Just a word of appreciation for the weekly Word 'something for the weekend' email newsletter. Always something extraordinary, fascinating or delightful in the links. I'd recommend signing up if you aren't already.

Looking around the site now for a link, I think it's an opt-in option for registered site users only, is that right? It can be read on the website here:
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/category/newsletter/word-magazine-newslett...

You probably know all this already, but hey, and in any case wanted to say thanks for it.

The first four 'lines' of the riff to Rainbow's Since You've Been Gone (da-da-da, duh-duh, da-da-da, duh-duh) are the same as the first four lines of the Magic Roundabout theme tune (da-dadilada, duh-dudiluduh, da-dadilada, duh-dudiluduh), just with longer notes. That's all. (Rainbow clip in comments.)

If you've enjoyed Piney Gir's appearances on the Word cover CD, and are in the London area, you may be interested to know that she is topping a three-artist bill at The Lexington on Pentonville Road tomorrow night. I got a ticket this evening on wegottickets.com, £5 including booking fee.

Just a podcast recommendation: Coverville - http://coverville.com/ - a regular podcast of good/interesting/unusual cover versions, often themed, an amateur production but like a professionally-produced radio programme.

Of the many music podcasts I've tried over the years this is the only one I've stuck with, not least because it is divided into 'chapters' for each song and each link, so if there's a song which you don't want to listen to any more of, you can skip forward to the next one (it's the only music podcast I've come across which does this, I don't know why more don't).

Any recommendations for somewhere online where you can get fairly reliable indications of where one should start in an artist's back catalogue, or indications of 'if you like their album X, try albums Y and Z'?

The specific prompt to ask is that I was in Fopp on Saturday and they were selling huge wodges of Brian Eno's and Tangerine Dream's back catalogues, but I didn't know where to start, so didn't buy any except Brian Eno's Another Green World (since it has the Arena theme music on it, which I like).

I guess one answer is 'this blog', but I don't want to trouble you after my every visit to a record shop.

The Coverville podcast website directed me to this clip of the Muppets doing Bohemian Rhapsody. I forget how good the Muppets were. Song comes with bonus punchline.

Also, to avoid clogging up the front page I will post in the comments a clip I came across of Lucie and the Diamonds (new to me) doing a lovely cover of a hidden Queen gem, Dear Friends.

Hearing Mickey by Toni Basil this morning, I was struck again by how the line 'you take me by the heart when you take me by the hand' sums up so well how love, unrequited or otherwise, can feel.

I don't say Chinn/Chapman were the first to put it like that, but there it is.

Of course the other thing I think about every time I hear the song is the scene in Wayne's World where they start singing it in the car before shamefacedly realising what they're doing.

In Fopp today they had a fistful of reasonably-priced live David Bowie CDs - Stage, Live, Ziggy Stardust, Santa Monica. Given that I already have all the relevant studio albums, any opinions on whether any of these live CDs are worth having also?

I've jsut read the laudatory item on Rory Gallagher in the latest issue but didn't get any idea from it where I should start as a new listener to hear him at his best (apart from the old 'time machine to see him in concert' option). Any suggestions?

People sometimes seem to have their biggest hit with their worst song.

For example, Eurythmics, There Must Be An Angel. And the man who graced that recording with its harmonica solo, Stevie Wonder, I Just Called To Say I Love You.

I started listening to Trevor Dann's Radio Academy podcast after I enjoyed his appearance on the Word podcast last year. It's about the radio industry, and you might like it.

I realised after listening to it for a couple of months that I would never listen to an equivalent podcast about 'the tv industry', which helped me to realise that my relationship with radio is very different from my relationship with tv, which I hadn't really thought about before.

Also, as I was catching up with back issues there was much discussion of the travails of DAB radio, and it made me wonder if DAB is to radio what APS was to photography - a new, better system which was going to move the industry/technology forward but which was then crushed by an even greater leap forward: is internet radio going to steamroller DAB in the way that digital photography did APS?

Listening to I Say A Little Prayer by Aretha Franklin today, it struck me that the chorus was being sung by the backing singers and Aretha was acting as the backing vocal, which is unusual. An interesting contrast with Respect, which has one of my favourite set of backing vocals throughout.

I'm guessing a number of people with tickets can't get to Hammersmith Apollo tonight. I don't have a ticket, but could get there. If it was a theatre I would be queuing up at the box office for returns to come in. Is this how it works for concerts, or should I be ringing or refreshing Ticketmaster, who handle Apollo ticket bookings?

I really can't be doing with the music of Orange Juice or Edwyn Collins, but I think What Presence?! is tremendous. I find this a little puzzling (but it hasn't gotten so that I can't sleep at night).

(I was put in mind of it because the opening couplet came to mind as I was writing a comment yesterday.)

http://www.muzu.tv/orangejuice/what-presence-music-video/236921?country=...

Can anyone advise on navigating Spotify, in particular searching for users or playlists? My searches only generate albums or tracks, but how would I find, for example, Word magazine as a user or playlists of Beatles covers? (Word magazine is a bad example, since that's the only user I have found, but I have no recollection of how - a link from here perhaps? There must be people setting up Beatles covers playlists - indeed, not knowing how to find anyone else's, I've been reduced to setting up my own.) I've not been managing very well with Spotify, but early days, and user error I'm sure.