Back in July 2021, we did an edition of Snapshots about song titles which featured the name of the singer or band performing them. It was high time for a sequel...
20. Like a Sonic Youth offshoot.
Ciccone Youth was a side-project of Sonic Youth. This is Louise Ciccone, first name...
Yesterday was May 4th - Star Wars Day. (Because: May The 4th Be With You. Don't blame me. I didn't come up with that.) Did you need The Force to crack these clues...?
12. Flaming satellite.
Named after a Russian street gang, the "sigue sigue" meaning "burn burn"...
6. Home security camera rotates more than half way.
I've got Blink security cameras on Top Ten Towers, in case you were thinking of coming round to steal my CD collection. If you rotate something through half a turn, that's 180 degrees. Just over that would be...
Ah, my old friend, Jack. So long parted.... 20 years since we spent any real time together. Not that I think you'd do me any good if you and I were still together. Not right now, anyway.
It's a cheesy old line, but Roger Taylor was onto something there. I've always listened to night time radio to help me through the long lonely hours, to stop my mind racing at 3am, to take comfort from music and a friendly voice.
A few years back though, radio was supplanted by streaming. Although there were a couple of shows I listened to, I found myself losing interest in a lot of night time radio (or my favourite old shows were one by one taken off the air and replaced by bland, airbrushed blah... i.e. Radio 2 over the past five to ten years.
Night time radio's a tricky one, because it can't be too loud. I loved Peel, but rarely listened to his show to calm my troubled mind or help me get to sleep. Because you never knew when he was going to play some screeching unlistenable toss to shake you out of your slumbers.
Recently, and largely due to the increased anxiety of these uncertain times, I've listened to a lot more radio. These are my favourite shows right now to keep me company through the wee small hours. Thanks to BBC Sounds (the iPlayer was better, but... progress), I can listen to any of these whenever I want. The majority are on the BBC purely because I can't listen to commercial radio. Don't even start me on the sorry state of that medium. I worked in it for 25 years and it breaks my heart what they've done to it. Besides, there's nothing relaxing about your late night radio being interrupted by an ad break. Take it from one who used to write the bloody things.
I record these here for posterity, for my own memories, to remind me of what gets me through the nights, as Mick used to sing. A sample track is given for each.
Only just discovered this because Chuck Prophet is one of the DJs. Free streaming country music. If you like that sort of thing. Which I increasingly do.
Only at number 9 because I don't really listen to them at night time. I do catch up with them on a weekend morning though, comfy as an old pair of slippers. Back in the day, Radcliffe meant as much to me as Peel did to an earlier generation. I'm glad he's still doing what he does best: wittering on the wireless. And Sam has liked Stuart Maconie ever since he won on Richard Osman's House of Games.
Stumbled across Ralph on BBC Radio Ulster and got rather addicted to his Country and Rock & Soul shows. Only an hour and a half (they've cut him down recently, which is a shame) but he's a similar age to me and even more addicted to music. Often does themed shows - last week he did 90 minutes of Otis Redding and other people singing Otis's songs. It was a bloody good listen.
Huey's early Saturday morning Radio 2 show is still an essential download. They took it off the air for a few months during lockdown and I really missed it. It's not as good as it used to be when he was on at 3am, or even midnight, and you can tell he's toned his act down in recent years to keep the Radio 2 bosses happy. But he's still a good radio friend, even though he breaks the "talking directly to you" DJ rule by continually addressing his listeners as "ladies and gentlemen". His 6Music show is also a good listen, but too loud for nights. His favourite Queen song is Dragon Attack and he plays it every three weeks or so. It's not one I care for that much, but I like that he gets away with it. Plus it's the place I first heard this beauty...
On Radio Scotland - which is basically what Radio 2 should be, and confirms for me once again that I have far more in common with my Scottish pals than many of my own countrymen. Roddy is a singer songwriter in his own right (he's played with Kris Kristofferson, so credit where it's due) and that's his bag on the radio. He likes a lot of the same obscure indie songwriters I dig, and has introduced me to a few new ones. Always worth dipping into.
The king of late night Scottish radio, though I never knew him when he was at his peak. Glad to have discovered him in the last few years though. Radio like it used to be. Plus his lyric quiz frequently gets me wracking my brains. I used to think I was pretty good with spotting lyrics...
Laidback Sunday afternoons, and the only 6music show that doesn't try too hard to be hip. Guy's natural northern delivery really does feel like a friend chatting to you in the pub. Now with added Simon Armitage, so what's not to love? (As Radcliffe always says.)
I used to get pissed off with pop stars becoming radio hosts... almost as though they were doing professional DJs out of their jobs. Thankfully, pop stars are now doing a great job of saving radio... and they generally get left alone to play what they want rather than having to conform to the shackles of playlists like Rex Bob Lowenstein did.
Anyway, Ricky Ross. The bloke out of Deacon Blue. Turns out he loooooves country music. And he knows how to separate the wheat from the chaff.
If you'd told me a few years ago that my favourite radio show would be presented by a woman from TV's Bargain Hunt, I'd have laughed in your face. But I am addicted to Natasha's Thursday evening Radio Scotland show... I usually listen to it on Friday and Saturday nights and to say it's a highlight of my week is really no overstatement.
I'm not sure I can explain why. Natasha is a good 15 years younger than me, unlike most of the presenters above who are either my age or older. And unlike a lot of the shows above, I reckon I usually know between 30 and 50% of the songs she plays. But no other presenter I can think of captures the eclecticism of Peel (without the loud bits - so perfect for my ageing ears), moving effortlessly from Television to Chicken Shack, Yo La Tengo to Can, Dawn Penn to Devo. I never know what she's going to play next, only that I'll like it. This is what radio should be. Long may she reign, the Queen of (my) late night radio...
Guest Post Thursday will return soon... otherwise, you might have to put up with more of this waffle.
I know a lot of people found the joke of the Ben Folds Five - that there were only three of them - to be rather smug, but they're still my favourite band with a Five in their name... yes, I like them even more than 5ive.
Sad to say, every one of those can be found in my hard-drive (except Five Hand Reel, I'm afraid). That's what I was doing while the rest of the male population were out drinking beer, watching football and meeting girls.
"But what about the Five songs?" I heard nobody cry.
I think you can probably work out for yourself why I'm not allowing that one. Not just because it already featured here in Week 55, but because if I started allowing every mention of a 5 as part of a bigger number, not only would that contravene the Tom Robinson Rule, it would also mean revisiting every song we featured in Week #15, #25, #35, #45, all the 50s, etc. etc. etc. My brain just melted at the very prospect.
Oh damnation - Just realised that the Tom Waits song is 55 so we've probably done that one. And suppose Manfred Mann's "5-4-3-2-1" is no use. *sigh*
That's more like it. Although there's something rather disturbing about the character described therein... and it probably contravenes all kinds of size-ist PC rules these days.
I wrote about bands with 5 in their title a while back when I published my 101st post - as has been pointed out around here before (by George I think) the binary number 101 equates to the decimal number 5 so the 101ers could be a contender.
I don't understand binary because I'm not a robot. These guys seem to understand it though...
My personal favourite is this one although it won't qualify I'm sure - George was at his best here and it made for a memorable performance shared many times in the aftermath of his death.
Les Georges Leningrand - George 5 (First time i heard this song it was on quite loud at home, came on a Rough Trade CD, i had to turn it down as i was worried i would scare the neighbours. It is one of the strangest songs i have ever heard but i love it, took a few listens though).
It was looking like Rigid Digit was definitely going for this week's booby prize... until he unearthed this little gem. An absolute cracker. I liked it so much, I wrote a short story with the same title.
Flagrant abuse of the rules there, RD. Watch out, Charity Chic will start comparing you to Dominic Cummings if you're not careful. Speak of the devil (CC, not DC, thankfully), here he is again...
Or what of "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue (Has Anybody Seen My Gal?)", which since its penning in 1914 just about everyone has covered, but for the sake of argument here let's suggest Dean Martin's version as well as Guy Lombardo's. Not sure which of those two version my dad had in mind as he went about the house singing it throughout my childhood...
Sadly, I didn't have time to listen to or comment on any of The Swede's suggestions this week, because it's already 8.30 on Monday evening and I've not had my tea yet. I'm sure they were all lovely. I'm also not going to spend too long scraping my own hard drive this week. But here's a few...
However, much as I love that, I'm going to have to plump for the one suggested by C and Swiss Adam this week, mainly because it was the first one I thought of. Yes, it's a cover version of a track mentioned earlier. Or, more accurately, it's two cover versions in one, since it segues effortlessly into Petula Clark's I Know A Place about halfway through... and that's one of the reasons I love it.
As cover versions go there, it manages that rare trick of being better than the original. I think it may well be one of the most exciting songs I've ever heard (I know, I'm delirious from lack of food, humour me).
OK... who's ready for a little four-play?
(Apologies for any typos this week. I had no time to proofread!)
Apologies. I got two thirds of the way through this countdown before life got in the way. But I don't like leaving things unfinished, so the Hot 100 is back... maybe not every week, but whenever I get the time. Your suggestions, as always, are very welcome.
Wretch 32, pictured above, is a popular grime star, apparently. We used to have grime round these parts, then we got a new window cleaner.
Way back in July, George wondered whether the unsavoury lyrics in this oldie might make it unpalatable...
And here's the Charlatans with the same song... but not The Charlatans you and I know, the Manc band fronted by Tim Burgess, no, this is the original Charlatans...
And that was it for your suggestions. But what did my record collection throw up? Let's see if we can go even lower than Mr. Mister to start with, and climb up from there, shall we?
No prizes for guessing that week 42 of our countdown would be illustrated by Level 42, though Walter did suggest Love Games as a less obvious song choice than Running With The Family or Lessons in Love.
Level 42 took their name from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy in which an enormous supercomputer called Deep Thought took 7.5 million years to work out "the meaning of life, the universe and everything". The answer it came up with was 42.
The songs my own giant super-computer (i.e. you guys) came up with for the number 42 were as follows...
C kicked us off with a certain lady whose measurements were 42-39-56 (I never understood lady's measurements, but very little imagination is needed here)...
It was Alyson, however, who raised the issue of 42nd Street, so certain I wouldn't be making a stop there this week. As she says...
Of course I know it's not going to be your pick, but the song 42nd Street has been around for nearly ninety years and was written by Harry Warren, who has been mentioned often over at my place as he certainly was prolific, and wrote many of the songs covered by other artists over the decades (I Only Have Eyes For You a favourite of mine). Also the Ruby Keeler story is one that never goes away, it just gets updated for a new generation.
Although Alyson is correct that the original 42nd Street song won't be this week's selection, I did find a number of other songs that stopped off on that particular thoroughfare, including...
Reach out and touch faith - it's your own personal answers to Saturday Snapshots. It was just A Question of Time.
Alyson took the Early Bird trophy this week, ably assisted by Chris, Charity Chic, Rigid Digit and a last minute save, all the way from Dubai (thanks, Jim). C took issue with the Siouxsie & The Banshees photo which turned out to be Siouxsie and a bunch of non-Banshees, for which I apologise... but it was the least recognisable Siouxsie photo I could find on the interweb. She has a pretty iconic look.
Even if you only got one of them right this week, remember... Everything Counts!
My explanations will be brief this week due to an impending visit from Ofsted. (Yes, they know check music blogs too. Not much chance of this one getting Outstanding.)
