As the musical tectonic plates shift and everyone gets their music from different sources, it gets harder to find the truly unifying songs that have the whole bar wailing together in exhalent song. From this list only ‘If You Wanna’ by The Vaccines of the music out this year has had the whole place pogoing. We have found these tracks by drunken Shazam, Radio, Adverts, recommendations or by Accident.

As last year this is a list of tunes that have made it on to our playlists over this last 12 months. They may not be ‘new’ but they have become our standards in 2011. Last year it was a list from Manchester only. For this year’s list I have asked the people who do the music most in both Leeds and Liverpool to send me a bunch of tunes as well. By dint of being mentioned on all 3 lists I can reveal that the unofficial Mojo tune of the year is…….

The Hollies – Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)

……This was brought in by Richie West on Shazam and he has no idea from where or when!

Keep listening and drinking (in the bars and at www.radiomojo.co.uk) and may we wish you all, a Happy Christmas and a wonderful new year.

Tame Impala – Half Full Glass Of Wine

White Denim – Back at the Farm

Shake, Shake, Shake

Metronomy –   The Look

The Bay

Tune-Yards –   Bizness

My Morning Jacket – Holding On To Black Metal

Small Faces – Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake

The Black Keys – Next Girl

Johnny Cash – I’ve Been Everywhere

Talking Heads – Girlfriend is Better

Nothing But Flowers

The Rolling Stones – Pass the Wine (Sophia Loren)

-  Slave

The James Gang – Walk Away

Funk 49

Django Django – Storm

Led Zeppelin – D’Yer Maker

Paul Simon – Late In the Evening

Credence Clearwater Revival – Pagan Baby

Ben Harper – Get It like You Like It

George Harrison – Got My Mind Set On You

Wah Wah

Genesis – I Know What I Like

Ken Boothe – Is It Because I’m Black

The Vaccines – If You Wanna

Corb Lund – Hair in My Eyes Like A Highland Steer

Grinderman – Palaces Of Montezuma

Sister Nancy – Bam Bam

Toots & The Maytals – Take me Home, Country Roads

Symarip – Skinhead Moonstomp

LCD Soundsystem – North American Scum

Two Door Cinema Club  – What You Know

Prince – 7

The Who – I’m Free

The Horrors – Still Life

Band Of Skulls – Patterns

I Know What I Am

Pete Townsend – Let My Love Open The Door

Tom Tom Club – Genius Of Love

ELO – Evil Woman

The Heavy – How You Like Me Now

Black Crowes – Another Roadside Tragedy

Cursed Diamond

Broken Bells – The Ghost Inside

Eddie Bo – Check Your Bucket

Band Of Horses – Is There A Ghost.

Which brings us to Sufjan Stevens at The Apollo?

I am an avowed fan, sucked in by his second US States album, ‘Come on Feel the Illinoise’. I bought backwards from there and loved it all. The simple folk of Seven Swans to the complex arrangements and Trombone parping majesty of the aforementioned Illinoise. There is a lot of Banjo on those albums.

Then the announcement of a new album and, a new direction. New album, Age of Adz, has been well reviewed but I was put off enough not to commit to a purchase. As I approached the theatre I am ashamed to admit that a kernel of worry was tapping away at my insides. ‘He won’t play toooo much new stuff. Will he?’

First to say, when does a Gig become a show? Metronomy above a pub in Wakefield, Gig.

Stevens opens in near darkness, with Seven Swans. Tender in the verses it explodes in to life in the first Chorus when the other 10 band members come in. The lights blaze the stage to life and Stevens is revealed, Banjo in hand, he then unfurls a giant set of Swans Wings. Show!!

First foray into Age of Adz is track 2, Too Much. It is not a complete u turn stylistically. It is recognisably Stevens, Cacophonous arrangement and clever melody but tied together not by a folk framework but by playful industrial beats. Allied to a near 3D light/Laser show (don’t laugh), I now know that we are in safe hands.

Stevens seems to be aware that his new direction and these songs of ‘Love, Death, Apocalypse and Space’ could be hard to take, they are not. So after another dose of beats he insists on ‘Clearing the air with folk’ which he does every 2 or 3 songs and to stunning affect firstly with a rendering of REM’s The One I Love with just voice and Guitar.

The whole show is a confection of light, sound and an arresting video art show using schizophrenic US artist Royal Robertson as a launching pad. Bringing his static, paranoid, comic style canvases into living, breathing dancing life. This all comes to a true maelstrom of a climax with album closer, Impossible Soul. 25 minutes on record, it is slightly truncated here. To describe, imagine taking Acid, then being blindfolded. When you reach the point of ‘trip’, the blind fold is removed and the room has been entirely covered in a soup of acrylic paint. Every colour. All the while, the song plays. Mesmeric.

When the encore comes and we finally get what we want, we are no longer aware that we want it. This makes the balloon and confetti jet adorned closing run through Chicago a miraculous second high.

So definitely a show, and close to being the show of a lifetime.

We are packed here into the back of the wonderful Castle Hotel on Oldham Street (if you’ve yet to patronise this fine boozer, go soon) and we are an expectant crowd. There is a buzz growing around this Nottingham quintet. I am here as a guest of Annie, A&R for Island records and she has spotted a further 3 of her competitors all vying for their signature.

They open with a Fleet Foxian wall of unaccompanied harmonies. All five band members dovetailing seamlessly and I’m hooked. Within the first two songs I am reminded of the aforementioned Fleet Foxes, Vampire Weekend, Mumford & Sons, The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel amongst others. It would be easy for them to get lost in that sea of references but their skill and talent is to make it transcendently their own.

By the time they reach new single Jordan River I am totally sold. The crowd however are a little more respectful than even the band would like with a request for us to start dancing but by the time the Saxophone comes out for a rip through Glockenspiel song, we have no choice.

Keep your eyes peeled for Dog is Dead. They are very of the moment but have the tunes to make it out of the lower leagues.

I will list here, some of the music that has excited us this year. It may not be from this past year, in fact most aren’t. These are just a few of the tunes that have filtered through our ears, into our consciousness and then through our sound system.

The joy of discovery never really stops. We have a huge music collection and stuff falls down the cracks so we find it there, on game soundtracks, ads, magazines, TV shows, Radio, recommendations. Some of these are new, some are covers, some you will know and some you won’t. Some of them we have just forgotten about and they’ve come back into the fold.

If you find even one track that you love either from this list or from being in your own Mojo (this is written by a exiled Yorkshireman in Manchester) then our collective hearts will gladden.

Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to you all.

Local Natives – Airplanes

Darwin Deez  – Radar Detective

The Rolling Stones – Plundered my Soul

Cake – Short Skirt/Long Jacket

Odds & Evens – Harlem Ghost

Hot 8 Brass Band – Sexual Healing

Field Music – Measure - Them That do Nothing

Josh Rouse – It’s the Night time

Doobie Bros. – What a fool Believes

Hall & Oates – You Make My Dreams Come True

Bill Withers – I Can’t Write Left Handed

The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio

Band Of Skulls – Death by Diamonds and Pearls

2 Door Cinema Club – I Can Talk

Bombay Bicycle Club – Always like This

Take Me Home, Country Roads – Toots & The Maytals

The Kinks – Last Of The Steam Powered Trains - Starstuck

Joe Cocker – High Time we Went

Bruce Springsteen – Blinded By The Light

Velvet Underground – Rock and Roll

Faces – (I know) I’m Losing You

Silver Jews – Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed

David Bowie – Cat People - Moonage Daydream

Joe Strummer – Coma Girl

Violent Femmes – Blister in the Sun

Yeasayer – Ambling Amp

Arcade Fire – Ready to Start

Beach House – Zebra

Best Coast – Boyfriend

Rage Against The Machine – Bullet in the Head

Eagles of Death Metal – Whore Hoppin’ (shit, Goddamn)

The Who – Magic Bus

Mark Linkous and Dangermouse – Little Girl

Jimi Hendrix – Bleeding Heart

I Heard It Through the Grapevine – The Slits

Stornoway – I Saw You Blink - Zorbing

The Black Keys – Tighten Up

The Rapture – No Sex For Ben

Dexys Midnight Runners – Seven Days Too Long

Mystery Jets – Young Love - Dreaming Of Another World

Led Zeppelin – Custard Pie

I love how excessive we get in Britain, to the point where we get so ridiculous nobody notices because it’s been happening gradually for a long time. Why not just skip the middle period and have an under 80 rule? Only I.D. those without zimmers and hairnets. Luckily I don’t get ID’d because of the wisdom in my eyes and the fact that I’ve been sleeping on my face for the past 20 years; but its still apparent how over the top it is when someone next to me who is blatantly buying wine for cooking is given the robot speech of ‘its just my job I have to ID everyone with any degree of innocence’.

I’m waiting to see how the new government will tackle this issue but I can’t help but be pessimistic.  I see a sci-fi futuristic setting where only those with a tattoo of their age on their necks are allowed alcohol and moonshine runs rife but then I play too much Xbox and therefore can’t be trusted.

But it looks like we are about to enter a prolonged Guitar band drought. Second and third albums by what we thought were fairly established bands like Razorlight and Kaiser Chiefs have failed to do the expected business with the Kaisers playing to a half empty MEN recently.

The Killers have abandoned their fenders for a bizarre Saxophone/Keyboard hybrid approach whilst the NME said lately of the previously guitar dependent Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, ‘killer album, but where are the guitars?’.

We have been here before though. Before the Stokes arrived fully formed to shake the cobwebs from the nations guitar racks was the post Britpop black hole. If a guitar band emerged in this period they were often unfairly tagged with the ‘Saviours of Rock’ label.

I was at Starsailors first major UK gig, in a hall full of people who had been told that they were watching one such band. A room full of expectation that they had neither the songs or the attitude to meet. Not their fault, more the Stone Roses generation hoping to have their lives transformed once more.

So like Britpop before, it seems to have got too big, too pop. Was the beginning of the end The Arctic Monkeys? For Britpop read Tony Blair appearing within the same Cool Britannia Vanity Fair issue that had Liam and Patsy on the cover. Perhaps Gordon Brown’s claim that he had the Arctics on his iPod did for it this time (hell, even Alex Turner is now making Scott Walker albums). It may have been this huge selling record that put the first nail in.

Chins up though, Johnny Marr has joined the Cribs. So there’s always that.

[ratings]

The argument runs thus, that by having the Television show reach its end in the weeks running up to the festive period that the X-Factor has got the Christmas  top spot ‘tied up’. That the very gullibility of the British public means that no other artist even has a chance of yuletide glory.

X-Factor has provided us with the last four with the 3rd rendition of Do they know it’s Christmas grabbing top spot in 2004. Here then is a selection spanning the last 40 years. In 2000 Bob the builder was fixing it, ’99 Cliff Richards Millenium prayer, ’98 the Spice girls, ’97 the Teletubbies said Eh Oh, ’94 East 17, ’93 Mr Blobby, ’88 and 90 was Cliff Richard (again). In 1984 the flying Pickets barber shopped their way to the top with only you and in 1980 the St. Winifred’s school choir knocked John Lennon off the top spot with there’s no one quite like Grandma. ”72, Little Jimmy Osmond’s Long haired lover from Liverpool, ’71 Bennie Hill with Ernie, ’69 Rolf Harris’s two little boys.

There are some notable exceptions, The Beatles three years running from ’63 to ’66, Pink Floyd in ’79 and Don’t you want me Baby by the Human League over Christmas ’81 but on the whole an artistically bankrupt lot.

There have been numerous charity singles over the years which we will leave to one side but I think that when you are looking at a list where East 17′s stay another day is a high point, well I think that the British public should have the back of their collective wrists slapped! We are not gullible. We just like rubbish music!

Now I dislike Evil Galactic emperor Cowell as much as the next man but it’s hard to argue that he’s ruined pop music. On the evidence presented above, it was already ruined. and by allowing Hallelujah to be released last year, X-Factor went some way to replenishing Leonard Cohen’s pilfered retirement fund. Based on this, I feel almost magnanimous towards the high trousered one.

Just how selfish are music fans? I was flicking through the pages of one of the more sensible music mag’s that adorn the walls of the newsagents of this land when I alighted upon a readers letter. Within this letter were the complaints of an ‘Avid Elbow fan’. I paraphrase his argument thus ‘I’ve liked elbow for ages and now ‘cause the BBC used one of their songs the gigs are full of people who only know the end bit of On a day like this’. I see his point but the alternative was Guy Garvey and friends getting dropped if this one hadn’t gone big. And after 17 years,  three albums with universal good reviews and galactically disappointing sales, I think they were due a break.

This issue was brought in to sharp focus for me when one or two Christmases ago, my favourite single by my favourite band was covered as part of  a double A side by a bunch of  musical lightweights. The Band was McFly and the single was Transylvania/Baby’s comin’ back.

In the early nineties when the parent album for baby’s comin’ back, Bellybutton by Jellyfish  was scraping around the lower reaches of the Gallup album charts and I was singing along to its glorious melodies I wanted nothing more than the whole world to discover the secret. Why didn’t everyone love this seminal pop record? On first hearing McFlys’ version,  my first instinct was of wanting people to love Baby’s comin’ back, find out it’s a cover, discover Jellyfish for themselves, and buy both their albums to force a reunion show.

But that’s not how I feel at all. I’d miss bumping into the other 38 people who bought both albums. It’s my secret and I don’t want you to know about it. So when the avalanche of record sales failed to materialize I was delighted. No reunion, secret safe.

I wonder if they needed the money.

My dear self pondering a bass line, John Henry

So yesterday was a bit special in OSA world.

Firstly we found out that we had won Steve Lamacq’s rebel playlist with a whooping 81% of the vote against The Holloways and The Futureheads, which was an amazing moment. This means we get played on 6 Music everyday. We felt very proud of our song!

Then if that wasn’t enough excitement Lauren Leverne played us as well…and then…

Well then Zane Lowe played us as part of his Fresh Meat feature on Radio 1!! That’s national Radio 1 at 8pm in the evening. It’s a wee bit frightening how many people may have heard that!

Anyway, we’re nearly mixed. 4 more days to go, then a week of going ARGH YES NO MAYBE, then hopefully it’ll all be done.

Here’s a bit more from my diary during the recording.

So we’re now well over half way through recording. What will the world be like for the Official Secrets Act when they finally see the outside world? Will London still be in one piece, will our friends and loved ones remember us, will we have missed the Cold War Exhibition at the V&A, will Celtic still be in the Champions League? (Yes, maybe, no, probably not)

We spent a lot of time on Monday working on a song called Hold The Line, which has a Bowie meets Breakfast Club thing to it (hopefully), it references the 80s synth pop kings Japan and Tears For Fears so it was a bit special when Liam pulled out a Prophet 5 synth that he had bought off of David Sylvian of …. Japan!!! for us to use on it!! This made us all very happy. Now we just need a song referencing Radio Free Europe and The One I Love and Liam might be able to get Peter Buck from REM in to play on one of our songs, or at least lend us his guitar. (A 360 Rickenbacker I think Mr Buck). We also worked on a song called Under The Flightpath which has a feel that makes me think of the urban wastelands (High school poetry 101) where West London meets deepest darkest Suburbia. There is a bridge over a railway line that i used to walk over everyday on the way to school and all the planes for Heathrow fly over it, and when it’s a really crisp winter evening all their smoke trails freeze in the sky for hours.
 
We’re getting near the end of the main tracking and decisions over what might make the album are starting to come into play. So we’ve written all the song names and pinned them up on the wall so people can make their own tracklistings. It’s like a DIY tracklisting kit. Well no it’s not like that, it is that. We’ve also got a sheet of paper up for prospective album title ideas. We had a couple prepared before we came in, and some of them are evolving out of what’s going on in the studio.

Team crossword is currently hard at work. They are upset that i filled in some answers in lower case, it seems these are the actions of a madman. Understandable. Team Ping Pong is also still training hard, learning ever more skills. We played some dates with Operator Please before we came in the studio. If they had a pound for every time we sang a little bit of “Ping Pong Song” in the studio they would have enough money to buy a nice second hand typewriter off ebay or maybe a meal at Pizza Hut.

The studio detritus is also developing. Alex is reading Metamorphisis by Ovid, I’m reading Please Kill Me by Legs McNeill about the rise of Punk Rock in New York (Very good it is too!) there is also a Viz annual, a Kaoscillator synth (check these things out they are like your own personal disco) sleigh bells, cow bells and conkers scattered around the mixing desk. I’m also sitting next to a French Horn while i write this.

We have some old band friends coming round for dinner tonight. We don’t see the outside world much and we lock ourselves away when we are working so it will be nice to sit down for an hour to catch up on what’s happening with our pals. But we’ve got a lot to do so it’ll be a brief brake before getting back into our lovely lamp lit live room, which is starting to look ever more like our bed rooms at home. (This means basically it’s a tip with guitar pedals and microphones scattered into every corner)

We are starting to sort out Tour dates for when the record is finished and the thought of taking all this out to people is  exciting, if a little scary. When we toured earlier this year it felt like we were never out of Denise (our lovely battered Transit Van) and now we’re not even sure where we parked her (Mike? Alex? Any idea?). Al and Mike will get to go back to Scotland to start the tour and we’ll get to visit Leeds and Manchester again which are kind of home from homes for OSA. In Leeds we’re playing the Cockpit, which is where I used to go and watch gigs when I was studying. Indeed the “Best Gig” I’ve ever seen was Mars Volta their a few years ago. Omar is just the sexiest guitar player on the planet and they were so intense on stage that night. Just thinking of it brings a big punk prog smile to my face. (Check the footage of At The Drive In on Jools Holland, Omar and Cedric’s previous band. It’s just insanity)

Just a quick note to say that we’ve been nominated for The Rebel Jukebox on the rather lovely gent Steve Lamacq’s Six Music show. Be rather lovely if you could go ove and give us a vote….PICTURE THE SCENE

Election night.

The eyes of the entire planet are firmly focussed on the battle for the american presidency. History uncoils before our very eyes.

Yet one member of your favourite band has the bare faced cheek to draw your attention to another voting contest that opened this evening.

Official Secrets Act are up against the Holloways, and the Futureheads in Steve Lamacq’s Rebel playlist on his 6 Music show. This is your chance to listen to three new songs and vote for your favourite.

Take a step from the sublime to the ridiculous (you choose in which direction) and vote here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/steve_lamacq/

Or simply send an Email to: Lamacq.6music@bbc.co.uk

With the Subject Matter; Vote 2 Official Secrets Act

voting closes on sunday.

Change we need!!!

Anywhooo….that done, here is the kind of equipment we’ve been using in the studio. Total gear tech’s heaven!

Alex has been using a 1976 Ludwig kit which he got off of a lovely guy called Martin who used to play in The Others and is just about the best Drum Tech a band could ever hope to come across. He also bought a whole load of new K cymbals, which are only new to him really, cause some of them are from the 70s. He would also want me to tell you that his high hats are not of a pair and are different makes from different years, which makes them kind of special.

I’ve been using Liams 1970s Jazz bass mainly, putting through my ashdown amp and a boss blues driver which is actually designed for guitar but which we just pull all the tone out of and drive it a little bit to cook the bass slightly. I’ve also got my beloved 63 P-bass reissue which I restrung just before we came in the studio so I can get some really nice aggressive New Order sounds when I want them.

Mike has been playing with a synth called an Oscar which was made by the Oxford Synth company, it’s got some wonderful Grandaddy/Muse type sounds and we had hours of fun trying to synch up a 6/8 arpeggio that it generated with a 4/4 beat that Alex was playing. He’s also been using our trusty old Harmonium which is flat, broken and older than OSA themselves, but it’s been all over Britain with us and is doing us proud in the studio. He’s also currently laying down some synth parts on an old Prophet 5 which are sounding gorgeous. When guitars have been needed it’s hard to take Evans away from his Hohner very thin (I’m sounding like a QVC advert)

Tom’s had a lot of fun with his 60s reissue Strat which I think he bought cause he liked the colour, but it’s been great for getting a whole different load of tones on the songs, and we never fall out of love with the Danelectro guitars we’ve got. Alex especially did some lovely guitar parts on one of our songs using he favourite lipstick pick-ups.

We’ve got Line 6 modulators, loads of memory man effects and the old school dirtboxs for when they’re needed as well, but that’s all pretty standard stuff. We’re also all taking turns to hit away at the piano keys, and Mike and Tom have flirted with some Clarinet/Horn and trumpet parts.

We’ve been exploring found sounds and the sounds we can make from anything we find around. We’ve stomped our feet on floorboards, whistled melody lines and tried reversing them and spent hours on the free sound project listening to thunderstorms in Madrid and busses driving along Parisian backstreets. Europe has been a big influence on this record.

A lot of this is probably pretty boring stuff, we don’t really understand it all. We just get on our hands and knees and dial in any sounds we can find and see if we can get something worth having out of it.

The sound of the assistants at Konk dancing round our amplifiers may also be detectable on one or two of our songs. They are like our modern equivalent of the Old Grey Whistle Test, if they don’t dance and smile then it doesn’t work.