The Best 40 Crossover Tracks – #8 – Kneeing Yourself in the Face

8. Come to Daddy (Pappy Mix) – Aphex Twin (1997, Warp Records)

This is a bit of cheat really because, ‘Come to Daddy’ pretty much cleared the dancefloor every time we played it but it does mean I can tell you about Benjamin.

Benjamin was a Bosnian chap and was one of the indie club regulars.  He was primarily into rock music and would be one of the first people on to the floor when Jonny’s rock half hour starter.   I say rock music, Benjamin was all about punk rock, and if you are reading Benjamin, this ones for you,

Basket Case – Green Day (1994, Reprise Records)

To be honest you haven’t seen dancing, if you’ve not witnessed Benjamin throwing himself around the dancefloor to that or something by Mudhoney.  I consider myself to be a terrible dancer, possibly one of the worst dancers in the history of dancing, but if I am near the top of the bad dancing tree, then Benjamin is the branch above me.   I say ‘is’, I should put ‘was’, because for all I know he may well be a qualified street dancer teacher by now, I’ve not seen him for twenty six years. I suspect he probably isn’t though.

Benjamin danced like he was possessed by a demonic force.  Once he got going, the other dancers would back away from him leaving a sort of circle around him.  His arms would flail around like a windmill fuelled by acid instead of wind.  His head would bob all over the place, like one of those dogs that people used to put on the parcel shelves of their cars, albeit an extreme version of that.  His legs would twitch left and right, his knees would jerk violently in different directions and his body would generally be contorted in odd but yet strangely beautiful ways.  Folks, I am not making this up, it was not unusual for Ben to physically knee himself in the face at least once an evening. 

It got to the point where the security guards were so bored of dressing Benjamin’s wounds from his dancing that they asked us to play records that he wouldn’t dance to.  I think they even asked us to bar him.

We couldn’t do that, we all loved Benjamin and besides he was a party starter.  He got people on the dancefloor, even if it was to just watch him try to kick himself in the face, but he was on the dancefloor then other people were on the dancefloor.  In the winter term of 1997, Benjamin asked us, if we could as part of the rock section (well he asked Johnny as that was his domain – he owned the Punk Rock CD compilation album – which he genuinely found in a branch of the Co-op on a shelf next to some bleach and Dettol bottles, no idea why it was there, but it cost him £1.99) if we could play some thrash metal.  “Play some Slayer or some Bolt Thrower” he yelled at us.  

(oh go on then)

Attack in the Aftermath – Bolt Thrower (1988, Earache Records)

We didn’t have any Slayer or Bolt Thrower or any thrash metal for that matter but we did have the Pappy Mix of ‘Come to Daddy’ by the Aphex Twin, which according to Johnny (and the Aphex Twin agrees come to think of it) was basically ‘death metal’.  

The first time we played it, the dancefloor cleared quicker than a swimming pool does when Michael Barrymore turns up in his speedos.  Apart from Benjamin, he stayed, throwing himself around, jerking like he was being tasered, arms, legs and head all moving in different directions.  It was marvellous.

The majority of the Aphex Twin’s music was never really staple indie disco fodder, largely because its either ambient noodlings or insanely glitchy techno drill n bass that makes your eyeballs hurt but I always tried to drop at least one Aphex track into any set I did. 

So you can ‘See Also’ these three, because people danced to them, I’m fairly sure that very few of them knew that it was the Aphex Twin but there you go.

Ventolin (video edit) – Aphex Twin (1995, Warp Records)

On – Aphex Twin (1993 Warp Records)

To Cure A Weakling Child (Contour Regard) – Aphex Twin (1995, Warp Records)

The No Badger Required End of Year Countdown (15 – 11)

Welcome to Day Five – today we explore the five tracks that sit just outside the Top Ten but before we dive into all that, here is another member of the Musical Jury with their pick of the year  Here is Rol from the wonderful His Top Ten Blog who rather stretches the ‘One Paragraph’ Rule.

“When the esteemed gate keeper of this fine blog asked me for my favourite track of the year, I almost didn’t respond.  Partly because that’s always such a difficult question to answer, but largely because I’ve been struggling with my self confidence lately… to the point where I’ve been doing a lot of reading up on how the brai works and why we get negative emotions such as depression, anxiety, anger or low self-esteem.  I’ve been trying to write about it (with added pop music!) in a blog series called Self Help For Cynics.  I tell you this not as an act of blatant self promotion but to illustrate why I was reluctant to contribute… I mean, who cares what my favourite song was in 2023?  My own handful of die hard readers may feign an interest, but why would the illustrious cognoscenti who follow No Badger Required give a monkey’s? (A particular apt idiom since it seems we can blamea lot of common mental health illness on an overactive monkey brain….but I digress.)

Second paragraph.  Oh dear.  And now I’ve broken the primary rule of engagement. Get to the poin, will you Rol!  My favourite song of the year?  Well, its too close to call.  It’s either this….

Modern Girls – Bleachers (2023, Dirty Hit Records)

…which won’t go down well with many of you as it’s a blatant 80s pastiche, complete with saxophones, hand claps, woah woah woahs and a chirpily singalong chorus.  Plus it’s the work of Jack Antaoff, who used to be in fun., a band with no capital letter and an unnecessary full stop in their name; most upsetting to English teachers like myself.  They were the guys who released that ‘We Are Young’ song from Chevrolet advert a few years ago and then broke up over artistic similarities (to steal a joke from Paul Heaton).  And as I try desperate to sell this to you, I realise I’m probably affecting the mental health of many a No Badger Required reader, so instead I’ll offer this….”

Checking Out – Divorce (2022, Hand In Hive Records)

Thanks Rol.  For what its worth I much prefer the Divorce track to the Bleachers one.  Then again, I think you said as much. Right time for some No Badger Required favourites.

15. Vanilla – Colour TV (2023, Tip Top Records)

To the best of my knowledge, which is to be fair, limited, the seaside resort and once a year Goth playground that is Whitby has only ever featured in one good song, that being Cud’s Morrissey annoying classic ‘(Only) A Prawn In Whitby’.  Well in 2023 all that changed when Cornwall’s Colour TV released ‘Vanilla’ and made easily the greatest record to ever mentioned ‘Whitby’.  ‘Vanilla’ is tremendous, it has guitars that roar and howl majestically all over the place, drums that crash frantically and a deliciously yelpy vocal from star in wating Sam Durneen.

Talking of delicious and frantic, here’s Richard D James.

14. Blackbox Life Recorder 21f – Aphex Twin (2023, Warp Records)

You know when you put aside all the nonsense that has happened in 2023, war, thousands of unnecessary deaths, surging cost of living and energy prices, dirty rivers, crumbling schools, the inexplicable celebrity status of Matt Hancock, escalating racial tensions fuelled by right wing politicians with a Trumpian disposition, it hasn’t been such a bad year.  I mean the Aphex Twin released a bunch of new tracks for a start….

Next up some anti corporate stoner rock

13. Buy My Product  – Water from Your Eyes (2023, Matador Records)

Some of the best songs in the world sound like they are about to spiral out of control.  The guitars get more and more distorted, the drums get more distant, the vocals get lost in all the chaos, the bass gets more frantic before something, often luck, brings them all back together so that it becomes one big cauldron of brilliance.  ‘Buy My Product’ does that.  Twice.  And then just stops as it actually does spiral out of control.  Astonishingly good.

Ok – here is the next next next big thing

12. Sinner – The Last Dinner Party (2023, Universal Records)

The debut single by all female London five piece The Last Dinner Party, a sweary baroque pop ditty called ‘Nothing Matters’ created a swirl of almost instant hype around them.  That hype has continued to build over the year.  Despite only having a handful of songs they have played sold out shows up and down the UK and have been snapped by a major label. Their debut album ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’ is already one of most anticipated records of next year despite it sounding a little bit like Fleetwood Mac in places.

All of which means we should hate The Last Dinner Party, right?  Nope.  They are outstanding and trust me, by Glastonbury you’ll know every word to every song.

Finally for today the best song to ever name check ‘Dr Pepper’.

11. 2009 – Pynch (2023, Chillburn Records, Taken from ‘Howling at a Concrete Moon’)

 ‘2009’ is a marvellous ode to being young.  A dreamy indie pop affair that is sort of half the slacker stoned pop of Beck and half the choppy art school ethics of say Bloc Party. Regardless of that it’s full of lyrics about skateboards, fizzy drinks, getting stoned and listening to heavy metal.  All of which are essential for being young and cool.  Apart from the heavy metal obviously.

On Monday we usher in the Top Ten Tracks, and start to look at some of the best albums of the year too, plus we’ll have more from the Musical Jury…

The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #27

Richard D James – Aphex Twin (1996, Warp Records)

“My[click, whirl] and [click, click]”

Points 59

Highest Rank 2^nd

To Cure A Weakling Child – Aphex Twin (1996, Warp Records)

Let’s deal with the album cover whilst everyone gets comfy.  The sleeve art of ‘Richard D James’ is kind of terrifying.  The cover is a picture of Richard’s grinning face, but it’s the not the face of a mild mannered DJ from deepest Cornwall, it’s the face of psychopath.  The smile is sinister, his eyes look evil and the stark white backdrop makes him look like a pantomime villain from some futuristic thriller where a deranged computer genius takes over the world by infecting laptops with baffling crypto jargon.

Its hard to push that aside when you get round to considering the music on offer on ‘Richard D James’ because it’s not just the alarming album sleeve – but you also have to consider the fact that this is the album where the Aphex Twin dives headfirst into pissing around with drills and other household tools in the middle of certain tracks.  That and the countless audio surprises that greet you as you listen.

It starts beautifully though with ‘4’ and those icy fears of spooky horror techno dissolve as essentially an orchestra fire up backed by a synth which darts in and out of the track, jostling for primacy with the stuttering breakbeats which follow it around like a hungry child. ‘4’ is remarkable and if I had to list my favourite Aphex Twin moments for some form of imaginary compilation album, it would open side two.

4 – Aphex Twin (1996, Warp Records)

The rest of the album is far more playful.  Tracks like ‘Cornish Acid’ and ‘Peek 824545201’ sound altogether different, the latter is a mishmash of computer noises and alien squelches laid over an organ sound which may or may not be sampled from a black and white information film about rural churches.  Regardless, the spookiness and otherworldliness that we love Aphex for is back by the time track three ends.

Peek 824545201 – Aphex Twin (1996, Warp Records)

That is followed by ‘Fingerbib’ which if you are keeping count would also be on that imaginary compilation album, somewhere near the end of side one – it also happens to be one of the finest melodies that the Aphex Twin has ever recorded.  A ballad of sorts, if only because it doesn’t have madcap breakbeats running amok in it.

Fingerbib – Aphex Twin (1996, Warp Records)

Eventually you will get to ‘To Cure a Weakling Child’ the track in which Richard James decides that it about time we heard him sing.  Well sort of.  His voice is massively manipulated to make him sound like a child and most of it is drowned out by clicks, whirrs, synths and some stunning breakbeat action. Its kind of like the noises the ten year old me would have made when presented with a new Lego set.

I am of course an Aphex fan boy.  I sulked last month for three days because I couldn’t go to Bristol to see him at the Forwards Festival so I am bound to say that this a work of genius, I mean it genuinely is, but I’ll leave the last word to MJM #20 who gave Aphex his highest point tally (probably because I didn’t vote – it would have got 100 points if I did).

“The ‘Richard D James’ album, is incredible, one of the most complete electronic albums ever recorded.  Its full of noises that shouldn’t go well together but do because the Aphex Twin has demanded that they should.  The way the swanny whistle is used electronically on the last track ‘Logan Rock Witch’ as a spectral organ swirls around it, the way the classical sounding piano mingles with brain achingly fast drum n bass on ‘Girl/Boy Song’, the way his own voice is distorted on ‘To Cure a Weakling Child’ all of it shouldn’t work but when heard here it is simply stunning.”

Girl/Boy Song – Aphex Twin (1996, Warp Records)

See told you.  Right here is tomorrow more conventional lyric clue and for once its an easy one…

“Nothing hurts you like the pain of someone you love,”

Alternative Versions – #13

Radiator (Original Mix – Peel Session 2) – Aphex Twin (2019, Warp Records, Taken from ‘Peel Session 2’)

Radiator (Album Version) – Aphex Twin (1994, Warp Records, Taken from ‘Selected Ambient Work Vol 2’)

I saw the Aphex Twin play an unadvertised secret set at Glastonbury about twenty years ago.  It was in a part of the festival called The Glade, tucked away behind a load of other stages.  The DJ booth was raised off the ground in a sort of bubble dome thing, we’d sort of stumbled across The Glade by chance (it was of course, always there, it wasn’t lost or anything) as we wandered around the site, and it looked like a nice place to sit and eat some food.  The music was chilled and relaxed and pretty enjoyable and we happened to glance across at the site’s line up to see that we were listening to some DJ called Mark, but it was the name at the top of the board that caught our eye because that as clear as day said : –

1030pm – 0000am Aphex Twin

We checked our glossy programmes  – there was no mention of the Aphex Twin anywhere, the headline act for Saturday night in the programme said “Glade DJs until midnight”.  I love Glastonbury unannounced sets, because sometimes they are unexpectedly brilliant (For instance -I saw David Essex do a surprise thirty minutes on the piano in a bar/stage called The Bimble Inn,  and it was one of the best gigs ever and I saw Frank Turner play 35 brilliant acoustic minutes at a Bandstand in the Green Fields because the someone in the crowd saw him walk past and handed him a guitar). 

Recovery – Frank Turner (2013, Xtra Mile Records, Taken from ‘Tape Deck Heart’)

The Aphex Twin in a bubble dome surrounded by fairy lights, glow sticks and the faint hum of the nearby kids field was no different.  The really interesting thing was that in keeping with the surroundings he played a set that was chilled and full of ambient tunes, well, until the last half hour when he went mental and starting speeding up old discos records and then shoving breakbeats and drum n bass all over them.  I have no idea what songs he played given that he claims to have over a 1000 in his vault, but I think he played this (let’s just pretend he did, even if he didn’t).

Meltphace 6 – Aphex Twin (2001, Warp Records, Taken from ‘Drukqs’)

In 1995, when, ‘Peel Session 2’ was actually recorded, a lot of the information around Richard D James was still shrouded in mystery.  He was according to the information available, a man who could survive on less than two hours sleep a night.  He claimed to be able to write music in his sleep and had the ability to control his dreams.  He also said that he drove around the Cornish moors in a decommissioned tank and sampled himself digging tunnels with a jackhammer (which he then used on some of his Polygon Window work).  Personally I always shrugged my shoulders because his music was too good to care about what was going on in the background

The Peel Session version of ‘Radiator’ is surprisingly similar to the version on ‘SAW II’ – it has those same clunking kettle drumish noises (which are probably a sample from when the plumber popped round to sort Richard’s dodgy pipes) which twist and turn atmospherically around your speakers.  The Peel Session is slightly better in that the beats have been sped up a bit and general feel of it seems a bit more freestyle. Both are great though.  Although the score is level again at 6 each.

Of the rest of the ‘Peel Session 2’ album, the industrial stomper ‘p-string’ is the track that really stands out.  It was a track that James wrote specifically for the programme and it remained pretty much unavailable until 2016 (some twenty years later) and its one of Aphex’s finest moments.

p-string – Aphex Twin (2019, Warp Records, Taken from ‘Peel Sessions 2’)

You also get a neat version of ‘Pancake Lizard’, which is different from the track that first surfaced on the ‘Donkey Rhubarb Ep’.

Pancake Lizard – Aphex Twin (2019, Warp Records, Taken from ‘Peel Sessions 2’)

Pancake Lizard – Aphex Twin (1995, Warp Records, Taken from ‘Donkey Rhubarb EP’)

Tomorrow – Echo and the Bunnymen

Desert Island Dick 3

Before I start, today happens to be the 500th No Badger Required Post. Here is a bonus 500 related track. Ok, back slapping over, let’s get back to the parish magazine.

This was the final article that was published in the March edition of the Parish Magazine.  I went for the tongue firmly in cheek approach. 

So there I was on a desert island the other day, well I say island, it’s more of an Atoll than an island.  It’s a bit like the ones that a cartoonist would use when drawing an island.  It is about ten metres in diameter and there is nothing but sand on it, apart from a palm tree stuck in the middle of it, which means that at least my skin will be stay fresh. 

I have no obvious way of contacting the rest of the world.  I have no bottles to stick messages in and even if I did, I don’t have any paper to write messages on, so I decide to carve the words ‘HELP’ out in the sand and then fall asleep under the cover of the palm tree.

Being a proactive sort of chap, I decide to write the word ‘HELP’ in English and French, just in case a passing helicopter or sea plane is being piloted by a non English speaker, and I am half way through this when my hand scraps on something hard and solid.

Weirdly it turns out to be a box, which someone has foolishly left unlocked so that any old person can simply unlock and remove whatever is inside.  I drag the box out of its sandy grave and with some caution in case it is a booby trapped treasure chest left by a one legged man with a parrot on his shoulder, I throw the box open.

It isn’t full of treasure.  It contains five things, three pieces of music, a book and a very special thing.  This makes me laugh because I was literally listening to a repeat of Radio 4’s ‘Desert Island Discs’ when the Russians blew up my plane. 

The three pieces of music are by sheer unbridled luck, three pieces of music that I would take to a desert island with me, should I ever wish to have a very secluded beach holiday. They are as follows:

Green Calx by Aphex Twin (Warp Records)

Which if you haven’t heard it before (and I guessing many of you probably haven’t) is full of burbling basslines, synthy interjections, spring noises, clanks, whirrs and electronic trickery and despite it being only six minutes in length you could listen to it a thousand times and it will never ever sound the same.  Which is lucky as I am going to be here for a while.

The second piece of music is

All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem (DFA Records)

Again, for those in the dark, this is a song full of nostalgia and it will remind of my time back at home with my family and friends, it has lyrics about the sun coming up, about bad movies and about making stupid decisions and it has the greatest final 30 seconds of any song ever recorded (Face facts ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’).

The last piece of music is

Come Together (Farley Mix) – Primal Scream (Creation Records)

Which would please me greatly because it tells me that whoever left these pieces of music in this box agreed with me that this is the definitive version of this record.  Its nine minutes of sheer brilliance.

The book has a note attached to it.  It reads “There was a copy of ‘The Complete Works of Shakespeare’ as well but ‘The Winter’s Tale’, bored me to tears, so I burnt the whole lot one cold evening”.  Underneath the note was a well-thumbed copy of ‘Watership Down’ by Richard Adams, again, this is lucky because it’s the greatest novel ever written (face facts John Grisham). 

Which leaves us with just the very special thing because there under the music and the book is what every castaway needs when stuck on a ten metre wide island.  Three thousand pieces of various types of lego.  I have wheels, windows, roof bits, and three green base plates, so if you excuse me, I have some building to do.

On Monday – The Musical Jury is back as a new No Badger Required Countdown judders, jitteringly and jelly like into view.  Bands will jostle and joust their way into view as they all jump up and down joyously as they wait to see who will be crowned Rocks Greatest J.

Counting up from 2 – #10 – Eleven

Mornings Eleven – The Magic Numbers (2005, Capitol Records, Taken from ‘The Magic Numbers’)

When I was eleven I went to grammar school.   On my first day, I remember walking to school with a lad called Graham whose mum owned the local sweet shop.  She stuffed our oversized blazer pockets with bags of liquorice allsorts and jelly beans before we walked nervously down the road to the school.  

You hear rumours about new schools, the way that a bullies pick on first years and flush their heads down the toilet or use you as a goalpost.  These rumours were all discussed by Graham and I as we walked to school our teeth blackened by the liquorice. Graham and I decided that it would be Michael, an annoying lad from our old school who would be first to get his head flushed down the toilet.

On arrival we were all herded like sheep in a large room that the school called the Wind Tunnel and there, in something that when I look back on it, was probably the inspiration for JK Rowling’s Sorting Hat Ceremony, we were placed into houses. 

It wasn’t as glamourous as the Hogwarts thing, your name was read out and you went and stood in a line behind the sour face looking teacher, and then you were lead up some manky stairs which had chewing gums stuck under the plastic bannisters, to your form room.  I was placed in Newton.  A house named after Isaac Newton, the man who along with gravity also invented the cat flap and stood as an MP (incidentally Isaac Newton’s only recorded contribution to the smooth running of government as an MP, was asking if the window in the chambers could be closed – absolutely true).

 We were given a red stripe (a piece of material, not sadly, a can of the Jamaican lager) which was to sit just above the badge on our oversized blazers.  Our teacher was a PE Teacher, who like most PE Teachers appeared to spend his entire life in a tracksuit and only ever wrote in capital letters.  He left the school a year or two later, under a bit of a cloud of scandal, something involving a science teacher and some chloroform, but I forget exactly what.   

To make things easier, the teacher told us to sit next to the person whose name was next to yours in the register.  That meant I got to sit next to a girl called Paula – she later became smelly Paula after she fell head first into a cow pat on a school trip to a farm.  In front of us were Vicky and Allan – Allan later became an actor of some note, as he appeared in at least one episode of the Bill, and two episodes of Casaulty and an advert for Converse Trainers.   Allan was a favourite with all the girls and before the end of year eight was dating girls two or three years older than him.  He also loved U2 and would regularly repeat Ben Elton’s comedy routines from Friday Night Live word for word on a Monday morning to an adoring crowd. 

Behind us sat Nick (who later became Smelly Nick, because, well he had BO and no concept of soap) and Zoe.  Zoe had the sort of permed hair that you only ever saw sad old ladies with.  She looked like she was 65 when she was 11.   As first days go, it was pretty rubbish.  My first week wasn’t much better, I tried for the football team, didn’t get in.  The centre forward places going to two lads from another house, called David and Richard, both infinitely quicker and more talented than me

XI – Richard Dawson (2013, alt.vinyl records, taken from ‘The Glass Trunk’)

By the end of the first week I had became the first person in Newton to get a detention, something which at least made me slightly more interesting for about a week.  This was handed out by a complete bastard of a science teacher called Mr Duncan, who dished out detentions like vicars dish out words of advice.  My crime, putting the Bunsen Burner back in the wrong place.

#11 – Aphex Twin (1994, Warp Records, Taken from ‘Selected Ambient Works Vol. 11)

Counting Up From Two – #3 Four

Four – Jagwar Ma (2013, Mom + Pop Records, Taken from ‘Howlin’’)

It was ball four of my first over for the Tobacco Bay Cricket Team when I realised that I was not going to be a first class cricketer.  I realised this because the batsman had just whacked the ball back over my head for six runs and my team mates were shaking their heads and the captain had his head in his hand.  I wouldn’t mind but two of the previous three balls had also been hit for boundaries as well.  I’d put the first one down to nerves, and the second one down to luck, but this third one was simply down to the fact that I’m not good enough to play.   Which is true, I am literally making up the numbers.

You see one hour ago, I stepped off the number 5 bus from the Bermudian capital Hamilton to St Georges and my plan was to take a walk along the coast to Tobacco Bay and check out a new bar there called Buccaneers.  The walk takes me straight past a small cricket ground, where a chap – let’s call him Darren – runs over and asks me if I would like to play a game of cricket as his team are one short.  I tell him that I haven’t played cricket in something like ten years (its more like 20 to be fair) but I can bowl a “pretty good yorker” – which is just words, I couldn’t bowl a yorker if you paid me in Yorkies. This rather blatant lie is now being exposed but the burly West Indian chap who is smacking me all over the place.   I might as well be chucking pies at him.  First over, no wickets, fourteen runs.  Not good.  Darren tells me to go and field “Out by the boundary” I grab my hat and wander off.  It’s a nice spot to stand actually, if I look away from the game I see people snorkelling.   I clap encouragement every now and again to try and look like I at least seem to know what I am talking about.  Then I get the chance to redeem myself, the Viv Richards wannabe has thumped the ball in my direction and my team mates are shouting “Catch” in my general direction. 

Which I get nowhere near obviously.  The ball bounces in a sort of no mans land, I do manage to stop a certain boundary about two minutes later, which earns me a solitary clap from Clarence, he’s standing on the boundary watching and keeps telling me that “It’s not my day”.  Clarence is eighty years old and he will tell me to overs later that I have the cricketing technique of an armadillo.   Half an hour later I get the chance to bowl again, luckily for me the batsmen are not as good as earlier, and on ball three I mutter “Howzat!” on the off chance that I might have the batter leg before (its nowhere near and I know it the second I mutter the “How” bit).   The umpire looks at me, he is a very English chap called Raif and he says “You sure old man?” I shake my head dismally.  Second over no wickets for twenty runs.  I don’t get asked to bowl again. 

In the break, Darren asks me where I would usually bat.  Now the last time I batted in a match I batted at six and thwacked the ball all over the shop because I was playing for the Scouts against other Scouts who were even worse at this game than I am now.  I’m sure I got 33 in nine balls or something.  I suspect this might be slightly tougher, so I say “Ooh eight or nine”.  I’m marked down at 11.  Which is the last man.  I am the last turkey on the shelf.

The teams batting doesn’t go well.  We are going to lose, heavily and with eight balls to go, it is my moment in the spotlight.  I check the scoreboard we need 30 off these eight balls.  Its doable, especially as Mac our best player is the one being bowled at and not me.  I walk to the crease and do a few air shots.  Mac looks at me “Just block it man and run a single if you get the chance”, he says with a Jamaican twang.  Mac hits the next two balls for four.  Meaning we need 22 from the last six balls, but at least one of those balls is coming to me.

Mac is talking to me again “Quick Single Man” he says.  I nod.  I’m petrified, the bowler is about eight foot tall and has dreadlocks that could strangle a man.  He tears down the pitch and bowls and I do a passable impression of an idiot trying to swat a fly but somehow, god knows how, I connect with the ball and its flies away, sort of.  I stand there and look for the ball “Run, fool” shouts Mac. Which I do. 

There is no Hollywood ending.  Mac thwacks the ball some more but it’s pointless we need eleven off the last ball and I get to face it.  Dreadlock man comes tearing down again and I get nowhere near the ball this time.  I hear a clunk and look round to see my wicket collapsing behind me.  I hear Mac tut.  He trudges off, and I follow to the sound of Clarence’s solitary clap.   I don’t get asked to play again, and the next time I go to Tobacco Bay I get off the bus a stop earlier and walk the long way round.

Your Four Walls – Odd Morris (2020,self released single)

4 – Aphex Twin (1996, Warp Records, Taken from ‘Richard D James’)

Counting Up From Two – #2 – Three

Three Friends – The Levellers (1990, China Records, Taken from ‘A Weapon Called the Word’)

My dad told me a few years ago that I had my first birthday party aged three.  I was so excited about having all my playgroup friends around that in the space of seven minutes I wet myself and was sick all over my new jumper.  My new jumper was blue and was hand knitted by my nan and it had two feet in pink on the front, so it looked like someone had walked over my jumper and then puked on their own feet.

I don’t remember this party.  According to my dad I had three friends over, two boys and a girl and we played with my new train set until I was sick and then the parents scooped up their little ones and went home.  Six months later, aged three and a half I tripped over that train set in a rush to get a Matchbox mini car out from under the cupboard and fractured my fibia as I landed in heap on the cold linoleum floor. 

Three Decades – The Horrors (2008, XL Records, Taken from ‘Primary Colours’)

I was woken up at two thirty AM on my thirtieth birthday by some people singing ‘Happy Birthday’ really loudly.  Sadly I didn’t know any of them, and they were not singing it to me as they were singing it in Flemish.  This was because I was in Brussels and the hotel we were staying overlooked a square which for some reason had about 30 drunk people dancing around a fountain singing well wishes to an unknown person.  My wife turned in bed over looked at the clock, realised that I had just turned thirty and sleepily said “What they said” and fell back to asleep.  I eventually fell back to sleep again and then woke up and promptly went (temporarily) deaf in my right ear.  Old age had apparently arrived.    

For a slap up birthday meal we had a takeaway pizza from ‘Toni’s Pizzeria ‘and cherry beer purchased from tiny off licence in an area of Brussels called Louise.  The pizza remains to this day one of the greatest takeaways pizzas I have ever had.   The following day we were stopped from going within one hundred feet of some government building that we wanted to look around because Tony Blair was visiting so we sat in a coffee shop on Luxembourg Square and ate cake instead.

#3 – Aphex Twin (1994, Warp Records, Taken from ‘Selected Ambient Works Vol 2’)

My daughters third birthday was spoilt by a giant spider.  It wasn’t real but it was a massive plastic one hung from the ceiling of the tiny café that is tacked ono the tram station at Colyton, East Devon.  It was part of their decorations for their forthcoming ‘Ghostly Tram Ride’ that tram company were running in about two weeks (my daughters birthday being in Mid October).  She took one bite of her ‘Special Birthday Sandwich’ looked up saw the giant spider, and as she was already shaky from the skull with its eyes hanging out (they were painted marbles on a pipe cleaner) refused to sit in the café for another second.  The crappy plastic gravestones didn’t help either nor the fact they were playing the sodding Monster Mash on repeat.

We’d been having fun up to that point.  My daughter whooping and cheering as the tram hurtled through the East Devon countryside at 10mph “Its really fast now, Daddy” she would yell every two minutes or so.  Despite the fact that I could at times literally have ran faster, whilst carrying my daughter on my back. 

Next Week – The Number Four.

The One Word Countdown – #30

The rundown’s most prolific contributor….

Theme – Sabres of Paradise (1994, Warp Records, Taken from ‘Haunted Dancehall’

Points 118

I think this might be the fourth week in a row that a track involving in Andy Weatherall has featured in this rundown.  I may as well change the blog name to ‘Bagging Area II’ and be done with it (not that I am in anyway worthy).  Anyway, of all the Andy Weatherall musical projects that have come and gone – and the aforementioned Bagging Area blog is a far greater place to read about them than here – Sabres of Paradise are my favourite.  It is a travesty that ‘Haunted Dancehall’, the second studio album by Sabres of Paradise didn’t achieve more than it did commercially.  It is an album that captures that after party feel perfectly – and (spoiler) it is one that will feature in the Nearly Perfect Album Series at some point.

I first heard ‘Theme’ – a track which was as close as the band came to actually having a proper hit (number 54 with a bullet) courtesy of a dance CD that I got sent when I was DJing.  I forget the name, but it also had a version of Analogue Bubblebath by Aphex Twin on it – and it may have been a Warp Records sampler, but I genuinely can’t remember, and I don’t appear to have it anymore.  Which was a shame because it was one that almost got me kicked out of the university indie society for the heinous crime of liking a CD that didn’t contain many guitars.  It might have been in the pile of CDs stolen by a bloke called Frank whilst my back was turned on the old ones and twos at university.  Might have just lost it, in a drunken haze, or lent it out and never asked for it back.  Who knows.

Analogue Bubblebath – Aphex Twin (1991, Mighty Force Records, Taken from ‘Analogue Bubblebath Vol 1’)

It’s essential Weatherall, a twisted, dubby beat, that has this almost metallic clang running through it that compliments a whole world of musical sounds.  It packs in a (sampled) brass section, a chugging, niggly, guitar riff that sounds like it comes from a car advert, a pounding, hypnotic African drum interlude and a bassline that sounds like a train going up a hill.  It is blended all together in only a way that Mr Weatherall and his bandmates know how to and the result is just astonishingly good.

There were of course one other track that were considered, one of them was ‘Wilmot’ which has one of the finest rewinds ever recorded.

Wilmot – Sabres of Paradise (1994, Warp Records) – it contains a hefty element of ‘Black but Sweet’ by Wilmoth Houdini (something that was brought to my attention by….Mr Bagging Area)

100 Songs with One Word Titles (55 – 51)

And so our jaunty hike through the lower regions of the Greatest Songs with One Word Titles comes to an end.  We’ve reached the virtual café at the end of the path if you like.  Next week I will deal with one number a day, but before then there are of course a few loose ends to tie up.  The song that was lying in 8^th place after five votes were counted, was ‘Hysteria’ by Muse but then thankfully the Gods of Common Sense intervened and the normal bashing of prog rock mentalists from South Devon begun.   Moving on….

55. Sliver – Nirvana (1990, Sub Pop Records, Taken from ‘Incesticide’)

About halfway through ‘Sliver’ you can pretty much pinpoint the exact moment that Nirvana crossed from being a Black Sabbath influenced rock band into a more punk orientated band with one eye on success.  Whilst I will happily admit that it was ‘Nevermind’ and more probably ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ that gave me my first introduction to Nirvana (although I did see their 1991 Reading Show), it was ‘Sliver’ on 12” that actually turned my head as to how amazing they were.

54. Sun – Caribou (2010, City Slang Records, Taken from ‘Swim’)

‘Sun’ is a terrific blast of throbbing tech house.  It bleeps and tweeks and sparkles, whilst a techno house beat throbs away wonderfully.  It’s kind of the musical equivalent of walking through a wood at dusk, as the sunlight breaks through the trees every now again. The distorted voice that just repeats the word ‘Sun’ over and over again adds to the dazzling nature.

53. Original – Leftfield (1995, Sony Music, Taken from ‘Leftism’)

A track that only featured on here a few days ago, when the magnificent ‘Leftism’ was given the ‘Nearly Perfect’ Treatment.  I’ll repeat myself a bit if that’s ok .  ‘Original’ is magnificent, it was back in 1995 when it first surfaced and it remains so today.  It is a slow paced dubhop (If that even exists) that is brooding and menacing and Toni Halliday from Curve never sounded as good as she did here.

52. Windowlicker – Aphex Twin (1999, Warp Records)

‘Windowlicker’ was according to Richard D James, inspired by eerie lounge music that soundtracks porn films.  Whether this actually true or not is anyone’s guess.  Remember Richard D James once started the rumour that he told Madonna that the he would only remix one of her songs if she let him record her grunting like a pig, and people believed that.  Although it is absolutely possible that ‘Windowlicker’ is inspired by porn soundtracks because it is downright sleazy and full of distorted groans of some form of carnal pleasure (and its bloody ace).

And finally…

51. Queen – Perfume Genius (2014, Matador Records, Taken from ‘Too Bright’) The bottom half of the Top 100 is topped by the wonderful ‘Queen’ by Perfume Genius, another track that has already been on this blog once already – as part of the not very much missed but definitely coming back ‘Never Ending Playlist’ in the early ‘ramshackle’ days of No Badger Required. Its one of the few songs that exist that have a wordless chorus, with Mike Hadreaus just letting a tuneful groan.