After The Noise
Everything Is Equal
Wednesday 25 March 2026
Des Lynam All-Stars – I Wish I Had Hair Just Like Trevor Sinclair (1994)
Well, shiver me timbers. Biblical weather. Hail, for goodness sake. After three days of quite nice sunshine.
The morning Bowie walk was no fun.
I’d made the switch to shorts. Big regret. Properly cold. Also regretted not taking my gloves, left on the windowsill, prematurely retired for summer like an overconfident footballer.
As my furry freeloading friend and I trekked the hail-strewn streets of Cheetham Hill, battling the elements, I stuck on an old Watton Radio show of mine.
Out of nowhere, this little gem popped up.
I must have it on CD somewhere. Back in the day, 1994, just before the internet helped and hindered our entire lives, I’d do something daft like see an advert in the music press, send off a cheque or postal order, and wait.
No clicking. No instant ordering. Actual writing. Posting. Patience. Imagine that.
So I bought a fanzine with a free CD. This is the only song I remember from it. Not heard it in years.
Still makes me smile.
“My hair is nearer to that of Alan Shearer.”
I never knew much about the brilliantly named Des Lynam All-Stars, so I did a bit of post-walk research while drying out.
Not much to tell. Four-piece indie band from Norwich. Self-released one single. This isn’t on it.
There was a link to a MySpace page that didn’t work.
Took me a moment to process that MySpace still exists. Somewhere. Lurking.
If you can ever track this down, and good luck with that, you won’t be disappointed. Great lyrics. Lo-fi indie at its finest.
The Ting Tings – Silence (2012)
I was getting properly hacked off on this walk. Usually enjoy wandering about, but not today.
You know what I needed? Another tune to cheer me up in difficult circumstances.
Enter The Ting Tings.
And thank you to me for making Sounds From Nowheresville my featured album back in the day. Cracker, that. The tunes I played still hold up. Shame about the bloke talking rubbish between them.
I love The Ting Tings.
2008, they had the world at their feet. Four years and one scrapped album later, the second one flopped.
But they kept going.
Last year’s album Home, all Fleetwood Mac and Steely Dan influence, was excellent. The gigs they did play had a nine-piece band, and they only played songs from We Started Nothing and Home.
No nostalgia trap. No middle ground.
They live in Ibiza now, make music on their own terms, and seem to have avoided the usual industry nonsense.
Hard not to admire that.
Ivor Cutler – A Cowpuncher and a Bird (1959) / The Fall – Hey Student (1994)
With some Ting Tings under my belt, the day brightened slightly, and then this old feature from the show popped up.
No idea why I ever ditched it.
Simple concept.
In the blue corner: mad eccentric Ivor Cutler.
In the red corner: mad eccentric Mark E Smith and whichever version of The Fall happened to be standing upright at the time.
I got rid of this feature after a few weeks, which is exactly the sort of decision that will randomly annoy me at 3 am.
I love a British eccentric, and Cutler was one of the best.
Harmonium, little songs, poetry drifting in and out. Appeared in Magical Mystery Tour. Did his own thing without a care in the world. Simple, abstract, quietly brilliant.
Mark E Smith was a different beast entirely.
Barking into microphones. Sometimes two. Twiddling knobs. Half rant, half performance.
The Fall were rough, shambolic, completely Marmite. You either get it or you don’t.
Putting the two together worked beautifully.
Cutler’s soft Scottish tones telling odd little stories.
Smith sounding like he’s just come out of a pub after several pints and a whisky chaser.
Which, to be fair, he probably had.
And he’s on form here. Ranting about what twats students are.
One of their best.
The walk ends.
The music, somehow, has almost dried me out on its own.
END OF LISTENING LOG
The Listening Log 