A Mountain to Climb

The Diggers were a Scottish powerpop band who released one album on the Creation label in 1997.

I must have quite liked them as I have the CD single Nobody's Fool which I think I got at the time and another CD single Peace of Mind which I subsequently picked up in a charity shop in February 2017.

One of my last charity shop purchases of 2019 was their sole  album Mount Everest.
I now only need the CD single of O.K. Alright to own their entire catalogue.

rateyourmusic.com gives the album a score of 3.32 out of 5 from 34 ratings which is probably about right.
Perfectly pleasant and inoffensive jingly jangly guitar pop and well worth a pound or so of anybody's money.

The Diggers - Come On Easy

The Diggers - O.K. Alright

Independent Innovative Creative

Seeing as how the  Magnet New Music Sampler which I recently shared with you was met with considerable indifference here is another one for you

Independent Innovative Creative was a series of samplers  from Vital Sales and Marketing in the mid 00's. for promtional use only. Also marketed as the Chain With No Name.
I'm not quite sure how indiecreative 9 from 2006 came into my possession but it contains one or two which are worth a listen.

The first track is by The Holloways who I suspect will be no strangers to our good friend  Brian
This track is from their debut album So This is Great Britain? On the TVT label and produced by Langer and Winstanley.
They had five number one's in the UK Independent Singes Chart .This was not one of them


Clinic are an English rock band who record on the Domino label.
Havest was a single from 2006. Not sure if it is the same song as Harvest (Within You)  a song which features on their album Visitations but it probably is.

Finally we are off to Finland to catch up with ambient pop band Husky Rescue .The song  Diamonds in the Sky is track two on their second full length album Ghost is Not Real from 2006 on Catskills Records.

I wonder if there any others out there that I can subject you to.

The Holloways - What's The Difference

Clinic - Harvest

Husky Rescue - Diamonds in the Sky

Legal Man

In between Christmas and New Year I had my last charity shop visit of the year.
I went to Clarkston Toll on Glasgow's South Side where there are a number of charity shops one of which is Oxfam.
It was tough but I resisted the temptation to buy a Huey Lewis and the News album for £5.99 or a Fall album for £100 (no, I haven't  missed out a decimal point).

I was however happy to fork out 50p for Legal Man a Belle and Sebastian single on Jeepster Records from May 2000.
It's nothing special although it apparantly reached as high as number 15 in the UK singles charts.
The title song features The Maisonettes.
Thankfully the second song on the single Judy is a Dick Slap is an instrumental,the first one they released
The final song Winter Wooskie is the last one to feature bass player Stuart David.

That is probably more information than you need

Sorry - forgot the songs!

Belle and Sebastian - Legal Man

Belle and Sebastian - Judy is a Dick Slap

Belle and Sebastian - Winter Wooskie

50 Americana Albums You Should Hear Before You Die - Flyin' Shoes

Townes Van Zandt on the 1st of January and now on the 4th.
Such are the vagaries of  a randon number selection given that he could have popped up any time this year.

There are seven Townes album's on the shelves, four vinyl and three CDs. There is one live one, three original studio albums and three compilations/best ofs (a huge number of which have appeared since his passing on 1st January 1997).

I don't think that there is one classic album that stands out from all the others. It would be interesting to hear the views of others on this.
I've gone for Flyin' Shoes from 1978 on the Tomato label, one I picked up in the sadly long departed Echo record shop on Glasgow's Byres Road. I could be wrong but I think all the vinyl ones came from there.
His first album of original material in five years.
It includes what is probably my favourite song of his in Loretta. This gives me an excuse to once more repeat this story from when I saw him in the County Hotel, Perth. I'd previously seen him at King Tuts

A troubled genius and one of the last hard core troubadours and an artist who influenced many of the other artists who will appear in this series.

Another one next Saturday.

Townes Van Zandt - Loretta

Townes Van Zandt - Flyin' Shoes

Major New Series Alert

Us bloggers are always happy to borrow or to latch on to ideas from other bloggers. Or to plaigiarise or steal ideas if you are feeling less charitable.
So with an almighty nod to the Robster's 50 Songs to Take to my Grave series, I give you 50 Americana Albums You Should Hear Before You Die over the next 50 Saturdays

Most of you know that this is pretty much my music of choice. Also most if not all of the artists and many of the songs will have appeared on these pages before.

Here are the rules (such as they are) and the methodolgy.
There will only be one album per act permitted.If it was my top 50 this would not necessarily have been the case.
An act can only appear once although it is permissable for someone to appear as a solo act and as part of a band. This will happen on a couple of occasions.
No Best Ofs or compilations permitted.

One day in November I went through the Americana shelves and selected just over 50 albums for this series and after some soul searching narrowed the list to 50.
I then used a random number programme to allocate them a weekly slot so it is not  a countdown and the order does not mean that one is better than another.

It was also at a point of time. It may well have been different the week before or after. There will be no changes although this has left me with a moral dilema which I will share with you in due course.

It also means that No Other by Gene Clark will not feature as I only got it recently. It would certainly have been included  if I was drawing up the list today. But what to leave out?

Gene Clark - Lady of the North

Magnetic Music

The other day I was looking in the darkest recesses of the shelves for a song by De Rosa for my Alasdair Gray post. I thought it was called Lanark but it turns out it is actually New Lanark which wouldn't have fitted the post.
Which is just as well as I couldn't find it anywhere although I'm sure I have it.
I then stumbled on a CD called Magnet New Music Sampler Volume 29 which looked interesting given that it features the likes of the Jayhawks, Jay Ferrar, Black Keys, The Pernice Brothers and The Legendary Shack*Shakers.
Prior to dispensing it back to whence it came I thought it meritted a spin. It contains nothing startling, some right old rubbish and one or two that required further exploration.

Chicago band Troubled Hubble actually get a Wiki page of their own albeit that it is pretty sparse. Given that the sampler is from 2003 I think it is safe to assume that Nancy is from their album Penturbia on Latest Flame Records

Chubby or The Chubbys has proven harder to pin down. It appears that So Gone is from the album Is It Time? on the Gigantic Music Group

Heth appears to be Heth Weinstein who released an album Clean on Rebel Ray Records.
He also recorded an album with his brother Jed as Heth & Jed called Between the In and the Out.

I shall now let them all slide back into obscurity

Troubled Hubble - Nancy

Chubby - So Gone

Heth - So Easy

New Year's Day Homage

Happy New Year to you and yours.
If you have been reading this nonsence for any length of time you should know the drill by now.

It is a long standing tradition on New Year's Day for CCM to pay homage to two of the greatest artists of all time who both died on this day.

Hank Williams died on the 1st of January 1953 aged just 29 and Townes Van Zandt in 1997 aged 52.

I've recently watched the recent episode of the  BBC Four - Country Music by Ken  Burns series (not the boy who played for Nottingham Forest  and Scotland George) which featured Hank and have a recently acquired biography on my to read list.
i will be bitterly disappointed if Townes does not feature prominently later on in the series.

Again it is traditional to state that it will  obviously be downhill now on these pages for the rest of the year.

Hope you have a good one.
I can now officially say that I will be retiring next year!

Hank Williams - I Saw The Light

Townes Van Zandt - Pancho and Lefty