Record Recipes #42
Set it off.
A selection of analog recommendations for your listening pleasure. Pulled from my personal collection. Today’s issue: look back in righteous anger.
Blondie - Parallel Lines. If you think you saw me tooling around Edinburgh in my Dr. Marten’s this week, you did. After telling stories in my Debbie Harry jacket all weekend, a quiet stroll along Leith Water Walkway was right on time. I found my way to St. Bernard’s Bar where, upon sitting down with my Aperol spritz, the bartender threw this very record on the turntable and a gentleman wandered in to inquire about selling his vinyl collection. One way or another, the rock life keeps me on the line. Hanging on the Telephone
Peaches - The Teaches of Peaches. There are few recordings that incite the specific cocktail of arousal and aggression in me that Peaches’ first record triggers. That her raunchy audacity continues a quarter century after her celebrated DIY debut is a testament to her feminist vision and songwriting prowess (and yet where is she on all these ridiculous lists deifying the diaristic acoustic songwriter?). When that cymbal kicks in you’ve got to either hold me back or get bail money ready. Set It Off
Joan Jett - Cherry Bomb (12” single). This song was written by a teenage Joan Jett at the inciting moment that formed The Runaways. Apt that she would re-record it for her solo record, Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth, in her 20s. Experience is currency, and if we’re lucky enough to still be singing our songs so many years on, why shouldn’t we shift the context? Bombs away.
Keep listening.