Taylor Swift – No Badger Required

Algorithm Is A Chancer – #9 – The Big Dark

I went to see my dad the other weekend. He’s getting worse. I sat in the lounge where I grew up and watched as the man that guided me masterfully through my formative years struggled to remember the date and then just as he remembered it, struggle to remember the day of the week as well. I sat and silently howled inside as that man asked me for the third time in as many minutes if I’d had my dinner yet.

Twenty minutes later, we were sat on his sofa, both of us with strong tea in front of us, watching Chelsea come back from behind to beat his beloved West Ham (“I wish Phil Parkes was in goal..they would have never let in three with Parkes”), and my dad turns to me and grips my shoulder. It’s strong, fatherly and the only time he’d ever done something like that before was about thirty years ago when I left for university and he told me that he was “Proud of everything that I’d become”.

He’s looking at me, we’ve not said anything for a few moments, sometimes you don’t need to, but there is a look in his eyes. He clears his throat.

“I don’t want to go in a home, boy” he says and his grip loosens and he turns back to the football.

It’s the first time I’ve genuinely seen my dad look afraid and it almost floored me.

Today’s tracks have all been taken from a playlist, called The Big Dark (it felt weirdly appropriate), that I listened to as Dad slept in his favourite armchair after Sunday lunch. These were the first six songs that it played. they were all brilliant – but it might have been that music once again has proved to be my own form of therapy.

Here’s the first track,

Famous Blue Raincoat – Leonard Cohen (1971, Sony Records, Taken from ‘Songs of Love and Hate’)

‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ is exactly the sort of the song that you need to hear every now and again to remind you just how amazing Leonard Cohen could be.

Come On Up To The House – Tom Waits (1999, Anti Records, Taken from ‘Mule Variations’)

I own precisely zero seconds of music by Tom Waits, I’ve never quite found myself appreciating his music or his voice for that matter – but here on ‘Come On Up To The House’, he sounds superb, so I suspect I’ll be checking out some more of his music.

Comforting Sounds – Mew (2003, Sony Records, Single)

Never heard anything by Mew before, but ‘Comforting Sounds’ is a string laden, epic swoosh of a tune. Its grandiose, orchestral and the sort of song that plays when the credits roll in a big screen blockbuster. All sorts of excellent.

I Still Remember – Bloc Party (2007, Play It Again Sam Records, taken from ‘A Weekend In The City’)

The second Bloc Party album rather gets forgotten about when put up against the sterling debut – but its still an excellent record full of icy post punk tunes. ‘I Still Remember’ is one of the more gentle tracks, all misty eyed and reflective about a misspent youth. Rather good.

Exile – Taylor Swift (and Bon Iver) (2020, Self Released, Taken from ‘Folklore’)

About twenty seconds after ‘Exile’ started, there was a sudden downpour of hail stones in Kent. They bashed against the windows of my dads conservatory and the letter box on the front door rattled as the wind attacked it. Amidst all that, ‘Exile’ sounded even better than it did before. It’s probably not cool to say it, but ‘Folklore’ really is a great album.

Fake Plastic Trees – Radiohead (1995, Parlophone Records, Taken from ‘The Bends’)

Which isn’t a bad way to end a post at all. ‘The Big Dark’ is on the strength of these six tracks alone, the best Amazon Playlist I’ve randomly selected so far.

One of the greatest segues in blogging ever – The NBR 200 (Number 105 and 106)

106 – Shake It Off – Taylor Swift (2014, Big Machine Records)

The last time I compiled a rundown of the greatest songs in the history of the world. Ever. Ms Swift would have been absolutely nowhere near it. I would have been laughed out of several hip and trendy bars for even suggesting it. This time round I find myself questioning not only if I have chosen the right Taylor Swift song but also whether or not it is too low down in the final placings.

I mean I could have and nearly did pick this instead,

106b. Cruel Summer – Taylor Swift (2019, Self Released)

You can of course blame my daughter if you like. She pretty much played Taylor Swift non stop during lockdown and in a now legendary ICA that she wrote for JC over at the Vinyl Villain, she described ‘Shake It Off’ as,

“My favourite track in all the world” and then declared that she “wants to be like Taylor Swift when she grews up” and the then declared that “Taylor Swift would make a better PE teacher that Joe Wicks” and gave it 185 out of 10.

None of which I can immediately disagree with. Especially the thing about Joe Wicks, I mean just imagine how good lockdown PE would have been if our children were dancing to Taylor Swift songs instead of being barked at by some chancer from Essex.

It’s not just that my daughter loves (or more likely loved, because her music tastes are very much moving on) Taylor Swift that means she makes this list, I mean it helps, but actually, it (along with the entire ‘1989’ album) has become one of those records, that provides me with memories. For instance, I remember vividly driving along a deserted Exmouth seafront one windy lockdown morning with my daughter in the back and ‘Shake It Off’ playing stupidly loud and both me and her singing along to it with massive grins on our faces.

It’s a ridiculously catchy song, and yeah lyrically, its probably not her strongest moment, but it is pretty close to pop perfection, as is this,

106c Anti-Hero – Taylor Swift (2022, Republic Records)

There is probably not enough Taylor Swift on these pages to be honest.

Time for one of those famous No Badger musical direction swerves, and one of music’s greatest ever anti-heroes.

105 – 3AM Eternal – KLF (1991, KLF Communications)

(and if that isn’t one of the greatest segues in blogging ever I am not sure what is)

As any music lover will know, about 4000 different versions of ‘3AM Eternal’ exist but for me the definitive version is the acid house pop version that climbed into the UK Top Ten back in 1991 and can be found on their fourth (and final) ‘The White Room’ album – actually come to think of it, why didn’t the Musical Jury vote in their thousands for ‘The White Room’ when we debated Rocks Greatest Fourth Albums?

Sadly, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty remain very pixieish where the streaming of their music is concerned and as such the definitive version that can be found on ‘The White Room’ isn’t that commonly available so I have stuck up the ‘Live at the SSL’ version instead which is taken from the excellent ‘Solid State Logik 1’ compilation that surfaced (and remains streamable) in 2021. Its pretty much the same song to be fair and to be just as fair, it still rocks, admittedly not in the same way as the KLF vs Extreme Noise Terror does though.

105b – 3AM Eternal (The Black Room) – The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu Vs Extreme Noise Terror (1991, KLF Communications)

And its worth posting this video of it at the Brits in 1992, when the KLF and Extreme Noise Terror opened proceedings are scared the absolute life out of the nation and that was before Bill Drummond fired a machine gun at the crowd. This clip ends just before the real action starts, when the camera cuts to the 70 year old classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin who is visibly shaking and wondering the actual hell he has wandered into. It then pans to Right Said Fred, who are covering their ears and then to various music industry suits who appear to be trying to pick their jaws up off the ground.

Come back Bill, music needs the JAMMS more than ever.

50 CDs in a Red Box – #7

Boy From School – Hot Chip (2006, EMI Records)

“Number 45 please”.

1998. I am in the twilight hours of my degree. I am sat in the kitchen of my student house, I may or may not have just made some pizza dough – I did a lot of that when I was a student. Anyway, somewhere a phone is ringing, probably in the entrance hall as that’s where the phone is. Seconds later, Lorraine from across the hall sticks her head round the door, she looks at me “Phone” she hollers at me and motions to the hallway just in case I’d forgotten where the phone was. Lorraine was always a women a of few words, well in English anyway, I’d often come home from a night out and find her siting on a cushion in the hallway, hot drink in one hand, phone in the other jabbering away in Korean.

I sigh and walk the ten metres to the phone, its my dad.

“You, alright boy” he said. I smile at the fact that despite the fact I’m in my twenties, dad still refers to me as ‘boy’. I tell him I was ok, a bit bogged down with my studies, but ok. To be honest I haven’t so much as opened a sociology text book for the past couple of days because I’ve been writing a review on Earl Brutus at the Garage in London for the Melody Maker, but dad doesn’t need to know that.

“Yeah, well I worked a twelve hour shift and then had to take your sister to Bromley” he counters, I didn’t realise we were playing bad day poker, if I did I would have invented an earthquake in the Guildford area. Dad is talking again.

“You anywhere near a telly?” he asks, I wasn’t I was in the hallway, and also I didn’t own a telly. There is a small black and white one in the kitchen that we occasionally watch Countdown and the Simpsons on (come on we’re students, we are contractually obliged to watch Countdown).

“Can you see if from where you are?” I could if I wedged the door open I tell him.

“Do it, and turn on BBC2”.

I tell him to hang on. I switch on BBC2, the newsreader Martyn Lewis fills the screen, but he is not reading the news, but instead hosting a quiz about the news called ‘Todays the Day’. I ask my dad what exactly is was that I am supposed to looking at.

“Wait, boy” he tells me.

“Round 2 is the TV Round” say Lewis before explaining the rules. “Roger and Chris you can go first”. The camera flicks to Roger and Chris – and there the reason for my dad’s call is revealed. There sitting on camera is my mate Chris, looking cool in a Gaye Bykers on Acid tshirt, next to his dad who is wearing a suit and tie.

“isn’t that, that boy from school you used hang around with?”

It is I tell him. For the next ten minutes or so, me and dad talk on the phone, we answer questions that Chris and his dad answer on the television. It’s a genuinely lovely moment. Chris and his dad don’t win on the show, they are beaten by their opponents, Chris doesn’t really take it at all seriously and for one of the questions about some of important speech around the time of Falkland War he answers “Russ Abbot” without a shred of doubt in his voice. I’m probably bias but its one of the greatest deliberately wrong answers in the history of deliberately wrong quiz show answers. It makes me and my dad howl with laughter.

“I reckon he said Russ Abbott deliberately” says Dad with a cough. I agree with him. Knowing Chris, he probably bet someone he could drop Russ Abbott’s name into one his answers or simply thought that it would be funny. Which it was.

“You ever been on the telly dad, on a quiz I mean”

“Nah, I had tickets for some music show in the seventies, but then your mother went into labour and so Malcolm went with Colin instead, they saw Sandie Shaw and Earth Wind and Fire, so in hindsight childbirth was probably more enjoyable”. There is more laughter.

“See you soon boy”.

‘Boy From School’ was the second single from Hot Chip’s second album ‘The Warning’ and it is an excellent slice of indietronica. It is made by the voice of Alexis Taylor to be honest, the way his voice chimes through when the kick drum stop is a thing of beauty. “We try, but we don’t belong” Alexis tells us with bittersweet majesty.

Here is an Erol Alkan reworking of it,

Boy From School (Erol Alkan’s Rework) – Hot Chip (2006, EMI Records)

Here is what the daughter thinks of it,

“I like it, I could listen to that again, he has a nice voice”. This is the second Hot Chip CD she has randomly picked from the box list, I make a note to add some Hot Chip tracks to her playlist.

Here is her recommendation of the week, which she tells me she has picked randomly but I think possibly she had one eye open. Regardless, despite being two years old, this is classic Swift.

Anti – Hero – Taylor Swift (2022, Self Released)

Here is my recommendation – randomly selected from the No Badger Required Playlist of 2024 with both eyes shut.

Doesn’t Matter – HighSchool (2024, PIAS Records)

The No Badger Olympics – #1 Paris

Paris – Friendly Fires (2008, XL Records)

Today marks the start of the twenty-ninth occasion of the Olympic Games. Sportsmen and women from all over the world will descend on Paris to compete for 329 Gold Medals across 32 sports (or disciplines as they are known as) over 18 days of competing (well technically its sixteen days – the football tournament has already started). It will see feats of super human endurance, it will see world records smashed in cycling, swimming, athletics and other sports where that type of thing matters. Superstars will be made. New heroes will emerge.

16 Days – Whiskeytown (1997, Outpost Records)

New heroes who are right now probably unknown to nearly all of us. New heroes who will become household names because that shot a target or rowed their boats or rode their horse or did their taekwondo better than everyone else. We will cheer them until we go hoarse and pretend that we’ve all be fans of dressage, water polo, rifle shooting or BMXing for ages.

We will all howl with disappointment when we come second or third or finish agonisingly fourth and miss out on the medals altogether. We will sit and dab our eyes when on the last day of competing before the closing ceremony the BBC plays us a montage of plucky losers with a sad song soundtracking it.

Paris – Taylor Swift (2022, Republic Records)

And then after the Olympics has finished the party will continue as we relive the moments as those gold medallists become minor celebrities, one or two will be on Strictly Come Dancing, one or two will be on Sports Personality of the Year, one or two will go in the jungle and eat the balls of a wallaby and will we continue to cheer them because they are winners. Probably.

I love the Olympics but it’s not just me.

My daughter loves the Olympics almost as much as I do. In 2021 during the Tokyo Olympics we sat together and watched the thrilling BMX racing. We sat on the sofa of our rented holiday home on the Isle of Wight and gasped as bikes flew around all over the place and we cheered when our chosen favourite came in third.

As it drew to a close I said to my daughter that if she wanted to we could try and get tickets for the next Olympics and we could actually go and watch the BMX racing in the stadium. We could try and get tickets for all the other events that she had taken a liking to, the swimming, the basketball, the cycling, the triathlon and the handball. She nodded her as her eyes widen with expectation. Sensing problems, “We’ll try” I said. “We can’t promise”.

And so we tried.

And we failed.

Well sort of.

We registered, we highlighted the sports we wanted and got our code for the day of the ticket release. We got very excited. That excitement lasted for three days, and then they released the ticket prices and that is when the excitement waned a bit. Flights to Paris suddenly went up in price, hotel prices skyrocketed, what rooms were left were about 50 miles from Paris, and so we aren’t going. Instead we have snacks and comfy cushions and I haven’t spent two thousand Euros on two days watching swimming and one day watching some cycling on events that don’t even decide medals.

Lost in Paris – Blaenavon (2013, Transgressive Records)

I still love the Olympics and to celebrate it over the next sixteen days, we will explore some of the sports that form part of it – each day a different sport or sports will feature, and alongside those sports will be a bunch of songs that should be in someway relevant to those sports or by bands with a name that is relevant – at least that’s the theory.

However today as we will all know will be all about the opening ceremony. So to end here are two songs that are called ‘Procession’.

Procession – Real Estate (2020, Domino Records)

Procession – New Order (1981, Factory Records)

And one cover version of a song called ‘Ceremony’

Ceremony – Chromatics (2017, Strictly Italian Records)

Tomorrow – Swimming.

50 Twelves Inches – #47

Change A Gonna Come – Asian Dub Foundation (1996, Nation Records)

I had just inadvertently shoplifted a few items from Boots when I first heard Asian Dub Foundation. To be absolutely precise, I had just walked out of the door with a packet of nail files, a comb, some cotton wool and two hair scrunchies and across the road into a record store on Deptford High Street when I first Asian Dub Foundation.

None of the things that I had inadvertently pilfered were for me, and as it happens I didn’t pick any of them up, I was just handed them by my wife (although she wasn’t that then, we were just poor students on our way back to the train station). I can’t remember why we walked out with the stuff. It certainly wasn’t deliberate, I think maybe we just forgot, although I am bound to say that. If that chap who runs Boots, the one who was in the Bullingdon Club with David Cameron is reading, I owe your company about eight quid. Sorry.

It wasn’t Asian Dub Foundation that made me forget to pay for the goods, I couldn’t possibly have heard them from inside Boots what with the terrible chintzy musak that they pipe into their stores. Maybe that was why we walked out without paying, terrible chintzy musak had turned us momentarily into crazy drooling criminals with no sense of right and wrong.

Anyway, that record shop on Deptford High Street was where I purchased this twelve inch. It was playing when Guildford’s version of Bonnie and Clyde walked into the store, and I was so taken by it that I purchased it there and then. I’ve been a big fan of Asian Dub Foundation ever since (although its been a why since I’ve played their records) I think they appealed to my rebellious side, the one that tweaks the nose of law and order and vomits in the kettle of actually paying for things.

My daughter finds this story hilarious when I recall it to her after the shouty voice of command had ordered the finger of fate to stop. She can’t believe that her parents are nothing more than common criminals and bites into a biscuit which she has brazenly half inched from the box without asking first.

I tell her it explains perfectly why she is prone to removing biscuits from the box without asking, as thievery is in her blood. She doesn’t find this as funny.

‘Change A Gonna Come’ is a fine record, mixing bhangra, punk guitars, drum n bass and hip hop beats against a backdrop of lyrics with a strong ant-racist message. Which is exactly what you would expect from Asian Dub Foundation. It’s not a love song and the change they are talking about doesn’t refer to relationships or even jobs.

It came backed with three tracks, all of which can be found on the bands rarities album ‘Frontline’. I forget which order they are in on the twelve inch and I can’t be bothered to walk the four metres or so to the vinyl cupboard to check, lets just pretend I have the order correct.

The first B Side is ‘Operation Eagle Lie’, which also appears on the debut album ‘Rafi’s Revenge’. Again, this a song which combines drum n bass, punk guitars and hip hop over some furious lyrics (this time the Met’s racially dubious stop and search policy is the target).

Operation Eagle Lie – Asian Dub Foundation (1996, Nation Records)

If you flip it over you get two other tracks, ‘C.A.G.C’ and ‘Jericho’ both of which bang and crash and rant and rave at the system as you would expect them to. Here’s ‘C.A.G.C’ which is another version of ‘Change A Gonna Come’ with a heavier emphasis on drum n bass.

C.A.G.C (Via Pirate Satellite) – Asian Dub Foundation (1996, Nation Records)

And here is ‘Jericho’

Jericho (Capa D Dub) – Asian Dub Foundation (1996, Nation Records)

‘Change A Gonna Come’ is one of four ADF twelve inches in the cupboard. Here are lead tracks from two of them, the third one, ‘Free Satpal Ram’ only got an airing a few days ago.

Naxalite – Asian Dub Foundation (1997, Nation Records) – actually this one is a ten inch, having walked the four metres to the cupboard to check I got the order of the ‘Change’ twelve inch right (I did).

Buzzin’ – Asian Dub Foundation (1998, Nation Records) which remains as excellent as ever.

There isn’t a no more than five words review because the girl has a mouth full of contraband biscuits but if there was it would be “Dad eats the most biscuits” which is probably true.

There is a recommendation though (ah, you’ll miss them when this series ends at the end of month) and its this from Taylor’s new album, which to be honest I’m not that impressed with.

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart – Taylor Swift (2024, Taylor Swift Records)

Here is my recommendation, which I think is great.

Relief – Our Girl (2024, Bella Union Records)

Fifty Twelves Inches #42

Unbelievable – EMF (1990, Parlophone Records)

The twelve inch that is selected today belongs to my wife. Something she is keen to point out when it is dragged out of the cupboard. This is because there are three copies of this record in the vinyl cupboard and so statistically speaking at least, this record was bound to appear in this series at some point. We know its her copy because it has a tiny tear in the top left hand corner (caused by her cat – one assumes the cat was more of a Jesus Jones fan)

Anyway, this song being featured is probably no bad thing, ‘Unbelievable’ is a great record, unashamedly pop, infectiously catchy and when it first came out in 1990, a fifteen year old me thought it was one of the greatest things ever written. I remember having a picture of EMF taped inside my GCSE physics textbook (back in the days when you were allowed to decorate text books). I used to sit next to a girl in physics, who I was slightly infatuated with and I think I must have asked out about twenty times in a single year when I was fourteen or fifteen.

She said no every time by the way, and every time she said no, I shrugged and carried on talking about whatever we talked in physics class. It certainly wasn’t physics though. Our physics teacher was a rake like man called Watson, who knew his stuff but sadly for him and us, his stuff was delivered in long monotonous blasts.

Anyway, a few years back when trawling through LinkedIn I stumbled across the girl from physics who in the thirty years since I last saw her (which was in 1993, at a mutual friends eighteenth birthday bash) had become a member of the Conservative Party, something she openly boasted about – there were pictures of her and Teresa May and her with Jeremy Hunt and had recently announced her engagement to a chap whose occupation is stated as ‘Hedge Fund Manager’. I’m pretty sure he is wearing braces in the photo of the two of them.

So I probably had a lucky escape, but if only she knew that in thirty years time the lad that sat next to her in physics and wrote her soppy notes on orange paper, would be in charge of the 715^th most popular Internet blog with the word Badger in the title, how different and better her life would have been.

None of this of course I told my daughter because she’d probably laugh at me and call me a loser. What I did of course was tell her about how great EMF were when they first came to the worlds attention. They were one of a select band of groups or artists that could find themselves on the front page of Smash Hits and the NME and that was very much their appeal. EMF would have almost certainly have been massive on You Tube had that been a thing back in the very early nineties.

After ‘Unbelievable’ and the follow up single ‘I Believe’ both shot into the UK’s Top Five, EMF looked set to become one of the biggest bands of the planet, their debut album ‘Schubert’s Dip’ followed that and for a while they rode the hype.

I Believe – EMF (1990, Parlophone Records)

In 1992, they released their second album, ‘Stigma’ which was a radical departure and very few people bought it and EMF’s time in the spotlight had faded. Their third album, the excellent ‘Cha Cha Cha’ was a sort of return to form, but by then, their audience had moved on.

Perfect Day – EMF (1990, Parlophone Records)

The band split and new projects arrived, James Atkins, the singer with the band formed the big beat act Cooler and their techno rock track ‘Teknog’ was something of dancefloor smash when I was a student. But that is not on Songwhip or surprisingly You Tube so here is the follow up single,

Disco Sucks – Cooler (1997, Polydor Records),

Here is the no more than five words review

“Mums records are better”

And here to celebrate the new Taylor Swift album, which has made at least one eleven year old’s week, is a track from it

So Long London – Taylor Swift (2024, Republic Records), which to be fair is better than anything on the second EMF album.

Here in pale comparison is something by Been Stellar a band from New York who I like quite a lot.

Passing Judgment – Been Stellar (2024, Dirty Hit Records)

A Month of Bands from Canada – #7 – Suuns

Arena – Suuns (2010, Secretly Canadian Records, Taken from ‘Zeroes QC’)

The school in my village is small, old and quaint. It has barely changed since my wife went there in the early eighties, in fact its only had about three different head teachers since the 1980s. Right now, as I type this it has 95 pupils spread across four classes. It doesn’t have a playing field (despite being surrounded by fields), it has no sports teams, a tiny hall which is also used as a canteen, sports hall, meeting room and concert venue, and it has six teachers and a part time cook.

Its very probably the greatest school in the world.

On the third day of my daughters trip she went to a school in Toronto to meet a class of similarly aged children. She travelled there on a subway train, an experience in itself, considering that the nearest train station to her school is five miles away and the nearest tube train is in over 200 miles away in London. The school is huge, there are more than 1000 children in it. It has it own sport fields, a baseball court, three soccer pitches and a proper gymnasium. Classrooms are massive, there is technology everywhere, the children can wear what they like and their canteen sells pizza every day. You could literally pick up our little school plonk it in the middle of this one and it is very possible that no one would ever notice that it was there.

At first, according to my daughter being in the school was a bit weird. Everyone looked at these new strange children, in their school uniforms, like they were aliens. People giggled when H spoke, a boy who lives on a farm and who (genuinely) knew how the combustion engine of a tractor worked before he could read the word ‘tractor’, H has a brilliant Devonian accent.

My daughter told me that none of the Canadian children spoke to her until one of them, a girl called Molly, (whose name I have changed) saw a picture of Taylor Swift on her notebook and immediately starting talking about how much she loved Taylor Swift, and within minutes a new gang of Swifties had formed and within an hour they were friends for life and summer holiday trips were being planned.

Of course, the children weren’t at that school to discuss the best Taylor Swift songs (but by the way, if you are in any doubt the Canadian/Devonian jury was split between these two),

Karma – Taylor Swift (2022, Republic Records)

Anti -Hero – Taylor Swift (2022, Republic Records)

They were there to talk about mental health and come up with a new interact internet based game to help young people talk, learn and deal with the pressures of it. Which of course they did, but only after discussions on Ms Swift had concluded.

Today’s Canadian band are Suuns, they are from Montreal, making three Montreal bands in a row, something which puts them at top of the Official Canada’s Greatest Music City Contest. Suuns first came to prominence in 2010, when their debut album ‘Zeroes QC’ was released to much critical acclaim – one review called it a “Gorgeous assault on the ears”. Which is as good a review as you will ever need to read. It is exactly that, a splendid mix of krautrock, space prog and sparse electronica. It is full of bass wobbles, bendy organ noises, saxophone wigouts, and at least one gorgeous spaced out ballad. It also contains ‘Arena’ which might just be one of the most danceable tracks of the last fifteen years.

Armed For Peace – Suuns (2010, Secretly Canadian Records) – this is the track with the bendy organ.

Gaze – Suuns (2010, Secretly Canadian Records) – this is your saxophone wigout

Organ Blues – Suuns (2010, Secretly Canadian Records) – and here is your gorgeous album ending ballad.

Here is the latest scoreboard in the Official Canada’s Greatest Music City Contest

Montreal	3
Toronto	2
Vancouver	2
Quebec	1

And here is Monday’s lyrical clue, first correct guess in the comments gets some stale school dinners, pink custard optional.

“What if I can’t tell whats best for me?”

Two

It was a drunken night out in Exeter City in the middle of October 2021 that made me want to start blogging again. I had with three mates been to see Red Rum Club at the Cavern Club in Exeter. They were the first band I had seen live in eighteen months, due to lockdown restrictions and they were pretty amazing. You see in that eighteen months, I’d sort of forgotten what going to gigs was like and when I got home all I wanted to do was write down about how good ‘Calexico’ was and how you should stop what you are doing and listen to Red Rum Club.

Calexico – Red Rum Club (2019, Modern Sky Records, Taken from ‘Matador’)

It took me a month, and an underwhelming Damon Albarn gig in a freezing cold church in Totnes to finally put pen to paper and there at nearly midnight on a Tuesday evening in November, No Badger Required was created.

Polaris – Damon Albarn (2021, Transgressive Records, Taken from ‘The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream’)

Today marks the second birthday of this blog. To be honest its lasted nearly eighteen months longer than I expected it to, because you see I thought I’d told all the stories that I could tell and I thought I’d written about my favourite albums enough and I thought I’d explored every feasible topic about music that could be explored – on that how does 20 Songs with ‘friend’ in the title sound, interspersed with stories about stupid things some of my friends have done…

All My Friends – LCD Soundsystem (2007, DFA Records, Taken from ‘Sound of Silver’)

Apparently, I was wrong though, because here we are. Two years is young for a blog especially when there are others that have been going ten, eleven, fifteen years, blogs that continue to inspire, entertain and occasionally enrage me just as much as they every did. If you are one of them, you are brilliant and I salute you. Please keep going.

I’d also like to salute those of you who read this blog. I don’t expect you to read it everyday but if you do – thank you. If you read it once a month, thank you. If today is your first time, thank you, as well, you have a lot of catching up to do. If you are a member of the Musical Jury, then thank you especially. It is my aim in life to hunt you all down and get you all roundly drunk (muggings, cancelled weddings, deaths, and 11^th birthday breakfasts notwithstanding) or if you don’t drink, take you out for trifle or something.

So, here’s to next year then….

On that, in January we have a choice to make.

I have a BIG countdown in mind. One that will last most of the year, one that will be great and contain loads of excellent music but I kind of love the uncertainty of the monthly themes, the chaotic randomness of it. I also love using the Musical Jury so if no one minds, I’ll just carry on shall I with a different theme every month, I mean we’ve still got to do Rocks Greatest L after all.

15 Years – The Levellers (1993, China Records)

I’m also open to suggestions for themes, just in case anyone has any good ideas….

Oh and I might do another short story thing, you see I know this bloke called Wayne and he is being framed for a crime he almost certainly didn’t do….

Innocent (taylors version) – Taylor Swift (2023, Taken from ‘Speak Now (Taylors Version)’)

50 Twelve Inches – #15 The Breeders

Cannonball – The Breeders (1993, 4AD Records, Taken from ‘The Last Splash’)

When I launched this blog I joined a bunch of music related groups on Facebook, some were about a particular band, some were about a genre of a band, others were just a space for people to bang on about whatever music they were listening to that week. The idea was that I would every now and again post a link to the blog to the 3000 members of that group and build up a nice readership through it.

What I didn’t realise was that most of the groups were full of bigoted music snobs who would argue like two rhinos debating who had the biggest horn, over who was the ‘most indie’ or who had heard of the unsigned Crawley act ‘spunkbracket’ first and as such I decided that I didn’t actually want narrow minded toss bags like that reading this blog.

I told myself that I should leave the group, but every now and again, if you ignored the comments from the idiots you would actually get some decent recommendations of new bands. For instance, a person was talking at length about a band called Big Special that he saw live in Sheffield a few weeks ago.

This Here Ain’t Water – Big Special (2023, SO Records)

“Just listen to their music please, they deserve to be HUUUGE!” he hollered from his lounge to the groups 3000 members. Within minutes, he had 12 responses.

“I saw them in a toilet in Bradford TWO YEARS AGO, they’ve sold out now by playing a gig in Sheffield” came a quick response from Joe Sawthem First.

“Bradford, huh, they were blown out by then. It was the gig at the Pigfanciers Arms in Keighley where this band really took off.” Came Indie Pete’s response.

I may have changed these responses, but you get the idea. Regardless of that, Big Special are if you ask me, a bit erm, special, and you should probably check them out, even if you’ve already heard them, play their records some more, because music needs bands like this.

Anyway, how does this link into The Breeders, I hear at least one of you yell. Well, a few weeks ago, my patience with that group finally snapped. It snapped when someone – Let’s say it was Indie Pete for the sake of me not inventing another person – posted their utter disgust at the fact that The Breeders had been announced as one of the support acts on Olivia Rodrigo’s 2024 world tour (they are supporting on two shows, one in Los Angeles and one in New York so it’s hardly a tour).

For those of you who have never heard Olivia Rodrigo, this is what she sounds like

Vampire – Olivia Rodrigo (2023, Geffen Records, Taken from ‘GUTS’)

Which isn’t actually that bad really.

Although I admit that I did raise an eyebrow, when I first read it and then when I read further that Indie Pete was apoplectic with rage at the idea (you could tell how angry he was because the swearing was in capitals “Sell Out BASTARDS I’m burning all my early Breeders demo tapes right now, and chucking my promo copy of ‘Cannonball’ in the FUCKING BIN”) I thought it was a marvellous idea.

So I commented.

I shouldn’t have done I know. I should have rammed my fingers in the door to stop me ever typing again. I know. But this is what I said.

“This is great news. I didn’t even know that the Breeders were still going so surely the fact that they are together again and playing gigs, might mean some new music, and surely that is a good thing. I wish I could go and see them at the Los Angeles gig.”

Apparently, this view made me someone who was a “Plastic Indie Fan”, (probably true) and someone who “Probably likes the Stereophonics” (harsh, although I do have a soft spot for ‘Local Boy in the Photograph’), oh go one then. It’s a great track, accept it.

Local Boy in the Photograph – Stereophonics (1997, V2 Records, Taken from ‘Word Gets Around’)

It also made me a “Radio 1 indie show listener who owns one Nirvana record” “(two actually and one of those is on download and that Radio 1 show plays some really good music) and “Someone who should fuck off back to their Taylor Swift records”.

Now I’ll gladly admit that I much prefer Taylor Swift to Olivia Rodrigo, but I accept that telling Indie Pete and his mates that I preferred Taylor Swift to the Breeders, could have been seen as provocation. Even if it is true.

I found myself barred from the group the next day. Shame.

We are Never Ever Getting Back Together – Taylor Swift (2012, Big Machine Records, Taken from ‘Red’)

Welcome to August – A month all about music’s greatest females- #1 Cathy Dennis

August – Taylor Swift (2020, Republic Records, Taken from ‘folklore’)

I used to know this guy at college, we’ll call him Justin, because that was his name. He had quite cool taste in music and was one of about ten people that I would sit with in the pub on a Friday night. One evening Justin turned up with a new leather jacket, and as was the rage back then, he had started to emblazon the jacket with the logos of his favourite bands. He had the wonky Nirvana face on the back, a Levellers logo on the arm, and right at the top splashed across his shoulders were the words ‘Cathy Dennis’.

Cathy Dennis was at the time something of a pop princess. I suspect, that Justin was being ironic or trying to be clever but according to him, the reason why Cathy’s name was there was because

“She is the greatest living female rock star”

I mean back in 1992 when this was all happening, Cathy Dennis wasn’t even if the top ten greatest living female rock stars. For a start at the time, this young lady was the greatest living female rock star by some unholy distance. In fact there is a very strong argument to remove the word ‘female’ from that statement.

Sheela Na Gig – PJ Harvey (1991, Too Pure Records, Taken from ‘Dry’)

We can compare if you like but it might be pointless.

Too Many Walls – Cathy Dennis (1991, Polydor Records, Taken from ‘Move to This’)

Now Justin may have simply been ahead of his time, (talking of time, the last I heard of Justin, he was serving time in a Thai prison for ‘Pornography’) because fast forward some ten to fifteen years and Cathy Dennis has been responsible for some of pop music’s finest tracks. These two for instance were both written by Ms Dennis

Can’t Get You Out of My Head – Kylie Minogue (2001, Parlophone Records, Taken from ‘Fever’)

Toxic – Britney Spears (2003, Jive Records, Taken from ‘In the Zone’)

So maybe Justin was a prophetic sage and he saw something majestic behind the process plastic beats of Cathy’s early work. Or maybe he just thought she was beautiful and wanted to celebrate that in Tippex on the back of his jacket. We’ll never know, unless the Internet has reached a lonely prison in Thailand and he decides to comment….

There is as usual a point to all this. Sort of.

This blog is far too male heavy. I try to be as selective as possible, but I don’t think I’m doing enough. The recent series of Rocks Greatest J featured about three women, the countdown of Creation Records featured about two. It gets worse, the One Word Countdown featured just three songs with female vocalists in the top twenty. The Nearly Perfect Album Series does a little better with 30% of the acts featured either having a female singer or female band members, but that’s still not really good enough.

So over the next 20 week days I’m going to try and write that wrong. In August this blog will feature only tracks that have female vocalists or bands that have females in them (but the emphasis will be on the vocals). To make my life easier I have invited some select members of the No Badger Required Musical Jury to help me. In other words, August is going to see a bunch of middle aged (mostly) men (mostly) writing about women in rock.

What could possibly go wrong?

I’m going to end today with three tracks by three bands who have female singers that I think are brilliant, two of which perhaps you might not have heard before and one that you might have. At the end there will be the lyrical clue for the next day.

First up South London’s Fightmilk who are fronted by Lily Rae and they are all sorts of marvellous

Cool Cool Girl – Fightmilk (2021, Reckless Yes Records, Taken from ‘Contender’)

Next up Belfast alt punk combo New Pagans, who are fronted by Lyndsey MacDougall and should easily fill that gap in your life that has been there ever since The Breeders stopped making records.

Yellow Room – New Pagans (2021, Self Released, Taken from ‘The Seed, The Vessel, The Roots and All’)

Finally here are some New Yorkers called Friends – luckily it’s not that irritating bunch from the sitcom but a cool art school band that should have been massive about ten years ago fronted by the excellent Samantha Urbani.

I’m His Girl – Friends (2012, Fat Possum Records, Taken from ‘Manifest!’)

Here is the lyrical teaser “Time’s up, keep it moving when she arrives”