Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

I haven't bought any sounds for almost six weeks now, as I've been trying to get on top of bills incurred by my mega-trip to Scotland's furthest reaches and make good three weeks loss of self-employed earnings.

I'm lucky enough to live a mile away from a brilliant indie record store, but at the moment I half wish I didn't, as I have to drive past its doors at least once a day...it's beginning to bring me out in a cold sweat, as there's bound to be loads of stuff I want within, eg the Ayers box set, Spirit's definitive Rainbow recording- huge thanks for the heads up IanB - Boards' Campfire Headphase, Miles' Circle in the Round, let alone new stuff and the inevitable curveball..and I mustn't..so as it stands my latest buy remains the Waterboys Best of and This is the Sea..unfortunately.

I had cursory aquaintance of A Pagan Place and Fishermans Blues a few years back and thought that the Waterboys might make good in-car music for where I was taking my daughters, so read some raving Amazon reviews, then put money on the counter of aforementioned emporium.

Come the time to play 'TitS', driving by beautiful lochs and mountains..and it's bombast and shoutiness to the point of monotony and production that screamed "Eighties!". Nonetheless it got played all the way though once, including the bonus cd, and then a bit of the way through again, me trying to form an objective opinion and give it another chance, before I finally gave up on it and gave in to the wimpers for Jimi coming from the back seat. Hasn't been played since.

What really made me take against it was the sax playing. I'm not a bloke into hating much, but I HATE the sound of soulless faux-impassioned sax playing. It's like being told by someone that they love you when you know damn well they don't mean it..it's an instrument that somehow black guys to my ears have so much more feeling for.

Of course there are and have been some bloody good white players - my favourites are Jack Schroer, Terry Riley and Jan Garbarek - but I think they're outnumbered, and King Curtis will always be king. Case study: I hadn't seen John Martyn for a long while until what so sadly turned out to be the last time he came to town. He melifluously and at times indecipherably crooned and did his best, but alongside him stood his sax nemesis, interjecting at what seemed all the wrong moments - if there were ever any right ones.

I fixed him with dagger looks from the second row, but on and on he went. Noodlynoodlynoodly... I could have shoved the damn thing where the sun dont shine and it certainly wouldn't.. and now John's gone. No more chances. Anyway, that's This is the Sea for you. A wall of sound heard through several wet dishcloths with a dollop of noodling on top. If others like it fair enough.

The best of didn't make it out of its wrapper and still hasn't...and I need a purchasing antidote so, so much. And a smartphone that isn't faulty and lets me do paragraphs. Fek.