BEACHCOMA

BEACHCOMA by Blur.

Up on the island I dropped in on somebody's conversation about five best bands in the world and they put me on the spot. I got to three, I think. The third band I named was Blur, which surprised myself and made me lose my train of thought. Blur? No one that knew me in college would be surprised at that, but college was a while ago now. And I don't much listen to Blur all that much anymore. But in vino veritas, so the other day I decided I'd have a listen to the back catalogue and see how I felt. I only listened to Parklife and had really mixed feelings. On the one hand, I loved it; on the other, it is so strongly associated with a particular period of life (the Shiloh years, for short) that I didn't much connect with the music itself.

Then I went on youtube looking for some vintage Blur footage from 95-97, and surprisingly didn't find that much. I did watch this video from the 1995 Brat Awards, which appropriately enough made me laugh and wince in equal measure.

That's all a long-winded way of getting to this sentence, which says that I decided that in the very least I should put up a few Blur rarities this week. First is Beachcoma, a b-side from their For Tomorrow single. Over the years this drowsy, languid sound has shown up more and more in Blur's front line material, but as of The Great Escape the band had a famous disjunction between their poppy A-Sides and their stoned B-Sides. Beachcoma is a good example of the latter.

LISTEN.

Photo: World Cup Final (1).