2023: The Best Of The Rest

Before we get to the Top Ten, a brief round up of other noteworthy records I've been listening to this year that I couldn't shoehorn into previous posts.

Karine Polwart didn't have a new album out this year, otherwise she would have been in the Old Faithfuls category. She did, however, release an EP called Seek The Light, from which came one of my favourite tunes of 2023, Windblown. Folk Radio explains the song's background...

"...the story of the old Sabal bermudana palm that was the pride of Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden (RBGE), the oldest specimen in its living collection. Sadly, the plant’s desire to seek the light sealed its own fate. Its towering growth threatened to push through the dome of the garden’s iconic Victorian tropical glasshouse."

Karine Polwart, Dave Milligan & Pippa Murphy - Wind Blown

Staying in Edinburgh, we find local lad (although he was born in London), Dan Wilson, who released his latest Withered Hand record this year. He's hardly what you'd call prolific - this is only his third release since 2009 - but he's always worth a listen.

Withered Hand - Waking Up

Our final Scottish offering comes from another perennial favourite, Daniel Meade, who describes his latest album, Your Madness Is My Medicine, as "a welcome return to the boogie woogie & rock n roll".

Daniel Meade - Your Madness Is My Medicine

Andrew Blackaby comes from London where he became a Born Again Christian at age 13, and then had to fight to extract himself from the grip of his church. His latest record, Comeback Innocence, deals with the extra dollop of teenage angst that ensued...

And we're doing our best, we're doing our best
I guess that much is true
But like Travis Driftwood on The Man Who
I'll drift away from you

Blackaby - Teenage Purity

Another Andrew, though far more Savage than the last, is the co-frontman of New York-via Texas band Parquet Courts. He also does his own thing, and I was rather taken by this single... not just because I like songs about Elvis. It reminds me of Stephen Malkmus.

A. Savage - Elvis In The Army

The Gaslight Anthem came back this year, bringing their old pal / idol Bruce Springsteen along for the ride. Bruce appears to be filling his spare time by guesting on other people's records these days - he's popped up on songs by Bleachers, John Mellencamp, Jesse Malin, Lucinda Williams and probably a load more I haven't come across just yet. Anyway, I've only just started giving serious time to the latest Gaslight Anthem album, but it does appear to be something of a return to form.

The Gaslight Anthem (ft. Bruce Springsteen) - History Books  

The Sleaford Mods are a band I can only take in small doses, because they look and sound like the kind of dodgy geezers you'd steer well clear of if you saw them walking down your local high street on a Saturday night. Still, when they drafted in Florence Shaw from Dry Cleaning to start swearing along with them in her usual deadpan style, they got a sizable amount of plays from me. Extra marks for re-using the title of the 1978 sequel to The Guns of Navarone...

Sleaford Mods feat. Florence Shaw - Force 10 From Navarone 

And while we're here, it's worth mentioning the Mods' "Christmas single", a cover of West End Girls by The Pet Shop Boys which sounds exactly like one of the blokes described above grabbing the mic on Karaoke Night and giving it his "best"... with everybody in the audience too scared to snatch the mic back. All profits going to Shelter though, so you can't knock 'em for it.

Sleaford Mods - West End Girls

Finally, the album that I would have placed at #11 in my Year End Countdown, if I could have been bothered to count past ten. Rare Birds: Hour of Song by ramshackle Welsh wonders The Bug Club is as good as most of my Top Ten, to be fair, but I was annoyed by all the spoken word between-song interludes... to the point that I edited them out to create a music more enjoyable record. A hugely enjoyable purchase, nevertheless...

The Bug Club - We Can't All Play Saxophones

The Bug Club - Short And Round

TV On The Radio #17: Homes Under The Hammer

Homes Under The Hammer is one of many daytime TV shows (like Cash In The Attic, A Place In The Sun and The Antiques Road Trip) that I've never watched an episode of because I have a job. I think it's about auctioning houses. I'm not sure who the target audience is - my dad was a former auctioneer, and he never showed the slightest interest in it. Still, it's been going for 20 years, so someone must be watching it. And as a number of people who read this blog are now reaching retirement age, I imagine you rarely miss an episode. (I wonder if they show it in Portugal?)

You wouldn't imagine there would be many pop stars who spent their time watching Homes Under The Hammer either... except, it's well known that musicians are generally a bunch of work-shy bastards who will do anything to avoid the arduous manual labour of writing a new song. I bet most of them have never missed an episode of Countdown and are over the moon that Neighbours is coming back. Take this guy for example...

Homes Under The Hammer on TV

Midday and I have not done anything

Come first place and didn't try

Someone's saving seven lives

I can barely save Izzy's ice cream

Blackaby - Warm And Sweet

Here's a band with the wonderfully old-fashioned name of Courting, and a song I initially thought was about the Talking Heads man's arse, until I put my glasses on...

Homes Under the Hammer, well, it blares from the bar

Until Daddy picks him up in his European sports car

"A '19 plate?" Well, he muses who made it

"Built in England," he wonders, "a Britishman's labour"

Courting - David Byrne's Bad Side

And here's Bob Mortimer, the half of Vic n Bob that I actually find funny...

Sly Stallone

Is all alone

Sly Stallone

Is in his home

He's all alone

Sly Stallone

He’s been eating

A potato

Suddenly he wakes up

And stares at the potato

Then turns on the TV

Then looks at the potato

He changes the channel

To Homes Under the Hammer

Then looks at his potato

And touches the potato

Bob Mortimer - Sly Stallone

Next up, another lovely little discovery: Colonel Dax. No, not the Kirk Douglas character from Paths Of Glory, but a guy called Tom Hughes from North Wales who likes listening to The Cure.

I'm walking on the pavement across from her old house.

Whoever lives there now is watching Homes Under the Hammer on the couch.

They look like they're a pair who've found what I could never find,

But maybe that's 'cos I'm the type to peek through people's blinds.

It's funny, they're sat in the exact spot I was sitting when she kicked me out.

Colonel Dax - Listening To The Cure

I had a quick look at who the presenters were on Homes Under The Hammer, and I didn't recognise any of them... except for Tommy Walsh. And the only reason I knew his name was because of Nigel Blackwell...

Half Man Half Biscuit - Tommy Walsh's Eco House 

Finally, here's the song that inspired this post, from one of my albums of the year, The Last Rotation of Earth. From listening to this record, it's clear that Brian Camplight rarely leaves his Manchester home, and the most excitement he has in his day is chatting with the Tesco delivery driver. But he's still managed to produce a cracking record. He claims it will be his last, which would be a crying shame, but I guess those daytime TV shows won't watch themselves...

I think I figured it out, it's right in front of me

Inflation or something to do with the Tories

She asks what we're building, I said, "What do you think this is -

Homes Under The Hammer?

I'm the perfect man"