Various - 'The Deer Hunter'

I'm pretty sure that this is one of a few records I bought in a thrift store in Brooklyn, when I lived there in the early 1990s. I was sharing an apartment in a brownstone on South Portland Avenue, and had walked to the Silver Spoon on Flatbush for breakfast and a spot of bargain hunting. The walk over took in a fair number of run-down and vacant lots,a sort of urban wasteland. It was OK in the daytime, but you wouldn't want to be there at night. The discarded crack vials made that quite clear.

It's a nice-enough record, although a bit of a mish-mash - it doesn't really make sense without knowing the film. Strings, acapella folk, acoustic guitars, then a bit of polka, then some helicopters and machine guns. It's evocative, but it's hard to say of what - a forgotten America, maybe?

The helicopters sounded great sampled and played back as part of a track when we played a Speakerfreaks gig at The Warehouse in Leeds, late 90s, probably at 'It's Obvious'. I drew the line at machine guns - the KLF had a monopoly on that.

Did I really bring a load of second-hand vinyl home on a plane from New York? Madness.

Catalogue Number: SOO-11940

Tracklist: Cavatina. Praise in the Name of the Lord. Troika. Katyusha. Struggling Ahead. Sarabande. Waiting His Turn. Memory Eternal. God Bless America. Cavatina (Reprise)

Rodgers & Hammerstein - 'South Pacific'

This is one that I inherited from my parents. When they were working at a hospital together in the mid- to late 1960s, there was a staff production of South Pacific, which I guess at the time was still a more-or-less contemporary blockbuster. It's pretty high on the old fashioned cheese, but it's still a great listen. The high point for me is the raucous singalong 'There Is Nothing Like a Dame', partly because I heartily, unreconstructedly believe in the sentiment, but also because I've never met anyone who didn't have a smile put on their face by it.

Two examples: I was driving back from a skiing trip with my friends Ben, Simon and Malcolm. It was long boring drive, given an added twist by Malcolm's gallstones; they meant that we were travelling with a whole roundel of Pecorino cheese, which Malc insisted was a perfectly sensible provision (in case you hadn't guessed, Malc is a chap of a certain age). As we hurtled along, in post-holiday sadness, eating slices of Pecorino on chicory leaves (we're not as metrosexual as that makes us sound), I treated everyone to a run-through of '...Dame', jazz-hands and everything. Well, it cheered me up, anyway.

Example two: I was in the studio as a vocalist during the making of the Overseer album 'Wreckage'. I forget exactly why I'd brought this in - it's just possible that we were trying to find something totally off the wall for a mixtape - and the general response to '...Dame' was 'This is DOPE!'.

The whole album is totally feelgood, with just enough raucousness to balance the slushy string-laden numbers. A stone-cold classic.

Tracklist: South Pacific Overture. Dites-moi. A Cockeyed Optimist. Twin Soliliquies. Some Enchanted Evening. Bloody Mary. My Girl Back Home. There is Nothing Like a Dame. Bali Hai. I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair. A Wonderful Guy. Younger Than Springtime. Happy Talk. Honey Bun. Carefully Taught. This Nearly Was Mine. Finale.

Catalogue number: RCA RB-16065