Things You Find In The Basement While You're Looking For Something Else: 3

The Polyphonic Spree: Days Like This Keep Me Warm (Good Records, 2001)
It had been an odd sort of day anyway, and then, last night, I found myself rooting around in the basement looking for a cake tin. Under a dusty colander there was a box with a load of old drum and bass singles in it and under that, I found this. I remember when my friend Billy first tipped me off to the Spree. They had such an amazing look and such a powerful, uplifting vibe about them that it seemed like everyone who came into contact with them came away feeling a little better about almost everything. I certainly did a year or two later when the now defunct X-Ray magazine sent me to Dallas to interview main Spree chap Tim (we stayed here and my room over-looked where JFK was shot, though, to be fair, I think all Dallas hotel rooms over-look where JFK was shot). Tim was a truly inspiring guy who had a wife and young kids and a record shop and this huge band to look after, but took time out to take me and their press officer (my old mate Lewis, now Elbow's representative on earth) and X-Ray's photographer to his favourite Mexican restaurant for lunch then drive us around a string of fantastic thrift stores and, finally, out for a long evening of cold beer drinking. What a chap. What a band. Of course, when they came back with their second album the British press went, 'Well, we've already done this lot!' and the wheels began to come off. But my love is still strong...