Between inverted commas: flexi discs sound better (Randompod #2, June 2025)

Snap, crackle and POP! Yes, it's a mini-podcast comprising music on flexi disc. "All flexi disc DJing", as the tacky pub venue promoters would undoubtedly say these days. In fact, where are those venues that boast performers who'll be playing "strictly" flexi disc music? A gap in the market, man! I'd go. Yes, outré sounds on outré formats. It's a bit like that time The Rebel DJed at one of his own shows (in 2019?) at the Windmill in Brixton and did so entirely via cassette tapes. Or a friend of mine who - many years ago - DJed on minidisc at a few of the Boat Ting improv nights. And come to think of it, didn't I once see the mighty DJ Derek using minidiscs at an afternoon slot at the Lock Tavern in Camden? Could be. Yeah, enough of your fancy thumb drives, packed with tunes to get the party started (yuk), enough of your CDs sprouting out of your 400-CD carry cases, and - most definitely - enough of the retro merchants with their beloved vinyl, an oversold format for fatheads which is now tiresome beyond belief. Hmm, yes, OK, in truth I actually quite like a bit of vinyl myself but there's no need (ahem) to make such a bloody song and dance about it. As it happens, this humble - and unashamedly slightly hiss-y - 40-minute podcast comes about as a result of me recently going through my own little stash of seven-inch singles. Auditing the audio. Aha, I thought, there are few slippery, super-floppy flexis among this lot. Excellent! Unless I missed a few (entirely possible) there weren't many, though. Just these:

No, not exactly the largest selection to pick from. Plus, sadly, one disc - a Ron Johnson Records four-tracker with Stump, the MacKenzies, A Witness and Big Flame - is just a blizzard of surface noise, as is one side (but not the other) of one of the other discs. A diminishing gene pool, you might say. But no, there's still Alternative TV's superlatively-good weirdo-skank Love Lies Limp (a floppy disc, indeed) and the lovely 1986 bliss-jangle of The Enormous Room. Among others. So yeah, lap it up. This is the second of my (soon-to-be-famous?) randompods and it's designed to prove, once and for all, that flexi discs sound better. Or should I put this claim in inverted commas ..? 

Erectile dysfunction sounds

1: The Enormous Room, Melanie and Martin

2: Batfish Boys, I don’t want to be your dinosaur (baby)

3: Robyn Hitchcock, Surgery

4: Palookas, All the will

5: Infinity River, Before the future

6: Christianhound, Beast or booty

7: Mekons, Bastard

8: Between inverted commas

9: Phillip Boa & The Voodoo-Club, Ostrich

10: Alternative TV, Love lies limp

11: Membranes, Sexy big tongue

12: Rory McLeod, Farewell welfare

13: The Enormous Room, I don’t need you