... music and image

while I was still a bairn like, but every time I went to my mate Steve Dunn's house, sounds like this would emanate from his older brother Paul's bedroom

Not sure they're my "favourite" band - not sure I've got one - but these geezers would be up there. So what I first heard when I was eight or nine, I still love now that I'm...a bit older.

Free "Mr Big"

It's always the trousers, for me.

It turned Wilco from being a band I liked a lot into my favourite band.

Well there was a time when, if anyone had asked me, I would have said Sparks. I loved "This Town.." when I first heard it and then everything since. I had the names of their songs plastered over my exercise books and folders at school so they were just my natural choice to call favourite. .....but... do I really prefer Talking Heads? .... or have Fountains of Wayne crept up on me as my favourite band? Is it possible (or much more importantly, allowed) to change your mind when you're 50?!... or is it Rockpile? This is hard... can we go back to the simpler topic of discussing the afterlife please?

(the go to guy for regime change) - I would say my favourite band is probably Steely Dan, as I probably play them more often as an entity or via solo projects than any group.

It's the combination of super slick musicality and undercutting lyrical tension that do it for me. Music by Earth, Wind & Fire, landscapes by Rothko, lyrics by Roth. A Frank Lloyd Wright house built on scree and shingle. America's dark heart in a beguiling but slightly maddening time signature.

I think I have about 5-6 absolute number 1 favourites. But the one band I think is more favourite than the others, is Teenage Fanclub.

In 1991 I was 18 years old, and the first time I heard the song below, it was as if someone had gone through my brain and had picked my perfect song. I had found "my sound" even when I didn't know I was looking for it. They seem like nice blokes, they are obscure enough to not be played to death on the radio. Have seen them live a few times, and they always deliver.

It got me at "And I've been thinking".
I've never looked back.

They had been one of my favourite bands for years, but it was this track that did it.

I love the way it sets off at full-chat, and maintains the same pace to the end. I love the clattering drums, the brass, Mr Moulding's bass, the way Mr Partridge sings "curl", the way that the main melody seems to wrap around itself and the way that parts of the tune in the verse pop up in the chorus as a counter, and vice versa.

I hate that question, but hear me out. I don't have a favourite band, a favourite song or a favourite album. I just can't decide.

Filled The Stone Roses shaped void in my early 90's listening and then took over my life completely. They were different. Bold and brassy; clever and funny.

It's "the gang" and the clothes thing with me. Either real or concocted. The Smiths, The Clash, The Roses, The Jam, U2, The Beatles, Radiohead, James, Oasis, Small Faces, Hold Steady etc. Us against the world!

with XTC it was hearing Black Sea and thinking 'this is fucking brilliant'.

with Diesel Park West it was hearing Endless Chains and thinking 'this is fucking brilliant'.

with The Kinks it was hearing Village Green Preservation Society and thinking 'this is fucking brilliant'.

with Moby Grape it was hearing Wow and thinking 'this is fucking brilliant'.

with Talk Talk it was hearing Life's What You Make It and thinking 'this is fucking brilliant'.

with Fox it was hearing SSSS Single Bed and thinking 'this is fucking brilliant'.

And so on till the needle breaks.

Shoehorned into a no-mark awards ceremony with the greats of the day (Jeff Healey! Tin Machine!), they really didn't seem to give a tinker's cuss. They may have had a few, and it's not one of their best songs, but I was sold.
To misquote the old Jerry Maguireism, they had me at 'What the hell are we doing here?'

For about 27 minutes in 1980 Dire Straits were hip.

The Making Movies album soundtracked my i6th year (And yes I am 4 hours into the audiobook of 'I, Partridge...)

I'd just started playing guitar and had realised two things about it:

- I loved it
- I was totally shit

Anyone who played distinctively always caught my ear. I saw this when broadcast live and have been taken ever since by the way Knopfler plays. The picking, the tone, the ultramelodic flourishes.

This was unearthed again recently as part of the 'Guitar Heroes' thread on BBC4. It took me right back.

OK it's cheating. Saw this clip sometime around mid-seventies on TV, most likely OGWT (what else?), and was transfixed. Apparently it's relatively easy to play this kind of thing, though it's hard to invent of course, but no one else does this epic, dreamy, lost in guitar heaven kind of dirge as well, though many imitate it. I think it was the Mount Rushmore, carved-in-stone features and the leaning into the wind-machine intensity giving this such an elemental feel that appealed, plus the cool black guitar. Not to mention the music. Didn't know who this was at the time but ended up getting years of pleasure from the records he made.

Watching this very footage on TOTP.

Not a classic Jam Track, piss poor attempt at miming. No idea what got me as a 12 yr old - something must have. I know I went out & bought the single the next day and from there ...... 300 odd records later still picking up every release in every format, imports etc etc .....

it was this :

and

Well, the whole of 5D - that picture on the sleeve didn't hurt either.

Then it was just one joyful discovery after another as I wen through their back catalogue. Challenged at times, some albums hard to love. But with 3 great songwriters (McGuinn, Clarke, Crosby of course) and just such an all rounbd talented band they got me for life.

Course when I realised that The Dead's turning point was when they tried to sound like The Byrds that was just a bonus :

I already had a Little Feat album and quite liked it, but the penny dropped with a resounding clang during a weekend's cat sitting with a mate in Liverpool. We were paid with a block of crumbly green stuff which added flavour to your Golden Virgina, and full run of a massive record collection. One of which was "Feats don't fail me now". Start of lifetime love of the Feat.

This is cracking - the band, plus Lowell's singing and slide playing. Marvellous.