Echo and the Bunnymen with Billy Bragg – Run Run Run

Back in 1985 BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test did an all-nighter show called Rock Around The Clock.  It was hosted by Word Magazine’s Mark Ellen and David Hepworth, with a bit of help from Andy Kershaw.

I remember staying up and seeing Echo and the Bunnymen joining up with Billy Bragg to play a rather shambolic version of The Velvet Underground’s Run, Run, Run at about 3 in the morning.  I’d just discovered The Velvet Underground for myself and it felt like being a member of an exclusive club.  In a pre-Amazon and MP3 world, just getting hold of their records was a challenge.  To see two of my favourite acts teaming on a Velvet’s cover was tremendously exciting.

I hadn’t seen or heard it again in nearly 25 years until I found this on YouTube.  In the intervening time I had thought about this version, and being a bit of a guitar geek, I remembered distinctly that Billy Bragg was playing a Telecaster f hole Thinline and that Will Sargent of the  Bunnymen was playing a Bond Electraglide.  A very 80s high tech guitar, made with carbon fibre with digital controls and readouts and a stepped rather than fretted fretboard.  Very much of it’s time and technology in a guitar that never really caught on.  Mick Jones played one in Big Audio Dynamite.  The Edge probably played one too.

Bob Dylan – You Belong To Me

I’m going to have to interrupt you there, this has nothing to do with the Taylor Swift song.

My dad was staying and told me he’d been learning some Dylan songs.  I hadn’t got him down as particularly liking Dylan.  He started to play one, although I’m not sure which song it actually was.  I thought it was You Belong to Me which now that I look at it turns out not to be by Dylan but a cover of an old 50s ballad.

This track didn’t appear on any Dylan album but was on the brilliant soundtrack to Natural Born Killers

Shoplifting – Senseless Things

Listening to the Senseless Things today whilst wandering round the farmers market, I decided on this song for today’s selection.  I can’t find a clip of it on YouTube or Last.fm although if you go to the rare sounds section on their site there is a stack load of other downloads to be had.

Shoplifting is from their first album, Postcard CV which was on the wonderfully named Way Cool records.  Still got it all on vinyl although I was chuffed when it all cropped up on iTunes a few months ago.

One of the great forgotten Fraggle bands of the early nineties.  I didn’t realise until I started searching online for a clip that this was actually a cover of a Slits song though.

Still got my Pop Kid T shirt and it still fits.  I wore it to the Wonder Stuff’s 20th Anniversary gig recently.

“Do a runner! Do a runner!”