If Evel Knievel ever needed a backing band

I’m always a bit wary when somebody gives me a compilation CD they have put together themselves. If it’s from a girlfriend, I can’t help but pay great attention to the lyrics, searching for hidden clues as to where the relationship is heading. “You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go” – that’s sweet. (Unless of course you see them pretty much every day anyway, in which case that is all a bit smothering). “You can go your own way” – I think we know what’s on the horizon…

Anyway, I started temping at a new job and fairly early on, I was chatting with a colleague at work about music. The very next day, he came into the office with two CDs he had burned for me. (Entirely legally, I have no doubt).

Thankfully I was able to avoid embarrassment when he asked me what I thought of them, as I thought they were both great. And it introduced me to a whole host of artists and songs I had hitherto never heard of, but now consider essential components of my record collection - Old Crow Medicine Show, Micah P Hinson, Band of Horses, Gillian Welch.

An Ozark Mountain Daredevils LP will be on my shelf as soon as I get around to finding one (a record, that is – I do have the furniture), because apart from anything else, they have a truly fabulous band name.

The album is well titled too and the song also has a great name, although it sounds like a contract you’d sign upon joining an S&M club.