We don't see eye to eye...

So, about 7 years ago, driving to work one morning, I heard "Like Dylan at the Movies" by Belle and Sebastian on the radio.

I was sunk. As soon as I got to work, I looked them up and ordered the album, If You're Feeling Sinister. Every single track a gem, though I have my preferences.

Fast forward to last year. As part of a series of concerts in the UK in which artists play albums of their work from start to finish, Belle and Sebastian played IYFS, and sold it on iTunes to benefit...

As noted, the album is pretty flawless, which is probably why they chose this one over Tiger Milk or Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant, but the high point might be "Me and the Major" in which the narrator tells of a disappointed friendship and old soldier strikes up with him on the tube. Alas, "he wants to talk / But there is too much history, too much biography between us."

And part of that history is that "He remembers all the punks and the hippies too / And he remembers Roxy Music in seventy-two."

To that end, I share with you:

• Punks: The Buzzcocks doing "Boredom" and Johnnie Thunders' "Chinese Rocks" (from a mad 10-CD collection I found in Berlin called Punk Box - never been able to find it online, either.) (link disabled)
  


• Hippies: The Grateful Dead doing "St. Stephen" (from Aoxomoxoa) (link disabled)
  


• Roxy Music in '72: "If There Is Something" (from Roxy Music) (link disabled)
  and of course


• Belle and Sebastian's "Me and the Major" live at the Barbican, 2005: (link disabled)

---

• Buy Buzzcocks goodies, including their new album Flat-Pack Philosophy at buzzcocks.com.


• Buy Roxy Music's stunning debut at Amazon.com.


• Grateful Dead goodies of all sorts can be had at dead.net.


• I couldn't find a direct link, but Belle and Sebastian Live at the Barbican should be had at http://www.apple.com/itunes/.