The Panik were one of the first punk bands to form in Manchester, alongside a handful of fellow travellers – Buzzcocks, The Drones, V2, Slaughter & The Dogs and The Fall.

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Who knew Joan Jett’s fist-pumping anthem I Love Rock’n’Roll was a cover version? Not me. And, I’m willing to wager, not most of you.

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This was the song that sent Dave Cousins and his band of former folkies The Strawbs into the pop charts for the first time early in 1973.

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Around the turn of the century I made a musical pilgrimage to the tiny Texas town of Luckenbach, once immortalised in song by Waylon Jennings.

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Here is Jay Ferguson with his US hit Thunder Island, built around a riff that will be familiar to Rolling Stones fans.

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Back from a week in Cornwall but still in a summer mood, so here’s today’s slice of cheesy disco fun – the only hit for Lipps Inc.

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This was my introduction to the weird and wonderful world of The Cramps. They came along at exactly the right time with their decadent and pervy punk-adjacent rockabilly.

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Tony McPhee never achieved the fame and fortune of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page or Jeff Beck, his fellow British guitarists to emerge from Britain’s blues boom in the 1960s.

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I don’t know a darn thing about Jacqueline Jones, and I can’t find anything out on the Interweb. No biographical details, no other tunes. But what a voice! 

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Rewind to 1975 and here’s an infectious tune by Max Romeo, one of reggae’s great survivors – still performing at the age of 78.

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