Last week I ended up in east London, with time to kill, so I thought I’d pop into Rough Trade East and have a look round. It’s all fancy, and spacious, and they have books and coffee, and live music for people to talk through. The prices, of course, are mostly heinous, but that’s not Rough Trade’s fault: that’s the internet’s fault. Rough Trade was, as Rough Trade always has been, a bricks-and-mortar reflection of the record-buying world. Cost-a-fortune “luxury” reissues; some probably badly-pressed new stuff; and £7-a-pop beaten-up second-hand shit that charity shops wouldn’t have taken off you in 1995.

For me Rough Trade will always be trips to Covent Garden in my teens. Through Slam City (also relocated to Brick Lane), down the spiral staircase, and squeeze between the racks to the 7” imports. Later, it was getting the mailout and ringing Delia. Delia was also, I think, one of The Family Way, who if you spend much time in our house, you know from the magnificent Moonshine.

Strange Ways is no Moonshine, but it’s not bad either, and the ‘b’ is probably a bit better. The Family Way think it’s groovy that people are finally getting together. Maybe they were in 1997, but earlier today my friend told me his son’s University hold corporate-style team-building exercises, because none of the students know how to speak to each other. He blames Covid, I, as always, blame the Internet. Get off the Internet. Get off it now. What will you be missing out on? This?

Here’s a lovely thing. The record is white, with one song, on one side. The flip is printed with what looks like a David Barnes drawing. Good to see him back; I didn’t think he did oM artwork any more. It looks like he’s drawn Kenny Rodgers, Noel Edmonds, and Lawrence from Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.

The sleeve is better still. Silver printing on black card (the colours may be wrong: it’s dark in here and my eyes, like everything else I have, aren’t what they were) and die cut with a diamond window and a tuck-in tab. I think it’s one of a series, and I’d love to collect them all, but that sort of thing doesn’t happen these days. You can’t really collect, but you could probably buy them all in one go, for an absolute fortune.

The insert tells us that the song was recorded live in one-take, and it’s a kick-ass take. Makes me think a little of Bowie via Bauhaus, but reminds me more of of Montreal, which is good and proper.

Back in my day we were happy to call vinyl “orange”, or maybe “clear orange”. These days everything must be bullshitted to breaking point, so this is probably “on Translucent Carnelian wax”. And “limited”. (Because there aren’t infinitely many copies.)

The ‘a’ is spiky hooky pop fun, the ‘b’ is childish chanting, guitar acrobatics, and hitting a spring reverb. So, obviously, pretty good.

Comes with a catalogue of other Vibrations releases, including all your favourites, like Plastic Hip, and Gravel.

Both sides are plain black, so who knows what we’ll get when. Let’s jump in

First up someone’s singing about their date with Rachel Sweet, which according to the sleeve is the second track by Six Cents & Natalie. There’s something vaguely Christmassy about it, and I liked it a lot. It’s a drum machine through a delay, and some cheap sounding keyboards, and it all knits together beautifully. One of those magic little gems that pops out of some random seven-inch record from twenty-six years ago and reminds you there’s a point to the whole pitiable, painful, pathetic exercise.

The next song is the same cheap drum machine, and a long sample (well, it’ll be a tape playing. You probably couldn’t sample that long then. At least, not with the budget Six Cents & Natalie were on) of a girl explaining how she got kidnapped.

Flip over and this, presumably, is the sound of Phlegm. At first I liked the tinny indiepop guitars, but then the vocals started and I realised I had it on the wrong speed. At the right speed, it’s semi-competent Indie Rock, and therefore rather dull. Though not, of course, as dull as fully-competent Indie Rock.

Insert offers recordings from even more of your favourites. Bingo Trappers. Napkin vs Soda. All the big names really. And an hour long cassette called Music Inspired by the Architecture of Kennedy International Airport, which sounds dreadful.

I never know how to score these, when one side is great but the other sucks. It’s the least important thing in the world though, so let’s say

I loved the Pipettes when they first came out. I didn’t even mind when Julia left and they got Gwenno in, cos she was a babe, innit? And, it turned out, brilliant. But when Rose and Becki packed it in after the first album, I lost interest. I’ve never heard anything they did after that. UNTIL NOW.

It was better than I expected. But honestly, I didn’t expect much. Like an updated version of a 1970s holiday record, but with a slightly melancholic aftertaste. Does that thing where they say “stop” and it briefly stops. People can’t resist that, can they? Someone’s made a video of hundreds of instances of it. God knows how they have the patience.

The ‘b’ is okay too. A bit like one of those disco songs you’ve never heard before that no one dances to at the beginning of a wedding do.

El Vez sounds precisely nothing like Elvis, but he is clearly Mexican, so I don’t feel entirely betrayed. Side one is great, and sufficiently short that they stick it one twice, the second time without the lead vocal. It works though, because that accordion thing sounds excellent, and there’s some lovely guitar playing.

On the ‘b’ we get a partially Spanish version of In the Ghetto. It’s good, but not as good as when Cartman sings it, because nothing is as good as when Cartman sings it.

Insert favourites aplenty. ‘Member Teenage Larvae? ‘Member Satin Chickens? ‘Member Kruppelschlag? ‘Member Anal Babies? ‘Member Tony Adolescent? ‘Member when you could call your band “The Child Molesters”? ‘Member when we used to send cash through the post to buy records? “Some records remain in very limited quantities. LIST ALTERNATIVES OR I’LL KEEP YOUR MONEY AND SWEAR I NEVER RECEIVED IT!”

Because we always have something off Earworm, don’t we? I expect Static Caravan will be along in a minute.

‘A’ is great. A repetitive repetetive repetetive groove with some good drumming, and some good droning. ‘B’ isn’t as good, but it’s short. Nice Letrasetted insert. I used to love Letrasets. I used to save up to buy them from the newsagent where my Dad bought his Green ‘Un on a Saturday evening.

Like pretty much everything else, from 1997. I didn’t plan it, it just came out that way.

From the insert, which looks like a press release.

The second in Hummy and Joey’s ongoing series of four band compilation 7” E.P.s (though catalogued Spaz03 and featuring only three bands)

Good start. They further explain that “ISAN” (eye-san) is actually “i s a n”. (eye ess ay en), which means I’ve been getting it wrong for years. It’s “Moog” all over again isn’t it?

I like i s a n, but their track here didn’t set my world on fire. It was okay. nice drum machine, maybe a Mini Pops, and a sample. Okay. David Wrench, as the insert warns, sounds a very lot like Nick Cave doing Leonard Cohen at karaoke. I’m not a Nick Cave fan nor particularly a Leonard Cohen fan, and definitely not a karaoke fan. And, it turns out, not much of a David Wrench fan. Spare Snare are middling; doing their scratchy lo-fi indie thing. “Lo-fi” and “indie” have, so far as I can tell, gone the way of “queer” and “literally”, and now mean something completely different, and which I don’t entirely understand.

More than a Feeling, like Africa, Don’t Stop Believin’, and Oreos, are part of a phantom nostalgia British people seem to have for a past lived by Americans. It’s the first song on this, which might, judging by the title, be a record of Boston covers. I can’t say for sure, because I don’t know any more of their songs, and the sleevenotes have been rot13ed, or something.

of Montreal did a fantastic cover of More than a Feeling. The one here is passable. The rest of it is pretty crap, and I don’t know who anyone on it is. I think Roger Nusic and Ketchup and Mayonnaise may have been something to do with New Bad Things, which is likely how this found its way here.

Cog are quite competent, but there’s no hiding the fact they’re playing boring soft rock. When I mentioned “shit charity shops wouldn’t take” earlier, this is what I was thinking of. Bland, dreary, pressed in hundreds of thousands, consumed, and disposed of. Boston. Air Supply. The Eagles.

I found an insert which says “9 NW acts reconstruct Boston’s 1976 debut”. So it’s official. Let’s just try to get through it, okay? We’ve been through worse. (Hopefully.)

Freebird have that stoner rock fuzz pedal, and put their vocals through a pitch shifter, so that’s kind of fun I guess. Herschel Steamdonkey have put new strings on, but haven’t bothered tuning them. At least it’s unlistenable.

Fitz of Depression have the grace to keep it short, but Witchy Poo indulge themselves for six interminable minutes, undoing all the hard work.

Boston covers performed by semi-competent (at best) Indie Rock bands. And as bad as that sounds.