – 12″ – Self Immolation/Some Bizzare – 1984

Like industrial electro hip-hop. I think when I first clocked Jim Thirlwell (under a Foetus banner – no doubt through the inkie music press of the early ’80s) I then recognised him working behind the counter in one of London’s Oxford Street music megastores, possibly Virgin. I wonder if he ever got to serve someone buying any of his records? No idea what I may have been buying at the time.

01.39.54

THE GO! TEAM – Get It Together – Get It Together, 7″ EP – Pickled Egg – 2000

Limited Edition, @33rpm, on my mate, Nigel Turner’s label and repressed in 2003. I often think the Go! Team would soundtrack a fairground well. Being from Brighton maybe there’s some ‘holiday feel’ in the genes.

01.43.12

COCTEAU TWINS – Ivo * – Treasure, LP – 4AD – 1984

With always having favoured the slightly the more ‘guttural’ side of Liz’s vocal prowess, this makes me smile… big… time!

Liz and Simon sound-checking, Tiffany’s, Newcastle: 19.4.84

Photo credit/copyright – Dec Hickey

01.46.53

WIRE – Over Theirs – The Ideal Copy, LP – 4AD – 1984

Seemingly the album was ‘the first popular music recording to be commercially released on DAT’ but you might have to go some to find a copy on that format now.

01.52.02

ELECTRIC WIRE HUSTLE – Brother Sun – Aeons, EP, download only – Bastard Jazz Recordings – 2015

I’m accidentally at it again with Wire into EWH but the conscious soul from Mara TK’s ‘band’ outlet is what it’s all about.

01.55.43

(THE) BALLISTIC BROTHERS – A Beautiful Space (Edit) – London Hooligan Soul, 2LP – Junior Boy’s Own – 1995

Yikes! With Brother Sun accidentally (yet again) moving into the Ballistic Brothers, the coincidences finally end. You could mix and match Ashley Beedle, Rocky & Diesel, Uschi Classen and others under a bunch of monikers back in the day, this one here hitting the ‘suitable show ending sound’ right on the nail.

Show 115 will be with you on May 7.

Dec

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This playlist is 74% vinyl friendly. Room for improvement.

Looking like some early wall mounted intercom – apart from the ‘turntable’ that is – say hello to The TT-90 System, by Olsson. Space saving in certain circumstances but I still wouldn’t be a fan of the ‘vertical’ malarkey.

Lyric of Playlist 113…

For the slap in the face of broken politics, it’s the Sleaford Mods and for the tenderness, it’s Sandy D. Both were going it some though, as Joni’s in the house, again.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Sunrise (Live, Tokyo: 2.5.85) – Low-Life, Definitive Edition Boxset, LP – Warner Music – 2023

OK, a guitar is a bit ‘awry’ on this version but I’ve a bit of a personal connection with and affection for this masterpiece, and here it’s the third take of the track to appear on 41 Rooms. Back in its mid ’80s heyday Sunrise could often be found at the rear end of New Order main sets, and if Steve (Morris) was writing the setlists the song’s punk driven tempo most probably better suited him there – as he could nearly see/hear the finish line. Also, from half way through, the track really does sound like it’s ending… something, and if it was anybody else’s track, the end of a 41 Rooms show would definitely be where you’d have heard it.

According to the just released Low-Life Definitive Edition boxset’s book, Sunrise reminds Hooky of Blade Runner, and Gillian acknowledges it’s her fave NO song… and her dad’s also. As with recollections of most of the album’s songs Barney’s thoughts are noticeably absent. I’m guessing that’s a fair bit to do with lost memory but his working hand written lyric sheet (also reproduced in the boxset) seems to mix a desperation to couplet lines with a word (indeed any word) with a more heartfelt but ‘all hope lost’ message to that God character (many versions are available). Whatever, Sunrise is up there with the ‘gods’ of New Order’s catalogue.

05.20

THE PRODIGY – Firestarter – 12″ – XL Recordings – 1996

A slight edit also got it onto my favoured format, the 7″. This seemed to give the UK singles chart a bit of a kick in the crutch when it punched its way to the top slot. Still needed a massive fan base, though… which they had/have.

09.59

WRECKAGE INC. – Salvage (Alkaline Mix ’95) – 10″ promo – Wall Of Sound – 1995

There was a 12″ release but being a fan of 10″ vinyl we’ll go with this one – free with a ‘Back 2 Mono‘ double album compilation Wall Of Sound put out at the time. Wreckage… salvage… angry and funky hip hop. A Public Enemy or Blade diatribe over the top would have crowned this.

14.39

ORBITAL, SLEAFORD MODS – Dirty Rat * – Download only – 2022

Even though this track didn’t make it on to their new 2023 album, UK Grim, its title fits well with the gist of what’s in lyricist/vocalist, Jason Williamson’s rifle sight here, and Orbital underpin the anger… just… right.

18.06

NUHA RUBY RA – Self Portraiture – Machine Like Me, 12″ EP – Brace Yourself Records – 2023

400 ‘Transparent vinyl with red splatter‘ vinyl copies. As I tap I’m not totally sure the 12″ includes all of the six tracks available for digital download.

21.25

UT – I.D. – In Gut’s House – 2LP – Blast First – 1987

Sounding like Ennio Morricone soundtracking a half alive cowboy riding across a desert in a spaghetti western.

Bedford Boys Club: 1.10.83 – just having supported The Fall.

Photo credit/copyright: Dec Hickey.

Drink and lack of photographic expertise in equal measures, I reckon.

26.29

NICO – Genghis Khan (Oxford Road Show, 8.1.82) – Youtube only – 1982

Given the sounds I was into in this period I known of Nico mainly through her Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol connections but I had none of of her records and hadn’t even heard of this track – with this particular performance given some extra ‘weight’ via the show’s guest host, The Passage’s Dick Witts’ intro. The mix in the ORS studio also does its bit. Wonder what the kids there made of it…

29.10

PREFUSE 73 (feat SAM DEW) – Infrared – Rivington Não Rio, LP – Temporary Residence Limited – 2015

A sort of electronic folk soul thingy going on. One neat pairing.

32.22

CLARK – Town Crank – Download only – 2023

The Bandcamp low down…

First single from new album ‘Sus Dog’. Clark recruits none other than Thom Yorke as Exec Producer for the first album centred on his own singing.

Thom says “the way he approached it all wasn’t the usual singer songwriter guff thank god; it mirrored the way he approached all his composition and recording, but this time it had a human face. His face.” Chris says “I kept on thinking what would it sound like if The Beach Boys took MDMA and made a rave record.“

Clark’s nicely reserved in his visual offerings but his site’s About page paints a much fuller picture.

35.44

ERIC RANDOM & THE BEDLAMITES – Subliminal Seduction – 12″ – Plurex Records – 1982

On the same Dutch label home as 41 Rooms faves, Nasmak… and listening back now, sounding in the same sonic landscape as the likes of Liquid Liquid and Savant, I reckon.

40.52

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Sluggin’ For Jesus (Part One) – 3 Crépuscule Tracks, 12″ EP – Les Disques du Crépuscule – 1981

The slightest hint of this track and a visual of the accompanying video is smack in front of me – one I first spotted on From Manchester to New York Direct, a Factory Records v/artists video compilation I received from Factory Benelux’s Annik Honoré (RIP) in a video swap we did in London, in early Sept ’81.

45.21

FRIEDRICH GUIDA vs DJ PIPPI – Years Passing By * – Undiscovered Ibiza Vol 2, v/artists CD only – 2002

Austrian pianist and composer, Guida passed away in 2000, so I’m not sure how much he knew of/was involved in OK’ing this, and having to this day never knowingly heard his music I’ve no idea what of his work is embedded here, but I’ll have a fiver on it being the strings – and if the words ‘years passing by’ have ever been sung elsewhere they won’t have emoted years actually passing better than here.

49.32

JAPAN – Swing – Gentlemen Take Polaroids, LP – Virgin – 1980

Absolutely in their stride by GTP, their fourth album… only to call it a day a year or so later.

Hammersmith Odeon, London: May 16 ’81… and another apology for a lack of photo quality. I can put this one down maybe to the fact I’d been in Brussels the night before watching New Order. Trains and a ferry later – with, for the second night in a row – no sleep, so says the diary.

Photo credit/copyright: Dec Hickey

55.05

LINDA LEWIS – Rock A Doodle Doo – 7″ – Raft – 1973

Life was simpler then.

58.18

INNER CITY – Secrets Of The Mind – A Taste Of Paradise from Inner City, 12″ b-side – 10 Records – 1989

Kevin Saunderson and Paris Grey in the ‘house’!

01.03.03

MK – Somebody New (Club Mix) – 12″ – KMS – 1989

Relocating to London in 1991 and falling hook, line and sinker for house – mostly via KISS FM – this Mark Kinchen debut had already passed me by. Better late than ever, my copy of the 12″ is waiting for me in California.

01.06.46

SANDOZ – Neon Soul – Dark Continent, 12″ EP – Touch – 1993

Here earlier in his Cabaret Voltaire guise, Richard H. Kirk (RIP) is back in solo mode. Class – as reflected in the prices to get any of his Touch label 12″ releases.

01.14.14

MARNIE – Floor Of Soul – 10″ – Sinistral – 1998

Seamlessly and innocently from Neon Soul to Floor Of Soul and yet another under the ‘I Don’t Do Jazz, but… ‘ banner – now a far longer list than I’d have guessed at back at show 1. In my defence it was Deborah Quinoa’s vox that grabbed my ears here, one late night on KISS FM… and very likely a Patrick Forge show spin.

01.18.11

FOREIGN SLIPPERS – Oh Death – maxi single, CD only – Izumi Records – 2008

Lost for now to music, Gabrielle Fröden seems to have focussed more on being an illustrator in recent years and when I find my copy of Oh Death it will be here – especially as it unsurprignly features her own artwork.

01.21.31

JONI MITCHELL – Black Crow – Hejira, LP – Asylum – 1976

‘I’m like a black crow flying‘ sings our heroine. She ought to come round my way. In their hundreds they have a regular meet up to squawk and have a fly by overhead in the Irish countryside. Swapping notes maybe. Joni? She was still leading her pack.

01.25.11

CHAIRMEN OF THE BOARD – Hanging On (To) A Memory * – 7″ b-side – Invictus – 1971

I had a ‘Chairmen Of The Board’ titled UK A-sided 7″ back in the ’70s but Hanging was on the back of a second UK pressing (same catalogue no.) released the same year. Weird.

01.29.09

WORKFORCE – Skin Scraped Back – 7″ test pressing * (Doublevision) – 1985

Brutal beats and an edit/mix unique to this test pressing, as far as I can decipher; with the track never being subsequently released as a 7″. Search out their first John Peel radio session (two of the tracks have crept onto previous 41 Rooms shows) and their second and last single, Back In The Good Books… oh yes, on my label, Rorschach Testing… and a Youtube vid of them in Bedford.

01.33.06

TIM BUCKLEY – Devil Eyes – Greetings From L.A., LP – Warners Bros – 1972

Folk rock, of the funky soul variety. At times he could nearly sound possessed.

01.39.38

SCRIMSHIRE – Unity Gain – Download only – 2023

Adam Scrimshire has his genius moments and for me this is one of them. A film in the making somewhere would be all the stronger for this soundtracking a scene.

01.44.57

JAZZ THE GLASS – Slofly * – Output 2022, download only – 2022

‘Gonna be a shiny day, everything will be OK.’ I’ll sign up for that, Dave.

01.47.58

SANDY DENNY and THE STRAWBS – Who Knows Where The Time Goes – All Our Own Work, LP – Hallmark (!!) – 1973

When I was in the first throws of serious record collecting – as a mid teener, in the early ’70s – I learned quickly what to skip through, and Hallmark would have been a label I routinely sidestepped. It’s Pickwick connection wouldn’t have helped and the sleeves wouldn’t have sold any of their albums to me, either… and this one is total pants! However, in these grooves is where we’ll find my fave SD version of this gentle beauty, recorded six years earlier than its eventual year of release.

01.52.04

JOSE FELICIANO – Hey Jude * – Live With the London Symphony Orchestra, LP – RCA – 1973

As big a JF fan as I am, there are only certain tracks (as with any artist) that get to feel ‘right’ for me on 41 Rooms but with 1) a spate of ‘My first ever gig’ recollection stuff floating around Facebook recently, 2) this edition of 41 Rooms uploading at 9PM, March 5, 2023 – exactly fifty years… to… the… hour since my first ever ‘gig’, the above Jose Feliciano concert, with 5,300 others in a sold out London, Royal Albert Hall AND 3) the fact the concert then made it on to an LP – I’ve made a one-off exception here.

Two or three decades back, Jose’s wife, Susan asked me to contribute a piece for Jose’s website. It was in a forum section and I headed it ‘First Time Ever I Saw… ‘. So, apart from a typo correction or two and a slight tweak and update, here is that piece.

Everybody’s experience of seeing their heroes (musical or otherwise) in a live setting for the first time tends to be momentous and mine sticks with me like very little else.

Growing up as a teenager in the early 1970s, in Bedford, England (fifty miles north of London, for some kind of bearing) I, like every other kid, soaked up all the pop music that was coming out of our radios and TVs but none of my mates or indeed anyone else I knew had heard of Jose Feliciano. I’ve no idea why but something hints the exact moment he first impacted on my life was sometime after the explosion of ‘Light My Fire’ and on somewhere in to that very late 60s/early 70s… ‘space.’ Whenever it was, it kick-started a love affair with that voice and that guitar that lasts to this day and certainly by early ’73 the urge for this then fifteen-year-old to somehow get to see Jose play live was all but uncontrollable.

I distinctly remember lying on our dimly lit sitting room carpet, in front of the artificial ‘coal effect’ fire (very de rigueur at the time) with the January 6 edition of the New Musical Express and honing in on a Derek Johnson, ‘News Desk’ item (see below) announcing Jose’s forthcoming March, UK dates. Annoyingly, the photo of Jose was mistakingly reversed and had him playing left-handed, the sort of sloppiness which, to this day, still really rankles with me. Don’t even get me started on the same cock-ups on record/CD sleeves. Anyway… ‘Six concerts,’ ‘supported by a large orchestra,’ ‘expected to star in his own TV special’… my heart pounded a fair bit. I had no idea what I was going to do about it, though. I had never been to any gig and I certainly didn’t know what you did to get tickets, there was no ‘slapping the plastic’ over the phone back then. Something had to be done though, and for the next two months (and I really do mean the whole two months) I stared endlessly at that NME cutting, trying to work out exactly what I could/would do. But… cometh the hour, cometh the man… well, kid anyway.

Skiving off school was not something I did but on the day of the closest concert to me – Wed, March 5, 1973 (forever etched), the Royal Albert Hall gig in London – I was up and out the door, dressed for and supposedly heading to school. Instead, I went straight to the train station and lockered my school briefcase and padlocked the bike to the station wall. Thankfully, one benefit of being at my particular school (and it would be hard for me to find too many others) was that our sober, blue blazer and long grey trousers uniform could have us blend fairly effortlessly into the outside world without looking too much like school kids so, without a change of clothes, I bought a day return ticket to London and headed into the unknown.

I got to the RAH at about 10.30am and soon learned that the gig was sold out but that there was, very importantly, something called ‘returned tickets’. This meant I might have a very slight chance of getting in. Having gotten something to eat and rung my mum to explain that I wasn’t quite where she thought I was and that I’d therefore be home very late (she understood what it meant to me) with approximately eight hours still to go I started queuing at the box office. It was gone 4pm before anyone else turned up and he, it turned out, was the first ticket tout of the day – and one willing to sell me a £2.50 seat for… £15! You can maybe imagine how much of a ‘no go’ that would have seemed to a kid like me. By 6pm a queue began forming behind me and I got talking, for the first time in my life, to people who actually knew a bit about Jose and by the time the doors opened at 7.30, the trail of people was half way around the building. It was a bit gut-wrenching watching those with tickets flow effortlessly in and the box office played a slight waiting game but when a ‘returned’ £2.50 ticket finally came my way both they and the doormen seemed as happy for me as I was near-delirious.

Having bought a programme and gawped at the sheer wonderment of the place, I rushed to my seat as strains of the London Symphony Orchestra had me panicking and thinking things had kicked off without me. Taking my seat and realising that it wasn’t the case I chatted with an Australian woman beside me and the first person I’d ever met who, back in her home country, had actually seen Jose play live before. She recounted what he played and even had a copy of the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ 7″ which, at the time, I didn’t even know existed! I then looked around at the other 5,000 plus people in their seats and felt I really needed to chat with everyone else in the building… the Jose stories they could tell – all those cool, intimate clubs he’d played on his first visit to the UK in ’67, the London Palladium in ’69, that Hollywood festival in ’70 and subsequent dates in ’72. It was all a bit too much to take in and when DJ, Alan Freeman had finished his neat intro and Jose took to the stage it was the greatest single moment of my life… no more, no less and so… I promptly burst into tears.

Back then I had no barometer on what to expect, performance-wise, so from opener ‘Satisfaction’ on to more obvious album and single material, when Jose then pulled out the likes of ‘Shaft,’ ‘Jesus Christ Superstar,’ ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’ and ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ I was blown away. The most memorable sight of the night however was the standing ovation the whole audience, including the 90 plus members of the orchestra, gave after ‘Malaguena.’

To be honest I got extra lucky with my first Jose ‘gig.’ As many JF fans will be aware, part of that night’s performance became an RCA LP, the imaginatively titled, ‘ Live at the Royal Albert Hall’ and even more of the show was to be broadcast on BBC TV the following June, all of which obviously has helped cement the night in my memory. Back on the actual night it wouldn’t have been a thought in my young head but someone suggested getting to the stage door afterwards and catching a glimpse of Jose leaving just added to the whole thing.

Back in Bedford at the dead of that night I have vivid memories of a fifteen year old lad cycling home, along a very wide and deserted road called Polhill Avenue, bolt upright and hands free (the way young lads do) taking in the night air and the barely contained excitement as I then tried to explain to my mum and dad the sheer scale of the experience I’d just had. Nearly ninety JF appearances down the years and the dynamics for me catching Jose play live are obviously now different. I’m certainly not that kid anymore but when he gets up on that stage there’s still been that rush of never really knowing what songs he’ll turn his genius to.

As the teenager I was back then I had two dreams in life, one was to meet Jose and the other was, bizarrely, to live to be a hundred years old. Having done the first (and grown it into a much treasured,

Incidentally, if I’d ever met Derek Johnson I would have mentioned how much of an impact his fairly routine (in the scheme of things) NME news item had had on me way back then but sadly, in a strange coincidence, the very week I originally wrote this piece, the NME had run an item on Derek’s recent passing, but beyond it being just a piece of paper the sight of the now-yellowing cutting does still bring to mind all the above memories.

Jose had regularly being playing with orchestras since 1969 but a couple of decades on from the night above the leader of the LSO for the Feliciano concert, John Georgiadis recounted to me a hitch, one purely of the logistics sort: ‘The biggest problem was the amount of sound his Brazilian drummer made sitting right beside us (the first violins) and I eventually resorted to moving my whole section way back to the percussion or woodwind risers. It was a question of trying to save our ears!‘ With a bossa nova and jazz samba background, Paulinho (Magalhaes)’s style was more on the delicate side of ‘deft,’ so the LSO were lucky they didn’t have to sync in with the likes of a John Bonham.

These were different times in the marketing world. With the tour sponsored by Peter Stuyvesant a free copy of the forthcoming live album was yours via one of their many box ads (below, mostly in the daily papers). ‘Every packet contains a Government health warning‘… but if you want this album you’re going to have to get yourself two! Nobody in my house smoked but somehow I got the job done.

NME: 6.1.73 – and the occasionally spotted ‘left-handed’ Jose.

The official tour programme.

My ticket and the live album’s labels. I’ve also got spare labels that were, in a production ‘hiccup’, very lightly attached over the proper labels on one copy of the album I got years later.

And the album itself… and one of only two test pressings I’ve ever seen.

With reportedly a staggering 86,000,000 record sales to date at this point, Jose found himself the morning after the concert guesting on Pete Murray’s Radio 2 show, where he read braille listener requests, sang along (off air) to Aretha Franklin’s Spanish Harlem and had Murray remind him of their first broadcast together, back in ’67, where Jose no doubt delighted the BBC hierarchy by strumming (this time very much ‘on air’) a jingle to his fave pirate radio station, Radio Luxembourg.

If a(ny) copy of the film the BBC used for the Feliciano RAH concert TV special broadcast in June ’73 (a different edit to the album’s tracks) is ever found I and a lot of others will be very happy bunnies, but at least I was lucky my first ever gig was documented in some way, major or otherwise. My earliest ever version of noting down ‘Jose stuff’ (I still have it) tells me that a couple of days later I bought 7″ copies of Adios Amor and Destiny off mate, Mark Palmer for 10p each. Record dealing on a low key level. And nine days after that, my second ever gig: Geordie, at Cranfield Institute of Technology. It hasn’t survived as well. Lads in Newcastle United football shirts standing on chairs at the side and AC/DC lead-singer-to-be, Brian Johnson, on vocals is all I remember of that one.

Show 114 will be with you April 2.

Dec

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This playlist is 87% vinyl friendly. Impressive.

Audio-Technica’s AT-LP2022 see through turntable, for when you might need to hide the fact you’ve spent $1200 on your hobby.

Lyric of Playlist 112…

‘The human race is becoming a disgrace… ‘ Our fave antagonist letting fly.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – The Perfect Kiss (Writing Session Recording) – Low-Life, Definitive Edition Boxset – Warner Music – 2023

From this little acorn doth… First introduced to the world at London’s Royal Festival Hall in May 1984 (I was there), Barney christened this on the night as ‘I’ve Got A Cock Like The M1’ – the first line of what would very likely have been a spur of that moment (new) lyrical stream of consciousness – none of which would make it to the fully recorded version.

03.55

EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL – Nothing Left To Lose – Download only, for now – 2023

Underpinned by Watt’s house/garage/dubstep amalgam, Tracey Thorne arguably shows off her most gutturally, soulful vocal to date – in parts I wouldn’t have recognised her. The ‘old skool’ re-emerging, surveying the aural landscape… and then effortlessly nailing it. Total class.

Photo credit: Edward Bishop

Below: Tracey and Ben watching The Smiths, at Westfield College, Hampstead, London, 17.11.83.

I sent them a copy of this photo and at the time they regarded it as their fave one of themselves. This upload is sadly from a thumb nail take, so when I dig out the neg or rescan a print I’ll upload a better version.

Photo credit/copyright – Dec Hickey

07.32

TONI BRAXTON – Un-Break My Heart (Frankie Knuckles Franktidrama Club Mix) – 12″ – LaFace – 1996

Maybe the tune she’s best known for – a no beats, tearjerker of a ballad, with Knuckles then hired to do what he does best.

12.12

PURESSENCE – Moonbeam * – 10″ b-side – Reaction – 2006

James Mudriczki’s falsetto particularly highlighted when offset against a wall of guitar sound.

15.25

BIG BLOOD – Weird Road Pt. II – Download only, Bandcamp – 2022

41 Rooms’ fave Portland, Maine family surfacing at the very end of another weird road (2022). Part of a five track digital EP.

20.00

ESTHER OFARIM – Earthquake – Is It Really Me! LP – Philips – 1965

Sounding like Ennio Morricone soundtracking a half alive cowboy riding across a desert in a spaghetti western.

22.19

THE MEMORY BAND – Why – 7″ – Peacefrog – 2006

Awwww, they only relented to the La di da di da‘s at the end. If Carly Simon could have been given this song back in her young Simon Sisters folk days (a couple of decades before it was actually written), could it have sounded a shade like this?

27.04

THE CLIENTELE – We Could Walk Together – Suburban Light, LP – Pointy – 2000

An earlier version surfaced first on a 1997 Fierce Panda label v/artists double 7″ EP but this sounds a lot more confident.

29.33

LILIPUT – Blue Is All In Rush – Some Songs, LP – Rough Trade – 1983

Jaunty stuff from the ex-Kleenex-ers final album.

33.15

LIZZY MERCIER DESCLOUX – Aya Mood (3.5) – Press Color, LP – ZE Records – 1979

Like The Slits and The Raincoats on a lazy afternoon.

35.57

BILL NELSON – Hard Facts From The Fiction Department – 7″ b-side – Cocteau Records – 1984

If Public Service Broadcasting’s grandad had made music it would probably have sounded like this.

38.53

NINE HORSES – I’m Too Mad To Let You Know (Sign The Papers) – Soundcloud only – 2023

‘An undeveloped piece from the nine horses sessions. An off the cuff mix of a demo from 2004. written by Sylvian/Jansen. Performed by Sylvian/Jansen/Lowe‘ – Soundcloud

Few artists stamp their mark, vocally, on a recording more than David Sylvian but here on an unreleased track, brother, Steve Jansen stamps his percussive touch.

43.10

YAZOO – Only You – 7″ – Mute – 1982

Reminds of the time we (Rorschach Testing) were just about to cut the Workforce single, Back In The Good Books, in London and having earlier in the day been splicing 1/4″ tape on the floor at my place – with my dog, Flanagan slobbering over his shoulder – Alan Fisch (Workforce drummer and ex Cabaret Voltaire and Hula) then needed the use of a four track reel to reel to double check this last minute bit of editing before the cut at Porky’s and Yazoo, whose studio was in our distributor, Rough Trade’s then set up, off London’s Caledonian Road, loaned us theirs for an hour or so. Nice peeps.

Ad.

Masterbag #7 front page, 15-29.4.82.

46.02

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Just Fascination (12″ Version) * – 12″ – Virgin – 1983

Fans of this period of CV most probably have a vision of the Pete Care directed video in their minds as quick when hearing this monster of a track. Played at their first Bedford Boys Club gig, in 1983… the track… not the video.

Bedford Boys Club 1983 ticket / pass.

54.21

BASS-O-MATIC – Fascinating Rhythm (Lisa Loud mix) – 12″ – Virgin – 1990

The William Orbit version of Bass-O-Matic, I used to pick up promos from a good friend at Guerilla Records (the label that kickstarted this track) down the road from me in London’s Ladbroke Grove and as it happenend, remixer on duty here, Lisa Loud ran the club promo there at the time. Pre his producer-to-Madonna days, I do remember one time passing by Orbit, coincidentally very close to the Ladbroke Grove tube station… and he’s a very tall lad. Maybe that’s where the Orbit… bit came from. A memory recounted of Guerilla was being told of (I think) DJ Pierre often gracing their office with a small flight case full of DATs – pitching individual tunes, seemingly with the passion of a door-to-door salesman selling brushes.

‘William Orbit’s intriguing samples studded dense bass burbler’s is partly Tommy Roe ‘Dizzy’ driven in his Sharon Musgrove moaned and MC Inner One-Step raga rapped 0-101.5bpm Lisa Loud Mix, with a piano jiggled instrumental 101.5-0bpm Soul Odyssey Mix and Sugar J & FC Harmony’s more hip hop jittery fluttering 101.7bpm Hook and Swing Mix Part 1, plus the spacily bleeping 0-122.2bpm ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Bass (Va Va Voom Mix)’, while separately remixed (promoed as Guerilla Records GRRR 6, pressed as Virgin VSTX 1274) are Renegade Soudwave’s jiggly tugging, presumably Sharon wailed, souled 101.4bpm Claudia Canniggia Mix, Sugar J & FC Harmony’s jauntily jittering 101.5bpm Hook & Swing Part 2, William Orbit’s swelling organ and piano played 101.4bpm T-Wah Mix‘. – James Hamilton, Jocks, 10.90

‘Bass-heavy and irresistible, with a killer chorus and a heavy duty rap, all woven around ‘Riders On The Storn’, ‘Dizzy’ and ‘The Liquidator’ samples/references. Devastating’. – Alan ‘Casey’ Jones, Jocks, 10.90.

01.00.17

SMOOTH & TURRELL – 50 Days Of Winter – Crown Posada, LP – Jalapeno Recpords – 2016

First heard on a radio session they did for BBC6 Music. I feel John Turrell’s vocal has the capabilities to turn a song into some monster hit. Maybe via a a film soundtrack? The already 41 Rooms playlisted Gabriel maybe could have been a contender.

01.03.51

DNOTE – Now Is The Time (Village Vanguard Mix)* – 12″ – Dorado – 1993

‘An excellent jazzy hip hop track in four mixes with the soulful chorus and rolling rap supplemented with guitar, sax and piano. Very similar in style to Zhane’s Hey Mr DJ wit its lazy summer feel‘. – Tim Jeffery, Record Mirror (Music Week), 25.9.93

The remix might have been named in homage to the long standing New York jazz club but this sounded very London at the time of its release. To be played loud and proud on a sunny day in a bustling place.

01.08.27

SYLVESTER – I Need Somebody To Love Tonight (Inst) – 12″ b-side – Fantasy – 1979

Sylvester’s vocal version made it to an earlier 41 Rooms’ show but the ‘crunchy’ instrumental works so well, down very much to the tune’s producer (and writer), Patrick Cowley.

01.12.53

BEVERLEY KNIGHT – Moving On Up (On The Right Side) – 12″ – Dome – 1996

Pitched up a tad by mistake but…

‘The best track on The B-Funk album next to Flavour Of The Old School gets its anticipated single with new mixes. Original producers The Ethnic Boyz in their Alternative mix remove the Curtis Mayfield signature bassline/string section… for a smoother quiet-storm-type synth-laden affair, while D-Lux inject an old Patrice Rushen loop into this outstanding r&b swing tune and Full Creww Productions cut it straight and free of outside influences. Deserves to be massive’. * – *Ralph Tee, Record Mirror (Music Week). 9.3.96

‘Soulful sweetly warbled languid lush old fashioned 2-stepper’s remarkably derivative swaying 0-95.4bpm Album Version, 0-95.5bpm Ethnic Boyz, blatant samples woven jigglier 95.1bpm Full Crew Productions/Wayne Lawes, chunkier rolling 95.2bpm D-Lux, starker The Unsigned MCs rapped 95.5bpm Ee Bee’s Rap Remixes, just like nameable tunes I used to spin at Gullivers 15 years ago’. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week). 16.3.96

Today I will be mostly sticking with the ‘old fashioned’ version. Not as old fashioned though as the 12″s sleeve photo. Looking more like a visual you’d have seen on an indie soul record from two decades previous, I’ll nearly guarantee this was deliberate. Dome label boss, Peter Robinson knew his soul onions, so to some degree this approach obviously worked, or at least played to an audience, as was shown by the UK’s indie soul trade mag of the time (Soul Trader, I think, a copy or two around here somewhere) being full of poor quality visuals for sleeves… and mostly housing tunes that were far better. Weird. DJ/producer/remixer, Ashley Beedle was a big fan of this tune, as I remember giving him a copy. All pre the net and Google search in full swing.

01.17.15

JOHN MARTYN – Don’t Want To Know About Evil – 7″ – Island – 1973

A 7″ – but only in the US. He was a class artist. RIP.

01.19.55

BILL WITHERS – Ruby Lee * – 7″ – Sussex – 1974

Yep, as mentioned on the show, it’s a complete mistake Bill hasn’t made it to 41 Rooms until now. As a starting point back in 2015 I somehow missed him and my fave BW tunes from the ‘pool’… and I never noticed til now. If they’d been there then it’s likely this wouldn’t have been his first showing here but Ruby Lee just fitted best. I wonder who she was.

01.23.09

FURNITURE – (It’s) The Unspoken Things * – radio session – 1985

From the beginning of they year they guested on Rorschach Testing’s v/artist cassette, Discreet Campaigns with Bullet, this tune was courtesy of a Janice Long sesh for Radio1 but subsequently remained unreleased.

01.26.25

GNAG OF FOUR – We Live As We Dream, Alone – Songs Of The Free, LP – EMI – 1982

Six years in and they were still angry…

and this coupling were no less so.

01.29.54

TIME ZONE – World Destruction – 12″ – Virgin – 1984

Bambaataa and Lydon. Apart from a neat meeting of genres, how could this meeting of minds not also have a message?

01.34.55

SECRET AFFAIR – My World ** – 7″ – I-Spy Records – 1980

One of the best ever uses of strings in pop, I reckon and one of those rare songs where the verses sound more ‘chest struttingly’ anthemic than the choruses. I could feel that taste for life slipping away, etc… indeed… so, I outro’d with a verse snippet as a chorus… sort of. You’re welcome.

01.38.14

SIOUXSIE and THE BANSHEES – Song From The Edge Of The World – 7″ – Wonderland / Polydor – 1987

As the years roll on there’s maybe little better than a Siouxsie clip to showcase to an unaware/unconnected kid that ‘something interesting’ went on back in the late ’70s/late ’80s. About to step out on her first live dates in a decade, she’ll have fans in the palm of her hands.

01.41.34

AMBROSE SLADE – Born To Be Wild – Beginnings, LP – Fontana – 1969

The original UK album pressing will cost £1000+ and any of the three known 7″ acetates that feature this song won’t be cheap either, whenever (and it comes to every piece of vinyl) they change hands again. Mentioned elsewhere on 41 Rooms, my first girlfriend, Jackie was a Slade fan and via her I got a liking for a lot of their earlier, pre hits stuff, including (at some point) this tune, written by a Mars Bonfire (Dennis Eugene McCrohan to his mum and dad), who played with The Sparrow but left before they became Steppenwolf and with the help of the film, Easy Rider blew up the tune worldwide.

01.44.52

T REX – 20th Century Boy – 7″ – EMI – 1973

A tune funky in its glam setting… and with another girlfriend connection. One for Jill, though she’ll never likely see this. You didn’t have to go far in the early to mid ’70s to find a young female who fancied the pants off of Marc Bolan.

01.47.57

THE MYSTERY GIRLS – Ash In Drag * – 7″ – A&M – 1984

This is completely spooky but I’m finishing this playlist rambling just hours before the show’s upload and with the audio finished over a week ago this is the first time I’ve noticed that this is a third track (in a row!) with a girlfriend connection, what with the Mystery Girls 1984 gig at Winkles, in Bedford being one of two of theirs co-promoted in the town by ex-girlfriend, Jenny (along with friend, Shaz). Mates, Highway 40 also filmed the gig, and for some unknown reason (maybe Alan J was at another gig) I stood in as one of the two cameramen involved. Not something I ever remember doing elsewhere.

The Winkles, Bedford August ’84 gig press promo.

Ticket…

Post gig. The Mystery Girls…

and with friends, including on the left, promoters the ‘Makioka Sisters’, Jenny and Shaz.

Photo credit/copyright: Dec Hickey

Beds Express review.

01.51.05

THE STRANGLERS – Hanging Around – The Stranglers 7″ EP – A&M – 1977

Pink marble! I’d forgotten that. fresh out of girlfriend connections but Dunstable Queensway Hall and Cambridge Corn Exchange gigs in 1977 and the first three albums were the Stranglers for me.

01.55.15

THUS LOVE – Repetitioner * – Memorial, LP – Captured Tracks – 2022

To us of an earlier generation or two, maybe a bit of a Pete Murphy ‘goth croon’-style here from vocalist, Echo Marshall – and an overall sound on Repetitioner that feels like a suitable backdrop to a sunny, early evening slot on a large festival stage.

Show 113 drops Mar 5.

And by an extraordinary coincidence, it will drop exactly fifty years… to… the… hour since my first ever gig going experience… which through a quirk of luck will be included.

Dec

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This playlist is 92% vinyl friendly. Near perfect.

‘OK, lads. Check out the grooves!‘

Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms ‘tweak’/edit/chop and the occasional tune might sound a bit dodgy, quality-wise. On top of that, the switch between different decades and production values never helps in the mix here.

Lyric of Playlist 111…

For the conscious souls it just has to be Marvin. For the frivolous, maybe it’s ‘Peace, love and hair grease… ‘

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – True Faith – 7″ – Factory – 1987

Whether you catch New Order or Peter Hook and the Light live this will always raise the proverbial roof when it’s in the set. Daughter, Alice recently caught the latter in Sydney, OZ and the song had the gal – in her early 30s – in tears. I didn’t actually know it’s her ‘favourite song in the world’ and even in the last week a snippet of it was cropping up in the background of some BBC TV link. That move of the Beeb’s main operations centre to Salford (Manchesterland) won’t have done the band’s publishing exploits any harm…

04.47

PAUL HAIG – Blue For You – 12″ – (Italian version remix) – Les Disques Du Crépuscule / Base Record – 1982

The ex-Josef K front man subsequently in full electronic flow. Worth checking out a live TV version from Switch in ’83 or so. The backing singers nearly steal the show.

08.58

TALK TALK – It’s My Life (Dim Zach Edit) – Youtube only?

Mr Zach has ‘reworked’ a few Talk Talk tracks, so we’ll assume he’s a fan. Here it’s just a subtle toughening and even though official remixes (radical or otherwise) weren’t common back in the early ’80s maybe the late Mark Hollis would have approved of this one.

14.00

RALPH FALCON – Every Now And Then – 12″ – Miami Soul – 1992

In part due to a relocation to London in the early ’90s, I was devouring late night KISS FM almost on a nightly basis and the house shows of Steve Jackson and Sarah HB certainly spun this. Moody and deep but if I’m honest, with a couple of lines that would definitely fall into the ‘offensive’ bag these days… so I red carded them. Not the cleanest of edits but it had to be done.

18.32

RUPAUL – Back To My Roots (Murk Curl Activator Mix) * – 2×12″, promo – Union City Recordings – 1993

Seen as a drag queen supreme… but he’s here primarily because of the Murk boys input – them being Ralph Falcon and Oscar Gaetan.

24.27

FUNKY GREEN DOGS – Why? – Get Fired Up, 2LP – Twisted America Records – 1996

It looks like a Murk spotlight on this show, for Falcon and Gaetan are also here as the Funky Green Dogs. Liquid and deep electronic house.

29.11

THE FOG – Been A Long Time – 12″ – Downtown – 1993

Licensed to this Italian label but in actuality, another Miami Soul (US) release – with Ralph Falcon and others. Sparse on the sounds… but they’re tough and I’d be surprised if Falcon and Gaetan hadn’t nodded a head or two to the ‘industrial’ side of things when they were starting out.

33.51

MANFREDAS – Square Lights (Zongamin Remix Take Two) – Pink Industry, 12″ EP – Les Disques De La Mort – 2014

Tribal and swerving around enough to keep the interest over six minutes plus… and the only steel pan drum you’ll be hearing on this show, I think.

40.11

THE CARPENTERS – Crescent Noon – Close To You, LP – A&M – 1970

Right in amongst the Motown and pop and rock 7″s of the time I had as a teenager in the mid ’70s was a bunch of Carpenters singles. Karen C had a voice like no other.

44.14

ISHMAEL ENSEMBLE – The Rebuke * – Download only – 2022

This makes the heart pump the way that moments in the past from Cinematic Orchestra, Submotion Orch, Jazztronik, Two Banks of Four, Part Time Heroes, RAah Project, A Race of Angels, Quasimode, Pete Josef, Electric Wire Hustle/Mara TK, Emanative, Vicktor Taiwò and a bunch of others have – spiritual vocals as part of some leftfield (sort of) musicality.

48.52

CUSTOM BLUE – Hazel’s Groove – 7″ – Blue (Island) – 2000

A pretty much ignored gem.

54.17

ANDRÉS – Material World (-8 Pitch Control) – 12″ – KDJ – 1999

With Marvin Gaye floating in unannounced yet again, the versions of this around on Youtube taken from the vinyl are insanely pitched up – and that’s not in a good way. Maybe the vinyl was cut that way?

59.25

NATURAL SCIENTIST – 7 Not 17 Ways * – Terminal Velocity, 12″ EP – Dental Records – 1981

All three tracks from this EP have now made it to 41 Rooms.

01.04.47

APB – Palace Filled With Love – 7″ – Oily Records – 1982

In between putting some effort into separate ways to format the letters A P and B they also managed to put out singles throughout the ’80s and albums sporadically after that up to 2011 – no mean feat – and lots of stuff on the band is right here.

01.08.38

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD – A Peck On The Cheek À La Politiqué * – 12″ – Ron Johnson Records – 1988

Fiery… and soooo early…. or maybe more mid ’80s indie!

and also travelling at a pace not unlike this travelling one…

01.11.59

THE WOODENTOPS – Travelling Man – 7″ b-side – Rough Trade – 1986

As is customary… a racing Rolo.

01.16.16

THE SOUND – Heartland – Jeopardy, LP – Korova – 1980

As not heard at Bedford Boys Club, April 18, 1981. I’d cancelled the gig before signing the contract, as New Order had, late on, sorted a short tour of Scotland for that same weekend and I wouldn’t have cancelled for anyone else.

01.19.30

WARSAW – (Living In The) Ice Age – Self-titled LP (bootleg) – ‘RZM Productions Ltd’ – 1981

The May ’78 Arrow Studios, Manchester version – one of eleven tracks recorded over two days and intended for RCA Records as Joy Division’s first album. The deal fell through and the recordings subsequently surfaced in various incarnations over many bootlegs. Mine – acquired in 1981 or ’82 and also including a 7″ of JD’s first John Peel session – might be here when I unearth it… as it’s in extremely poor shape compared to this version below.

01.21.51

dBRIDGE – Creatures Of Habit – The Gemini Principle, 4LP – Exit Records – 2008

Dubstep – and a case of ‘less is more’ in the vocals department.

01.27.37

BREAKBEAT ERA – Bullitproof – ULtra-Obscene, 2LP – XL Recordings – 1999

The only album under this moniker for Roni Size and DJ Die but vocalist Leonie Laws is a massive part of what made this album one of my all time faves.

01.31.53

KV5 and NICKY TAYLOR – Church Candles (Nitin Sawhney Remix) – 12″ b-side – People – 1999

A lot more ‘presence’ via Sawhney’s mix than the main one.

01.34.51

GROOVE CORPORATION – Twist & Change – Co-Operation, 2LP – 6×6 – 1995

Nearly a decade in a proof reading department in my far younger days will always have me struggling with an ampersand where it shouldn’t be (T&C) but a conscious gentle rap, countered with a vocal, has a fair chance of winning me over.

01.40.41

MASSIVE ATTACK – Unfinished Sympathy – 7″ – Wild Bunch/Circa/Virgin – 1991

The unedited, one-continuous-camera-shot video (captured in LA, there were six takes) has possibly garnered more wordage down the years than the song but the latter more than rose to the occasion.

01.45.23

MARDEN HILL – Sugarplums – 12″ – Afro Art – 1996

A different mix to one (also on this 12″) playlisted at 41 Rooms a long way back. Sounding autumnal, I maybe should have snuck it in a few shows back.

01.50.10

FRANKIE KELLY – Ain’t That The Truth – 7″ – T(hree) W(inds) I(nternational) Records – 1985

With the UK (10 Records) 7″ and 12″ still knocking around ‘cheap as chips’, one of an ocean’s worth of record releases that epitomise ‘romance’ and (supposed) ‘failure’ polar opposites – and I only happened on the tune very, very recently – so, a big nod to life long mate, Danny Duggan and his Dublin City FM Soul Seeker radio show. It appears this was Kelly’s only release and whatever his hopes were in making it and the plaudits it may have then received on release, it didn’t ‘pay the bills’ and he seemingly disappeared from the biz of music. Even the US 12″ is easily available but if you want to get closer to the source/origins (per se), the US promo and stock 7″s are going to cost you up to $100, with subsequent praise through the intervening years for this Marvin Gaye inflected tune being the reason fans and dealers have since jumped on it.

This UK 7″ acetate of the 10 Records single release was in a bunch of four acetates in a £25 lone bid on eBay in 2020 and if I’d known of the track at the time I’d have had a stab at it. Looking at the others in the lot I’d even suggest it was Ain’t That The Truth the bidder was, in reality, after.

01.54.38

MARVIN GAYE – What’s Going On (live) – Save The Children, 2LP– Motown – 1973

There’s nothing like capturing iconic music live in the era it was written and/or recorded. For the performer, the thought process and passion for the music is still ringing true and close to home and heart, and for the audience the energy of all the aforementioned is right there in front of you. Throw in a lyric and storyline that hits home like few do and if you were at the 1972 Save The Children concert in Washington D.C. in the US you caught this magic. Film of much of the concert was subsequently released to cinema the next year, but Gaye’s What’s Going On performance then only made for public purchase via Universal Music’s 2006 The Real Thing : In Performance 1964-1981, DVD. Poetry in motion…

Show 112 drops Feb 5.

Dec

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This playlist is 83% vinyl friendly. Impressive.

A Technics SP10MK3 NGS, courtesy of Artisan Fidelity. I can’t work out whether this was the idea of someone with a single hob cooker set up or (at the other end of the scale) maybe some four wheels transport, in the form of a top of the range Bentley!

Lyric of Playlist 110…

Gil’s in the house and topping his ‘outpouring’ was unlikely.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Restless – Music Complete, LP – Mute – 2015

Every one of New Order’s ten albums to date has pretty much led off with a ‘guitar chugger’ and this, with Bernard reflecting re modern life, is the most recent.

04.50

ECHO and THE BUNNYMEN – Monkeys (album version) – Crocodiles, LP – Korova – 1980

Debut album time and the young scousers knew no fear. Ian M most probably has known any since, either.

07.37

THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS – We Love You – 7″ – Epic – 1979

More post punkers! These three minutes always felt to me like a bit of the Velvet Underground’s I’m Waiting For The Man’ mixed with Iggy’s I’m Bored.

11.00

THE TUBES – White Punks On Dope – 12″ – A&M – 1975

Thankfully, I first heard this before I saw who was making the noise. That much theatre from Fee Waybill could easily have had me skip by them.

14.24

SMALL FACES – Baby Don’t Do It – From The Beginning, LP – Decca – 1967

Featuring short lived member, Jimmy Winston on vocals instead of Steve Marriott, a live radio session version of this tune graced 41 Rooms previously but this studio take possibly just missed out on making it to the band’s one and only Decca label album – the above being a compilation maybe cashing in around their move to Immediate.

16.13

LILIPUT – Do You Mind My Dream – Self-titled, LP – Rough Trade – 1982

So of its time… and of Rough Trade, in this era.

20.08

THOMAS LEER – Time Heals – The Scale Of Ten, CD only – BMG – 2004

Time Heals actually registers as 15 on the scale, seeing as it looks like it was a track that was left over from the album’s original vinyl release and only then appeared on the more expansive, decades later, CD re-release.

23.31

ALANAS CHOŜNAU and MARK REEDER – All You Need To Love (Mark Reeder’s Higher State of Mind Remix) – Bandcamp download only – ???? – 2022

It’s easy to see how long time Berlin-based Mancunian producer, Reeder has remixed New Order and here he teams up neatly with Lithuanian singer, Chošnau. This wouldn’t have been out of place next to Simple Minds, Human League, Blancmange or the likes in our club in the early ’80s.

29.46

ERIC RANDOM, STEPHEN MALLINDER, SINE – Stop / Begin Again (SINE Remix) – Bandcamp download only – ???? – 2022

Very long time electronic heavyweights reworked by Austin, Texas’ Rona ‘SINE’ Rougeheart.

33.30

LINDISFARNE – Lady Eleanor * – 7″ – Charisma – 1971

I hear this one very rarely these days but it’s an immediate shift back to being 14 or 15, buying singles and Putnoe, Bedford bedroom spins on… well, if I ever work out/fully remember what I played these singles on before I got the Nat Panasonic music centre that fronts the 41 Rooms’ website I’ll have a photo of that on here, too.

37.12

LEE STEVENS (& THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE) – Ridin’ High (Rising Seed Dub) (Radio Edit) – Retroscope 01, v/a 12″ EP – Luv Shack Records – 2022

Languid vibes remixed a decade on from a pretty much forgotten fuller tune, where somebody decided 40 hand stamped and stickered copies were worth the test. Nice work.

40.57

WINDJAMMER STRINGS – What Are You Going To Be Doing This Summer – 7″ – Brunswick – 1971

Seemingly, the only ever release under this name but the writing and production work of Willie Henderson, he of The Dance Master, a big tune I first heard down the Laird bar of the Anglers in Bedford on, I think, a Saturday lunchtime session in early 1974. I would have been 16 or 17. This tune? Possibly involving Willie’s fave session musicians, it sounds like incidental/bridge music for an episode of Streets Of San Francisco, with Michael Douglas driving around SF know exactly what he’ll be doing – pondering said streets.

42.56

FAT FREDDY’S DROP – Flashback (Jazzanova’s Mashed Bag Mix) – 12″ – Sonar Kollektiv – 2006

Noted New Zealand live band reworked by Germany’s finest for a more menacing feel.

46.39

JOHN GRANT – Caramel – Queen Of Denmark, 2LP – Bella Union – 2010

Storytelling a la Grant.

49.54

IZIT – Don’t Give Up Now (Acoustic Mix) * – 12″ – Tongue and Groove – 1992

Early ’90s Brit street soul, soul jazz, acid jazz, Straight No Chaser, Galliano, 2 Banks of Four, etc etc.

53.13

RANDY CRAWFORD and JOE SAMPLE – See Line Woman – Rio De Janeiro Blue, promo only 12″ EP – Emarcy / P.R.A. Records – 2006

A song with a history that’s decades before the Nina Simone and (separately) the Songstress (Kerri Chandler and Jerome Sydeneham) versions I happened on in the ’90s.

57.34

THE TIVOLI vs CABARET VOLTAIRE – Common Foot Soldiers – National Service Rewind, CD only – Shiva Records – 2010

Reinforcing the notion I made playlisting My Town on show 108, the hook up between The Tivoli and CV was far better than the Tivoli sounded in their own right.

01.03.39

THEESATISFACTION – Queens – Awe Naturale, LP – Sub Pop – 2012

Quirky hip hop out of Seattle.

01.06.43

GIL SCOTT-HERON – “B” Movie – Promo 12″ only – Arista – 1981

The much missed, with roughly half of his own ‘State Of The Nation’ address.

01.13.18

RAE & CHRISTIAN – All I Ask – 12″ – Grand Central Records – 1999

A beauty. So damn classy.

01.17.49

TROUBLEMAN (feat STEVE SPACEK) – Without You – Time Out Of Mind, 2LP – Far Out – 2004

Sounding like some sort of space soul.

01.22.53

THE ASSOCIATES – Logan Time – The Affectionate Punch, LP – Fiction – 1980

The late Billy Mackenzie in trotting tempo mode.

01.27.00

AU PAIRS – Runs With Honey (’83 demo) – Stepping Out Of Line: The Anthology, 2CD only – Castle Music – 2006

If you caught Lesley Woods’ guesting on Dutch band, DoJoJi’s self-titled 1984 mini album, after her Au Pairs days, you’ll know a faster, tougher version of this track.

01.33.11

GNAG OF FOUR – Paralysed – Solid Gold, LP – EMI – 1981

Despair in the jittery, pedestrian beats. Yet more departed musicians. And it’s all only going one way.

01.36.19

GRACE JONES – Private Life – 12″ – Island – 1980

A more regimental take than The Pretenders/Chrissie Hynde’s original, Grace very much making it her own.

01.42.21

DNOTE – DVotion** – Babel, LP– Dorado – 1993

A tune that would subsequently soar, when pitched up and with Beth Hirsch on vocals, here Matt Winn’s down temp original instrumental (sounding like it’s asking where the summer went) also manages to raise the spirits big time. I have a slight urge to run some, errr… ‘narration’ over this, so you might hear it again here at some point.

01.48.28

THOMAS LEER – Searcher – The Scale Of Ten, LP – Arista – 1985

Leer’s output nearly always sounds cinematic to me.

01.51.58

BRIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT – Feel It – Make Me Believe In Hope, LP – The Blue Team/Aztec Records – 2012

From Rod Thomas’s debut album leap to BLBL, I seem to have temporarily mislaid my copy, so you’ve got a visual of the wrong side of the vinyl (a previous 41 Rooms inclusion). A hands in the air melody mixed with some ’90s house sensibility… and if there isn’t a massively extended version of this ending his live shows, there really should be.

01.55.56

NIGHTCRAWLERS – Living Inside A Dream (Absolute Mix) – 12″ – 4th & Broadway – 1992

Maybe most known for Push The Feeling On (and importantly MK’s remix there of) I actually heard and had bought the original rougher ‘indie’ version of Living Inside A Dream before this slicker, plusher major label take surfaced. Blue eyed soul, care of Glaswegian, John Reid.

Show 111 will be out Jan 1.

Happy Crimble!

Dec

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This playlist is 77% vinyl friendly. Not bad. Holger Trass’s thing (http://analogue-classics.com) is repositioning vintage analogue turntables in all manor of set ups. This ancient Garrard 301 (1950s?) deck might sound better than it looks, even if it doesn’t feel as good… as it looks… errr, seeing as it’s not in fact a marble plinth. […]

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This playlist is 81% vinyl friendly. Not bad. Fancy taking the car for a spin? Nothing more than a goddam novelty I’m surprised I haven’t included this Stokyo Record Runner (hijacking a Volkawagon van) here before. I think they missed a trick though, as it’s the fully windowed ‘hippy’ fave version of the van that […]

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This playlist is 79% vinyl friendly. Not bad. There’s a big daddy $200,000 Acoustic Signature Invictus Neo turntable but you can slum it with this Junior model, at $129,000. Available in silver, black/gold, or black/chrome and armed with four integrated, isolated AC motors. Looks like the sort of thing people who feel the need to […]

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This playlist is 90% vinyl friendly. Impressive. ‘The Planet’ turntable. Put together in 2015 by a Lego loving lad named Hayarobi, using 2405 pieces, the only non-Lego part being the Audio-Technica 1Ea cartridge. He must like Swiss Rolls. Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms ‘tweak’/edit/chop […]

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This playlist is 82% vinyl friendly. Impressive. As it happens, a Numark PT01USB Portable Vinyl-Archiving Turntable Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms ‘tweak’/edit/chop and the occasional tune sonically might not sound quite how it did, originally… and note, there’s a few expletives uttered in this […]

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This playlist is 77% vinyl friendly. Not bad. AudioWood Sound Garden. Leaves on the tracks! Just because ‘you can’ isn’t always a great reason that ‘you should’. Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms ‘tweak’/edit/chop and the occasional tune sonically might not sound quite how it […]

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PLAYLIST 103 uploaded May 1, 2022 and it’s 91% vinyl friendly. Near perfect Grand Prix Audio’s Parabolica (‘inspired by and built like a Formula 1 race car’) is named after a turn at Italy’s Monza circuit, so if Formula 1 floats your boat… $16,500. Tonearm extra. 🙂 Any track marked * has been given either […]

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PLAYLIST 102 uploaded April 3, 2022 and it’s 73% vinyl friendly. Room for improvement. 🙂 Was this design off the back of a vinyl record cleaning gizmo shaped likewise a few decades back? Dunno. Looks a bit like a nail clipper or, suitably… a USB stick! Coming in at less than $80, nobody will care. […]

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PLAYLIST 101 uploaded Mar 6, 2022 and it’s 93% vinyl friendly. Near perfect. Nothing to do with Emerson, Lake and Palmer, the ELP Laser Turntable may be for the younger generation who grew up knowing nothing but CDs… and who have around £10,000 to spend! ‘In theory, it’s the perfect turntable because it uses a […]

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PLAYLIST 100 uploaded Feb 6, 2022 Celebrating show #100 with 4hrs of 21st Century 7″ cheeriness! Unsurprisingly then, this one is 100% vinyl friendly. The occasionally-mentioned-in-these-parts big bunch of early 60s singles that arrived with a second hand Dansette my dad bought and the arrival of two of the Beatles’ (She Loves You and I […]

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PLAYLIST 99 uploaded Jan 2, 2022 and it’s 88% vinyl friendly. Impressive. As of 2018 or so Audio Consulting’s R-evolution Meteor-Stealth turntable was arguably the third most expensive turntable on the market. At $176,000 there sure as hell needs to be some back story – so, this is it and being a Switzerland-based company it […]

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PLAYLIST 98 uploaded Dec 5, 2021 and it’s 93% vinyl friendly. Near perfect. I can’t remember if a means to play vinyl upright came before or after some of the gadgets that cleaned vinyl went with the same idea (in the seventies?) but this Gramovox is a cheap and cheerful modern day version of the […]

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PLAYLIST 97 uploads Nov 7, 2021 and it’s 74% vinyl friendly. Not bad. The Jive Turntable. Roughly £140 for this bright and breezy set up, so don’t expect wonders. ‘Entry level’, I think they call it… and that set of button controls reminds me of some remote/zapper used for the TV… or something else I […]

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PLAYLIST 96 uploads Oct 3, 2021 and it’s 96% vinyl friendly Near perfect. We’d have had a ‘full house’ if it hadn’t been for me including a demo from one of the bands I was involved with. The Saint Laurent Rive Droite x Pierre Riffaud viny table. I don’t know how much of a clamour […]

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PLAYLIST 95 uploaded Sept 5, 2021 and it’s 77% vinyl friendly Not bad. The Third Man Records Spinnerette Turntable. Priced at $160 this isn’t for your high end hi-fi buff but with tech improvements through the years I’m sure Jack White and his team have incorporated a quality level here that’s well above what was […]

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PLAYLIST 94 uploaded Aug 1, 2021 and it’s 84% vinyl friendly! Impressive. Just a few of the over one hundred vintage (60’s, 70’s and 80’s) portable record turntables, exhibited in 2016 at Tokyo’s Lifestyle Design Center by record store owner, Fumihito Taguchi. In between my family’s Dansette (early 60’s) and the National Panasonic SG-1070L music centre […]

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PLAYLIST 93 uploaded July 4, 2021 and is 82% vinyl friendly! Impressive.

A Project Debut Carbon Evo turntable. A few friends have Projects of slightly older marks than this lad and they regularly score highly in reviews of turntables around the £400-£500 mark – and let’s face it, if all you want to be interested in is these bits of kit doing the one and only job the exist for (playing a record – and at the right speed) then this ‘plain Jane’ might be the ticket. I’m not sure when in recent times Project decided to have a speed change switch on the outside but sanity has finally prevailed. Assuming a vinyl collection is filled with 45s and albums, who in their right freakin’ mind would ever think that having to take the platter off every time you change the format (and therefore the speed) of the record you want to spin is OK. It is not.

Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms ‘tweak’/edit/chop.

Lyric of Playlist 93…

A whole bunch of storytelling intrigue this month but it’s hard to compete when Gil is in town.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983 Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – In A Lonely Place (BBC Riverside Studios, London: 4.1.82) – Movement, Definitive Edition box set, LP – Warner Music – 2019

I wanted to get along to this recording but changing shifts at work must have proved beyond me. It’s a wonder I didn’t just take a sicky but I got home early enough to catch birthday lad, Barney (it was his 26th) and the band outro’ing the programme with Temptation and, as the credits rolled, a truncated Death Rattle/Chosen Time. The studio audience were then treated to Procession, Cramp/Hurt (shortened inst), Senses, Little Dead/Denial and this glorious version of In A Lonely Place. Just months away from his Touch label’s initial release – the v/artists cassette and mag Future Mist, featuring the epic 22 minute version of New Order’s Video 586 – John Wozencroft did make it along to Riverside and soon after very kindly sent me a tape of the extra tracks. It would be another thirty years before I’d realise that video footage had not only existed of the extra tracks but a sneak preview in 2011 proved it was still in the vaults. And come 2019, voila!

06.06

SUDDEN SWAY – sINg sONg (d-o-8-5-s-i-n-g) – 7″ – Blanco y Negro – 1986

Pay attention at the back of the class.

‘There were 8 versions of this song. Each version was independently recorded, all with the same song title but with different producers. They all had the same picture covers but unique labels. The song title ‘Sing Song’ was written differently for each version with a variety of combinations of capitals and lower case fonts. They were sent randomly to record shops‘. – boogaloo123, Discogs 2010

The second of the above eight to make it to 41 Rooms – and it might not be the last. I have five of the 7″ers, and I think all bought 50p or less in the Music & Video Exchange store that was devoted to the ‘ultra cheap’, back when the chain had a bunch of its stores practically side by side in London’s Notting Hill in the nineties/early noughties.

09.46

BENT – K.I.S.S.E.S – Music For Barbecues, 12″ EP – Sport – 2000

Bent may have beats but they’re wistful beats.

13.47

CHEVALIER AVANT GARDE – Enemy – Heterotopias, LP – Skrot Up – 2011

Not quite the ‘bottom of a big barrel’ reverb-setting recordings of say, Honeydrum but maybe ‘one mic from across a spacious empty room’? I feel I’m wired to gravitate to the sound in small doses only.

16.43

THE GIST – Light Aircraft – 7″ b-side – Rough Trade – 1982

The Moxham brothers joined by the spooky vocal of a Sheila Lowery.

19.23

DEEP TAN – Shimmer – Download only – 2020

Back in the day (and way before it became a national obsession) pouting was only acceptable in cases of innocent playfulness. Now? It’s a bleeding can of worms.

22.32

COSTUME – And You Were Beautiful – Kosmos, download only – 2020

There’s a feel of fracture in both the song’s narration and melody but it’s all the more intriguing for it, especially when riding over locked down electronics – and maybe there’s more ‘fracture’ (of sorts) hiding in amongst the lyrics of singer and ‘author of the texts’, Claudia Placanica.

25.45

LONELADY – Not Great Men – The Problem Of Leisure – A Celebration Of Andy Gill & The Gang Of Four, v/a 2LP – Gill Music – 2021

With her own new album Former Life just surfaced on Warp Records here’s Julie Lonelady recently and triumphantly taking on the catalogue of one of her heroes.

29.16

GNAG OF FOUR – Outside The Trains Don’t Run On Time – 7″ – EMI – 1980

And lest we forget… more former times.

32.29

AU PAIRS – Pretty Boys – 7″ b-side – Human Records – 1981

Lesley Woods playing the field?

36.05

BADLY DRAWN BOY – Bananas Skin Shoes – Banana Skin Shoes, 2LP – One Last Fruit – 2020

There was a noticeable gap from recording before this album appeared but Damon Gough is still sounding invigorated.

38.33

The B-52s – The World’s Green Laughter – Good Stuff, LP – Reprise – 1992

Recognisable with the merest of vocals?

42.13

SALT-N-PEPA – Push It – 7″ – FFRR – 1987

Apart from the vocals (obviously), sounding like Kraftwerk plied with stimulants and down and dirty with tha’ funk…

46.20

NAKED ROOMMATE – Re (P.R.O.D.U.C.E.) – Do The Duvet, LP – Trouble In Mind – 2020

Also on the Upset! The Rhythm label in the UK, and on black, red or clear(ish) ‘sun yellow’ limited edition vinyl. They’ll be back here.

50.46

ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK – Bunker Soldiers – Self-titled LP – Dindisc – 1980

All these years later, sounding not unlike the bastard brother of Depeche Mode’s New Life. For me, this is still the better tune, though.

53.36

DO NOTHING – Uber Allies – Glueland 12″ EP – Exact Truth – 2021

A sound that somehow feels from a decade or two earlier than 2021 to me, I’ll be having the ‘transparent teal’, limited to 300 copies, vinyl run exclusive to Rough Trade, if I catch it at a workable price at some point.

57.26

THE CURE – Screw – The Head On The Door, LP – Fiction – 1985

Funk Rocking with Robert Smith and his hair.

Half time tea tum, tee tum, tea tum

01.00.02

THE CHAMELEONS – Nathan’s Phase – The Fan And The Bellows, LP – Hybrid – 1986

A band from the halcyon years post punk – now known as ‘Post Punk’ Still in action and unsurprisingly still commanding a level of reverence.

01.03.05

JOSE FELICIANO – Where I’m Goin’ – 7″ – RCA – 1965

First heard by me sometime around the 1970 UK re-release of A Bag Full Of Soul, Folk, Rock and Blues, the first album I ever bought, I think. I would have been 13 or 14 and already on the JF journey that in one way or another has never ended.

In my experience there’s next to no chance of seeing anywhere else the three formats of Where I’m Goin’ grouped together here, below. All pressed for the single’s US promotion and release in late September, ’65, if there were a dozen copies of the acetate (top left) manufactured I’d be surprised – and as with acetates in general, how many of those brittle babies would now still exist? More remarkably, this stock/released black label pressing is the only one I’ve ever seen! RCA were still trying (unsuccessfully) to break Jose to the mainstream at this point, so even when the reaction (or sadly lack of) to the white label promo copy mailed to a few hundred radio and media departments possibly signalled the single wasn’t going to succeed, they would still likely have pressed a few hundred copies for potential buyers.

Move over then to the UK, where a completely unknown Jose wouldn’t be getting any single released for another year, and the chances of Where I’m Goin’ having been spun off the aforementioned album in any mid sixties club would have been very remote. By the nineties though things had changed and a new generation of an old ‘gang’ began picking up on the track. Acid Jazz label boss, DJ, radio show presenter, Eddie Piller told me in 2002 that the tune went down well with the mod/northern soul crossover crew in clubs he was spinning. The white label promo does surface occasionally but if you see any Feliciano 7″ of the tune going cheapish (and it only surfaced on a single in two other countries, to my knowledge) you should grab it.

01.05.07

THE CARPENTERS – All I Can Do (12 Shades’ 7″ Edit) – ?????????

Yet another 41 Rooms playlistee ‘remix’ that seems to have dropped off the radar since I first grabbed it – so, from where I know not. A tune from Richard and Karen C’s early jazz influenced era, stretched and doubled up on by 12 Shades, it’s worth heading to Youtube at some point to catch a mimed version from a US TV show and check out the commenters picking up on Karen’s drumming.

01.10.19

IN LOVE WITH A GHOST – I Was Feeling Down And Then I Found A Nice Witch And Now We’re Best Friends – Healing, LP – Parapente Music – 2017

A sixteen word title (which is sixteen more than exist in the track itself) and a light and fluffy soundtrack to a world that Paris, France-based Maël Madec seems to inhabit. Also a nifty illustrator, it’s his artwork that adorns his releases as well.

01.13.40

JOHN TURRELL – What You Looking For – Mavis, CD only – Studio !K7 – 2010

The idea of DJ and producer, Ashley Beedle and engineer, Darren Morris, they farmed out the basics of a track to a bunch of artists (Edwyn Collins, Kurt Wagner, Sarah Cracknell, Ed Harcourt and others) who then individually took the track to wherever they fancied. Mavis? I think either Ashley told me or I read that it was in homage to Ms Staples.

01.18.28

AARON FRAZER – Have Mercy (Live in the studio) – 2021

I have a copy of the 7″ waiting on my next trip to the UK but I playlisted Aaron’s live version from a KEXP at Home, 2021 session. They capture this sort of stuff really well.

01.22.21

LETTA MBULU – West Wind – Free Soul, LP – Capitol – 1968

Previously playlisted on 41 Rooms, there’s maybe more of a deft touch and ‘beauty’ in writer, Miriam Makeba’s original version but by a whisker I think I prefer the extra power and presence of Letta’s version. No rights or wrongs, just sayin’.

01.24.53

THE SLAPPED EYEBALLERS – The Fake Anti Waltz – Sloppy Future Manipulations, 12″ EP – Sonar Kollektiv – 2006

The only release from the best named band of the podcast. Fake Anti Waltz? Not quite 3/4 time? Or nowhere near 3/4 time? I do not know these things.

01.27.18

CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD – Chairman Of The Board – 7″ – Invictus – 1971

Their radio spins were a part of my early seventies radio listening and subsequent record buying – this one being a bit of a tougher sound than their others.

A UK acetate, I thought was recently acquired by someone somewhere, and (I was convinced) on eBay. I then go looking to see what it fetched and it’s nowhere to be seen in a search of the Completed/Sold listings. Not only that, there’s nothing in my laptop’s history to tell me now where I found the visual and not only that, a Google search of the visual turns up zilch. Maybe I either dream this stuff up or occasionally drop into an alternative world. If you find the source of this, do let me know.

01.30.47

MARMALADE – Our House Is Rockin’ – 7″ – EMI – 1973

The only single I ever owned by this ever-present-in-the-late-sixties/early seventies-charts Scottish pop rockers – this one being a bit more rock than pop… with a hit of boogie thrown in. Well, it was 1973… and I was sixteen.

01.34.03

(THE) GOSSIP – Standing In The Way Of Control – 7″ – Back Yard Recordings – 2006

It was easy to be within earshot of the Beth Ditto fronted trio in the noughties – coz she can sure belt out a tune.

01.38.08

GROOVE CORPORATION (feat ROMILLIE) – Rain (Mother Mix) – 12″ – 6 x 6 Records – 1994

‘Jittery droning 0-121.9bpm progressive retrogressive electric chugger’s promoed Mother and Dob Mixes‘. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 23.4.94

The ex-Electribe 101 boys in progressive house mode.

01.43.00

Leftfield house… with a nod to vocalist, Tasita D’Mour.

01.46.56

HEALER SELECTA – Let’s Get It Started – 7″ – Freestyle Records – 2007

Thumpin’, fast paced funk and another bit of vinyl I have waiting for me back in England, courtesy of a white label test pressing I bought from Adrian Gibson, ex Jazz Cafe manager/booker and the Freestyle Records bod who released the single.

01.49.48

GIL SCOTT-HERON – Home Is Where The Hatred Is – 7″ b-side – Flying Dutchman – 1971

A tune that’s made it to 41 Rooms before, courtesy of Esther Philips version, but here it’s the man who penned the words… and in his career he wasted less than just about anybody.

01.53.04

KENNETH WHALUM – Motive – Download only – 2017

Alternative and conscious soul from a 41 Rooms returnee.

01.56.49

TASMIN ARCHER – Sleeping Satellite * – 7″ – EMI – 1992

Even though the gal actually had five UK top 40 hits it’s this blockbusting No 1 she’ll be forever aligned with, and it’s one of very few chart toppers that I’d have in my collection.

Show 94 will be uploaded on August 1.

Dec x

The post Episode 93 – 4.7.21 appeared first on 41Rooms.

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PLAYLIST 92 uploaded June 6, 2021 and is 89% vinyl friendly! Impressive.

The Nordic Concept Reference Turntable, designed by A Better Life Audio Group. ‘The Milky Bars are on me!‘

Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms ‘tweak’/edit/chop.

Lyric of Playlist 92…

The weight of Tim’s regret just about shades Joni.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983 Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Mesh – 1981-1982, 12″ EP – Factory (US) – 1982

It’s a subjective thing, obviously (and as time moves on and the band’s fan demographic spans yet more decades/generations, that becomes more relevant) but albeit a compilation, for me this is one of the near perfect New Order releases.

03.37

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Red Mask – Red Mecca, LP – Rough Trade – 1981

An album that surfaced in the same year our Winkles club nights started, it sounds even better to these ears now than it did back then, when this track was the only one I spun on the decks.

10.23

CLICK CLICK – Sweet Stuff – 12″ – Rorschach Testing – 1985

Well, in being one half of the short lived label that released this Sounds magazine Single of the Week 12″ and also the manager of the band through til their initial break up in late 1989, I have more of a connection with this track’s existence than almost all the other nearing 2700 tracks played on 41 Rooms to date.

L to R – 1st run: Yellow and blue envelope-style 12″, produced by CC drummer, Derek Smith (1000 copies), a white label test pressing and the 2nd run, red sleeved 12″ (2 x 1000 copies, I think)

One the original metal stampers for Sweet Stuff and a 14×17″ poster.

14.39

P(ublic) I(mage) L(imited) – Careering (John Peel Session, 1979) – Metal Box, 2×12″ Deluxe Edition Boxset – Virgin – 2016

From their only ever Peel session, and with Lydon in captivating form, a track immortalised in an appearance on the Old Grey Whistle Test. The Beeb’s stage was never more lurched around on.

22.08

FAD GADGET – Back To Nature – 7″ – Mute – 1979

A plodder of a tune… but in a good way. The late Frank Tovey’s debut release.

27.05

NASMAK – No Touch And Go – 4our Clicks, LP – Plurex / Boudisque – 1982

Outside of their native Holland they were maybe under appreciated at the time but as slight as it may be, I think their appeal has maybe grown a little through the years.

31.25

MARC AND THE MAMBAS – Black Heart – 7″ – Some Bizzare – 1983

I’m not sure what all the flamenco and matador bizniz was about on the sleeve but Almond and his mambas had the more usual (for the time) ‘goth-like’ look on the Switch TV prog where I first heard this tune.

36.05

EYELESS IN GAZA – Soul On Thin Ice – Caught In Flux, LP + 12″ – Cherry Red – 1981

Not a tune I heard them do live but a big fave of mine. Punk Folk, I’d say.

38.54

COLLATE – Medicine – 7″ – Domestic Departure – 2021

‘Limited edition of 500 copies with risograph printed covers‘ says Discogs. No mention there – or indeed via the site’s five sellers currently with copies, or at Bandcamp where I bought mine – of the card included with my copy, currently residing in California. The single is still available, so I’d say head to Bandcamp. It’s also the more direct route to financially helping the band / label. Here that’s especially handy as ‘all profits will be donated to Portland-based mutual aid groups, including Mutual Aid Alliance Portland & Fires Igniting the Spirit (Indigenous-led organizers of runs to bring critical supplies/resources to Indigenous communities)‘.

41.05

LIQUID LIQUID – Optimo – 12″ EP – 99 Records – 1983

A band with a sound as current now as they had back in the early eighties then and that’s reflected in the value put on their original releases – this one in four different colours.

43.42

CANDIDO – Jingo – 7″ – Salsoul Records – 1979

Bedford’s Nite Spot, Spectrum, Stars and Castaways, Dunstable’s California Ballroom, Luton’s Sands or Northampton Cinderella Rockerfellas? Some of those I frequented only once or twice but the chances are that somewhere in there I was on a dance floor to this. My 12″ came in at £2.99 at the time, it seems.

46.37

NAO – Take Control Of You – So Good, 12″ EP – Little Tokyo Recordings – 2014

The third of her ‘wonky funk’ tracks to make it to 41 Rooms from this debut release.

50.36

ELECTRIBE 101 and LAURIE ANDERSON – You’re Walking and Falling (Ambient Groove Dub) – Youtube – 2021

Crafted by one StellaVista and given the thumbs up by Electribe vocalist, Billie Ray Martin on Youtube (the only place to find this?) it’s as cute in the lyrical match up as it is neat in the blend of the sounds.

56.22

DAVID BOWIE / PAT METHENY – This Is Not America – 7″ – EMI America – 1985

Specifically written for the film, The Falcon and the Snowman the song then seemed to gain its own life, even making it to Bowie’s set for a show at the BBC in 2000.

59.51

THOMAS LEER – Memories Of Reason – The Scale Of Ten, LP – Arista – 1985

Not the first time Bowie and Leer have been coupled on 41 Rooms and interestingly their two tracks here came out in the same year.

Half time tea break…

01.03.43

BETH HIRSCH – Indelibly You (Got-Ta-Scatta Rework) – Download only – 2008

Possibly my favourite piece of work with my co Got-Ta-Scatta’erer, Dave Summersgill. Best known as one of the vocalists on Air’s multi million selling Moon Safari album, Beth woke one morning (in LA, I think) heard and loved our Maya Angelou… errr… ‘homage’, A Wonderful Thing and asked us to remix a track for her. We plumped for Indelibly You… and ‘SOOOO GORGEOUS ! I LOVE IT !!! Thank you !!!’ was her response to our rework. Only last year she asked us for permission to release it in a higher profile fashion, so it might yet get another life.

01.07.47

AMERICA – Three Roses * (41 Rooms Extended – Self-titled, LP – Warner Brothers – 1971

As with Paul Weller’s Blink And You’ll Miss It way back in an early 41 Rooms show, I just didn’t think there were enough choruses here… so I added another. Quality harmonies by the truck load with this trio.

01.11.57

NICK CORBIN – Too Much Time – 7″ b-side – Big A.C Records – 2020

Very Style Council’ish and sounding like a nailed on A-sider and gig ender/encore tune to me.

01.15.05

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Blue Heat (12″ Mix) – #8385 Collected Works (1983 – 1985), boxset – Mute, The Grey Area – 2013

They’re back! Unusual for me to return to a band within a single show but it is the Cabs… and it felt right.

01.22.00

DEAD CAN DANCE – The Trial – Self-titled, LP – 4AD – 1984

In their set at my Bedford Boys Club gig promotion, in July ’84.

01.25.25

JOY DIVISION – Incubation – 7″ flexi b-side – Factory – 1980

18/4/80 FAC Reject*

*This record should not have cost you anything, wherever or however it was obtained.” Aaaah, the dreaded flexi. Cheaper to produce than 7″ vinyl and obviously a neater fit when (usually) regularly included as freebies with magazines in the seventies and eighties, but the sonic quality wasn’t great and if you got a crease in one its days on the turntable were numbered. A novelty format, this one though came with some mighty sounds and was readily available for free with purchases through indie record shops. I might have a few copies of this.

01.28.12

SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES – Sin In My Heart – 7″ b-side – Polydor – 1981

Well, as 41 Rooms likes to isolate its playlist tracks to their purest setting, we’ll give a nod here to this French 7″, seemingly the only country where ‘Sin… ‘ b-sided Spellbound, although it may not have actually made it to a full release.

01.31.20

TIM BUCKLEY – I Must Have Been Blind * – Blue Afternoon, LP – Straight – 1969

Soul music from one of the great singer-songwriter voices, and along with his Song To The Siren, also covered by This Mortal Coil.

01.34.58

JONI MITCHELL – I Think I Understand – Clouds, LP – Reprise – 1969

Inspired by her reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, this is Joni on a particularly poetic high… which with her catalogue, is going it some!

01.39.17

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE – White Rabbit * – 7″ – RCA – 1967

As my fave colour roams somewhere between teal and turquoise and because Jose Feliciano’s earliest UK single releases were also pre-empted by this RCA colour and design for promo copies we’ll go with the corresponding White Rabbit UK promo – €200 and the only copy on Discogs (as I tap) is yours. Incidentally, both Airplane and Feliciano’s US recordings in this period were produced by Rick Jarrard, then the label’s in-house’ producer on the West Coast.

01.41.53

MARXMAN – Do You Crave Mystique * – Dark Are The Days, promo only 12″ EP – Talkin’ Loud – 1993

‘A serious t’ing. Marxman’s socialist, serious prose is a linear descendant of the profound statements of The Last Poets, the recently reborn Watts Prophets and, naturally enough, Public Enemy. They pull no punches with their sharp observations – you may not like everything they have to say, but you have to admire their bottle in saying it. All in all, their work makes for some pretty uneasy listening at times, and how much you appreciate it depends on how much appetite you have for change and challenge. Me, I ate it up – their musical blend of fusion-fuelled jazz and Celtic soul acts as a remarkable counterpoint to the lyrics, and even if the hard sell of ‘Affair’ passes you by, you’d be hard pressed not to share my admiration of the feisty flowing shuffle of ‘Days’. A totally commendable first release – even better than ‘Even Better Than The Real Thing’… ‘ – Dennis Lyons Mixmag Update July ’92.

One of a bunch of meaningful tunes in the brief mid nineties career of this Bristol/Dublin outfit.

01.45.57

CHASE & STATUS (feat LIAM BAILEY – Blind Faith – 12″ – Ram Records – 2011

I can’t work out whether it’s one Yolanda Quartey or Anelisa Lamola who belts out the refrain here but whoever, it’s a euphoric counter to lead vocalist, Bailey… and one of those ‘more than the sum of their parts’ situations.

01.49.47

LED ZEPPELIN – Achilles Last Stand * – Presence, LP – Swan Song – 1976

The era of classic rock did ‘epic’ like few genres and this

Just a few years later and I would be transitioning to new wave and its accompanying world of 1″ badges but I found time in ’76 to pay handsomely for this one-off 2″(!!) monster to be produced. The things you do in your ‘youth’. It would turn out even more costly in the long run, as I cut out the image of Page from the band’s Earls Court ’75 programme – thereby diminishing the value of the latter considerably in the process. Encore ‘the things you do in your ‘youth’…

And a couple of snapshots from Knebworth ’79. Life long close mate, Dobber – better known to the wider world as a Led Zep author/chronicler of much note, Dave Lewis – and Robert Plant taking things in.

Photo credit/copyright: Dec Hickey

Show 93 will hopefully be here July 4.

Dec x

The post Episode 92 – 6.6.21 appeared first on 41Rooms.

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PLAYLIST 91 uploaded May 2, 2021 and is 71% vinyl friendly! Not bad.

A Sony HMK-80B set up, from 1979. Nothing sonically gobsmacking here, but if my experience with the slightly earlier National Panasonic equivalent (the 41 Rooms homepage) is anything to go by, the ‘all in one’ nature of these music centres was very cool back then.

Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms ‘tweak’/edit/chop.

Lyric of Playlist 91…

‘There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole…‘

It brought a smile, mainly for the childhood memories of the song it’s lifted from – Harry Belafonte’s There’s A Hole In My Bucket – but also for the message/lyrics in total. Cancel Your Hopes, indeed. There are people my age who have great grandchildren and boy are the latter going to be dealing with some crap as they grow to try and balance ‘life’.

00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983 Episode #1 for info.

00.41

NEW ORDER – Let’s Go (Nothing For Me) – (The Best of) New Order, CD, US promo only – Qwest/Warner Brothers – 1995

Originally from 1985, a very cool vocal version was demo’ed but then got dropped. That may or may not have been something to do with part of the melody sounding akin that of Sooner Than You Think… depending on which came first. Let’s Go was an instrumental the band occasionally performed live through to ’87 and it then made it to the Salvation! film soundtrack album and this Nothing For Me vocal version was later spotted when it promo’d on a one track only CD and subsequently led off the US only (The Best of) New Order 1995 compilation album.

04.31

THE FALL – Mr. Pharmacist – 7″ – Beggars Banquet – 1986

Mark E on someone’s regular visits to the chemist.

06.48

THE CHAINS – Nervous Breakdown – On Top Of Things, LP – Get Hip Recordings – 2002

The sixties garage sound morphing in Australia in the new millennium.

09.50

ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN – Do It Clean – 7″ b-side – Korova – 1980

Were any early Bunnymen tracks ever really b-sides?

12.28

KATY CARR – Berliner Ring – Coquette, CD only – Deluce Recordings – 2009

Katy was a student on a Commercial Music course I was working at in the late nineties and my office had an open door policy for any advice I could offer. Whilst a lot of the students were understandably aligning themselves with the genres that were creating the biggest waves Katy was travelling a different path. One chat I had with her involved a discussion on Kate Bush and her eyes lit up. Now six albums deep, she’s still very much travelling her own path.

16.05

SQUAREPUSHER – Cooper’s World – Hand Normal Daddy, 2LP – Warp – 1997

Jazzy d&b and sounding like incidental music for an episode of Kojak or Streets of San Francisco.

21.12

STRETCHER – Mousehold – Unreleased – 2002’ish

Quirky and twitchy electronic bizniz from my mate, Spud… and there might be more info here if and when he remembers to wing it my way.

24.55

THE SOFT PINK TRUTH – Coat Check – The Soft Pink Truth 12″ EP – Soundslike – 2001

A style of cut and paste sound manipulation that a previous 41 Room attendee, Akufen has used. In small doses only, I reckon.

29.08

TRACEY THORN – Why Does The Wind – Love and Its Opposite, LP – Strange Feeling – 2010

I tried numerous times to get the fab TT on to a 41 Rooms show but she’s then been sidelined. I must try harder.

32.39

THE LOUNGE SOCIETY – Burn The Heather – Silk For The Starving, 12″ EP – Speedy Wunderground – 2021

Hebden Bridge in the house, and a band that features the son of a friend of mine from his early days in Bedford, novelist, Stephen May. Having Speedy Wunderground as your label home is also worth noting, so things are looking bright for this band. Coincidentally – and on a lighter note – I’ve just burnt a whole load of heather. Overgrown garden stuff…

35.43

PENFRIEND – Cancel Your Hopes – Penfriend, 5-track CD sampler – Self released – 2020

The sampler was ‘Sent with initial orders of the Disarm 10th Anniversary Demos & Rarities set, released by She Makes War‘, one Laura Kidd under what might now be a previous alias.

38.52

GRAMMATICS – New Franchise – One track promo CD, only – Dance To The Radio – 2008

Owen Brinley is another peep here under a former guise, and seemingly with a track that promo’d nothing other than itself, as it appeared then on neither an official single nor an album.

43.20

CREAM – Strange Brew – 7″ – Reaction – 1967

Even within the changing landscape of music in the mid sixties this would have been a more menacing sound than the average 7″ blaring out of the radio of the times. A few months prior to the birth of BBC Radio One, though.

45.58

STEVIE WONDER – Superstition – 7″ – Tamla Motown – 1972

Actually spinning the very slightly extended album version on the show, but this was another of those rare ‘Wow!’ moments, when the song jumped out of the radio as a new release. That funky clavinet was like nothing this 15-year old lad had heard to that point.

My UK 7″ acetate! Whether the seller had a turntable or not to check what exactly this was I don’t know but without listing it as being Stevie Wonder it slid under the radar. I took a £25 Buy Now punt – and Stevie it was! Feeling oh so slightly like a sparcer version of the fully released single version I will give it a spin on a future show.

50.24

MARCELL –Sesuka Hatimu – Download only – VMC Music – 2020

Someone posted a cool world map of radio stations on Facebook recently, so I randomly hit one in Indonesia… and this was the tune that jumped out at me from Station Unknown and it had me smiling big time when I ‘Shazam’d it. Now, jump back in time a few decades and try explaining all that to someone of the day.

54.11

SOUL II SOUL – Joy (Album Mix) – 7″ b-side – Ten Records – 1992

‘... this lurching jiggly title track from their upcoming album is throatily wailed by Richie Stephens through gospel-style girls hypnotically chorusing “joy, it’s a new sensation, new vibration, rocking’ the nation”, in a shuffling 100.9bpm Brand New Heavies remix plus producer Jazzie B’s much starker joltingly tapped 0-100.7-0bpm Club, chunkier bright 100.5bpm Radio and vibes rippled sparsely percussive Instrumental Dub Mixes’. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 12.9.92

Caron Wheeler is the vocalist most associated with Jazzy B’s crew but the lads could put in a neat turn as well.

In the hands of Robin, Viv’s mug is back.

58.17

SHARA NELSON – Pain Revisited – What Silence Knows, LP – Cooltempo – 1993

Forever the Massive (Attack) Unfinished Sympathy vocalist of that iconic ‘long walk in LA’ for the single’s video, Pain Revisited is from the first of the two only solo albums Nelson has made since.

01.02.32

TOWER OF POWER – It Really Doesn’t Matter * – Rhythm & Business, CD only – Epic – 1997

If you like the sound of a horn section then TofP’s fifty plus year career perfecting the art could easily fill your boots, but it’s this vocal and melody that does it for me here. Nothing earth shatteringly original but big time feelgood and a bit reminiscent of the fat and funky 90s swing as nailed by Artz & Kraftz, Force One Network and others.

01.06.55

A RACE OF ANGELS – Days On Earth * – Youtube only – 2013

The lesser spotted voice of Yeofi Andoh and whichever co-conspirators are to hand when he does release material. Conscious sounds for the 21st century.

‘A Race of Angels is the primary outlet for Yeofi Andoh, a somewhat enigmatic synthesist of soul, jazz, and folk. Originally from rural England, the multi-instrumentalist learned guitar first and played in local punk bands. During the early ’90s, he moved to the U.S., originally to New York, and then to California. He was signed as a solo artist to major label Atlantic, but some executive-level upheaval led to the shelving of his Necessary Madness — for which he was identified as simply Yeofi — prior to its intended 1996 release date. Andoh worked as a fashion photographer, went on to collaborate with the likes of Dorado act Outside and vocalist Lizz Fields, and eventually made his first moves as a Race of Angels. Broadcast No. 1 (2005) began a sporadic series of short-form releases and compilation appearances highlighted by the yearning soul-jazz ballad “Just Begin,” included on From L.A. with Love (2007). After a lengthy period of silence, a three-track EP titled Before the First Goodbye (2016) surfaced as a teaser for proper debut album Pointless, prepared for release on the Fresh Selects label‘. – Andy Kellman, music.apple.com

01.11.15

CURT BOETTCHER – Misty Mirage – Misty Mirage, LP – Archives – 2001

I should do it more but when buying on eBay from Japan and other far flung, heavy rate p&p countries I rarely halt at the check out and search the sellers other items to (sort of ) lessen the ‘hit’. One time I did and this album was quietly and cheaply sitting in the inventory, and as I was after a couple of tunes on it it was a bit of a result. Curt? An intriguing figure, and if you have a thing about the sound of the sixties his sadly short life and career are worth checking out.

01.14.56

ELECTRONIC – Get The Message – 12″ – Factory – 1991

The blending of Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr, two iconic Mancs more associated with their iconic other selves but here successfully looking for inspiration elsewhere. A wind/come down tune in the days of rave?

‘… whispering’ Bernard (New Order) Sumner and jiggling’ Johnny (Smiths) Metterarr’s pop hit now gets the D.N.A. treatment with a rumbling funky drum chinked and piano plonked 106.2bpm Groove Mix, losing the rumble to become a more tightly tapping episodic Sin Mix on the flip‘. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 4.5.91

01.19.29

BRILLIANT – Love Is War – 12″ – Food – 1986

If I think of bass player, Youth it’s Killing Joke and his lurching, nonchalant 1982 appearance on Top Of The Pops, performing Empire Song, that springs to mind but here he is just four years later, as one third of Brilliant and this Stock Aitken Waterman big production – possibly the first and last time the latter will be heard on 41 Rooms.

01.25.07

JOSÉE – Modern Life * – Lost Souls Dancing, CD only – Inertia Records – 2004

Shining bright firstly as the vocalist for the short lived but sumptuous Hefner, Lost Souls Dancing has been Josée Hurlock’s only album to date and along with her work with Japanese producer, Kuniyuki Takahashi, maybe the only other venture to capture her talent at its best. She has guested on a bunch of other artists’ (mostly house) tracks but for all her efforts, for me she’s never sounded quite ‘right’ on most of them. Positive vibes, she’ll come good again.

01.27.22

MJ COLE – I See * – 7″ – Talkin’ Loud – 1999

Downtempo here, Cole is maybe best known as a producer of garage tracks, the nineties UK dance variety, not the sixties US guitar-led style. What is it with niche music styles managing to have names that have previously signposted completely different sounding genres? Garage… drum and bass… r&b… swing (keep going…) It’s not that language is short of words.

01.31.45

ANJALI – Lazy Lagoon * – 12″ – Wiiija Records – 2000

If I was to use the term ‘whispy sound’ on 41 Rooms it would be here. So, I have… and it is.

01.35.08

THE BLUE NILE – Seven A.M. * – Hats, LP – Linn Records – 1989

Paul Buchanan’s lot are a revered enigma. Just five albums in nearly forty years – the last being in 2004 – I’ll wager he’s not since changed tack and gotten a ‘proper’ job.

01.39.46

PETULA CLARK – You’d Better Come Home * – 7″ – Pye – 1965

Not one of the girl’s biggest hits at her charting heights in the sixties but a very cool tune all the same. As an aside, at a weekend market stall I once happened on a handful of PT cassettes that were, in effect, 80s/90s ‘work in progress’ rehearsal recordings – one involved music she was bouncing back and forth with Michel Legrand! Thinking they’d be of greater interest to a hardcore PC fan I eBayed them and within hours, someone claiming to be from PC’s inner camp who was suggesting they’d mislaid the tapes contacted me and the recordings returned to their spiritual home.

01.42.43

SUZI CHUNK (with GROOVY UNCLE) – Got My Eye On The Prize * – Girl From The Neck Down, LP – State Records – 2012

I’ve said it before, as with other Chunk sung tunes, if they’d been recorded by Dusty Springfield in the sixties they’d now be worshipped.

01.45.55

JAPAN – Taking Islands In Africa – Gentlemen Take Polaroids, LP – Virgin – 1980

The shift from Chunk to Japan and David Sylvian will look more glaring than it actually sounds.

01.50.25

MATHILDE SANTING – It May Not Always Be So * – Water Under The Bridge, LP – WEA – 1985

Sharp haircut, suited and seemingly from out of nowhere to us Brits, this Dutch lady cut a striking presence on UK TV show, The Tube in 1984.

01.53.36

ANNA DOMINO – This Time – This Time, LP – Les Disques Du Crépuscule – 1987

From the outside, an American who seemed to fit seamlessly into the expansive ‘bag’ of this European label but if you’re not currently listening to the show whilst reading this then head here for one of a couple of short and slightly poignant recent Youtube look backs from Anna. I’ve seen it from both sides but pieces of music are often treated with no more respect and worth than that of individual grains of sand but from the aspect of those producing that music there’s always way more involved. Always.

Show 92 will hopefully be here June 6.

Dec x

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