Easy Wonderful- Guster (2010)

When people wander into my gaff (Apologies- I've been watching old episodes of Minder again) and espy my vast CD collection (Stop sniggering at the back, this isn't Benny Hill!), there are a number of frequently asked questions:

• Wow, there's a lot of them aren't there? (Answer: Correct, astuteness is your middle name!)
• Why don't you put them all on i-tunes, sell them on e-bay and make room for pot plants and ornaments? (Answer: Because I don't want to, I love owning something I can see, now off you pop!)
• WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

To be fair, the last question is entirely valid because it is fair to say that a good proportion of the albums that I own have never threatened the popular music charts, not even with a wagging finger and a mild grrr. The Disc Jockeys of this fair country have never spun them on the airwaves. The artists have never appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, Wogan or anything featuring ruddy Jonathan Ross! So, you may ask, how on earth did they come to my attention?

Well I suppose it started off with the music press. And at this point I'd love to say that I read the NME, Melody Maker and Sounds under my bed covers at night, whilst listening to John Peel,  as that would make me sound at the cutting edge of cool. However, as anyone who knew me as a teenager, I was never near the cutting edge of anything (Least of all a pair of scissors when I went through my highland cow phase). In any case I was spending all my money on records so had nothing left for music papers. Which was just as well as Sounds was full of articles about the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, absolute donkey droppings- Saxon, Venom, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden-Run to the Hills (I'm here all week!). Meanwhile a lot of the stuff in the NME at that time was written by pseudo-intellectuals who tended to go on about Situationism, Dadaism and any other ism you can think of, rather music which was the purpose of the paper in the first place.

No, my encounter with the music press came when I was at University and had more cash (This may sound confusing to people who have been students in the last 20 years but I had a grant, something that was swept away by the Tory Education Secretary whose name escapes me but he looked like a slug, which I freely acknowledge doesn't narrow the field down much) and bought Music Monthlies, Q, Vox, Uncut, Select and Mojo.  To be honest the articles in most of them are of a variable quality (Uncut have a thoroughly tiresome obsession with Neil Young, even though his recent CDs would be better used as frisbees and when Q went through their "saucy" phase and kept printing semi-clad pictures of Christina Aquilera and Britney Spears, the wife had me shedbound). But what really intrigued me was the reviews pages, they were full of reviews by bands I had never heard of. Now clearly any review containing the phrases "Shimmering soundscapes of beauty"  or "Squalls of feedback drenched guitar" would not getting me parting with my cash but many of them sounded intriguing and so, armed with more money than sense, I headed off to the Longplayer in Canterbury or the local Our Price (Ah those were the days) to take a gamble. Now occasionally I fell flat on my face (I still hang my head in shame when I think of the £5 wasted on Mega City City Four's Sebastopol Road) but more often than not the reviews led to me striking gold. My life long love for artists such as The Men They Couldn't Hang, Miracle Mile, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nanci Griffith have all stemmed from such leaps into the dark.

Now I have another wonderful way of discovering the unknown, the Internet. The marvels of Spotify and Youtube means I can test out a review before taking the plunge. Superb inventions which have saved me loads of money. I listened to a track by a band called Tale Impala the other day. The review in Uncut made it sound like the best thing since Victoria Pendleton. As soon as the track came on Youtube, however,  both the cat and I ran screaming from the study and hid under the bed as it sounded like an opera singer had had her foot trodden on by a rhino.

Then you have Allmusic! If you have not discovered this wonderful website go at once to www.allmusic.com and a world of wonder awaits. Essentially you type in the name of a band you like and it gives you a list of artistes who sound like them! GENIUS! As you can imagine this has led me to discover groups that I never knew existed (and in some cases bands that I suspect that hardly anyone knows existed apart from their mums and dads) and my world is a much richer place because of it. It was through All Music that I discovered Guster and their wonderful "Easy Wonderful" album (pun intended!) and it was while I was playing it that I got thinking of this whole subject. It's interesting because when I mention the names of obscure groups and artists (And, to be fair, Guster is a SHOCKING name), a number of people assume that their music must be weird or unlistenable. Again there is clearly a lot of unlistenable obscure music (If you ever get offered the chance to listen to a band called Einstende Neubarten, slap the person who is making the suggestion and scarper sharpish, unless you have a fondness for people banging industrial piping together repeatedly). However an awful lot of music that has never been given greater exposure to the public is actually very commercial, tuneful and thoroughly entertaining. "Easy Wonderful" is a fantastic collection of great catchy fun pop songs in the vein of Crowded House and Squeeze. If that sounds like your bag, have a listen on Youtube!

And that to me is the answer to the question that often comes after "Who are these people?", "Why do you listen to this obscure stuff anyway?", because it's great music. Now of course one man's meat is another policeman's encounter with Austin Mitchell. There are things that you've never heard of that you need never to hear (Ah Einstende Neubarten again!) but if you are sittting there thinking "Most of the music they play on the radio these days is shocking", "This reality TV music is like being punched in the ears by the Klitschkos" or "Surely there must be more to life than Mumford and Sons", there is an alternative! Pick up a music monthly, get on Allmusic, give it a spin on Youtube and take the plunge. Your ears will thank you!