I’ve not been very good at listening to the radio recently. It just never seems to enter my mind to switch it on at the moment, despite the fact that I have a DAB radio and can therefore enjoy the wonders of 6Music. Perhaps it’s because I have my radio alarm clock tuned to a particularly annoying local station, all the better to force me to wake up and switch the thing off.
Anyway, not listening to 6Music means that I keep missing things like Billy Bragg playing live on last Sunday’s Stephen Merchant show. Luckily for me, a certain friend who is both a regular 6Music afficionado and a Billy Bragg fan told me about this, and I was able to listen to it via the internet before it was replaced by today’s show. Mr. Bragg was entertaining as ever, and the songs from his new album sounded good enough to persuade me to purchase a copy.
But I was also very intrigued by the very last track Stephen Merchant played: the improbably titled My Allergies and Me by one Joe Dangerous. An intriguing sound that reminded me of Eno, Cluster, Boards of Canada and Radiohead. A visit to Mr. Dangerous’ MySpace page revealed that he has several other good tunes to his name. My Allergies and Me has just been released as a single; hopefully an album will be forthcoming soon. In the meantime, he has a suitably moody video:
An online interview (http://discover.drownedinsound.com/articles/1886024) which explored, among othe things, Mr Dangerous’ dietary preferences provoked the following comment:
“His music saved my life, before Joe Dangerous I was on the crack and skag all the time. Since hearing the beauty in his music, I’ve gotten cleaned up, no longer on any drugs at all.I even do put my recycling out on time now. If Joe Dangerous can achieve all this without mind altering substances then surely I can do something with my life. I’m not goin veggy though, thats going too far, damnnit.”
Surely an inspiration to us all…..