“I can’t wait for the new artwork to be delivered. Now, you’re sure you told him to not make a feature of our enormous heads and tiny hands? He has a solution? Great. Well, I can’t see what could possibly go wrong.”

- Rance Allen, 1977.

Don’t forget to visit It Might Also Go A Little Something Like That for your daily music fix. This week: the movie music of Stephen Bishop. See you there.

…to paraphrase Prince. A little baby brother to this blog, It Might Also Go A Little Something Like That, has been born over at tumblr, where I will be posting a track-a-day until something explodes. Already we’re two days in and you can enjoy Isaac Hayes covering The Blue Nile and Donald Byrd gloriously at the logical end of his jazz-funk tether. The hook? Each day’s track will be tangentially connected to the day before until I paint myself into a musicological corner. It’s also an indulgent way of sorting my online stuff for the short term future. Music will live there, longer and sadly more infrequent posts here, and short bursts of tosh will thrive on twitter.

In the meantime, you can enjoy a slew of mixes on this blog, and flick through the mine of downloadable mp3s already hosted here. I plan to be back with a needlessly comprehensive series of posts about Guess Who and a best of 2009 music retrospective before the decade’s out. So see you then. Right? Right.

“The camera timer better be working this time, ’cause this is the last one in the roll.”

I’m delighted to welcome back the Soul Tableaux series with this gem from soul nearly men Omni. I’m betting there’s a garage full of Omni trademarked knitwear and knitting patterns that didn’t get shifted after tracks like “Roctron” didn’t do the business.

As I’m sure you already know John Hughes has passed away at the ridiculously young age of 59 whilst out strolling with his family in Manhattan. As a younger man I unashamedly loved his films, but as I grew older I found certain formulae kick in. The younger you are when you see a John Hughes film the more likely you are to always love it, try watching one for the first time when you’re 21 or over and something doesn’t quite click. The other thing is that the older his protagonists, the better the film. Planes, Trains & Automobiles and National Lampoon’s Vacation stand proud at one end of the spectrum thumbing their noses at the abominations of Curly Sue, Baby’s Day Out and Foetus Bueller’s Day Off (okay I made the last one up). At his peak, he was prolific to Judd Apatow like proportions, writing, directing and producing up to three films a year.

Another one of Hughes’ enduring legacies for me was his love of the second wave of British Invasion bands, which is why I now have a love of New Order I’m proud of and a similar love of Simple Minds I only admit to when I’m drunk. In that spirit, here’s a handful of tracks from Hughes films which I think are right little crackers.

Holiday Road – Lindsey Buckingham from National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983)

Happy Birthday – Altered Images from Sixteen Candles (1984)

Some Like It Hot (extended mix) – The Power Station from National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985)

March Of The Swivelheads – The Beat from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

Elegia (extended) – New Order from Pretty in Pink (1986)

Power To Believe – The Dream Academy from Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)

Last thought: Mark Hughes aka ‘Sparky’ – John Hughes wrote Vacation where Clark Griswold’s nickname with Sparky. Coincidence? Probably.

Stevie Wonder Russian Dolls

A fresh photo of one of my most treasured items, especially for Jimmy Nutmeg. And some tunes to smooth the way into the weekend, courtesy of Trevor Nelson’s favourite Motown artist, as tastefully revealed at the MJ memorial this week. He is right, though.

Uptight / Satisfaction (live) – Stevie Wonder & The Rolling Stones

All I Do Is Think About You – Brenda Holloway

What’s That You’re Doing? – Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder

Cripes. LA Times and CBS News, and now the BBC have called it. Tear yourself away from the bad stuff and remember the sweet sweet music.

Michael Jackson – Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough

Robin Danar – Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough

James Chance – Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough

Derrick Laro & Trinity – Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough

Ah, Kate Bush. When she’s not pestering Rolf Harris to do vocals, or enlisting Donald Sutherland to play her mad scientist father, there’s always this homage to Ken Livingstone, which given her form I took at face value as another bit of bonkers pie. To be fair to her, it was written for the Comic Strip’s GLC spoof, so not quite so mad after all, but what a chorus with a cracking opinion-opinion-fact whammy:

Who is the man we all need?
(KEN!!)
Who is the funky sex machine?
(KEN!!)
Who is the leader of the GLC?
(KEN!!)

It’s no Babooshka, but what can you do?

Kate Bush – Ken

Picture the scene.  It’s 1982, this is an acceptable magazine cover and Frida “ABBA” Lyngstad and Phil “Philco” Collins get poppy, enlist the Earth Wind & Fire horns and try to hit some Bee Gee height vocals. What’s not to love? I bet he tried to slip her one n’all. Two megastar divorcees getting right into it, gawd bless ‘em.

Here We’ll Stay – Frida & Phil Collins

Breakwater – Release the Beast

Chromeo & Skyy -Call Me Up Me Call (Immuzikation Blend)