The iPack - Desert Island Discs

DESERT ISLAND DISCS

I always wanted to do Desert Island Discs. Don't know if they often ask slack bastard lecturers on it though - and I dare say there'd be a queue if they did.
This is the strict 'ten songs in the key of life' format. There are a few crossovers with the "Wake" selection, but so what>

XJ


Nathan Jones - The Supremes

The first record I ever bought. Immigration – West Indian immigration unlike immigrants like us who weren’t immigrants at all what are you suggesting? – was still something that had yet to hit. Sure, there were black people around but black popular culture was still relatively underground. Now, it is the universal language of pop, has been for years, but back then, it was still small scale.
There was a shop on Stamford Hill Broadway, a record shop called Rhythm and Blues, it was like something out of Absolute Beginners. In between the local Woolworths and (naturally) the salt beef bar, Rhythm and Blues was really from somewhere else. I can’t remember what made me first go in there but I remember what it was like: full of smoke, full of black geezers in hats – pork pie hats. God knows where they came from. Never saw them outside the shop. Anyway, you opened the door and, really, it was like walking into another world and the music, the music was intoxicating. It was probably ska – no idea back then - but it sounded fantastic. I started going in there Saturday mornings, never talking to anyone, just lurking around.
Eventually I bought a record – this one. It’s a great tune, still thrills and I kinda like the fact that this is the first record I bought.
The first record I bought for someone else was “The Pushbike Song” by The Mixtures. It was for Jane Fisher. I gave her the record and then asked her out.


Virginia Plain - Roxy Music

I once interviewed Gary Kemp of Spandaus and we were talking about formative influences. We came to the conclusion that if you were our age – and we were basically the same age – you were either formed by seeing Roxy Music do Virginia Plain on Top Of The Pops or seeing David Bowie do Starman on the same show. He chose Bowie, I chose Roxy. Maybe I knew I was never going wherever Bowie was at, but Roxy… that looked interesting. Better song, too
The idea that the death of Top Of The Pops was the death of popular culture as a meeting point is something I’ve banged on about before. Top Of The Pops was, for kids now, a curious phenomenon. The only place where a pop culture could make a splash, the only place the only time. It’s inconceivable now. There are so many outlets – so many places where you can access new stuff it seems strange that there was once one place – and one time a week – where that might happen. Back in the day, someone like Ferry could take a concept and build it and build up to that moment when it would work: that Top Of The Pops performance. He knew – Bowie knew – that if he did it right then, all the kids would be talking about it in the playground the next day. One performance – three minutes on the telly – that’s all you’d need. There’s nothing like that now.

It’s a funny thing, looking back like that. I wonder whether kids will ever have that sense of wonderment again. Looking at the telly and thinking “What the…?”



King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown - Augustus Pablo

Perfect. (see "Wake" write up for the words)



Fools Gold - The Stone Roses

The record that made me realise I’d lost touch with something. I was standing in the kitchen with Oaksie in the flat we’d bought in Harlesden, just chatting. He’d probably just come back from the bookies or something. We were just hanging out and this came on the telly and, again, it was like out of nowhere. I knew nothing of Madchester, Spike Island or anything. Knew nothing (outside of what the newspapers had told me) about acid house or rave culture. And suddenly I felt very, very old. I had a good job at The Independent, a good stereo, car, a self-cleaning oven, the whole deal. I could have stayed. If I’d have stayed I’d probably be quite successful in newspaperland. Jim, Tris, Giles did… why not? But I don’t know. I heard this song and somehow just knew that there were still adventures to be had. And so I gave my notice in and turned upside down. That it sounds so modern and exactly the same as Can (Soon Over Babaluma era) just makes me smile in that “I knew I was right” way.

Adagio - Samuel Barber

We got married to this. Anything else you need to know?

Into My Arms - Nick Cave

I think if I wrote this… I’d have to kill myself. How could I ever do anything better? Everything would be an anticlimax. It is completely lovely, completely meltingly beautiful.
“I don't believe in an interventionist God,
But I know, darling, that you do,
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him,
Not to intervene when it came to you,
Not to touch a hair on your head,
To leave you as you are,
And if He felt He had to direct you,
Then direct you into my arms”





Dry The Rain - The Beta Band

Again, a lovely perfect song. It’s not a surprise that the bloke who wrote this went mad afterwards. It’s got that air of fragility, of fractured, shuffling almost-ness. And it reminds me of course of Gill and the early days.


Lost In Music - Sister Sledge

The Laughton era. I’d always fancied doing a bit of the DJ thing and Laughton Lodge gave me the opportunity to do that. For some strange reason when I appeared here the word got around that I was a wires and sound man. I mean, sounds I like but having a few CDs is a long way from being a sound engineer. But that’s what I became. I bought the equipment, controlled the sound desk at shows, kinda owned that area. One of the happy by-products was that I also became the DJ. They’d never really had anyone here before willing to take on this role and I didn’t have to be asked twice. Of course, it was more Michael Jackson than John Digweed but what do you expect from a bunch of large-lobed middle class middle aged types?
The music that did prove irresistible for everyone was Chic (in all its forms). Whatever Rodgers and Edwards did, it was curiously magical and just has that knack of making people happy. And it’s lovely to see.


Shhh/Peaceful - Miles Davis

If there was a fire and I had just enough time to grab one record, it would be In A Silent Way (the six CD Complete Sessions, of course, because why not?) My favourite Miles group doing what they do in the most sublime way. No one dominates, no one bullies anyone else. It’s not ground breaking in that “Blimey, that’s fantastic. Is it finished yet?” way. McLaughlin’s playing is sublime.

6 – Labradford

A song about love and intimacy, something to drift off to that’s warm and soulful and full of heart. Lie in the dark and listen to this: it could go on forever and it still wouldn’t seem too long. I know nothing of Labradford except that they're Canadian and they curate something called The Festival Of Drifting - which seems about right.


A book? I don’t know. There are so many books I haven’t read that I want to read… it seems churlish to choose.
Maybe The Complete Works of Philip Roth (and if such a thing doesn’t exist… well, it should).