The Vermont Sugar House

Welcome to the world of the Vermont Sugar House...

22 February 2008, 12:50

…where the cool skinny serious Manchester of the early 1980s meets mid ’60’s psychedelic London via a series of musical twists and turns which bring us bang up to date. Here visitors from across the globe can listen, enjoy and read about interesting things as we think of them.

The blog is a strange modern phenomenon used by many, we fear, to share their dull thoughts or anecdotes from their humdrum lives. I am not sure that tales of weekend over-indulgence or trips to Sainsbury’s will feature here but you never know. A particular welcome to those friends from myspace who have found their way here from Sweden, Germany, The Phillipines, Japan, Canada and all points East and West, as well as those coming out of the dark and bitter British winter.

We will start-in the modern way – with a top 10 which, as it happens, turns out to be a top 54 – a number we rather like. Sharing likes and dislikes certainly seems to be a cornerstone of new media phenomena like myspace and facebook. However, if you are lucky enough to own any back copies of the NME from the mid 1960s, you will know that a regular feature of that fine publication was a space called ‘Lifelines’ in which pop stars of the day revealed fascinating facts about themselves – favourite colour, favourite food etc. It is, we suppose, a tradition that dates back to the hollywood fan mags of the early 20th century.

All of which goes to show that nothing is really new at all. Anyway, here we go, two, three, four. Ten examples of excellent pop music:

• The Beatles
• The Smiths
• Orange Juice
• The Desert Wolves
• Be Bop Deluxe
• Billy Nicholls
• Joy Division
• Stiff Records: singles 01-10
• Jilted John
• The Velvet Underground

To follow…. nine stylish films…