. . . . . we like Low don’t we? so might call it a day with this one . . . . . . .
Monday, September 28, 2026
The Last Stiff Compilation [1980] | BUTTERBOY
VA - The Last Stiff Compilation [1980]
VA - The Last Stiff Compilation [1980]
By 1980, Stiff Records had already become the most unpredictable, sharp‑witted independent label in Britain. The Last Stiff Compilation captures that spirit at full tilt, a snapshot of the label’s roster at a moment when new wave, punk, post‑punk and eccentric pop were all colliding. The album gathers sixteen tracks, some listed, some slipped in unannounced, all reflecting Stiff’s instinct for artists who carried personality rather than polish.
Side A opens with a burst of energy. Dexy’s Midnight Runners deliver early fire with Dance Stance, followed by Lew Lewis Reformer’s harmonica‑driven grit. The Cure’s Jumping Someone Else’s Train shifts the mood with clipped guitars and steady pulse, while Madness bring bright, brassy charm with Bed and Breakfast Man. Any Trouble and Mo‑Dettes add melodic tension and post‑punk edge, and John Otway keeps the label’s theatrical streak alive with his dramatic take on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. Hidden among the grooves is a surprise: Lene Lovich’s Japanese‑language version of I Think We’re Alone Now, unlisted but unmistakably Stiff.
Side B widens the frame. Anthony More leans into quirky art‑pop, Lori & The Chameleons offer a delicate, atmospheric track, and Wreckless Eric brings ragged charm. The Chords add mod‑revival punch, and John Cooper Clarke’s Chicken Town appears as another unlisted extra, a spoken‑word jolt of street poetry. The closing stretch turns heavier: Motörhead roar through No Class, Cockney Rejects deliver raw punk energy, and The Damned close the set with Smash It Up, one of the era’s most iconic bursts of melodic chaos.
What makes The Last Stiff Compilation special is its immediacy. These tracks weren’t curated to define a genre,they were chosen because they carried spark, attitude and individuality. Stiff Records championed artists who didn’t fit neatly anywhere else, and this LP captures that instinct perfectly. It’s messy, brilliant, unpredictable and full of life.
For collectors, the compilation is a treasure: variant pressings, unlisted tracks, and a two‑sided insert with credits and liner notes. For listeners, it’s a reminder of how thrilling Stiff Records could be when it threw everything into one place, a label snapshot of pure, unruly creativity. (Butterboy)
Track list
01 Dexy's Midnight Runners - Dance Stance 3:45
02 Lew Lewis Reformer - Win Or Lose 3:30
03 Cure - Jumping Someone Else's Train 2:59
04 Madness - Bed and Breakfast Man 2:35
05 Any Trouble - The Hurt 3:23
06 Mo-Dettes - White Mice 3:40
07 John Otway - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence 3:03
08 Lene Lovich - I Think We're Alone Now (Japanese) 2:45
09 A. More - Judy Get Down 3:01
10 Lori and The Chameleons - Touch 4:25
11 Wreckless Eric - Hit and Miss Judy 3:55
12 Chords - Maybe Tomorrow 3:15
13 John Cooper Clark - Evidently Chickentown 2:22
14 Motorhead - No Class 2:40
15 Cockney Rejects - Flares 'N' Slippers 1:38
16 Damned - Smash it Up 5:08
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This is fun!
WE loved STIFF!
Lene Lovich - I Think We're Alone Now + Lucky Number
Paul McCartney - Solo Rockers (1969-2026) (A Mike Solof Guest Post) | Albums That Should Exist
or Macca!?
Paul McCartney - Solo Rockers (1969-2026) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)
All the songs are taken from studio albums or singles. There are no special edits done by Mike this time.
By the way, note that the range of years given in the title, 1969-2026, is for the entire project. On this album, the actual range ins 1972 to 2007. As usual, see the mp3 tags for all the details.
This album is an hour and two minutes long.
01 Junior's Farm (Paul McCartney)
02 Night Out (Paul McCartney)
03 Rinse the Raindrops (Paul McCartney)
04 Angry (Paul McCartney)
05 Beware My Love (Paul McCartney)
06 Used to Be Bad (Paul McCartney)
07 Rock Show (Paul McCartney)
08 Getting Closer (Paul McCartney)
09 Hi, Hi, Hi (Paul McCartney)
10 Jet (Paul McCartney)
11 Magneto and Titanium Man (Paul McCartney)
12 Fine Line (Paul McCartney)
13 Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney)
14 Ever Present Past (Paul McCartney)
15 Get Out of My Way (Paul McCartney)
Paul notes: Now that this is an album only featuring McCartney, there's no need for Mike to use AI to create images of imagined Beatles reunions. So this is a real photo of McCartney in concert. Mike selected the picture though, so I don't know what year it's from or other details.
David Bowie - Aylesbury Friars Club, Aylesbury, Britain, 9-25-1971| Albums That Should Exist
. . . or we could just go back to tried and tested , . . . this legendary appearance at one of my all time favourite venues just up the road from us? It is here that Ziggy made his first appearance and they have a beautiful sculpture outside the club now of our David
David Bowie - Aylesbury Friars Club, Aylesbury, Britain, 9-25-1971
Bowie very rarely performed concerts prior to 1972, a fact he actually mentions in his banter between songs in this recording. So we're lucky to have this at all. The released version is a big sonic upgrade over the bootleg versions that had been circulating between. However, even that has issues. Most of it has soundboard-level quality. But there are issues, especially the song "Changes." That sounds only okay at the beginning of the song, then suddenly gets a lot better midway through. I couldn't make any improvements to that, and related issues.
However, there were some things I could improve. The main one was the parts that were left out. I checked the bootleg versions with the official version. The official version entirely excluded the song "Queen Bitch." I don't know why, but I'm guessing this was on a CD with some other songs, and there simply wasn't enough room to squeeze in the whole thing. That probably also explains why some of the banter between songs was removed as well. That's especially the case with the banter before "The Supermen," where two entire minutes were removed. There were other removals as well, for instance in front of "Oh, You Pretty Things."
The first thing I did was restore the missing song and banter in their proper places. But that created a problem, because the sound quality difference between the official version and the bootleg version was stark. For the banter, luckily, I was able to close most of that gap. I ran it through the MVSEP program's de-reverb filter, and that helped. Then I took just the vocal parts of the banter tracks (which was most of them, aside from a little applause), and ran those through Adobe's vocal enhancer. That did wonders. Now, in my opinion, one can hardly tell the difference on the sourcing for the banter. I also did the same for the banter before "Changes," which sounded pretty bad on the official version.
It was harder to fix "Queen Bitch," since the bootleg version of the song was muddy. I did manage to use similar tricks to improve the clarity of the vocals somewhat. But still, at the end of the day, that one sounds worse than most of the rest of the songs. But it's still listenable, about on par with the problematic parts of "Changes" on the official version.
Bowie does a surprising number of cover versions here, by his usual standards ("Fill Your Heart," "Buzz the Fuzz," "Amsterdam," "Round and Round," and "I'm Waiting for the Man.") Maybe he was still uncertain how his own songs would go over with a concert audience. He needn't have worried, because the crowd loved him. You can especially hear that at the end, where he has to apologize because the audience didn't want him to stop but his band simply didn't have any other songs they'd practiced and were ready to play.
This album is 60 minutes long.
01 talk (David Bowie)
02 Fill Your Heart (David Bowie)
03 talk (David Bowie)
04 Buzz the Fuzz (David Bowie)
05 Space Oddity (David Bowie)
06 talk (David Bowie)
07 Amsterdam (David Bowie)
08 talk (David Bowie)
09 The Supermen (David Bowie)
10 talk (David Bowie)
11 Oh, You Pretty Things (David Bowie)
12 Eight Line Poem (David Bowie)
13 talk (David Bowie)
14 Changes (David Bowie)
15 talk (David Bowie)
16 Song for Bob Dylan (David Bowie)
17 talk (David Bowie)
18 Andy Warhol (David Bowie)
19 talk (David Bowie)
20 Queen Bitch (David Bowie)
21 Looking for a Friend (David Bowie)
22 talk (David Bowie)
23 Round and Round (David Bowie)
24 talk by emcee (David Bowie)
25 talk (David Bowie)
26 I'm Waiting for the Man (David Bowie)
27 talk (David Bowie)
28 talk by emcee (David Bowie)
Friars Club Members appreciate Bowie
David Bowie - Fill Your Heart (Live at Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)
She & Him : Newport Folk Festival Fort Adams State Park Newport RI USA 2008 (Zooey Deschanel and M Ward) | Albums That Should Exist
New (ish!?) people might feature . . . . [7 albums later . . . . . ]
Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, 8-2-2008 - She & Him
She & Him is an American musical duo consisting of Zooey Deschanel on vocals, piano, and ukulele, and M. Ward on guitar. They got a lot of attention starting with their debut album in 2008, because Deschanel was already an established movie star. But unlike a lot of movie stars putting out albums, this wasn't just a vanity side project. The duo has gotten consistent critical praise, and as I write this in 2026, they have been together for seven studio albums so far.
Most of the songs performed here were originals, with the covers "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" and "The Garden Rose." Jim James, lead singer for My Morning Jacket, joined them for one song, "Magic Trick."
Halfway through the set, the crowd was hit by a heavy rainstorm. But the concert continued anyway. This got referenced some in the banter between songs.
This album is 51 minutes long.
01 talk by emcee
02 talk
03 Black Hole
04 I Was Made for You
05 talk
06 Change Is Hard
07 Sentimental Heart
08 talk
09 You Really Got a Hold on Me
10 Take It Back
11 talk
12 The Garden Rose
13 talk
14 Lingering Still )
15 Got Me
16 I Thought I Saw Your Face Today
17 Why Do You Let Me Stay Here
18 talk
19 Magic Trick (She & Him with Jim James)
20 talk
21 This Is Not a Test
22 talk
23 Sweet Darlin'
(all tracks She & Him unless as stated otherwise)
From the beginning
She & Him - I Thought I Saw Your Face Today on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
too sweet?
How about this?
She & Him - I Put A Spell on You (second album) Conan O’Brien show
Gal can SING yes?
They aren’t messing as Paul notes and after seven (7 count ‘em) albums they are still producing interesting pop IMHO
. . . . or some Irish Folk Music? | Danú & Guests- March/Reel: The Cameron Highlanders (J.S.Skinner) / The Old Blackthorn (trad)
Dublin, Vicar Street 2004
One Night Stand Concert
Danú & Guests
Sharon Shannon/accordion 🌹
Phil Cunningham/piano accordion
John Sheahan/fiddle
Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh/whistle 🌹
OisÃn McAuley/fiddle
Tom Doorley/flute
Eamon Doorley/bouzuoki
Donnchadh Gough/bodhrán
Benny McCarthy/accordion
Dónal Clancy/guitar
Aongus McAuley/cello
Dancers/ Stephen McCarthy
Des Dillon with 'Peigi’
March/Reel: The Cameron Highlanders (j.s.skinner) /
The Old Blackthorn (trad)
“Gild the Lily” Billy Strings at Golden Gate Park San Francisco, California 2025
or how about some real deal Americana from Billy Strings
“Gild the Lily” Billy Strings at Golden Gate Park San Francisco, California 2025
or how about some jazz? . . . . . . (this one for my son . . . he likes his jazz)
YOUN SUN NAH
erm jazz with a Piano Accordion? Well that threw me . . . but then it all did!
"She is an incomparable force of nature. Her vocal virtuosity and the ease with which she moves from whispering to dynamism on stage is truly a Magical Moment.Youn Sun Nah grew up in an artist's family, her dad is a choir director and her mom is an actress, seeing up close how hard and difficult both careers are, she preferred to study literature and work in fashion PR... until fate did its thing. She moved to Paris to study chanson and jazz, the rest is history.Today she is a legend of contemporary jazz, recognized with the Order of Arts and Letters in France and applauded on many stages around the world.What makes her unique is that she knows no borders... neither in her hands nor in her voice, for her everything comes alive and is deeply sonorous and melodic. She is capable of giving us goosebumps singing to George Harrison, to Nina Simone, or reinterpreting a classic by Marvin Gaye, and taking us to the level of melancholy or energy that she provokes without using a single word.Today Youn Sun Nah has a birthday and there is no better way to celebrate it than by listening to her break her own musical mold. Have a great time Youn, thanks for being an impeccable artist who reminds us that music is pure freedom.” Jazz Sin Frontera
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