I thought I would start another occasional series of playlists, that slowly trawl through a bunch of songs that have come into my life at different stages. As has been mentioned before, I think I probably was already quite obsessive about music from a fairly young age, hence why this first bunch of tunes start in 1978, when I hit the golden age of 5. Not all of the tunes in each playlist period, as you will see, actually come from that timeframe, they more relate to how they

This edition of The Essential 10, our quickfire introduction to a wide range of my favourite artists, features Blondie; an act that has managed 11 studio albums over a split up career that has thus far spanned 1974 to 1982, and 1997 to the present day, in some form or another. I have trawled the entire catalogue to come up with ten of my favourite tracks by them. I generally try and slip in a few rarer, more obscure tracks, but they are a pretty well known name (to those of u

News emerged yesterday that Fred Smith died on Thursday at the age of 77, having fought an unspecified illness for some time. Fred Smith (not to be confused with legend of the Detroit scene Fred 'Sonic' Smith) was born in New York City in 1948, and played with many notable New York bands of the 1970s and 80s. He got his start in the early 70s in Angel and the Snake , with Debbie Harry , Chris Stein and Billy O'Connor. They played two gigs in August 1974 under that name, bu

As if 2025 wasn't bad enough already, today it was announced that Clem Burke, drumming legend and Blondie stalwart has died, aged 70....

So, everyone's gone through a period where they really wished they could drum in a rock band; where they've been sitting in a pub and...

The mood in the Birds That Are Blue camp is still requiring an uplift. So we will continue with our theme of playlists by the decade -...

I needed an idea for a jump off point for the next Six Degrees of Kevin Shields - and then sadly, last weekend it became clear who was...