Barry Adamson: The Man with the Golden Arm

By accident I played this at 33⅓ instead of 45 rpm. Instead of just sounding durrrty (my attempt at Scottish rolling r), it was duuurrrrrty — just as sleazy, grinding and sweaty, but almost more brazenly sexual.

I really can't think of track that oozes sex as much as this one does. It hit me the first time I heard it, thanks to John Peel, shortly after I moved into my first flat. I knew I had to have it. I doubt I knew who Barry Adamson was, and I certainly didn't know there was a film called The Man with the Golden Arm with a score by Elmer Bernstein and an opening sequence by Saul Bass.

But I had to have it — alongside the sex, it sounded like the perfect splicing of the grit and tone of Sonic Youth with hip-pumping swing — and Record Collector in Broomhill was glad to oblige in exchange for £3.29. I played this to Lucy a few years ago, and she had a similar reaction to mine.

BTW that album cover frame arrived yesterday — I'll never go back to shopping in shops when impulse buying is this easy and quick — and my copy of Ascension looks fantastic on my wall. I put it in the music room, where I think it avoids accusations of coffee-table-showing-off: it's not like I'm trying to draw the attention of casual visitors to my jazz cool. By the time anyone's been invited into the sanctum of the music room… well, the whole room is like an immersive 3D coffee table; it's already turned up to 11.

And a final postscript: just noticed that this record was engineered by our old friend Paul Kendall a.k.a. Piquet.

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