I’m trying valiantly to remain positive in the face of house selling blues. Why on earth can’t everyone be as decisive and decent as us? It’s annoying too because under normal circumstances I would be frothing at the mouth with excitement, as today’s weekly visit to the PO Box brought in a haul of numerous fantastic goodies. Let me count them off, in no particular order:

A new Pipettes piece of vinyl! Courtesy of the fine people at Total Gaylord records in the USA, a triple header consisting of ‘It Hurts To See You Dance So Well’ (same version as on the Unpopular single), ‘Judy’ (same as on the Transgressive single) and ‘KFC’ which features some members of Go Team and DJ Scotch Egg. It comes on hot pink vinyl and is housed in a hand screened sleeve that folds out to be a polka dot skirt shape. Yum. Oh, it’s a hand numbered edition of 1000 copies too, and the run off groove is etched with the ‘race you to ebay!’ message. One of my copies is numbered minus 3! Yay!

Smoosh, Playwrights and Unpopular in Spanish! A copy of the new Go magazine arrived, complete with a few copies of the freebie CD that accompanies it. ‘Massive Cure’ is on there, as is the Playwrights excellent ‘Guy Debord Is Really Dead’. Kiko Amat has written a piece in the magazine about UK small independents, which is really cool, especially as Unpopular is featured. It makes me smile. And I can’t even read Spanish… The magazine has a large subscription / readership (around 20K I think) in Spain, so it’s all very exciting.

And speaking of The Playwrights, Ben sent a copy of their new recordings which will make up the ‘English Self Storage’ album. It all sounds as magnificent as one would have hoped / expected. It’s all more fractious, angular and altogether abrasive than the ‘Good Beneath The Radar’ set, and I’m addicted already. Highlights? Too early to tell for sure, but oooh, lots and lots. Like, there’s a terrific cornet section in ‘Central Heating In The Summer Season’, and there’s a fresh London Version of their classic Unppular 7” ‘Dislocated’ (still my favourite Playwrights moment!) that sparkles and clamours like all great Pop ought.

Now, what else was there? Oh yes, a package of CDOASS material that I’m all of a quiver over, and the new Brakes single (out October 17th) which is acer than an ace thing being very ace. ‘Ring A Ding Ding’ sounds like Clinic, which of course is no bad thing. Oh, and they do a stonking cover of the country classic ‘Jackson’. Now I didn’t pick up on the Brakes album initially, despite having a sneaky CDR version kicking around, so I didn’t realise until now that they sport members of The Tenderfoot, Electric Soft Parade and British Sea Power in their fold. Which of course means that most of them are, in one way or another, involved in the Blind Cowboys and Monster Bobby 3” releases on I Wish I Was Unpopular. This delights me almost as much as it does to have those Pipette connections. Yum.

And finally, the prize for most delightfully packaged CD I’ve come across in a long time goes to the wonderful Asaurus Records (they who gave us Pants Yell!) for their release by Colin Clary. Basically, it’s a handmade felt sweater with a shirt inner sleeve made of card… in the breast pocket of which is a little info sheet. Oh, and pinned to the felt sweater is a little badge that says ‘sweater weather or not, these are the songs I got’. Havent played the CD yet, and I almost don’t want to risk being disappointed. Then again, nothing else on Asaurus has ever disappointed, so I’m fairly hopeful.

But meantime, I have to keep playing this Playwrights disc…