Apropos of nothing, I picked up a copy of the April 2026 issue of Mojo a couple weeks ago. The cover star was one John Lydon, complete in punk mufti from his Pistols days. The freebie was a celebration of Miles Davis' 100th birthday; you can expect I'll write about that one in about three years. But if you're out and about and have around $14 you feel like spending, you could almost certainly do a lot worse. If nothing else, it's a nice way to find out what got reissued over in the UK recently.
As for this one, it has songs from the Blow Monkeys, P.P. Arnold (who was an Ikette!), and Mr. Weller himself. The rest of the 15 tracks, handpicked by the former Jam & Style Council leader who HOLY SHIT has been performing single for over 30 years, haven't really caught my attention. The exceptions to my ignorance are Black Pumas, who have drifted in and out of my focus in recent years with their Texas-based psych rock, and Gabriels, whose website bears a single "2026" legend on the landing page, which tells me they should have a new record of neo-soul out sometime this year. That's a cool tease, as far as I'm concerned.
You can count on Mojo and Paul Weller to compile a disc every couple of years. And this is the offering from 2012. Highlights (for me, at least) are Weller's cover of Nick Drake's "River Man", a live recording of "Love Is A Losing Game", and a program led off and titled by Broadcast, the beloved pop experimenters from Birmingham.
This came on in the car while the missus and I drove into Seattle to see Baltimore hardcore luminaries End It a couple of weeks ago. She's never rarely boggled by what I play in the car; 15 years and numerous free jazz, grindcore, and K-pop records on, she's heard just about all of it. But to hear Joanna Newsom, Tame Impala, and Joan As Police Woman in quick succession had her asking if I was ok. I was just following what Mr. Weller put together for me, was my response.
There was, up until about 20 minutes ago, a 6 foot tower of boxes, filled with CDs and DVDs, sitting in my living room. I looked up from rolling cigarettes just in time to watch it tip over and crash upon the floor.
I'm avoiding getting up to examine the damage.
Here's a Mojo CD from 2008 that I bought for a dollar a few months ago. It has William Bell, Washington Phillips, Gil Scott-Heron, and Dinah Washington on it. Plus, Paul Weller's the theme..."Rarities & Inspirations" the common bond of these 15 tracks.
I feel like a paraphrase of a "Spinal Tap" line when asked, "don't you already own records with all these songs on it?" "Yeah, but this one was a dollar."
Sigh...I'm going to go clean up now.
Click here to download.
It took from May to August 2000 to go from 100 to 200 posts. Then I hit 300 posts two days before Christmas 2000. And now I'm here, anot...
