
Listening notes: Nick Lowe’s Freezing (1998). Draw paintings of fires to help warm up.


Listening notes: Nick Lowe’s Freezing (1998). Draw paintings of fires to help warm up.

Listening notes: Folk Roots, New Routes by Shirley Collins and Davey Graham, 1964, particularly Hares On The Mountain.
AKA Snail Convention (part 2)

Listening notes: hole up with an Onchidella celtica at a local pub and enjoy a slow session. Bring a fiddle, a penny whistle, an accordion or mandolin and join in.

Listening notes: Snail Shell by They Might Be Giants (from the album John Henry, released 23 August 1994).

Listening notes: select a version of Aztec Camera’s Oblivious (1983). Concentrate on the lyrics (do this from the safety of your own home, with the lights on, using speakers rather than headphones).

Listening notes: Search out We Could Send Letters by Aztec Camera. It’s the B side of indie hit Just Like Gold 1981, Postcard Records, Scotland (POSTCARD81-3). Roddy Frame recorded this at the age of 16. I hadn’t heard it before tonight. I was looking for something from Postcard Records because I wanted to avoid anything too obvious (e.g. Treacherous by Britney Spears).
It’s a long and complex song with striking shifts in tone and tune. Stick with it. I liked the lyric “We’re making tracks/ that show our touch and go”. A bit like Michelle the snail.
The chorus is a real leap in melody, with lyrics “Just close your eyes again/ Until these things get better”. And then I heard the guitar solo, and that was perhaps even better.
ALI FINKS

Listening notes: Listen to Procul Harum’s A Salty Dog (1969), enjoying a glass of the same

Listening notes: Ladies Night by Atomic Kitten, or the original if you prefer.

Listening notes: Listen to another Manx celebrity’s song Isle of Man, performed by George Formby for the 1935 film No Limit, filmed during the islands TT Race. It’s the aural equivalent of a dirty seaside postcard. To be endured if not enjoyed. Formby is also immortalised in a statue, near to the marina in Douglas.



