NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

It's a ND&B tradition to post musical lists now and again, so, here in all its glory is my 'Lockdown 50' - just tracks that have been played throughout this testing time, some glorious, some soothing, some... well, I'm sure you get the picture. In no particular order, no more than one per artist: Harvest Moon - Cassandra Wilson Outdoor Miner - Wire Sketch for Summer - Durutti Column Final Day - Young Marble Giants Seek It - Richard Hawley Young Love - Mystery Jets Les Fleurs - Minnie Ripperton Stay High - Brittany Howard Song 4 Mutya - Groove Armada I Just Want to Celebrate - Rare Earth Don't Talk to Me About Love - Altered Images Clarence in Wonderland - Kevin Ayers Fox on the Run - Sweet American Woman - The Guess Who Good Souls - Starsailor Spell - Hot Chip Never Let Me Down Again - Depeche Mode In The Street - Big Star I Saw the Light - Todd Rundgren The Crunch - The Rah Band Sylvia - Focus Medicine Show - Big Audio Dynamite A Kissed ...

A little while ago I posted my Top 50 albums of all time, a futile and vacuous exercise demonstrating that I had too much time on my hands. Well, just to prove that I can still tick all of those boxes, I've updated it to a Top 100 albums... idle hands and all that. Unlike the last list, this is not in any order other than alphabetical - I cannot put them in order of preference, that is just impossible - or at least too difficult to successfully complete with any real meaning. I did try! There will be better albums that are not on it, albums that are musically and vocally superior, and others that were groundbreaking, broke the mould or redefined a genre. But music is a highly personal thing. A mediocre, or average album can come along and speak volumes to you. They sneak up on you when you are at your most vulnerable or receptive. They become your friends, comfort blankets and injectors of joy. The past can flood back with just a few notes played. They become a part of your life....

Last month, my friend Jack suggested that we go and see a Rolling Stones tribute band called 'Rollin' Stoned'. I went along not expecting too much and had a brilliant evening. So when he suggested that we go and see 'The Move' this evening, I readily agreed. After all, what's not to like about seeing people dressing up in kaftans, wigs and shades pretending to be Roy Wood? But on arrival at the venue I was genuinely surprised (and excited) to find out that this was no tribute act - it was the genuine article - still boasting two founder members - Bev Bevan and Trevor Burton. They were joined by a trio of additional Brummies - Phil Tree, Tony Kelsey and Abby Brant. The audience was largely comprised of blokes over 50, (overweight, bald, bad dress sense), with the odd wife or girlfriend in tow, who were looking around them wondering if they had stumbled into a convention of blokes whose sole connection was being on the sex offenders register. In fact in reminded...

Yes, another one of those North Downs and beyond posts that goes off-piste. This time I give you my favourite song intros, apropos of nothing other than celebrating the great music that is out there. At the moment, these are my top five: 5) Powderfinger - Neil Young One lazy chord strum and then, unaccompanied, the great man himself - "LOOK OUT, MAMA, THERE'S A WHITE BOAT COMIN' UP THE RIVER!" - cue Crazy Horse. Enough said. 4) Heroes - David Bowie A beautiful swagger of synth and guitar, forged by the hands of Carlos Alomor and Robert Fripp, promising the grandeur about to be let go by the Thin White Duke himself - "I, I will be King" Goosebumps kick in. 3) Pyjamarama - Roxy Music A stuttering chord forged from guitar and Eno synth, repeated four times with dramatic pauses, a simple drum roll, repeat said chords and then enter a dreamy Bryan Ferry who "Couldn't sleep a wink last night", See, some good did come out of the early 1970s!...

I was watching a BBC4 programme about the music of the 1970s and the discussion entered into a dissection of the differing musical genres from that decade. This got me thinking about which species of birds would be placed into these same categories, by dint of plumage or jizz - see what you think... Punks The Johnny Rottens and Sid Vicious' of the birding world are those species that punch above their weight and get on the nerves of the other species around them. My choice is the Water Rail, which will terrorise all else in a reed bed, is an obnoxious small bird that will attack larger species for the sheer hell of it and squeal away with the vocal sharpness of most punk singers. Plus, Water Rails possess attitude. New Romantics The genre full of 'dandy' highwaymen and coiffured barnets. Think Spandau Ballet prancing the stage in tights, Adam Ant deciding whether or not he was a pirate, and Simon LeBon miming from the deck of a yacht - but it could have been summer-pl...

My birding history is totally wrapped up in other cultural reference points. It is impossible for me to consider my early Dungeness birding years without an accompanying soundtrack that summons up the good birding and the class social scene - The Doors, Neil Young and Kevin Ayres may have been briefly usurped by Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees, but even today, thirty odd years later a couple of bars of Hyacinth House or Cinnamon Girl hurl me back to those carefree days in an instant. And it isn't just the good music that can do it. Iffy stuff works as well! When I hear Rasputin by Boney M I'm in a car on an overnight drive to Cornwall on a twitch; Buggles  Video Killed the Radio Star sees me on the quay at St. Agnes waiting for a boat back to St. Mary's; Tightrope by ELO finds me at Pagham Harbour enjoying some of the most exciting birding that I ever experienced. The music is as much a part of the experience as the birds were. And sometimes the music over...

A few months ago I treated you to my Top 50 albums , so I thought it only fair to now share my Top 50 tracks - although I did make a rule that meant that no artist (or band) could have more than one entry. That's not to say that an artist hasn't cropped up more than once... A favourite track should do many things - elicit emotion, inspire, remind you of a place (or person), excite, make life better. I have put them in an order (number one first) and if I carried out this daft process again next week would have them in a different order (and maybe a few new tunes would appear). Here goes (and with apologies to Andrew Cunningham). Who Knows Where The Time Goes - Fairport Convention Itchycoo Park - The Small Faces Cinnamon Girl - Neil Young Public Image Ltd - PiL Your My Best Friend - Queen Hyacinth House - The Doors Heroes - David Bowie Prologue - Kate Bush Perfect Day - Lou Reed Name of the Game - Abba Free Man In Paris - Joni Mitchell Wooden Ships - Crosby, Still...