Gimme 5! James Harding Shares 5 Records That May or May Not Have Influenced the Latest Best Bets LP

With ‘Gimme 5!’ we take a peek into the collections of artists we admire. The premise is simple: artists WE like share five records THEY love.

Best Bets have an impeccable track record on our site. Their On An Unhistoric Night LP topped my list of 2022, and their The Hollow Husk of Feeling LP had a prime spot among my favorites this year. Both albums also landed on Dennis’ year-end lists, cementing Best Bets as one of those rare acts we universally agree on. So when the opportunity arose for the band’s guitarist/singer James Harding to do a Gimme 5! feature, we didn’t hesitate for a second.

In addition to sharing five records he loves—woven together with insightful connections—Harding has exciting news for the new year. His other band, Transistors, will release their new album Everything Will Never Happen Again on February 28th (preorder here). Transistors, which predates Best Bets, includes fellow member Olly Crawford-Ellis, with production by another Best Bet, Joe Sampson. Based on the teaser tracks, this release is already a lock for the wantlist.

But that’s for later—now, let’s hand it over to James and his picks!

James Harding: “I’ve gone with five records/artists I listened to a lot during the making of our latest album and how they may or may not have influenced that process. I’ve also attempted to link them together with a thread that gets pretty tenuous…”

XTC || Skylarking
“XTC, and particularly Skylarking, definitely influenced my thinking about our album. In a similar vein to ours it’s a loosely conceptual album, in this case with a theme canvassing the passing of time (one of the working titles was ‘Day Passes’) and life’s many cycles. It’s very much a ‘summer’ record, whereas in my head at least, our album is an ‘autumn’ record. The running order of this album is very deliberate. I love the way the opener Summer’s Cauldron seques seamlessly into Grass. I have an early pressing that omits Dear God, which is great for me because I think that song is pretty ham-fisted and corny. I always wanted to ensure the tracks on our album also ran in a purposeful way. It’s worth reading about the strained production of the album and the clashes between Partridge and Todd Rundgren. I’m a huge Rundgren fan, particularly Something/Anything, which leads me to Emitt Rhodes…”


Emitt Rhodes || Emitt Rhodes

“The image on the inside gatefold of Something/Anything shows Todd in his home in Nichols Canyon, LA in early 1971. Mere hours after the photo was taken the deadly San Fernando earthquake struck, and it rattled Todd so much he ended up leaving LA and moving back to New York. The same day of the earthquake, 9 February, a relatively unknown songwriter called Emitt Rhodes debuted at the Troubadour, just a few miles from Todd’s soon to be empty home. Not enough is made of this wizard in my opinion, and if the world made any sense he’d be a much bigger name. He wrote, recorded, sang and played all the parts on this album and it sounds better than most big budget studio albums from the time in my opinion. He was nicknamed “the one man Beatles” and if you listen to Somebody Made For Me. you’ll see why. It’s pure McCartney in the best way.”


Shoes || Present Tense

“I told you this would be tenuous! Emitt Rhodes grew up in a town called Decatur, in Illinois. Right around the time Rhodes retreated from music over a contract dispute with his label, a band with their own penchant for self-production were kicking off up the road in Zion, Illinois. They were called Shoes and after a few home-recorded efforts they released Present Tense, their masterpiece, in 1979. This album has been a massive influence on our band over the years, even if it’s maybe not immediately obvious in our sound, although I’d say that’s because Shoes are just inimitable. There isn’t a bad song on the album but at a push my favourite has to be Too Late. The harmonies are simply sublime. I actually had an email exchange with Jeff Murphy many years ago. I love his production (check out the albums he did with Material Issue). He’s an absolute gem of a guy and even sent me some photos of their studio in Zion, Short Order Recorder…”


Tommy Keene || Based on Happy Times

“…where he co-produced the excellent 1998 album Isolation Party by Tommy Keene. Much like Emitt Rhodes, I could never understand how this guy didn’t find more success in his lifetime. Despite having a distinctively emotive voice, a seemingly endless songbook, classical Hollywood good looks, and being a gifted multi-instrumentalist, mainstream success seemed to elude him. I think this album, Based on Happy Times, might have been his last full-blown attempt at a hit. It has that huge glossy 80s production, chiming guitars and massive choruses, all of which I just love. Check out When Our Vows Break and tell me it shouldn’t have been at least a college radio hit!”


Guided By Voices || Bee Thousand

“In 2006, Tommy Keene teamed up with Robert Pollard under the name Keene Brothers. In a way it seems like an odd pairing, but it really works. Anyway, it’s a cool album but it can’t compete with this bonafide classic. I listened to Bee Thousand a lot through the first Covid lockdown, which is when I started writing my song contributions for our latest album. Bob has created whole universes with his catalogue, it’s really quite remarkable. I often wonder if he would be able to name all of his songs from a five second snippet alone? It’s hard to pick a favourite song among so many bonafide classics, but right now I’ll go with Buzzards and Dreadful Crows. Robert Pollard is a national treasure and Dayton, Ohio should have a public holiday every year with a parade in his honour.”

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