"Why I fucking love Gary Crowley"

A couple of weeks ago I bought one of those cassette tape to mp3 converters.  In our loft I've got quite a few mixtapes, albums by bands who aren't on Spotify and songs that I wrote and recorded in my bedroom (on a crappy little tape recorder, not on an 8 track or anything) on guitar (3 chord, Status Quo specials) when I was a teenager. 

When I saw you could buy one of these converters for £15 I thought why not, the nostalgia value will be worth 10 times that.  And I was right, it's brilliant and works a treat, however, I've been using it merely as a Walkman rather than a converter since I bought it.

You see, on one of the tapes I found in the loft was an old Gary Crowley GLR radio show from 1996 and I've been hooked on it ever since!

Gary Crowley, along with John Peel, has been one of the most influential DJs in my life.  Ever since the early 90s it was Gary's TV programme 'The Beat' where I discovered a lot of my new music.  I still remember seeing Radiohead perform 'Anyone Can Play Guitar' live on the show and they soon became my favourite band.  My mates and I played the footage of The Jesus Lizard playing 'Mistletoe' in the studio over and over after we'd videoed it (I think it used to be on about 2am in the morning!) because it was just so bloody funny! They were great times for music.

Around that time 'The Beat', 'Snub TV' on BBC2 and the 'ITV Chart Show', along with John Peel's radio show, were must watches / listens for me.  And with 3 weekly music mags at that time (NME, Melody Maker and Sounds), us Indie Kids really were spoilt for choice.  Even Top of the Pops featured really good bands in the early 90s.

Gary also championed shoegazing when it first arrived and a series of gigs at The Marquee as part of the 'Band Explosion' heroed the genre.  I was lucky enough to see the Chapterhouse, Slowdive and Moose gig and the week after it was all televised on 'The Beat' (I'm sure I saw myself queueing up at the venue on telly, can't be 100% certain it was me but it sounds good anyway).

Anyway, the tape I found brought back loads of happy memories of Gary's GLR show including the 'Demo Clash', where 3 unsigned bands were played and listeners had to ring up to vote for their favourite.  To win was seen as a huge accolade, I think Suede were probably the most famous band to feature and they didn't do badly out of it did they?

It seems I'm not the only one who loved Gary either, as soon as I mentioned his show on twitter, and especially that he'd play 'Wembley' by The Candyskins on the particular show I was listening to, fellow music lovers like @1pAlbumClub , @extreme_rice , @Snippetcuts and @woodmanstone all reminisced about him or the music he was playing.

As I was very excited by the whole thing, I decided to put the following Spotify playlist together of all the songs featured in the show here - Gary Crowley June '96 Playlist

If you're not on Spotify, the songs were :

"How does it feel to feel?" by Ride
"Forbidden City" by Electronic
"Set the controls for the heart of the pelvis" by Barry Adamson featuring Jarvis Cocker
"Born Slippy (Nuxx)" by Underworld
"Hate" by Acacia
"Wembley" by The Candyskins
"Juvenile Scene Detective (Howie B's Tribute to Mr Laudanum Mix)" by Compulsion
"Chelsea Girl" by Ride
"Devils Haircut" by Beck
"Theme From Turnpike" by dEUS
"Marching Men" by Rich Kids
"Tattva" by Kula Shaker

The other songs played, which aren't on Spotify were :

"Mermaid" by Posh
"Eat my goal" by Collapsed Lung
"Everything must go (Chemical Brothers remix)" by Manic Street Preachers
"I never want to see your face again" by Black Star
"Ponces" by Swimmer
"Computer Crash" by Computer

Gary is still DJ'ing for BBC London 94.9 (what GLR became). I have to admit I haven't listened to a show of his in years but after finding that gem in the loft, I definitely will again soon.  I always have and always will fucking love him! Would love to hear your memories of him too.

Thanks for reading.

Loads of love

Simon S.
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"Why I fucking love Sleigh Bells" by Macaulay from Curxes

Today I am chuffed to announce that we have a couple of very special guest posts coming up on Session Bloggers over the next few days - Macaulay and Roberta from the band Curxes.

I mentioned Curxes a few posts ago when I was listening to the Blog Sound Of 2013 Longlist.  At the time I referred to them as 'a more frantic version of Siouxie and The Banshees' but they're definitely more than that and just sound better and better after each listen.  At the end of this post there's a You Tube clip of their excellent song 'Haunted Gold' which I highly recommend you listen to.

Anyway, enough of me rabbiting on, I'm just the support act here today. 

First up we have Macaulay who kicks off our "Why I fucking love..." series by talking about Sleigh Bells.  Roberta's post will follow soon.

Over to you, Macaulay...

They’re noisy, visceral and fun, and whilst not necessarily considered the most “deep” of bands, they tick all my modern musical boxes. This is why...

We all know there are a plethora of great artists from the past 50 years and like many people, these make up the majority of my listening. I imagine it’s the same for much of the music-loving public too; because how can brand new artists compete with the likes of The Beatles and David Bowie when those artists experienced such dizzying heights during their respective heydays, as well as having their legacies fawned over in proceeding years?

Sadly, it’s unlikely that any artist starting out now will reach such heights, so surely they must try harder to be as attention-grabbing as possible, right?  In my eyes, yes – and this is what Sleigh Bells have done.

The songs are short, spiky and don’t outstay their welcome. They combine nursery rhyme-simplicity with repetitive riffs in short, three-minute bursts. One listen is usually enough to make a song stick in your head. It’s an amalgamation of genres from the last 30 years and sounds like it is – a band having fun. Fusing 80s hair metal with sickly sweet vocals, modern R’n’B beats and then distorting it all to within an inch of its life sounds like a terrible idea, but their aptly-named debut “Treats” succeeded in making people take notice when it emerged back in 2010.

They are a marmite band and it is a bit juvenile, but it’s essentially boisterous party music you can crank up loud without shame and “lose your shit” to. For me, music is essentially entertainment and should therefore be fun. Sleigh Bells are awesome live, insanely cool and actively coined the term “bangover”. It’s what I get every morning after I’ve seen them play.

Thanks for the great post, Macaulay.  I agree, there's just something about Sleigh Bells. They're so unique and 'Comeback Kid' was definitely one of my favourite songs of last year.

If anyone else out there fancies writing a post for our "Why I fucking love..." series then please comment below or tweet me @sessionblogger

Before I leave though, as promised, I'm leaving you with this...

Thanks for stopping by.

Love

Simon S.
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Coming soon...

The release date of the new collaborative Music Blog 'Session Bloggers' has yet to be confirmed. If you want a rough estimate of timings, please think along the lines of 'Second Coming' rather than 'In Rainbows'.

In the meantime though, here is a taster of what will be appearing on the Blog over the next 39 years :

Obscure Album Reviews

Track by track reviews of albums from Next Big Things who never really made it, One Hit Wonders & Eurovision Song Contest entrants amongst others. If you've got another obscure theme you'd like to write an album review for, we'd love to hear about it.

Muso Wrestling

Two music lovers go head to head on a certain topic - one agrees, one disagrees and there can only be one winner. We'd probably let them both win in the end though as we're nice like that.

"Why I fucking love..."

Music lovers talking about their music passions, no matter how guilty they are.

And, with your help, much, much more...

If you'd like to write a post for 'Session Bloggers' in the future then please don't hesitate to comment below or Tweet me at @sessionbloggers

We look forward to hearing from you

Loads of love

Simon S.
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