A Bucketfull Of Possibilites

A Bucketfull Of Possibilities was the last various artists compilation Terry and Nick compiled for Bucketfull. Unlike the previous three (and the Zip and Citadel collections) this was a stand-alone production in a jewel box. Also it didn't come with the magazine but was sent separately to all subscribers.

At that stage there was considerable doubt as to the continued viability of the magazine. In March 2003 Nick had returned from the ECMAs in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to discover that Caroline Distribution would no longer be stocking and selling magazines. It was the Caroline sales that guaranteed the income keeping the mag going.

The magazine had a bit of capital so pressed on regardless and decided the projected CD might as well happen. The consequence was Possibilities and you can read our thoughts about it below.

1 Sigmatropic Featuring Carla Torgerson - Haiku 13

2 Snail - Bamboo Rain

3 Diamond Star Halo - The Sky is Falling

4 Brett Smiley - Blame It On The Moon

5 Aerovons - Stopped

6 Phil Seymour - Love Letters

7 Drazy Hoops - The Starry Skies Can Only Cry

8 Sgt. Arms - Company Girl

9 Victor Krummenacher - Do What You Gotta Do

10 Walter Ghoul's Lavender Brigade - Merry Xmas Elizabeth Kimbal

11 Jon Green - Back To The Feeling

12 Steve Wynn & The Miracle 2 - California Style

13 Nelson Hubbard - Baby Doll

14 Marc Carroll - You Saved My Life

15 Jet Lag - Beautiful Scars

16 Cotton Mather - Private Ruth (Acoustic Demo)

17 Rick Corcoran & Markus Holler - Harder Now

18 Gus Black - Confetti

19 Windbreakers - Don't Wanna Know

20 Warm Wires - Party Heart

21 Ju Ju Babies - Sirius

I was playing it the other day and it still sounds good. We have a few so should you want one please order:

When Bucketfull interviewed Gwenno (and put her on the cover)

Listening to her fascinating Freak Zone Playlist (no longer available sadly) the other week I was reminded that back in 2006 we’d interviewed Gwenno and put her then-band The Pipettes on the cover.

That was in Bob#70 and looking back the whole issue strikes me as a rather good issue.For one thing there’s a piece on The Eighteenth Day Of May – a chat with Ben, Karl and Richard – when they were still a going concern. It’s sad to think it’s over a decade since they split, but since between them they’ve birthed The Left Outsides, The Hanging Stars, Lake Ruth, Trimdon Grange Explosion, and The See See (and who have I forgotten?) our regret must be a little tempered.

There’s also interviews with John Doe, Howe Gelb, Jason McNiff, Ian North of Milk’N’Cookies, Scott Morgan of Sonic’s Rendezvous Band. Alan Tyler and Jeremy Gluck provide recollections of Nikki Sudden, and there’s a photograph of Robin Wills.

Copies are still available.

£5.65 to the UK, £8.20 to Europe, and £9.40 to the USA and the Rest Of The World.

Please pay using the PayPal button below and be sure to select appropriate territory from the drop-down menu 

BoB #70 inc P& P

USA & ROW £9.40 GBP Europe £8.20 GBP UK £5.65 GBP

Issue #50 - The Anniversary CD Compilation

Twenty years ago we’d been running Bucketfull for about two years, and by then – between August 1996 and December 1997 - had published four issues without too many hiccups. OK we (or more precisely Terry) had been taken to court by a scumbag, and there were the weird and often inexplicable typos which mortify to this day, but we were solvent. We’d also got shot of all the subscribers we’d inherited from Jon Storey and now had our own growing list.

We were hitting #50 and thus far hadn’t cover-mounted anything. It wasn’t a good time for 7” singles; the nearest pressing plant that anyone knew of was in the Czech Republic; so we thought we’d do a CD compilation instead. We made a wish-list and started working through it, and surprisingly we kept on hitting pay-dirt.

Both Joss and I really wanted to get a Dan Penn track, so I got hold of his address and just wrote him a letter, which you still did in those days, and back came a DAT and a cassette, as you still got in those days, of ‘Jewel Of My Heart’ along with a friendly handwritten reply which I still have to this day. The track was an, possibly the sole, out-take from his Do Right Man album, and is, and remains, utterly wonderful.

We also got a track from Jim Dickinson, 'Too Late'; a song co-written with Ry Cooder and John Hiatt, and recorded with his sons Luther and Cody. Joss had interviewed Jim and so this coincided nicely. We put Jim on the cover; I’d found a nice picture of him in a Dylan magazine but nobody could trace the origin. I ended up phoning up Jim to ask him about it and had a long and wide-ranging conversation – he told me a lot of stories – eventually being advised “just use it, the magazine went bust”. So we did and he’s unmistakable on that golden cover.

So that was two tracks, and there were another seventeen from folk like Dwight Twilley who gave us ‘It’s Hard To Be A Rebel’, Matthew Sweet with ‘Bold Moves’, and Sparklehorse’s Blake-via The Fugs setting of ‘London’, Bill Lloyd, The Barracudas, You Am I, and Darryl-Ann.

Listening again now I’m astonished at the quality and just how well we sequenced it. It sounds still so fresh and life-affirming even as time has made it poignant. Both Jim and Mark Linkous went some years back, and the loss of Tommy Keene last autumn so soon after touring with Matthew Sweet still stings.

We did very well with it and sold out the first print-run. A second smaller print-run used up the rest of the CD pressing. They soon went and that was that. I’d see it now and then on eBay usually going for between fifteen and twenty-five quid. For a long time all I had a handful of copies in poor condition, but a few years ago someone – I think closing a record store – offered me a box of old mags and when I got to look at it there was a small quantity of #50s in very good condition.

I thought they’d all gone but the other day, digging around at home (as some of you will know I have time on my hands currently) I turned a few copies up. Rather than stick them up on eBay I’m offering them for sale here, now.

£12 to the UK, £14 to Europe, and £16 to the USA and the Rest Of The World.

Please pay using the PayPal button below and be sure to select appropriate territory from the drop-down menu 

BoB #50 with CD inc P& P (UK)

USA & ROW £16.00 GBP Europe £14.00 GBP UK £12.00 GBP