Blog: Pals On The iPod

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I haven't really bought a lot of new music over the past two years, as I've not been in record shops or especially GIGS much/at all, and so have ended up listening mostly to the RADIO, where they play it all for you. Also, I wear headphones most of the day for WORK, so going hunting for stuff online felt slightly OPPRESSIVE.

However, earlier in the year I happened to hear a couple of tracks by a new band who sounded dead good and made me want to BUY some stuff. The band were "Wet Leg" who you probably haven't heard of as hardly anybody else has ever mentioned them and .. all right, yes, it is pretty much OBLIGATORY to have listened to them just lately and you cannot move for Isle Of Wight-based bass lines, but I got the album a few weeks ago and thought "this is dead good!"

This coincided with me finishing listening to the MAMMOTH day-by-day series of "Get Back" podcasts from I Am The Eggpod. This was a WONDERFUL thing where they interviewed a different person for their thoughts on every single individual DAY shown in the "Get Back" movies, then released each episode on the anniversary of each day. It was GRATE but by the end of it EVEN I was a bit Beatled out. Usually I listen to Beatles podcasts while out on my daily Government Mandated Exercises, but I felt it was time to take a break.

THUS I went and got myself a new mp3 player to enable myself to listen to the aforesaid Wet Leg album (my phone is FULL!), and as I copied the files over I thought "Hang on, I'm sure I HAVE bought a FEW other records over that past several months haven't I?" I looked at the top of the pile of CDs and found that yes, I HAVE bought some other albums lately, especially if you define "lately" as "since about 2019", most of which I hadn't listened to very much at all. In addition to all of the above, I don't really have a functioning CD player (or other DEVICE) and so any listening gets done via headphones which AS DISCUSSED is not so great. Wandering around in The Olympic Park (have I mentioned I live there?) with an mp3 player, however, seemed like a much nicer way to get some music in my head, so I decided to develop a RULE: I would ONLY transfer music to my mp3 player that was NEW(ish), so I could get some NEW(ish) tunes into my BRANE.

This has proved to be an EXCELLENT plan, not least because it means I have found out what loads of my PALS have been up to. For LO! it turns out that MOST of the albums what I have bought has been by people I know or have at least MET, and often had on at Totally Acoustic. The only real exceptions to this have been the Wet Leg record mentioned and the new album from Peaness which I got last week and is ACE.

Otherwise it's been PALS and COMRADES all the way. This week I've had on the recent EXCELLENT albums from Frankie Machine and Gavin Osborn and my brother-in-law (who I don't think has a BANDCAMP as yet), but I've also caught up on recent-ISH records by Pete Green, Tim Eveleigh, Matt Tiller, The Popguns, The Just Joans, Emma Kupa and Model Village. This latter espeically was one I got AGES ago but never gave the proper attention to and it, like all of the others, is GRATE!

It is a policy, and a pile of music, which I would HIGHLY recommend to anybody. I've enjoyed it so much that I'm almost inclined to go to a GIG again sometime soon!

posted 11/5/2022 by MJ Hibbett

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