Deaf School emerged from Liverpool at the dawn of punk with a sound inspired by cabaret and classic songwriters of the past.

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New York noisemongers A Place To Bury Strangers are as aggressively noisy as ever on their feedback-drenched new single Bad Idea.

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I’ve heard this song by Marvin, I’ve heard it by Dusty and I’ve heard it by the Stones, but until now I’d never heard it by Barbara til now. In fact I’d never heard of Barbara Randolph at all.

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Angel-voiced Z Berg teams up with gravel-voiced Keith Carradine on a version of the old favourite Love Hurts from the Strange Darling soundtrack.

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Listening today, 40 years later, it’s so obvious how much Lloyd Cole & The Commotions borrowed from Bob Dylan. Perfect Skin is almost a hybrid of Dylan’s twangy mid-60s period and the country-tinged moments of Lou Reed with the Velvets.

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I don’t think I’ve heard this before but someone the other day mentioned it as a highlight of the album The Notorious Byrd Brothers, so I looked it up.

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It’s not hard to guess why this song has come back into my mind for the first time in decades, with history repeating itself in Lebanon.

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I’ve never heard of this band and I’m sure you’ve never heard of them either. Listening now, I’m not sure why 99 Tales didn’t make a bigger name for themselves.

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The name of JD Souther, who has just died, might not mean a lot to most music fans. But his legacy surely will when you hear his songs.

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Who remembers Los Angeles rockabilly band The Red Devils? Certainly not me. I didn’t even know there was a thriving cowpunk scene, fusing rockabilly and country, in early-Eighties LA.

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