There are few aural pleasures greater than accidentally stumbling across an old song you used to love that had somehow slipped from your memory. That’s what happened this weekend when I found an album comprising the early recordings of Kimmie Rhodes.

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Here’s one of those songs I haven’t heard in years (decades?) but it comes right back to me the moment the needle touches the groove. I was never a fan of jazz-funk but you’d have to have a heart of stone, and feet of concrete, not to be moved physically and emotionally by the infectious groove, skittering bassline and blissful vocal of Southern Freeez.

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Ivor Cutler was an eccentric Scottish poet whose chronicles of Life In A Scotch Sitting Room became popular during the punk era after being championed by John Peel.

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This is one of the odder oddities of the punk era, even by the oddball standards of Stiff Records. Digging it out from my collecton, I have a confession to make – I had mentally filed the band as Joe ‘King’ Carrasco and the CLOWNS.

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I suppose you’d have to call Vic Godard another of the oddballs of punk, alongside the likes of Wreckless Eric, Johnny Moped, Kevin Rowland and Spizz.

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Of all the great female-fronted bands that punk produced – Siouxsie, Slits, Raincoats, Delta 5, Kleenex – the most confrontational were the Au Pairs. They were also my favourites.

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I was wondering what would be the perfect song to play on the hottest day we’ve ever had when I remembered this… a song that immediately conjures up a sweltering summer’s day in New York. (more…)

Here’s a Beatles cover by The Feelies, whose 1980 debut album was a landmark in the New Wave that followed punk. (more…)

Here’s another forgotten gem from the mid-Eighties. It’s got a gothic grandeur with the deep, rich baritone of Paul Quinn swathed in strings and the searing guitar solo at 2.20. (more…)