Serious music fandom is an addiction which starts when you’re a teenager and though decades might go by it remains a precious link to those golden days which is why it’s depressing to feel it fading away. You can feed your habit by buying old records (and I do) which are fine for a quick fix but nothing can beat the rush you get from a pure, uncut, new record — and buying it on the day of release is the biggest high of all that makes you feel like you did when you were an eager, passionate youth and the world was full of exciting new music. I turn 48 next week and there are still about half a dozen current bands and singers I automatically buy new releases by which isn’t bad for someone of my advanced state of decrepitude (I have mates my age — and younger — who lost touch with current music trends sometime in the early 90s), but with age the fountain of discovery inevitably starts to dry up or you struggle to embrace the latest hot thing (at the moment I’m trying hard to be impressed by the new Arcade Fire album with only “it’s OK” results) leaving you with longer and longer periods when there’s nothing new to buy and you feel like a heroin addict whose supply of smack has been cut off — and equally miserable and sick.

This is nothing to do with wanting to stay “hip” — God forbid — but about not wanting to turn into one of those sad blokes who mutters grumpily about “music today” and only listens to music he bought 30 years go. Contemplating this future is like staring into the black hole of your own mortality and the death of that last link to the kid you once were.

Download: You’re History – Shakespears Sister (mp3)

I know men are supposed to wet their pants over the thought of a new gadget but the grumpy contrarian in me is always suspicious of a sheep-like rush toward some shiny new thing (who are these people who camp outside a shop all night just to buy a bloody iPad?) and the current ubiquity of whatever Steve Jobs pulls out of the sleeve of his black roll neck jumper just makes me even less inclined to want one. I work in publishing which, like the music business, is currently being turned upside down by digital technology, working at a traditional print magazine these days is a little like being a Luddite when the mechanical loom was invented as we join the mad frenzy to embrace all these new gadgets. Though I’m rightly skeptical of the idea that a person can be reduced to a “type” or a category, especially by some smart-arse marketing executive, reading some of the character sketches at The Middle Class Handbook I came across a person they call a “Bitter” which captures a lot of my feelings about the “digital revolution”:

They are named after Twitter – a site they particularly hate. Bitters basically feel drowned by the technology everywhere, and yet are niggled by the idea that they ought to be trying to keep up. They were always crap with technology, they loathe any type of user manual, and feel a peculiar mix of resentment, jealousy and hatred when they see people such as the work experience kid clutching their copy of Wired and doing something futuristic on their iPhone.

Secretly, even though half of them do media jobs where it is quite essential the Bitters wish it would just all go away.

I’ve been using a computer to do my job for the past 20 years, know my way around the internets and can design web sites (like this one) so it’s not as if I’m some grandpa who doesn’t know how to program his video recorder (though I am one of those sad bastards who only uses his cell phone to make phone calls) but while I am niggled by the idea that I ought to be keeping up more — at least for the sake of my career — my real problem is that I’m bored by it all and find it impossible to work up any enthusiasm for the iPhone, iPad, Kindle, Droid, or whatever the “must have” gizmo du jour is. I’ve used an iPad to “read” a magazine and the experience left me completely cold, tapping your fingers on a piece of glass is no substitute for the feel of a piece of paper no matter how many interactive bells and whistles they load it up with. As the legendary art director George Lois recently said in his usual pithy way: “there is a visceral feeling of having that thing in your hands and turning the pages. It’s so different on the screen. It’s the difference between looking at a woman and having sex with her.”

It’s not as if I’m going to quit my job and go work on a farm in Vermont but, yes, I do wish it would all go away. Which is probably what all those typesetters who were put out of work by desktop publishing in the 80s felt, they must have hated young fuckers with Apple Macs like me too.

Download: Computer World – Kraftwerk (mp3)
Buy: “Computer World” (album)

Much as I hate to give The Sun credit for anything, this was pretty funny.

Download: A Father – Virginia Astley (mp3)

This is from Astley’s second solo album Hope In A Darkened Heart which has been out of print for years, so not only is it lovely it’s quite rare too. Enjoy.

Here’s a lovely slice of dusty old Motown to keep you company.

Download: Baby A Go-Go – Barbara McNair (mp3)

Download: Killer (12″ version) – Adamski (mp3)

Well all know that Seal went on to fame and fortune and supermodels after singing on this, but what happened to Adamski?

I was at one the The Jam’s farewell shows at Wembley Arena and even though I was only 20 myself at the time I felt like one of the oldest people there as the hall seemed to be full of 14-year-old boys wearing cheap Parkas that looked like their Mum had bought them in Millets. It was like being in the audience for Crackerjack or an England Schoolboys football game, and for the first time in my life the words “bloody kids” came into my head and I had that awful feeling of smug superiority that I had been a Jam fan from way, way, way back, long before they were stadium-playing superstars – four years at least! Where were all these spotty little bandwagon-jumpers then, huh? Mucking about with their Tonka Toys probably. I had to fight the urge to grab one of them by the Parka and say “Of course, they were so much better at The Rainbow in ’78. I was there, you know” as if I was some grizzled old hippie droning on about Woodstock.

Several massive hit singles and a Mod revival had happened since that last gig and my mate and I both came to the the rather snotty conclusion that we understood why Weller was breaking up the group if this was their audience now — and selling out Wembley five nights in a row wasn’t very “punk” was it? — which is exactly the sort of condescending attitude you’d expect from a 20-year-old who thinks he knows it all (don’t they all?) But looking back now I feel bad for those kids, they were at the age when they were starting to get into music seriously and I can imagine how important The Jam were to them because I remember that feeling well myself. Paul Weller was your hero and you would hang on his every word for tips on what to wear, what to read, what old records to buy, even how to vote. And then — maybe in the same week you bought a George Orwell novel because Paul mentioned him in an NME interview — the bastard went and broke the band up. Who did that leave you with? Secret Affair??? That’s like losing a pound and finding a penny — well, 50p maybe.

I don’t remember much about the actual gig itself apart from Weller smashing up his guitar Pete Townsend-style after he tripped over his guitar lead and Bruce hanging around on the stage waving to the crowd at the end long after Paul had buggered off. But I do have a bootleg of the concert from the night before at Wembley which is about as close as I’ll ever get to recreating that magical night when I became an old git.

Download: Precious – The Jam (mp3)
Download: Move On Up – The Jam (mp3)
Download: Boy About Town – The Jam (mp3)
(Live at Wembley, December 2nd, 1982)

Another reason why I had no right to feel superior to those kids: When I was their age I was into ELO.

What the hell else have I forgotten that I don’t remember?

Download: Where’s The Playground, Susie? – Glen Campbell (mp3)

But, damn it, I feel like another go around the dance floor. If the old joints can take it that is, this is over 7 minutes long so I might need a sit down and a drink before the end.

Download: Lets Start To Dance Again – Hamilton Bohannon (mp3)