Clik here to view.
Four Play
Amazingly or not, ye olde Plain Or Pan is now 4 years young. This year saw the double-whammy milestones of reaching one million visitors and, on a personal level, having my writing recognised to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Double Nugget
If you’re looking for musical hereos that are a wee bit more left field than your average common or garden Lennon or McCartney, you could do worse than become obsessed with the music and ideals of XTC...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Brown Sugar, How Come You Taste So Good?
There’s only one thing good about Hallowe’en and that’s tablet. I despise Hallowe’en. Really properly hate it. I think it dates back to the times when I was a wee boy and I was sent out every year as a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
I Got 5 Years Stuck On My Eyes
I got 5 years, what a surprise! ‘Five Years‘, Bowie’s opening track on the Ziggy album ends with that afore-mentioned refrain. But you knew that already. You might also know that Plain Or Pan has now...
View ArticleClik here to view.
If You Like To Gamble I Tell You I’m Your Man…
You win some, lose some (it’s all the same to me)……………I don’t share your greed, the only card I need is the Ace Of Spades the Jack Of Diamonds. Or depending where you are and who you’re listening to,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Keep It In The Family
Brother brother brother sang Marvin Gaye on What’s Going On, to all like-minded fellow men and women everywhere. Gathering the clans, uniting everyone, making us (and Marvin) feel part of a bigger...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Van Go!
Van Morrison has the dubious honour of being the most boring, souless, bum-numbing act I’ve ever had the misfortune to endure live in concert. Sometime in the mid 90s (94? 95? I can’t quite remember)...
View ArticleClik here to view.
High Kimpact
Kim Fowley is a throwback to the record industry of old. A wheeler, a dealer, a mover and a shaker, he’s had his fingers in as many musical pies as he could manage at the one time. He’s done it all;...
View ArticleClik here to view.
P.O.P. B.O. ’14
Somehow, this is the end of the 8th year of this blog. 8 years! I never for a minute thought I’d be down this road for so long, but here I am, slowing down slightly, but still writing whenever the muse...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Yé-yé-yé!
Sept Heures du Matin is a track originally released in 1967 by French singer Jacqueline Taieb. I’m not too up on how to categorise my French Chanteusses, but I’m pretty certain Sept Heures… is a fine...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rods & Mockers
I Wish You Would by The Yardbirds is a nagging, insistent blast of garage blues from 1964. The Yardbirds – I Wish You Would...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hang On Sloppy
Louie Louie by The Kingsmen is the basest, crassest, lowest-level, stoopidest rockist frat-boy thunk ever committed to vinyl. Which happens to make it just about the best record ever. But you knew that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
We Are 9
Somehow, some way, Plain Or Pan has turned 9. Or, to be more accurate, is just about to turn 9. But at this time of year, when you can never be entirely sure if it’s Sunday morning or Thursday night...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Too Much, Too Young
2 Tone Records was the brainchild of Jerry Dammers, a reggae and ska fan from Coventry. More a culture mash than a culture clash, the label took the ideology and DIY aesthetics of punk, welded it to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Soul Brothers
Siblings in soul is, as Tom Jones might say, not that unusual. The Isley Brothers weren’t so-called for nothing, ditto the Family Stone, with Sly fronting a band including his brother Freddie and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
I’m Backin’ The Kane Gang
A few weeks ago I was involved in putting on a fantastic gig in the tiny but perfect Harbour Arts Centre in Irvine, half an hour from Glasgow on the west coast of Scotland. The main act for the night...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In-Between Go-Betweens
No writing recently as I’ve spent the past week away on a school residential trip. Well, 4 schools’ trips to be exact. It’s the final hurrah before the P7s leave their lofty position as top dogs of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Read It In Books
So the big milestone birthday came and went in a week of extended celebrations, Indian food, mislabelled birthday cupcakes and enforced fun with the family who found themselves gathered in the living...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Electric Soup
1966. The decade was in full swing. Skirts grew shorter as hair grew longer. Some team or other won the World Cup. Bands were beginning to realise that there might be a bit of longevity in this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Super Bowl
There’s something about those early Inspiral Carpets records that’s really great. And by early I’m talking about the pre-Tom Hingley, pre-chart, pre-baggy (eugh) records; tunes formed and fermented in...
View Article
