I've just picked up in a charity shop a biography of Hank Williams called Lovesick Blues, by Paul Hemphill.I haven't read many music bios, and usually find them disappointing. Hank seems like a character worth finding out about, so if anyone knows this one, please tell me; is it worth reading?

I'm sorry if I've missed it, as I haven't been through all the recent entries, but I can't believe that this month's best/worst opening lines didn't include (in the best!) "Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street" from Joe Jackson's It's Different for Girls. The whole jealous/angry/nerdy view of relationships in 9 words.

P.S. for all you techie people, why are my posts always dated 1/1/1970?

As I recall his show was on sunday evening in the early days of Radio 1. It was Mike Raven's R & B show, and he played the blues, R & B and also played ska & bluebeat long before anyone else that I'm aware of in British broadcasting. Along with John Peel's Top Gear show it shaped my musical taste for life. Is he still alive and if so what is he doing?

Oh sorry, we've done that one.

Happy New Year everybody.

The above phrase was used in a previous post talking about bad clapping at gigs. It reminded me of seeing Ray Davies a couple of years back, and being amused as everyone bellowed out with one voice "I'm not like everybody else". A bit of a Life of Brian (crowd: we're all individuals! - lone voice: I'm not!) moment that.

In the words of the Stones "it's only rock and roll but I like it". Stop picking it to pieces, chaps. We all know they were brilliant, and I grew up buying their singles in the 60's. However there's no Beatles song in my top 10 (or 20 for that matter) favourite tracks. It's more to do with what strikes an emotional chord than the musical accomplishment.

Looking back to punk and post punk days, I find it hard to understand why it made me feel old at first. I had grown up on Zeppelin, Hendrix, Dylan, Clapton, Bowie and all the usual suspects. The vanguard of punk tried to blow all the old farts away, but looking back I realise that most of them (Lydon, Devoto, Shelley, even Ian Curtis) were the same age as me give or take a year (I'm 52 now), Strummer even older, so why did I suddenly feel that I belonged to an earlier generation? What had they grown up listening to?