ENOUGH messing about, time to switch the emphasis a bit. This A-Z Challenge is, after all, supposed to be a blog largely about music.
So rather than rattle on about whatever has been grinding my gears in the days before and sticking a few paragraphs on the end about what soundtracked it, about time you joined the journey through the latest section as we meander our way through F from Radiohead to, well, some more Radiohead.
This, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with a quiet few days that has not thrown too much ammunition for a good old rant (although pretty sure could make something from the overhead bus conversations which involved the phrases “I tried to stab him, yeah, but I had a reason… I don’t like him” and “She’s from the Forest. She’s incest”).
So here, with accompanying notes, are the 51 tracks it took to get from one Radiohead song to another.
- Faust Arp – Radiohead
Have a mixed relationship with Radiohead. Can argue they are wonderful and have disappeared up their own behinds in the same conversation and will always put them among the best live bands around.
Very rarely, if ever, revisit any of the albums after OK Computer, they are just a little bit too much like hard work unless you are in the right mood.
But this, like so many of the tracks of those albums, are always welcome when they pop up on the A-Z journey through my iPod.
- Favorite Star – Rival Schools
- Favourite Son – Drenge
- Fazon – Jonathan Wilson
- The Fear – Ben Howard
- Fear City – Elliott Smith
- Fear No Pain – Willy Mason
- Fear Of A Black Planet – Public Enemy
- Fear Of Flying – Teenage Fanclub
- Fear Of The Knife – Skaters
- Feasting – Young Fathers
- Feather Man – Woods
- Feed Me WIth Your Kiss – My Bloody Valentine
- Feed Of Man – Billy Bragg & Wilco
- Feed The Light – Joan As Police Woman
This list of songs was the soundtrack for a bus journey to work – the one with that waterproof defence for an attempted stabbing. All very nice and enjoyable, but a lot of songs which have failed to grab my attention (although turning My Bloody Valentine up to full volume will do that).
Much better to come, starting with…
- Feed The Tree – Belly
One of the reporters in the office celebrated his birthday today, having been born the month one of his colleagues retired from playing rugby, partly through injury and partly because that same newspaper (which would employ him again years later) wanted their new rugby writer to work on a Saturday – although did manage to sit on the bench for several games with a notebook in hand.
Just before that, my previous employers shipped me off to Yate (the sort of place where referees come from) and after spending many lunchtimes in the local record shop, managed to convince them to lend me albums for reviews.
Belly’s debut Star was the first of those and remember describing it as “the year’s first essential purchase”. Stand by that. Still listen to it and this track sounds as good as it always did.
And one of the few songs to mention squirrels.
- Feel – Bombay Bicycle Club
- Feel – House of Love
- Feel – Teenage Fanclub
- Feel Better (FRANK) – The Family Rain
A brief respite – never got a friend’s obsession with House of Love, not one of Teenage Fanclub’s finest and the other two largely unmemorable.
But just when you started to drift off…
- Feel Good Hit Of The Summer – Queens Of The Stone Age
- Feel Good Hit Of The Summer – Queens Of The Stone Age
- Feel Good Hit Of The Summer (Reprise) – Queens Of The Stone Age
‘Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol…’
It’s pretty simple. Repetitive lyrics, driving basslines, a touch of menace and highly likely to leave you singing it to yourself all day. Maybe not always in the most suitable situations.
First heard it on a BBC early evening music show. Not sure they quite knew what they were getting.
‘Co-co-co-co-co-cocaine’
- Feel Good Inc – Gorillaz
Band which seems to improve with each listen and, bizarrely given their cartoon heritage, rather more dimensional than you initially think.
And one of those tracks which provided a title – possibly a tad obvious – for a blog post.
- Feel The Pain – Dinosaur Jr
Always loved this song (great video too) and it brings back some wonderful memories, although not perhaps ones which go with the song.
We had spent the day in the beautiful Badlands of South Dakota and scrambled up to a rocky viewing point to watch a spectacular sunset before heading back to our bus which, with a few tweaks, doubled up as our bed for the night.
Before crawling in to my customary cubby hole to sleep, sat up front to catch the last of the views and bonded with our newly-arrived driver Charlie over his choice of Dinosaur Jr to guide him through our long overnight journey to a strange encounter with some cheese,
- Feel To Believe – Beth Orton
- Feel To Follow – The Maccabees
- Feel You – Julia Holter
The next album is likely to take my iPod over the 13,000 track mark. Part of the idea of this A-Z journey through them was to unearth a few hidden gems.
Nothing to see here.
- Feelgood By Numbers – The Go! Team
One of those bands who burst from nowhere and largely vanished just as quickly. They deserve to be remembered, if only due to one tale from office days gone by.
A former colleague (then a reporter, now a senior figure in a large local newspaper group, editor and Dave Gorman lookalike) declined the customary drink after work because he was off to watch The Go! Team.
Talk the next day, however, was not about the gig but the night in casualty caused by a stagediving bass player landing on top of him.
And the fact his friend and erstwhile colleague was more concerned about chatting to the female paramedic.
- Feeling A Moment – Feeder
- Feeling Alright – Warpaint
- Feeling Better – Sugar
- Feeling Called Love – Wire
Good little run this from some fine bands, although none of them at their best.
Not sure what it says about me that my main reaction looking at that list is that Warpaint need a sub for their song titles.
- Feeling Gravitys Pull – REM
There’s some fantastic songs in this little section and this just about tops the lot.
From a time when they seemed incapable of writing a bad song, this is one of their best and another that gave its name to a blog post title from a lengthy journey it played a key part in soundtracking.
Those opening guitar notes take me back to arriving at Newport Centre to discover they had gone on stage rather earlier than expected and running (it was a long time ago) to catch a contender for my favourite gig just before they got too big to play places that small.
- Feeling Oblivion – Turin Brakes
Largely ignored Turin Brakes for too long, dismissing their fine debut LP as little more than part of the short-lived, largely forgotten quiet is the new loud movement.
Almost stumbled in to seeing them live by accident and remembered how good they can be. Don’t discount them so easily.
- Feeling So Strange Again – The Wolfhounds
- Feeling The Strain – Lee Griffiths
No, have no idea either. Unearthed some real gems on free CDs from magazines, Uncut in particular. But there’s an awful lot on my iPod that have me scratching my head about how it got there.
- Feeling This – Blink 182
Not a guilty pleasure, no reason to feel guilty. But like a fair few of their songs and this one brings back memories of bouncing around in the back of a big yellow truck around Africa.
- Feeling Yourself Disintegrate – The Flaming Lips
Another of those bands which never quite made my mind up about. When they are good, they are well worth a listen. But don’t quite get the awe in which some people hold them.
- Feels Like Fire – Ryan Adams
Chances are on this journey through my iPod, you are never too far away from a Ryan Adams track. Without wading through the whole of my collection, pretty confident he appears more than any other artist – certainly tops the 300 track mark.
There’s an argument that he (and we) would be better off being a bit more selective and this comes from one of those albums which never quite lived up to the early promise. Still good mind.
Good odds on a Wedding Present track being not that far away…
- Feels Like We Only Go Backwards – Tame Impala
- (Feels Like) Heaven – Fiction Factory
- Feet For Hands – Everything Everything
It’s all getting a bit eclectic isn’t it? Fun though.
- Feet Of Clay – Vashti Bunyan
All very nice and there courtesy of a raid on a former housemate’s CD collection but, to quote the great philosopher Nigel Blackwell, I want a sun tan, not Vashti Bunyan
- Felicity – The Wedding Present
- Felicity – The Wedding Present
Told you… two versions of an early track that had completely forgotten was a cover of an Orange Juice track. Quite surprising as have the original somewhere.
In a musical dictionary somewhere, there’s a picture of Dave Gedge as the definition of jingly-jangly indie guitar music. Which was basically my life for many years.
- Fell In Love With A Girl – The White Stripes
Another one of those bands that pop up pretty often on this trip, but haven’t always convinced me. This is a pretty good place to start.
- Felt Good To Burn – The Flaming Lips
- Feltham Is Singing Out – Hard-Fi
What was that about? Have an excuse with stuff from free sampler CDS, but actually spent money on this.
- Femme Fatale – The Velvet Underground
- Feral – Radiohead
And so, as the headphones come out on the door through the office, we reach our destination. For now at least.
Sure we’ll be back to the usual ramblings pretty soon.
