Seen The Tail End

Hey, it's Monday once again... "But the fact is now cut clear, I'm fit and working, dear..."

Merle Haggard - A Working Man Can't Get Nowhere Today
Palace Music - Work Hard/Play Hard
The Fall - Fit And Working Again
Magazine - Model Worker
Chelsea - Right To Work
Queers - I Don't Wanna Work

Cover Story

Six pack time, inna cover stylee. Just some ole personal faves is all. Codeine dissects Joy Division, the Beasts Of Bourbon take on Eddie Noack, and Bob Mould & Vic Chessnut join up to tackle Gram Parsons. The other Elvis runs away with a Bacharach/David classic, Magazine visits the Captain, while the Mo-dettes go and get stoned. Don't forget to buy some albums if you like what you hear ok?

Codeine - Atmosphere
Beasts Of Bourbon - Psycho
Bob Mould & Vic Chessnut - Hickory Wind
Elvis Costello - I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself (live)
Magazine - I Love You, You Big Dummy
Mo-dettes - Paint It Black

Colour Me Gold

"Pretty girl, beware of his heart of gold..." The last installment in this series, as I have plain run out of colours, has got the Midas touch all over it. Postpunk legends Magazine go 007, country pioneer Hank Snow buys a one way ticket, and soul saviour Terry Callier mourns a love affair gone bad. Former Swell Map Nikki Sudden finds his pockets all empty, Britpoppers the Wonder Stuff use a golden banjo, and hiphoppers EPMD fall into a trap. "Oh you big big dummy..." Good stuff? Go buy some of the featured albums, ok?

Magazine - Goldfinger MP3

Hank Snow - The Golden Rocket MP3

Terry Callier - Golden Circle MP3

Nikki Sudden - All The Gold MP3

The Wonder Stuff - Golden Green MP3

EPMD - Gold Digger MP3

Thieves Of Fire

Yes, and here we go again. Another summer tenpack, this time featuring nothing but British postpunk from the late seventies and early eighties. Arguably one of the most interesting periods in the history of pop music, as creativity was running rampant and boundaries were few.

Fall head honcho Mark E. Smith tells it like it is, with a nod to the summer of love:

"Stuck peanuts in my hair, and all the leaves are brown...

I'll be part of the music scene, envy of the choosy set, part of the music scare..."

Instant hits all of them, albeit in a parallel - and better - world. If you like what you hear and haven´t read it yet, head over to your local bookshoppe and pick up Rip It Up And Start Again by Simon Reynolds, a most inspiring standardwork on the postpunk genre.

The Fall - Music Scene MP3

Magazine - Back To Nature MP3

Cabaret Voltaire - Do The Mussolini (Headkick) MP3

Slits - Instant Hit MP3

The Pop Group - Thief Of Fire MP3

A Certain Ratio - Choir MP3

Young Marble Giants - Wurlitzer Jukebox MP3

Gang Of Four - Armalite Rifle MP3

Delta 5 - Mind Your Own Business MP3

Basement 5 - Heavy Traffic MP3

A Secret Understanding

"Why are you so edgy, kid, asks the man with the voice,

one thing follows another, you live and learn, you have no choice..."

Great lines that. Shot By Both Sides was was written by Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley when both were still Buzzcocks, but a punk-desillusioned Devoto ran away with it after forming his own band. Packed in the rather beautiful sleeve pictured above and released in January ´78, both Shot and the sax-driven b-side My Mind Ain´t So Open sounded way punkier than the stately sound Magazine would later explore, probably just because they didn´t yet have a keyboard player at the time of recording these tracks.

The title is said to have come from an argument about politics between Devoto and his girlfriend, who remarked that he´d "end up shot by both sides". Devoto turned this remark into a classic ode to paranoia - "they must have come to a secret understanding..." - where nothing is what it seems and the victims must have been part of the conspiracy all along.

Magazine - Shot By Both Sides MP3

Magazine - My Mind Ain´t So Open MP3