You can make me dance...

Thanks to the release of his autobiography, Rod Stewart has been fairly ubiquitous on UK TV and in the papers of late.  He even showed up in Glasgow and, touchingly, shed a tear or two when Celtic FC beat Barcelona a few weeks back.  If the truth be told, however, Rod's presence was felt round these parts rather a lot just prior to all of that.  For years I've really liked "You Wear It Well" and "Maggie May" but never bothered to buy them or make any effort to hear anything else.  Then, one evening in late autumn, BBC Radio Scotland played this:

It was The Faces' final single (credited to Faces/Rod Stewart) 38 years ago and I was totally taken aback by just how much I flipped for it.  After all, I'd spent the last two decades studiously avoiding most of the established rock canon. Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised, however.  Didn't John Peel say repeatedly that The Faces were the greatest live band he ever saw?  The appeal of  "You Can Make Me Dance..." lies in its loose feel and the way the guitars seem precision tooled for maximum sway but that, importantly, it isn't weighed down by a needless/endless blokey guitar solo.  You can dance to it, too - it's practically disco!  Rod's vocal is amazing; all those casual asides and exclamations are brilliant.  He plays the role of the rogue with the glint in his eye to perfection.  By the time the prancing strings come in at the end, I'm not just dancing but punching the air.  I should've had the courage of my convictions and played the copy I bought in Brighton's Wax Factor at Monorail's 10th birthday party.  I wonder how well it would've gone down.  Mono's dancefloor probably wouldn't have been quite as heaving as somewhere like the Motherwell Miners' Welfare Club's over Christmas 1974.  Must've been glorious!

Radio song.

It's no doubt a function of a) my advancing years, b) my listening to more football than music radio (see d), c) the passing of John Peel and d) non-digital music radio (i.e. other than BBC6 Music) in the UK feeling like a bit of a wilderness that means that I rarely get to experience that once common feeling of hearing a song on the radio and being so smitten with it that I feel compelled to lose my dignity and enthuse about it to anyone who is unfortunate enough to be within wailing distance.  It was a sweet surprise, therefore, when this Melody's Echo Chamber song was played on BBC Radio Scotland earlier this evening:

From the number of YouTube views, it's not the new thing but I'm ok with that. I don't need to be first, I just need to fall in love.  Although it sounds nothing like Strawberry Switchblade's shining "Since Yesterday", it provoked in me the same desire; the desire to spin.  Which is great, I guess, because you're not worrying about the world when you're spinning.  "I Follow You" features one of the loosest, most soulful guitar solos of recent times.  That it sounds like it's been scratched-out like a photographic negative towards the end only serves to make me love it all the more.  A nice reminder, therefore, of when 'radio friendly' was a good thing.  A reminder, too, that having other people choose what you listen to for a while can enrich your life.