Craig McAllister
@mrmcallister.bsky.social
📤 36
📥 55
📝 93
Teacher by day. Writer by night. www.plainorpan.com
Lily Rae Grant
#redlicoricerecords
plainorpan.com/2026/02/08/l...
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Lily Rae Grant
I was, for years, a 6 Music devotee in the morning. From the fill of the kettle in the kitchen to the resigned opening of the car door at work, there wasn’t a day between a Monday and a Frida…
https://plainorpan.com/2026/02/08/lily-rae-grant/
4 days ago
1
1
1
Dove tale.
plainorpan.com/2026/02/03/t...
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The Higher You Fly, The Harder You Fall
If Screamadelica was the result of Andrew Weatherall pointing a rudderless Primal Scream (shambling, jangling Byrds copyists? Long-haired, leather-breeked faux rockers?) towards the boundary-free p…
https://plainorpan.com/2026/02/03/the-higher-you-fly-the-harder-you-fall/
9 days ago
2
2
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Scotch Corner
plainorpan.com/2026/01/28/s...
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Sly Dunbar
It’s a long way from Scotland to Jamaica – about four and a half thousand miles at the last Google search – but the two small nations are inextricably linked. Thanks to mercenary …
https://plainorpan.com/2026/01/28/sly-dunbar/
15 days ago
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Amuso’d To Death
plainorpan.com/2026/01/24/d...
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Damn The ‘Dan
There’s a well-worn meme that does the rounds, a life truth centred on the idea that the music you listened to between teens and twenties is the stuff that comes to define you in your later y…
https://plainorpan.com/2026/01/24/damn-the-dan/
20 days ago
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‘Lloyd Cole’s brain and face is made out of cowpat.’
plainorpan.com/2026/01/18/a...
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Acutely Obtuse
In this house at least, it’s very probably I Am Kurious Orange, but This Nation’s Saving Grace is often universally acknowledged as The Fall’s greatest album. It is simultaneously…
https://plainorpan.com/2026/01/18/acutely-obtuse/
25 days ago
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1991 revisited
plainorpan.com/2026/01/11/o...
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Out Of Step/Out Of Time
I scanned this totally preposterous list on Substack over the festive period, where Thurston Moore lists his 350 Best Records of 2025. Yeah! – there’s no typo in there – that real…
https://plainorpan.com/2026/01/11/out-of-step-out-of-time/
about 1 month ago
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I was going to mark the 10th anniversary of a world without David Bowie until I realised I’d written a perfectly great one a few years ago. For anyone who missed it:
plainorpan.com/2020/01/08/%...
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реальный хорошо
Viddy Well, Devotchkas And Malchicks, Viddy Well. That Bowie fella was a clever droog. In death he created one of his greatest pieces of art. The songs that make up Blackstar contained an outpourin…
https://plainorpan.com/2020/01/08/%d1%80%d0%b5%d0%b0%d0%bb%d1%8c%d0%bd%d1%8b%d0%b9-%d1%85%d0%be%d1%80%d0%be%d1%88%d0%be/
about 1 month ago
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1
1
Nineteen
plainorpan.com/2026/01/04/n...
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Nineteen
Plain Or Pan turns 19 today. One blink, and already, it’s into its final year of being a teenager, somehow mid-way through second year at University and making its own considered path in life…
https://plainorpan.com/2026/01/04/nineteen/
about 1 month ago
1
1
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I can exclusively reveal…
#billysloan
plainorpan.com/2025/12/29/t...
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The Sloan Ranger
I’m backstage after a Johnny Marr book event a couple of Novembers ago. There’s a strict ‘Johnny will be meeting no fans tonight’ policy in place, but I have written a book …
https://plainorpan.com/2025/12/29/the-sloan-ranger/
about 2 months ago
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4
2
A Christmas post. Oh yes it is.
#bowie
plainorpan.com/2025/12/21/p...
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Panto Dame
The Dick Institute is a library, museum and art gallery in Kilmarnock. In recent years it has featured exhibitions of Quentin Blake’s artwork, the models of Aardman Animations, the writing of…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/12/21/panto-dame/
about 2 months ago
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Intro music
plainorpan.com/2025/12/14/i...
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Introducing The Band
A few months ago I posted about the burst of classical music that The Smiths used to signify they were taking the stage. Walk-on music, when used as effectively as The Smiths did it, is an integral…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/12/14/introducing-the-band/
2 months ago
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Beastie Boys, eh, jam.
plainorpan.com/2025/12/06/a...
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A Good Start!
There’s a story that Adam Horowitz tells – kinda preposterous, but totally believable (it’s the Beastie Boys, right?) – where waaaay back in the early days of the Beastie Bo…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/12/06/a-good-start/
2 months ago
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1
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FJM X LDR
plainorpan.com/2025/12/01/s...
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So You’re Gonna Be A Singer, Well I’ll Be Goddamned
Buddy’s Rendezvous is the name of a diner, the place where the character in Father John Misty’s song meets up with his estranged daughter after a spell in jail. It’s an entire mov…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/12/01/so-youre-gonna-be-a-singer-well-ill-be-goddamned/
2 months ago
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1
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@niawynmusic.bsky.social
Nia Wyn
plainorpan.com/2025/11/23/w...
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Wynderful
I’ve been following Nia Wyn on the various social media platforms for most of this year and just last week she’s gone and released the track that I can confidently predict will sit unch…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/11/23/wynderful/
3 months ago
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Down On The West Side, Away From The Sunlight
plainorpan.com/2025/11/17/d...
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Down On The West Side, Away From Sunlight
As autumn snaps itself sharply into winter and the early curtains of dusk draw their way across the gun metal grey skies on the commute home, the music being listened to in the car becomes equally …
https://plainorpan.com/2025/11/17/down-on-the-west-side-away-from-sunlight/
3 months ago
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The Mike Joyce book.
plainorpan.com/2025/11/09/p...
@newmodernbooks.bsky.social
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Phone Scrolls, Drum Rolls
I’m a sucker for a music biography (heck, I’ve written at least one) and so found myself at the Mike Joyce book event in Glasgow last week. The most bizarre thing happened before it had…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/11/09/phone-scrolls-drum-rolls/
3 months ago
1
1
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Lou Read
plainorpan.com/2025/11/01/r...
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Rickety Lou
It begins with a riff as rickety as the Coney Island Cyclone, a clattering, knuckle-dusted, steel-wound nickel on wood bone-shaking rattle. Lou Reed sounds like he’s just about made it to the…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/11/01/rickety-lou/
3 months ago
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Electronic ‘Forbidden City’
plainorpan.com/2025/10/26/t...
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There’s Not A Hope
It’s an accepted truth that Electronic was very much a bit-part project, an occasional coming-together of alternative music royalty in the gaps of downtime between their respective day jobs; …
https://plainorpan.com/2025/10/26/theres-not-a-hope/
4 months ago
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1
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Gie’s a brek!
plainorpan.com/2025/10/17/d...
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Different-Sized Cogs In The Same Machine
Almost a couple of years ago I met with a publisher with a view to getting the best of Plain Or Pan onto the printed page, which is, as you well know, the only print that really matters. You don…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/10/17/different-sized-cogs-in-the-same-machine/
4 months ago
1
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Autumnal
plainorpan.com/2025/10/13/i...
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Into The Fall
What is it with bands who need to look across the Atlantic for belonging and acceptance? That clattering Velvety/Stoogey feedback ‘n twang racket that the Jesus And Mary Chain committed to ta…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/10/13/into-the-fall/
4 months ago
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I didn’t make it playin’ by the rules.
#marvingaye
#blaxploitation
#soundtrack
#tamla
#motown
plainorpan.com/2025/10/05/t...
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Trouble Funk
Isaac Hayes created plenty of great music. The Black Moses album…Ike’s Rap…his reinterpretations of By The Time I Get To Phoenix and Never Can Say Goodbye to name just some, but h…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/10/05/trouble-funk/
4 months ago
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Neville Staple, briefly speaking.
#thespecials
#2Tone
plainorpan.com/2025/09/29/d...
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Don’t Argue, Buster!
Gangsters by The Specials… (or Special A.K.A., to give them their full original name). It’s just about the most perfect distillation of its times. Punkish and idiosyncratic with a gener…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/09/29/dont-argue-buster/
5 months ago
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Es ist unglaublich!
plainorpan.com/2025/09/24/s...
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Swell Maps
Plain Or Pan is, and has always been, powered by Wordpress. It’s a technically easy to use blogging platform – once logged into my account, I can write something on any internet-capable…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/09/24/swell-maps/
5 months ago
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The ‘heid
plainorpan.com/2025/09/21/i...
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Is Not Was
Now not then. Are not were. Is not was. It seems that Radiohead is back, to be spoken of in the present tense once again. Since their last shows a million years ago in 2017, there have been solo al…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/09/21/is-not-was/
5 months ago
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1
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By the wall.
#bowie
plainorpan.com/2025/09/15/e...
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Expressionism
Around May/June 1977, David Bowie and Iggy Pop found themselves free of rural France and in Berlin, doing what any self-respecting culture vultures and gatekeepers of taste would do on the back of …
https://plainorpan.com/2025/09/15/expressionism/
5 months ago
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I don’t think you think like I do.
#stoneroses
plainorpan.com/2025/09/08/i...
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I Could Park A Juggernaut In Your Mouth
When the Stone Roses went from midnight telly to ubiquity in that couple of short months over the summer of 1989, they could do no wrong. By mid-July, they’d gone from underground to overgrou…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/09/08/i-could-park-a-juggernaut-in-your-mouth/
5 months ago
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@fatherjohnmisty.bsky.social
in Glasgow
plainorpan.com/2025/09/01/b...
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Bless Me Father
If you could draw a Venn Diagram of idiosyncratic, well-dressed male vocalists, somewhere in the overlap between the menace of Nick Cave, the melody of Rufus Wainwright and the mastery of Scott Wal…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/09/01/bless-me-father/
5 months ago
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I’m an Edinburgh man myself.
#thefall
#markesmith
plainorpan.com/2025/08/26/c...
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Capital Gains
A couple of weeks ago we had a weekend in Edinburgh. We tend to go every year around Festival time, usually as a family, always just for a day and always when the madness of the Festival is in full…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/08/26/capital-gains/
6 months ago
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Stephen Morris on drums.
plainorpan.com/2025/08/19/w...
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Waiting For The Tape To Turn
1978. At the time when Saturday Night Fever and Grease stubbornly refuse to budge from the top two positions on the album chart, just as the whole of Scotland is hypnotised by Archie Gemmell turnin…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/08/19/waiting-for-the-tape-to-turn/
6 months ago
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1
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Adjective to noun
plainorpan.com/2025/08/13/p...
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Phrasing
Hey! You! Put aside the dog-eared copy of Absolute Beginners that you’re currently re-reading for the 5th (6th?) time. Lift the needle from the freely-spinning Cafe Bleu on the old Dansette. …
https://plainorpan.com/2025/08/13/phrasing/
6 months ago
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The Classical
plainorpan.com/2025/08/06/t...
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There Is No Culture Is My Brag*
There’s no gig goer on the planet whose live music experience isn’t enhanced by the headline act using a piece of classical music to herald their entrance to the stage. Back at a Cult s…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/08/06/the-classical/
6 months ago
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50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong
plainorpan.com/2025/08/01/a...
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A Date With Elvis
One of the side effects, if you like, of the current Oasis revival has been the reshining of the spotlight on the music of 30 or so years ago. Even at the time, it was clear that there were only tw…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/08/01/a-date-with-elvis/
7 months ago
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1
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Pete Sounds
#peteshelley
#buzzcocks
plainorpan.com/2025/07/27/h...
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Homo Superior In My Interior
It’s 1981. Buzzcocks come together to begin working on their fourth album, Martin Rushent in the producer’s chair. The band is broke, both financially and creatively. Pete Shelley, stuc…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/07/27/homo-superior-in-my-interior/
7 months ago
1
1
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Protest music
#marvingaye
#motown
plainorpan.com/2025/07/19/t...
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This Ain’t Livin’
I was punishing myself on the cross-trainer of death the other morning, slick rivers of sweat pooling in my hair and under my double chin, a dark, damp South America-shaped land mass of perspiratio…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/07/19/this-aint-livin/
7 months ago
0
2
1
(Un)Easy Read
@nivenj1.bsky.social
#thefathers
plainorpan.com/2025/07/14/p...
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Page-Turners
I’m re-reading Haruki Murakimi’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle just now. Along with Stephen King’s The Stand, it’s become something of a summer holiday tradition; long novels t…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/07/14/page-turners/
7 months ago
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2
1
Looking forward to Irvine…
add a skeleton here at some point
7 months ago
0
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PW
@paulwellernews.bsky.social
plainorpan.com/2025/07/09/h...
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Hopelessly Devoted
I was chatting to big Greg a couple of months ago about the lasting legacy of Paul Weller, the pair of us soft shoe shuffling to Shout To The Top as it blasted at ear-pleasing volume in GlasgowR…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/07/09/hopelessly-devoted/
7 months ago
0
3
1
Jam Jah
plainorpan.com/2025/07/05/j...
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Jam Session
I’ve a songwriter friend who once found themselves at a songwriters’ retreat somewhere in Ireland. Above the room where the musicians shared their songs and swapped ideas, someone who w…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/07/05/jam-session/
7 months ago
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This week’s slow-burner has been a piece I wrote about Lana Del Rey last year. These big gigs - and the Googling that goes along with them - are great at shining light on old writing. It’s here if y’missed it first time around:
plainorpan.com/2024/05/07/l...
@lanadelreyadd.bsky.social
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‘Life On Mars’ Ain’t Just A Song
Beatles or Stones? Bowie or Bolan? Taylor or Lana? Yeah – Taylor or Lana, man? Street-smart Swift clearly takes all the press these days (and all of the world’s money, it would seem) bu…
https://plainorpan.com/2024/05/07/life-on-mars-aint-just-a-song/
8 months ago
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Poetry x Nirvana
plainorpan.com/2025/06/22/l...
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Lines That Rhyme
I once found myself in deep conversation With a songwriter who’s known not so much through the nation But whose songs will be known to everyone here And the more interesting parts of the worl…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/06/22/lines-that-rhyme/
8 months ago
0
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Great new music from
@modernnature.bsky.social
plainorpan.com/2025/06/18/w...
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Warp Records
I love this. It’s been playing on the more discerning radio shows in recent days and has me hankering for the day when I can buy it – something that doesn’t tend to happen as much…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/06/18/warp-records/
8 months ago
0
0
1
God Vibrations
#brianwilson
plainorpan.com/2025/06/14/g...
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God Vibrations
There are by now tons of pages and hundreds of thousands of words out there in tribute to the just-passed Brian Wilson, leader of the Beach Boys and conduit of some of the greatest creative pop mus…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/06/14/god-vibrations/
8 months ago
0
1
0
Morrissey in Glasgow.
#morrissey
#glasgow
plainorpan.com/2025/06/07/f...
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Funny? Clever? Entertaining? Mozz Def
Them Smiths burned brightly. Five years in and out. 17 singles, 4 studio albums, a trio of compilations, a live album and then gone. One of our most influential groups over and out in the time it t…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/06/07/funny-clever-entertaining-mozz-def/
8 months ago
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1
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House!
@paulwellernews.bsky.social
#weller
#stylecouncil
plainorpan.com/2025/06/02/h...
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House Champion
There’s a decent case to be argued for Paul Weller being England’s equivalent to Neil Young. Both started young and both found instant success with their first real bands – Buffal…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/06/02/house-champion/
9 months ago
1
10
5
The boy
plainorpan.com/2025/05/27/p...
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Puddle Hopper
It began as an angry release from teenage woes, a swift early January 5k in the howling rain the antidote to the blues that beget all young folk at some point in their lives. The next night, anothe…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/05/27/puddle-hopper/
9 months ago
0
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Yo La Mogwai
plainorpan.com/2025/05/22/s...
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Senses Working Overtime
Ever since the Electric Prunes mixed their mojo and told us they’d had Too Much To Dream Last Night, licence was given to your more outré groups – the ones who perhaps make a riot of la…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/05/22/senses-working-overtime/
9 months ago
0
1
0
The Beethoven’s 5th of Britpop
plainorpan.com/2025/05/17/s...
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Si. Oui. Ja. Yes!
It’s bombastic, booming and utterly brilliant. The Beethoven’s 5th of that awfully-named Britpop era. It’s the drums.! Fucking great echoing and cavernous drums, like Hal Blaine on Hulk-sized stero…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/05/17/si-oui-ja-yes/
9 months ago
0
0
0
Objet d’art
@creepingbent.bsky.social
plainorpan.com/2025/05/14/t...
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Tune In, Turn On, Cop Out
Davy Henderson is something of a Scottish music totem. Any record fortunate enough to have his involvement tends to be interesting, inventive and entirely idiosyncratic. From his time in the rattli…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/05/14/tune-in-turn-on-cop-out/
9 months ago
0
3
1
The circle of life.
plainorpan.com/2025/05/06/i...
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IdleChild
It’s 1978. World Cup summer. Irvine is underneath the flightpath flown by the very helicopter that will bring Ally McLeod and his winning team of world-beaters from Hampden (not far over ther…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/05/06/idlechild/
9 months ago
0
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Lazy, hazy, somnolent guitar.
plainorpan.com/2025/05/01/d...
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Dig Mac
Born long after you or I, Mac DeMarco began releasing records in the strange, unclassifiable wilderness years of the 2010s. Unlike the ’70s (disco, punk) or the ’80s (new wave, electron…
https://plainorpan.com/2025/05/01/dig-mac/
10 months ago
0
0
0
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