30 Day Song Challenge (Gareth's Edition)

Alrighty, so those of you who're on Facebook are probably well aware of the 30 day Song Challenge that's floating about at the minute. Being the impatient sod what I am (and potentially lazy too) I can't really be bothered doing it one song a day, so instead I'm doing it one massive burst, with a Spotify link to each song, and a link to a full uninterrupted playlist at the end. Owing to the fact it centres around Spotify some choices reflect that. I'd love to be able to put in a Felt song but as none are available on the aforementioned streaming service I'll have to do without. Oh, and for those wondering why I've out my name in brackets in the post title, it's because I've no idea if anyone else is doing one, so to leave it merely as 30 Day Song Challenge could, in time, confuse. Yes.

Song 1: Your favourite song - I don't really have an all time favourite song, so I'm going with one of my favourite new discoveries. It's called Sunset by Selebrities and it sounds like a corss between OMD and Wild Nothing. Which makes it brilliant, naturally. I've yet to introduce this song to someone who hasn't enjoyed it. Selebrities – Sunset

Song 2: Your least favourite song - There are too many to choose here, but I'm going to go for Mika's Grace Kelly. There aren't many musicians (sorry, 'musicians') that I'd want to clobber in the face with a spade, but if I was keeping a list this bubble-perm'd sod would be high up it. Especially after this abomination MIKA – Grace Kelly

Song 3: A song that makes you happy - I'm going to cheat ever so slightly on this one. The song itself is a sad one lyrically ('Emma's house is empty, so why do I call it Emma's house?') but musically has a set of great jangly guiar lines that keep it just the right side of melancholic. But in reality my reaction to it is linked to memories: discovering it at 17, hearing a friend drop it on NYE (the first time I'd heard it in a club), the fact another friend always seems to play it when I go to his clubnight. All happy wholesome stuff. In fact, such is my unbridled joy at hearing it on nights out that I now get told 'Gareth, the DJ's just uttered the magic words!' (the magic words being that he's about to play this song) The Field Mice – Emma's House

Song 4: A song that makes you sad - Again, it's to do with association. I recently asked for people's suggestions for songs about friendships for something that may or may not see the light of day in future. One of them came from someone's who's rapdily become one of my best friends but is soon to move further away. This, coupled with the beauty of the song and its ruminations on friendship combine to mean it's something of a challenge to sit through it all. Lovely as it is. Adem – These Are Your Friends

Song 5: A song that reminds you of someone - Growing up on Anglesey, there weren't many people I knew who cared about music as much I did/do. In fact, I knew but one person. Then he went to live in Vietnam for a year. This song is full of references to Ho Chi Minh city (where he lives) so it always makes me think of him. That and the fact we were both huge Clash fans when he was still here. Just before he went we went around the pubs of the nearest University city in fresher's week just after MIA's Paper Planes came out (which for those who don't know, samples Straight To Hell), and kept putting on the Clash song and watching everyone get confused. It sounds like a twattish thing to do, and it probably was. Still funny though. The Clash – Straight To Hell

Song 6: A song that reminds you of somewhere: I can remember listening to this in my final year of university, sat in the library during the Autumn months watching the rain-battered windswept courtyard out the window and revelling in how warm and dry I was inside. This song plus the library's calming atmosphere always put me at ease James Yorkston – When The Haar Rolls In

Song 7: A song that reminds you of an event - I've never been a massive White Stripes fan, but I can just remember going apeshit to this at the last night of last year's Indietracks, surrounded by the myriad of people I'd met and who'd later go on to become great friends and thinking the world was a great place. Which for that sub 2 minute period it was. The White Stripes – Fell In Love With A Girl

Song 8: A song that you know all the words to: David Tattersall's always had an odd way with words, so deciphering the pyrics to Wave Pictures songs has never been the easiest of tasks. When the song is this good, and this catchy, it was/is worth the effort. The Wave Pictures – I Love You Like A Madman

Song 9: A song that you can dance to: Anyone can dance to this. Hell, even the title implores you to. David Bowie – Let's Dance (Single Version)

Song 10: A song that makes you fall asleep - Eno's stuff is always pretty dreamlike at the best of times. Chuck in the fact it was made for a film about the Apollo missions and it's a bonafide snooze inducer. It's pretty haunting and beautific if you stay awake through it all, though. So you win either way. Brian Eno – An Ending (Ascent)

Song 11: A song from your favourite band - I don't really have a favourite band but Orange Juice would probably be right up there. I keep looking back at their old press photos (especially around 1980/81) and wishing I was that suave and dressed that well. A man can but dream....Orange Juice – Rip It Up

Song 12: A song from a band you hate - This one is stupidly vague. Am I meant to just post a song from any band I hate, or a song I like from a band I hate? I have no idea. I'm going to go with the latter. In 2008 in a rare moment of weakness I got sucked into the Glasvegas hype. Even bought the album. Over time, i realised it was a load of bobbins, except for this track. It posesses all the elements that I dislike about Glasvegas (not least James Allen's ridiculous over-wrought vocals) yet it somehow survives the chopping block. Glasvegas – Geraldine

Song 13: A song that's a guilty pleasure - Let's face it, glam rock was a lovely bit of pantomime that added colour to a dour period culuturally, for a few years in the 1970s. However, its musical legacy hasn't really stood the test of time. Why then, do I still find it fun to flounce around to this, imagining I've got bell botoom flares on and stars stuck to my face? Sweet – Blockbuster

Song 14: A song no-one would expect you to like - Another daft one. No-one as in no-one at all? Half the people I associate with don't even know I like music, never mind what kinds I'm into. I don't know, I'm a bit stumped by this one to be honest, so I'll just go with this. Stupidly good fun to go apeshit to in a club. Motörhead – Ace Of Spades

Song 15: A song that describes you: The first two lines do the trick perfectly. The way they get sneered with no hint of self-pity or sadness is just brilliant. The second line might actually be my epitaph in due course, I'm not sure. Magazine – A Song From Under The Floorboards

Song 16: A song you used to love but now hate - The first couple of times I heard this I thought it was nice enough, but the more exposure I got to it the more I realised it was nauseating, disposable piffle that came perilously close to being beyond twee. I've not heard it since 2007/8 and have no intention of doing so again. Ever. Noah And The Whale – 5 Years Time

Song 17: A song you often hear on the radio - Time for another dose of spin. I (criminally) very rarely listen to the radio. The last time I did put in a concerted effort to do so was when 6music was in danger of being shut down. In the midst of what was quite a dark time for the station Lauren Laverne played this, and it seemed to be like a clarion call to resist the BBC's calls for closure. The station was saved and the song has stayed with me since. The Chameleons – Up The Down Escalator

Song 18: A song you wished you heard on the radio - Ironically, the first time I heard this song *was* on the radio. Lawrence from Felt (yes, that band again) played it on his show for the week of Domino radio that went out not long ago. It's Ian Broudie's pre-Lightning Seeds vehicle and it shows he was pretty handy at writing a song even back then (the early 80s). I've already decided that if I ever get in position to DJ on even a semi-regular basis this will be my signature song/joker up my sleeve. It's utterly magnificent. Care – Flaming Sword

Song 19: A song from your favourite album - As with bands, I don't really have a favourite album. There are those that are ever present at the top of my list but nothing ever really makes the top spot. This song's parent album will rank quite highly though, so I'll go for that for now. Hefner – Good Fruit

Song 20: A song you listen to when you're angry - These days I try not to listen to 'angry' songs when I'm pissed off. I either try and wait it out before putting on music or put something on that puts things in perspective and makes me snap out of it (more on that later). There was a time where I'd put this on though. It just seems to have this inherent pent-up rage waiting to burst out of it. Joy Division – Shadowplay

Song 21: A song you listen to when you're happy: I know this is probably too twee for some, and to an extent I agree with that sentiment. BUT, you have to be a heartless bastard to not have any element of happiness shine through when the recorder solo kicks in Belle & Sebastian – The Boy With the Arab Strap

Song 22: A song you listen to when you're sad - Let's face it, when we're sad we tend to want to wallow in it for a bit before picking ourselved back up. What better way to wallow than with 8 minutes of mournful Scottish melancholic pop. I picked this album up at a gig in March, then forgot to put it on until May and was blown away by it. It's a great album, and it's well worth listening to the whole thing. State Broadcasters – Archie's Tears

Song 23: A song you want played at your wedding - This is a tough one. Really, really tough. I've chosen this because it's about the notion of taking your partner's mundane quirks and foibles that most other people would find irritating, and turning them into something endearing and worth celebrating. Surely that's what love's about, right? Pelle Carlberg – I Love You, You Imbecile

Song 24: A song you want played at your funeral - This one started off as a joke and is now at a point whether I'm not actually sure if I'm serious or not. It would be gloriously daft, and I've always wanted my funeral to be something happy, not mournful. Getting people to dance in the aisles to this would encapsulate that idea perfectly. Electric Light Orchestra (Elo) – Mr Blue Sky (As an aside, other parts of the service include starting the service with my casket being crowdsurfed through the church to Born To Run, and at some point having Sid Vicious' cover of My Way blaring out. Again, I'm not really sure how serious these ideas are at this moment in time)

Song 25: A song that makes you laugh - It's a song about 1970s print pronography, told in a dry Mancunian accent. It's beyond funny. It's hilarious. JCC doesn't always cross that well over the North/South divide, but give it a spin anyway, you might enjoy it. John Cooper Clarke – Readers Wives

Song 26: A song you can play on an instrument - This has been a bugger to think of. I can't play an instrument save for an abortive attempt at the drums about 8+ years ago, and I was shit at them at the time, let alone now. Nonetheless, still reckon I could give this a good go given a bit of practice This Many Boyfriends – I Should Be A Communist

Song 27: A song you wish you could play on an instrument - I keep threatening to take up the ukulele, mainly because I'm too lazy and impatient to take up the guitar and figure it's a million times easier. I place the blame firmly at MJ Hibbett and Allo Darlin for this notion. If/when I get one/learn to play, i really want to learn the Allo Darlin song cannon. Such as this one Allo, Darlin' – Dreaming

Song 28: A song that makes you feel guilty - I touched upon this earlier during the 'song that you listen to when angry' entry. Not that long ago I was angry at some friends over some imagined slight (I can't actually remember the exact details, not that you need them), and went for a walk. While on a walk this came on, and it made me realise my petulance and put things in perspective. Having friends who're without exception far away (and some who will soon be even further), the line 'and it struck me to say while so far away you are with me today, you're here in my head, in my heart' always - without fail - kills me. Elbow – dear friends (See also: Scattered Black & Whites. That song always makes me guilty about people I've wronged and lost touch with over the years)

Song 29: A song from your childhood - I remember this coming out in 1996, and thinking it was pretty good at the time. I think it's even better now. Clearly 8 year old me did have something approaching taste. Sleeper – Sale Of The Century

Song 30: Your favourite song from this time last year - As I've said countless times, I've never really done out and out favourite songs at any point in recent memory, so I'm just going to post one of 'there or thereabouts' top songs for your listening pleasure and end this on a high. Nigh-on7 minutes of glockenspiel led Budweiser advertising pop perfection/mayhem anyone? YES.  Los Campesinos! – You! Me! Dancing!

And put it all together and what've you got? No, not the Bitsa theme (cool though that would be) but a Spotify playlist, in its entirety. Here you go you lovely, lovely people 30 Day Song Challenge

All Of Your Thoughts *Are* In Tone In Town

Three charming young Mackems. I presume they're charming - I've never met them. Can't imagine them being divas though. Do they look like divas? What do moderately unsuccessful indie rock divas look like?

Is it a bit naval-gazing to write a blog post based on the album that gave your blog its name? Um, probably. Well, whatever. It's naval-gazing time.

It sometimes feels like call centres have invaded every single pore of our lives. Maybe it's just because the rise in social networking, the Internet and instant communication has meant it's a lot easier to vent frustrations, and generally when we do, it's a sight louder too. And god knows call centres make enough people want to vent, often enough. Anyway, there seem to be two different types of call centre – the first, the outsourced, is generally somewhere on the Indian Subcontinent, and company has gone there because it fills one important criteria: cost. This isn't meant as a judgement on that, I should probably add. Anyhow, if they've not outsourced, the chances are you'll be speaking to someone from that forgotten part of England known as “the North East”. Far from the “here be monsters” (unless you're stuck in the Bigg Market of a Saturday night) such far-flung corners generally provoke, apparently it's because the north eastern accents, be they Geordie, Mackem, Smoggie, or whatever the hell else they call themselves, tend to sound friendly, jovial, sympathetic, and most importantly persuasive. If you can sooth the temper of someone calling a call centre and try to put doubt in my mind, I guess you win the customer service thing.

How does this link to anything? Aha, this is where the fact I've put at least a little thought into a blogpost for the first time shows. Field Music, for those not in the know, are a pair of brothers (and occasional support musicians/temporary members), from Sunderland, right in the heart of persuasive-accent land. They emerged during a glut of vaguely angular bands, and in terms of sales sit in the shadows of peers like the Futureheads and Maximo Park. But as far as critical acclaim goes, Field Music have always been right up there, and for me, their peak is their excellent second album, Tones of Town. You may have heard of it. You probably should recognise the phrase from somewhere not a million miles from here. In any case, the Brewis brothers that form the backbone of Field Music have soft Mackem accents, and, gentle and persuasive, they're the perfect kind to lull me, Derren Brown-victim style, into really buying into a message. Especially when it's one I could probably relate to even if Tom Waits were singing it in maximum gruff mode.

The interesting thing about Tones of Town is, for me, the sort of suite of four songs in the middle of the album. Maybe it wasn't intended as a suite, but while the whole album generally deals with issues of the banality, the routine and the apathy you find when embarking on the first few years of adult life – your first job, the drudgery of getting home after annoying commutes and the like – tracks 4 through 7 really nail the feeling.

Music's generally burrowed a snug warren in my heart because it depicts moments I relate to. I imagine it's the same for a lot of you. And it's because of that, that Tones of Town abides so well – it continues to revisit the themes we never escape, and it does it with such deftness of lyric, melody, and most importantly, rhythm, that it's completely irresistible. Take “Kingston”, for example. It's under two minutes, but the ornate strings and drums which eschew the first of the bar to wobble slightly merely set a scene for an eerily accurate description of not seeing your friends enough, because they live not too close or too far away to warrant the effort. The protagonist fails to maintain a friendship, asking “the tube is fast, the distance small – so why should I come?”. The whole song sounds a bit withdrawn, he works hard, gets paid, and it makes no difference to anything, and then the urge to visit a friend passes, and anyway he finds that “you haven't the time”.

Hardly overwrought, flowery prose is it? But it doesn't need to be – a few words here and there, and it's a universal feeling – I have a friend a couple of miles away, why haven't I visited them? And I can say, oh you know, this and that, there hasn't been chance. Absolute bollocks, and the character in the song knows this, knows how ridiculous it all is.

“A House Is Not A Home” sums up the soullessness of living on your own about fifteen times within the one song, observing things that just aren't the same as being somewhere chock full of characters. Tinkling pianos, occasionally emphasised bars, and voice reminding you that “on your own, you only learn to like what you know” - well, of course you do. But you don't always realise that, do you? And maybe “you recognise the smell”, but again, “a house becomes hotel when you make it what you want to”. Yes! Somewhere that has entirely your own personality, it's as creepy as the hotel room that has none of your own personality.

And what about “Working to Work”? Again, it's a rather simple idea, and one done to death by a million bands, mostly pretty crap, but it's not crap here. Jerky guitars, stop-start rhythms again perfectly sitting alongside the lyrics. What are they suggesting? Among other things, that “Leisure is useless/When nothing is easy/When you're working to work”, and that you're “Taken to task/To spend another day going home and/Diving to drown/I'm coming up for air”. It's not really about the time you're losing during the days, though we're all aware of that, it's the effect is has on your life outside work. You're being taken to task, probably in a pretty remedial admin job, and it just leaves you completely unstimulated when you get home, where slumping in front of the telly feels like coming up for air, or when your leisure activities, sports or dancing or whatever just feel like you're putting off the inevitability of work next day.

It's “In Context” that brings these three themes together, marrying them all with all the disconnection of being stuck in that twentysomething rut. And yeah, it's pointing out “you're a long way from home/all of the thoughts you had were not your own”. A simple plucked guitar and off-kilter rhythm rumbles through the song – it's not quite hypnotic, but it's a little bit relentless. The song itself almost sounds like a love song to someone – someone not really alluded to – but the protagonist couldn't quite fall in love because life, mistakes, the feeling of not quite 'getting' their lifestyle, just sort of got in the way.

Music's a personal thing. I can sit back and analyse how good the music is – and it is, Field Music are a bit of a thinking man's band but there's plenty of melody and plenty of “hmm, interesting” moments to take you by surprise on each listen. But...that's missing the point. I've picked the middle third of an album alone here to show how the combination of music and lyrics feel like they're echoing part of my existence, and as wanky as that sounds, that's the appeal of music. Yes, I've felt slightly discombobulated in houses I've moved into – A House Is Not A Home knows how I feel. Yes, I've seen friendships kind of drift into nothingness because I don't see friends for months on end even though they live in the same city – but the protagonist from Kingston's been there too. Yes, I've felt stifled by shite jobs I've had in the past that've resulted in nothing really cutting it as escapism – Working to Work pretty much sums it up for me. And yes, it's all come together to stop me really...settling into life at times, just like it says during In Context. But what's really the key for me is that they feel like universal themes. I'm almost dead certain they are. We've all been in similar positions, and the feeling we have isn't that of tearing our hair out, or collapsing in floods of tears necessarily. It's the sort of vague feeling of impotence – the discontentment from just looking around and asking “is this it?” But not in such a way that it makes us angry, more that it makes us sigh. And that's the feeling this captures for me, and it's why you should probably embrace this album – especially those middle four tracks – into your life.