Happy Bloody Valentine

So yeah, one of the ways in which I miss Sandra this Valentine, apart from the obvious ones, is in sharing music. Between the two of us, I was always the obsessive compulsive High Fidelity gotta catch them all collecting nerd, while she was more the cool saw Blondie in Plymouth back before anybody in Europe knew who they were, used to dance at the Wigan Casino, used to have a shedload of hard to find imports when finding music was still difficult, but it’s all gone now type. She was into funk and soul, hip-hop, good, intelligent pop music, punk and jaz and everything else as long as it was mellifluous, I was more into metal and prog rock — still am, but she influenced me a lot. Not that I didn’t listen to some soul or funk or whatever before she came along, but it was she who pointed me to a lot of the artists that I couldn’t live without now.

And I’m still discovering “new” bands and artists that she knew long ago and probably saw live. Like Heatwave, that British-Swiss-American group whose greatest hit you surely recognise:

Somewhat more obscure: Brick, an Atlanta band she must’ve heard or seen when she lived there in the early eighties, but it’s too late to ask her now. They play disco-jazz, or Dazz, as seen below:

Here’s another well known song from a fairly obscure band: Lakeside, who do deserve to be better known than just for this fantastic slab of early eighties funk:

Let’s end with an old favourite of the two of us I knew she really liked a lot: Strawberry Letter 23 by the Brothers Johnson.