Twentysomethings

I'm off on my holidays in a few hours - Porto, since you ask - and I thought I should leave you with something to tide you over until I return. So for no particular reason, here are six songs in sequence. Hope you like them, see you soon.

"20 Miles From Shore" - Hawkshaw Hawkins

"21 Girls Salute" - Barrington Levy

"22 Days" - Ryley Walker

"23rd" - John Cooper Clarke

"24 Hours" - The Chefs

"25 Miles" - Edwin Starr

Spoonful

In anticipation of England's World Cup semi-final with Croatia, here is a little something I picked up on my most recent visit to Zagreb last month. Some of my colleagues are actually going to be there this week but unfortunately I am missing out due to a prior commitment. A shame - it would have been a fun night whatever the result.

Anyway, here are The Spoons, a garage band from Pula. Both tracks are taken from their 1994 album "Web Of Fuzz".

"Bye Bye Baby" - The Spoons

"Moonlite Rider" - The Spoons

As will become quickly apparent, "Bye Bye Baby" isn't a cover of the old Bay City Rollers hit. But we're giving you that as well in memory of Alan Longmuir, who died last week.

It's Not Rude To Intrude

Some sweet soul music for a sultry summer evening, courtesy of The Intruders. They were the first group to benefit from having Gamble & Huff writing and producing for them, and it was their success with the likes of 'Cowboys to Girls' that made the Philadelphia International label possible. They also had a penchant for sporting metaphors it seems.

"(Win, Place Or Show) She's A Winner" - The Intruders

"(Love Is Like A) Baseball Game" - The Intruders

McHippies

Flower Children of Scotland, when will we see your like again?

"Wear Your Love Like Heaven" - Donovan

"Gently Tender" - The Incredible String Band

"My Stair Cupboard At 3 a.m." - Bread, Love & Dreams

High In The Andes

A couple of things happened today that made me feel compelled to produce this post. We had our first visitor from Peru since I start tracking such things six months ago, and then our Portuguese desk alerted to me to an excellent post on Bandcamp that leads off with a couple of the big names of Peruvian psychedelia, Laghonia and Traffic Sound (the latter having also been featured here a few times over the years).

So, inspired by these two events, here is some more Peruvian psych and pop from the same sort of era, starting with one of the most endearingly bonkers things I have ever heard.

"Betty Boom-Little Monster-Doggie And Peggie At The Witches Castle" - The (St. Thomas) Pepper Smelter

"Tomalo O Dejalo" - Los Pakines

"I Lost A Game" - Cerro Verde

"Estoy Brillando" - Fe 69

"Ozzy" - We All Together

Massive in Milan

I was in Milan earlier this week and took the opportunity to pop into the Massive Music Store. Size-wise it doesn't really live up to its name, but they make the most of the space they have. There are piles of CDs in there that start on the floor and end up somewhere north of my navel.

Unfortunately I'm no longer dexterous enough to get down and inspect the bottom half of the piles, and was nervous about trying to extract anything that was more than a foot or so down from the top in case I brought the whole edifice crashing down. So in practice I was limited to only 10% or so of the stock.

Despite that, I managed to gather up some goodies. One such was "Pazza Idea", the 1973 album by the ever lovely Patty Pravo. Here are a couple of tracks. The first one may sound vaguely familiar.

"I Giardini Di Kensington" - Patty Pravo

"Limpidi Pensieri" - Patty Pravo

 And now, a rather different Patti.

Agadezert Blues

I'm back from Mumbai just long enough to change my socks before setting off on my travels again, so here is a very quick one to keep things ticking over until normal service can be resumed. Here is some desert blues from Agadez in Niger. I know this sort of thing always goes down well with at least one regular.

"Kamu Talyat" - Group Inerane

"Kuni Majagani" - Group Inerane

I thought about an "Agadez/Agadoo" thing for the video clip, but you deserve better than that. So here is a weak "Inerane/ In The Rain" pun instead.