I get territorial when I start thinking about Queen I. It's my album, and while it is so often overlooked by critics and fans alike, I tend to go back to it and hide out in its songs. The mood is so softly sepia to me, with lashings of impoverished glamour. It's Freddie's satins and furs, pillows and feathers, grapes and other ephemera in his Holland Park flat. It's the black and white photos of Freddie thrashing about on stage at Imperial College. There's this heady precociousness that I can get on board with: the vast contrasts moment-to-moment in Great King Rat, the hazy vision of friendship in The Night Comes Down, the adolescent rage of Son and Daughter. It all exists in a familiar place in my heart.

The Queen 1 boxset is enormous, and to traipse through it is to be overcome with awe with archives that didn't seem to exist before. Handwritten sketches of the Queen crest and its elements, delicately drawn by Freddie. There's lyric sheets for songs like Hangman or Mad the Swine, their existence seems to be positively folkloric. Then there's Roger's diary entries, Brian's handwritten tour notes, written on the back of a Queen poster, and then there's the photos that have been hidden for decades: Freddie singing All the Young Dudes on stage with Mott the Hoople, or else staring you down - poised as if he's about to impale you with a sword.

It's vast, complex and intricate, with everchanging meanings, in my heart, at least. The demos are filled with conversation and clattering, accusations that someone is out of tune or out of time. Freddie counting out loud. Things not coming in when you expect them to. Then there's the placeholder lyrics, poignant lines reduced to bits that need filling in later. It's like they're an ordinary band, but they're so far away from any ordinary band that's ever existed. I remember one random radio interview with Freddie in the mid-80s, where he talked about how he'd never like to release demos, because he'd never want to release anything imperfect.

Queen fans have always known Queen I was recorded under bad circumstances, in snatched pockets of night at Trident Studios in Soho. The narrative has been drummed into us: "the drums were all wrong! The Sheffield brothers were shonky charlatans!" The Queen 1 boxset reframes the first album entirely, ushering"the debut album that we always dreamed of bringing to you". The remastered mixes are markedly different: the drums are more expansive, the guitars more pronounced, Freddie's vocals seem other-wordly at times. Are these entirely different takes? Each listen brings about another startling nuance, and there are more pieces to uncover still.

I appreciate the discomfort in confronting the archive, particularly when a project didn't pan out the way you wanted it to. The artist insists repeatedly, "it's imperfect, it's imperfect, this isn't how I wanted it to be!" As a fan, I'd insist that there's beauty in the sketch, in the attempt, in the ambition. I'd insist that Queen I exists in a perfect original state, but if I can get beyond myself, it's more interesting to look at the evolving meaning of the mixes: what was wrong before, what has been pulled out of the archives, and why was this mix deemed to be so perfect?

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #77
Stealing Sheep - Jokin' Me
Ariel Pink - Lipstick
Kauf - The Closest
Nation of Language - What Does the Normal Man Feel?
WhoMadeWho - Keep Me in My Plan (Modernaire Remix)
Amason - Marry Me Just For Fun
PNAU - Telegraph to the Afterlife
Neon Indian - Annie
Purple Disco Machine & Sophie and the Giants - Hypnotized
Graceorsomething - Short King Advocate (feat. Wyatt Delp)

Download (99.3 MB)

The most memorable song recommendation occurred one April night in 2006. I was upstairs at the Tote when I was suddenly accosted by a random man holding a second generation iPod: "You absolutely have to listen to this song!" As he untangled the white wires and cued up the track, he gushed breathlessly, never stopping to mention the artist or the song name. The song was ready. Armed with one earbud each, we sat down together on what I could only assume must have been a collapsed couch. The song sounded so familiar, that smack of a jangly 12-string Rickenbacker, an arpeggio and that masochistic first line: "Just say the word and I would die for you..." I knew it, I definitely knew it, just not the name. "It's the surfing scene in Young Einstein, of course I know this!" He laughed, "Yeah, it's the Stems!" I couldn't help but smile. "It's perfect, it's actually perfect."

It was such a ceremonious encounter that I've never managed to forget it. It lacked context and even conversation, yet it formally introduced me to a scene filled with consequence. Song recommendations don't tend to be so ceremonious now, there's the occasional email attachment or a YouTube link with that requisite exclamation: "This is so so you." Friends have developed the ability to predict my taste with an eerie degree of accuracy and I marvel at their attentiveness (and my predictability). The act of recommending a song can be a bit hilarious too, I chortle upon recalling my old managing director calling me into his office to play me a Russian rockabilly cover of Kraftwerk: "I listened to it and I thought, I know who would like this!" It's a such a fond act of cultural assessment and it so frequently occurs without conscious forethought. With friendship comes that willingness to situate and anticipate a person's musical taste.

My romantic vision of the song recommendation took a bashing upon reading the introduction of Tristan Murail's essay, After-thoughts (2000): "Asking people to listen to a piece of music takes some of their time, some of their life: the composer is stealing a little bit of life from each listener." It had never occurred to me that a composer's creative intent could carry such a malevolent component. The suggestion made me consider whether it even had very much to do with time. I particularly refer to all those uninvestigated recommendations: band names scrawled on a scraps of paper, lost in drawers; unplayed yet carefully curated mixtapes, lost in cars. Each song choice carried that hope that you would look into it, but for whatever reason you didn't.

There are other kinds of recommendations that are unaffected by time, they're associated with that desire to share songs with those you can no longer talk to. It appears that there is a vault of lost recommendations: songs you should have paid attention to, songs you should have told them about.

There's another thing, too, you may never get the opportunity to convey the significance of a recommendation. Some time ago, I received an email from a listener who wrote to tell me that he and his girlfriend have bonded over one particular Yé Yé podcast. I felt such happiness and gratitude as I read about how frequently they listen to the mix, dote over the songs and affectionately imitate my back-announcing as some kind of private in-joke. Now they are getting married, they wanted the songs from the podcast to be featured at the ceremony. The correspondence made me think of the nature of online recommendations and how thrilled I was to learn of that story, particularly since it's so unusual to get that kind of insight.

It made me want to go back and thank those people who were generous enough to share their music, knowledge and insight with me, whether it be at loud parties, on blogs or on email. I know it's hardly practicable or realistic, but it would be sweet thing to say "Thank you for telling me about that song, it really meant a lot to me..."

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #63
Perfume - Handy Man
AlunaGeorge - Best Be Believing
Years & Years - Desire
Flight Facilities - Stand Still
Marcella - Cave and Text
Ace of Base - Pole Position
Nottee - Don't Waste Your Light On Me
Marina and the Diamonds - Can't Pin Me Down

Download (46.5MB)

I was on the ground floor of Melbourne's City Library when the most unlikely music made me freeze and look up. I knew what it was immediately, there was no mistaking that I was listening to the sound of my childhood. I ran up the glass staircase immediately, without contemplating my frantic outward appearance and I found myself breathless and winded, trying desperately not to disturb the calm and sedate audience. They were watching a seated older man, playing the strangest looking instrument I'd ever seen.

"Do you know this music?" He asked me, as he kept pushing the buttons on what seemed to be a weird augmented harp of some description. I replied joyously, "Of course I do!" He went on to explain to the audience: "In the 80s, I composed music for a computer game called Defender of the Crown. This is the music that you'd hear when you won the game." I smiled in bemusement, "That's probably why I'm so familiar with it." Everyone laughed. It was the most unique and surreal live experience, ever.

I didn't stop to talk to Jim Cuomo after the performance, although I wish I did. Instead I ran downstairs to call my brother, Andrew to tell him what had just happened. It was so much stranger than having a DJ publicly drop your most obscure, in-house dance hit. To my mind, I had never considered that Defender of the Crown could have been performed in public, well away from the Amiga 1000. The Amiga does not have the same kind of kitsch currency as the Nintendo. Despite its tremendous legacy, it's unusual to find people around these parts who share that specific childhood gaming experience.

Since I accidentally witnessed that performance, Andrew re-introduced me to online communities who preserve, restore and remix the music of Amiga games and demos. Free from the distraction of any visual presence, you can begin to truly appreciate the Amiga's ability to mimic the rhythmic and melodic style so many genres, nominally Acid House, Techno and Italo Disco. More often than not, the modern-day Amiga remix is a slamming dance anthem which indulges that unspoken fantasy of actually hearing it out loud at some club where, stripped of its context, it is treated as a really good (and truly legitimate) song.

So I'll leave you with a podcast that seeks to glorify the musical output of the Amiga. Despite the various bleeps and bloops, I genuinely maintain that its appeal has nothing to do with any nostalgic affiliation, but I do warn you. My persuasion is a bit biased as I really did spend a lot of time playing Defender of the Crown.

Have at you!
Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Amiga Podcast #54
Pino Zulpo - Test Drive II
Piepie - Enigma
Foxx (SA) - Secret Rites
Marx Marvelous - Unusually Bright
Hans-Hermann Franck - Cobra-stage 2
daXX - Lotus III - Shamrip
BeeZerk - Final Fight
Bill Williams - King of Chicago

Download (46.7 MB)

It's June. The days are grim, cold and dark. It's difficult to imagine emerging from the house without a hot water bottle strapped to the flank of your body. Not only that, it's the furthest point in time before we can watch the Eurovision Song Contest together again. We can watch the competition from previous years, sure, but it's simply not the same without the anticipation, without that desperate need to preserve the final result.

I'd like to imagine that everyone has been returning to performances on YouTube, dwelling on those three-minute entries that at first take, didn't generate much interest. In something as seemingly ephemeral as Eurovision, I'd never really considered that musical attraction could take place over several viewings. I see now that persuasions can be altered and augmented, pop appreciation can somehow flare up and intensify, without warning. The best part of it is we can tell each other all about it.

I love how we confer, how we understand the absolute joy and farce of it all. We're out to find pop in its different incarnations - the ridiculous, the plagiarised, the trashy and sublime. We're out to find something we want to hear the morning after and ultimately, we respect each other's final vote. Even now, I am thrilled by the prospect of Min's forthcoming ukulele cover of Moldova's Lăutar and I am overjoyed to hear Montenegro's Euro Neuro whenever I pass Andrew's room. I love Louise's stunning re-interpretation of Sweden's Euphoria and I adore 1.0's tweet, acknowledging that Sweden really deserved to win... even though I was more taken with Finland's Nar Jag Blundar.


Swedish winner Loreen with her entry, Euphoria
But as with anything to do with pop, I can't help but be confused by the love and enthusiasm we share for Eurovision. Inasmuch as we are out to find the performances that captivate us on a "legitimate" level, much of our enjoyment is derived from our hilariously bitter and sarcastic commentary. I find it difficult to reconcile the nastiness of it, and while we openly acknowledge the paramount importance of pop in our lives, we also accept its idiotic meaninglessness. It would seem that for that one weekend, the tenets of good taste are obliterated and the awful becomes the amazing.

Some days ago, I emerged from the house sans hot water bottle to meet a friend who didn't quite understand the appeal of Eurovision, as much as he'd hoped to. He asked me about it, about my attraction to it, whether it was "for real". I couldn't quite articulate it as I had wanted to, that joy associated with the mutual search for great European pop. Even now, I find it difficult to figure out why we tend to get so carried away with it all. I only hope that venturing forth to Sweden for Eurovision in 2013 will prove to be the excursion I need to articulate such thoughts.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #44
Monarchy - You Don't Want to Dance With Me
Le Le - Normal
Mirage - I Don't Want To
Grimes - Oblivion
Jamie Woon - Night Air
Metronomy - Corinne
Mia - Tanz der Moleküle
Riccardo Maggese - Boschima

Download (45.9 MB)

It was fitting that I was in a vintage clothes shop when the thought crossed my mind. It was a wry thought, an admittedly sarcastic thought about old things: If only people were slightly more sentimental, every home would be a vintage clothes shop. All this naff peculiar stuff wouldn't be so strange and expensive. It would be stockpiled in your cupboard, waiting, free, along with all your other weird miscellaneous tat. Only then the vintage clothes shops of this town wouldn't have a monopoly upon your thoroughly unique postmodern aesthetic.

Anyone coming to our house for the first time would be overwhelmed by the amount of "stuff" we have. Shelves and shelves of books and records, VHS tapes and DVDs, computers and antiquated appliances. Our interests vary from opera scores to Amigas, guitars to Petit Tom books, violins to cassettes, girls annuals and blazers. We collect, compare, research and rejoice whenever one of us would make a stifling discovery. But, whatever the artifact, no matter how precious, it always seems to be relegated to our pile of "stuff".

There is a tremendous desire to store and access the past. Our love of memory tends to manifest itself in different ways. Andrew likes to organise his photos on Picasa while I record every passing thought and memory in any number of half-empty notebooks. There is a kind of grim sentimentality attached to such behaviour, a kind of sickly unease that we don't tend to share. Perhaps I am the only one who feels it, that no one can ever really value the past, at least, not as it ought to be valued.


Picpus est inquiet
There have been times where I have seen a duplicate object, often in passing in a vintage emporium on Smith St or else a science museum in Oxford: It's our bread bin! It's our slide rule! But even behind glass, it all seems so worthless when stripped from its context. If you could even call context "a drawer full of crap". Yet it is that decontextualisation which makes these objects so romantic to others. It is weird and unique and consequently, obscenely expensive. I feel uncomfortable with the newfound value of these objects, my objects, any objects. No one should unduly profiteer from our attachment to "stuff". It is a cruel thing to prey upon, our desire to share, laugh and collect the things we love. What makes it even more cruel is that all stuff is really quite useless. We really don't need anything at all.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #29
Keane - Spiralling
Annuals - LOXTEP
Reverend & The Makers - Sundown on the Empire
Music for Animals - If Looks Could Kill
The Virgins - Teen Lovers
Games - Strawberry Skies (feat. Lauren Halo)
Howard Jones - Like to Get to Know You Well
The Human League - Sound of the Crowd

Download (45MB)

Recently, I was invited to express an opinion about "guilty pleasures". I had to chortle at the prospect of doing so, after all, I had evaluated my understanding of trashy pop music years ago. I had made a short, almost momentary radio documentary on the topic. It yielded a neverending parade of friends describing how alienated they felt by their taste. It was through talking to so many people about guilty pleasures that I realised that the shame originated from a number of sources: an acknowledgement that the music is tacky, meaningless and disposable; identifying a violently flamboyant visual aesthetic or else realising that the music conflicts with your outward persona. I also read somewhere that a guilty pleasure shows that you actually "know" about music... and there's nothing more embarrassing than knowing about music, right?

I didn't even realise that my views on such things had changed. As Mini pasted slabs of text to me, describing his love for Michelle Branch and Delta Goodrem, I noticed that he defended his passion in such a careful and sensitive way. It made me realise that guilty pleasures are simply not relevant to me anymore. I said to him, "Perhaps every thing I like is a guilty pleasure?" It is true to some extent, my cultural choices may be dismissed and ridiculed by the stealthy guardsmen of good taste. They don't even have to say anything, whoever they are. I understand what is fashionable, what is indie and credible, as opposed to what is trashy, silly and ridiculous. I was once told that there would be a time when I would not care what they thought. I was once promised that I would be comfortable and honest enough to celebrate what I love without fear of reproach.

So how did it come to be like this? I believe much of it has to do with the construction of the online identity. It is possible to conceal those things that make you uncool. You do not need to feature Milli Vanilli in your list of Favourite Artists on Facebook, you do not need to incessantly mention Ace of Base on Twitter. Instead, you can associate yourself with a kind of wispy, bearded indiepop subgenre that has considerably more gravitas and far greater kudos than Space Disco. I can't identify when it happened exactly, but somewhere between that momentary whiff of a documentary and this very day, I learned to embrace and project all that I would otherwise be ashamed of. Irrespective of any glitchy sound or cheesy attitude, I think it is the greatest thing to find that song that resonates with you. It's not fair to celebrate that discovery in isolation.

I have given up defending the music I love because I no longer take the cultural guardsman seriously. He is like an insecure hipster to me, running from one token endorsement to another. He once held such conviction in his taste, but since it has fallen out of favour with a key indie stakeholder, he feels compelled to snarl, dismiss and ridicule. He is desperate to assert his own cultural superiority, but when he does, it is almost as if he is dismissing a fragment of his musical past, a part of himself that found a rare affinity in something as beautiful and ephemeral as pop music.

It is stupid. We should never be ashamed of our taste. We should learn to trust our cultural sensibilities. Cool or otherwise, we should celebrate in rejoice in the discovery of truly great pop. That's why we're all here.


Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Synthpop Podcast #25
Pet Shop Boys - Opportunities (Reprise)
Pet Shop Boys - Tonight is Forever
Depeche Mode - Shake the Disease
Cause & Effect - Nothing Comes to Mind
Yazoo - Nobody's Diary
Erasure - My Heart, So Blue (Orchestral Arrangement)
New Order - Dream Attack
Electronic - Vivid
The Cure - Halo

Download (54.6 MB)

Whenever Geocities is mentioned (and let me say that it is rarely mentioned), an odd feeling of comfort and http metatags drifts over me. I am ushered into an era where Sunset Strip is a virtual place and other noobish web designers are vying for a space to call their own. I feel such affection for animated gifs, proclaiming a site is "under construction" (and honestly, was a site ever really finished?), #name tags and guestbooks. It was tacky and amateurish but above all, it was personal.

Long before social networking sites, users constructed personal webpages on Microsoft Frontpage, Netscape Composer and Hotdog. I do stress that word, personal. Not in that they divulged inappropriately private information (or maybe they did, sometimes, you could never really know on a site as vast as Geocities), but the web designer took care of both the content and appearance of the site. Often this would lead to jarring background images that interfered with the text or else bodged up html or midis that would unexpectedly play every time a page opened. It was awkward, silly and naive, but that was us, online in 1998.

It's probably no secret now that I had my own Queen webpage on Geocities. It's all gone now, wiped out by the site's closure in October 2009. It was expansive, yet so very odd. There were bios, lyrics, midis in addition to lyric analyses and Choose Your Own Adventure games. I was thirteen when I started it and throughout my adolescence I added to it. It was as you would expect it to be, personal and excitable with that dab of gleeful eccentricity that seemed all too acceptable in that online realm.


You stole my heart and made me go crazy for a little while there...
I reveled in how personal it was. There seemed to be so much more value in personal expression on Geocities. I would openly speak about how my passion for Queen affected the way I engaged with the girls at school, in addition to how it affected the way I saw myself. My story encouraged others to write and share their stories about how Queen affected them. It was a great thing to receive emails of encouragement or else stunningly enthusiastic comments on my guestbook. I don't think such interactivity really exists anymore.

With Blogger, everything has become streamlined. The template is uniform, the writing style is uniform. MP3 blogs, free of personal commentary are among the most popular blogs on the web. Some days, I feel as if there is no value in recounting personal experience on Blogger, because it's simply not appropriate anymore. When I think of the desires of my end user, I believe that they want something analytical and detached. And downloads. Above all, people want downloads.

So whenever Geocities is mentioned (and I'm usually the one to mention it), I remember another time, an arguably better time. The sites didn't look perfect, I will be the first to acknowledge that, but there was something distinctly beautiful about that form of personal expression. We weren't pandering to the end user, there was no other agenda than to express who we were and what we loved.. and I very much doubt we could ever return to a style of online journalism that is so open in its form or content.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #18
Shakira - She Wolf
Frankmusik - When You're Around
The Klaxons - No Diggity
The Radio Dept - Freddie & The Trojan Horse
Yeasayer - Tightrope
Lady Gaga - Alejandro
Ace of Base - Hypnotized (Hear Me Calling Demo)
Theoretical Girl - It's a Sin

Download (43.9 MB)

I was 13 when it was brought to my attention that I had particularly "gay" taste in music. We were in Health class at the time, Hannah and I were discussing Freddie Mercury in distressingly minute detail when our teacher overheard us talking. She approached us and openly scoffed, promptly announcing to the class that Queen were a "gay band" and to like them was to "be gay". I was overwrought with such bigotry and with heated cheeks, I spluttered a clumsily-constructed argument: "I love Freddie's songs, I love his voice. I don't see how that makes me gay, how does that make anyone gay? What does musical taste have to do with sexual orientation?" My Health teacher remained incredulous and unconvinced. Even though many years have passed since then, I continue to be intrigued by that confrontation. I am still trying to figure out what relationship, if any, exists between musical taste and sexuality.

Assigning a sexual orientation to song, band or musical movement has always seemed to be offensive to my sensibilities. This became relevant when I developed a particularly intense affinity with synthpop, some ten years ago. I knew that others had associated synthpop with gay subculture, namely due to its heavy reliance upon exaggerated aesthetics, flamboyant imagery and camp extravagance. It was something clearly identifiable in the cross-dressing shenanigans of Erasure's clip Take A Chance On Me. Even still, I didn't see how my love for this genre had any relevance to my being a straight fourteen year old girl. I could listen to songs like Erasure's I Love Saturday, the Pet Shop Boys' Tonight is Forever or Depeche Mode's See You and still strongly identify with the romance of these lyrics. To me, it is the ambiguous treatment of pronouns that makes the lyrics in synthpop so intensely relateable. Particularly in the earlier work of these artists, there is rare mention any gender specifically. There are simply universal notions of sublime love and affection.

This issue takes on a fascinating dimension when purportedly "straight" indie bands borrow from imagery from a gay context. The Smiths, in particular, employed feminine imagery in their live stage show, where Morrissey would sport a woman's blouse and stuff gladioli flowers in his back pocket (if you could ever imagine it). The illusion was further enhanced by Morrissey's aggressively emphatic claims to asexuality in the British musical press. Brett Anderson of Suede would similarly flirt with notions of sexual ambiguity, from the suggestive "have you ever tried it that way?" in Pantomime Horse to the more provocative proclamation "I suppose I'm a bisexual who has never had a homosexual experience". The British musical press, again, sought to obsessively clarify and re-clarify the exact nature of Brett's sexual inclination. They wanted to know exactly what he meant by that, why? Why was it relevant or even necessary to dissect the sexual appetites of Morrissey, Brett Anderson or even David Bowie or Brian Molko? Is this knowledge really necessary in assessing how we engage with their persona? Does it make us feel any differently about their music?

That what we would traditionally label as "indie" continues to have a taste of sexual subversion, but these days it is far more subtle. It is present in the suggestive lyrics of Michael by Franz Ferdinand or in the clip of the Strokes song Juicebox, but such imagery is rarely controversial. Contemporary indie capitalises upon the unacknowledged truth of taste: that the most refined form of sexual attractiveness is the adoption of physical attributes from the opposite sex. Indie musicians adopt feminine attributes in private, they apply eyeliner, put on skinny girls' jeans and use expensive hair straighteners. The feminine influence is far from overt, but it is detectable. Sometimes it even gets to a point where androgyny becomes so latent in a musician's appearance that you begin to think that there isn't the intensely insidious breed of homophobia, that maybe there is no relationship between musical taste and sexuality. But then you see instances of Kele Okereke, having to account for the meaning and sexual intent of every Bloc Party song and then you realise that people still care, people will always care. Because as much as you want to detach musical taste and sexuality, they will always be inextricably linked.


So on that note, I leave you with today's podcast, Electro Podcast #15. I would be interested to hear your views on this topic, so be sure to write me a comment.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #15
Robyn - Cobrastyle
Hot Chip - Arrest Yourself
Frankmusik - Confusion Girl (Don Diablo Loves To Slowdance Mix)
Pet Shop Boys - Email
Erasure - When I Needed You (Melancholic Mix)
New Kids on the Block - Hold On
Milli Vanilli - Is It Love?
Sliimy - Wake Up

Download (31.5MB)

When I stop talking for a little while, I am usually thinking about London. I am usually thinking about a particular spot in Camden or the fake Roman antiquities in the Victoria and Albert Museum. I am usually thinking about dancing til my legs ache at some random indie club in Soho.. or else I am thinking about the colour of the morning sky on the bus ride back to Seven Sisters.

Sometimes I think about how I rushed about to get a last minute ticket to New Order in Hyde Park. It was where we first met, standing next to each other, watching the Psychedelic Furs. I had asked to see his program. It was very new-fangled in that it was laminated like a backstage pass. You see, I was lost - there were no freely available programs.

We spent the whole day together, walking in a muddied field, engaged in deep conversation. We talked about musical interests that (we believed) precious few shared. I so vividly remember how he described the significance of the Pet Shop Boys' This Must Be The Place I've Waited Years To Leave. I have no doubt in my mind that I told him of my profound love of Erasure's album The Innocents. We laughed and gushed, walking from tent to tent, stage to stage, talking about his musical writing and my radio fumbling. He was very obliging in letting me watch all the bands I'd wished to see that day: Battle, Graham Coxon, Fischerspooner and the Dears.

We were muddied and drenched when New Order started playing, yet it was perfect. I couldn't have imagined a circumstance like it. There were moments in New Order's set, their cadences, drum beats, lyrics and hooks that resonated so strongly. It seemed so terribly apt yet so wholly unexpected when they played Run Wild. I couldn't believe I was there.

We organised to meet up late Monday night, four days later. I remember him waiting outside the fake Marquee Club in Leicester Square. I was late of course. We had originally planned to go to a New Romantic club night in Oxford Circus. However, no real event really eventuated that night. Yet, somehow it was one of the most exciting nights of my life. Andrew, Gaby, He and I sat on the edge of the Piccadilly Circus fountain, sitting, talking and laughing all night long. It must have been one or two o'clock in the morning when we started to walk in circles around the center of London. From Piccadilly Circus to Soho to Oxford Circus, back to Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square to Trafalgar Square... and then back again. I remember the precise moment when I wished for him to hold my hand, he was speaking about London by the Smiths. I don't ever think I'd ever felt as much relief as when he did.

It seems like a totally mythical scenario, in retrospect. It was just like any of the songs we talked about: Tonight is Forever by the Pet Shop Boys, There is a Light That Never Goes Out by the Smiths, But Not Tonight by Depeche Mode. Nowadays, the memory seems to live in that strictly musical realm, that farfetched realm, that thoroughly perfect realm. Sometimes I have to stop talking for a little while longer to wonder if it really happened at all.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #12
Röyksopp - Happy Up Here
Pet Shop Boys - Love etc
Danger - 11h30
Whitest Boy Alive - Gravity
Hercules in NY - Deadweight
Dr Baker - Kaos (from Budbrain Megademo I)
Bitmap Brothers - Gods
Bomb the Bass - Megablast (from Xenon II)

Download (28.5 MB)

I remember sitting on the front steps of this guy's Art Deco styled, Grey Street apartment. We sat waiting for a taxi together, waiting to get to this party at the Public Offices. I had waited months, years, maybe even decades to be sitting next to this person, waiting for this party. Yet no matter how long I waited, I would still be far too young. Of course, I was in denial of this fact at the time. It only took me two whole years to acknowledge it. Once I did, I dramatically, defiantly and silently declared: if it's because of my age then you're a coward.

When we waited together on these front steps, I was far too anxious to meet his gaze. I would just play with the cuffs of the navy polyester jacket he lent me for the second part of the evening. We were talking about New Order. We would always talk about New Order. He was kind of ashamed of liking Erasure and he knew very little about Depeche Mode. We wouldn't talk about the Cure a lot - although earlier that evening, I acquired the god-fearing audacity to quote the 13th at him: are you seducing or being seduced? To this day, I emphatically insist that the quote was in context, it must have been in context. He must have been flirting with me for me to say something as provocative as that. Surely I wasn't just dreaming of the attraction and rapport? I must have been out of my mind.


Is it really such a sin? Cause if it is, then I'll give in
We were talking about the Reading 3-16 DVD. I laughed at Barney's teleprompter at the front of the stage. "Surely he's been performing these songs for the best part of 20 years, how could he not remember the lyrics of Blue Monday?" He laughed and said that he always felt that Barney was so out of place on stage. He attributed these thoughts to how Barney came to be singer of the band and how Barney tended to have a real lack of showmanship. "It wasn't the place where he was meant to be - he was meant to be an accountant or an architect or something like that. It seems to be a such a mistake."

I knew he was speaking about himself, in some odd way. I didn't have the nerve or the time to ever ask him what he might of meant by that - our maxi taxi was here. He grabbed my hand as we walked to the van and resumed the rest of our evening.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #9
frYars - Olive Eyes
Piney Gir - Boston
Supersystem - The Lake
Ace of Base - Wave Wet Sand
Erasure - Waiting for the Day
Queen - Action This Day (demo)
Berlin - The Metro
Dr John - New Looks

Download (28.1 MB)

My legs ache far too much to write any sort of culturally relevant post about electronic music.. but I will say this: God Bless Italo Disco. I am this close to living exclusively in 1983.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #5
RJD2 - Rules for Common Living
Hercules in NY - Nightlight
Gotye - Thanks For Your Time
Dizzee Rascal - Dance Wiv Me (feat. Chrome & Calvin Harris)
Pharrell, Santogold & Julian Casablancas - My Drive Thru
MARRS - Pump Up the Volume
Click Click - Yakuska (12 inch)

Download (29.5 MB)

I scarcely remember even recording this.. but here it is for your listening, the second in the series of the C&CM podcasts. This week, I present a rapturous half hour of synths, italo disco and eighties electro.


Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #2
Gang of Four - I Love a Man in Uniform
Depeche Mode - Puppets
Albert One - Turbo Diesel
Beirut - My Night with a Prostitute in Marseilles
Thom Yorke - Harrowdown Hill
Modernaire - Faites Tes Jeux
Pet Shop Boys - Home & Dry
Röyksopp - Remind Me (Someone Else's Radio Mix)

Download (31.6 MB)

I thought that there was no better opportunity to unveil the first of my radio documentaries. This is short piece, simply entitled Guilty Pleasures: Awfully Good in a Really Awful Way. It examines all aspects of our love for musical trash. Furthermore, it examines why we feel embarrassed or even compelled to defend music that has long been shunned from popular endorsement.

Guilty Pleasures: Awfully Good in a Really Awful Way (8.4 MB)

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