Reunitit with ma vast 7" collection that hud been stored for almost 20 years in a Glasgow attic, the presence uv a small pile of multi-coloured flexi-discs seemed antiquated and futile. It made the faimly smile. How times - and my taste - hud moved on. Yet they represented the beginnings of the wider distribution of popular music - flexible singles cellotaped to the front of magazines fur gods sake. The day, it's train station magazine music. Twinty tracks that inspired punk. Twinty Springsteen covers. Twinty o today's best releases.

And the need to 'place coin here' to avoid distortion reminds us that the music sterts from the ootside in. First the scratch, or silence, then the opening statement.

Rendered useless by ahdering to a printuble CDR, the beginnings o both tracks (examples of 80's subversive pop from Alturred Images and Bow Wow Wow) are removed. With nae beginnings, there is nowt.

Biblio, cycle & audiography:
- ART & LANGUAGE and the Red Crayola (sic) 'corrected slogans', audio work 1976
- James Kelman 'You Have to be Careful in the Land of the Free'
- Simon Reynolds 'Rip It Up And Start Again'
- Black Flag 'Rise Above'
- 'how to be local' (The Guardian, October 2006)
- Julian Cope 'Head On'
- Cycle Route 56 around B&Q and Bidston
- a visit to Betws Y Coed Memorial Hall
- Flexipop circa 1981-2
- mid-sentence, CANTaudio015, July 2005

thanks: DH, northern bloc, rp, zak, td and john alexander & agnes
no thanks: CG, apple(mac), chelsea fc, 433/432, adidas, drag city and m.a.j.


hame