LIST 231 - 26/01/2018 (a Mark E Smith tribute)

Hello again,

Somewhat inevitably, this week's List serves as my tribute to Mark E Smith, finally claimed two days ago by the poor health to have afflicted him for a number of years.

Obtuse, cantankerous, drunken, sometimes rather hard to love but frequently touched by genius, his was a single-minded, uncompromising approach to his craft, as the long procession of former members of The Fall (a list of personnel, admittedly, added to at a lesser rate in more recent years) would likely attest to.

Always different, always the same, as Peel himself once said. Rest easy, Mark.

There have, of course, already been plenty of Fall/Smith tributes online and over the airwaves, but hopefully this one isn't too much like more of the same. As well as a handful of personal Fall favourites, I've added:

• a selection of Smith's collaborations with other artists (named or unnamed),
• a couple of tracks inspired by Smith (by Tocotronic and the very appropriately named Container Drivers), and 
• a version of Hit the North by Frank Sidebottom - sometimes it takes a northern maverick to cover a northern maverick.

J xx


Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 09/08/2026).
Click here for a directory of updated older Lists.



THE FALL - Kicker Conspiracy (1983) 

EDWYN COLLINS [ft MARK E SMITH] - Seventies Night (1997) 

THE FALL – Ladybird (Green Grass) (1993) 

LONG FIN KILLIE [ft MARK E SMITH] –Heads of Dead Surfers (1995) 

THE FALL - Edinburgh Man (1991) 

TOCOTRONIC - Ich habe geträumt, ich wäre Pizza essen mit Mark E. Smith (2004) 

THE FALL – Way Round (2000) 

THE FALL with COLDCUT – Telephone Thing (live on Snub TV) (1990) 

THE CONTAINER DRIVERS - The Ex-Members of The Fall Club (2004) 

THE FALL – Rebellious Jukebox (1978) 

VON SÜDENFED – Fledermaus Can’t Get It (2007) 

THE FALL – Second House Now (2017) 

MARK E SMITH – Pander! Panda! Panzer! (excerpt) (2002) 

THE FALL – It’s The New Thing (1978) 

FRANK SIDEBOTTOM - Hit the North (1988) 

THE FALL – Theme from Sparta FC #2 (2004) 

SHUTTLEWORTH [ft MARK E SMITH] – England’s Heartbeat (2010) 

THE FALL - Bill is Dead (1990) 

INSPIRAL CARPETS ft MARK E SMITH – I Want You (1994) 

LIST 156 (repeat) - 19/01/2018 (the many guises of... Tim Smith)

Hello everyone,

A first for That Music List this week, in the guise of the first List I've ever repeated. The reason, however, could not be clearer to anyone familiar with my deep love of the music of Tim Smith and Cardiacs.

I first posted this selection in May 2015 as part of an occasional series of "the many faces of... [insert musician here]", and alluded to the fact at the time that Tim Smith's near-fatal, and irrefutably life-changing, heart attack and stroke in 2008 appeared to have effectively terminated the playing and producing career of one of modern music's most fertile imaginations.

A terrible, terrible shame as it already stood, the public declaration earlier this month of Smith's precarious position vis-a-vis continuing to receive the round-the-clock care and rehabilitation that would enable his condition to continue its necessarily grinding improvement has sparked Cardiacs fans from all corners of the earth to thrust their hands into their pockets to the tune of over £80,000 already at the time of writing this. A stupendous effort, and no more than the big man deserves.

Needless to say, further contributions will not go amiss. If you haven't already done so, and have ever loved a Tim Smith-penned, produced or played piece of work, please go to Tim's Justgiving page, where Smith's tower of strength, Mary Wren, explains the big man's situation and need for funding far more effectively than I ever could.

Many, many thanks to you in advance.

So, then, for the second time in That Music List's history, here's something celebratory by which to remember Surrey's finest at his best, then - 20 songs all either starring Tim (Cardiacs, Tim Smith, Sea Nymphs, Panixphere), originally by him (former Cardiac William D Drake's sublime cover), or else featuring him on production and/or instrumental duties (everything else). 

I couldn't not finish with the short film "Jim's Shame", featuring an archetypal Tim tantrum and eventual storming off - to return to the recording studio who knows when, if ever.

J xx


Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 10/08/2026).
Click here for a directory of updated older Lists.



CARDIACS – Jibber and Twitch (rehearsal) (2003) 

TIM SMITH – Rat Mice Lice Time (1990/1995) 

SIDI BOU SAID – Wormee (1995) 

THE SHRUBBIES – Carefree Clothes (1997) 

PANIXPHERE – To Go Off and Things (1992) 

ADRIAN BORLAND – I’m Your Freedom (1997) 

NORTH SEA RADIO ORCHESTRA – End of Chimes (2006) 

THE MONSOON BASSOON – The King of Evil (1999) 

PINHEAD NATION – Where’s Herne Bay? (1993) 

SPRATLEYS JAPS – Secret (1999) 

GERTRUDE – Dirty Windows (1997) 

WILLIAM D DRAKE – Savour (2010) 

EAT – Double Bubble (1993) 

THE TRUDY – Lost Summer of Love (2007) 

LEVITATION – Cloud Shine (1992)

THE SCARAMANGA SIX – The Poison Pen (2004) 

FLINCH – Spoonz (1995) 

STARS IN BATTLEDRESS – Secrets and Signals (2003) 

THE SEA NYMPHS – Shaping the River (1992) 

THE SOUND – Counting the Days (1986)

CARDIACS – Jim’s Shame (2003) 

LIST 230 - 12/01/2018

Hello again,

More stories behind the older selections than the new this time, with the recent passing of France Gall and the announcement before Christmas of the temporary reactivation of magnificent 1980s polemicists Microdisney (any of you going to their Dublin or London gigs this June?) obvious reasons for their respective inclusion.

The reissues of early-1980s works by Solid Space (imagine Young Marble Giants on the moon) and Welwyn Garden City's angriest bards The Astronauts seemed like excuse enough to fashion a trio of space-themed performers in succession, brand new fare by impressively doomy electronics prodder Stupid Cosmonaut completing the dose.

Not from another planet but from another land come the Moomins, and the compilation by Andy Votel's Finders Keepers label of the theme tunes and incidental music from the 1983 British import of the Polish fuzzy felt animated version of the Moomins story was, by a very long way, my favourite reissue of any description last year.

By turns minimal, doleful, experimental, playful and sinister, the soundtrack was conceived and realised not in Lodz, but in Leeds, on a budget of buttons, by post-punk performers Graeme Miller and Steve Shill at the behest of Anne "Teletubbies" Wood. One wasp synth, one flute, and most of the time not much else, other than a boundless sense of imagination - this week's contribution is unlikely to be the only one to feature on a List.

Finally, this week's Then and Now features tracks from Secret Shine 24 years apart, making them the second Sarah Records act still active enough to warrant this treatment in the past four Lists. Their appearance at an all-Sarah line-up in Leeds this coming July, alongside Even As We Speak, Action Painting! and Boyracer, was additionally confirmed on social media only this week.

Who'd have thought they'd last that long, eh? Well, not the late NME writer Steven Wells, who actually recommended the band finish themselves off with a warm bath and razorblades in his "review" of the 1993 single Loveblind included this week. 

To this day that remains the singlemost vituperative, hateful and irresponsible piece of music journalism I've ever seen committed to print, something that transcended simply not liking a record, and it's to Secret Shine's credit they were not cowed out of continuing by it.

Folks, dislike a piece of music by all means. Dislike anything and everything on this List, even, if it doesn't agree with you. But keep things in some sense of perspective when appraising that music, please. 

It's not worth recommending killing people for.

J xx

Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 11/08/2026).

Click here for a directory of updated older Lists.

SPARKS – What The Hell Is It This Time? (2017) 

NACHTHEXEN - Trapped (2017) 

THE PRIMITIVES – (We’ve) Found a Way (to the Sun) (1986) 

ERRORSMITH - I'm Interesting, Cheerful and Sociable (2017) 

THE CLASH – Somebody Got Murdered (1980) 

ODESSEY & ORACLE - J' Ai Vu Un Croco (2017) 

GRAEME MILLER & STEVE SHILL – Moomins Partytime (1983/2017) 

THEN AND NOW: Secret Shine
SECRET SHINE – For You (2017)
SECRET SHINE – Loveblind (1993) 

PUSSY LIQUOR - Kitty Kitty (2017) 

MICRODISNEY – Birthday Girl (1985) 

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE - Man of Oil (2017) 

JULIANA HATFIELD – Short-Fingered Man (2017) 

SOLID SPACE - 10th Planet (1982) 

STUPID COSMONAUT - Digitalis (2018) 

THE ASTRONAUTS - It's All Done by Mirrors (1983) 

PEANESS – Same Place (2017) 

PROFLIGATE - Black Plate (2018) 

IN LOVING MEMORY: France Gall
FRANCE GALL - Bébé requin (1968) 

LIST 229 - 05/01/2018 (a 2008 selection)

Hello again,

A very happy New Year to all List readers, and I hope that the flu that seems to have visited my own particular corner of the globe just recently is keeping a respectable distance from yours.

Considering there were only four Lists in the entirety of 2017 the usual "it was 10/20/30 years ago this year" sort of specials didn't make an appearance, and I'm not necessarily going to be looking to do two or three editions' worth of stuff from each of 1988, 1998, etc. this year either.

I did, however, have about an hour and a half's worth of stuff already stockpiled that just all happened to be released in 2008, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to share it with you.

None of this lot should have appeared on a previous List (unless I've erred), which is perhaps surprising in the case of the MJ Hibbett track, appearing as it has on practically every indiepop love song mix CD or playlist I've compiled for almost as long as it's been out; and also in the case of the Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip selection, being the title track of an album I probably played more than any other hip-hop long-player for many a long year.

Elsewhere, it's a particular pleasure to include:

• something by long-time John Peel faves Freiwillige Selbskontrolle, aka FSK (have I remembered correctly that they were the foreign act to record the most Peel sessions?),

• an instrumental from The Magnetic Fields' feedback-driven Distortion concept album,

• two acts in The Zebras and The Electric Pop Group whom I'd have loved to have seen at that year's Indietracks festival had line-up clashes permitted,

• ONSIND, one half of Pity Me's beatingmost heart and conscience Martha,

• an insistent, driving cut from superb Field Music side project The Week That Was, and

• Spain's highly entertaining entry to Eurovision 2008, inexplicably overlooked on here hitherto.

J xx

Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 11/08/2026).

Click here for a directory of updated older Lists.

FSK – Nokturn 

CASIOTONE FOR THE PAINFULLY ALONE – Ice Cream Truck 

KARINE POLWART – Maid of the Loch 

DAN LE SAC vs SCROOBIUS PIP – Angles 

WILDBIRDS AND PEACEDRUMS– Chain of Steel 

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS –Three-Way 

EMPIRE OF THE SUN – Walking on a Dream 

THE ZEBRAS – Push Our Way to the Front 

THE WEEK THAT WAS –Learn to Learn 

MAPLE BEE – No Place 

DAVILA 666 - Tú 

FOSCA – Confused and Proud 

KITTY, DAISY AND LEWIS –Polly Put the Kettle On 

THREATMANTICS – Big Man 

RODOLFO CHIKILICUATRE - Baila el Chiki Chiki 

ONSIND – Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter 

BEACH HOUSE – Heart of Chambers 

THE ELECTRIC POP GROUP – This is the Town 

MJ HIBBETT & THE VALIDATORS – It Only Works Because You’re Here