Joint the Dots with DJ Hucka – B

This month’s theme is the link, the line – how one song segues thematically into the next. Often by means of a rubbish joke or some leap of logic you’ll just have to follow me with. Let’s begin!

1 Jamie Woon – Wayfaring Stranger

There’s about 9023456256 versions of this song – Johnny Cash did a version, White Stripes did a version…This one’s done by a singer from Hammersmith, SW London, who looks about 12. He sings, records it into some magic box, then sings back over that, creating some superduper multilevel collage of sound.

2 James Wolff – Someone who will

Jamie –> James

The links will get better. And, sometimes, worse. James is my old flatmate. This is shameless plugging. So? I make the rules.

3 Arctic Monkeys – You Know I’m No Good

Wolff –> Monkey

With a tip of the hat to Dr Pepper’s covers CD, this is the Amy Winehouse song, admirably sung in the original gender voice. Two things, I suppose – firstly, I hadn’t realised how catchy this song was until I heard this cover version. Second, he can actually sing, when he’s not sneering. Well done, Monkey Man

4 Mark Ronson ft Paul Smith – Apply Some Pressure

Amy Winehouse –> Mark Ronson

Ronson produced “Back to Black”, and Amy turns up on his album. So that’s two links.
Good horns on this.

5 Queens and David Bowie – Under Pressure

Pressure –> Pressure!

These links are writing themselves, now. Once you've got over the disappointment that this is not Ice Ice Baby (a song to which I still know ALL THE WORDS) you will acknowledge this as an awesome song. Especially the bit with Bowie that starts “It’s just..such..and…old..fashioned..”. Yes!

6 The Jam – Down at the Tube Station at Midnight

Cos both Bowie and The Jam did tunes called Absolute Beginners.

Which is more of a two-step link, really, but whatever. Importantly, Absolute Beginners, the book, was written by Colin MacInnes, who may or may not be related to me. Ok, he’s not.

7 Lord Kitchener – Underground train

Tube station-> Underground!

This is from an excellent album called “London is the Place for Me: Trinidad Calypso in London 1950 to 1956”, all music made by the first wave of Afro Caribbean immigrants who arrived in the UK after WW2. Kitchener’s songs are a really interesting mix of naïve optimism (London is the Place for me, for instance), and all-too- realism (If You’re Not White You’re Black). All of them are great.

8 MIA ft Bun B and Rich Boy – Paper Planes

Train -> Plane

OK, so MIA is an acquired taste. And that bit at the end, when she goes, “ MIA, third world democracy” is a real, cringing, fist-in-mouth moment. But if you aren’t shooting a pretend gun during the chorus, then, well, I don’t think we can be friends any more. Her album is OK. The best track has a guy called Afrikan Boy on it. Well, looky here…

9 – Afrikan Boy – Day out in Lidl

Afrikan Boy was on MIA’s album

Lidl is the shittest, cheapest supermarket in the UK. So going shoplifting there is pretty ghetto.

10- Jamie Liddell – Multiply

Lidl –> Liddell

Quite proud of this link, fwiw. Good song this. No idea what he’s talking about. “Take a trip and multiply”? Whatever could he mean? He also makes the worthwhile point, in the middle 8, that whilst people on the street, there are many, many, people on the moon, meanwhile, there ain't any, any.

11 Balistic Brothers – Blacker 4 the Good Times

Multiply – 4 Times is all maths and that

I do like this song and all, but really, it’s just a way of linking from Jamie Lidell to

12 Super Furry Animals – Venus and Serena

Brothers - > Sisters!

Bang! We’re back! SFA are one of those bands I should spend more time getting to know. Clearly, this song is ace. But it’s off the only album of theirs I have, and one which the real Furry fans reckon is “not their best”. But they would, wouldn’t they?

13 The Streets – All got our Runnins

Running is something you have to do in tennis. What? That’s a link.

This song was on his first album, but taken off at the last minute. It’s my favourite Streets track, mainly for the final line; “Cos I can’t pay the rent but I’ve got a hundred and nine pound pair of trainers on”. Having given this plenty of thought, it’s the fact that the shoes are a hundred and nine pounds that makes this line so good.

14 – Letta Mbulu – What is Wrong with Groovin?

Runnin and groovin are both examples of the present continuous with the final letter removed.

Best line in the whole CD; “Why do they follow me around, just like their name was 007?” Why indeed?

15 The Specials – Message to Rudy

Letta -> Message

This link might only work if you have a “British” accent, my North American chums. But I do, so that’s OK.

16 – Jamie T – Sheila

Rudy and Sheila are both girl’s names

My next CD will feature exclusively songs by people called Jamie

17 – King Biscuit Time – I Walk the Earth

T – Biscuit (and you thought the links were falling off! No chance….)

Two Facts About King Biscuit Time. 1 The singer is the singer from the Beta Band. 2 A friend of a friend has a restraining order out on him.

18 – Burial – Unite

Earth -> Burial

Taking the opposite approach to DJ Rocket, I’m not ending on a club stomper, mainly because I own no Soviet disco, and I know when I can’t compete. I think, with winter closing in across the northern hemisphere, we need as many melancholy but warm, haunting yet lovely songs as we can find. And whilst I think everything on this CD is great, this is the one track I really, really love, as my I-tune play counts will attest.

And! And ! And! Burial remixed Wayfaring Stranger for Jamie Woon! So the circle, friends, is complete……