716 Playlists – Mick Clarke Playlist

“You asked me for ten tunes that I like, well that is very difficult as I have been buying and listening to records since the early 60’s. Anyway, I have put together a short list of those that have been musical landmarks for me, therefore they are in chronological order. There are many many more in between that have played a part in my life.”

Mick anime aussi l’émission radio Radio Oscillations sur Intergalactic FM 1 (les archives sont aussi ici).
Merci à lui pour cette sélection de haute volée.

1) The Tornadoes – Telstar (1962)
First heard this on the radio when I was small and it was so different to what was going on at the time. There were other instrumental bands like the Shadows, Jet Harris & Tony Meehan (who left the former to carry on together) and the Spotniks, but this had an edge they didn’t have.

2) Pink Floyd – Point Me At The Sky (1968)
The transition period between Syd Barret being dumped and Dave Gilmour having not long joined. A great spacey single with so much a depth and a very emotive lyric in the first verse. It summed up for me the more creative side to music that was emerging after the then dead pychedelic movement in England.

3) Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band – Electricity (1968)
I have always been a fan of this band and this song is very typical of them at this time. From their first LP Safe As Milk, they were driving, rockin’ and very influenced by delta blues from the 30’s. This is live footage on the beach at Cannes.

4) Pretty Things – Bracelets Of Fingers (1968)
A track from the brilliant SF Sorrow LP which really made an impression on me as a teenager. Bracelets Of Fingers is so psychedelic and the production is superb. Recorded in Abbey Road in ’67/’68 with Norman Smith producing (who had engineered the earlier Beatles recordings and produced Pink Floyd’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn).

5) White Noise – Firebird (1969)
From the self-titled LP, this was essentially David Vorhaus and Dehlia Derbyshire. An early all electronic album using tape manipulation and the very first VCS3 synth.

6) Amon Duul II – Dem Guten, Schoenen Wahren (1969)
From the first LP Phallus Dei. This track is so groundbreaking and, when the pychedelic dream had imploded in the UK and America, shows what original and creative artists were doing in Germany with the emerging ‘krautrock’ genre.

7) Harmonia – Watussi (1973)
Again in Germany, but this time in the north, Cluster and Michael Rother (one half of Neu!) joined forces to produce a groundbreaking first LP, “musik von Harmonia”.

8) Ultravox – Hiroshima Mon Amour (1977)
The original Ultravox with John Foxx and a single from 1977, as they were changing from their punk origins. The amazing Billy Currie on the keyboards, the band starting to lean a bit more towards incorporating electronics

9) Cabaret Voltaire – No Escape (1979)
From their first LP Mix Up. A cover version of the song by the Seeds, which, incidently, inspired me to do a cover of the Seeds song Pushing Too Hard. Always been a massive fan of Cabaret Voltaire and my old band had the good fortune once to have supported them way back in 1980.

10) Jagdstaffel 66 – Nur die F-104 (2012)
Last year I was walking along listening to Intergalactic FM on my phone app and this came on and totally blew me away. From the Starfighter EP it is Rude66, the brooding 303 coupled with the darkness of the tune makes it so latently powerful. Total creativity in my book.