Remake by April March:

Original by Serge Gainsbourg sung by France Gall(?)

Formed by and led by David Cunningham, the group included avant-garde and free improvising musicians, such as David Toop and Steve Beresford as instrumentalists, plus Deborah Evans and Patti Palladin as main vocalists. It also boasted Michael Upton.

The group released an album entitled The Flying Lizards in 1979; their singles include the postmodern cover versions of songs such as Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" (1978) and James Brown's "Sex Machine" (1984), as well as several originals. Their album Top Ten consists entirely of covers, done in a deliberately emotionless, harsh and robotic style. Their version of Barrett Strong's "Money" remains popular, and was used in the film soundtracks for The Wedding Singer, Empire Records, Charlie's Angels and Lord of War, as well as in the Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning American television medical drama, Nip/Tuck.

After the band's break-up, a "posthumous album" of dub instrumentals, The Secret Dub Life of the Flying Lizards, appeared.

Band members:
David Toop
Steve Beresford
Michael Upton
David Cunningham
Deborah Evans-Stickland
Patti Palladin
Peter Laurence Gordon

Toto Coelo (renamed Total Coelo in the U.S.) was a 1980s British new wave vocal group, masterminded by producer Barry Blue, and comprising of the singers Anita Mahadervan, Lacey Bond, Lindsey Danvers, Ros Holness (daughter of TV host Bob Holness) and Sheen Doran.

The group is best known for its quirky 1982 hit single "I Eat Cannibals Part 1", which reached #8 in the UK and was also a hit in many other countries. They also issued a less successful follow-up, "Dracula's Tango (Sucker For Your Love)". An album was issued containing both singles, together with B-sides and a selection of unreleased tracks in 1983 titled Man o' War. It was not a commercial success.

Following this, Anita Mahadervan and Sheen Doran left the group. The remaining three members released a couple of singles under the Toto Coelo name, now signed to Debut Records, in 1985, including "Girl's Night Out" and "Gimme Some Lovin". Neither single was a chart success.

The group's name is Latin and means "completely", "entirely" or "utterly". Of the name, Sheen Doran said, "It has a number of meanings, such as 'heart and soul', 'root and branch' and 'totally different'. It seemed to describe what we were. Plus, it's strange-sounding and hard to pronounce, so it sticks in your mind." The group was renamed Total Coelo in the United States to avoid confusion with the American group, Toto.

Mahadervan later became Anita Chellamah, and formed Cherry Bombz with several former members of Hanoi Rocks, including Andy McCoy. She is now known as Anita Chellamah-Nurse and works as a television actress and presenter.

Tom Robinson began gigging in London in 1976. By the end of the year, he had decided to put together a permanent band. Robinson's old friend, guitarist Danny Kustow, was the first in the permanent lineup. They ran small ads in the music papers looking for a bass player and drummer. Robinson found drummer Brian (Dolphin) Taylor. The search for a bass player continued, until Mark Ambler auditioned. Some days later, Ambler mentioned he also played keyboards; he had spent many years studying piano with veteran jazz musician, Stan Tracey. After listening to Ambler playing his Hammond organ Robinson realised he would have to be the bass player himself.

The band hit the club scene right in the middle of London's punk explosion. Their live shows got favourable reviews, and soon A&R men were attending many of their gigs.

EMI Records signed TRB. Robinson later described this period, saying "Within nine months we'd made the transition from signing on at Medina Road dole office to Top Of The Pops, Radio One, EMI Records and the giddy heights of the front cover of the New Musical Express".

TRB made leaflets and fliers about their political views and sent them to everyone who attended their gigs, they gave away badges and made up T shirts emblazoned with the band's logo and they appeared regularly at Rock Against Racism concerts.

"2-4-6-8 Motorway" was their first single, released in late 1977. It got into the top five of the UK singles charts, staying there for over a month. It was followed almost immediately by their next record, a four song EP called Rising Free which was recorded live at London's Lyceum Theatre in November 1977. It contained the songs "Glad to Be Gay", "Right On Sister", "Don't Take No for an Answer", and "Martin". The EP reached #18 in the UK singles charts.

In early 1978, TRB recorded their debut album, Power in the Darkness. The UK version of the LP contained all new songs, but in the US (on the Harvest label), the "2-4-6-8 Motorway" single and Rising Free record were combined for a six-track bonus EP that made the album almost a double.

Power in the Darkness reached number 4 in the UK album charts and won the band a gold record, and TRB were voted "Best New Band" and "Best London Band" for the year 1977 by listeners at the Capital Radio Music Awards. Mark Ambler left the band after recording the album. Session pianist Nick Plytas was drafted in as a temporary replacement, and played with TRB at a major Anti Nazi League rally in London's Victoria Park early that year.

Ian Parker joined as a permanent replacement for Ambler. TRB then went to Rockfield Studios in Wales to record their next album, TRB TWO. Chris Thomas who had produced their first album, was also at the control deck for their second album, to start off with. Dolphin Taylor suggested Todd Rundgren should replace Thomas. After not being able to decide which tracks should appear on the LP, the band eventually agreed to let Rundgren choose. However, he picked two of the songs Dolphin particularly disliked, and Taylor decided that he would leave rather than play on the tracks. A day later he had calmed down somewhat and offered to return, but Robinson refused, and Preston Heyman was recruited as an emergency stand-in. His picture was included on the album cover, but there was never any intention for him to join the band permanently. Taylor's eventual replacement was Charlie Morgan who had played for Kate Bush, and went on to drum for Elton John for a further fifteen years.

To support the album's release, the band went on tour, but by this point the TRB's infighting had taken it's toll. When Kustow decided to quit in 1979 that was the end of TRB.

In 1989, Robinson, Kustow and Ambler put together a reunion tour and played sold out shows at the Marquee in London and went on for the best part of a year before splitting one final time.

Steppenwolf is a rock band that helped establish heavy metal music in the late 1960s along with bands like Blue Cheer and Iron Butterfly. The band was formed in 1967 in Los Angeles by vocalist John Kay, guitarist Michael Monarch, bassist Rushton Moreve, keyboardist Goldy McJohn and drummer Jerry Edmonton after the dissolution of its predecessor, The Sparrows.

The band has sold more than 25 million units worldwide, releasing 8 gold albums and 13 Hot 100 singles, including three top-10 hits in "Born to Be Wild", '"Magic Carpet Ride", and "Rock Me". Steppenwolf enjoyed worldwide success from 1968 to 1974, but clashing personalities led to the end of the core lineup. Today, frontman John Kay is the only original member left, having served as lead singer for almost all of the 40 years since 1967. Kay has stated that there will be no more Steppenwolf tours, but according to band manager Charlie Wolf, he has left open the possibility of doing "a half dozen shows in '09".

Japan were a British pop/rock group, formed in 1974 in Lewisham, southeast London. The band achieved success in the early 1980s, when they were often associated with the burgeoning New Romantic movement.

Original members:

David Sylvian (original name David Batt): vocals, guitar, keyboards
Mick Karn (original name Anthony Michaelides): bass guitar, saxophone, oboe
Rob Dean: guitar
Steve Jansen (Sylvian's brother, Steve Batt): drums and percussion
Richard Barbieri: keyboards

The group's final UK performance came in November 1982 culminating in a six-night sell-out stint at London's Hammersmith Apollo. Japan's last ever performance was on 16th December 1982 in Nagoya, Japan. The band's final Hammersmith concerts were recorded to produce Oil On Canvas, a live album and video released in June 1983. Ironically, the band decided to split just as they were beginning to obtain long-overdue commercial success both in their native UK and internationally, with Oil On Canvas becoming their highest charting British album, reaching #5.

Nine Inch Nails (abbreviated as NIN) is an American industrial rock act, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction. NIN's music straddles a wide range of genres, while retaining a characteristic sound using electronic instruments and processing. After recording a new album, Reznor usually assembles a live band to perform with him. The touring band features a revolving lineup that often rearranges songs to fit a live performance setting. On stage, NIN often employs spectacular visual elements to accompany its performances, which frequently culminate with the band destroying their instruments.

Underground music audiences warmly received Nine Inch Nails in its early years. The band produced several highly influential records in the 1990s that achieved widespread popularity: many Nine Inch Nails songs became radio hits, two NIN recordings won Grammy Awards, and the band has sold over twenty million albums worldwide, with 11 million sales certified in the US alone. In 2004, Rolling Stone placed Nine Inch Nails at 94 on its list of the 100 greatest rock artists of all time. In spite of this acclaim, the band has had several feuds with the corporate side of the recording industry. In 2007, Trent Reznor announced that Nine Inch Nails would release music independently of record labels.

Nine Inch Nails' 2008 album, Ghosts I–IV, was first released online in a variety of digital and physical formats via the band's official website. Just over two months after the release of Ghosts I-IV, the band released another full-length studio album, The Slip, entirely free of charge.

Bloc Party are an English indie rock band, composed of Kele Okereke on vocals and rhythm guitar, Russell Lissack on lead guitar, Gordon Moakes on bass guitar and Matt Tong on the drums. Their brand of indie art rock has been compared to bands such as The Cure, Blur, The Smashing Pumpkins, Pixies and Joy Division.

The band formed in 1999 after Okereke and Lissack decided to form a band at the Reading Festival. They went through a variety of names, before settling on Bloc Party in 2003. Moakes joined the band after answering an advert in the magazine NME, and Tong was picked out from an audition. Soon after, Bloc Party got their break by giving BBC Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq and Franz Ferdinand lead singer Alex Kapranos a copy of their demo, "She's Hearing Voices", which was then released as a single.

In February 2005, the band released their critically acclaimed debut album Silent Alarm in the United Kingdom, which NME later made their Album of the Year. The album went on to be certified platinum in the UK a year later. The band built on this success with the release of their second studio album, A Weekend in the City, on February 5, 2007, in the UK and February 6 in the United States. The album reached a peak of #2 in the UK and #12 in the Billboard Hot 200.

Yes, I know. Eurovision

But I actually found the Bosnia and Herzegovena entry quite entertaining. For some reason it reminds me of something, but I just can't put my finger on it and it's been puzzling me for days.

Alternative Viewer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb3iPP-tHdA

Alternative viewers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCfVFxRsKQc

It's not often I feature show tunes here, but this is one of my favourites, from one of my favourite shows.

iPod touch users:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJHzoAmA8Ec

Never fails to bring a tear to my eye.

Dedicated to a certain someone, who shall remain for the moment nameless...

iPod touch users:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM6SNrmH0r8

A great big ferretty thank you to you one and all for inviting me onto your friends lists. It's good to see so many of you here.

Enjoy your time here, pull up a chair. Or better still, forget the chair, just get up and dance!

I'm going to be going through the archive over the next few days months adding the URL for all these videos so that people like me can watch them on our iPods.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYRC4H64EFk

Asia are a rock group formed in 1981. The band were labelled a supergroup and included former members of veteran progressive rock bands Yes, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Uriah Heep, U.K., Roxy Music, Wishbone Ash and The Buggles. As of 2008, there are two distinct groups using the Asia name: a reunion of the band's original line-up performing as Asia, and Asia Featuring John Payne featuring three members from later incarnations of Asia.

Dreamy...

Basement Jaxx is a critically acclaimed UK electronic dance music duo, comprising Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe, that rose to popularity in the late 1990s. They started in Brixton, South London in 1994, where they held a regular club night called Rooty, the namesake of their second artist album.

The Sugarcubes (Sykurmolarnir in Icelandic) were an Icelandic alternative rock band formed in 1986 and disbanded in 1992. They received critical and popular acclaim internationally. They first came to notice in the UK when radio DJ John Peel played "Birthday," later voted by his listeners as a single of the year. The band's music was characterized by psychedelic sound, whimsical yet heartfelt lyrics, and the imploring, girlish voice of vocalist Björk Guðmundsdóttir, who later went on to great success as a solo artist. While not as successful as Björk's solo career would be, the band is still very highly regarded and was the most influential Icelandic group until the rise of Sigur Rós.

The Sugarcubes dissolved in 1992 as different members of the band had realised they all had different ambitions; instead of risking their friendship, the band went on an indefinite hiatus. They remain friends to this day and are all still involved in the management of Smekkleysa/Bad Taste.

On November 17, 2006, the band had a one-off reunion concert at Laugardalshöll sport arena in Reykjavík, Iceland, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut single with all profits going to the non-profit Smekkleysa SM to promote Icelandic music. They were supported by fellow Icelandic groups múm and Rass. Despite this reunion, the group has expressed that it has no intention to play future shows or record new material.

I think this track shows Bjork's voice to be better suited for powerful vocals, rather than the soft vocals of some of her solo efforts.

From the album Future Shock from 1983. Yes, that's the same Herbie Hancock that played jazz with the Miles Davis quintet.
Possibly the first hit record to feature "scratching" (and probably lead to the breakage of several million record player styli)

The only Duran Duran track that I will willingly listen to over and over again...

Aaaaah! Carol Decker!

One of my absolute favourites (and Nick's, I suspect )

Just found this thanks to shakeberry:

Nice. I like it.

Live from 1967.

Classic!

For Soy.
(at least it's not King of Rock and Roll)