I do think I have a slight blind-spot with these guys, part of which seems bound up with the fact that I’m the wrong age to have formed that sort of attachment to Ms Harry. But yes this is so well done it’s undeniable.

PS - Rosie, did you really have a radio that was playing ‘Once In A Lifetime’ in 1979? If so, can you let us know who wins the 2009 Grand National please?

This is going to get a little incoherent. Being a young lad in Michigan who is only now nearing his Saturn Return, my journey into 70s roots reggae is prolley a bit more labyrinthine than anyone else’s in here.

1995: I’m fourteen years old and I live in a small nowhere town planted firmly in the desolate southwestern Michigan region. I get the big orange book–SPIN’s Alternative Record Guide (remember, lord sukrat?)–at a bookstore in a mall, and it changes my life. I bought it for the entries on the bands I liked at that time (obv. Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, The Breeders, but also Pixies and Sonic Youth, who no one else in my high school listened to, but whose names I came across in different articles about these bands), but what it does is open up a whole new world to me in music. There’s a list at the end, SPIN’s Top 100 Alternative Records of All Time: I vow to at least listen to every record on this list.

Three years ago: One of the records on this list is Lee Perry and the Upsetters’ Some of the Best. I now live in Brighton with my grandmother, and tagging along with her on a trip to the Salvation Army, I pick up a secondhand cassette copy of this for like 50 cents. I go home and listen to this, and it’s…interesting. I didn’t know much (read: anything) about reggae at the time, and though the tile implied a greatest-hits album, it seemed a lot stranger and screwier than any greatest-hits album I ever heard. The toasting does sound very odd to a modern and uninitiated ear, but even stranger was the multiple ‘versions’ (at least to someone who mostly listened to radio-rock through most of his youth). Certainly the most jarring moment on this particular album, on first listen, is hearing “Shocks of Mighty” which has Dave Barker toasting and exhorting like James Brown over an infectious track, and then after it ends, hering [i]the exact same track[/i] starting up again, the only difference is now Dave is singing like Smokey Robinson.

The album makes reggae and rock steady sound like some rough-hewn, surreal mutation of soul and R&B (thank you Scratch), and it doesn’t take long for this to become one of my favourite albums.

Over the next couple of years, this become one of only four albums that receive constant rotation in my car stereo (the other three: Dragnet by The Fall, Compilation by The Clean, and the Madvillain album) Yes, with the world going to hell in a handbasket, and culture getting more and more bland and controlled (this is just before US pop radio turned into the viscous, hypnotic entity it is right now), retreating into insularity, an underground of one’s own design, becomes a weapon of resistance.

Three weeks ago: I live in Midland. The night before, I drank heavily and slept at the nearby apartment of an overnight acquaintance. I take off early in the morning and decide to get some breakfast before making the drive home. In the restaurant, the radio is playing loudly. Casey Kaem’s Top 40 is on, but he’s introducing an old song by the Undisputed Truth. “What’s going on here?” I say.
The waitress tells me that it’s the oldies station playing, and on Sunday mornings they play old Top 40 programs from different year. Okay, I say, and sit back to listen to Riders on the Storm. This song comes on and it is like God entering my brain with a pink laser beam. “Holy s***!” I think. “What’s the guy from Shocks of Mighty doing on the radio?”
Seriously, the effect is schizophrenically exhilirating. It’s like someone piped into my private fantasy world for three minutes and broadcast it all over the Tri-Cities area. I go home and find out that, indeed Dave Collins is Dave Barker, and he had a No. 1 hit in UK in 1971 (it made it to #22 in the US) I find it the next day, and listen to it often now.

It’s not my favourite reggae song (honor goes to Shocks of course) but I would not be true to myself if I did not give this a 10 and wonder why I couldn’t rate it higher…

(is there TOTP appearance on Youtube, does anyone know?)

For a classic rock track, its remarkable how the drums and the guitar are the least overt part of this single - instead its the bass and keyboards that hit the listener; the bass has the motion and the keyboards have the ecstatic wash and rush to them, brilliantly combining synthy reverberations and a gloriously happy hammond sound. And then there’s that clicky woodblocky tapping which is really quiet but still always manages to register, too…

I sometimes think that this song reminds me of Can in its combination of harmonics and propulsion. Its lyrically quite thrown together, I think - Debbie shrugging off the experience of an unsatisfactory boyfriend and shimmying onto the floor, rather than torturing herself with memories and reflection.

All these highly-motivated Oxbridge types, you see!

Anyway, the Duke of Edinburgh will still be there come October, I’m sure. It’s a tad pricey but you can gaze out on the statue of Emlyn Hughes before walking the length of Holker Street to the match.

>>>>(I LOVE YOU STEPHINE)<<<<<<
your my futre wife

(Waldo breaks into a cold sweat and he becomes dizzy and confused. His breathing becomes irregular and he starts to repeat himself starts to repeat himself. Stunned and bewildered, panic sets in and he starts running along the beach, stopping every so often to thrust his fist in the air in a pointless gesture of defiance. He…)

Continued on Page Number 6.

The most notable gig I ever chose not to go to involved Blondie. As I recall, there were three gigs in four or five days, and at 17 I couldn’t find the time or money to get to all three. I chose to see the White Riot tour (the Clash, the Buzzcocks, Subway Sect and the Slits) and the Ramones on their first tour of the UK, supported by Talking Heads. Both remain among my favourite gigs ever, but I do wish I’d been able to see Television supported by Blondie as well.

By this time I was a different person: 19, just after quitting Cambridge, moved in a few weeks before with my girlfriend and fiancee (later wife, much later ex-wife). Heart Of Glass was a very sexy song, even before you consider Debbie herself, and I remember dancing to it at least a few times.

Mr Turner may have been right about the girls crying over this. I myself am holding a screwed up hankie now, although this has not so much to do with “I Will Return” as the fact that I’ve just checked the share prices…

HOG though, great in all versions. Radio 2 did a half-hour special feature just on this track earlier this year. Did anyone catch that? It was notable for featuring an early pre-discofied demo version of the song.

(aside: blimey I’ve got about 8 Popular entries from August to catch up on. Tom was busy while I was on me hols)

I’m still hopeful I’ll collect but still a way to go yet.

Noo…. it was a live rendition of “Heroes” etc…

… although, legend has it Robert Fripp wasn’t actually at the gig, but overdubbed afterwards..

Erithian - I thought for a moment we were to be treated to your “Bed, Wed, Dead” selections…

Rosie - I am considering jumping on a train to Lewes tomorrow, as they are at home to Barrow. As I’ve mentioned, I fully intend to come up on 18th October when Eastbourne Borough go up to you. I am going to contact you about this in another place.

re DJPs comment at # 2 regarding the Bowie/Berlin connection, I’m pretty sure that there is a live version of Heart of Glass with Robert Fripp smearing “Heroes” like guitar all over it.