Set Up Like A Deck Of Cards

Misfits — Horror Business

This song just came up in shuffle and I remembered how much I love it.  I think it’s one of the best punk songs ever recorded.  The speed, the chord progression, the riffage, the fun.  If I was in a band, this would be a song that I would demand that we cover.

Imagine seeing this live at CBGB. I’m getting goosebumps thinking about it.

Chicks - Let Me Go

This is one of those songs that I get a massive urge to hear every now and then.

Chicks were a young, three-piece, comic obsessed pop-punk band that looked like they were going to make it big 10 years ago but then disappeared, which is a shame.  They only ever released two EPs, and I proudly own both of them.

One of the best compliments I can give them is that Sonic Youth asked them to tour with them.  This article is really all I would be able to write about them, other than I saw them play this song live on Jo Whiley’s TV show back in 1998 and fell in love with it and them straight away.  I remember Huey from the Fun Lovin’ Criminals was a studio guest on the same show and I’m pretty sure I still have the show recorded on VHS somewhere.

I’ve been searching for the performance on YouTube for years, but it’s not there. One of the few times the Internet has ever failed me.

In Flames - Only For The Weak (Live)

I’ve had a mild interest in In Flames for a while, but I saw them play at Download a couple of weeks ago and they were awesome.

The vocalist, Anders, was a cocky twat between songs (slagging off other bands), but show me a good singer who isn’t.

Anyway, since then, I’ve bought a lot of their stuff and I think this song, from their Used And Abused DVD, is my favourite performance of theirs.  It sounds great, it has a good level of audience involvement (“Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!”), and the keyboard melody is so much more prominent than in the album version, which I think makes it sound better.

This has become my new “KEEP GOING!” song while I’m on the bike.

Bernard Butler — Not Alone

Taken from the ex-Suede guitarist’s first solo album in 1998, I’ve always loved this song. I remember buying the CD single at the awesome Record Collector in Sheffield during my first year at university, the day after I heard it played on the radio.

It’s definitely a late 90s, British, ‘indie’ song and it maybe sounds a little bit dated now, but whenever I hear it I always crank the volume up. I think it’s one of the most uplifting songs I know and it seems to sound best on a summer night, when the sky is just starting to get dark.