This playlist is 73% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

A teal/turquoise background will always catch my eye but the Audio-Technica AT-LP60XBT Fully Automatic Wireless Belt-Drive Turntable, at just $219 or thereabouts, is highly regarded.

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Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms tweak/edit/chop and the occasional tune might sound a bit dodgy, quality-wise. On top of that, the switch between different decades and production values never helps in the mix here. 🙂

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Lyric of Playlist 136

‘Oh I want you, like a kangaroo… ‘ Indeed.

Or maybe ‘I’ve come to wish you an unhappy birthday… ‘ You don’t want him turning up at your bash.

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00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

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00.41

NEW ORDER – We All Stand (live, L’Ancienne Belgique, Brussels: 15.4.82) – Streaming only…

Reminded of this recording just recently by Jon Wozencroft and it’s right up there as one of the band’s greatest live recordings… of any track.

The photo below? My then living room wall in 1984, and with my dog, Flanagan overseeing, the only sighting I can offer of my poster to the above gig, along with the one for the L’Encienne Belgique New Order gig the year before, which I was at. Both these two and another eleven very early NO posters of mine were lost/stolen (depending on who’s story you believe) in the early early 2000s. 😱😱😱

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06.58

RIHANNA – Stay (Marius Hörsturz Remix) – Streaming only… 2013’ish

Beyond the many mixes the single officially courted, this one probably didn’t get considered for release, if it even made it to the table. Maybe seen as too ‘left-field’ I imagine it wouldn’t have computed with Rihanna’s audience… but its plodding dreaminess certainly does it for me.

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11.44

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Do The Mussolini-Headkick – Extended Play, 7″ EP – Rough Trade – 1978

From their debut release and the personification of the Cabs’ early fuzzy electronic period – here with some reggae and dub in the mix.

Possibly not the first Cabs tracks I ever heard – as I probably went scouting backwards after hearing Nag, Nag, Nag – but via the tiny sticker I’ve just noticed (maybe for the first time in forty years?) on the inside of the sleeve, I bought this EP on March 21, 1980 at Andy’s Records, in Bedford for 99p. It was also the day of this below, the second or third attempt at trying to kick start something alternative/new wave/indie in the town, so a track from the EP might be the closest I can get to a definite on the playlist on the hour or so I lasted before we realised the night was usually a bikers gathering and packed up and left. These two (20×30″ish) posters – artwork courtesy of mate, Gary Goodman – were one-offs with one or both of them doing the not-so-hard sell in our HMV shop.

On a tangent, check out Roger Quail’s My Life In The Mosh Of Ghosts – Gig 68 podcast at some point. Having worked with the Cabs the ex Clock DVA and The Box drummer charts his Sheffield-era gigging history and I contributed info to this just broadcast show, revolving around the Cab’s second gig in Bedford, in August 1984, both of which I promoted.

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14.32

PRINCE – When Doves Cry – 7″ – Warner Brothers – 1984

I thought when he lost the shackles of major label… dom 🙂 he’d have gotten more ‘interesting’, musically but the freedom, control, self A&R’ing and maybe crucially the sheer volume of releases did the opposite for me. Still, he was a bit of a genius.

Below: Somebody has gotten a bit creative with the 7″. At least it’s a move on from turning labels into drinks coasters.

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20.08

3 Teens Kill 4 – Hold Up – No Motive, LP – Point Blank Records – 1983

To my ears, it sounds like a Casiotone 201 leading into a strong early Talking Heads strain here with these 41 Rooms favourites.

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23.56

POLYROCK – This Song – Self-titled, LP – RCA – 1980

Frantic stuff from the late ’70s New Yorkers.

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26.10

a.P.A.t.T. – Matter Of Fact – Fun With Music, LP – Pickled Egg Records – 2016

As a 60th birthday present, long time mate, Nigel Turner presented me with a couple of his label releases… and the CD version of this album was one of them.

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30.16

JOHN GRANT – TC & Honeybear – Queen Of Denmark, 2LP – Bella Union – 2016

Lush quirkiness, with a bit of a late ’60s sound and a lilt of innocence.

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35.12

KEVIN McDERMOTT – The Faintest Sound – Discreet Campaigns, v/artists compilation, cassette only – Rorschach Testing – 1985

In the song, arrangement and production, definitely a ’60s thing going on here.

Promo parts for the release.

I can’t remember how I came across Kevin’s 1984 demos cassette tape below – six studio songs and one live track, all a year or two before his debut album surfaced, where only two of the cassette’s tracks (including The Faintest Sound) were included. Different recordings, though.

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38.49

THE MELONS – Eskimo – 7″ – Pickled Egg Records – 1997

Ex-pat Bedford mates, Nigel and Vanessa Turner were half of The Melons (the latter presently in The Silver Biplanes) and here the last of their four singles doubled up as the first release on Nigel’s Pickled Egg Records label.

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42.04

PEGGY MARCH – If You Loved Me (Soul Coaxing) * – 7″ – RCA – 1968

There’s a hefty price on both the US and UK original RCA 7″ releases of this English-language cover of Michel Polnareff’s Âme Caline, all very much down to the northern soul/mod scene picking up on the track in the late ’70s, when RCA UK duly re-released it. Whether it’s ‘lost in translation’ or it’s March’s ‘Englishness’ (or both) the vocal doesn’t quite flow (convince?)… but that’s part of the appeal for me. 🙂 A great of-its-time voice, to boot.

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44.41

THE BEATLES – Getting Better * – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, LP – Parlophone – 1967

Well, they were omnipresent to any kid listening to the radio in the mid ’60s and although I later mopped up their singles, somewhere in the mid ’70s a copy of this album – complete with the card ‘cut outs’ inner – was one of only two Beatles albums (apart from compilations) I’ve ever owned. A stereo or mono copy? No idea.

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47.33

SMALL FACES – Itchycoo Park – 7″ – Immediate – 1967

One of my fave ’60s bands and I just smile when I think of this single and look at the label. Sunshine… Heronscroft, Putnoe, Bedford bedroom… mid ’70s…

And if you’re the owner of this UK 7″ acetate you’re a very lucky bunny.

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50.07

THE SMITHS – Unhappy Birthday – Strangeways, Here We Come, LP – Rough Trade – 1987

The Smiths haven’t made it to 41 Rooms too often and though it hasn’t helped, I don’t think it’s primarly to do with some of Morrissey’s media outpourings through the years. I was a fan of the band, and even interviewed the man and took a few photos of them but a lot of the times I go to include a Smiths track in a show here it somehow doesn’t feel ‘right’, next to whatever feel I’ve got going on at that point in the proceedings – and it’s not the only band I have the problem with. Dead weird. The man does have a way with a song’s storyline and melody like few others, though.

The Smiths – Westfield College, Hampstead, London, 17.11.83. Photo copyright/credit: Dec Hickey

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52.32

ABC – Show Me – The Lexicon Of Love, LP – Neutron – 1982

The once industrial sounding Vice Versa fully fledged into class pop.

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55.50

CLIVE GRIFFIN – The Way We Touch – 7″ – Mercury – 1988

As a child and obviously long before three major label albums of blue-eyed soul and a subsequent move into session work, Clive provided the vocal for the Cadbury Fudge jingle, ‘A finger of fudge is just enough‘! You didn’t see that coming.

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59.40

DAVID BOWIE – The Secret Life Of Arabia, (Magnums Extended Mix) * – Streaming only – 2023

An extended mix, then given a 41 Rooms edit, with Bowie still ruling and riding around the handclaps.

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01.03.57

KRATWERK – Trans-Europa Express – Trans-Europa Express, LP – Kling Klang – 1977

Aside the title, these gents also nailed the sense of travel in the music. A chugging steam train and lots of snow on view out of the window, I’d like to think.

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01.08.42

ALEX GOPHER – The Child (Album Version) – 12″ – Disques Solid – 1999

Via her God Bless The Child, Billie Holiday ‘guesting’ on vocals for the French producer/artist four decades after her passing.

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01.12.41

MARXMAN – Father Like Son – Dark Are The Days, 12″ EP – Talkin’ Loud – 1993

They were never frivolous in the words department.

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01.16.58

DESTROYER (feat FIVER) – Bologna – Dan’s Boogie, LP – Merge Records – 2025

Out of Vancouver, Canada ‘Dan Bejar started Destroyer as a solo home-recording project in the early to mid-nineties. Exploring and overturning genres such as glam, MIDI, yacht rock, & even underground Spanish independent artists.’ – Bandcamp. 

Not Dan’s first sighting on 41 Rooms either, as with him on vocals Destroyer had successfully taken on New Order’s Leave Me Alone for the Mojo magazine covers album of the band’s Power, Corruption and Lies in 2012.

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01.20.58

AUGUST – Pushin & Shovin (Line Of Flight Mix) – 12″ – Clean Up – 1994

One single and one single only… but it was a good one. Trip hop tones heard by me via a Gilles Peterson radio show, no doubt pre release.

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01.26.03

THIS MORTAL COIL – Kangaroo – 7″ – 4AD – 1984

Within the interchangeable line ups of TMC this one featured most notably, Cindytalk’s Gordon Sharp and Cocteau Twins’ Simon Raymonde. A Big Star/Alex Chilton tune, likely suggested by 4AD boss, Ivo.

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01.29.27

DEPARTMENT M – Air Exchange (Live Anthologies Session @ The Nave, Leeds, 6.3.16) – Streaming only – 2016

Though the studio version is available on the band’s second (and sadly, last) album, Deep Control, this live version sees main man, Owen Brinley riding solo.

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1.33.21

THE ITCH – Ursula – Download only – 2024

‘I’ve been reading a lot of Ursula Le Guin‘ goes a lyrics line from London duo, Simon Tyrie and Georgia Hardy as the track builds * to making it an ideal live set finale, which if it isn’t already turning up there, it should be.

*Reminds me of The Dears’ We Ca Have It, a tune I hadn’t heard in years… but then just played to check. Yep, I’ll stick to my observation.

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1.40.00

ROZALLA – Faith – 7″ Pulse-8 – 1991

‘Selling better than the original now, her infectious 123bpm breezily galloping wailer is in even friskier Coola Vibes and twittery instrumental Rainbow Bridge remixes by the Band of Gypsies‘. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 25.5.91 

‘… the wailing Zambian’s earlier frisky galloper from April is reissued in its jumpily jangling original 123.1-0bpm The Chic Mix, plus producers the Band Of Gypsies’ stereo panned plinking calmer 123-0bpm Space Station and Joe T Vannelli’s jaunty Spanish flavoured 0-123-0bpm Musik Out Of Control Mixes, all catchily punctuated at times by spacey saxophone-like synth tones. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 9.11.91

Faith (In The Power of Love)? ‘To do what?’ would be my first question. The bigger its goal the less its chances but in Rozalla’s case – a girl who belted out a few massive ’90s hits – I’d like to think the lyrics, though not written by her, had her in mind. In the land of ‘hands in the air’ throwaway dance at least she had a solid story to convey here. Interestingly, in a previous life (musically) one of the writers, Nigel Swanston was in a band called Airstrip-One who I’d have possibly seen supporting New Order at Walthamstow’s Assembly Hall in Sept ’81 if I and a Transit load of others hadn’t just been failing miserably trying to order food in a local curry house pre gig. Fellow Bedford mate, Budge (a man not in the van) did catch Airstrip-One on the night and though not a lad easily swayed I seem to remember he enjoyed them. So, on a couple of fronts, Nigel Swanston… you did good.

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1.43.23

MK – Feel The Fire (MK Burn Up Mix) – The Get It Right 12″ EP – Network – 1991

‘On a four-tracker by Detroit’s Mark Kinchen… the gritty girl-wailed jazz-funk tinged fluttery loping 122.8-123bpm ‘Feel The Fire’ (MK Burn Up Mix)’, which was hottest when originally on import‘. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 29.6.91

I already had the tune’s original outing, as lead on a US Retroactive label 12″ but I remember buying this release later in the early-mid ’90s in one of Soho, London’s myriad of dance shops, just for this mix (hidden as a b-side track) and the young, female assistant serving me made eye contact, quietly uttered ‘Feel The Fire’ and then nodded a sly smile of content as I said it was the track I was after.

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1.48.36

HAPPY LITTLE CLOUDS – Higher – Download only – 2025

More driving sounds… of a sort.

‘Boston (USA)-based rainbow rust, power pop band with songs that stick, rain or shine, blending 90s nostalgia with modern indie sound. Unfiltered, heartfelt lyrics entwine with bluesy vocals and catchy-AF melodies, like frosting on a post-grunge cake oozing with authenticity, creamy bass riffs, and chunky guitar. Unique, expressive drums is the cherry on top. The best slice of heaven you’ve ever heard‘. – Bandcamp 

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1.52.35

THE CURE – At Night / A Forest (Theatre de l’Empire, Paris, 8.12.79) * – Streaming only

Some full-on Cure fans seem to really go for this early take of A Forest and I’m with them. Besides the possible unknowns in being live, it’s got snap and bite!

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1.55.47

LOU REED – Walk On The Wild Side – 7″ – RCA – 1973

“And the colored girls go, ‘Doo, do-doo, do-doo, do-do-doo, doo, do-doo, do-doo, do-do-doo… ‘ ” as did also David Bowie, Mick Ronson and a female bv trio called… Thunderthighs. The song could rightfully insert itself into any story of the ‘progression’ of rock ‘n’ roll through the decades but it’s hard to remember now how ‘left field’ this was escaping a ban and coming (albeit with slightly altered lyrics) over the airwaves back in the day.

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Show 137 will hopefully march out on March 2.

Dec x