The Tear Garden - "Romulus And Venus"...

I was reminded how much I LOVE this song last night.  The Tear Garden's "Romulus And Venus".  Such a lovely synthpop atmosphere fluidly housing this excellent tale of love and chains.  My favourite thing Edward Ka-Spel has ever done.  Though I also highly recommend The Legendary Pink Dots' "Under Triple Moons" as well.

The Creatures - "Don't Go To Sleep Without Me"...

Haunting & beautiful, The Creatures' "Don't Go To Sleep Without Me", which closes their "Anima Animus" album.




(nice video, but not official)

The Kinks - Dave Davies' songs...

I've been thinking lately that of all the bands, The Kinks have probably written the most poignant, wonderful pop songs, soaring just that much higher than anyone else.  It's hard to match the perfection of Ray Davies' "Waterloo Sunset", "The Village Green Preservation Society" or "Days".  But two songs I've long loved and have had on repeat lately were written by Dave Davies.

The utterly beautiful "Strangers":





And the melancholy loveliness of "This Man He Weeps Tonight":

The Auteurs - "Breaking Up"...

Was just reminded how lovely this song is, and, aside from the pop perfection of "The Rubettes" (of which this is a b-side) & "Future Generation", I've always felt was better than anything actually on the "How I Learned To Love The Bootboys" album.

Bizarre TV Appearances Part One...

My Facebook friend Anna just pointed this out, The Smiths on Charlie's Bus, April 1994, including a lovely, despite the uncomprehending audience, version of "Jeane" with Sandie Shaw :




And then there's always the Siouxsie & The Banshees/The Creatures/The Glove Play At Home special, from later the same year, that can only really be explained by LSD ; ) :

Action Biker...

A piece I wrote on Action Biker for godisinthetvzine.

Lovely Swedish synthpop.

Title track from Hesperian Puisto:





And the lovely "Farrah":

H Bird - Danger Makers EP (FREE!)...

I've put up a FREE DOWNLOAD EP by my project H Bird today.  Just type in 0 to get it for free.  It features a new version of "Danger Makers" (the 'Live Grenades At Close Range Version' - taken from the episode of The Avengers we stole the title from ; ).  A cover of Lifestyle's "Are You Coming On To Me?" and a version of "A Millionairess In A Ruby Ring", also known as The Oxford Dons theme.  We recorded these all for a radio session that never happened so please help yourself.  I'm quite proud of the Van Halen-esque guitar solo in AYCOTM?, and the whole song, bar one half-beat, is live one-take.

Rita Pavone - "My Name Is Potato"/Richard Herring...

I've been watching a lot of Richard Herring stand-up lately, and his "Who is it that says po-tah-to anyway?" line keeps popping in my head.  Which reminded me of this brilliant song by Rita Pavone, "My Name Is Potato", a favourite of the GlamRacket DJs.  The strangeness of its verse smoothly slides, before you even realize, into a lovely smile during the pre-chorus before bursting into full-on GLORIOUS FUN.




The Richard Herring bit I refer to starts at 4:35:




And some more phenomenal stand-up from Mr. Herring.  The mottos and "team" bits were new to me, excellent stuff.

Pulp - "Pink Glove"...

I'm writing about this right now for godisinthetvzine, but last night I finally got to see Pulp live, after 17 years of trying and always missing them.  It was TRANSCENDENT.  And they played "Pink Glove" - which has always been my favourite Pulp song, and one of my favourite songs ever - second.

From last night (Wireless Festival, Hyde Park, 2011):




From Glastonbury 1995:




And the original from "His & Hers":

The Jesus & Mary Chain - "Far Gone & Out"...

When The Jesus & Mary Chain released "Honey's Dead", it was a life-changing experience for me.  "Far Gone & Out" is one of my favourite songs of all-time and as perfect a pop song as you can get.




Check out this appearance on Letterman with him holding up the "Honey's Dead" cd longbox at the beginning.