Friday Random Five

Only five because we’d better stop fiddle-faddling and make a good showing for the Koufax already. Although, in any event, we’re prepared to inaugurate a new category:

The Dils — “Mr. Big”
Futureheads — “Le Garage”
Louis Armstrong — “Bear Necessities”
O’ Jays — “Love Train”
Futureheads — “False Conversations”

There’s an essay to be written on the Futureheads — on, among other things, their near-faultless instincts about which tricks to steal, and which not to try stealing, from influences such as Wire, XTC, the Jam, the Gang of Four, and less-remembered bands like Blurt and the Pop Group (and the whole rest of that discordant, Telecaster-using cohort).

But I’ll go out on a limb and say that the band they remind me the most of, in terms of their total aesthetic as well as the subtle cadences they throw into their songs, is the Ruts. You’re laughing. If you watch the ‘Decent Days and Nights’ video — the first version, not the newer one or the live one — on their website, you might see what I mean.

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