New to NA: Ghostwoman

Let's be honest, I'm in the second half of middle age. My finger can still feel a pulse, but it is nowhere near on it. That's just the way it is, and also right and proper.

Lucky for me, then, that I still get exposed to plenty of new music, courtesy of Amusements Minor. He's an avid user of Spotify, and has invested enough time and effort in it for the algorithm to have a pretty good symbiotic relationship with him. And, by extension, me.

All of which is longhand for saying that I heard this from AM's Spotify playlist, and rather took to it. That out-of-time chiming guitar line hooked me, the minimalist backbeat and bluesy vocal reeled me in. This is The End of a Gun by Ghostwoman, about who I know very little other than that they are from Canada (I think), this was on their second album, 2023's Anne, If, and they are worth investigating further.

This is their Bandcamp, if you want to hear more. Why wouldn't you?

Oh, and I'm too tired to make a joke about a song that's already three years old being new to me, but you can make your own, I won't be offended...

Monday long song: You Are The Magic

You may have seen in the news that an auction of Johnny Marr's guitars at Christies last week raised more than £3.6 million. Incredible. One guitar, a 1982 Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo, sold for £358,400 ... but then it was used on This Charming Man, Still Ill and What Difference Does It Make? so that's probably fair enough. Spoiler alert: I didn't buy it.

There were also some charity lots, mostly Smiths-era tour posters, and 100% of the sale proceeds of these went to The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and The National Autistic Society. Which was nice.

What you might not know is that the Christies auction brochure was wonderfully detailed, and makes a lovely PDF for those who can't afford Marr's Guitars. If you missed it, don't worry, I didn't, and will make my download available here until someone tells me off for doing so.

Anyway, here's You Are The Magic, a lovely, low-slung piece of lazy haze from all the way back in 2003 when Johnny was still plying his trade as chief Healer.

Blue Friday: Is This What You Really Want?

I sometimes think Dears frontman Murray Lightburn is the Moz it's still socially acceptable to like. From the 2020 album Lovers Rock, here's Is This What You Really Want?

Well nobody wants to die
But does anyone want to live
Another day 
Going through 
the motions

Leaving this behind
I think all of us will miss
Everything upon 
which you left 
A mark

And since
All these years
Is it still the same song?
Can we ever look
Beyond
These sins
From the past
Will lead us to despond
Is this
What you really want?

Are you
Singing the same old song
Or can we ever look
Beyond
These sins
From the past
Will lead us to despond
Is this
What you really want?
La la la la-la
La la la la-la
Are we singing the same old song
Or can we ever look
Beyond
These sins
From the past
Will lead us to despond
Is this
What you really want?
Is this
What you really want?
Is this
What you really want?

Randcamp: Autumn

One way or another, September marks the start of Autumn, whether you go for the meteorological (1st Sept) or the equinox (today). So it seemed like a good subject for this month's Randcamp ... except I had to listen to a whole batch of dreary sixth-form poetry about mists and falling leaves, mostly set to desperately earnest but entirely predictable musical offerings. Sigh. At least I found these three.

The Blue Herons are a jangly duo who even called their song Autumn Leaves but redeemed themselves by singing about a drop in atmospheric pressure in the first line. Okay, so they almost ruined that with a strange pronunciation of "atmospheric" but I let it slide.

Autumn Glow by Boat To Row sounds like what you'd get if you crossed Gavin Osborn with early Jake Bugg. This is a good thing. The track dates from 2010, and their dotcom address just redirects back to Bandcamp, but they were still active in 2021, so who knows?

Peacock Affect is the stage name of a singer-songwriter from Exeter. I chose his take on Autumn because it was so very different from everything else I was hearing as I researched this post. I wonder if maybe he wasn't in a very good place when he wrote this? 'Tis the season for mists and melancholy, after all...

So, three quite different Autumn vibes... Any of them making you want to wrap up warm and go for a trudge through predictable fallen leaves?

Homonyms #8: Loser

For the purposes of this blog, homonyms are different songs with the same title. And for the purposes of my sanity, I'm limiting each post to two songs, however many there may be that fit the bill.

Today we take a detour into self-deprecation, self-effacement, self-pity and maybe even self-loathing.

Our first Loser is by Tame Impala, and is currently pulling up proverbial trees after its inclusion in the recent Spiderman film, Brand New Day. Social traction, if that's even a phrase, has been helped further by an engaging video starring Joe "not just 'Steve Harrington' but also a musician by the name of Djo" Keery. Here it is.

But there's always a bigger fish or, in this case, a bigger loser. I picked up Beck's Loser on 7" vinyl from the Woolworth's bargain bin for 49p, back in the day. I can picture the slightly tatty cover now. This was his third single but first hit, and went top ten all over the place (though only reached #15 in the UK). I have fond memories of trying to decipher the lyrics with my good friend Tim, on late night drives back from wherever. Get crazy with the Cheese Whiz indeed...

Other losers include Limp Bizkit, The Grateful Dead, Motorhead, 3 Doors Down, and probably loads more - we're everywhere, after all.

So, are these lucky losers or a lost cause?

TLAP: Jiddler's Tipple All Day Pale Ale

Having no other inspiration, let's do one more of these.

Jiddler's Tipple All Day Pale Ale

What's it like? Spiel on the artfully textured can emphasises just how citrus this ale is, and you can certainly spot the citra hops, but at no point is it excessively fruity. Some might like a bit more of the claimed maltiness, but the bottom line is that this is a very pleasant beverage, and slips down easily. It does suffer a little from the most common problem for many of the alcohol-free beers I've reviewed so far, namely failing to remind the drinker they are having an ale rather than just a refreshing fruity drink. But pour it into a glass for visual reinforcement and you should be alright. Oh, and you can feel doubly smug as you drink, since the brewery claims its core range is carbon negative. Hooray.

Would I drink it in a pub? Yes.

Would I drink more than one? Maybe.

Would I drink it all night? Probably not. Ironic, given its name.

Stats: 0.5% ABV. Calories 24 kcal/100ml. Currently £2.10 for a 440ml can, from Sainsbury's

Stars: ★★★⯪☆

There's only one song for drinking something all day (and perhaps all of the night too). But since we are all note-perfect on the Kinks original already, how about a faithful French-language cover from Les Terribles?

Sunday shorts: Breaking Glass

"Don't look at the carpet - I drew something awful on it."

Wordle for crate-diggers

For a variety of reasons, blogging has been the last thing on my mind of late. But life goes on.

Here are a couple of websites Amusements Minor has brought to my attention in recent weeks. The first is vinylpeek.com which is basically Catchphrase but without Roy Walker. Instead of Mr Chips acting out some phrase or other, Vinylpeek reveals an album sleeve, one guessed square at a time. The fewer squares you have to reveal to identify the album, the more points you score. Simple. And there's even a leaderboard, so you can see how you compare with the rest of the world.

The second is lessgames.com/songless which is basically Name That Tune but without Tom O'Connor. You can incrementally reveal more and more of a song's intro until you get to the point of being able to identify it, with the obvious intention being to ID it quickly. There are also rock- and hip-hop-specific options you can play - I am generally quite good at one of those, less good at the other (I'll leave it to you to guess which).

I am gratified that Amusements Minor and his generation are playing these games. It gives me a little hope. And sorry if I've added to the list of things the obsessive among us feel compelled to do every day... Anyway, here's a song to end on. No points for the album sleeve or guessing it from the intro, I'm afraid. From The Strokes' occasionally-maligned 2011 album Angles, this is Games.

When a cloud holds the sunshine in

Every streetlight, a reminder