And as if that wasn’t enough, he also supported both Mott the Hoople and Ian Dury and the Blockheads. There’s a story that he was supporting a band one time, and came on to a young, hostile crowd. He sat behind the drum kit, bashed hell out of it randomly making a complete cacophony, then turned to the audience and said, ‘It never leaves you.’

Anyway, in 1977, he covered an Ian Dury song, ‘England’s Glory’ for a single on Stiff Records. The B-side, ‘Dream Tobacco’, is one of his own compositions, and it’s great. It’s a song about marijuana. Imagine any other comic of his generation singing about that – Frankie Howerd singing about crack cocaine, or Morecambe and Wise doing a long, Velvet Underground type number about heroin.

Now, while ‘England’s Glory’ is easy enough to find on CD on various compilations. ‘Dream Tobacco’, in many ways the stronger cut, is missing in action. The only way you can get it is on a lovely CD available only from the Max Wall Society, but that’s a different version – a home recording from the 1970s.

In an ideal world, somebody would read this blog and instantly put out a new Max Wall CD. But sadly, we don’t live in that world. We live in a world of economic crisis and endless pointless wars against Third World nations and Simon Cowell.

And the only cure for that is listening to – and not using, kids – ‘Dream Tobacco’.

DAMAGED !! PACKAGING!!!!

Even just typing them into my blog has nearly made me shit myself.

One of the reasons I hate downloads so much is because they all but dispense with one of the things I’ve always loved about records – the sleeve designs.

When I was a teenager and had just started buying albums, I used to pore over the covers, sometimes laying all my vinyl albums down onto the floor of the living room to form a giant, patchwork square of colourful awesomeness. The punk and new wave vinyl discs in my collection were all clothed in amazing imagery and typography, because that was a golden age of graphic design in pop music, with giants like Barney Bubbles, Jamie Reid and, a bit later, Winston Smith bestriding the land. The covers the records came in seemed to be part of what made them so fascinating, forbidden and even slightly scary.

Compare that with the crappy little square of pixels that appears on your computer when you play a track by, say, whatever pop moron Simon Cowell has decided to shit out onto the nation’s ears this month, that you’ve fuckwittedly downloaded from iTunes or wherever.

So even in the age of CDs, the cover design is still important to me. It may be printed out in disappointingly puny dimensions compared with the sleeve of a mighty 12″ vinyl album, but it still holds it own distinct charm.

That’s why I was so disappointed last week to receive a Mojo Nixon CD that I’d ordered from the ‘used and new’ section of Amazon. Now the thing is, I should be pleased. For those of you who don’t know Mojo, his music could perhaps best be described as what you might get if you gave a couple of the psychopathic hillbillies from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre guitars and percussion and told them to do what they wanted with them. Thus, you get frantic strumming, goofy yelling, and lyrics along the lines of…

I hate banks, I just can’t stand ‘em

Gimme a shovel and, man, I’ll plant ‘em

Six feet under, that’s where they belong

I hate banks, that’s the name o’ this song

So yes, I had no complaints about the music the CD contained. The problem was that THE SLEEVE WAS DAMAGED! It looked as if the previous owner had decided to use the sleeve of his Mojo CD as a kind of impromptu flannel, washing his face with it before drying it on the radiator afterwards only to leave it shrivelled and slightly shredded. The CD had been described as being in a ‘good’ condition, and in fairness, the disc itself actually is, even if the sleeve should more fairly be described as ‘disappointingly soiled’.

I suppose it’ll serve me right for being a cheapskate and ordering the cheapest copy there. Having said that I only paid eleven quid for it, whereas the cheapest copy Amazon is currently offering would set me back over thirty.

Or of course, I could always buy the download version for £3.99, and settle for a crappy little square of pixels on my computer screen.

Ugh… [shudder]

Of course Cowell will never let this happen next year. They’re already talking about changing the scheduling of the X Factor final to maximise its chances for the yuletide top pop spot, and Cowell claims he’s offered the Morters a job. The best way of stopping puny humans from slaying you is simply to put them on the payroll. If that doesn’t work, no doubt Cowell will bring in a crack squad of fake-tanned stormtroopers who will break into our homes and superglue iPods to our ears playing downloads of whatever crappy cover version he decides to inflict on us on a permanent loop at full volume.

But for the sake of argument, what should be number one next Christmas?

Well, if you want to set up a Facebook campaign of your own, you could do worse than consider one of these festive aural treats to put in the centre of your campaign.

El Vez: ‘Feliz Navidad’

El Vez used to be a member of a terrific early Southern Californian punk band called the Zeroes, who were known as the Mexican Ramones. I urge you to check out their single ‘Wimp’ if you don’t know it already – it’s an absolute belter. Now Robert Lopez has become El Vez, the so-called Mexican Elvis, although he dopesn’t sound a lot like Presley. His Christmas album has some top tunes. There’s a manic rockabilly zip through ‘Sleigh Ride’, a psychotic hispanic take on ‘The Night Before Christmas’ entitled ‘Poncho Claus’, and a truly wonderful version of the overrated ‘White Christmas’, renamed ‘Brown Christmas’ as a nod to El Vez’s ethnicity. But the real stand-out is a punked-up version of Jose Feliciano’s ‘Feliz Navidad’, which grafts on the intro and solo from PiL’s debut single ‘Public Image’ with surprising effortlessness.

Darlene Love: ‘Marshmallow World’

I might shock you here, but I think Phil Spector’s album A Christmas Gift to You is pretty overrated. It’s good, yes, but it’s just so ridiculously overproduced. It’s as if he kept on adding more and more sickly layers of strings, brass, backing vocals and sleigh bells, and anyone who questioned the wisdom of this provoked him to turn around and shoot them in the face. The end result is like very sweet sweets that have been coated in marshmallow and dipped in sugar then dropped into a jar of syrup. Then sprinkled with icing sugar. As a result, the best ones are the ones that have a bit of raucousness left in them, and ‘Marshmallow World’ is probably my favourite.

Beck: ‘The Little Drum Machine Boy’

This is from an album beautifully titled Just Say Noel that Geffen put out in the 90s. It promised great things – a nice sleeve design, and songs with great titles. Sadly, they don’t all live up to what they promise. Sonic Youth’s ‘Santa Doesn’t Cop Out on Dope’ turns out to be a novelty shout-fest that gets old very quickly. The Roots’ ‘Millie Pulled a Gun on Santa’ turns out to be a rap where you can barely hear the words, which is about as pointless as an X Factor record that you can’t smash with a hammer. There are some good ones in there, though. The absolute pick is Ted Hawkins’ ‘Amazing Grace’, done with devastating simplicity. Just an acoustic guitar and a gravelly voice that’s so abrasive it tears through your very soul. It’s not exactly a Christmas song though, so instead I’ve plumped for the Beck tune, which is a melancholy piece of electro percussion weirdness with a very beautiful passage of pseudo classical Christmas music in the middle, which I imagine he might have sampled from somwhere else. It’s a grower.

Frank Sinatra: ‘Jingle Bells’

If any time of year is right for this allegedly drunken, violent and mob-friendly crooner, surely it’s Christmas time? He certainly had a way with a festive tune, and the version of ‘Jingle Bells’ that’s included on the Columbia Records album Christmas Songs by Sinatra is a heartwarming seasonal classic.

James Brown: ‘Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto’

How could you not love a song with a title like that? The actual tune is a righteous funk protest song that manages to be upbeat whilst talking about poverty, and it clocks in at exactly three minutes.  The whole of Brown’s Funky Christmas album is terrific, and the Funkmeister General was a proper festive figure, even going to the trouble of dying on Christmas Day.

Swinging Buildings: ‘Praying for a Cheaper Christmas’

I taped this off John Peel in the early 80s, and used to listen to the cassette most Christmases. Unfortunately I made the cardinal error of not removing the tab in the corner of the cassette, and one fateful year I hit record by mistake, creating a monstrous drop-out. D’oh!! A few years later, I tracked down a CD called Ghosts of Christmas Past with ‘Praying for a Cheaper Christmas’ on it, and it sounded as good as ever. It’s a doomy synth-pop thing with eerie, processed vocals in the chorus that have been slightly Pinky-and-Perkied. ‘Christmas!/ Christmas!/ Pray for a Cheaper!’ goes the chant. Imagine that floating out of your radio speaker on Christmas morning – your granny would shit herself.

Eels: ‘Everything’s Gonna Be Cool This Christmas’

I came across this on the excellent XFM/Jeepster compilation It’s a Cool, Cool Christmas, released in 2000. It’s an absolutely belting Christmas song, that manages somehow to be as hard-rockin’ as it is heartwarming. The first chorus kicks in nice and early, and just when you’re starting to get really excited it takes things to a new level when lead singer E announces ‘Baby Jesus – born to rock!’ Quite simply perfect, and in a world with any real musical sense, this would be easily as hardy a perennial as Slade’s ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’.

Ella Fitzgerald: ‘Santa Claus Got Stuck Up My Chimney’

Back in the 1990s I bought a CD called Christmas Time Again… which is chock full of old fashioned songs by the likes of Bing Crosby, Mel Torme and the Andrews Sisters. This is one of my favourites, with Ella’s voice sounding so warm and sweet that listening to it is like having honey poured into your ear. Plus there’s the whole cheeky innuendo to keep you amused – stuck up her chimney indeed!

Louis Armstrong: ‘Zat You Santa Claus’

Sound effects of howling wind, the kind of jazz tune which suggests a cartoon wolf creeping up behind a cartoon bunny, and Armstrong’s circular saw rasp all conspire to make a classic Christmas tune. Another one I came across on the Christmas Time Again… album.

Teresa Brewer: ‘Christmas Cookies & Holiday Hearts’

A third pick from Christmas Time Again…, this is so old-fashioned, square and cheerful that it’s positively weird. It’ll only take up one minute and thirty seconds of your time, but I guarantee that you’ll be singing along by the end.

Oscar McLollie & his Honey Jumpers: ‘Dig That Crazy Santa Claus’

This is from an Ace Records compilation called Rhythm & Blues Christmas, which doesn’t have a bad song on it. It was very hard to pick any one song out, but this one clinched it in the end on the strength of the band’s name – Oscar McLollie is an amazing enough name as it is before you even start to consider his Honey Jumpers – and obviously for the crazy rock’n'roll song that it is. Any record which contains the line ‘All the little hep cats jump for joy’ has got to be worth listening to.

Billy Childish and the Musicians of the British Empire: ‘Christmas 1979′

Who’d have thought a bloke from Chatham could make such blisteringly good garage punk’n'roll for such a long time? Dressed like something from the First World War, the moustachioed Childish casts a distinctive shadow across British culture, and this is the title track of a whole album of belters, many of which are taken from Childish’s own back catalogue but with the lyrics changed to make them more Christmassy – ‘Strood Lights’ becomes ‘Christmas Lights’, ‘Poundland Poets’ becomes ‘A Poundland Christmas’, and so on. ‘Christmas 1979′ tells the story of a particularly hellish Christmas which Childish endured thirty years ago. Coming home after ‘playing punk in Hamburg’, he is greeted by his drunken father who throws a TV set across the room and shouts, ‘Merry fucking Christmas to you all’ – repeatedly. That’s the final chant of the song – imagine how cool it would be if that was Christmas number one. To add an extra seasonal twist, I was walking along the beach in Whitstable with my family on the afternoon of Christmas Day this year, and walked past Childish and his wife. I couldn’t resist acknowledging them, so I wished them a Merry Christmas, and received one in return. Just the conventional kind, mind you, not ‘Merry fucking Christmas to you all’.

Pete Seeger: ‘Mary Had a Baby’

Eating chicken soup is a traditional remedy for the common cold, which is fine unless – like me – you’re a vegetarian. Having said that, I remember how yummy and comforting chicken soup was, so I really understand the idea. For me, Pete Seeger is the musical equivalent of chicken soup. No matter what mood I’m in, I can whack a Pete Seeger record on and everything seems better. His banjo (or his guitar or pipes or whatever he’s playing at the time) is twangingly sublime and his singing is soft and gentle enought to make you feel as if you’re being snuggled up by someone you love. I’ve always thought he sounds a bit like a character from Sesame Street – assuming Sesame Street would ever make a muppet of a nonagenarian communist folksinger. Every song on Seeger’s album Traditional Christmas Carols is simply perfect, which makes choosing just one  from it impossible. In the end I decided on this one, but any of the others would have been equally good.

Sufjan Stevens: ‘Come On! Let’s Boogie to the Elf Dance!’

The story goes that every year between 2001 and 2006 (except 2004 for some reason), Sufjan Stevens recorded a special Christmas CD for his friends and family. Then in 2007, Rough Trade released them. Not as a compilation, mind you, but as a five-disc box set, each in a little card sleeve with delightful art work. Plus a free poster-cum-comic-book, plus a songbook with stories and lyrics, plus a sticker sheet. Each year’s record is as it was originally – you get the whole lot. And you can get it for under fifteen quid. I knew very little about Sufjan Stevens before I got this, only really having heard of him through a little comic book I got at a Josie Long gig. So the box set was a bit of a risk, but goodness me, did it pay off? I should say so! As with the Seeger record, every song is simply perfect. It’s delicate without being prissy, folksy but cool and subcultural, and richly but simply arranged. The songs range from traditional and religious to wacky originals, but the differences in tone are never jarring. Again, impossible to choose one song, but this one will do, not least because of the excellent title.

So there you go, Tracy and Jon Morter. If you want to try and hit Cowell in the face again next year, why not do it with one of these copper-bottomed Christmas classics?

A famous example is Buddy Holly’s manager Norman Petty, who probably helped Holly to develop artistically, but undoubtedly ripped him off by writing his own name into the songwriting credits. Indeed, if Holly hadn’t been so badly shafted financially, he might not have been forced to do the Winter Dance Party tour which led his horrible plane-smashy demise.

Simlarly, the sublime ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love’ was written by Frankie Lymon and fellow Teenagers Herman Santiago and Jimmy Merchant, but producer George Goldner changed the credits to write himself into them and Santiago and Merchant out of them. He later transferred the credits to Morris Levy as part of a business deal. It took Santiago and Merchant until 1992 to get themselves recognised as the song’s co-writers – that’s 36 years. Meanwhile, the song had become one of the most played songs on the world’s radios, accruing industrial quantities of royalties. However, the story has one final, bitter twist, because in 1996, the ruling was overturned, and once again Santiago and Merchant found themselves airbrushed out of the song’s magnicent history.

Things changed in the 1960s, and bands like the Beatles had much more artistic and financial control over their work. In the 1970s, punk put the artist on top, as record companies realised they didn’t have a clue about what young people were listening to, and started chasing the new bands right, left and centre. Hence the Sex Pistols getting massive payouts from EMI and A&M for doing, well, pretty much sod all. Having said that, it still didn’t stop them having to battle their manager Malcolm McLaren in the courts to get their fair share of their earnings.

In the early 1980s, even mainstream pop artists were innovative, interesting, and in control of their work. Take the Human League, for example. Dyed in the wool socialists from South Yorkshire, pioneering synthesized pop sung by a man with long hair only on one side of his head and pierced nipples before anyone else had even thought of piercing nipples. And song lyrics covering anything from the exploitation of silk worms to Judge Dredd cartoons to the plot of A Star is Born. And this bunch of total eccentrics were on Top of the Pops and the front page of Smash Hits, for heaven’s sake!

Cut to 2009, and Simon Cowell looks down from his magnificent castle built from pure shite, and gloats in the knowledge that he totally dominates the the pop landscape he surveys. The Christmas number one is his and his alone, and it will be for the next 1,000 years. Lord Cowell constantly wears designer ear-muffs around his neck which he can whip on to protect him in case he should accidentally hear any of the brain-meltingly awful records he spews out. He enjoys effectively hours and hours’ worth of free advertising on prime time ITV1 for weeks and weeks, thus ensuring the maximum sales for his toxic products.

And crucially, he has ended the power struggle. The artists have lost and the managers have won. Under the guise of being democratic (‘I’ll turn an ordinary member of the public into a pop star!’), he’s actually created a situation where the artist not only has no artistic control whatsoever, but also have to pay a huge tithe from the  money their records earn to him.

But what’s that I hear in the distance?

A plucky band of rebels has set up a Facebook page to try and knock Cowell’s latest stinking pop stool from being pooped into the Christmas number one spot. They’re asking people to buy Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Killing in the Name’, so that it becomes the yuletide chart topper instead.

I’m not a particular fan of RATM, but as soon as I heard about this, I thought it was a brilliantly funny idea. A rap-metal song with the punchline, ‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me’ topping the charts over Christmas? Hilarious!

Now it’s more than funny, it’s positively thrilling. The Facebook group has over 800,000 members and RATM are apparently 65,000 ahead of Cowell’s nonsense in the midweek charts.

So I urge you to join the Facebook group straight away, and buy the single from one of the chart outlet sites it lists. It’ll cost you less than a quid for getting the chance to ruin Cowell’s Christmas.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2228594104&ref=ts

In the Pop Wars saga, it’s time for the Artist to Strike Back.

I bought two of the three singles from Run DMC’s Raising Hell album, then the album itself. I was pining for the abrasiveness of punk, so the combination of funky beats, loud guitars and crazy shouty vocals really got me going.

A few months ago, I thought I’d treat myself to a CD of Run DMC’s Greatest Hits. All good stuff, but one thing niggles me – it uses the album version of ‘Walk This Way’. It’s only slightly different from the single version, but that’s not the freaking point! I’m a music obsessive! One beat out of place and I WILL FREAKING WELL NOTICE IT!!

It’s not that the album version is bad, it’s just that I’d prefer having the single version. If I wanted the album version, I could have just bought the Raising Hell reissue. But where can I go if I want the single version?

There are at least two other Run DMC compilations I could try, but when they list the song ‘Walk This Way’, how do I know if they mean the single version or the album version?

The problem is that although song titles sometimes include brackets to let you know exactly which version of the song you’re getting [e.g. 'Walk This Way (album version)'], most of the time, the compiler can’t be arsed. They’re probably not even aware that there are different versions. ‘Shove any old thing onto the CD, the record buying public won’t care,’ they probably say to themselves as the dance to the pinging of the cash registers.

But we do freaking well care!

It gets worse in other cases. Little Richard, for example, recorded some of his famous tunes several times over. If you want to get the authentic Specialty Records version of ‘Tutti Frutti’, you’re going to have to be pretty flipping careful what you buy. I’ve already blogged about the fact that the version of the Here’s Little Richard album which Hallmark put out recently contains what sound like alternative takes of the original tracks put out on the authentic Specialty album. It sounds like it was mastered from an old cassette which the engineer had taped from a friend of his brother in the early 1970s. Or something.

Still worse is the situation where the single version had never even been released digitally. Since Dead Kennedys’ catalogue has come under the control of Ray/Flouride/Peligro they’ve thoroughly milked that cash cow, squeezing out any old tat. But they’ve never bothered to put out the single version of ‘Bleed for Me’ for some reason, even though most right-thinking folks would prefer it to the album version from Plastic Surgery Disasters.

So, a quick word to anybody who’s involved in putting out compilations on CD – when you list the songs on your record, please let us know which version you’ve included.

That way anybody wanting to get their hands on some classic Run DMC tunes will know precisely which way they’re walking.

In reality, I’ve got enough money to order a package from Amazon every couple of weeks, I live in a terraced house so I can never blast my records out at the volume they deserve, and crucially, I don’t have that much time to listen to stuff anyway.

This gives me a slightly weird approach to buying records. A couple of years ago, I got an amazing 4-disc set of rock’n'roll stuff from Proper Records for about a tenner: http://www.propermusic.com/products.asp?recnumber=702  The problem was that although it’s completely brilliant, I remember thinking to myself, ‘Wow, there must be five or six hours’ worth of music here – it’ll take me about a year to get through this.’

So buying records makes me happy. But also slightly anxious.

Bizarre.

So with this in mind, I haven’t bought anything for at least a month. Strangely I’ve been quite enjoying it. The anxiety’s gone away, and I’ve started really enjoying listening to older records in my collection. Plus buying no records is completely free of charge.

Having said this, I’m already started to plan what’s going into my next Amazon order. What’s it going to contain? That Barry Myers reggae compilation, maybe? Or perhaps I should get They Might Be Giants’ classic Flood album, as my old vinyl copy’s completely knackered? Or maybe even that box set of Little Richard’s first three Specialty albums that I’ve been eyeing up for so long?

Actually, probably not that one – it’ll take me too long to get through.

I was trying to remember what this reminded me of, and suddenly it came to me. It was exactly like when Captain Picard talks to the captain of a hostile Klingon ship on Star Trek.

Anyway, as a man whose main form of political protest is shouting at the TV, I needed some way of dealing with the fact that there are apparently so many racists around. I quickly found a really good way of doing this, and it’s so great that I’d like to share it with you.

Basically, in the few weeks following the Victory of the Ignoroids in the Euro elections, I had a policy of only listening to black music whilst driving in my car. An I-Roy compilation was a big favourite, as was a triple disc set of 1960s Motown hits. Being the summer, I was driving with my windows right down, and on the assumption that any passer-by might be some kind of slack-jawed BNP fan, I TURNED THE VOLUME UP SO HIGH THAT THE BASSLINES MADE THE WHOLE CAR VIBRATE.

The idea that any racist I happened to pass would have been pissed off at being subjected to a righteous blast of the sweet sounds of Barrett Strong or the mighty I-Roy was surprisingly comforting to me.

Seriously, I’d recommend it. Imagine the effect of every right thinking person in this nation blasting De La Soul or Aretha Franklin or Bad Brains out of their car windows.

That’s my idea of revolution.

In 1995, Britpop was dominating the charts.

In 1995, I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be brilliant if somebody did a charity album of Britpop bands doings British children’s TV themes?”

I even fantasized about making up a dream track listing for such an album and posting up onto a newfangled thing I’d heard of called “the internet” and seeing whether anybody would run with the idea. That never happened, because I didn’t get internet access until 1997, by which time the Britpop bands had already started to split up and disappear. Plus I couldn’t be arsed.

Anyway, I haven’t posted anything on my blog for ages, so I thought I’d finally share the perfect track listing for a Britpop/children’s telly album by way of making a spectacular return for both of my readers.

So here, with links to each theme tune and each band (so you can hear the glory of what could have been in your mind’s ear) is a track-by-track breakdown of the greatest album that never was, complete with sleeve design.

Enjoy!

Track One: Lush – Play Away

Lush could do delicious girlpunk (‘Single Girl’) or poppier material (’500′) with equal  verve. Imagine them taking on the theme tune to this Brian Cant fronted, rainy-Saturday-afternoon-relieving classic, and weep for the fact it will never happen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rxkwy3WY0I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JzDr9YNuH8

Track Two: Supergrass – Rainbow

Supergrass always seemed to come from an idealised version of the early 1970s, and their massivest hit, ‘Alright’, could well have been a children’s TV theme. So imagine Gaz’s voice belting out the theme to the show that gave the world Bungle, George and Zippy. Thinking about it, he even actually sounds a little bit like Zippy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNtrCmFE3OA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6i8KmIKv5I

Track Three: Blur – Magpie

Magpie was a kind of funkier version of Blue Peter. One of the presenters (Mick Robinson) was a tank-top clad, afro-sporting freak, and another (Jenny Hanley) was a former Bond girl. Listen to the theme tune and Blur’s unfairly derided single ‘Country House’ via the links below, and they’ll sort of blend together in your head into an absolutely top tune. Incidentally, Jenny Hanley once signed my Magpie annual at a school fete.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWqXZEngVc8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci0fyRAw21Q

Track Four: Oasis – Jamie and the Magic Torch

Oasis have managed to shift stupid numbers of units essentially by spot welding vaguely tuneful tunes to a kind of plodding, overdriven Mancunian roar. Jamie and the Magic Torch was a cartoon which entertained millions of kids who’d come home from school for their dinner with tales of a kid whose magic torch took him off for nocturnal adventures – with his talking dog. Listen to the theme tune (via the link) and you’ll instantly be able to imagine Liam’s nasal northern whine belting it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_FQKHQDYk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1EzpPCjHUk

Track Five: Pulp – Record Breakers

The problem with Pulp was deciding which theme tune to give them, because they could have done each and every one of them with an equal amount of sheer brilliance. Eventually I plumped for the theme tune of the show that made Roy Castle the man he was. Imagine Jarvis’s camply melodramatic voice bitterly rushing through lines like, ‘If you’re the tallest, the smallest, if you beat them all/ If you’re the fattest, the thinnest, if you always win/ If you’re the fastest, the slowest, if you really go/ Then you’re a record breaker!’ Jarvis, if you ever read this, it’s not too late for this idea, as you’ve still got a healthy solo career. Do it!! Go on, do it!!!

http://www.televisiontunes.com/Record_Breakers.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqgXzPfAxjo

Track Six: Echobelly - Rentaghost

Echobelly were definitely one of the shitter members of the Britpop contingent, the occasional pop gem (‘Great Things’) not quite making up for their usual whinging Smiths retreads. However, they couldn’t have failed to score with the delightfully catchy theme to Rentaghost, given that they were always at their best when doing poppier, more upbeat songs. ‘If your mansion house needs haunting just call Rentaghost!’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fuu9QVlrVw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aplgV-0tlbQ

Track Seven: Boo Radleys – Tiswas

Like Supergrass (only not as good, obviously), the Boo Radleys could knock together pretty convincing pastiches of mid-70s pop. ‘Wake Up Boo’ is the obvious example, sounding like something Kellogg’s might have used in 1974 to accompany images of gingham-clad mums pouring cornflakes into a stripy bowl while the sun shines blindingly through the gleaming window. So they’d be damn near perfect to cover the tune that heralded the beginning of what always seemed like about seven hours of Saturday morning flan-flinging mayhem fronted by that noted anarchist, er, Chris Tarrant.

http://www.televisiontunes.com/Tiswas.html

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WumSB0vZ5l8

Track Eight: Sleeper – Rupert the Bear

Despite being fronted by the mildly annoying Louise Wener, whose mouthiness always overshadowed her talent, Sleeper put out some great singles, particularly ‘Inbetweener’. Given the jaded cynicism of her own lyrics, it’d be very good fun indeed to hear her singing about ‘a little bear that you’ve never seen before’, and the thumper-thumper rhythm of the original would suit Sleeper’s style to a T.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh6rt49or-k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9K1DKzDs08

Track Nine: Menswear – ‘Time Flies by When You’re the Driver of a Train’ (from Chigley)

Menswear were huge for about ten seconds, and went from height-of-fashion to symptom-of-everything-rubbish-about-Britpop in the blink of an eye. In spite of that, they made one great pop single, ‘Daydreamer’, and somehow its fake postpunk chunk-chunk-chunk would sound completely awesome if grafted onto this charming little Brian Cant voiced tune from Chigley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-hQ6-biWoo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmBoEUG4-aM

Track Ten: Suede – Captain Scarlet

Although Suede were never one of my favourites, I can’t deny that Brett’s slightly forced Bowie-camp vocals would completely rock the Captain Scarlet theme. And it was pretty blimmin’ rocking to begin with!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwhMl60b668

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaEc_5abpfA

Track Eleven: Dubstar – Cloppa Castle

Dubstar are probably the most obscure Britpop band here, so it’s kind of fitting that they should be assigned to cover the them tune to what is probably the most obscure children’s show here. Dubstar made the unlikely connection between electro pop and northern kitchen sink subject matter. The trumpets on the original version of this tune could easily be replaced with synths, and somehow the northern deadpan vocals would just really work on this song. Incidentally, the Cloppa Castle theme has always reminded me of an Elvis Costello b-side called ‘Talking in the Dark’. Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQMQT6EwN6U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X9oykOycwg

Track Twelve: Elastica – Double Deckers

The only thing wrong with Elastica was that they were so lazy, only producing two studio albums, with a four-year hiatus in between. They were shameless thieves, nicking tunes from The Stranglers, Blondie and, most shamelessly of all, Wire, but they made such an enjoyable racket that I never resented them for it. ‘Double Deckers’ was one of the best theme tunes ever, and Elastica could have ripped through it like a chainsaw through cake, leaving nothing but a yummy mess behind. It would have been a great way to finish the perfect album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4C6Pe86YE4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtAwWQzJlUw

And finally, here’s what the sleeve would have looked like:

Apparently they were a Japanese combo of the late 1970s and 1980s, and the ‘Robot’ single is an absolute belter. Clanking but catchy keyboards, chanted names of big corporations, and a solo by – wait for it- a Speak and Spell toy. What’s not to like??

I googled them, and a picture of one of their album sleeves stirred memories of an advert in Smash Hits that I saw when I was about 15. As I remember it, it  was on sale at a relatively cheap price, and the ad had the pun-crazed and casually racist headline: NIPS SPIN SNIP. They’re Japanese, you see? (NIPS) And they have a record out. (SPIN) And it’s cheap. (SNIP) Give that advertising copywriter a biscuit! Apparently it’s OK to use a racial slur as long as it helps you put together some deft wordplay.

Anyway, the point I’m coming to is that one of the reasons I googled them was that I liked the song enough to want to get them on CD. But they haven’t had a CD reissue since the 1990s, and the prices for the only one you seem to be able to get on Amazon’s UK site range from £60.63 to an extraordinary £141.31. Plus shipping.

We’ve always been told that capitalism is good with number when it comes to money – well, we were before the banking crisis, obviously. Think about the laws of supply and demand, and these figure tell you one thing: there’s a market out there for the Plastics. So come on, record companies, we’ve got the demand – now supply us.

(Oh, and for my regular reader – singular – Barney Bubbles, Jamie Reid, Stranglers)

But last night I went to the Forum to see Devo play the whole of their magnificent first album. The audience was as colourful as you’d hope for. At the front there was a guy with a quiff bigger than the ones that the Stray Cats used to wear, and a long bit at the back that made it look like an unholy mullet-quiff hybrid. There were loads of people in red plastic ‘energy domes’, and one guy was wearing it with the yellow plastic jumpsuit, thus mixing and matching different eras of Devo. He was very, very short, so much so that for a second I mistook him for one of those Devo action figures you can buy.

The age range was surprising, going from teenagers to portly middle-aged men in ‘Are We Not Men?’ T-shirts. I particularly liked a family group I saw, with mum and dad bringing along their nearly grown-up kids along. All of them were in energy domes, but the kids’ ones were home-made as if dad had said, ‘Well, darling, I’ll happily shell out twenty quid each for a crappy plastic hat for you and me, but the children will have to fend for themselves!’

The support band, Robots in Disguise, were great fun. Three young ladies in slinky punky outfits, who probably have as many X-Ray Spex, Delta 5 and Au Pairs records as you’d ever actually need. They looked like they were having a blast as they kicked out a racket that sounded like music from before they were born. Oh, and they had a couple of dancers in cardboard robot suits. Fab!

One thing you could never accuse Devo of is looking incongruously young. Most of them look fat and knackered, which is not surprising when you consider that they’re all almost or already 60 years old. Overhanging jowls and bellies aplenty, all except for the younger drummer (obviously not an original member), and Bob Mothersbaugh, who seems to have fallen face first into the fountain of youth whilst pissed, and looks about 42.

The thing is though, when they play you forget all that. There are lots of weird time signatures and stoppy-starty tempo shifts on the first album, and whilst apparently playing with sheer abandon, they nailed every single one of them. You really feel the power of the broken funk rhythms, the punky chunks of guitar, and the spacey synth wailing as these fat blokes stuffed into yellow plastic bags crank it out on stage.

Then there’s the theatre of it. In the opening number, ‘Uncontrollable Urge’, Mark Mothersbaugh starts tearing strips off his and everyone else’s jumpsuits. Later on, during another number, they each ritually take them fully off and throw them into the audience, revealing shorts and standard black Devo T-shirts. It’s like the weirdest striptease you’d never want to see. There are weird dances, the guitarists march around in circles, and solos arene’t just played, they’re performed, as if they were a magic trick or something. Of course, there’s call and response. I mean, when Devo ask you ‘Are we not men?’, it’d be impolite to reply with anything other than, ‘We are Devo’, even though technically it’s them that’s Devo, not us.

Bizarrely enough, earlier in the day I was at an exhibition being put on by the British Music Hall Society (see the news section of http://www.music-hall-society.com/ for more details), and found myself watching footage of variety comedians and music hall singers. Even weirder, Mark Mothersbaugh’s fronting of the band was uncannily reminiscent of, say, Gus Elen whose heyday was in the late 19th century. Like Elen, he illustrates everything he sings with precise gestures to sell the lyrics of the song. He pours it all out over the footlights, radiating that fine old showbiz quality of rapport. If vaudeville still existed, Devo should be topping the bill.

All of this is only vaguely relevant to my main point, which is to bemoan the lack of very early Devo material on CD. In the 1990s, they put out two volumes of demo recording which from what I’ve heard show them at their strangest and best. Problem is they’re now long out-of-print, and as rare as mutant hens’ teeth. I wanted to get them when they came out, but didn’t have much money so didn’t get them straight away. Then I had them on order on Amazon for about three months, but they never came. Now, they’re prohibitively expensive. The cheapest I’ve seen either of them is thirty quid, but you can pay over a hundred if you’re desperate. So isn’t it high time they were reissued?

Come on Devo, if you can play the whole of your first album when you’re old enough and fat enough to know better, surely you can put out a new edition of your early greats?