Friday Night Music Club Vol 5.1

Long time readers may recall that when I first started preparing and posting these mixes, they were considerably longer than the round-about-an-hour ones I do now.

The change to shorter mixes came about after Swiss Adam of Bagging Area fame diplomatically suggested the mixes were too long, people don’t have time to engage for five or six hours at a time, and I think he was absolutely spot-on.

So, you’ll recall I revisited the previous mixes split them down and spiced them up a bit, making them shorter and closer to the requisite 60 minute mark. The only exception was Volume 3, which was posted on Christmas Day 2020, the covid Christmas that never was; I resolutely refused to include any Christmas songs at all in it, hence it being titled “Friday Night No Christmas Music Club”. I’ve never returned to split this one down, as it doesn’t really represent where we are today. Also, I don’t think any of us, particularly those who lost loved ones due to covid, want to be reminded of those days. I’ll never revisit that one, and have deleted the mix from my hard drive so that I can’t. In fact, unless anyone downloaded it from Soundcloud, it doesn’t exist anymore.

Anyway, whilst I was on hiatus, I was tidying up my iTunes and realised that I hadn’t revisted and broken down Vol 5. And so that’s what I’ll be posting for the next four weeks: Vol 5 split into 4 hour-long mixes, the running orders tweaked, some tunes dropped, and a whole load more added to make each one into a round-a-bout 60 minute mix.

So, this time around, 15 songs, one cover version, it’s a little bit 80s, a little bit rock, a little bit 90s and – brace yourself – at least three that were released after the year 2000.

Strap yourselves in for another trip down memory lane, and off we go:

Friday Night Music Club Vol 5.1

Here’s the tracklisting (which I didn’t include first time around) and, if I can think of anything interesting or amusing to say about them between now (Monday) and Friday, sleevenotes too:

1. R.E.M. – Daysleeper
2. David Bowie – Oh! You Pretty Things
3. Johnny Cash – The Man Comes Around
4. Madonna – Like A Prayer (Remix)
5. Beats International – Dub Be Good To Me
6. Chaka Khan – I Feel For You
7. Black Grape – Reverend Black Grape
8. The Chemical Brothers – The Darkness That You Fear
9. The Darkness – One Way Ticket
10. AC/DC – It’ s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock’ N’ Roll)
11. Kiss – I Was Made for Lovin’ You
12. Puffy AmiYumi – Call Me What You Like
13. Ash – Does Your Mother Know?
14. The Vaccines – If You Wanna
15. Arctic Monkeys – Teddy Picker

(Nope. Couldn’t think of anything interesting or amusing. Yellow cards to anyone who makes any “nothing new there” type comments.)

More soon.

Friday Night Music Club

For quite some time now, I’ve been pondering what it is that is preventing me from posting with the same regularity as I was last year.

I’ve worked it out.

Regular readers will know that I generally sit on a Friday night, have a few drinks and write posts for the next week. But for a while now, I’ve become preoccupied on doing a new mix.

Warning: artist at work excuse incoming.

See, whilst they seem remarkably unpopular, I really enjoy piecing together a long playlist/mix/call it what you will, and that inevitably means a few drafts which don’t quite, to quote Echo & The Bunnymen, cut the mustard.

So, I’ve been working on this mix for some time now, but somehow something always seemed to prevent me from finishing it, be it me tinkering with the running order, or thinking of new tunes to toss in, or some kind of technical calamity, or (more often) listening to it and realising I’ve utterly messed up a mix and I simply can’t bear to have anyone else listen to it.

I’m not going to pretend all of the mixes between tunes here are perfect – there’s at least one which I know isn’t – but I’ve reached the point where it’s close enough to let it go and move on to something else, before I drive myself mad searching for perfection.

So here’s my latest mix, imperfect though it may be; frustrating as it has been, I really like this one, which starts off in the usual way – slowly – before getting into a groove which includes Kings of Leon from before they went stadium and knew how to use a cowbell, a new(ish) track by The Chemical Brothers, an obligatory Soulwax remix, two of the finest female pop stars going: Miley Cyrus & Dua Lipa (not on the same tune, sadly), the occasional hidden ‘joke’ (by which I mean it seemed funny when I first put the songs together, less so now), via Madonna having a short chat with Johnny Cash.

It’s the usual mix of songs you love, songs you’ve forgotten about, and songs which make you think “What the hell has he put this on here for??”. Some might say eclectic, but I couldn’t possibly comment. Think mainly Indie guitar stuff, with a few dance tunes, 80s pop songs and a couple of timeless classics – at least one of which you probably won’t have heard before – thrown in.

As always, no track-listing – I like to imagine your faces when the next song kicks in – but there’s a list of featured artists on the right hand side in case you want to see what you’re letting yourself in for. Which is a treat, obviously. If you desperately need to know what a track is, either Shazam it or, if you’d like to feed my ego, ask me via the Comments at the bottom of this post.

Usual disclaimer: any skips and jumps are down to the mixing software; any mis-timed mixes (and, as I say, there is at least one) is down to me. Either way: Sorry!

One more thing: you may recall that last time out I mentioned that my brother had said he managed to predict what I was going to play next, which annoyed me greatly. No such criticism of the last mix, although he told me he listened to it whilst out on his morning run, so some of the sudden gear changes weren’t helpful. I’ve tried to rectify that this time, with a relatively steady beat and tempo maintained throughout (after you’ve got past the traditional slow start) for those of you who listen to this whilst doing your exercises (not that I really understand what that means). The danger was that it would denigrate into either a Ministry of Sound pumping dance mix or a Top Gear/Best Driving Songs…in the World…Ever! playlist, but I think the song choices just about keep us on the right side of that happening.

Let’s say it starts slowly, gets into a groove, and then has more false endings than a Status Quo single.

I’m a bit annoyed that since I first decided to include it, at least on song here has popped up in an advert – and you know how I feel about them – for burgers, of all things. Rest assured, the advert in question was not the inspiration for the song’s inclusion. You’ll know it when you hear it, I think.

Oh and there are several songs which feature effing and jeffings – “sexual swear words” as Simon Bates used to say at the start of videos – so please avoid if you are easily offended by unfettered vulgarity and sauciness. Look, there’s a Goldie Lookin’ Chain tune which is probably the rudest and most inappropriate (but funny) thing I’ll ever post, so beware.

For a limited time (until I do another one, so y’know, could be months), you can stream or download it via Soundcloud here.

More soon.

Gunter Glieben Glauchen Globen

It’s okay, I’m not having a stroke.

Three songs for the price of one here, all of which start with the same bit of gibberish German.

a) The source material (as far as I can tell):

Def Leppard – Rock of Ages

b) The hit, much beloved by many skateboard clutching baggy short wearers, despite the band appearing to be, at the very least, in their late 30s:

The Offspring – Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)

And just in case you don’t know what I mean when I say they’re in their late 30s, look. There’s a reason they’re hardly in this video, and when they do pop up it’s fleeting glances in soft-focus:

C’mon guys, put some proper pants on.

c) The cool one. I’ve posted this before. I bloody love it. You should too. Play this one L-O-U-D:

Puffy AmiYumi – Call Me What You Like

That’ll do ya.

More soon.

1985 and All That

So whilst I was busy buying godawful records by members of The Quo, at the same time I was racking up some unintentional points with Britannia Music.

Long-term readers may remember that I mentioned this particular company once before. In the mid-1980s, anytime you opened a weekend newspaper, a leaflet would invariably fall out, advertising Britannia’s 3 for £20 introductory offer, which I have to admit this teenage brain fell for.

Having succumbed, they would send you a booklet every month, detailing all of their wares (of which you had to buy a certain amount within a certain amount of time or…well, actually, as these were the days where you paid for any postal purchases by cheque, I’m not sure what the “or..” was. They’d tell my parents??) and bigging up their Album of The Month.

And here’s where the real money-spinner was for them: they just assumed that you would want to buy the Album of the Month. If you didn’t, you had to tick a box on a form and post it back to them by a certain date. Miss that cut off point, and suddenly you were the proud owner of…well, you’ll see.

You know me by now. I ended up with some stuff that I would not have ordinarily bought. Like this:

Go West – Don’t Look Down

and this…

Spandau Ballet – Highly Strung

…which contains one of the most cringe-worthy lyrics ever:

“She used to be a diplomat, but now she’s down the laundromat”

Although I can’t really complain, as it did mean I owned this, which is an absolutely belting New Romantic classic:

Spandau Ballet – To Cut a Long Story Short

Both of these inadvertent purchases would, in the fullness of time, actually prove their worth. I’ll explain that later.

So that’s my excuse for owning those. I have no such excuse, nor do I think I need one, for owning this:

…which I intentionally bought, not so that I owned any of their guitars-as-bagpipes records (if you don’t know what I mean by that, then go YouTube “In a Big Country”), but so that I owned this, which I still adore to this day (and I don’t care what you think):

Big Country – Chance

I also bought this:

…a collection of tracks by bands who had played at Live Aid, mostly because, if memory serves, it was only £1.99, but also because it contained this (and again, I don’t care what you think about me liking this either):

The Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays

Has there been a greater record written about a shooting spree at a school? I think not, and let’s face it, there’s been plenty of opportunities for somebody to have a go at writing one.

But wait. Here comes the good bit.

Yet again, I can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by giving you this brilliant piece of Japanese pop, which samples the piano bit at the start of “…Mondays” (and, whilst we’re at it, the German bit from the start of  “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)” by The Offspring, which in turn was sampling Def Leppard’s “Rock of Ages” which…heck, we could be here all day if I carry on). (By the way, you should watch the Def Leppard video, it is unintentionally, bum-wigglingly, hilarious. Spinal Tap was spot on.)

Anyway, if you only click one link on this blog, I urge you to make it this one. You won’t regret it:

Puffy AmiYumi – Call Me What You Like

See? Told you.

More soon.