Here’s an autumn playlist to warm the cockles of the ear: from obscure ’70s rock to pioneering ’80s funk, first wave hip-hop and New Wave country, free jazz and doom folk, dub, blues and even some prog – plus  tributes to those we lost in November, Shane MacGowan and Killing Joke’s Geordie Walker.

When I think of funk, this is the sound I hear in my head. The fat bass (is that the “phat” bass?), the hissing hi-hats, the waka-waka guitar licks, the muffled exhortations of the vocalist… put it all together and that’s The Fatback Band.

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Last night I went to see the Fun Lovin’ Criminals… at least I thought I had. They had their name spelled out in huge letters across the stages But their main man, Huey, was no longer in the band.

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I’ve just discovered that my 12-inch copy of Cristina’s scandalous take on an old classic is a collector’s item. Apparently her new lyrics for a tune about the mundanity of life, and the need to “break out the booze and have a ball – if that’s all there is”, so offended the songwriters, Leiber and Stoller, that they successfully sued to get it withdrawn – at least for a time.

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With a jazz background, a love of 1970s soft rock and a voice like Thom Yorke, former Midlake front man Tim Smith has always been hard to pigeonhole. A decade after quitting the band, the famously perfectionist Smith releases his first album as Harp – a new project with his wife, Kathi Zung.

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I’d never say we were really friends, and we came from very different backgrounds. But as fellow punks of the same age (he was born on Christmas Day just 16 days before me) Shane and I had an acquaintance.

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When I first heard them 40 years ago, I thought the Jesus And Mary Chain were the most exciting new band I’d heard since The Sex Pistols. They still sound great in 2023.

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Kid Creole and the Coconuts were a breath of fresh air when they came along at the start of a new decade with their zoot suits and Panama hats and spats – and their tropical take on disco.

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Merry Clayton is best known for her gospelly backing vocals on the Stones’ anti-war anthem Gimme Shelter, wailing in harmony with Jagger. But there was much more to her than that.

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Requiem has to be the song to remember Geordie Walker, the Killing Joke guitarist who has died. Not just for its title but for his vast metallic slabs of electric guitar that scythe through the synth bass.

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