Welcome to episode 5000 of “nerds doing nerd things”. This past week saw my comrade and PuR contributor Ed Zed and I make lists of the 13 or so artists throughout musical history, alive or not, that would perform at our fantasy festivals. The criteria didn’t necessarily mean strictly picking our favorite artists ( that would be a different list) but rather, those who could offer the most perfect and personalized live experience for us plus a great day/night out for similarly wired nerds. We considered logistical issues (for one thing, no artists would perform at the same time in adjacent tents or venues across town). Mine would absolutely take place outdoors in some state of perpetual night. There’d also be lots of french fries.
Anyway, at the risk of severe mockery, I’m gonna share mine in the hope that at least one of you will cough up one of your own simply because I love reading about this beautiful, nonsense dream…and I’m sure yours is gonna be amazing and brilliantly weird.
My lineup list also cites the specific era and/or version of each participating artist I’d want to see. Some are people I wish I could have seen but wasn’t alive, old enough, or geographically able to. Others I have seen perform incendiary, crazy-wonderful shows and wish I could time-machine myself back to. I also named a host for the evening just because we’ll need one.
Here’s mine aka Hopechella:
Paul McCartney & Wings c.1976-79
The Isley Brothers c.1970-72
Otis Redding & Carla Thomas c.1967
Annie Lennox-c.1992
Donny Hathaway c.1971
Sandy Denny c.1972
ELO c.1978 (performing entire ‘Out Of The Blue album”)
John Martyn-c.1973-1980
Françoise Hardy c.1976-77
The Blue Nile-c.1989
Sinead O’Connor-‘c.90s era
George Michael c.2000’s era
Sade c.1992-93
Hosted by Tilda Swinton: past/present/future
Here’s Ed Zed’s aka the Zedding Festival:
The Slits
Grace Jones
X-Ray Spex
Inga Copeland
HTRK
COBRAH
Jlin
The Birthday Party
WaqWaq Kingdom
Screamers
The Knife
Arthur Russell
Nico
Cyrnai
The Cravats
The Cramps
If you want to share your FANTASY FESTIVAL bill below, please do. Go on then, I’m all ears as always!
Know what else? It’s time for the latest WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest new songs that have crossed our path over recent days. This week’s list is especially anthemic, melodic, and swoon-worthy. I hope you’ll fall madly in love with at least one of these beauties. Listen below on Soundcloud or Spotify.
Listen on Soundcloud
Listen on Spotify
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PICKING UP ROCKS 
Brilliant! Would you be horribly offended if I picked the Zedding Festival over Hopechella (wot no Kate Bush?)? Anything with X Ray Spex, Jlin and The Birthday Party is a must! Me, my partner and a work friend used to fill dead work time with a fantasy ‘Festival of British Grimness” which had The Fall, Pulp, Earl Brutus, Prolapse, The Pet Shop Boys (at their early bleakest), The Streets. Sleaford Mods have been added to that bill of late. My personal bill would include:
Neil Young (late ’70s, circa Rust Never Sleeps – Thrasher is mandatory)
Sleater-Kinney (either 1996 with Lora McFarlane doing ‘Call The Doctor’ in full, or with Janet Weiss circa 2002 so we get ‘One Beat’ but not ‘The Woods’)
X Ray Spex (Polly and Corin Tucker duetting would be incredible!)
Otis Redding (circa 1967, Motown UK tour)
Low (Zak Sally has to be on bass, so any time up to 2005 – RIP Mimi Parker)
Kristin Hersh
The Four Tops (circa 1968)
Stereolab (circa 1996, the really cool line-up with the late great Mary Hansen and Morgane Lhote on keyboards, before they went too easy listening)
Monarch!
Love Battery
Courtney Barnett
Kim Wilde
The Beatles (Cavern Club era – would love to see if they were as wild and raw as history tells us they were!)
The Delgados
Underworld (circa Dubnobasswithmyheadman or Beaucoup Fish – trancey techno to finish the night off)
That’s more than 13! Oh, can I have Melt Banana and Iron Maiden (circa Powerslave) as well? And The Jesus Lizard? This is really hard – but surely we’ve got more than one stage to fill??
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