This playlist is 79% vinyl friendly. Not bad. 

As you can see, the Electric Banana Stereo Phono had some bold claims made on it back in the ’70s. Originally costing $40, these days you might have to pay nearer $900 if you’re daft enough to want one, with the above version residing in the International Banana Museum (yep, it does exist), Mecca, California. You can’t though currently go marvel at their 25, 000 items, as it seems to be closed.

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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 124…

Ian Curtis may not be singing them here but it’s still his prize.

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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 (Kilkenny, 23.4.83) * – Power, Corruption and Lies, Definitive Edition boxset – Warner Music – 2020

I’m amazed how little I noticed the road crew capturing the action via a video camera on a lot of the band’s early ’80s gigs… but then again I swore blind to Steve Morris that I hadn’t taken any photos at this gig, until he sent me some with my writing on the back… all further reinforced by me cropping up with a camera in my hand, stage side, in the Kilkenny video. For a couple of reasons it was a night like very few others. You’d have to understand something about Ireland’s musical history and to a lesser extent, their culture to get to grips with how and why Big Tom (and the Mainliners?) playing in town the same night would play a part in this being one of the smallest crowds I’d ever see New Order in front of… but they were privy to an ‘onstage approach’ the band never adopted anywhere else. We All Stand? One of their finest and their ‘Riders Of The Storm’.

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05.43

CHRIS WICKHAM – Snake Eyes (Ishmael Ensemble Remix) – Shamal Wind Remixed 12″ EP – Lovemonk – 2018

It only takes a jazz chord to enter the fray and I’m gone – as in off and out the door – but this moody remix gets my vote for taking some choice elements to go somewhere else completely. Incidentally, I nearly used the sleeve here for the show’s ad but it would have been a tad too much on the eyes. Give it a shake to see what I mean.  

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13.31

KRAFTWERK – The Robots (2009 Remaster) – Download only? –

Originally a single in 1978, not only will it never age, it’ll always sound ‘now’.

18.56

COSEY FANNI TUTTI – Tutti – Tutti, LP – Conspiracy International – 2019

Rumbling and a rolling, with enough quietly entering and exiting to keep it interesting.

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23.13

CABARET VOLTAIRE – (Shakedown) The Whole Thing (Dub) – The Drain Train, 2×12″ – Doublevision – 1986

Stuttering electro disco dub funk…

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30.39

TALKING HEADS – Once In A Lifetime * – 7″ – Sire – 1981

Released and charting around the time our Bedford, Winkles’ club nights started, in Jan 1981… and the video helped the single’s trajectory in no small measure. The first of six (I just checked) UK top 30 hits in this show. Not likely to happen again, if I’m consciously aware of these things.

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34.36

STEVE JANSEN – Impossible Until It Happens – Yukihiro Takahashi and Marco Machera – Soundcloud only – 2024

Well, the obvious vocal to look to put on this track would have been Jansen’s brother, David Sylvian but that didn’t transpire, for whatever reason. Maybe it was a bit too ‘jaunty’. 🙂 Anyway, here’s Jansen’s full storyline.

‘Recently I mentioned that I had a cassette tape from over 40 years ago when The Takahashi Band of 82 made a demo track for a potential TV commercial. The track was only worked on for a day or two and then abandoned. I think we all had a busy year and for whatever reason this recording was discarded.

I also talked about sharing the recording one day just for nostalgic reasons, however the mix was a very basic end-of-day progress mix and no vocal part was conceived. Sharing it in this form would not do the potential of the work any justice.

The track began with chords and synths that Yukihiro Takahashi recorded, the basic building blocks of his composition. I added the drum part. Having been intensively rehearsing and performing Takahashi material this triggered a distinct blend of my own style as might appear on tracks such as ‘The Art of Parties’ and Yukihiro’s style on tracks such as ‘Glass’. Haruomi Hosono added his brilliance on bass, as well as Masami Tsuchiya overlaying guitar parts and Hajime Tachibana adding a saxophone solo.

Fast forward over 40 years….

At the end of 2023 I sent the demo to singer/songwriter Marco Machera, someone I’ve collaborated with a few times in the past and whose vocal style I felt would compliment the music. Yukihiro also enjoyed Marco’s music, including it on his own radio show. I asked Marco to consider adding a vocal which he was happy to do, also composing lyrics too.

I used an AI program to break down the stereo mix of the original cassette recording into individual tracks (this is a relatively new technology and although the quality struggled it allowed for a little bit more flexibility with the mixing and blending of new overdubs). The performed parts were retained, and to which I recorded some additional instrumentation as well as joining Marco on the chorus vocals. I made a new mix of the track. So what we have here is the finished piece: “Impossible Until It Happens”.

Marco and I share this as an homage to Yukihiro who passed away this time last year and is greatly missed. We can feel the essence of Yukihiro’s writing style in this track and we hope that you enjoy it‘. – Steve Jansen, Soundcloud.

Music by Yukihiro Takahashi / Song & Lyrics by Marco Machera

Yukihiro Takahashi – Keyboards
Haruomi Hosono – Electric Bass
Steve Jansen – Drums & Percussion, Additional Sequencers & Synthesisers, Chorus Vocals
Masami Tsuchiya – Electric Guitar
Hajime Tachibana – Saxophone
Marco Machera – Lead Vocals, Samples, Additional Synthesiser
(for more information www.marcomachera.com)

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39.22

MOBY – Sandpaper – Destroyed, bonus track on one or two (inc Japan) CD versions – EMI – 2011

It’s a long standing trait that Japanese record companies like to include extra (and particular to their territory alone) tracks on their releases. So, Moby obliged.

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42.28

NAKED ROOMMATE – Mad Love – Do The Duvet, LP – Trouble In Mind – 2020

‘Naked Roommate is a desiring-machine that embodies the union of opposites pointing towards the ever-becoming, ever-real utopia of flows. We are not symbol or representation. We are imaginary, we are real, we are virtual and we are impossible.‘ Bandcamp

All duly noted… the band are/were from Berkeley, California and as it happens my Do The Duvet album is currently just an hour away and yet another that will be in a large case full of vinyl coming back with me the next time I’m over at my sister’s. She’ll be glad of the space.

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46.35

SUBURBAN LAWNS – Cowboy – Baby, 12″ EP – I.R.S. – 1983

Very coincidentally we’re still in California but just the near forty years earlier… and maybe with a lean to what was coming out of the UK in those years?

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50.35

THE JUNE BRIDES – Comfort – There Are Eight Million Stories, LP – The Pink Label – 1985

Jangly stuff! A band that very good mate, Nigel put on in Bedford, upstairs at the George & Dragon… and one that might have had John Peel in attendance. I’ve have gone too but I was holidaying where I now live, in Ireland.

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52.51

HELEN McCOOKERYBOOK – Let’s Make Up – ‘Songs From The Kitchen’ version, Youtube only – 2018

A lovely lady, I worked with Helen at the Uni of Westminster for a while in the late 90s and here with one of her old songs from her younger days fronting The Chefs.

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55.43

THE AUBERGINES – Traffic Warden (demo) * – Unreleased – Mid ’80s

Bedford’s finest… could have been a contender, etc etc… and very good mates of mine. For the line-up of this demo and pictured here (during a Lazy Sunday, Bedford gig) – Kev Taylor, Phil Wright, Andy MacKechnie, Karl Bergin (RIP) and Jem Noble.

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59.27

SWANS – Love Will Tear Us Apart – 7″ – Product Inc – 1988

‘Certainly better than Paul Young’s version, yet adds little to the original apart from a delightful late-Iggy Pop drawl and some pleasant harmonies. A pleasant enough version, powerful even, but I still cling to the notion that LWTUA was of less interest as a song (despite its classy melodies and so forth) than as a sound and clutch of emotions. In this it differs from your average coverable song. It should either be desecrated or left alone, for it cannot be improved upon‘. – David Quantick, The Catalogue #58, Apr ’88.

The ‘Swans featuring Jarboe on vocals’ version (black vinyl) made it to an earlier 41 Rooms’ show but here (red, transparent vinyl version) it’s main man Michael Gira leading the way.

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01.02.53

BRENDA RAY – Take Me In Your Car (Original Full-Length Version) – D’Ya Hear Me! : Naffi Years, 1979-83, LP – EM Records – 2012

And because she can, in the ’20s she’s still knocking out her slightly left field recordings (with some on vinyl) and possibly with no great expectations. I wonder if she still has all that old skool analogue gear… or she’s now doing it all of a laptop? 🙂

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01.05.29

RECIPE – Waterglide – 7″ – Inertial Records – 1984

Very far removed from Douglas Benford’s stark minimalist electronic releases from a few years previous under the moniker, Inertia, this is ‘charming pop’, but adrift of the production values/record label/£££ weight that propelled Aztec Camera and Prefab Sprout in the same era. Maybe though, all these years down the line it’s now sounding ‘cuter’.

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01.08.23

NICK LOWE – Cruel To Be Kind * – 7″ – Radar – 1979

I bet Lowe (a quality songwriter) knew that a well worn turn of phrase – as a song title – was no bad starting place for moulding together some catchy pop in the late ’70s, and even though my general tastes were then mostly coming from John Peel’s world I’d have been humming along to this on TOTP.

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01.11.39

WAYNE FONTANA – Pamela, Pamela – 7″ – Fontana – 1966

I could most probably put together an hour playlist that if you’re of a certain age might bring back memories of summers long gone… that maybe we never actually lived… but would at least neatly soundtrack them if we had. I hope Pamela actually existed. Writer, pre-10CC Graham Gouldman will know. He recounts, ‘While we were playing back this track Steve Marriot came into our control room. He had a lovely smile on his face while listening and when it finished he turned to me and just said “nice” ‘.

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01.13.47

SIDI BOU SAID – Twilight Eyes – 7″ – Ultimate – 1993

Around for long enough in the ’90s to make four albums and a bunch of singles, with a dense sound not unlike Throwing Muses.

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01.17.38

BIG BLOOD – Everything Is Improving – Radio Valkyrie 1905-1917, 2LP – Feeding Tube Records – 2013

The above was dense… but this is wonderfully more dense.

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01.20.46

A CERTAIN RATIO – Forced Laugh (A Factory Video {FACT 56} version) – Factory / Icon – 1982

I cannot hear this without picturing the young ACR wandering lonely as a cloud in the video on this VHS release. It got hammered to death round my house back in the day… as might be guessed by the packaging below. Bring on Esquires, Bedford, UK on May 3!

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01.26.10

THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS – Sister Europe – Self-titled, LP – CBS – 1980

One of a handful of albums that’s had all or nearly all its tracks played on 41 Rooms… Here, it’s not quite.

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01.31.41

DAVID BOWIE – Black Tie White Noise (Speed Mix Version) – Youtube only? – 2021’ish

If not referring to the version above… ‘Moroder-ish twittery synth pulsed scampering fluttery 127.7bpm Club Mix of an otherwise gloomy slow 81bpm roller‘. – James Hamilton, Record Mirror (Music Week), 12.6.93

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01.35.47

TUBEWAY ARMY – Are ‘Friends’ Electric? – 7″ – Beggars Banquet – 1979

It’s easy to forget what an impact Gary Numan had on a new wave of electronic music in the late ’70s. With this, a UK No 1 single, he certainly did his bit to bring it to the masses.

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01.40.42

THE HUMAN LEAGUE – Blind Youth – Reproduction, LP – Virgin – 1979

Empire State Human was the only single from the album but I’d have gone for this instead.

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01.43.44

COLOURBOX – You Keep Me Hanging On (7″ Version) (Remastered) – 7″ b-side – 4AD – 1985

From the outside, Martyn and Steven Young seemed like mavericks within the whole 4AD set up and with Lorita Grahame on vocals just about keeping up with their beats and stuff on the ‘keeping hanging on‘ etc, banging out this very passable electronic take on a Holland/Dozier/Holland classic (to then hide it on a 7″ b-side) was no mean feat. Not for soul purists though, we’ll assume.

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01.46.10

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD – I Only Want To Be With You * – 7″ – Philips – 1963

I wouldn’t have guessed at this being Dusty’s debut single as a solo artist but it was. Co-written by Cocteau Twin, Simon Raymonde’s dad, Ivor it would have had the floors of dancehalls full of carefree, arms flailing teens going for it. Quite right, too.

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01.48.43

NATASHA KMETO – Pour Down – 7″ – Self released – 2016

My copy is currently in California, so here’s the gal herself with some of hers. Sadly the tune was lost to the wider world (and 99% of us with any sort of record release history have been there) but this is a strident gem that I only happened on recently.

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01.52.17

GRACE JONES – Slave To The Rhythm (Hot Blooded Version) – Private Life Sampler, 12″ – Island – 1998

Previewing what was the Private Life: The Compass Point Sessions compilation… A lush production maybe befitting of the Nassau, Bahamas setting it was recorded in. Maybe with a bridge too many here but, hey… it’s Grace Jones!

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March 3, 2024 – show 125. 🙂

Dec