Treats

Every now and again I treat myself to The Word Magazine. I like it because there’s a good blend of music interviews, reviews, films and a bit on books. Basically it’s the NME (New Musical Express) for people my age; it’s even written by people who were writing the NME when I was staring at my flares and listening to The Stone Roses. Who’d have thought we’d have grown up and started listening to Folk and Country Music and would be saying things like: ‘All guitar indie pop sounds the same nowadays’?

I suppose the thing I like most about The Word is that it comes with a free CD. The CD reminds me of one of those C90 tapes you used to mix lovingly for your friends, except here they package it into a nifty little cover and charge you an arm and a leg for it. The CD tends to cover new or upcoming bands, plus a bit of what they think you should be listening to. There’s usually a couple of tracks that stand out on the CD; for instance I discovered The Decemberists a couple of years ago, now they really stood out.

The CD tends to start off with a corker. This month I found myself putting down my sudoku puzzle and listening ever so carefully to the lyrics, they were brilliant. Even the bizarre background of synth sounds couldn’t stop me listening to the utter dreariness that Stephen Coates of The Real Tuesday Weld recounted. The Day Before You Came while still familiar is sufficiently different to actually grab attention, ‘But who did the original?’ I asked myself. I almost fell off the sofa when I read Abba! Being a child of the 70’s I had difficulty putting Dancing Queen with this song. Still it’s kind of nice to hear a cover that makes you re-appreciate the original.

Which kind of leads on to the next track. Yet again, there I was on the sofa (bad writing day) with this tune that sounded like something else but I couldn’t work out what, going through my head. I can’t remember which came first? The fact that I realised that The Felice Brothers sounded so like Bob Dylan, or that I knew what I was going to write. Anyway, despite their obvious influence, I quite like Roll on Arte.

The last one I’ll mention from the CD is The Broken Family Band’s Don’t Change your Mind. It’s got a catchy little chorus you find yourself singing along to moments after you’ve listened to it, but ... some of the lyrics are a little bit silly, I find myself arguing with them as I’m washing up. Why? Why can’t she sleep naked if she wants to? If she has to get up she’ll put clothes on.

Anyway you can listen to snippets of the CD here and if you like anything well in the UK it’s £4.50 and if you can get it anywhere else then DON’T it’s a rip off at that price, unless of course you buy it for yourself as a holiday treat.

Lastly, have you heard of Oscar the Grim Reapurr (Daily Mail headline)? Yesterday I read a short article in the Guardian, today he’s globally famous. Well, just in case you haven’t heard he lives in a hospice (you see I didn’t even pay attention to which country) for very ill old people, and when he pootles into their room and sits on the end of the bed the nursing staff throw themselves into a frenzy of calling relatives and arranging chairs and sure enough a wee while later, the old person is no more. Scientists are not sure how Oscar does it, but he’s predicted 25 deaths so far.