The Plashing Vole

 At some point in the late nineties I got transfixed by Northern Soul, that magical northern British subculture with its own aesthetic and m...

 Compared with everything else I was buying at the time, American Music Club 's 'Can You Help Me?' counts as a crowd-pleasing hi...

 I unashamedly adore this next record. After Britpop died of shame I got into post-rock quite heavily: Mogwai , Slint , Velvet Underground,...

 …it's Alternative TV !  They were a big name on the post-punk circuit in the late 70s/early 80s because the frontman was Mark Perry (ed...

 So today's obscure single is Alphane Moon's 'Our Glassie Azoth'. Purchased from Recordiau'r Cob in Bangor for £2.99 (a ...

Another mystery today - a 1997 split single from Dedicated Records (the fifth in the series) featuring three bands who were less up-and-comi...

 I really like All About Eve - they're a mix of two genres I've always enjoyed, folk-rock and goth. So I'm not sure why I only ...

After yesterday's foray into lazy satire it's back to 90s Music You Never Wanted To Hear Again. Top quality showbiz anecdote with th...

Once upon a time there was a young Culture Secretary called Oliver . When he was walking in the woods one day looking for the trees, Oliver ...

 Yet again we're in Glasgow. Or maybe Chicago: this is a tricky one. I'm not a wilful obscurantist, but some bands appeared and disa...

Finally, an act that isn't Scottish: today's band is Airiel , an American shoe-gazing tribute act from the late-90s who released ...

Amazingly, we're in Scotland again  for today's single: Country Teasers ' Against The Country Teasers EP.  As you can tell from ...

 Well here we are in Scotland yet again - Glasgow really was a hive of jangly activity in the 80s and 90s. I have a huge soft spot for Adven...

What is it about 90s indie bands and Confederate imagery?  Today it's Action Spectacular ; last week it was A, but I assume the immediat...

 Until I went to Youtube to find a copy, I had absolutely no memory of what AC Acoustics sounded like, despite buying several of their sing...

A propos of nothing, I remembered that I've also recently read Val McDermid's modern retelling of Northanger Abbey (called Northange...

Last year I filled in time by posting selected photographs. I may yet return to that, but I thought that a slow trawl through the largely em...

I'm finding it very weird not getting a sense of excited dread around 1.30/2 p.m.: the time when Donald Trump picked up his phone every ...

Being somewhat overwhelmed by marking and teaching preparation at the moment, I'm turning my blog over to a friend of mine who wishes to...

THE ironically-named Office for Students is taking an advent-calendar approach to publishing a slew of disturbing documents reinforcing thei...