Yurt16

Bruce Springsteen – Winterland Night
Although I had long been a Springsteen fan, it was years before I got to see him live. I didn’t start going to gigs regularly until the nineties and by then, he had broken off contact with the E Street Band and seemed somehow less essential. Hence, it wasn’t until the [...]

The Cardigans – Long Gone Before Daylight
Around the start of this century, I was asked by Robert Duffy to write a column about British music for his nascent website, donewaiting.com. Obviously I was flattered to be asked, and despite my lack of suitability for the role, I eagerly accepted.
I was sill working shifts at [...]

Queen – Greatest Hits
I used to watch a lot of cricket back in 1983. A ‘Schoolboy’ season ticket to watch Northamptonshire cost around £11. We would cycle to the ground, lock our bikes to the crash barriers in the football terraces, and spend the day there watching the game and hanging out with your mates. [...]

Mercury Rev – Yerself Is Steam
This was another of those albums that I read because of a review in a magazine – this time around it was Album of the Month in an issue of Select, with a full page review by Graham Linehan (pre Father Ted).
It was like nothing I’d ever listened to before [...]

The Housemartins – The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death
The understanding in the Sixth Form was that we would apply for Higher Education. University Prospectuses were suddenly everywhere, and our tutor group classes started to focus on how to complete UCCA and PCAS forms.
The Sixth Form was my first (and only) chance to exercise options. [...]

Lush – Scar
I’m not sure where my 4AD obsession crept in. It was probably linked to the Pixies. It was probably linked to Lush.
In 1989 they were an the archetypal 4AD band. They combined the wishy washy vocals of the Cocteaus with the crushing guitars of the Pixies. And they let v23 have creative [...]

Gene – Drawn To The Deep End
After years of fighting the inevitable, my job got outsourced by default. My company merged with another one that was 1 year into a 10 year outsourcing contract with IBM – it stood to reason that the merged IT functions would all be within IBM.
My manager told me [...]

The Breeders – Title Tk
By 2002 I was working shifts again, this time for a Computer Services Company. With 12 hour shifts, an 80 mile (each way) commute, and a job that I could have done with my eyes shut, I wasn’t getting a whole lot of job satisfaction. We had a 17 page ticklist [...]

Tindersticks – Tindersticks

For a while, the Tindersticks were massively important to me. I bought the album in 1994 after it was named Album of the Year in Melody Maker’s Annual Poll, and I fell for its smokey swirly romanticism almost instantly. In my mind, their music feels like the aural equivalent of Patrick Hamilton, smoke-filled [...]

Dire Straits – Alchemy (Live)

I wasn’t always cool. Along with much of the population, I got Brothers In Arms for Christmas 1985, and wanted to follow it up with more of the Dire Straits back catalogue.
I bought Alchemy – a live album that was originally released in 1984, from Our Price in Milton Keynes. [...]