• 

  click to play: Cowboys International — Here Comes A Saturday (1979)

• Eddie & Sunshine — People Talk
• Bagarre — For Your Pleasure
• Nathalie — Mon cœur qui craque
• Munich Machine — It’s For You
• Pet Shop Boys — Paninaro
• Space Opera — Mandate My Ass
• Fatal Error — Fatal Error
• Living in Texas — Tumbling Values
• Thrift Bakery — Shake Your Jewelry
• The Passions — The Letter
• Mecano — Hijo de la luna

• Eddie & Sunshine — Lines

And while I wouldn’t say the album’s contents itself are perfect, it has a brilliant production value that is something akin to the Beatles and Spector in the synthpop age. Listen to “Perfect Hostess”, for example:

• The Korgis — Perfect Hostess

In the late 1970’s, they occasionally used David Bowie’s “Sound and Vision” to announce upcoming programs. The venerable documentary show “Arena” is something else, though, it is simply a work of art, both visually and musically. It uses the classic song “Another Green World” by Brian Eno. I can’t think of a more stunningly simple intro to any TV show.

I often dream what my TV show or my radio show would be like. Sadly, there’s a next to nil chance that I’ll ever have one, but if I did, it would be something like a mix of John Peel, Gay Byrne, and Tom Snyder. Something with a personal focus on music, mixed with humor and schmoozing with obscure but semi-popular legends. I can dream about what my theme song or junction music would be, though.

Candidate 1: The Associate by the Associates. This makes sense because it’s my favorite band, and I continue to believe they are criminally underrated. They are a critical darling, or were, I should say, but even so, only a small few seem to really believe in the Church of Rankine and Mackenzie. This song is one of their few instrumentals, so the beginning 30 seconds or so are perfect.

• click to play: The Associates — The Associate

Candidate 2: The Jezebel Spirit by Brian Eno/David Byrne. This song is located on one of my least favorite albums that I otherwise should like — this has partly to do with the fact that I love Brian Eno and pretty much think David Byrne is about as overrated as it gets. But I do like this song because it sounds like an ethnic version of typical “Eyewitness News” music — like what a white person would think that television stations would use for theme music in Kinshasa or Nairobi. I actually used it for a project in a college class as the theme music to some news presentation. It was quite popular; it went off as they say!

• click to play: Eno/Byrne — The Jezebel Spirit

Candidate 3: The Crunch by the Rah Band. Probably one of my favorite instrumentals of all time, for a number of reasons — it’s totally light-hearted and whimsical, the “Popcorn” of the late 1970’s. But it has a seriously sinister, brooding and gurgling bass synth backing that is quite addictive. This would be a great theme song to a comedy or teleplay — I call it “space cabaret”. It clearly aces the music the aliens were playing in the cantina scene in “Star Wars”.

• click to play: Rah Band — The Crunch

Candidate 4: A New Career In A New Town by David Bowie. For some reason, I find this to be the most heartbreaking instrumental ever. Perhaps it’s because I’ve started so many new careers in new towns at the tender age of 26 that I sense a whiff of glib and guarded optimism in this piece of instrumental perfection. I can just see the salary man in all of us waiting on a foggy commuter train platform for what comes next — will he be made manager or made redundant? It’s a great candidate for a business-themed TV or radio show.

• click to play: David Bowie — A New Career In A New Town

See! Here I am!

Greg Vandike only released a few singles, and none of them went anywhere (the only one that even kind of went somewhere was “Clone” from 1979, and all it seems to do is appear on equally obscure compilations of new wave music.) However, they rank in my own assessment as some of the finest undiscovered pop gems — Mr. Vandike simply must have not been well connected, because I think they beat the pants off of the comtemporary efforts of a shrill, angry Gary Numan. The lyrics are quite inventive and at times extremely endearing, especially in his song “Marie Celeste”. The lyrics are a series of metaphors related to boats and the sea in general, as it relates to a relationship with a girl. It feels like an inspired mix of John Foxx and Squeeze. When the “water water everywhere” stanza of “Marie Celeste” kicks in, the song reaches a level of greatness that makes you wonder why this wasn’t a hit.

• click to play: Greg Vandike — Marie Celeste

Or why anything else he released wasn’t a hit. After a few more singles (some of which I own, some of which I am still trying to find), his success in releasing music commercially ceased. Little else is known about him other than that he’s from Plymouth in Devon and is related to a musical family which included his mother June Marlow, who sang the jingle for a “Fry’s Turkish Delight” advert.

He died unexpectedly in March 2007, too, just a few months before I had discovered his music. His Myspace profile remains stuck in time and a reminder of how the internet, and recorded media in general, leaves behind a fairly haunting reminder of past existence. I am not much of a believer in heaven or hell, but I wonder if Greg would have thought in a million years that people from across the world would still be enjoying what he made even after his death, singles seemingly left to rot in obscurity?

Obscurity, thankfully, does not mean total oblivion. He will be remembered, even if by a few.

• 
  (click to play)
  Corrugated horse flesh candy in lime marmalade
  Dolphin heads in aspic with a butterfly brocade

  Lyre-birds in a stained glass cage, with lightning rods as plumes
  Double-jointed black men playing leap-frog on the moon

  Sea foam in a snow white shroud, red herrings round its teeth
  Puffball spores exploding on a bed of burning wreaths

  Venus fly-trap tigers of a tin-foil tapestry
  Timber moles in mustard, warbling in a minor key

my true love gave to me

Nothing gets me in the mood to dance like these songs — they are so good at what they do that even at 2AM in the middle of the week, I am gyrating inappropriately in my own bedroom while folding laundry. I long, long long long, for the chance to hear these in a bigger room, with a bigger audience, amongst my greater set of friends. I deserve a dance party after all these years going it alone.

So here’s a mini mixtape of Bobby O’s best songs. Click below to start:

• HOW TO PICK UP GIRLS LEARN 2 DANCE
• BIG ROCKS FROM YR VOLCANOOO!
• SPIES ARE OUT 2 GET YOU
• COULD A GIRL LIKE U AND A GUY LIKE ME EVER BE?
• U TOOK MY LOVE U TOOK MY LOVE U TOOK MY LOVE
• P-A-SS-I-O-N
• WHICH DO U CHOOSE A HARD OR SOFT OPTION?

actual track listings: Bobby Orlando — How To Pick Up Girls, Waterfront Home — Teenage Girl In Love, Roni Griffith — Spys, Bobby Orlando — German Girl, The Flirts — Helpless (You Took My Love), The Flirts — Passion, Pet Shop Boys — West End Girls (Original Mix)

What’s a recipe that is repeated over and over yet always sounds pretty good? A certain kind of new wave pop song, which has the following for its ingredients:

• Gated drum — check
• Synth-vibe-glock sound — check
• Dreams of a far off land that doesn’t exist but actually does
  exist somewhere near Merseyside — check

• click: China Crisis — Greenacre Bay

Thanks to the Aaron Aiken for introducing me to this song. I had previously written off most of the band China Crisis heretofore, but the synths in this song pre-date the late 1980’s sound of the Cure by, well, most of the decade.