h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

On Clay Records that's Play Dead and the new single, 7", Sacrosanct, and this next is for the two Janices - our Janice who's on her way to see a band play somewhere in London at the moment, and also for, er, Janice in her office whose birthday it is today. Another track from The Smiths LP. This is one you may recall from our session of a few months ago, Rusholme Ruffians.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JU8XCXwv2A

Spotlight artist of the week comes up in about 20 minutes time, those are The Smiths from the forthcoming LP Meat is Murder, Rusholme Ruffians. Janice played this one as well, and a wonderful record it is too. From Misty in Roots, it's one that grows on you every time you hear it. On People Unite Records, Wandering Wanderer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmXx-FO0NNw#t=0m25s

They never fail to give satisfaction do they. Misty in Roots on People Unite Records, the new 12" which is called Wandering Wanderer, and I'm doing a bit of a voiceover here! These are our other guests on tonight's programme, from Belgium and points beyond, Minimal Compact, Introspection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYbEEE0_ZVU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6m7gaRzv-s

Well I'll do my best. That's called Wiggle Toe, from Oscar McLollie and his Honey Jumpers, preceded by Minimal Compact and Introspection, they're our guests on tonight's programme. Tomorrow night we have a session from... hmm hmm hmmmm, thumbs through pages... a new session from The Men They Couldn't Hang and a classic session from The Blue Orchids, from yesteryear, as we DJs tend to call it.

These are The New Christs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5uymXW0m0U

Those are The New Christs, and I suppose those real hipsters out there will be able to tell that that was the French pressing rather than the Australian pressing. I haven't got an Australian one, and that's called Like a Curse. And now our Spotlight Artiste of the Week, and despite the torrent of mail that's come in during the past two or three days we're going to wind up our Spotlight Artiste feature at the end of theis week. It's gone on for long enough I'd like to think. This is Marino Marini and his Quartet and, er Marino's... I think we can call him that, we've known him long enough. This is his version of Guitar Boogie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjvUycEh0NQ

Our spotlight Artiste of the Week, Marino Marini and his Quartet with their version of Arthur 'Guitar Boogie' Smith's, well, Guitar Boogie. And if you were listening to Janice's programme earlier on this evening on Radio 1, she played you The Chameleons' Nostalgia, recently reissued by Static. On the other side of it, In Shreds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n_RB_H0llw

Recently reissued, those are The Chameleons from 1981 and In Shreds with Nostalgia on the other side of it, the band recording some new stuff they told me last week. And we whirl back even further in time to 1980 to The Beat, our session from September of that year, this is New Psychedelic Rockers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_aaL7Vw0NI#t=10m22s

(10m 22s - end)

That's The Beat from 1980 and New Psychedelic Rockers, and now another track from The Smiths' LP Meat is Murder, a Radio One exclusive! This is I Want the One I Can't Have.

This one fades in...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhby4dlOYOg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-xLF4Ls4io

This is a strictly no-messing programme, I hope you've noticed that, That's Pam Hall on Thunder Bolt Records, and more tracks from the LP, doubtless, on Janice's programme on Radio One tomorrow evening as well.

This is from our guests tonight, The Minimal Compact, Not Knowing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEA8RP97FcY

Our guests on tonight's programme, that's Minimal Compact, who come from, actually from all over the place really, but er, they're based in Brussels and that's called Not Knowing. Do we have any word on their current activities... reaches over and er... oh yes! They're coming over for the ICA Rock Week in March so that's something to pencil into your diaries in the most tentative of all possible manners. From The Furious Apples this is from the LP on Adventures In Reality Records, Something Stirs (The Dead Mourn the Living), one of those LPs where the track numbers and so on don't seem to actually coincide with what's on the record so it's difficult to say exactly what the track is that I'm about to play you but it is most assuredly by The Furious Apples.

Isn't it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PWlUU98AxM

I'm willing to have a small bet with you that's called Girl on Fire but if the sleeve is to be believed it's called Ajmer or possibly Almost The Truth. Either way it's The Furious Apples from the LP Something Stirs (The Dead Mourn the Living), which also features Attrition, Bourbonese Qualk and The Legendary Pink Dots. The Frank Chickens, and this is on Kaz Records, Reissued, Remodelled, Remade, We Are Ninja.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2tjPfrSNjg

You don't catch an old pro like me jumping into the gaps. Those are The Frank Chickens on Kaz Records, We Are Ninja, and having a look at the schedule for tomorrow on Radio One I see that it's Mike Batt's birthday, and also it would have Bob Marley's as well, and er, Janice, tomorrow night, will be chatting to Kirsty MacColl and playing a selection of her favourite records, and you can hear a session from The Brilliant Corners from Bicester, an excellent band and you may recall the session they recorded for us some time ago. Also three of the best from Black Uhuru, and er, on this programme a session from The Man The Couldn't... The Men, rather, They Couldn't Hang, and one from the archives, as it says here, from The Blue Orchids. But tonight one from the archives from The Beat, and this is Monkey Murders, in brackets Nine Mexicans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_aaL7Vw0NI#t=7m15s

(7m 15s - 10m 21s)

And I think it's fair to say that the parts turned out not to be equal to the whole, more's the pity. The Beat, they were excellent, that's Monkey Murders (Nine Mexicans). I was reading in the new issue of Sounds an interview with Jesus and Mary Chain, and I'm sure if they meant me they'd want to box my ears judging by what they were saying in the course of the interview, and yet by and large I agreed with most of what they had to say. This is their second single, on Creation Records, and Warner Brothers as well I understand, I'm not quite sure how this works out, but The Jesus and Mary Chain. Already the backlash has started. Never Understand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2bzrCCKDwc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm7bo8lYs8w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueEuVG4rArU

Very possibly the most insensitive segué of the year to date. That's bIG fLAME and another track from their forthcoming three-track 7" EP stroke single on Laughing Gun Records, that's Sargasso, as in the sea. Before that The Mad Professor from the LP Who Knows the Secret of the Master Tape, Dub Me Crazy Part Five, and that was Freedom Broadcast, and before that Jesus and Mary Chain, a name for '85. They must be fed up with people saying that actually. It's terribly destructive y'know. Best to like, ignore them in a way, and that way er, people don't pick up on them and they don't get elevated out of all proportion and then subsequently destroyed, and Never Understand, which is their second single.

This is from Minimal Compact, our guests, Nada. Nayda? Nada? Needa? I don't know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1qrkSQUC1I

Minimal Compact. They're our guests from er, Belgium actually, on tonight's programme, and Nada the title of that. And last week, er, was it last week, I played you a long track by Mark Stewart and The Mafia called The Wrong Name and the Wrong Number, from the LP Myths. Instructions 1 from Sub Rosa Records, and at that time I promised you a few spiritual moments with Camberwell Now, who also contribute to the LP, and theirs is a highly individual reading of the old hymn For Those in Peril on the Sea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pldt4Eysg4o#t=17m51s

(17m 51s - 21m 54s)

An intensely moving four and a quarter minutes with the Camberwell Now, from the LP Myths. Instructions 1 on Sub Rose and that's For Those in Peril on the Sea. Now another track from The Smiths, as I say, more tracks from this LP in tomorrow's programme, and more tracks on Janice's programme on Radio One. This is in a sense their heavy metal number. Quite interesting in a way, in which Johnny Marr apes the guitar stylings that you can hear and enjoy on the Friday Rock Show. This is called What She Said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8AVy6GA-fs