Rare And Retrievable

The hard drive on my desktop died over the weekend. A replacement is on its way but until repairs have been completed much of my digital music collection is inaccessible, and all the downloaded stuff on my external storage drive can only be played one track at a time on my laptop's media player.

Being a gurning fool I have decided to see this as an opportunity rather than the enormous pain in the arse that it really is. For my own listening pleasure I have been grooving to some old CDs I have not listened to in years, using the primitive technology of a portable radio/CD player. And I'm going to try a similar approach here.

For today's post I have been digging around in the gloomier corners of the storage drive finding things to bring blinking into the light. The two criteria I have applied are that the 'date accessed' must be at least ten years old, and that if you had asked me whether I had heard of these acts I would have said "no". 

There is an obvious risk, which is that if they made no impression on me at the time I downloaded them it may be because they aren't especially memorable. But let's give it a go. Here are three acts I dredged out of the G (for Goggins) folder. See what you think.

"Hey Katy Hey! " - Alex Gruenberg

"I've Been Losing" - The Ghost Hotel

"Wheatfields" - Jon Gant

If you like Jon Gant or The Ghost Hotel they have Bandcamp pages (just click on their names). In Mr Gant's case some things are available on a 'name your price' basis. Jon is still going strong, and is quite prodigious, with his latest album released last December. 

There have been no releases from The Ghost Hotel for ten years but judging by their Facebook page they are still sort of together and doing the occasional gig. Look out for them if you're in Perth (Australia).

A search for Alex Gruenberg reveals that he became lead singer of Best Behavior - also on Bandcamp - but they haven't released anything since 2017. After that the trail goes cold.

Let's finish off with another, better known, G from the folder.