A distant signal

The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore, as recorded by the Walker Brothers, is one of those rare non-Beatles songs remembered from childhood before I became any kind of conscious music fan (the Beatles, part of a fraternal bond, were obligatory). But even when I started buying records, for a long time I didn't have - didn't want - a copy of it in any form, fearful of holding the experience up to the light. This went beyond stereo/mono snobbery or any notion of good taste or coolness: for me the magic was in the memory of the warmth and fuzziness of first hearing it on a medium wave radio in another room in another house.

Andy steals doo wop Lou digs?

Not sure whether the above is an actual release or merely a figment of someone's imagination but this is such a good, and obvious, idea it ought to be summoned into existence forthwith: a compilation of doo wop records favoured by Lou Reed and Frank Zappa.

Return to the sauce

I first read Joe Brown's autobiography Brown Sauce, ghostwritten by Graeme Wright, in the late eighties, and enjoyed it very much. A few days ago I found myself devouring the contents with even greater pleasure, which is not always a given with such books.

Top Five Doo Wop Songs

I recently joined a music forum which asked its readers to name their five favourite doo wop records - an impossible task, but fun to try. I reminded myself of the five titles I had nominated many years ago on the messageboard of the long-gone Yahoo group Steve's Kewl Doo Wop Shop and substituted a few others - although frankly I'd be equally happy with the original list, and my selection could change again tomorrow.

New David Bowie musical

I was surprised - no, make that gobsmacked - to learn that there are plans to fashion a stage musical out of David Bowie's Deram era songs. While I'm very fond of many of these whimsical or bizarre numbers and would be delighted to be proven wrong, I can't help thinking that the idea is destined to fail: Sister Josephine Kicks the Habit all over again.

Jeff Lynne and Les Humphries: a cut-and-shut case

I'm over it now - I think - but for a while I was repeatedly drawn to a youtube video of the Les Humphries Singers.

14 Karat Soul Part 1

From time to time, and more in hope than expectation, I spend a few minutes searching youtube for anything new relating to the New Jersey acapella group 14 Karat Soul (pictured above on Saturday Night Live) - not an activity which yields much in the normal way of things, but recently I found some clips of them singing in New York in 1993, including a doo wop medley which had long been a staple of their live repertoire but had not otherwise been recorded, as far as I know.

Ashes to Cinder Koala Bears on Ice (it's complicated)

Leafing through a copy of Chris O'Leary's book Rebel Rebel in Foyles in Charing Cross Road a few years ago, I felt a surge of what can only be described as Pooterish dismay.