So what’s the perfect goodbye song? I’m not sure there’s anything as immense as Roy Orbison and ‘It’s Over’. The trembling delivery, the staggering beat, the swelling apprehension and worse. The girl has been untrue and she tells Roy that they’re emphatically done. No more rainbows, only lonely sunsets. The song surges for the last time and the sorrow takes us to a hitherto unreachable summit of disconsolation. Even the stars are weeping in the sky

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I may have mentioned Soft Cell before and the imperial ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’. Seek out the 12 inch version for the most lonesome clarinet solo, ever. But while Roy Orbison had a kind of dignity in despair, Marc Almond is more theatrical and less generous with his exit. He takes a few bitchy sideswipes as he stumbles out the doors of the Pink Flamingo and into the rain. But beyond the posturing, there’s an ill-disguised heartbreak. David Gray used this in his version of the song. Then he had the smart idea of hitching it onto Van Morrison’s ‘Madam George’ - the tune with the most protracted and soul-shredding outro in popular music. A hundred goodbyes, and it’s still never enough.

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Yet on the other side, there is resignation. You will find that on ‘Do What You Gotta Do’, a Jimmy Webb song that the Four Tops covered in 1969. It’s a song about letting go of the lover and telling her to chase those dappled dreams elsewhere. There’s a deal of self-possession at the beginning of the song and then it does something that I normally wouldn't care for. It starts to repeat the early verses. But on this recording, the effect is devastating. All of the poise starts to crack and the voices are faltering. They just about make it through the song before you hear grown men in tears.

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We could talk about Scott Walker, Nina Simone or Edith Piaf, but our farewell tour ends with The Verve in 1995 and ‘History’. Lyrics on loan from William Blake, handclaps by Liam Gallagher plus a billowing orchestra. It’s the sound of Richard Ashcroft, lost in London, grieving from a break-up and singing the blues right out of the estuary mud. There was a Times Square sign on the single sleeve that read: “All Goodbyes Should Be Sudden”. And sure enough, The Verve had fractured before the record was even released.

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Anyway, I must go. Best wishes and everything. Adieu. ��

Meryem Abouloufa

David Bowie once put a major question out there. “Ain’t there one damn song that can make you break down and cry?” he wailed on ‘Young Americans’. Well, here’s a response. For some years, I’ve been blogging in instalments about records that have a personal significance. My ‘Gotta Hear This’ series has covered some of my favourite tunes, but also includes lesser-known records with my own intense narrative . One play and I’m utterly back there, either in glory or returned in that mood indigo. Music can sure hit the recall zone. TS Elliot called this “the objective correlative”. What he was really saying is that it’s writ deep in the blackboard of his heart.

Here then, is a list of the tunes and links to the relevant blogs. I’ve also put together a Spotify playlist here:

The Graham Parker recording on Spotify is an inferior live version and Hamilton Bohannon’s ‘Let’s Start The Dance’ is an earlier recording. But sure, you get the drift. My Monday night Radio Ulster show will also revisit some of these tunes in the coming weeks. Thanks, as ever, for the indulgence.

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1. Willie Tee –Walking Up A One Way Street

2. Mott The Hoople – Roll Away The Stone

3. Graham Parker – Hold Back The Night

4. Manic Street Preachers – You Love Us

5. The Supremes - Stoned Love

6. The Naturalites – In My Room

7. Lindisfarne – Meet Me On The Corner

��8. Talulah Gosh – Talulah Gosh

9. Hank Thompson – Blackboard Of My Heart

10. Momus – To See A Friend In Tears

11. Telephone – Cendrillon

12. Berntholer – My Suitor


13. Hamilton Bohannon – Let’s Start The Dance III

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La Faro, Glasgowbury 2013.Photo by Stuart Bailie

Little Bear, Glasgowbury 2013.Photo by Stuart Bailie

Rosie Carney, Glasgowbury 2013.Photo by Stuart Bailie

More Than Conquerors, Glasgowbury 2013Photo by Stuart Bailie

Such a happy occasion to hear the Kowalski album. There were times when we worried that it might never drop – that one of the sweetest bands in recent years would shuffle off without a true legacy. I don't know all of the issues that delayed its arrival, but ‘For The Love Of Letting Go’ doesn't manifest any of the pain. Rather, it shimmers and swoons and rightfully shows up when the sun is bright and the days are expansive.

You will already know ‘Outside’, a song that finds poetry in oil slicks and persuades you that love’s young dream can still resonate. Many of the songs are sited by the water and hazy with the heat. Maybe it’s a North Down thing. The Kowalski method is to paint up emotions – what Brian Wilson famously called “feels”. They do this consistently well, with guitars set to treble and played high on the chest. With pattering, indie disco drums and Lou’s high, aching register. Two Door Cinema Club have managed well with a similar steer, but let’s remember that Kowalski plotted the territory first.

Just the job then, for those jingle-jangle mornings. And for an uncommon, shiny summer. It’s a small regret that the delayed arrival of their debut album has left some many great songs behind. I have a powerful affection for ‘Phil Kansas’, that’s sadly absent.�� Still, the Kowalski story is on, the tunes have been emancipated and there are many invitations to feel the love. ��

Eddie Cochran – Somethin’ Else (EMI)
Pet Shop Boys – Love Is A Bourgeois Construct (X2)
Bell X1 – Drive By Summer (Belly Up)
Kowalski – Longer The Night Lasts (white)
Editors – Formaldehyde (PIAS)
Loleatta Holloway – Part Time Lover, Full Time Fool (Kent)
Mayer Hawthorne – Where Does This Door Go (Universal)
The Triffids – Too Hot To Move (Island)
Rolling Stones –Hot Stuff (Rolling Stones)
Sinkane – Warm Spell (City Slang)
Christian McNeill – If You Need Some (Q Dee)
Fun Boy Three – Summertime (Chrysalis)

Mic Christopher – Heyday (Loza)
Kowalski – While We Drive (white)
Etta James – Tell Mama (Chess)
Pet Shop Boys – The Last To Die (X2)
Pete Gardiner – Hard Days (white)
Aretha Franklin, Mavis Staples – Oh Happy Day (Arista)
Cornell Campbell – Good Direction (Strut)
Villagers- Earthly Pleasure (Domino)
Lou Reed – Perfect Day (RCA)
Queer Giraffes – She Doesn’t Wear T Shirts Any More (white)
Spiritualized – Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (Dedicated)
Primal Scream – It’s Alright, It’s OK (First International)

I was shocked when the news bulletin revealed that Glasgowbury Festival was�� ending this summer. I’ve been attending since 2004 and have missed only once. I’ve seen it in makeshift spaces, in a challenging sports field and once when it retracted to the Cellar Bar in Draperstown and was besieged by drunken meatheads.

In all of these situations, Paddy Glasgow has been a dependable feature, mobilising his team, a great propagandist for the rural story and our introduction to the mind-expanding vistas of the Sperrins and Eagle’s Rock. I have frozen on those hillsides and I’ve bonded with dear friends. I had a memorable night in a family camping space that was populated by over-excited young men blowing trumpets and bashing bongo drums, forever. We were there when Amy Winehouse died and I phoned in a disheveled report from a petrol station the following morning. Also, in the days when my radio show was on a Friday, we would often take part in a pre-festival broadcast at the Cellar Bar, involving songs from beautiful people such as Henry McCullough, purely into the music and the occasion.

Now it seems that Paddy wants to set aside the festival and to build on the music hub dimension of his activity. This has been an ongoing success, and there are dozens of graduates from the G Sessions programmes, now feeding into the music sector. Paddy has secured a physical space to contain the efforts and I’m convinced that he’ll deliver much more.

In terms of the festival, we will be bereft of that rare bonhomie of Glasgowbury. Local bands headlined, new faces were nurtured and the city guys had an important education. I had the feeling that Paddy was often frustrated by the local establishment and by the culture, tourism and arts hierarchy. While he could talk up an excellent proposition, the funders sometimes wanted the vision knocked into a shape that they could manage. Sometimes, the dream may not fit so conveniently.

So I’ll be bound for those hills this weekend, confident that a good time will be had, that the camping may be comical and that the music will feed the soul. Once more, with feeling. Sigh.

Whenever I hear a song – which isn’t often enough – I have a vision of Ferghal McKee on stage, his hair brutally hacked off and his face streaked in congealed white powder. He was quite an artist, but he didn’t seem at ease with the gig. And when people praised him, he cranked up the self-sabotage regime. In this respect, the guy was successful. He was never famous, even though the Dublin kids adored him and the eulogies came from farther away. Still, we’ll always have ‘Heartworm’.

Not a few Irish critics have ranked the second Whipping Boy album as one of the greatest in the canon. It roars and turns lyrical. There are flecks of beauty and intense feelings about the girl. But it’s hardly a balanced record. This 1995 release veers into the obsessive, the violent and finally, a weird but calm review of schizophrenia. Which sends you back to the start of the record to witness those clashing impulses again.

Connoisseurs of Irish indie music may gravitate towards A House, Toasted Heretic, Microdisney, The Would Be’s, Sack or Power Of Dreams, but Whipping Boy exist on their own special pantheon. It's about the way that Ferghal castigates Bono in ‘and then veers into domestic abuse. “And you thought you knew me,” he deadpans, like a downhome Nick Cave.�� Paul Page summons up belligerent guitar fuzz, very much of its era, but not harmfully so. The recordings are freshly out of time.

‘Twinkle’ has an odd passion and ‘The Honeymoon Is Over’ delivers a creepy confessional that Josh T Pearson would be happy to adopt. And in the deeps of this collection is a tune called ‘, a rhapsody for bold behavior, already regretful that the innocence has dimmed. Pernod and dry cider, broken glass and altercations, missed opportunities and mocking daydreams. It breaks your heart.

Surely you will love The Clameens. Youthful beat-merchants from Derry, raved about by Soak, by at Radio Foyle and profiled this Monday past by Radio Ulster’s . That’s Sean, Ryan, Hayden and Ethan, with freshness in their bones and a seeming affection for Alex Turner and Peter Doherty. The vocals are smartly declaimed, the drumming is brisk and sweet and new release ‘She’s Got My Heart’ is a certified pop tune that finds Sean in an unrequited discussion with another girl in the neighbourhood. Ah, those Derry wans.

��You can see them at and at . They play well, they have energy and you would hope that this unreliable music palaver will give them a positive run at it.

They Clameen it, man.��

‘Simmer Down’ is a record that can’t get started soon enough. The horns are colliding, the harmonies are on it and the supreme players from The Skatalites are the backing band. Which gives this 1963 recording the maximum ska value. But that’s only part of the narrative, because among the guys who front this recording are Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer and a young Bob Marley. This first release from the Wailing Wailers would top the Jamaican charts early in 1964.

Musically, you can see how Marley was paying his dues to Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions, especially in the way that the backing vocals help to build the energy. The rhythm certainly owes something to the New Orleans acts and their rollicking take on rhythm and blues. But whatever was inspiring the gang, this was the emergent sound of an island, getting its own vernacular sorted – wonderful music that would thrill the world. And then there’s Bob at the centre of it all, getting conscious with his words, urging the rude boys of Kingston to calm things down before the battle gets hotter. Even then, he had a stature and a sense of his own destiny. He was 18 years old but already fixing to be a leader, a legend.

Playlist 08.07.13

The Treniers – Rockin’ Is Our Business (After Hours)
Franz Ferdinand – Right Action (Domino)
The Thrills – Big Sur (Virgin)��
Glitches – Time Will Tel (Kissability)
Billy Preston – I Want To Thank You (Apple)
Little Bear – Night Dries Like Ink (Small Town America)
Oppenheimer – Breakfast In NYC (Fantastic Plastic)��
Manic Street Preachers – Rewind The Film (Sony)��
Ballet School – Heartbeat Overdrive (Bella Union) ��
Editors – The Weight (PIAS)
A Man Called Adam – Barefoot In The Head (Big Life)��

The Wailing Wailers – Simmer Down (Soul Jazz)
The High Wire – LNOW (white)
The Clameens She’s Got My Heart (white)
Laura Viers – Sun Song (Bella Union)��
Bruce Springsteen – Candy’s Boy (Columbia)��
Zola Jesus – Hikikomori (Souterrain)
Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell – That’s All It Took (Warner)��
Biggles Rides Again – Friends (white)
The Melodic – I’m On My Way (Anti)
Graham Parker – Silly Thing (Mercury)
Tom Russell – Van Ronk (Hightone)
Whipping Boy – When We Were Young (Columbia)
Lightning Dust – Loaded Sun (Jagjaguar)��

Fans of The Great Gatsby may remember the July 5, 1922 was the date of an extravagant party at West Egg. The narrator has written down the names of the visitors and there are some amusing snapshots of the old money snobs from across the bay. That includes SB Whitebait, Clarence Endive in his white knickerbockers, the Chester Beckers and Doctor Webster Civet. Not forgetting Ripley Snell, who was so drunk that Ulysses Swift ran over his hand with his automobile.

A few local establishments have tried to put on Gatsby-themed parties, but without the resources of a millionaire bootlegger. The real deal involved a corps of caterers, a full orchestra, spiced baked hams, salads of harlequin designs, cases of oranges and lemons freighted in from New York, pastry pigs and “turkeys bewitched to a dark gold”. This is as good a time as any to recommend ‘A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties In Literature’, which puts a few rivals in the way of Jay Gatsby.

When I was at college, my lecturer supposed that July 5 wasn’t just a random date – it was the day after Independence Day – the vulgarity in the wake of the American Dream. Which may be the case, but since July 5 is also my birthday, I would always condone such a knees-up. Most of my birthday events have been muted in comparison – friends away on holiday or else myself on vacation. Happily there’s a big event tonight by the Lagan and I might just try to party lie it's 1922.

Rock and roll was mostly about the singers and gyrators. Some of the piano players (Little Richard, Jerry Lee) gave out energy, but neither should we overlook the guitar guys. Early Elvis was guided and accented by Scotty Moore, a veteran of country combo The Starlight Wranglers, who could pick and swing and lash the arpeggios with style. A huge part of the rock and roll grammar book was established then. Likewise with Chuck Berry, who used clanging harmonies on his guitar to replicate the horn section of a jump jive band. He was a low maintenance Louis Jordan, toting his own brass combo.

One of my favourites was Cliff Gallup, who played the most extraordinary music with Gene Vincent And The Blue Caps. He was the Paganini of rockabilly, fast, precise, inventive. He played a solid body Gretsch and made his own echo boxes, creating a wild, wondrous tone. His time with Gene amounted to less than a year in 1956, but the 35 tracks he featured on were pure skill. Start with ‘Be Bop A Lula’ and ‘Race With The Devil’ and marvel. George Harrison was a fan, Jeff Beck recorded a tribute album to Cliff called Crazy Legs and Brian Setzer from the Stray Cats is a true acolyte. He don't mean maybe.

Supergrass – Alright (Parlophone)
Camera Obscura – Break It To You Gently (4ad)
The Chambers Brothers – Uptown (Sony)
Guards – I Know It’s You (Partisan)
Vampire Weekend – Step (XL)
Robinson – Waiting On Cinderella (Pulawan)
Gene Vincent – Race With The Devil (Capitol)
Bell XI – A Thousand Little Downers (Belly Up)
The Child Of Love – Give It To The People (Double Six)
Rams Pocket Radio – Cavities (white)
!!! – Californyeah (Warp)

Temptations – I Got Heaven Right Here On Earth (Motown)
Mark Mulcahy – Poison Candy Heart (Fire)
He’s My Brother, She’s My Sister – The Same Old Ground (white)
Duckworth Lewis Method – Third Man (DCR)
Wanda Jackson – California Stars (Sugar Hill)
Field Report – I Am Not Waiting Anymore (Partisan)
Billy Bragg – There Will Be A Reckoning (cv)
Bell XI – Be Careful What You Wish For (Belly Up)
Sigur Ros – Stormur (XL)
Marvin Gaye – Got To Give It Up (Motown)��

On Saturday night I watched Duke Special at the Empire in Belfast, backed by the Mystery Men. The latter were actually the guys from General Fiasco, who permitted the Duke to rock as never before. The amplification was up, guitars were set to fuzz and shapes were thrown. The Duke has been determined to make each of his Empire shows a singular experience and this show was surely a big investment in terms of rehearsal effort.

Tunes were played from each of their songbooks. Additionally there was ‘Alabama Song’, head-spinning cabaret from Becht / Weill, also favoured by The Doors, plus selections from Wilco, Magnetic Fields and Ivor Cutler. Late in the evening there was also a rumbling approach at The Pixies and ‘Monkey’s Gone To Heaven’. Up in the balcony, a gaggle of blonde folk, mistakenly imported from BT9, looked confused.

Near the end, General Fiasco suggested this this was their last ever show, certainly for the foreseeable. There were a few gasps and appreciative noises. Their final gesture was to stomp across the Duke Special tune, ‘Salvation Tambourine’ and then take a valedictory bow.

General Fiasco did everything you might expect from a band with purpose and energy. I saw the band take shape from the debris of The Tides. They released two fine albums. They took to the UK in a van, living on a scrounge diet, sleeping in the vehicle and sustaining the tour on merchandise income. I saw them on festival stages and at��SXSW in Austin Texas, where they discharged energy on the Latitude stage.

In another era, there would have been a major record company deal and a bigger fuss. But unfortunately, the context was tough, the budgets were fraught and that chance was withheld. It’s likely that their talents will resurface – some of their band have recently worked with the likes of Desert Hearts and VerseChorusVerse. The tenacity that was outlined in ‘Rebel Get By’ - a mission statement as much as a song - will hopefully still hold.

I have two indelible memories of Glastonbury. The first dates back to 1988 and my induction into the Avalon experience. For a variety of reasons I was fraught and unwell. I was wrapped up in a kind of psychic darkness and what rescued me was the sound of Elvis Costello on the Pyramid Stage. He was singing a Jimmy Cliff song, ‘Many Rivers To Cross’. The tune had previously graced the soundtrack to the reggae film, ‘The Harder They Come’. It’s a lyric about tough times and the struggle to hold it together. There’s a hint of redemption and a gospel finale but Jimmy doesn't promise that it will be easy. Likewise with the Costello version, his voice high and strained, the keyboards surging and Worthy Farm vibrating. I was saved.

The second moment was Pulp and a triumphal show in 1994. The Stone Roses had pulled out and I had spent the afternoon of June 26 with a cardboard Ian Brown mask strapped to my head, having a laugh. Backstage, it was a cynical and messy scene. Robbie Williams was falling apart and ready to be ejected from Take That. Evan Dando from the Lemonheads was in a pitiful orbit and had missed his own gig. He was trying to compensate by playing his guitar to strangers, badly. All of this was observed by the Oasis entourage who were callous and mocking.

But the Pulp moment was pure affirmation. They had been the outsider indie band for so many years, but now their songs were generous and gigantic and the spasm of Britpop was taking them to the mainstream. So Jarvis sang ‘Common People’ on that Glastonbury stage and the multitudes carried him to an awe-filled dimension. There was static in the midsummer air and magic in our bones as we sang along with the Glasto people.

Remember positive punk? It was semi-believable musical genre, invented by the NME in February 1983, loosely themed around acts like Southern Death Cult, Brigandage and Andi Sex Gang. It was about boys with eyeliner and quasi tribal inclinations. It came after the Banshees and Bauhaus and it preceded the gloomstorm of goth. There were associate acts like Flesh For Lulu and for a time they were all hanging at The Batcave in London.

Belfast had its own positive punk combo called Doomed Youth. Their strap-line was “where no shadows fall”. They used their crimpers with intent. They had a lovely front man called Tommy Doom, a few college chancers from Gilnahirk, a drummer called Killer plus Dougie Doom, an unsmiling chap who may have hailed from the Antrim Road.

I saw them play at a rather exciting street party on Wolseley Street, Belfast, abetted by Terri Hooley and curtailed by the police. They had an article in Zigzag magazine, written by their bass player in the guise of an objective reporter. I was there when they lugged their gear up the stairs to Jules nightclub on Royal Avenue and when they played a Smithwick’s Battle Of The Bands at the Errigle Inn. Their stage set involved fishing nets and an old TV screen and the NME review made sarky reference to their “portable Batcave”.

Thirty years on and Doomed Youth are finally on sale. Their greatest recorded moments are now compiled on a CD called ‘Shellshock Rockers Vol II’, delivered by the ever-resourceful Seany Rotten and his imprint, . Doomed Youth are joined by The Lids, The Ex Producers (Johnny Hero on drums), The Icons, Xposers, and Shock Treatment, who preside with literate élan. I remember some of the combos, and the others fill me with fondness. No more so than Ask Mother, who were the New York Dolls of our little scene, cross-dressing, provoking and singing ‘Twinkle’, a pithy remark about a sectarian fatality and fleeting Newsline fame. André Stitt has continued this theme as a performance artist and I have indelible memories of the guy playing the Clonduff Community Centre in east Belfast, hurling unfettered art and polymorphous freedom at the kids. They were affronted, the gig was so edgy and Ask Mother ruled. Buy this record.

Paddy Glasgow was on the show, talking about the ever-inspiring Glasgowbury festival and his singular mission to bring joy and vernacular tunes to Eagle's Rock. He's currently clearing the site and is ��making a bit of a sideline out of sheep dung, garden fertiliser of the gods.��

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Paddy mentioned a band called Farago that had previously graced his festival. I vaguely recall them as a reasonable combo, fond of their Americana. Then they had a rethink, rebranded as Little ��Bear, took Conor Mason as a keyboard hostage and became amazing.

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The Other Voices TV gig was quite the windfall as Two Door Cinema Club cancelled and Little Bear were called from the subs bench. Since then, support has been unerring and when I recently saw them at the Black Box in Belfast during the Open House Festival, it was a proper fan convention. The band responded with a string quartet, a deal of beautiful tunes and the best encore of 'Devil Is A Songbird'. No amplification, just the harmonies, the strings, some whistling, audience fever and a jangle of keys instead of a cymbal flourish. An Elbow moment, if you will. So happy I was there.

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Bobby Bland – Turn On Your Love Light (Ace)��

Talking Heads – Love Goes… Building On Fire (Sire)��

Little Bear – The Devil Is A Songbird (Live, Music City Day at the��Glassworks)��

Runaway Go – I Would Go (white)��

Bob Dylan – Maggie’s Farm (CBS)��

Motorama – Warm Eyelids (Talitres)��

Sigur Ros – Raftsraumur (XL)��

Bjork – Venus As A Boy (One Little Indian)��

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Bobby Bland – These Hands (Ace)��

Rolling Stones – Mixed Emotions (Rolling Stones)��

Deerhunter – Dream Captain (4ad)��

Belleville A Cappella Choir – David Was A Shepherd Boy (Rounder)��

Sigur Ros – Hra Fntinna (XL)��

Biggles Flys Again – Morning (white)��

Joshua Burnside – Half Holmes (white)��

Bruce Springsteen – Meeting Across The River (CBS)��

Ruth Moody – Dancing In The Dark (True North)��

Survival Bag – The Rain Sings (white)��

Slaid Cleeves – Voice Of Midnight (Music Road)��

Bjork – The Anchor Song (One Little Indian)��