renegade squares

New releases that I want to buy have been as scarce as hen's teeth these last couple of weeks. As such I've found myself back on some old stomping ground, digging in the charity shop crates. I had a check up with my dentist yesterday and he's in a part of Dublin that I rarely get to. Fortunately there's a few charity shops down the road but for all my enthusiasm the only thing worth buying was 'The Best of Roberta Flack'. She's probably best known for her 'Killing me softly' tune and although it features that's not why I bought this album. It features two of my favourite Roberta Flack versions of other peoples songs. The first is 'The First Time Ever I saw your face' which has been covered on any number of occasions but the original was by folk singer Ewan McColl. Ewan McColl also wrote 'Sweet Thames Flow Softly' which is another of my all-time top tunes ever. It has become my party piece at boozy sessions although I inevitably mix up the verses. The other Roberta Flack tune is 'Feel like makin love', written by Eugene McDaniels who also wrote one of my other top tunes ever, 'Cherrystones'. I'm one of those people with about 200 tunes in their top ten tunes.

Staying with the 12" format, I also picked up two drum and bass classics. The first is from 1994 and its by Foul Play on Moving Shadow records. It features two tunes: Music is the key and Being with you. Both are brilliant but come nowhere near the groups remix of 'Renegade Snares' which is another one of my all time favourite tunes. The other 12" was 'Finleys Rainbow' by A Guy called Gerald. It features a vocal by Finley Quaye that preceded his own recording of 'Sunday Shining' on his Maverick a Strike album by a few years.

Moving to my favoured 7" format I did pick up one tune that was released recently. It's 'Jimmy' by MIA and it's a cross between bollywood and a Bulgarian eurovision entry. I'm not sure what to make of it at all. If you feel like seeing her live she's playing in a tent in the Phoenix Park on Friday 7th December. I'll be listening from my back garden.

I received a gift of Seasick Steve's recent 7" release 'Its all good' at the weekend. The bestower of said gift was just back from a holiday in the sun and i was wondering if Seasick Steve had some sort of cult following in the Canary Islands. As it turns out he'd ordered the album and the 7" over the internet and they'd arrived when he was away. Seasick Steve recently played in Dublin and I really should have gone to see him. However i'm a lazy bastard and I didn't. This single is classic modern American blues. I'm digging Seasick Steve.

Deciding that two copies of '1999' by Prince is not enough I went and bought another the other day. Whilst there I also picked up 'Trapped' by Colonel Abrams. It was for charity. At least that's my excuse. Here's some bloke called Gay Bear who went and made a video of himself singing it. Needless to say I was disapponted that he wasn't doing the moves that I remember from the original video.