Playlist, 12 October 2008

The Show Today was either the 76th or 80th birthday of one of our heroes, John Gregory (aka Johnny Gregory, aka Chaquito) - depending on which internet source you believe...! In any case, we took the opportunity to play a few tracks by the great man. We also dipped into the wonderful new album by the Moon Wiring Club and of course we simply had to play another track from Jean-Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman's new album, Destination Space. The Music We kicked things off with some groovy Now Sounding library music: 1. Al Newman - Five Plus Four (Music for Dancefloors: The Cream of the Chappell Music Library Sessions, 2001) And that was followed by an arrangement of delicious tune written by the great Gary McFarland: 2. Benny Golson - Fried Bananas (Tune In, Turn On The Hippest Commercials Of The Sixties, 1999) Then it was time for the first of this evening's tracks by John Gregory: 3. Chaquito - The Private Ay Ay Ay (Latin Favourites, 1960) Followed by another spy tune: 4. Dick Hyman - The Third Man Theme (The Man From O.R.G.A.N., 1965) The Man From Uranus is a Cambridge-based musician who until recently was doing a radio show on a local community radio station. But now he's given that up in favour of making his own music. He has a new collection of tracks out which we will hopefully be dipping into on next week's show. But in the meantime, here's a track from an earlier release of his: 5. Man from Uranus - Chased Down the Alley By a Hammerhead Shark (Future Focus, 2006) Keeping things electronic, here's another standout track from the new Jean-Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman album: 6. Jean-Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman - Barn Dance on Saturn (Destination Space, 2008) Then it was time for our first selection this evening from the new Moon Wiring Club album: 7. Moon Wiring Club - Midnight Moulding (Shoes Off And Chairs Away, 2008) Next up we played a track by the wonderful Finnish band who provide our theme tune (which is called Diamond Pyramid by the way): 8. Aaviko - Homo Futurus (Back From The Futer, 2005) Following the story about the "Our National Debt" display (see below) we felt it appropriate to play some educational music on the subject of managing one's finances: 9. Bob Dorough & Val Hawk - Dollars And Sense (Schoolhouse Rock, 1973) Then it was back to our birthday boy for an original composition and one of the finest things John Gregory has recorded: 10. John Gregory - A Face In The Clouds (Gregory Conducts, 1972) For the next track we returned to the recent reissue of Keith Mansfield's All You Need Is... which features several tracks by trumpeter extraordinaire Maynard Ferguson (Mansfield was one of MF's producers): 11. Maynard Ferguson - Spinning Wheel (All You Need Is Keith Mansfield 1972/2008) Time for some space disco next with a track from a great compilation of electronic library music from the mid-70s through into the mid-80s: 12. Brian Bennett - Cloning (Alexis Le-Tan & Jess Present Space Oddities, 2008) And then a double bill of magic starting with another track from the new Moon Wiring Club album: 13. Moon Wiring Club - House And Garden Magic (Shoes Off And Chairs Away, 2008) 14. The Advisory Circle - Hocusing For Beginners (Other Channels, 2008) The Advisory Circle are one of several great bands on the Ghost Box label. And Ghost Box have described the new Moon Wiring Club album as "a masterpiece". Quite an accolade... Another contemporary artiste we love at the Moonbase is Cornelius and he has recently released a DVD edition of his most recent album Sensuous which contains amazing videos for each track on the album. So we took the opportunity to play one of our favourite Cornelius tunes: 15. Cornelius - Brazil (Point, 2001) Seeing as Johnny Gregory/Chaquito recorded one of the best ever versions of Caravan how could we not play it on the man's birthday: 16. Chaquito - Caravan (Spotlight on Chaquito) We closed the show with a track that our London correspondent Jeff brought to our attention: 17. Momotte and Laetitia Sadier - J'ai peur de la voiture (single, 2008) The News

• NASA commissions British Scientist to recreate the smell of space and here.
• Japanese boffins create freaky-looking robot girl "to help the elderly". A video of the robot girl can be seen here. But please only watch if you don't want to have nightmares.
• This week in toasters - a toaster which doubles as a guitar amp
• This week in LEGO - $60,000 gets you life-sized his and hers LEGO statues plus here and here.
• "Our National Debt" display in New York runs out of digits
• Kevlar handkerchief
• Bullet-proof polo shirts for the more casually dressed paranoid
• AK-47 bullet ice cubes and here
• Live Fish Remix
• Cactus micro-chipping
• Space station tourist
• Gates dethroned as tech's richest