A bad week to choose some new canvas shoes

Still, it was worth risking the downpour for the lucky finds I made in Greenwich today.

After devouring a plate of Banks pie & mash (with peas and liquor) at the ever-wonderful Goddard's Pie House (I overdid things by following this with their substantial rhubarb crumble & custard), I swiftly ambled - as best I could, so weighted was I with said dessert, soya mince and pastry - to the Record & 'Tape' Exchange, in the vain hope that those Durutti Column LPs were still there. Indeed there they were, unsnaffled and now a fraction of the previous price. Huzzah.

I was particularly after the one with The Missing Boy on it, an amazing vocal-lead track I heard a decade ago on some compilation or other.
Also waiting on the shelves was 'Spring Hill Fair' by the Go-Betweens, an LP of theirs I never knew existed before my last visit.
Until reading an obituary of the late great Grant Maclennan, I'd always assumed that all of the group's vocals were done by Robert Forster, having never seen them play live. I had similar difficulty as a child in telling the individual Beatles apart vocally, except for Ringo of course.

{Brief interval to herald the splitting of some poor unsuspecting infinitives}

My luck continues; a further flick through that same rack yields 'Me & a Monkey On the Moon' by...



All four albums only set me back twenty-one squid, then I get them home....and they're all flippin amazing!
Side 1 of Spring Hill Fair at last revealed to me the should-be-obvious difference between Maclennan and Forster's vocals, the former's being much gentler.
For the year it came out ('84) and the commercially-styled cover, this album is so wonderfully out-of-place with its era (like most good 80's records), containing unconventional riffs and noises that kick against the perfect pop melodies.
A good example is Part Company. As I write, I have only heard this song once but I can report that whatever I had been doing came to a halt upon hearing the guitar (or is it a squeaking gate?) lurking in the background of this song.

Next up it's Felt.

'A Decade in Music', the inner sleeve declares. Ten LPs and ten singles in ten years was the band's masterplan and in that alone they were successful.
Intimidated by the title of the LP's first track - I Can't Make Love to You Anymore - and the disturbing lyrics to Budgie Jacket which I read on the bus-ride home, I opt for Side 2 first.
It's always weird hearing Lawrence's vocals on a Felt song, seeing as they're poles apart from Denim musically.
Suddenly from the second half of New Day Dawning leaps a grand Teenage Fanclubesque rock-out. This is a total revelation. I had no idea that Felt did this sort of thing. Elsewhere on the LP they sound like Wings, perhaps a taster for the 70's Novelty Rock to come.

The two Durutti Column records are 'Amigos em Portugal/Dedications For Jacqueline' and 'LC'. I'm really stoked that both err on the percussive and clandestine-guitar stuff rather than the electronic funk horror I'd skipped through on their best-of.
Great too that Vini Reilly's vocals are on much of both records.
Mid-listen I was suddenly reminded that they were to play Dingwalls this month. Have I missed it? Bugger, it was last Wednesday. I'm sure that Jim Clarke from Resonance FM would have gone. I'll grit my teeth then ask him whether I missed the best gig ever.


The Missing Boy has just started. So far it sounds as fantastic as I had remembered. The rhubarb crumble should see me through til lunchtime tomorrow...