Sunday, October 19, 2008

Running with the dogs



Just a short playlist this week - still suffering from iTunes-related stress!

First up, the song I mentioned yesterday called Wheels Go Round by a C86-era band called Blue Train. I think this was their only single but they promised more. The song's written from the perspective of the friends left behind when one of their own leaves to seek fame and fortune.

I hope you enjoy, Dean Friedman's Marginal Middle Class. It's nice - that's what it is...

Finally, Watford's contribution to Britpop, and Peel favourites, Gene, with Sleep Well Tonight from their debut album, Olympian. I used to play football with the lead singer - he was better than me at that as well. Curses!

11 comments:

goneforeign said...

Not appropriate to anything in particular but my mouse just rested on your pic and it was indentified as Costco Watford.
What immediately caught my eye is how small it is, or rather how small it looks. Within 10 mins. drive of where I live there's three Costco's, the one I use could easily incorporate two football fields side by side within it, it's huge and even though there's 20+ checkout lines you ALWAYS have to stand in line, I've long been curious what the daily take at that store is, I'd guess it runs into millions.

ToffeeBoy said...

I chose the picture because I felt that the whole Costco thing sums up the suburban lifestyle quite neatly. I've never actually bought anything from my local Costco even though it's only a mile or so away from where I live.

I always add a caption to the pictures I post - it's good web practice to do so. You just need to add the following code to your post, somewhere in the 'img' tag:

alt="Costco, Watford" title="Costco, Watford" style...

TracyK said...

Gene! Oh wow, they were such an undervalued band, the constant "new Smiths" labelling certainly saw them pigeonholed. Live, they were an immensely charismatic band, especially Martin Rossiter: his energy, grace and that plaintive voice...magical! Olympian still gets a lot of playtime in my house, though tracks like Fill Her Up have a lasting quality.

Blimpy said...

Wot no Suede?

ToffeeBoy said...

@ blimpy - never really a big fan of Suede. I have a couple of their albums but they never really spoke to me...

@ tracyk - I saw Gene live a couple of times (on the guest list once!). Martin Rossiter was indeed a charismatic performer and a lovely bloke. I knew him quite well for a couple of years through our Watford connections. Don't ignore their later material - Libertine is a beautiful album.

Blimpy said...

oh, i thought the header was a suede quote

ToffeeBoy said...

It's an almost-quote from The Pet Shop Boys' Suburbia:

"Let's take a ride,
And run with the dogs tonight,
In Suburbia"

Blimpy said...

"And oh if you stay, I'll chase the rainblown fields away
We'll shine like the morning and sin in the sun
Oh if you stay
We'll be the wild ones, running with the dogs today"

"The Wild Ones" - Suede

ToffeeBoy said...

Listening to it now - top song - thanks for the reminder.

TracyK said...

How lovely to know that Martin is the gentleman he appeared to be. I like all Gene, to be honest. It's just that Olympian came out just as I got a Dear joh letter from the man for whom I had moved to London, many miles away from my beloved Aberysywth and my friends. I was a nanny, and had no private space or time (36 hours a week - my bumhole) and that album really touched a very raw nerve. I think I've mentioned my own moment of uber catharsis to music: sobbing my heart out to the title track of that album in the 'moshpit' of the Gene at the Forum in Kentish Town. I went on my own, and I cried on my own, and I went home and I wanted to die, to misquote Morrissey. Happy days...!

ToffeeBoy said...

@ tracyk - great story. The Gene moshpit seems to have been a dangerous place to be, what with Mr Rossitter's flying boots and occasionally, threatening behaviour!