Vulnerable

1. Nelly Furtado - Maneater
2. The Roots - The Seed 2.0
3. Sleepy Brown - Margarita ft. Big Boi & Pharrell
4. Nelly Furtado - No Hay Igual
5. Timbaland & Magoo - Vulnerable ft. Pharrell
6. Art Of Noise - Moments In Love
7. Mariah Carey - Say Somethin' ft. Snoop Dogg & Pharrell
8. Nelly Furtado - Promiscuous ft. Timbaland
9. Busta Rhymes - I Love My Bitch ft. Kelis
10. Terror Squad - Lean Back
11. Trick Daddy - J.O.D.D.
12. Ladytron - Oops! Oh My...
13. The Vines - Gross Out
14. The Raconteurs - Steady As She Goes
15. Muse - Super Massive Black Hole
16. Blink 182 - Feeling This
17. Babyshambles - Fuck Forever
18. Matt Willis - Up All Night
19. Paul Oakenfold - Faster Kill Pussycat ft. Brittany Murphy

Matt Willis was the patron saint of Gilmore Heights. As such his picture, drunk and obnoxious, sticking his fingers up at the paparazzi, had pride of place on the wall there. Along with all the other idols, heroes and rebels we chose to mount. Having gone on an almighty bender when his absurdly popular pop group Busted had called it quits in 2005, he was constantly photographed falling out of nightclubs, drunk, with different women, looking disheveled. Having, what looked like, a great time. But even before that he looked like the beating heart of the Busted party. Which is why Luke and I always said he was the celebrity that we'd most like to party with. Of course later his 'good time' got the better of him and required a stint in rehab to sort him out, but that was later. In 2005 he was still a legend. If only to the two of us.

Luke, George and I moved into the first floor flat on Gilmore Place somewhere between November 2001 and April 2002 (accounts vary). I remember definitely living at my dad's when watching the September 11th attack on TV there, so it definitely happened after that but I do seem to remember it not being full on Scottish winter at the time either. Regardless it was, for the three of us, our first time living away from home. We were excited. At the time I was working full-time at the newly opened Ster Century Cinema in the Ocean Terminal and one day a week at The Waterfront Wine Bar, waiting tables. Luke was about to drop out of Uni and start working at, and later running, nightclubs and George was book selling or cheese-mongering part-time, I forget which. He did both.

The place was a good size and Luke's parents were our landlords. At the start I was in the small 'box room' in the flat. Just enough room for a single bed a chest of drawers and my CD collection but I paid less than the other guys and I'm a small dude. Luke had the big room, in which you couldn't see the floor for clutter and George had the next biggest room, which he kept in an orderly fashion, full of books, magazines and CDs, most likely alphabetised. The livingroom was big enough for a sofa and a sofa-bed and a breakfast bar. It was home to the large Bush TV and the many videogame consoles we had. Also, not long after moving in Luke and I decided to build a massive joint collection of VHS tapes, mostly old cartoons and classic movies, that we would find in second-hand stores and car-boot sales and they would be displayed there. The walls were three different shades of blue if I remember correctly. Red walls and a fusbol table in the hallway.

Sully and Mike from Monsters Inc. moved in not too long after we did, in standee form. It took some effort to get them home from the cinema in my Dad's car. They took up the main wall in the livingroom. And from there the room turned into a shrine to our cultural icons. We stuck up pictures cut from magazines of everyone from Vinccent Gallo to Christina Aguliera, from Arnie to Elliot Smith, From Harmony Korine to Chingy. Later there was a large wooden cable-spool that we rolled home after a night out and used as a coffee table. It became similarly adorned with images from magazines.

Prior to the move, we'd all been living in different corners of Edinburgh. I was in Granton at my dad's, Luke was in Colinton at his parents and George was with his mum in Newhaven. We'd spend between 3 and 6 nights of the week drinking in Rush bar in the Cowgate in the middle of town with a whole rotating cast of others, before heading on to one of the many different clubs we would frequent. The Establishment for our RnB and Hip-Hop fix, The Mission at Studio 24 or Genetic at The Citrus Club for our Metal and Rock fixes, and Stereo or Gaia or whatever it was called at the time for some cheese and incredibly cheap drinks and The liquid Room for the Indie disco Evol and of course, every Thursday without fail, for The Snatch Club.

Rush was our home from home. A sanctuary where drinks were cheap, we were friends with the management and bar-staff and had influence on what music was being played. We also won the Pub Quiz every week with it's prize of free drinks. Later we took over the writing of the quiz. We were geeks who liked to party. Snatch was a similar deal, we got to know the guys who ran it and so before long the entry fee was waived. The drinks were cheap and we often took part in the silly games they would play on stage to win more 'FREEEEEEEEEEEE BOOOOOOOZZEEEEEE!' as compère Harry Ainsworth would scream excitedly. The club would always end with a hearty rendition of I Could Be So Good For You the theme song from Minder performed by Dennis Waterman (which, just FYI, has one of the creepiest music videos of all time, playing like a #metoo PSA). And then after the clubs we'd usually try to find someone's flat to go to to keep the party going before wandering home.

After the move not much changed. Being located so centrally in the city meant that our flat was an ideal spot for pre-drinks and after-parties. And just parties in general really. It also meant that now it was easier for us all to get together, so the biggest change was that we were partying even more. Pre-drinks would usually involve bottles of red wine and maybe some bourbon while we'd play videogames (Pro-Evolution Soccer and Mashed, primarily)and watch movies and MTV and play fusbol or Scrabble, and eat Cosmo's pizzas. Oh how we loved a Cosmo's. There was always music playing. After-parties were frequent and boisterous. It didn't help that at some point Luke had started working at the newly opened Honeycomb nightclub on Niddrie Street. Widening the social circle and party options even further.

Gilmore Heights also became host to some of the most epic Halloween and New Year parties I've ever attended. One time Nick rode a child's BMX, that we'd found in the street, around the party but came off it on a corner knocking a massive radiator from the wall. All the "men" at the party stood round holding our faces not knowing what to do, leaving it up to Katie, the daughter of a plumber, to be fair, to turn the water off to stop the place from flooding. Utter carnage. We often launched things out of our windows, like eggs or water bombs. We were always quite badly behaved. But in a nice way. There was always fun to be had, and sometimes there was drama, there were girls and drugs and more alcohol than was safe (thanks Carlos for the Sloe Gin), there were accidents and arguments. And there were laughs, a great many of them. And all the other good stuff that life is all about.

The rotation of the occupants in the flat was regular. Luke went to live in Australia for a year at the top of 2003, leaving just me and George in the place. But to be honest George's girlfriend Lucy and his best mate Sod were round so often they basically lived there too. Katie also was a near permanent fixture. Malcy was round a lot too. Luke got back from Oz around Christmas time. Then early 2004 George moved out, he got his own place on West Nicholson Street. I took his room and that was when Nick moved in to the box room. This was the first of what has ended up being many times I've lived with Nick. In 2006 Luke moved to Barcelona with his long term girlfriend and future wife, Hollie, when she went there to study. At that point Nick moved into Luke's room. Chris, who started out as a random guy with pink hair who joined our pub quiz team and who shared our enthusiasm for partying, and eventually ended up becoming Katie's other half, moved in at that point. Having snapped his Achilles in a bizarre skipping accident, he was couch-bound for a long while.

I moved out around summer '06, around the same time I made the Déjà Vu mix and this mix would be from a similar time to that. I wasn't in a good place mentally and holding down a job at the time was not easy for me, which made paying rent a challenge. After a period of extraordinary leniency from Luke's folks I decided to go back to my dad's and stop being a burden to them. Luke and Hollie came back from Barca and shared the flat with Chris for a while before he moved in with Katie. Even when I wasn't living there, I was round all the time, kipping on the couch.

The flat stayed in our circle of friends for 13 years. It began as a den of debauchery and ended as the place that Luke and Hollie started their family. It was a backdrop against which we grew up. I am equally glad and sad that it has been traded out of our view. I will remember it fondly, as Luke put it it 'was quite a ride indeed'.

This mix still holds up pretty well. I could take or leave the Paul Oakenfold dance single with the late Brittany Murphy on vocal duties. And the Busta Rhymes/Kelis/Will.I.Am track is a fine bop but unspectacular. Aside from them the rest of the tracklisting is solid. It is split in half, with the first half being RnB and Hip-Hop leaning and the second half being more rock focused. In the first half, all three of the Timbaland produced Nelly Furtado numbers are smackers. Maneater, a manic stomper, sounded like nothing else at the time and the same can be said for the wild Spanish-language No Hay Igual. Promiscuous remains a typically smooth Timbo jam. Three great singles from a suprisingly great album from the Canadian songstress.

One other Timbaland appearance on the mix comes in the shape of a rare collaboration with fellow Virginan Pharrell. The two of them were in a band together at high school called Surrounded By Idiots along with frequent Timbo foil Magoo, who also features on Vulnerable. P is doing his best Curtis Mayfield croon on it and that gets me every time. Pharrell, naturally shows up elsewhere on the disc too. He's on the summery Sleepy Brown track Margarita with Big Boi and on the wonderfully stuttery Mariah Carey single Say Something ft. Snoop Dogg. The new wave electro masterpiece Moments In Love by the peerless Art Of Noise also appears here because I'd discovered it when I'd heard Pharrell and Chad Hugo selecting it on a radio show. A truly beautiful piece of music.

The Roots covering or expanding on Cody ChesnuTT's killer The Seed with The Seed 2.0 remains a classic. As does the Terror Squad's Lean Back which is the best Fat Joe has ever sounded and also features a verse from Remy Ma that is an all-timer. Trick Daddy and Khia combine for an excellent piece of complete filth on J.O.D.D. Then to transition from the 'Urban' side to the Rawk side I included Ladytron's punky cover of the Timbaland produced, Missy featuring Tweet gem about masturbation Oops! Oh My... It's a fun novelty but isn't a patch on the bullet-proof original.

When I asked Sod when he thought we moved into Gilmore he said 'well The Vines album came out in 2002, so sometime around then', which goes to illustrate again how much my friends and I think about things in relation to music. The Vines show up on here with the lead single from their third album Vision Valley. Gross Out is more or less what we'd come to expect from them, which is to say a sub-two minute Nirvana-aping grunge song that I honestly don't know why I still get such a kick out of.

Steady As She goes by the Jack White side project The Raconteurs still gets my toe tapping and Supermassive Black Hole was the last really good Muse song, and is probably only really good because it sounds exactly like Do Something by Britney Spears. I still love Blink 182's Feeling This, the way the vocals are layered and manipulated is so great. And you know what? I even still love Babyshambles' Fuck Forever. Sure the verses are a mess but that chorus is undeniable.

Finally, when Saint Matt Willis released his debut solo single Up All Night I was happy to find it was a trashy, poppy, banger and a fitting tribute to those all-nighters that were so regular at the esteemed Gilmore Heights. Thinking about it, Vulnerable is a somewhat ironic title under which to talk about the place because when we were all there, we felt invincible.

Photo creits: David Sodergren and Katie Pica (I think)

Pattern Interrupt

1. Robin Thicke - Cocaine
2. Rihanna - Rehab
3. Kanye West - Can't Tell Me Nothing
4. Eric Benet - Love Don't Love Me ft. Clipse
5. LL Cool J - Rub My Back
6. Babyface - There She Goes
7. Timbaland - The Way I Are ft. Keri Hilson
8. Kanye West - Stronger
9. Raphael Saadiq - Still Ray
10. Ray J - Formal Invite
11. Robin Thicke - S.O.S. Baby
12. Tank - I Love Them Girls (Part 2)
13. Kelis - Running Mate
14. LL Cool J - Head Sprung (Remix) ft. Justin Timberlake & Keri Hilson
15. M.I.A. - Boyz
16. Rihanna - Umbrella ft. Jay-Z
17. Nelly - Play It Off ft. Pharrell
18. Justin Timberlake - I'm Lovin' It
19. Keystone - The Day The Earth Stood Still

Rant must've been the book I was reading at the time I made this compilation. Passes for white, early to mid-twenties male reads a Chuck Palahniuk novel, how very stereotypical of me. This was the eighth book by the Fight Club author, a figure whose work has become more and more hit and miss over the years and also considered to be more and more problematic. This was 2007, so cut me a break. He still has a fierce and loyal fan base though. He's kinda the modern literature version of Quentin Tarantino, if somewhat more prolific. I still quite enjoy his writing but take him considerably less seriously than when I was a young man.

Growing up is a funny thing. The relationship you have with your past self is an important one as it entirely informs who you are now. I think about myself as the sad lonely boy of my late teens and early twenties, who romanticized his sadness and wallowed in downer music, wondering exactly how Ryan Adams was able to so perfectly articulate my feelings and I find him kind of endearing if a little pathetic. Or there was the Bill Hicks worshiping, Rage Against the Machine and Public Enemy obsessed, angry youth stereotype. Spouting strong but not particularly informed opinions (usually drunkenly) at anyone who would listen. I find him a little embarrassing but recognise that it was an important developmental stage. I wish I'd listened to all of my older friends and workmates when they tried to tell me to chill out, listen more instead of ranting incessantly and realise it was a recipe for looking foolish to be so certain of anything with so little information because if I've learned anything to be certain in the last 15 years or so it is that I don't know shit for sure. 

These versions of me, along with a whole host of other versions have all gone into the gumbo which makes up the current me. Just as the current me is just another ingredient in the future me. The same as with everyone. How you use these ingredients can either add up to a better tasting, more interesting and flavorful gumbo or it can go wrong. A poor chef doesn't develop the dish and it stays more or less the same. Which is almost as bad as a chef who spoils it. 

At the end of his first verse on Can't Tell Me Nothing (which appears early on this disc), the title of which is very much an expression of youthful arrogance and ignorance, Kanye West sarcastically suggests 'I guess I shoulda forgot where I came from'. Noting that staying in touch with your past, remembering it and learning from it is essential to development and becoming an adult. The song is typical for Kanye in that fronted with confidence and braggadocio but underneath there is an insecurity, where he is asking questions of who he is and what he has learned. Aware of his own faults but still not grown enough to correct them. 10 years later and not much has changed with him but this song remains in my top 5 Kanye tracks ever. I hope he never stops making music this good but as a person maybe he needs a pattern interrupt. Sidenote: the Hype Williams video for the single was good, the Micheal Blieden, Zach Galifianakis and Will Oldham starring alternative version is incredible.

Anyhow, the reason I remember that I was reading Rant at the time of disc burning is because literally the only thing I remember about the book aside from it having something to do with urban destruction derbies, is the concept of 'pattern interrupt' from which the disc takes its title. The idea is that if you have a bad habit or a personality defect that you'd like to correct then you need to interrupt the pattern of behaviour around it. For example if you always forget people's names after they've introduced themselves to you, in future you should note in your mind the colour of their eyes, a detail to which you can attach the name. Something you wouldn't usually do. Break the usual pattern. David with the blue eyes. Sarah with the hazelnut eyes etc. I have tried to employ this tactic from time to time but I haven't been very good at making it stick.

Ecstasy or MDMA is the only drug that I think back on with any real fondness (I will get into this in another blog). I'm more or less retired from partying, in my heyday I had some fun with cocaine but it is also responsible for some of my most cringeworthy behaviour. The only time I can think of where I ever consciously and deliberately acted like a total asshole to someone was under the Columbian marching powder's influence. The shame makes me shudder. Gross. Still the ode to the white lines by Robin Thicke that opens this compilation is a smooth and funky jam that makes it sound like the good time it could often be. The sound of a party going on in the background is a nice touch.

Being able to dabble in drugs is a luxury I have been afforded by the fact that I don't have an addictive personality. I'm that annoying guy who can stop and start smoking at will and has always been able to maintain control of his vices. I could always go hard when I wanted but knew when (and was able to) to stop, when the party was over. Of course if things go really wrong for me in the future I will regret saying this and tempting fate but I highly doubt that I will ever end up having to go to rehab. In her Timberlake/Timbaland/Lane written single, Rihanna describes having to go to a metaphorical Rehab to recover from her addiction to a scornful lover. When the song came out in '08 I was massively into it, now I like it but I think it got played out a bit. Rihanna appears again later on in the mix alongside Jay-Z for the peerless Umbrella. Terius 'The-Dream' Nash really set out his stall early as one of the worlds best songwriters with that global smash hit. And even after 10 years ubiquity somehow it still isn't played out for me. I even love Terius' leaked demo version of it.

I'll get the obligatory Neptunes section of this disc out of the way. There are six Pharrell and Chad productions on this one. First their superior remix of a decent Eric Benet single, Love Don't Love Me. The new beat and Pharrell's ad-libs along with sterling verses by the brothers Clipse really lift the original into being an all time Neptunes classic. A similar sound is visited for the next track on here, the smooth RnB of Babyface's There She Goes is too silky for words. Next is one of 3 excellent tracks they produced for the otherwise unremarkable second album by professional 'L'-taker and Brandy's brother Ray J. The track here is the single Formal Invite but the album version with the great Pharrell verse. Next is Play It Off, a duet between Pharrell and recently accused sex pest Nelly from his largely terrible sister albums Sweat and Suit. It's an underrated Neps joint, in my opinion, featuring Nelly singing as he and P trade bars. I like that they performed it at the EMA's in Rome that year. It is followed by the much maligned McDonalds jingle I'm Lovin' It performed by Justin Timberlake, which, truth be told, I still kinda like. The story of that particular ad campaign and jingle is an interesting one covered recently in a short video on min documentary channel Hodges U, although it doesn't include the part about the original Cardan song the single came from. And the last track both by them and on the mix is the Keystone track The Day The Earth Stood still which I have covered elsewhere.

Also on the CD is a track listed as being by Robin Thicke called S.O.S. Baby. This has become known as probably the best 'fake Neptunes' beat ever made. And is in fact not by Robin Thicke at all. For years it had many of us Neptunes fans fooled though, that's how good an impression of their signature sound it is. There is still something of a mystery around where the track came from and it may be something I get into more detail at another time, but whoever it may be by, it is a brilliant song.

On the compilation the other Virginia native genius producer of the time, Timbaland, almost matches the Neptunes for showings. He has 5 of the songs on it. Two tracks from LL Cool J's 2004 album The DEFinition, first the excellent Rub My Back with face-scrunching percussion, a strummed guitar sound and a some synth flourishes and later the remix to the lead single from the album, Headsprung. The original is a club banger and the remix doesn't change that, it just adds a showstopping verse from Justin Timberlake and a one from Keri Hilson. Also included is the second single from Timbaland's patchy solo album Shock Value, the Keri Hilson and D.O.E. assisted The Way I Are remains a bright spot with its electro beat. The video version features an M.V.P. appearance from Timbaland's brother Sebastian who jokes to his paramore 'you'r body ain't Pamela Anderson/It's a struggle just to get you in the caravan' before letting her know that he loves her the way she is. Then there is Tank's ballad to strippers named Ecstasy and Fantasy and the like called I Love Them Girls Part 2, an empty facemelter. Lastly from Timbo is the unreleased but fantastic Kelis track Running Mate. I would have liked to have heard from this pairing.

The final three tracks to mention are a second Kanye track in Stronger, the massive hit single which actually Timbaland helped Kanye with the drums on, the really great Raphael Saadiq neo-soul single Still Ray and the perfectly fine M.I.A. single Boyz.

Music is all about looking to both the past and to the future. The best stuff uses what it has learned from the history of recorded sound as it seeks to find new territory and push boundaries into the future. This is what all great artists do and this is also what all good people do. You think about who you were, who you are and who you want to be and you go through the different stages of yourself in order to get to the best possible version of yourself. When I made this mix I was a lazy bartender in an Edinburgh bar who partied too much. Now, writing this, I'm a lazy English teacher living in Barcelona who never goes out at all. In the future who knows who I'll be but I'll still be a little bit both those guys and a bunch of others I've spent time with and loads I have yet to get to know.

What's Her Name (M - Z)

1. The White Stripes - Now Mary
2. Supergrass - Mary
3. Maxi Priest - Mary's Got A Baby (Neptunes Remix)
4. Jimi Hendrix - The Wind Cries Mary
5. Jethro Tull - Cross Eyed Mary
6. Kings Of Leon - Molly's Chambers
7. Buddy Holly - Peggy Sue
8. Nirvana - Polly
9. AC/DC - Whole Lotta Rosie
10. The Smashing Pumpkins - Thru The Eyes Of Ruby
11. The Everley Brothers - Wake Up Little Susie
12. Skillz - Suzie Q ft. Cee-Lo Green & Pharrell
13. The Zutons - Valerie
14. Bad Boys - Oh Veronica (Beatbox Version)
15. The Glamour Girls - Oh! Veronica
16. The Horrors - Sheena Is A Parasite
17. Weezer - Susanne

Now Mary. It's a popular name, huh? There are a lot of Marys. They're everywhere. Especially in Christian countries. It is a biblical name after all. Obviously, in recent years its popularity has dwindled in accordance with the importance of the religion in people's lives. Currently Mary sits at the 124th spot on the list of most popular girls names, in between Adalynn and Ximena (?!).

I have definitely encountered many a Mary in my time but the only one that comes to mind is the one I met most recently. August 2017 I left London and had a month long stay back in Edinburgh before moving to start a new life in Barcelona. Mary was one of two teachers I had during that stay, as I studied to become an ESL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher. She was great and really did a lot to help me get my certificate. It was an intensive four week course with a lot of work and she was able to keep everyone on the course calm and gave invaluable advice that would help us to become good teachers.

Aside from her I really struggle to think of another Mary with any real significance to me. Mary has been largely forgettable in my life, but she has indelibly left her mark on the history of popular music.

The first 5 tracks on this second disc are about Mary (there is something about her) and there are only 17 tracks in total. As with Betty on the first part, I should have restricted it to just one Mary but I suppose I didn't because it was too difficult a decision. It is a tough call.

The White Blood Cells album track by The White Stripes Now Mary is a typically sweet, blues rock belter from Jack n Meg. The Supergrass single is really good too, from their self-titled third album. It was accompanied by a creepy Hammer Horror homage video that was banned and then shown censored for being 'too scary for TV'. It's fantastically catchy, with a nice organ part running throughout and fun lyrics about a nightmare, green-toothed figure with the name in question.

The Maxi Priest remix is great but appeared and so has been discussed on an earlier mix. The Wind Cries Mary by Jimi is wonderful, of course and Jethro Tull's Cross Eyed Mary, the story of a young prostitute, is a classic rock masterclass.

In all honesty I could have made a separate disc just for Marys. Then I would have opened with Nick Drake's Thoughts of Mary Jane before going to the Creedence orginal of Proud Mary followed by Mother Mary by Rihanna. Mary Had A Baby (Remix) would slot in next. Then I'd have Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers with Mary Jane's Last Dance into Etta James' Tough Mary into Run D.M.C. Mary, Mary. Hail Mary by Tupac and Miss Mary by Slim Thug to keep things hip-hop and then switch it up with Deep Purple's classic rock attack on the hypocrisy of Mary Whitehouse and Lord Longford, Mary Long. Now Mary would fit nicely here. A folky detour would follow beginning with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's Madeleine-Mary into Neil Diamond's Oh Mary into Glen Campbell - Mary in The Morning into Mary by Sublime. Supergrass, Jethro Tull and Jimi next. And then I would have ended with the Ike and Tina Turner ultimate version of Proud Mary. But I never made that compilation.

For the purposes of this compilation I think I'd have to stick with the White Stripes opener to kick things off and jettison the others before moving on to one of the few Kings Of Leon songs I still like; Molly's Chambers. The title of which is a reference to Thin Lizzy's 1973 version of Irish folk song Whisky In The Jar. I only know one Molly in real life and she is my partner's friend from college. I think they fancy each other at little bit. They're both babes, so fair enough.

Encounters with Peggy Sues count at zero for me currently. The 1957 rock'n'roll Buddy Holly single is marvelous however and I will never tire of encounters with her. I have also no real memory of any Pollys. The one included on this disc is the Nirvana song that lead Bob Dylan to remark of Kurt Cobain 'the kid has heart'. It is based on the true story of a kidnapped 14 year old girl in Washington 1987 who subsequently escaped. It is sung from the perspective of her captor, serial-rapist Gerald Friend, thus a lovely song with incredibly dark subject matter.

Celebrating the 'larger lady', Whole Lotta Rosie is exactly like most AC/DC songs, which is to say brilliant. They really only had one song, like The Ramones, but it is a helluva song. I have definitely had some interactions with girls called Rosie but we were never really very important to each other.

The first Ruby I met was the Chilean friend of my father's whose younger brother Gallo was always very amusing to be around. Ruby is a lovely lady who remains a friend of the family. The most recent Ruby I met, I at the same place as the Mary I discussed earlier. She was another student in Mary's CELTA class. She's a nice girl with a strong wanderlust. The Ruby on this mix is a representation of Billy Corgan's soon to be ex-wife in a song about the end of their marriage, Thru The Eyes Of Ruby. It appears on the second side of The Smashing Pumpkin's magnum opus Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, it contains around 70 guitar tracks and it is fantastic.

Susie/Suzy or Suzanne is the second most popular name on this mix. And has been similarly popular in my life. From girls in my primary school to a teacher I work with today, there have been a number. Pretty much all of them charming in their own way. The one that I think of first when I think of the name is the beautiful ginger one that was a few years above me in school. I had met her in passing in the school corridors but got to know her when it turned out her family were good friends with my best friends family. We always got on really well.  Her, her sister, my best friend and his sister and I all ended up at partying together fairly regularly. Those were fun times. I haven't see her in a few years, but we bump into each other occasionally at family gatherings.

Wake Up Little Suzie by The Everly Brothers is unquestionably classic. A rock n' roll staple that is never not going to get people dancing. Suzie Q by Virginia native Skillz featuring Cee-Lo Green and Pharrell is a great Neptunes rarity. It's tells the story of a female con-artist who takes advantage of gullible men with her great beauty. Skillz explains how he thought he had enough game to take her on but in the end he losing out to her too. The beat is awesome, Cee-Lo kills his feature and Pharrell's ad-libs lift it perfectly. Underrated. 

Susanne plays out over the end credits of Kevin Smith's critically derided, fanboy loved, box office flop of a sophomore feature film Mallrats. This is probably why I decided to put it at the end of the mix, not in keeping with the alphabetical order of the rest of the compilation, it feels like and end credits song. I loved the film despite it's many flaws and the commentary on the Special Edition DVD is worth checking out, it's funnier than the film itself. The song was included as a b-side to the Undone single from Weezers first album. I still adore it and think that it is way too good to have just been a b-side.

In between Suzie Q and Susanne are The Zutons - Valerie, Bad Boys - Veronica, The Glamour Girls - Oh! Veronica and The Horrors - Sheena Is A Parasite. Sheena the track has been covered before and I have never met one in real life. The Veronicas (not the Aussie band) are actually two versions of the same song, a male and female version of a slut-shaming old-school hip-hop number. One version would be enough and the Bad Boys version has an Inspector Gadget sample, so it wins. Simple as that. I don't think I know any real Veronicas.

Unpopular opinion time: The Zutons' original version of Valerie is superior to the much favoured Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse version. I said it. It's also true. 2 Valeries from my life spring to mind. the first is an old friend of my mother's, she's a lovely posh lady who used to be an air hostess. By some weird coincidence, the other Valerie I know I met on the same day as I met Mary. She was the other teacher I had on my course back in Edinburgh! Like Mary, she is a lovely lady who taught me a lot about teaching. The two of them really set me on my way to a new life and I am thankful for what they did for me.

What's Her Name (M - Z) is not really very good. It feels rushed and not very well thought out. I mean there is no Darling Nikki on there. Wtf?! That would be the first edit I'd make if I was doing it all again. If we're losing 4 Marys and a Veronica then Darling Nikki is instead of one of the Marys. I'd want to also throw The-Dream's Nikki and probably Nikki Part 2 on there as well, but Prince's Nikki is definitive and enough. Lovely Rita would be included, another glaring oversight along with Sara Smile by Hall and Oates. FYI The Essential Hall and Oates will really set of your Sunday morning just right. Just letting you know if you didn't already. The other 2 spaces would probably go to Tina Toledo's Street Walking Blues by Ryan Adams and Tiffany Blews by Fall Out Boy. And thus the mix would be improved massively.

Unfortunately I'm not a songwriter and so the most important women in my life will have to go on without song-title representation on these mixes. If you're reading this, I want to let you know you are appreciated. You know who you are ladies. I love you.

What's Her Name? (A-L)

1. Death In Vegas - Aisha
2. Terrorvision - Alice, What's The Matter?
3. Saian Supa Crew - Angela
4. The Beach Boys - Barbara Ann
5. Spank Rock - Backyard Betty
6. Ram Jam - Black Betty
7. Too $hort - Blow Job Betty
8. Dr. John - My Opinionation (Theme From Blossom)
9. Shaggy - Oh Carolina
10. Kate Nash - Caroline is A Victim
11. Plan B - Charmaine
12. Chicks - Daria
13. Johnny Cash - Delia's Gone
14. Michael Jackson - Dirty Diana
15. The Velvet Underground - Sweet Jane
16. Franz Ferdinand - Jaqueline
17. Golden Smog - Jennifer Save Me
18. Dizzee Rascal - Jezebel
19. Dolly Parton - Jolene
20. The Ramones - Judy Is A Punk
21. The Libertines - What Katie Did
22. The Kinks - Lola

I never knew a girl named Aisha. At least none I can remember. The song by Death In Vegas with Iggy Pop delivering a spoken word piece about murder and escaped serial killers is terrific though with its heavy riff-age, thumping drums and weird, sinister synth details and an eerie organ part. On the other hand I have, however, encountered a few Alices in my time. My best pal's missus is a lovely actress and comedian called Alice and I shared a flat with a delightful French girl called Alice for about a year too. 

Also two of the last three girls I pulled before meeting my partner were coincidentally called Alice. One of them worked in the same building as I did. I worked in a cafe/bar in the ground floor and the rest of the building with filled with various studios. Alice was a pretty, mixed race girl who worked in fashion. One night she got drunk with her friends while I was at work and came behind the bar to kiss me and demand that I take her out and then when I messaged her to set up the date a few days later she blew me off. Girls can be weird. The other girl I worked with for a while and had a really great, fun, flirty relationship with but who I avoided getting into anything more with due to the fact that I wasn't going to be kicking around in Edinburgh for much longer and a significant age difference (I'm about 10 years older). We had our moments though and then we both moved on and met the people we are now in happy long-term relationships now with within about two weeks of each other. I can't remember specifically asking any of these girls what the matter was though. I would be embarrassed about admitting that Terrorvision were one of my two favourite bands when I was 15 if I didn't still have a soft spot for their first two and a half albums.

Two Angelas spring to mind; one I went to school with, who had long, straight ginger hair and that is about all the details I can really summon about her, the other is the pretty actress friend of my sister, who I met a bunch of times and got on quite well with. So the song by French rap consortium Saian Supa Crew remains the most prominent associations I have with the name, albeit with a slightly different pronunciation. Same goes for the name Barbara Ann and the song by The Beach Boys, except I have never met anyone with such a silly name and doubt that such a person even really exists.

For such a common name I honestly can't recall having ever met a single Betty. Blowjob or otherwise. The Spank Rock song on here is an abrasive electro-rap banger featuring Spank delivering typically lewd bars as effectively as he ever did. The Ram Jam song is a classic rock stomp cover of a (possibly) Leadbelly standard. It is incredible. And Too $hort's song outdoes even Spank Rock in crudeness. But this is his zone, his bread and butter. Too $hort can spin yarns of filth at will, ad infinitum. This disc really doesn't need three songs about Bettys to be honest, I should have stuck with just the Ram Jam tune and made room for a couple of other girls.

Including My Opinionation in this mix was always a bit of a cheat as well. The girls name only appears in parenthesis as it was the theme song for the early 90's television comedy named after the lead character; Blossom. It is a fun enough ditty but again it should have been shorn to allow another lady in.  Still to this day she is the only Blossom I have ever been aware of anyway.

Ice skating at Murrayfield Ice Rink with my dad and my sister every weekend for a few years when I was about 11 years-old will always come to mind whenever I hear Shaggy's 1993 hit Oh Carolina. It must have been on the staffs favourite tape, as it seemed like it was ALWAYS on. There is no question that it is a fantastic song obviously. FYI; I was pretty good at skating for a while there. These are not two things that necessarily relate to each other.

One of my good mates in high school had a little sister named Caroline. That is the only Caroline that I can remember having met. She was a drummer I think. Caroline Is A Victim in the song by Kate Nash but the real victim here is me for having listened to such utter, irredeemable shit. 

When Plan B's debut album came out I was quite excited about it. Now not so much. Charmaine is an acoustic rap number detailing, in cringe-worthy terms, Plan B's affair with the titular girl but it takes a twist at the end into peadophillic/statutory rape territory. I amn't sure if this is meant to be funny or a cautionary tale, but it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I must have gotten a juvenile kick out of it at the time but now I am in my thirties it doesn't seem so amusing. Zero encounters with a real Charmaine for me either.

Irish pop punk trio Chicks released 2 EPs circa 1999/2000 before disbanding. Their songs were generally shouty gems about things they liked including Jackie Can and in this instance a girl named Daria. Presumably she is named after the lead of the MTV show of the same name that was popular particularly amongst teenage girls in that era. I remember Luke picked up their first EP Criminales, Coches, Pistolas Y Chicas and telling me about them cause he knew it'd be right up my street. Daria was on their second one; Little Monkeys With Lots Of Money. Eight songs are all we got from them unfortunately. Daria is probably my favourite. Darias in my life are scarce. I think my mum or sister used to work with one as I'm sure I heard of one being referred to in conversation but I can't remember if I ever met them.

Here's a good Tinder story for you, thankfully with less murder and drama than the Johnny Cash song Delia's Gone; I was on the dating app for a wee while when it came out. I was single and it seemed like fun. The pattern with most of the matches I got went like so; I would message them some vaguely amusing question, they would respond with little or no wit or vim, I would try another approach and either get nothing back or a similarly boring second response, the end. Almost every time. Not Delia though, her responses were full of personality and sass. She was funny and engaging and I got to know a fair bit about her background, her job and what she did for fun. 

I knew I liked her when I gave her Superman/Batman/Spiderman in a fuck/marry/kill. To my mind there is only one correct answer to this one. It is a great litmus test. If you can put your (my) nerdy pedantic impulses aside and ignore the fact that one of these characters is from a different comicbook universe to the other two, then it really is the perfect version of the game. It covers three strong male archetypes; the muscular, seemingly invincible hero type with the geeky, insecure sensitive side, the dark and dangerous, fucked up but ultimately good guy and the geek with the good sense of humour and surprising strength. The way a person answers will tell you a lot about them because they have to have reasons. Her response was the one.

Still the chat fizzled out quite quickly, probably because I am rubbish at, well, knowing when it's on and when to make a move and more or less everything when it comes to girls. So that was that... Until a few months later; a girl comes into the cafe I was working in on Mare Street. I hadn't been at the counter when she'd arrived so I hadn't served her but I saw her sitting at the back of the room. I thought 'that's weird, that girl looks a lot like that Delia girl from Tinder.' Then our PR girl arrived and went and sat down with her. I became more and more suspicious that it might actually be her.

Bear in mind, London has a population of 8.6 million people and the search zone radius I had set on Tinder was to a large portion of the city. The likelihood of matching and then meeting by chance is slim at the best of times; and yet that is what happened. As she left our eyes met and I could see that she thought she recognised me but wasn't sure. It turned out that the company that she worked for was going to be having its first anniversary party at our cafe/bar. And so for the next few weeks she would show up at my work to have meetings and organise. We met in passing but skipped formal introductions, I never got her name and so I still wasn't 100% sure that she was the Tinder girl, just like 95%. After a couple of days she added me on Facebook confirming it. But it was too late for anything between us to be anything but cripplingly awkward.

In Johnny Cash's song he kills Delia, shoots her (twice) dead. Then in his jail cell she haunts him. The lyrics vary slightly if you're listening to the 1962 version or the 1994 version which is the one included here, but the basic arc of the murder ballad is the same. The outcome of Delia and I's story is more simple; we have remained digital friends on facebook but any potential relationship beyond that was scuppered by my lack of game and our mutual awkwardness. It wasn't meant to be.

The first musician I can remember being really into, obsessed with in fact, was Michael Jackson. I realise I am not alone in this, especially with people of my generation. My dress up and dance game was slightly above average however. 7 year-old me spent many hours watching his music videos, particularly Smooth Criminal, on repeat and learning every hat-tilt, leg flick and crotch grab. I was only 5 years-old when Dirty Diana, Jacksons tale about one particularly seductive groupie, came out. It wasn't until about a year or 2 later that it became my favourite MJ song. It's a weird one for a kid under 10 to really love, it is mid-tempo and sounds dark, all in the key of G minor, I couldn't have understood the subject matter and he had far more catchy and colourful numbers to choose from. But it is so dramatic, those hair metal guitars are so over the top. It stands to reason that my other favourite song at that time was Europe's The Final Countdown. No Diana's I actually met in person made quite the impact that this (possibly) fictional one did on me.

One of my best mates has a younger sister called Jane. She is a really nice girl and the song Sweet Jane from the fourth Velvet Underground album Loaded is also really nice. Jaqueline, the opening track from the fantastic 2004 debut, self-titled album from Glasgow indie-rock outfit Franz Ferdinand is an immense, angular, hook-laden anthem that unfortunately will be forever overshadowed for me by another Glasgow Jaqueline; Limmy's Jaquiline McCafferty. There are an abundance of Jennifers in my life, cousins, friends and acquaintances and like most of them super-group Golden Smog's song Jennifer Save Me has been a lovely one to know, admittedly not that well.

Misogyny in music in general has been a problem for a long time, even if some people, racists I like to call them, will say it is only really a problem in different forms of hip-hop. Some of my favourite artists have troublesome ways of discussing and depicting women and so it is particularly weird to really love songs that you disagree with so completely morally with regards to message and language. For me this happens a lot and Jezebel by grime legend-come pop clown Dizzee Rascal is one of those times. I cannot condone his slut-shaming but I also cannot deny that I love this song. At least Dizzee does a little unpacking and analyzing of what kind of life the girl in question leads but this kind of talk about women is archaic and unacceptable. Obviously the same point could be made in reference to a number of the tracks included on this mix. Needless to say if I ever meet a Jezebel I will not assume to judge her in the way that Dizzee does the one in his song.

Never knew a Jolene but boy do I love Jolene; the flawless, country classic by Dolly Parton. I also have a lot of love for The White Stripes' cover of it. As for Judy, the same deal as many of the other girls on this tape; I'm sure I've known some but none have been as memorable as The Ramones' punky juggernaut Judy Is A Punk. I fell in love with The Ramones when I was about 19 and this song was possibly the first one of theirs that got its hooks into me. A few years later director West Anderson used the song perfectly in his film The Royal Tennebaums, so now it will be forever tied to that sequence. Not necessarily a bad thing in this case.

For a while there, in my early twenties, I'm not sure what I would have done without Katie. When I first met her she was my new best friend's kid sister. They had a really close relationship. They fought more than me and my sister did but spent way more time with each other too. They went to the same parties, bars and clubs and shared friends. At some point, after high school, when Luke was working in clubs and as a result was in the pub less, I ended up spending more time hanging out with Katie than I did him.

Luke, George and I then moved into the now infamous party flat on Gilmore Place and Katie was basically the unofficial fourth flatmate when we weren't propping up the bar in Rush. She'd come round and we would stay up all night playing video games, usually Pro Evolution Soccer, playing Shithead and sometimes Scrabble, watching episodes of The OC or music videos on MTV, a bit of fusbol, a fair amount of drinking and getting up to other general mischief. There was a rotating cast of characters that joined us but the two of us were a fixture.

Bouts of depression, a few panic attacks, the loss of a dear friend and being too messed up to function were some of the lows from a period that felt very much like a rollercoaster. And Katie was there for it all. We comforted each other and laughed with each other and got crazy, shit-faced drunk together. And then she moved to Dundee for uni and I was gutted. We'd been in each others company so much and had been asked if we were in a relationship so often that I think even we weren't sure what to make of it. We pushed it a few times but never became 'more than friends', which is a weird phrase. It implies that being friends isn't as valuable. Katie has been invaluable to me and What Katie Did was to be a great friend when I needed one. And still is. Shoop, shoop, de-lang, de-lang.

Lola by The Kinks is great isn't it? I always loved that song. I'm sure at some point I met a girl who was named after the song. It was either too long ago to remember or I was too intoxicated to retain the information fully.

Listening back to this mix I'd like to suggest a few edits to my younger self; with 2 of the three Bettys cut and no Blossom there would be space for Julia by Silver Sun and Laura by Scissor Sisters and possibly Amy by Ryan Adams and/or Debra by Beck. I have no stories about any Julias or Debras and of the Lauras I've encountered only the loveley mousey one from my year at High School has made any real impact. She was pretty and sweet and had no idea how attractive she was, and all the dudes liked her but nobody ever hit on her for some reason. She seemed too innocent to mess with, almost intimidatingly so. Amys? There have been a number but the Ryan Adams song might be the prettiest I've known.

The absence of Billie Jean is indefensible.

And that is the end of the first half of What's Her Name? having covered the girls with names starting with A through L. See you after the break for M through Z.

I'm glad I don't know any songs about a girl named... well, that's a more complicated story than I care to get into.

(Intermission)