On Luke Haines’ 2016 album Smash the System there is an affectionate paean to the Incredible String Band (“The Incredible String Band were an unholy act/They sang like a couple of weasels trapped in a sack”) complete with toy piano and kazoo. The song extolls ISB’s virtues, suggesting that although they might be a bit difficult to “get into” that the listener might want to try anyway. As someone who has always flipped right past the ISB albums, uninterested in this (I thought) goofy hippie shit, but who is always looking for something “new” to listen to, the fact that I liked Haines’ song about ISB so much (a song that was also obviously mimicking their style) caused me to take his advice and pick up their 1971 two LP “best of” Relics Of The Incredible String Band.
Cut to me listening to little else other than ISB for several months. As Haines promised in his Record Collector Magazine column, with ISB “once you’re in, you’re in for life.” (Verdict = truth.)
Reading the two volumes of Haines’ memoirs, Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Part in Its Downfall and Post-Everything: Outsider Rock and Roll it seemed obvious that his musical tastes and mine overlapped to a significant extent so I took note of anything I’d not heard before and dialed it up on the YouTube. Among the things I discovered via Haines’ written—or sung—recommendations are “Goodbye My Love” by the Glitter Band, Rubettes’ “Sugar Baby Love,” the Northern Soul classic “I’m On My Way” by Dean Parrish, and Billie Piper’s insanely, insanely catchy “Honey to the Bee.” Friends let me tell you, for the Billie Piper track alone, my life is just oh so much better. So when I saw, last year, on Haines’ Twitter feed that he was going to start doing a live two-hour radio show on the London-based internet station Boogaloo Radio, I clicked the link and tuned in.
Now I generally HATE radio. I usually know exactly what I want to listen to and do not require any assistance from some rando on the radio dial. For my entire life, I have not listened to, or in any way been attracted to, radio. I don’t ever listen in the car or anywhere else and I never have. Until now. Since the first one, I’ve actually made a point to listen to each of Haines’ “Righteous in the Afternoon” shows live as they happen and it’s always big fun. You can tell he’s amusing himself, certainly, with disrespectful spoken word poetry interludes about Don Letts and Midge Ure, singing along with things and liberally adding cowbell to “improve” certain songs. He once passed along to his listeners two of the dirtiest jokes he’d ever heard, both of them courtesy of John Cale.
Haines, with his hard-earned rock snobbery and good taste in music is doing the public a service. During his weekly two hours of “Righteous in the Afternoon” I’ve personally found out about more “new” music than from any other recent source.
For instance…
“The Green Manalishi (With the Two Pronged Crown)” by Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac.
Marco Pironi’s post Siouxsie & The Banshees/pre-Adam and the Ants group Rema-Rema’s eponymous song “Rema-Rema.”
John Otway & Wild Willy Barrett’s “DK 50/80.”
I’ve also been reminded of how great Poison Girls and Swell Maps were. I knew “of” Catherine Ribeiro, but had not heard her actual music, which was a revelation. Haines will occasionally play a well-chosen Crass number which will sound oddly fantastic the way an entire Crass album usually will not. There’s plenty of Nico, Big Youth, Hawkwind, Soft Machine, Derek and Clive, and Yoko Ono. Haines is also very big on the Fall and he’ll often pull out a deep cut I’ve not heard for years and for this too, I am indebted for the invaluable service he offers to rock snobs everywhere. Plus it’s just plain fun to listen to.
I’ll stop here and let you listen for yourself. Luke Haines’ “Righteous in the Afternoon” is LIVE every Tuesday on Boogaloo Radio from 2-4PM GMT (that’s 10AM EST) and each two-hour show is archived (rather haphazardly) on Mixcloud.The first two episodes are embedded below.
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Mythic motherfucking rock and roll: Why Luke Haines is the best British rock musician of our time
Life is Unfair: Black Box Recorder want you to kill yourself or get over it