Part 2 here.

So we were fortunate to have an early 2012 visit from one of the finest guitar pop bands stalking the planet in the Dum Dum Girls, who summarily delivered a concise set of jangling sonic gems at the Kings Arms on Friday, and kickstarted my new year listening. Now, my love for the Girls has previously been documented in these pages, so I’m not going to ramble on again. Suffice to say they looked fantastic, and despite early PA problems, they sounded great.

And we definitely got two for the price of one on the night. Before Friday, Transistors were merely a name I’d spotted in the upcoming Laneway festival line-up. Now I know they’re a fiery punk trio I’d go see again without a second thought.. commitment, drive, mob-handed vocals, some set-ending string shredding, tons of feedback and .. yup.. some great songs.

Expect a new album sometime soon following the Laneway appearance. And if you want to hear what the feck I’m talking about, pop over to Bandcamp and get their first album, plus the lead single from the new one, absolutely free.

Cheers, guys. Nice to know you.

Xray Eyeballs channel girl groups, Link Wray, beach parties, Mo Tucker and the Reid brothers into a soupy, poppy, garage rock melange.

Top that off with an excess of mascara, buckets of reverb, Cramps-y horror schlock visuals, a sprinkle of glam rock glitter and you have the constituents for their latest fab waxing, Not Nothing (out now on Kanine Records). Cool. Let’s all get high with Xray Eyeballs.

Here’s frontman O.J. San Felipe:

I wanted to make a song that DJs can throw on and make people dance at the immediate drop of the needle, or right when the bassline kicks in . . . kinda like when the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” comes on at a party and people freak out.

Download Crystal and Egyptian Magician (courtesy of Prefix and MOKB) and watch the video (parental guidance required, youngsters).

It’s fizzy orange pop, thieving Mars bars from the corner shop, snorkel parkas, zits, exchanging football cards, Doc Martens, a quick snog round the back of the bike sheds, and the joy and angst of being a hormone-stuffed delinquent teenager.

A sugar-rush debut, including John Peel’s favourite song ever. Feargal’s wobbly wail, the O’Neill brothers’ buzzsaw attack, plus Michael Bradley and Billy Doherty solid at the back.

Sixteen tracks, two minutes or so each, five guys, three chords, one whole lot of fun. It might just be perfect.

P.S. I could have just as easily written about: U2 and the album Achtung Baby which is remarkable for one reason – it’s the only U2 album I like. But I decided to write about another bunch of Irishmen instead.

Wonder what V will be?

So don’t miss out: support your local cinema (“Hullo, is that the local cinema?” – “Well, it depends where you’re calling from”) and see these tales of.. my heroes. Then come back and tell me what I’m missing, you ‘orrible lot.

Great that Andy Serkis, well known in these here parts, of course, got the Ian Dury gig.

(#4 in a series of 10 albums that shaped my musical taste)

1977 - It was the look that got me. A kind of mutant Buddy Holly: knock-kneed, big horn rims, thrift store suit, turn-ups, Fender Jazzmaster. If a guy like this can be a star..

Declan Patrick MacManus pitched up at Stiff Records with a plastic carrier bag full of songs, a bristling punk attitude and the desire to tell the world all about it, joining a grab bag of artists punching well above their weight – Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric, Motorhead, Richard Hell, The Damned et al. – and ultimately making the biggest impression on me. I’ve probably got more Elvis Costello records than any other artist, but none better than his first.

Recorded in 24 hours at a cost of £2000 whilst Elvis extricated himself from his day job, My Aim Is True is thirty five minutes of frustrated ragged glory. Songs of love, loss and barely repressed anger, barbed insults and spiky puns. A hefty whack at the Fascist movement in Less Than Zero (subtly reworked for the US market by reference to Lee Harvey Oswald). The anti-love song Alison (does he want her back? does he want to kill her?). The smack in the mouth of Welcome To The Working Week – “Now that your picture’s in the paper being rhythmically admired..”. 82 seconds long and the best Album 1 Side 1 Track 1 of all time? Could be. Red Shoes and the snappiest line on the record – “I said I’m so happy I could die, she said ‘drop dead’ and left with another guy”. Bespectacled geeks rejoice, here is your champion! And there’s more..

It all burst out of Costello in a rush and a push: by the time of its release he’d moved things up a gear, his astringent lyrics married with increasing sophistication in arrangement and melody to produce the equally brilliant This Year’s Model only eight months later. He’d also acquired the Attractions – teenage keyboard prodigy Steve Nieve, inventive bassman (and future nemesis) Bruce Thomas and pub rock scene drummer Pete Thomas – and an aggressive demeanour, which led to some memorable moments on stage and off in subsequent years.

If you don’t have My Aim Is True, don’t delay, buy today. Costello’s later recordings might have finer melodies and more sharply defined lyrics, but for intensity and passion, you can’t beat it.  The US version also has the awesome Watching The Detectives - bonus.

Here’s a brooding Phil-Spector-a-like number from the album that you might not be too familiar with (live at Eric’s, Liverpool – 2nd August 1977):

Recommendation: track down the live bootleg called Angry Young Sod to get the best impression of Elvis in concert back then, playing My Aim Is True, looking forward to This Year’s Model.

P.S. Part 5 of The Sacred Days You Gave Me: we move on to 1978

(#3 in a series – 10 albums that shaped my musical taste)

1977 – Sixteen years of age. Every week a new NME to pore over, every week a fresh crop of original new music to investigate, the scene just bursting with life. It was hard to keep up. Each new acquistion felt more personal than it does today.. you’d found something special, with sounds that hadn’t been made before. Small dynamic record labels, a brilliant DIY design ethic, bands springing up from nowhere.

The NME pumped up The Clash like nobody’s business (the zenith a staggering nine page screed by Lester Bangs spread across three issues), so it was inevitable I bought the album. It looked fantastic, ripped up, fluourescent, controversial. It opened with a tubthumping flurry and a headlong rush into a new world.. “He’s in love with rock and roll, woahh..”. It was itchy, it buzzed, it had drive and determination, it had.. reggae! I was exhilarated but confused, and later to find out that the Clash were too – a Mott The Hoople fan who thought he was Keith Richards, a pub rock idealist posh bloke called Woody, a punk Stuart Sutcliffe following the dots he’d printed on the neck of his bass, plus a drummer who never quite fit (and not on the sleeve as a result). But somehow it all stuck together, glue in a brown paper bag, and The Clash rode a wave of disaffection, dodging brickbats and a hail of gob, committing the unbelievable heresy of signing for a major label, and becoming an ultimately irresistible live force.

To some it was just a load of Jackson Pollocks – rudimentary drumming, mindless terrace chants, fakers, charlatans, amateurs – but their paint splattered battle fatigues looked great to me. They didn’t articulate how I felt, but they did articulate how I thought I should be feeling. I was always a follower, but what a gang to be in.

The Last Gang In Town, no less.

P.S. Part 4 of The Sacred Days You Gave Me: another one from 1977.

Here’s Elvis live, 1978 and 1985:

Sad news of the death from cancer of Paul Fox, guitarist with the phenomenal Ruts.. fire AND skill in his playing, equally adept at slamming out a pithy punk blast or skanking along inna dub style.

John Peel was a fan, supporting The Ruts as they blazed a trail from the London suburbs to the heart of the capital and beyond, charting most notably with ‘Babylon’s Burning’ and ‘Something That I Said’: no mere three chord thrashes but sharp, punchy, fiery, and adept. Ground-breaking Rock Against Racism tours with Misty In Roots put them firmly in the spotlight until the untimely death of singer Malcolm Owen. Continuing as Ruts DC, Fox, Segs and Ruffy enhanced their CV no end with the dub experiment ‘Rhythm Collision’.

The best punk band ever? You decide.. RIP Foxy.