RIP Andy Rourke – The Smiths – 1964-2023

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Here’s wishing all my gloomy gothic friends in black all the very best for World Goth Day.. with the help of the patron saints of goth.

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Different Trains, composed and recorded in 1988, was Steve Reich’s first composition to draw on his Jewish heritage, inspired by a childhood memory.

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I have loved this song since the day I first heard it, and I still love it just as much today. The only doubt I have ever had is whether I prefer it to Wah! Heat’s first single Better Scream.

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I have to confess I wasn’t swept away with the baggy revolution at the time but I did come around to The Stone Roses’ debut album.

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The two signature songs of Barrington Levy blasted out of every shop and car window in Hackney for one summer in the mid-1980s.

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“Like getting stabbed in your ears,” said one critic about the abrasive funk, atonal horns and unhinged screams of James Chance & The Contortions’ opening track on No New York. “In a good way.”

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It’s always sad to hear that someone you once used to see on Top of the Pops has fallen on hard times. That’s what prompted me to post Pigbag’s finest moment – the funky instrumental with which they (literally) made their name.

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The Moondogs were another of the seemingly endless parade of power pop bands to spring up in Northern Ireland in the late 70s.

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You know when your eccentric auntie drinks a bit too much sherry at Christmas and embarrasses everyone by singing along to a record and dancing around the tree?

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