I’m going to start with Arborist’s debut album, Home Burial. I think it’s great. Hopefully, when it eventually sees the light of day, lots of you will also think it’s great, because this will mean that Mark McCambridge, the very talented man responsible for these tunes, will be encouraged into making more of them. And then more of them again: the etc. etc. etc. thing.

Encouragement is important for this, I think. Sympathetic co-conspirators: they seem to be important too.
Along with Mark, and the other fine musicians involved, producer Ben McAuley should also be congratulated for his role in Home Burial’s great creative success.
The first time I met Ben, he was a member of The Throes, a bunch of rapscallions from Ballymena who wrote jittery, Strokes-like rock, but whose main passions clearly lay in on-stage feuding and the slandering of their contemporaries.
Some of The Throes went on to form The Holy Innocents, who continue to exist after their own fashion: disappearing into silence and then – like nervy sit-com neighbours – making clamorous re-introductions.
Ben decided he’d prefer to become a fabulous record producer. Out of curiosity, maybe. Which can lead people anywhere.
One of the records he worked on was Enturbulation = No Challenge by a band called Desert Hearts. I actually love them.
They made three albums that eyeballed genuine Greatness, clenched their fists and then had a pop at it. But it’s a hard job landing one on Greatness. Especially if you rile Greatness by telling it, it’s not really all that. If you tell Greatness that, up close, it actually looks like shit. I also loved The Vichy Government. They weren’t really a band. One of them played cheap, tuneless, keyboards while the other ranted fluorescently about capitalism, religion and Sammy McIlroy. Their rage was magnificent. I selfishly wished The Vichy Government would carry on beyond one EP, but unfortunately we lost Jamie Manners (the ranty, fluorescent one) to the world of serious book publication and perceptive blogging.
We live in a weird, distressed plot of real estate. The Vichy Government wanted to remind people of that. Back then it was the road less travelled, and I’ve always been disappointed that so little traffic has bothered heading that way since.
Soak wasn’t Leicester. No one was digging out betting slips with outrageous odds once Bridie went over-ground. Sometimes it felt like she had been marked out as a sure-bet from the first time she tuned a guitar. That might have something to do with the songs, of course. They sounded like they could only have come from Bridie – that she was singing her own cover versions. I’m lucky. A lot of this stuff comes my way without asking. I open an email and there you go: a Soundcloud link, a Dropbox file, something from YouTube.
And it’s always seemed like a privilege.
I’m not sure if it was during a particularly rotten day this winter, or that I’ve just chosen to remember it that way, but when I first heard Sea Pinks’ doozy of a single, ‘Yr Horoscope’ if felt like a Vitamin D shot.
Ryan Vails’ album For Every Silence appeared a couple of month’s later and was washed along on ideas conjured up by an antique family piano that, through serendipity, had made its way into Ryan’s living room.
So – a dozen tunes that wouldn’t exist – that wouldn’t be earning rave reviews all across the board – if Ryan hadn’t inherited an old piano from his in-laws and then ran with a notion.
Running with a notion. That’s worth doing too.
Perseverance. There’s a thing. Robyn G. Shiels, Phil Kieran, Joe Green, Katie Richardson and Stevie ‘Malojian’ Scullion. Ask them about what that means. In fact, while they’re at it, ask them to explain that etc. etc. etc. thing as well.
And, of course, tunes.
I can remember promoter, Darren Smyth telling me the news that Snow Patrol had been dropped by their first label.
“Are they knocking it on the head?” I asked, because that’s often what happens.
“Nah,” he replied. “They’ve this new tune called ‘Run’...”
Tunes are everything. So, I’ll say thanks; wish you all the best, and then end on one.
‘Bone Song’ by Desert Hearts is what I’ll go for. Just because mentioning them again reminded me how much I loved the scamps. And because ‘Bone Song’ begs you to sing-along too. Which, of course, is the best possible note to go out on.