You wrote, "An excellent collection as you would expect. I would have added a blues diva or two, plus Joni and Bjork, but that is just me. Nice watercolor too. As Greg House quoted the philospher Jagger, "You can't always get what you want."

If space would have permitted, I might not have gone with Bjork, but I would include her song "Play Dead" for you. Part two would include Nina, The Mermaids, Marcia Griffiths, Billie, Cesaria Evora, Helene Smith, Gladys and others that make a wholly different blissed out compilation. You up for a trade?

I had most of that Ska stuff on vinyl. My vinyl collection is either back home in London, or in some cases sold off due to cash shortages. There was a store in Camden Town, "Rock On", owned by an Irish guy called Ted Carroll. (Thin Lizzy wrote a song about him called 'The Rocker') He had classic rock and roll vinyl (I got a Roy Orbison single on the Sun label there once. He also had loads of original ska and reggae. I got some great Studio One stuff there, and it was because of that store that I discovered people like Dennis Bovell, Dub Scientist, but also Toots & The Maytals. As I mentioned for the mix, I heard a lot of ska for the first time at fairgrounds, and would go to Ted Carroll's shop and try and sing what I had heard. Sometimes they gave me the wrong record, but what they gave me was usually as good if not better.

When the Ska revival came out, I bought many of the singles on the Two Tone label, as well as Go-Feet, which was the label The Beat recorded on. STiff records put out the first Madness singles, I think.

I only have 'Money' by the Flying Lizards on a compilation but I will email a friend for whom it will always be 1977, and see if he has anything else by them.

Do you happen to have any Flying Lizards ((other than "Money (That's What I Want)?)) I'm really hoping to find "Dizzie Ms. Lizzie" but I'll settle for whatever I can find. I watched Hiding Out, which features this song and I absolutely love it.

I'm reading Simon Reynold's Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 78-84 and I'm learning about a lot of new/old bands.

Yes, reading about "Glory Box" was stirring. Thank you for sharing. That makes two times that I've been moved today. Seeing Children of Men and then reading your story about your life and Portishead. Have a great weekend, I'm glad to know you.

I'll find some Suzi Quatro and sendspace it! As for Sparks, they were around at the time of glamrock in the UK and tended to be lumped in with it at the time. It is funny how artists get pegged as being part of a particular genre because they happen to be around at the same time. In Britain, anything new that came out in 1976/77 was pegged in the media as punk/new wave regardless. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers for instance were described in the press as being a punk band, despite having their roots firmly in 60's Byrds folk rock territory! Like Bowie and a few others, Sparks outlived glam and any other labels.

Do you have some Suzi Quatro you could share? I've been reading in my NME Presents: GLAM magazine again and realized I still haven't heard anything from her. Do The Sparks really fall under Glam?

You need to listen to more music.

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