Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

So this is the end of Record Club because I'm going to defer my review of "Generation Indigo" to the end of May. But what have we learnt? Well firstly The Strokes "Angles" was certainly an oddment, and if they only choose to play Reading, Leeds and nowhere else it will be a massively sad end for a once gret combo. The Pigeon Detectives return - "Up, Guards And At 'Em!" was certainly solid enough and at least they returned as themselves, a decent album but probably a watershed too.

EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ by Glasvegas was/is a triumph, and a reinvention, and an album that will be listened to for a long while to come. James Allan may well be mad as a Haddock but if you want boring there's plenty out there to choose from. I'm already waiting for what's next and hoping that the stripped bare "Santa Monica" demo points the way. "Blood Pressures" by The Kills was a canny progression, they cleverly have moved from album to album gently collecting and learning something new each time and adding it to the past - they know their place, they're dark horses, they're outsiders, they're majestic . Finally "Ornaments from the Silver Arcade" by The Young Knives just doesn't do it for me. It's a taste thing. It's just too "lite" for my blood sugar levels. Let's hope they get another go and get to stitch on some cojones next time round.

But even though there's a load of good stuff wrapped up in these vicarious offerings what there hasn't been, from the marketing promotional dicks, is any imagination. There only seems to be one approach currently - FREE DOWNLOAD (collection of email addresses) NEW ALBUM and then TOUR. How boring is that! And it's hardly going to make the newspapers. So for all you over paid marketing dullards out there here are some ideas free gratis:

Forget free downloads put something out on a Free flexi disc only

Release an album with a free ticket to the band play LIVE

Sell you new LP on TOUR only

Release a single on Cassette only

Release a new studio album with a LIVE version

Whatever happened to scratch and sniff covers (see Peter Tosh)

Whatever happened to playable covers (see The Psychedelic Furs)

Whatever happened to picture discs?

Its' taken me two seconds to come up with this list so there must be a million and one ways to make music FUN again, so COME ON!