All week this week, in conjunction with Vivaro on Tour sponsors Vauxhall, I’m driving up and down the UK. I’m not just zooming around willy-nilly, no siree, I’ve been visiting various venues for Independent Venue Week.
Sitting in motorway traffic got me thinking about all the places I’ll pass and all the artists that these lumps of rocks in the Atlantic have produced. Acts who’ve taken on the world from various local scenes. Then there are those artists who’ve flipped upsidedown reality as we know it. And yet these are just people from different corners of this country.
For a bit of fun, I’d like to challenge you to take a trip around the UK in 20 songs. You can pick any route you like and come up with any theme you please.
The theme for my playlist is based on where the artists are from but I’m sure someone out there can come up routing based on concept albums or lyrics mentioning places. My routing starts down in the West Country with Muse (which is where I grew up), goes around the coast, jumps up to Yorkshire and heads into Scotland via Sunderland. My journey back nips over to Ireland, down through Wales, and ends up in the home of Radiohead.
South West: Muse - Agitated (Teignmouth)
South Coast: PJ Harvey - A Perfect Day Elise (Bridport)
Southern England: Frank Turner - The Way I Tend To Be (Winchester)
South East: Ed Harcourt - Last Of Your Kind (Lewes)
South East: Billy Childish - Bottom of the Sea (Chatham)
South East: Depeche Mode - Halo (Basildon)
East Anglia: The Darkness - One Way Ticket (Lowestoft)
East Midlands: Six by Seven - I O U Love (Nottingham)
The North: The Cribs - Mirror Kissers (Wakefield)
North East: The Futureheads - The Beginning Of The Twist (Sunderland)
Scotland: Idlewild - Circles in Stars (Edinburgh)
Scotland: King Creosote & Jon Hopkins - John Taylor’s Month Away (Fife)
Scotland: The Twilight Sad - Drown So I Can Watch (Glasgow)
Ireland: Villagers - Ship Of Promises (Dublin)
Island: Sam Airey - Endless Sea (Anglesey)
Welsh Borders: Mountain Men Anonymous - We Stole Your Rhyming Dictionaries (Gloucestershire / South Glamorgan)
Wales: Manic Street Preachers - Marlon J.D. (Blackwood)
West Midlands: Black Sabbath - Paranoid (Birmingham) South West: Portishead - The Rip (Bristol)
Southern England: Radiohead - Idioteque (Oxford)
South West: The Family Cat - Tom Verlaine (Plymouth/Cornwall)
London: Crass - Bloody Revolutions (Epping)
South East: The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster - Morning Has Broken (Brighton)
South East: The Cure - Just Like Heaven (Crawley)
South East: The Horrors - Sea Within A Sea (Southend)
East Anglia: Catherine Wheel - I Want To Touch You (Norwich)
East Midlands: Eyre Llew - Vorfreude (Nottingham)
East Midlands: Komakino - Say Something (Derby)
The North: The Chameleons - In Shreds (Manchester)
North East: The Chapman Family - Kids (Stockton)
Scotland: The Exploited - Dead Cities (Edinburgh)
Scotland: Teenage Fanclub - God Knows It’s True (Bellshill)
Scotland: The Jesus & Mary Chain - You Trip Me Up (East Kilbride)
Ireland: My Bloody Valentine - Thorn (Dublin)
Welsh Borders: Mott The Hoople - All The Young Dudes (Hereford)
Wales: Manic Street Preachers - Strip It Down (Blackwood)
West Midlands: King Adora - Bionic (Birmingham)
West Midlands: Discharge - Decontrol (Stoke)
South West: Spectres - Threshing Machine (Bristol)
Home Counties: Ride - Chelsea Girl (Oxford)
Home Counties: The Cooper Temple Clause - Lets Kill Music (Wokingham)
Aphex Twin - Xtal - (Lanner, Cornwall)
Metronomy - Corrine (Totnes, Devon)
Portishead- Threads (Bristol)
Supergrass - Caught by the Fuzz (Oxford)
Super Furry animals - Golden Retriever (Cardiff)
Meilyr Jones - Featured Artist (Aberystwyth)
Duran Duran - Is there something I should know (Birmingham)
Everything Everything - Regret (Manchester)
The Zutons - moons and Horror shows (Liverpool)
The Undertones - Get over you (Derry/Londonderry)
Wild Beasts - Palace (Kendal)
Mogwai - remurdered (Glasgow)
The Twilight Sad - I could give you all that you don’t want (kilsyth)
Frightened Rabbit - Heads Roll Off (Selkirk)
The Futureheads - Decent days and nights (Sunderland)
The Sisters of Mercy - Marian (Leeds)
Pulp - I Spy (Sheffield)
Cornershop - Brimful of asha (Leicester)
Blur - She’s so high (Colchester)
Depeche Mode - Shake the Disease ( Basildon)
Wolf Alice - You’re a Germ (London)
The Go! Team - Everyone’s a VIP to someone (Brighton)
The Bees - Punchbag (IOW)
PJ Harvey - Colour of Earth (Dorset)
Aphex Twin - Xtal - (Lanner, Cornwall)
Metronomy - Corrine (Totnes, Devon)
Portishead- Threads (Bristol)
Meilyr Jones - Featured Artist (Aberystwyth)
Duran Duran - Is there something I should know (Birmingham)
Everything Everything - Regret (Manchester)
The Zutons - Moons and Horror Shows
The Undertones - Get over you (Derry/Londonderry)
Wild Beasts - Palace (Kendal)
Mogwai - remurdered (Glasgow)
The Twilight Sad - I could give you all that you don’t want (kilsyth)
Frightened Rabbit - Heads Roll Off (Selkirk)
The Futureheads - Decent days and nights (Sunderland)
Pulp - I Spy (Sheffield)
Cornershop - Brimful of asha (Leicester)
Depeche Mode - Shake the Disease ( Basildon)
Wolf Alice - You’re a Germ (London)
The Go! Team - Everyone’s a VIP to someone (Brighton)
The Bees - Punchbag (IOW)
PJ Harvey - Colour of Earth (Dorset)
Was going to say I was disappointed you weren’t heading further north into Scotland but there’s not really that much happening north of Fife unfortunately. Some good acts but they tend to head south very quickly.
But I would suggest taking a couple of days out to get a ferry to the Isle of Eigg to catch up with Johnny Lynch and Lost Map Records!
