Playlist: December 2009

I don't recall all that Rachel McCarthy - my co-presenter - and our guest - Emma Bishop of The Paragon Gallery, Gandy Street, Exeter - played on the show, but these are the tracks I chose and reasons why:

1. 'Must Be Santa' by Bob Dylan from 'Christmas In The Heart'

I'm still coming to terms with the concept of a Bob Dylan Christmas Album, let alone its execution, but this seasonal polka, driven by the accordion of David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, is my highlight. Check out youtube for the video featuring a good-time-was-had-by-all house party with our beloved grouch in a blonde wig and eccentric selection of hats dancing the night away while reeling off a list of American Presidents in place of a roll call of Santa's reindeer. What's not to like?

2. 'For Emma' by 'Bon Iver' off 'For Emma, Forever Ago'

I'm introducing all of our guests with an apt tune, whether they realise it or not. Legend has it Bon - Justin to his mum - recorded this in his Dad's log cabin, living off roots, berries and cuts of moose meat. True or not, the record has backwoods atmosphere and a lovelorn lilt that plaid shirt boys and buckskin girls love. I saw him at 'The End of the Road' festival in 2008 and he was still coming to terms with an audience that knew every word.

3. 'Rise' by Public Image Limited off 'Album'

PiL are back on the road; whether their latest incarnation is to my liking I'm as yet unsure; Johnny can still do his cockney Richard III Act for the Sex Pistols Reunion tours but whether his Country Life Butter persona can handle the emotion of his post-punk incarnation is yet to be seen; his appearance on 'The Culture Show' left me unconvinced. This was arguably his last great moment, although 'Open Up', his collaboration with Leftfield, still gets me on my feet.

4. 'Wolf Kidult Man' by The Fall from 'Imperial Wax Solvent'

The Fall played The Phoenix, home of Phonic FM, last month and I'm still recovering from the after show party, an intimate soirée Chez Smith and Poulou in the company of Anthony Frost, cover artist and future guest on The Blah Blah Blah Show.

5. 'I Don't Wanna Be Nice' by John Cooper Clarke off 'The Very Best Of'

To celebrate our induction of JCC into The Undead Poets Society, we span this platter. More on him elsewhere in the blog.

6. 'Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds from 'And No More Shall We Part'

'Dark, funny and yet strangely moving' is my modus operandi for writing poetry and this track comes out of the same box.

7. 'What's He Building In There' by Tom Waits off 'Mule Variations'

Never seen Tom Waits live, never likely to given he plays rarely and sells out in thirty seconds but he has a live album out from his 'Glitter and Doom' tour featuring a bonus disc of his between song spoken word shaggy dog stories. This isn't one of those, but it's the closest he gets to a poem, albeit with musical backing.

8. 'The Outdoor Type' by The Lemonheads from 'The Very Best Of'

I saw Evan Dando at The Port Eliot Festival this year. He's the kind of guy posh girls want to mother. Proof was in the front row, offering him their world. Apparently he's married an heiress, so has a world of his own. I also saw him bottled off the Acoustic Stage of the Glastonbury Festival in 1995. Portishead were on after and they were late. Great song for a campfire and easier to strum than a Portishead tune.

The Undead Poets Society: John Cooper Clarke

To be deemed worthy of induction into the Undead Poets Society, a writer must have something of the night about him.

Born in a coffin in 1949, with his cadaverous complexion and just got-out-of-the-grave hair, John Cooper Clarke fits the bill, but isn't he just a funny man in a pall bearer's suit, his pipe cleaner limbs fitting those drainpipe kecks most snugly?

He is funny, sure - shoot flies off the ceiling with syringes of blood funny - but that isn't the end of his talents, and nor are his winklepicker boots. To describe him as a performance poet or stand-up doesn't do his stagecraft or pagecraft justice, although he is an example to the purveyors of both of those dark arts. Whatever a poet is, he is it, though some poets would deny it.

He wouldn't trust a man from the academy, and neither should you, but he gets their respect for his metrical ability, dead-eye image play and verbal dexterity. Before the Beat, Pop Art and Punk knocked down the walls of the old school, little Johnny would've been kept out of the playground of poetry, but the Children of Albion let him in on their game and then he changed the rules to ones more to his liking; it's Johnny Clarke's world and the fuddy-duddies will just have to get used to it.

Neither is he a musician, although many of his early works were released on vinyl, the best being 'Snap, Crackle and Bop' produced by Martin Hannett - the man who made Joy Division sound like a World War Two factory - and backed by some of Manchester's finest, Pete Shelley and Vini Reilly among them. But even Yorkshiremen admire the Bard of Salford, Simon Armitage and Alex Turner included, and now he lives in the belly of the beast that is Essex; rumour has it even southern softies like him, and not just the Honey Monster.

In the 2007 film 'Control' he played his self of thirty years before, and looked no more ancient now than he did then, surely proof he is more dead than alive. And yet he lives on: on a stage somewhere near you, often with Mark E Smith of Prestwich not far behind; or between the covers of 'Ten Years In An Open Necked Shirt'; or spookily providing the soundtrack to an episode of the Sopranos with the bloody-tastic 'Chickentown'.

If he didn't have to drink so much blood, he'd no doubt lend his name to product again, and sink his fangs into a new generation. By making him our first honorary member of the Undead Poets' Society, perhaps we can urge him back into the immortality of print, before the River Styx takes him down to the dark beyond. If we can't, he has already done enough to live in our veins forever.