How Does It Feel To Feel

Ride formed in 1988 when four teenagers met through two different art colleges in Oxford. Andy Bell, Mark Gardner, Loz Colbert and Steve Queralt kind of knew each other but came together to form Ride and they quickly made their mark by self-recording and producing a demo tape with the songs Chelsea Girl and Drive Blind.

Ride looked, sounded and acted like a real band. Bell was a huge fan of independent guitar music and their demos quickly got into the hands of people like Jim Reid from the Marychain and word got out that they wanted to sign to Creation Records. The full story behind this and their subsequent rise to indie fame is brilliantly documented in the Creation book My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize.

Their early EP's thrilled music fans across the country, Ride then delivered a brilliant debut LP in the shape of Nowhere in 1990, following it swiftly with Going Blank Again in 1992. Both contained seminal tracks like Vapour Trail and Leave Them All Behind. Their sound was psychedelic with vocals lost in the mix of guitars at times, their performances led to NME and Melody Maker labelling them (and other bands) shoegazing.

Ride's Carnival Of Light album then came out in 1994. I loved it and remember watching their Glastonbury set live on the BBC and marveling at the way they looked and sounded. They sounded fresh, the guitars had been stripped back a little, the vocals were clearer and they seemed to be developing as songwriters. Little did I know that there was quite a bit of internal conflict between the band with Mark Gardner having all his songs on side 1 and Andy Bell taking side 2.

Side 2 also contained a cover - How Does It Feel To Feel? by the band The Creation (who the label was named after). The opening of guitars feeding back over a beat captivated me as an 18-year old and I still feel the sense of energy and urgency now.

It is a glorious noisy and psychedelic mess for 3-minutes and 45 seconds. Gardner and Bell's voices combine brilliantly to ask a series of questions through the verses before most important question becomes a the chorus.

How does it feel when you slide down a sunbeam

How does it feel bursting clouds on your way

How does it feel that the night is over

How does it feel never to sleep again

How does it feel to feel

How does it feel to feel

Ride's version is very true to the original. The feedback that 60's beat bands were discovering and exploring (notaby through the commercial success of The Who and The Kinks) is key to the energy of the song. It is garage psychedelic pop brilliance and Ride cover it beautifully.

Never Ending Mixtape - Part 19

Welcome to the latest additions to my Never Ending Mixtape (one of my Spotify playlists). The playlist is now over 450 songs, so please dig in and discover an old favourite or maybe something you haven't heard before.

Bowie kicks off the latest additions to the playlist. Memory Of A Free Festival gets better as it goes on and the closing mantra is brilliant. Changes remains a real favourite, while Kooks is just so playful and delightful. I've almost finished reading Dylan Jones' superb book on Bowie, well worth checking out, the stories are unbelievable!

Elsewhere we have some soul courtesy of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, the funky Clean Up Woman and the glorious Last Night Changed It All that I discovered via a Bob Stanley/St Etienne compilation - just listen to that vocal!

Modern day Blondie are represented with the storming Long Time, age does not matter a jot in music and the fire in Debbie Harry and co still burns brightly on this evidence, sitting easily alongside the classic Hanging On The Telephone. William Onyeabor has a couple of cool tracks I discovered via my friend Craig, there is old school Underworld and Moby, while young guitar band The Orielles feature ahead of the debut album coming out on Heavenly in February.

Hot Chip have 3 songs from their stunning The Warning LP, we have a lysergic lullaby style remix of The Charlatans who also feature with Happen To Die and The Kinks, The Who, The Animals and the Small Faces close with a blitz of glorious mod guitar pop. Oh and no apologies for 3 tunes from Teenage Fanclub from their Man Made album that I listened to for the first time in ages recently.

We close with the psych garage brilliance of The Misunderstood - a band I became interested in in my late teens/early 20's after reading that they once nipped out of a radio session to have a smoke and left their guitars feeding back and then came back in and just resumed the song! Then the epic Slip Inside This House by the 13th Floor Elevators takes us on a trip, Primal Scream would later cover this on their Screamadelica album.

You'll need to scroll down to the bottom of the playlist to play these tunes, or dig in anywhere, put it on shuffle - enjoy. Click this LINK or head to Spotify and search for Everything Flows Never Ending Mixtape.

Memory Of A Free Festival - David Bowie
Changes - David Bowie
Kooks - David Bowie
Show Me The Way - Martha Reeves and the Vandellas
Happen To Die - The Charlatans
Slow Fade - Teenage Fanclub
Cells  - Teenage Fanclub
Born Under A Good Sign  - Teenage Fanclub
Clean Up Woman - Betty Wright
Last Night Changed It All - Esther Williams
Long Time - Blondie
Hanging On The Telephone - Blondie

Atomic Bomb - William Onyeabor
8-Ball - Underworld
Porcelain - Moby
Let Your Dogtooth Grow - The Orielles
Lets Fall In Love - William Onyeabor
Out Of Time - Blur
So Oh (Brian Jonestown Massacre remix) - The Charlatans
Boy From School - Hot Chip
Colours - Hot Chip
No Fit State - Hot Chip
One More Time - The Lemonheads
Stop Your Sobbing - The Kinks
Lola (Coca Cola version) - The Kinks
Strangers - The Kinks
We Gotta Get Out Of This Place - The Animals
I Can See For Miles - The Who
The Kids Are Alright - The Who
Sha La La La Lee - Small Faces
My Minds Eye - Small Faces
Never Had A Girl - The Misunderstood
I Cried My Eyes Out - The Misunderstood
Slip Inside This House - The 13th Floor Elevators

One Direction - Best Song Ever

One Direction's 'Best Song Ever' isn't the best song ever but it is an excellent pop song and the gimmicky title is excellent; I can't believe no-one has ever thought of it before. Will someone make the move and write a song called 'Worst Song Ever'? Anyway, it was really the title that caused me to check it out, the sheer cheekiness of it fits perfectly with One Direction.

It starts with Baba O'Riley style power chords and bubbling synth that may well have Pete Townsend's publishers picking up the phone. The verses are pretty non-descript, it's the chorus that is slammed home time and time again and the additional hook ' I think it went oh-oh-oh, I think it goes yeah, yeah, yeah....' that make this pure pop.

The bridge; 'Can I take you home with me? She said 'never in your wildest dreams'' is prime American teen move material.

The breakdown is hands in the air, clap along material before the chorus is rammed down your throat.

The 'best song ever' is in fact the song that played as our hero (which one?!) danced all night with his new girl. It caused me to think of the times that it has happened to me (a long time ago), when you met someone at a club and danced and a song that came on that just captured the mood perfectly and it did seem like 'the best song ever'.

In many ways 'Best Song Ever' is incredibly clever pop - it seems so simple but the hooks, choruses and lyrics are really well thought out.

We danced all night to the best song ever

We knew every line now I can't remember

How it goes but I know that I won't forget her

Cause we danced all night to the best song ever

Six for Saturday, 24/09/11

I missed my 5 for Friday yesterday, so here are 6 for Saturday.


I hope you enjoy them.


We start with a 7 minute epic from Wilco's new album, a melodic and orchestral trippy song that more than justifies the length.

We stay on bands beginning with 'W' as I listened to 'Tommy' by The Who for the first time in years this week. This is 'Go to the Mirror'. The guitar riffs are stunning, drumming suitably outrageous and the refrain 'See me, feel me, touch me, heal me' has to be one of the all time greats.

We change pace with 'Your loft, my acid' by Death In Vegas, who are about to return with new album 'Trans-Love Energies'. Richard Fearless is someone I admire for his ear for a tune and ability to experiment with sound. This track lives up to the title, pulsating at times, old skool techno at others, always pushing boundaries.

Another new tune out is 'AKA What A Life' by Noel Gallagher. A driving beat with a housey piano  kic the tune straight into life. I, for one, am looking forward to the album. This pisses all over Beady Eye from an almighty height.

Earlier this week I was talking about long lost C4 programme The White Room on twitter. I loved that show and this performance by The Charlatans shortly after the death of Hammond player Rob Collins is one that lives long in the memory. Raw, emotive and full of passion. The Charlatans kept on keepin' on. Tim Burgess looks cool as f**k in it as well.

We end this weeks songs with the immense 'Decades' by Joy Division, a song that I once heard on a Death In Vegas 'All Back To Mine' compilation. It really does make you wonder what this band could have gone on to do had it not been for the sad loss of Ian Curtis. Beautiful soundscapes that just take off on a journey. The 'Where Have They Been?' chorus/refrain is just stunning as the beat drops and the keyboard riff changes.

Tiny Little Sparks by Sonny Marvello

Sonny Marvello are busy working on their debut album, recording at Rocket Science studios in Glasgow with Ross Hamilton and Michael Bannister (Texas, Mogwai, Avril Lavigne..) 


It is coming together nicely and the band nailed a relatively new song 'Tiny Little Sparks' at the beginning of May. Within a couple of weeks it was being played on Radio 1 in Scotland, selected by Craig McGee (Glasgow Music/Warner Chappell) on the A&R zone on Ally McCrae's show.

I can see that (Tiny Little Sparks) in a festival field with people bouncing and bouncing.

Ally McCrae, BBC Radio 1 Introducing, Detour

Sonny Marvello's songwriting keeps getting stronger and stronger. Tiny Little Sparks is glorious, joyous pop with lots of catchy hooks and harmonies.

Craig McGee, www.glasgowmusic.co.uk, Warner Chappell Scout

It is HUUUUUGE. Elements of Coldplay, Radiohead and The Who are all merged together to create a song that is crying out to be blasted from stereos across the country.


More studio time is being scheduled for September, in the meantime plans are in place for a ltd single release of 'Tiny Little Sparks' in September/early October and gigs are in the process of being booked.


There will be a rather special announcement to be made by the band in the next week or so regarding the launch party in October.


In the meantime, enjoy the sounds of a band that are really pushing towards creating a rather special album. Check them out at www.sonnymarvello.net and listen to 'Tiny Little Sparks' at www.soundcloud.com/sonnymarvello

www.glasgowmusic.co.uk