Back in the very early nineties possibly very late eighties, I became obsessed with late night radio shows. Frequently, much to my mothers chagrin, I would lie in bed with my headphones on, listening to the broadcasts from a variety of radio stations.
There was something haunting, maybe spiritual or even mystical about listening to the radio in the late hours of the night. The fact that I was one of a handful of listeners that would experience something special broadcast over the airwaves that few others would hear because they slept or were unaware. Indeed, much of my knowledge of the world and, to some extent humour, was developed by being one of the privileged few.
One late night DJ that I was fond of was on Manchester’s Key 103 radio station and went by the name of James H Reeve. The content and humour between the records he played was priceless and I was often afraid of falling asleep and missing something. So often I would try and steal at least another 90 minutes of airtime by using my hifi’s tape-deck to record the show as I fell asleep.
As it happened, on the last night I did this I managed to record some comedy gold and a priceless mix of music which, I hope, I still have on a cassette tucked away in my box of memories. One of the songs on this cassette, which naturally, I listened to over and over again through to my early thirties, was Ry Cooder’s cover of Johnny Cash’s Get Rhythm, the title track to today’s album.
I love that song. It’s so positive, happy and always has me dancing at my steering wheel. Of course the rest of the album doesn’t really compare in the great scheme of things and I don’t really know any other songs by Cooder. But I appreciate his contribution to music and his reunion of the Buena Vista Social Club. I’ll also remember always how this song, the cassette it was recorded on, with the 90 minutes of late night radio show broadcast that I played over and over again to a point where I still almost remember the content word for word, saw me through my GCSEs, my A Levels and kept me company across at least two decades of commuting in one form or another.
Lo-fi brother and sister double act Meg and Jack White’s White Stripes’ fifth studio album.
Fee Waybill and the guys regroup and return following a ten year hiatus and departure from Capitol Records with their first album on the Critique label.
In true prog fashion, flying teapot hippy group Gong, split and became two entities; Daevid Allen’s Gong (the one responsible for all the pot head pixies) and Pierre Moerlan’s Gong a jazz rock based band.
When I said I liked the Cocteau Twins I should have clarified that I liked a couple of tracks. It’s just that when you mention you like a band you often get inundated with advice about which albums you “should” like.
It seems almost as if there was an explosion of artists heavily influenced by 
There was a fleeting moment when I thought relatives of Kirsty MacColl lived in my street when I was growing up. Instead it turned out Andrea McCann wasn’t related, but just happened that she looked a little bit like her. If you squinted.
Can came into my life in the early noughties when a colleague gave me a copy of their Tago Mago album. I was suitably impressed but more of that when we get to T. Future Days features more chilled out Can rhythms melded with Susuki’s bizarre mumblings and Michael Karoli’s stand out lone-guitar performance. Kind of like lounge avant garde.
Middle class wank mag, The Guide which is usually given away in Saturday’s Guardian, once said that Fur and Gold was the album must have for the noughties coffee table and that if you were to be taken seriously by your painfully middle class Land Rover dinner party guests you should put this album on the surround sound system and look hautily at ones guests when they contemptuously deny all knowledge of its existence. And thus the hipster was born.
Avant Garde shite I downloaded in an effort to out weird hipsters. 
Internet faves Rasputina saw their hauntological American Great Depression era Old South sound into this their fourth studio release.
Scandinavian rock valkyries again, this time with a live set featuring Nightwish’s pre-breakup line-up and Tarja Turunen.
Regular music project visitors, British Sea Power, return today with their 2013 release, From the Sea to the Land Beyond.
No, I’d never heard of Mary Fahl until I came across this album either. 
Bootlegs bootlegs bootlegs. They killed live music you know.
Another appearance from Carl McCoy and his dust ridden forsaken cowboys, Fields of the Nephilim. This time with another compilation of songs from their catalogue. I’m not sure if it’s the lack of production or what, but to me this sounds more like recording of a tribute act than actual Nephilim songs. In the recording I have, McCoy sounds like he’s singer from a slightly higher register than usual.
This was another of the first CDs I bought for my first CD player and I played it over and over and over.
Every so often during this music project I come across albums by bands I have heard of but can’t remember for the life of me what their song was that I liked or why I even have them in the collection in the first place.
I’d heard of Polyphonic Spree in rumours, whispers and the occasional collaboration with other artists like Yoko Ono and I wanted to hear more. So, during the Great Internet Download Free-for-All of 2007-2010 I was able to obtain a copy of Fragile Army.
I originally bought this album from Woolworths in Pwllheli while holidaying in my Uncles cottage. I remember being excited at the prospect of being able to listen to it on the record player we had there. And so, in 1986 progressive rock reverberated across the Welsh mountains for a brief moment Heart of the Sunrise leading the charge. That was until I was told to turn the music down.
For some reason, for years I thought the Cocteau Twins were a French band. Turned out Liz Fraser was just singing with a mouthful of gobstoppers or something.
I was never a fan of Tom Hank’s lumbering buffoon Forrest Gump. The film was a little too whimsical for my liking but I felt that the soundtrack was well researched and included a good few classic popular songs from the period of history in which the film is set.
Years ago, before it was ruined by Spotify I used 
Stegzy's Music Project 