10 tunes from the depths of my man cave, played over the music centre (or whatever it is they call these new fangled iPod sound dock things) at high volume.
So here goes with this offering:
1. That Lady by the Isley Brothers. The gorgeous vocals of Ronald and the soaring guitar of Ernie turn this already great song into an all time great.
2. Run Through the Jungle by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Absolute classic from J C Fogerty. Years later he was unsuccessfully sued by his record company, which owned the rights for his music, for plagiarising his own song when he released The Old Man Down The Road as a solo artist.
3. Nevertheless (I’m in love with you) by Harry Nilsson. If you don’t own Nilsson Schmilsson, are you alive?
4. Street Guru (Part One) by Nitin Sawhney. Sublime, from Prophesy.
5. Makin Memories by Rush. My favourite Rush album is Fly By Night and this tune comes from this very long player. A bit of Doobie Brothers on helium.
6. Summer Scene by the High Llamas. A short, very odd instrumental from Sean O’Hagan’s post Beach Boys Smile-era band.
7. Hotshot by Shaggy. Title track of the album entitled, believe it or not, Hotshot.
8. Beyond The Sea by Bobby Darin.”Somewhere beyond the sea, somewhere waiting for me. My lover stands on golden sands and watches the ships that go sailing”. Great is a much overused word, but not with this tune and performance it isn’t. Almost perfect.
9. Make Believe by Toto. From the album that brought us Africa, Rosanna, It’s a Feeling and I Won’t Hold You Back, comes this excellent ditty. Toto IV is their best record by far.
10. Rude Awakening #2 by Creedence Clearwater Revival. From the Pendulum album, this instrumental starts off encouragingly enough as a kind of sped-up Trumpton-type theme, but soon turns into a barrage of pointless electronic noise plus electric saws and a demented off key segment of God Save The Queen, illustrating what a mess the band was in by then.
