Playlist 05.07.10

Paddy Glasgow was on the first hour of the radio show, talking about Tom Petty, Chuck Berry and the imminent fun of his Glasgowbury Festival, high up around Eagle's Rock. I asked him to sum up the event in one sentence and he raved for a good five minutes. Which was pretty succinct by Paddy standards.

In the second hour, it was a musical profile by our Cultural Attaché, Reggie Chamberlain King. This time around the subject was the Belgian legend Jacques Brel, He was a word-slinging troubadour, champion smoker, poet and misanthropist. We heard his music being approached by David Bowie, Scott Walker and Nina Simone, who delivered 'Ne Me Quitte Pas' with pure desperation. The drama of that song is that the spurned lover is never going to win back the other, and as the song collapses into begging and deal-making, you know that the love is royally doomed.

On another blog entry, I once mentioned the artist called Momus and his stunning Brel EP. But Nina is somewhere else, and you're glad that it's nowhere near your own emotional postcode.

BBC Radio Ulster, 92-95 FM

Online: www.bbc.co.uk/radioulster

Mondays, ten - midnight

Playlist 05.07.10

David Bowie - Young Americans (EMI)

The Gaslight Anthem - Boxer (Side One Dummy)

Bombay Bicycle Club - Ivy And Gold (Mmm)

Tom Petty - Running Down A Dream (MCA)

Aaron Shanley - Somebody To Take Care Of (White Mountain)

Colenso Parade - Find Your Mother

John Grant - Chicken Bones (Bella Union)

The Charlatans - Love Is Ending (Frinck)

The Beat - Tears Of A Clown (2 Tone)

Phoenix - Armistice (Virgin)

Field Music - Let's Write A Book (Memphis Industries)

Roosevelt Sykes - New Orleans Jump (Retro World)

Little Johnny Taylor, Ted Taylor - Walking The Floor (Retro World)

Gaslight Anthem - Diamond Church Street Choir (Side One Dummy)

Jacques Brel profile with:

David Bowie - Amsterdam (RCA)

Jacques Brel - Jacky (Phillips)

Nina Simone - Ne Me Quitte Pas (Pid)

Scott Walker - Funeral Tango (Fontana)

Drive By Truckers Danko / Manuel (New West)

The Band - Whispering Pines (Capitol)

Escape Act - Tired Of Being Pushed Around (ATL session)

Susie Hug - Lonesome Dream (V68)

Johnny Flynn - Barnacled Warship (Transgressive)

Van Morrison - Almost Independence Day (Warner)