Celebrating five years on air with Dalmatian Rex & The Eigentones in session

It's always difficult to know what to do about anniversaries, if you do anything at all that is.  I spent Saturday night watching amazing sets from Vert:x and Red Elektra 69 at the Jolly Tar in Wardle in the company of a few pints of Directors and the locally brewed Cheshire Cat ales, but I would have done that anyway so that doesn't really count.

So what came to mind as an option to celebrate five years on the air with Dandelion Radio was a fairly obvious one: to invite exclusive sessions from some of my favourite bands of the last five years.  Realising I couldn't fit them all into one show, without sacrificing all the great new music I wanted to play - which wouldn't have done at all - I opted to spread it out a bit.  Thus last month saw an astonishing live set from Extradition Order and next month we'll have a session from one of my favourites of the last twelve months, the wonderful Snailhead.  In July we've got a particularly special one-off and at the moment I'm not going to say what it is for fear that it doesn't come off.  Not to be missed though, I promise you that.

For the month of the actual anniversary itself, it really had to be Dalmatian Rex and the Eigentones.  Their 'Geek' single featured in one of the very first batches of CDs I received via Dandelion and I loved it instantly, using it as a springboard into what at that stage was already a well-established back catalogue from this fascinating band.  Since then they've got better and better, their repetoire still underpinned by a kind of private world surreal humour that comes out of oddball left-field obsessions, the backdrop to which is a weird tunefulness and enigmatic hummability that some of those pricks who sit in a recording studio discussing with their producers how to make their shit 'marketable' would kill for.  

The last five year would have been worthwhile even if Dalmatian Rex and the Eigentones had been the only band I'd encountered via my involvement with Dandelion.  That they are only one of several hundred such bands makes me feel very privileged indeed.  If you're a listener to the show, I hope you've found at least a portion of these bands to your liking.  If you're not a listener, check out Dalmatian Rex and the Eigentones and find out what you've been missing

Free download: A water vole contemplates the heliopause as a snowflake slowly falls upon Loch Assynt: OSGB36 NC208250

Mark W