A swoony celebration of those sumptuous Associates, courtesy of Astronaut's Notepad. I concur with Jon that after the last bars of "18 Carat Love Affair/"Love Hangover", there's nowt worth bothering with, if cruel truth be told. That "A White Car In Germany" is the Zenith (it does for Low/"Heroes" what Isn't Anything/Loveless do for White Light White Heat/Psychocandy). That "Club Country" is not in the same league as the other singles (still love it though). But wot, no mention of "Skipping", definitely in their Top 5 most voluptuously giddy songs? And I can't believe he doesn't care that much for "Q Quarters", the missing link between Cabaret Voltaire's "Your Agent Man" and the Banshees's "Slowdive".

Okay, people, I need your help here. Digging through some old diskettes the other day I stumbled on this, something I wrote for the debut issue of The Lizard (great lost UK music mag of the Nineties etc), a sort of Stocks and Shares Index of Influences for rock bands. This was late 1994, almost nine years ago, so it is way WAY out of date, obviously. Thought it might be both a gas and informative to update it, drawing on a broad pool of expertise--i.e. you lot. The 'Passe' section is pretty easy: I think we can safely put Gang of Four in there, for instance. 'Hot... For Now', likewise: obvious candidates might be This Heat, Shirley Collins, ragga. The fun categories are 'Tres Hot' (opportunity to show off your uber-hipster metereologist-of-cool grip on the minutest distant-rim-of-the-horizon fluctuations in semi-semi-semi-popular taste, although looking at some of the ones from '94---'Sweetest Girl' era Scritti? The Eagles?? Family????--I can't think what was happening then that made me imagine they were genuine reference points for then-current bands). And funnest still the Rank Outsiders section. The latter is more wishful thinking than anything, what you'd like to see become a rip-off source for new bands. Some of the ones from '94--Frippertronics, Japan circa Adolescent Sex--still haven't had their number come up, more's the pity, although pleasingly "DIY era Scritti" and "A Certain Ratio circa Graveyard and the Ballroom" have, finally. 'Beyond the Pale of Rehabilitation' is also a tricky one, I was quite wrong about ELO, indeed only the other day I got a press release which cited Electric Light Orchestra as a key source for the band's alleged excellence.

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THE LIZARD INFLUENCES INDEX
Financiers speculate in futures; alternative bands speculate in pasts. So here's a Financial Times style index of influences, a table of what's hot and what's not, e,g, sell those shares in Krautrock, BUY BUY BUY late '70s San Francisco art-punk. It's a guide for nascent bands on how to construct an aesthetic from scratch, and a tipsheet for established groups, rockcrits and fans on names to drop in interviews/reviews/conversation, so as to stay ahead in the cooler-than-thou stakes. The table is divided into several rankings of influence, and the comments in [brackets] reveal what each rank really says about you.
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HARDY PERENNIALS
[so obvious that they're actually cooler than the obscurantist stuff--the oneupmanship manoevure used by Stone Roses, Manics, Oasis]
Beatles. Rolling Stones. Sex Pistols.
________________________________________________________________________
PASSE
[exhausted by over-use, ex-cool, and thus middlebrow]
Big Star. Black Sabbath. Led Zep. Funkadelic. Neil Young. Husker Du. Brian Wilson. Nick Drake. Syd Barrett. Velvet Underground. Cocteau Twins. Jesus and Mary Chain.
_______________________________________________________________________
HOT... FOR NOW
[right on the money, but may soon turn middlebrow]
Can/Faust/Neu!. Cheap Trick. Rush. Lynyrd Skynyrd. The Soft Machine. Muzak and exotica. Slint. The Raincoats.
________________________________________________________________________
TRES HOT
[dead-cert cooler-than-thou KO trump manoeuvre]
Cluster *. The Associates. Amon Duul II. Japan circa 'Tin Drum'. Amon Duul. The Groundhogs. Fairport Convention**. Popol Vuh***. King Crimson. early Roxy Music. Virgin-era Scritti Politti. Pink Fairies. Robert Wyatt circa 'Rock Bottom'. The Eagles. Budgie. Blue Orchids. 23 Skidoo. Incredible String Band. Electric Prunes****. early Renaissance/Pentangle. 'Sweetest Girl/Faithless' era Scritti. Brainticket. La Dusselldorf. Chrome. MX-80. John Fahey. pre-synthesiser Kraftwerk. Nurse With Wound. Jimmy Castor Bunch. Family.
________________________________________________________________________
RANK OUTSIDERS FOR '95
[a gamble--could trump all-comers, or just get egg-on-face]
Japan circa "Adolescent Sex". Late T.Rex circa 'Light Of Love'. DIY
era Scritti. Gentle Giant. Renaissance circa 'Northern Lights'. Allman Brothers. Van Der Graaf Generator. Talking Heads. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Molly Hatchet. Atomic Rooster. A Certain Ratio circa 'Graveyard and the Ballroom'. Jethro Tull. Man. Foghat. Flesh For Lulu. Frippertronics era Robert Fripp. Bowie circa "Ashes To Ashes". early UFO. Spooky Tooth.
_______________________________________________________________________
BEYOND THE PALE OF REHABILITATION
[terminally square]
Boomtown Rats. Electric Light Orchestra. Elton John. Toyah. Bob Marley. Bread. Bad Manners. Oi! Men At Work. Midnight Oil.
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NOTES
*/Cluster: just check Main's discography.
**/Fairport: J. Mascis apparently obsessed with Richard Thompson's axework.
*** /Popol Vuh: see Flying Saucer Attack, Stereolab.
****/Electric Prunes: big influence on Spiritualized.

Oops, at least three people inform me that Rough Trade---or at least the Covent Garden branch-do stock a bit dancehall---some comps, even some seven inch singles. One source says he picked up a Clipse track there. Still, neither ragga or street rap are priority enough to figure in the New Releases mass email (unlike, say 'afro and latin grooves' or 'downtempo'). And the main plank of my animus--the peculiar treatment of UKG--still stands. On which tip, the latest New Releases email is really quite surreal. There's only item listed under Nu Skool Breaks (hhmm, vibrant 'n' vital genre isn't it? whereas UKG even in its quietest week would have a couple of dozen new whites out, at least), and it's not even a nu skool breaks track, it's garage. The track is Medasyn 'We Spray' on Casual Records, described as "superb new uk garage from gabriel who is a member of the outfit spektrum (of recent abstract house fave "Freefall"). features mc frost p and zuz rock on vocal duties". (Who are these people? Seriously, am I missing something here?). And then there's this: "if you are feeling the dizzee rascal sound then you have to check this out!". Ah, so they do know who Dizzee Rascal is, are totally aware that some people are feeling that sound and that it's all quite urgent and happening. They just don't happen to stock anything by him or his ilk. But if they did, they'd file it under Nu Skool Breaks! Presumably because two or three years there was a brief moment of faint sonic convergence between the breakstep end of UKG and nuskool such that Rennie 'Stupid Fucking Name" Pilgrem would review the occasional Stanton Warriors or Deekline track in his Muzik column amongst the usual crap...