Pleasure City Hip Parade, July 2010

The NME has done it every week since 1952; Paul Heaton has done it every week since 1980; this chap does it most weeks on his blog...now it's my turn!

What's a blog for if you can't publish your own charts from time to time?

And why Hip Parade? Because I spent my entire childhood mis-hearing the word "hit" in "hit parade" on the radio!

So, here is Pleasure City Avenue's first monthly hip parade - a list of my most played and most hummed tunes of the month for July 2010, some old, some new, but all swirling around inside of me at some point:

1. Helen & the Horns - Freight Train (a 99p Ebay win a few weeks ago - cowgirl indiepop)
2. The Maladies of Bellafontaine - Longsocks (creepy and fascinating, like sugar mice coming to life at sunset - reminded me of the first time I heard Birthday by the Sugarcubes - and they called me a lovely fellow on their Myspace blog! Physical release on September 8th - I can't wait!)
3. Best Coast - Far Away (fabulous singalong 7" bought at their Joiners gig in May)
4. The Farmer's Boys - All of a Sudden (better than anything The Smiths ever did - not taken seriously at the time of release because they were marketed as bumpkins)
5. Withered Hand - New Dawn (new to me - I'll be checking out more of this lo-fi loveliness)
6. Best Coast - Happy
7. A Place To Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
8. Dum Dum Girls - Oh Mein M
9. Rote Kapelle - These Animals Are Dangeroos
10. The Pastels - Stay With Me Till Morning
11. The Magnetic Fields - The Nun's Litany
12. The Chiffons - Oh My Lover
13. Jesse Garon & the Desperadoes - I'm Up Here
14. Best Coast - Crazy For You
15. Johnny Burnette & the Rock n Roll Trio - Train Kept a Rollin'
16. The Sandwitches - Back To the Sea
17. Tender Trap - Do You Want a Boyfriend?
18. Liechtenstein - Passion for Water
19. Blanketarms - I Love Your Guts
20. Dum Dum Girls - Yours Alone

There, that was random! But I like it!

The Maladies of Bellafontaine

Well, I didn't intend to make this blog a Music Blog - there's enough of those already - but hey, if I come across something special, I'm going to shout about it here.

Or, in this case, whisper.

Listening to my newly-mended radio last Thursday, I tuned in to the Gary Crowley show on 6Music whilst soaking in warm lavender bubbles. I wasn't expecting much - maybe a ten-minute Glastonbury live slot from the previous weekend.

What I actually heard was my new favourite band. My new favourites sound like a gaggle of glockenspieling kittens riding around on wooden-wheeled ducks-on-strings. They sound like Noosha Fox, a playful Marissa Nadler, Broadcast, The Ditty Bops, and quite a lot like old John Peel faves The Would Be's. So...destined to be ignored by most, but unconditionally adored by a few.

Searching the 'net, I've been unable to find any trace of officially released music, so I suspect Gary Crowley was playing a pre-release (the song being Longsocks). Perhaps it's coming out on Static Caravan in the near-future? Consider this a bookmark.

Listen to the jolly, Ditty Bops-ish Champagne and the enchanting, "black kitten leather shoes and" Longsocks on their Myspace page.