#NewMusicFriday 05/04/2024

I know this blog is two days late. The only excuses I have for that is that I was a bit busy over the weekend (more of that later), and that my back is plaguing me something awful. And pain reduces productivity, creativity, and limits the mind’s capacity.

So, the great tracks I played on Friday are below (and I couldn’t resist including Cost Of Living with Tom Robinson’s intro and outro as heard on his final ever BBC Introducing Mixtape on BBC Radio 6 Music on 1st April – he announced just a few hours ago he was standing down and handing over to someone younger; I hadn’t realised he’s 11 years older than me).

The Pill – Salaryman
Radium Dolls – Legal Speed
Baench – Skipped A Step
Stone Deaf – What Good Is Sorry?
NEOEV – Softer
Budge – hrtstrngs
Masca – I Got Away
Been Stellar – Passing Judgement
mary in the junkyard – marble arch
Richard Pierce – Cost of Living (with TR intro and outro)
Tom Robinson Band – (Sing If You’re) Glad To Be Gay (1977 live at Lyceum)
Aze – Modern Day Woman
Gloom Girl MFG – Crimes
Kat Koan & Freddie Dickson – Time Alone
Martha May & The Mondays – War Games

New music is an amazing thing. I have read of experiments where older people were played music from their youth and given newspapers from their youth to read, and that some impacts of ageing were reversed. I’m not sure it would work with me – yes, I do love hearing music from the 1980s, and other music from my younger days, but I feel my youngest (and fraudulent at the same time, let’s be honest) when I’m finding new music and falling in love with it. The sadness is that the reorganisation of the BBC by the powers that be (influenced by Tory policy) means that there are even fewer opportunities for new music to be heard on the national broadcaster, especially if it’s music which speaks about social justice. So, please, as usual, my plea is, find these artists on bandcamp or soundcloud and stream or buy their stuff.

Lastly, I went to Carrow Road on Saturday, despite the sciatica, and witnessed my first East Anglian Derby. It was a bit of a revelation to me – a revelation about myself as a person, a revelation about this new city that I’ve now lived in for almost three years. I was moved to write about it.