Firstly - thanks to all who took part. There were some brilliant suggestions & I made my selection based on your words, gut feel and if I liked the name. I already had a few of the records.

The five I bought in the end were:

Ray Condo & the Ricochets "Swing Brother Swing" - recommended by Stephen Hanley "its western, it swings & it jives". Found in the Rockabilly section. First impression of the sleeve - they look like nerdy rockers: 3/10.

Chip Taylor - Couldnt find "Last Chance" (recommended by Hepworth, D) so I got "Angels & Gamblers" his Best Of instead. Found in Country section. Sleeve - bearded 70's kris kristoferson look-a-likey 5/10.

Guy Clark "Old No1" - Recommended by Niks "the track LA Freeway stops me dead every time". Country section. Sleeve is cool long haired 70's country rocker & lady friend 6/10.

David Baerwald - "Triage" (two recommendations: CarlP & Stevegc) Found in Used Rock. Dreadul sleeve, bloody hands on a US Flag 1/10.

Jim Ford - "The Sounds of our time". Recommended by Dr Robert "the baddest white man on the planet! (jim not dr r!). Found in Country section. Homemade but cool looking sleeve 7/10. This was the lady at the checkouts favourite (so much expected on this one)

Four of us huddled round the hi fi trembling with excitement.

We played snippets of three or four tracks on each album & quickly eliminated Guy Clark. Sadly not to our taste. A little too country for us. We liked Ray Condo & David Baerwald (despite the sleeve) immediately with Ray Condo the slight early favourite.

We ummed & aahed for a while before selecting Jim Ford for the final round and consigning Chip Taylor to the also-rans.

For the Final, we took a bit longer on each of the three surviving albums (by Jim Ford, Ray Condo & David Baerwald) allowing several tracks to play for longer.

Ray Condo is straight forward jumpin rockabilly cat music. Very good - does what it says on the tin. It was our early favourite, but slipped back to third position - "a bit samey". BRONZE MEDAL

Jim Ford grew on us. "swamp music" said one of my colleagues. "a lowdown dirty sound" said another. Excellent finish to leap frog Ray Condo into the SILVER MEDAL position.

OUR winner. GOLD MEDAL to David Baerwald for Triage. The first song is lovely and it got very "intriguing" as the record played on. We wanted to listen to this one to the end. Thanks to Stevegc and CarlP for suggesting it.

So Stevegc & CarlP if you could let me know a record you'd like me to buy you from Amoeba in the next 24 hours, I will try to find it for you .

Here endeth the shameless plug for Amoeba & now I can go listen properly to the albums

Thanks again for your input to this!! It has helped get through the jetlag.

I am lucky enough to be in Los Angeles at the moment. As I write this it is about 1am on Wednesday morning UK time, ie 5pm Tuesday afternoon LA time.

By the time I will next be able to visit this website most of you UK based guys will have finished for the evening on Tuesday.

I am working round the corner from Amoeba Records on Sunset Boulevard (legendary vast container of quality CD's and records)

Your homework, should you choose to accept it, is to collectively choose five records for me to go and purchase from Amoeba in my lunch hour tomorrow.

I would ask you to bear the following criteria in mind when selecting the records:

- the record must be at least a little bit "off the beaten track" ie no beatles or stones or bowie.

- you must genuinely enjoy listening regularly to this record (as opposed to something that looks cool on the shelf). Eg I have Captain Beefheart & Fall records which i "get" but if I'm honest with myself dont play very regularly.

I would ask you to select a record (or indeed all 5) and include one sentence that tells me why each record is special and should be bought by me.

My task (should you be bothered to play along with me) is to go to Amoeba in my lunch hour and buy the five items that appeal best based on title/descriptive sentence.

I will play the albums that afternoon & will select the one I like best.

For a bit of fun & as a small incentive, I would like to offer to buy whoever has recommended the record that I like the best a record of their own choice from Amoeba to be sent to their home address.

Go on, go on, go on - have a go. It will give me a project for tomorrow when the jet lag kicks in!

I have just driven across London, where the sun shines and the roads are noticeably emptier. The tables outside cafes and pubs are filling nicely and a wonderful sloth has descended upon the capital city.

Two things:

1) There seems to be a day post-winter when I suddenly notice the sheer volume of pretty girls. I'm not sure what triggers the awareness (well I do - but not sure why it happens on a particular day). Today is definately that day for 2008. Is this a sad old man tendency specific to me, or do others share the affliction?

2) There is only one song playing on my internal jukebox. Sunny Afternoon by The Kinks. Its sunny enough and slothful enough, bored and lethargic enough. Perfect for summer in the city.
Does anybody else have summer songs in their heads?

I recently re-read Paul Morley's astonishing book "Words and Music" which I'm sure is not to everybody's taste (particularly on this site) but which I'm sure is amongst the greatest writing about music ever.

I think Morley is the best music writer I've read.
a. Right age. right time.
b. Errol in the NME
c. Interview with Meatloaf, Ted Nugent & Marilyn.
d. Blitz TV column (not music but almost - and Blitz is worth a feature in the lost music journal slot in the magazine)
e. Musings on Morrissey (particularly upon the Smiths split)
f. Nietzsche, Levi-Strauss, Roland Barthes.
g. I was convinced Ian ("I am") Penman was his alter-ego nom de plume.
h. Frankie Says
i. Top 100 talking heads
....
and well
q. Nothing (else) really

Who's your favourite and why? Or do you think all music writing really bland & rubbish?

I'm no guitar expert, but I went to see the heroic Edwyn Collins gig last night (which was a great show) & was absolutely blown away by Roddy Frame's guitar playing.

He sensitively added what seemed like every conceivable style of guitar playing to the songs - from picking, to wah wah funk to rock out - without ever becoming over conspicuous. He even managed a fabulous copy of James Kirk's terrible playing on early Orange Juice singles.

What's more he did so whilst dancing in a very 80's way as he played. Which was worth the admission price alone.

Can somebody please add him to the pantheon.

Oh - and Edwyn was brave and funny and surprisingly great throughout the show during which he was forced to sit and sing. He clearly still finds speaking difficult but his singing was almost back to normal. And when he got stuck into Blue Boy and Rip It Up he did so with real power. Over a couple of sneaky halves later, both my brother and I later admitted to a tear in our eyes - not from feeling sorry for him, but out of admiration for the triumph of human spirit and guts over adversity.

Several weeks back when heppo, ello & hazza started boasting about how good their new podcast recording process was, I stopped being able to listen to the 'casts on my ARCHOS GMINIXS 202s.

The files arrive on itiunes on my PC perfectly well (although the file info has changed - see below) and they sound great when played on the pc.

When I move them onto the ARCHOS player, they sound like they have been recorded in a wind tunnel with somebody adding very twangy electrical effects. In sort they are unlistenable.

It was always my end of week treat to listen to the podcast on the way home from work on a friday evening as a means of decompressing. Now I cant & quite frankly Mrs Dolly & the little dollies have noticed a difference in me as I am much more grumpy than usual.

For their sake, can anybody shed light on this mystery & help me.

Previously the info on the file that arrived in itunes was:

MPEG1,Layer3
LAME3.97 encoder
128 kbps
44.1 khz

since the introduction of the new recording process, the encoder information remains the same , but other stuff is now:

MPEG2 Layer3
64 kbps
22.5khz

Would this impact the files that are then moved across onto my archos player?

Can anybody suggest a solution?

My wife burned our house down in early 2005. I was out of the country at the time, so I know it wasn't my fault. Nobody was hurt. All photographs & videos of the kids growing up were safely tucked away in sealed metal containers in the basement, missing the worst of the fire & so miraculously escaped damage. My wife got to replace her wardrobe on insurance & the kids replaced worn out toys with new shiny toys. The house was rebuilt & they made such a good job of it that it looked like a Victorian showhouse & subsequently sold for far more than we could have expected pre-fire (when it looked tatty and kid-bashed). So, in the medium term, all worked out rather nicely.

In the first instance, however, my wife took the kids to her parents oop north but left me kipping on a mates couch so that I could keep working.

After a few nights I checked into a hotel with the insurance company picking up the tab. To be honest my mate & I had gone out every night so I checked into the hotel for a bit of a rest. I'd been up to see the family over a weekend and came back down to spend my first hotel night on a Monday.

After work that day I got to the impersonal travelling salesman type hotel & suddenly the delayed impact of the fire (& what might have happened to the family) finally hit me. I felt absolutely terrible: quite down & alone. I sat in my room and stared at the tele for ages then shook myself awake and made myself go out.

I couldn't face the rubbish hotel restaurant, but luckily there was a row of promising looking restaurants close to the hotel. The restaurants were across the road from the Swiss Cottage pub in London which is right in the middle of a busy road and looks just like a swiss cottage (not surpisingly). I had always wanted to go for a pint there - so to cheer myself up, & feeling not unlike Bill Bryson, I did just that, crossing the busy road & enjoying a pint.

Afterwards, and much happier about the world, I crossed back to the row of restaurants and walked into the first of them; a very busy looking Indian Restaurant. The food smelled great and I was really hungry now. I asked for a table for one and was shown towards the only free table by a charming waitress. I was just three feet from the table when a fast moving, slightly perspiring, manager intercepted me at pace to tell me that, actually, I was unable to have the table. It was Valentine's Day and he explained all the tables were for couples that night. I asked whether it was booked & he said no. But he said no to me having it. I offered to buy two meals & he still said no. All tables were for couples only & he did not want single people in the restaurant that night.

Feeling deeply disciminated against in my singleton state & quite angry I left the restaurant complaining bitterly about my treatment & that I would never use the restaurant again (&neither would my many local employees). Of course I then found that I could not get into any of the restaurants on the row, nor even the rubbish looking hotel restaurant. All were booked out completely with dallying couples. My only option was to return to the Indian, tail between my legs, to ask for a takeaway.

So feeling miserable, humbled by the Indian restaurant manager & by now missing wife & kids terribly, I stopped by a corner shop and picked up a 4 pack of Stella and a magazine (not from the top shelf) to flick through whilst eating my meal & returned to my lonely hotel room only to be confronted with the dilemna of how to eat a curry without a knife and fork - eventually resorting to using a cup and a tea spoon from the teasmade.

Shaking my head st the sheer unfairness of everything, I cracked open the first can of Stella and turned the page of the magazine to find Mark Ellen's cheery editors note. Very funny. I checked back as to what the title of the magazine was..."Word". Not sure about the title I thought.

But by can two I was tittering & by can three I was hooked. Getting quite pissed as well. But definately hooked by the quality of the writing and the sheer interstingness of the articles. My black humour had departed. By the end of can four I had given the magazine a good filleting & was chipper & even ready to sample the hotel bar. Which I did.

I am now a subscriber to both the magazine & podcast and am amazed that the quality of the various entertainments very rarely dip below excellent. Happy 5th anniversary & keep the good work up!