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An odd side effect of writing my blog about old indie music - Because Midway Still Aren’t Coming Back - is that record promoters and pimpers email me and send me music to listen to in the vain hope of getting it featured on the blog. This is probably unlikely to happen for two reasons: one, none of it is a vinyl copy of a song from 1991 in the indie/C86/twee/Sarah Records genre and two, most of it is shit.

However, in an attempt to get the feel of writing about someone’s music that’s not a classic bit of twee, I thought I’d stick down a few notes about a CD I went out (well, emailed and paypalled) and bought with my own hard-earned cash. And it’s the one pictured above. It’s called “Regardez, Ecoutez et Repetez” and it’s from MJ Hibbett and the Validators, a band I’m a huge fan of.

MJ Hibbett is the man who brought us (in conjunction with Rob Manuel from B3ta) Hey Hey 16k, a lovely tribute to the old fashioned computers we had as kids, he’s also the only other person that’s featured on ‘Because Midway Still…’ thanks to Do the Indie Kid, a marvellous tale that we can all relate to.

Anyway, “Regardez…” is a proper album that that feature Indie Kid and 12 other lovely tracks. From the story of a chap who used to be in a famous indie band and is suddenly thrust back on stage in Japan (another of the side effects of ‘Because Midway Still…’ is having a long list of bands that never made it in the UK, but were big in Japan; which, along with having a lady singer, is pretty much the indiest thing you can do) and the lovely loves songs like “It only works because you’re here” - which will speak to anyone who’s ever been silently in love with a work colleague. Each of the songs is a snippet of life in the Half Man Half Biscuit mould, and each one is as good as the last.

I’m no NME reviewer, I’ll leave that to the professionals, but if you’ve got a tenner to spend on a cracking CD from a cracking band who know their way about pop, you can, and should, buy it from the band’s website, and avail yourself of the other offerings. I have, they’re great. The album is full of singalong numbers, helped by the fantastic innovation of it coming with a little booklet with all the words and chords in! Bloody ‘Girls Aloud’ wouldn’t be that kind to us.

I was thinking about doing this blog more often, and the two previous Telegraph-baiting posts sparked a bit of life in me.

I regularly blog about music over at Because Midway Still Aren’t Coming Back and get more than few hits there; which is nice. I get a load of stuff emailed to me because of that, so maybe some music reviews wouldn’t go amiss.

I digress. I was talking about things that made you feel old the other day and that made me go and hunt for things that had made me the man I am when I was a lad. Now, being 35, “when I was a lad” is quite a long time ago anyway, but when you learn that something you hold dear and still rely on on a regular basis is 20 years old, well it brings home just how ancient you are!

When I was I in my formative years, I had a group of friends (most of whom I still talk to on and off) and part of their prized posessions was also a copy of The Pixies’ Doolittle album (plus a load of ‘punk’ records) and we had a developing urge to go and see bands play live in Huddersfield, our nearest big town. Again, I’m not sure of the timing of that, I suspect I was late to the party and they’d been doing it for ages, but bloody hell did it spark something in me.

Doolittle is still rightly regarded as one of the most important albums of recent times and if I hear one of the tracks it reminds me of just how good it was to be young and stupid. So, happy birthday Doolittle, thank you for helping me be the old and stupid bastard I am.

Full scans of the covers are in the zip files. The quality is a bit dodgy, but you’ll get the idea.

Careful! It’s a 48Meg zip file.

And another 48Meg zip file…

At the risk of turning this into a ukulele-only page, which I might still do, I’ve just been put onto a cracking ukulele-based singer/songwriter called Micky P Kerr. His Myspace page is here, I first heard Puppy Eyes on Gideon Coe on 6music - the greatest radio show in the world.

So, this is “I Like Drinking”, an ode to the wonders of a pint or two. Ukulele? Check! Drinking? Check! Smoking? Check!