One of the few punk bands I never got to see, Swell Maps still left a mark with their Peel sessions and two excellent albums of DIY punk experimentalism.

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Released in October 1978, this was the song that showed The Jam had left their punk roots far behind. As did their third album, All Mod Cons, from which it was taken.

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I don’t know if psychedelic drugs were involved in the making of this song but I would be highly surprised if they weren’t. Then again, just listening to it is a mind-bending trip.

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Los Angeles soul trio Sly, Slick & Wicked are one of two obscure vocal groups to name themselves after a 1970 single by The Lost Generation.

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This is one of the first – maybe even the very first – songs I played for my children when they were very small.

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It’s 50 years since the release of that landmark album Dark Side Of The Moon. I think I first came across this in LA. It goes well with the sunshine and relaxed pace of life in SoCal.

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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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Darrell Banks had one of the greatest voices in soul music – and plagiarised his biggest hit from the equally great Donnie Elbert in their hometown of Buffalo, New York.

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I first heard the name Leroy Smart when Joe Strummer name-checked him in the lyric of The Clash’s best single, White Man In Hammersmith Palais, in 1977.

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