Postcards to Dead Bands. Wooooo.

A curious fringe benefit of me getting rid of all my CD cases (I can see you already reeling off the obvious ones. Stop it. You're embarrassing me. Let's just say there's lots of benefits, and you can stop your whirring brain whirring) is that I found lots of those little postcards that you can complete and send back and the record company will then send you lots of information about that artist. Now, I've saved all the ones that have got postage paid, so if you want me to start receiving junk mail on any of the following artists, or just cost the record company some money, let me know and I'll fill in the card and send it off. What really intrigues me is what will happen when I write in requesting information on bands that no longer exist. Will the helpless record company stooge (or person working at 3 Alveston Place in Leamingon Spa, which is the epicentre of this particular niche marketing area) look at the poor scruff requesting information about the still very listenable to in parts Ultrasound who folded after their endearingly overblown debut failed to see millions and see Tiny, their not-a-supermodel-by-any-stretch-of-the-imagination singer, become a jet set rock 'n' roll star, and take pity, and write back a note saying that sadly, owing to the vagaries of this damn industry, they were cruelly neglected, damn it all to hell. Or perhaps it will be the secret password to an alternative music industry that has been kept hidden in a flotilla of large ships of the Kent coast, where Ultrasound are recording their 3rd album, and they'll be doing a well-advertised tour of medium-large venues throughout the UK in the Spring. Or perhaps it'll just get thrown in the bin. It's a risk I take on your behalf.

• Belle & Sebastian (who have moved to a bigger record label since this card was produced, which will no doubt cause a sucking of teeth when they receive this card, a-ha!)

• Another Jeepster card for Belle & Sebastian
  

• Bernard Butler

• Billy Bragg

• Finley Quaye (sorry. Maybe you could write insults about me on the card. After all, I was fool enough to buy this album. And later buy his second album for £1.99)

• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

• Placebo (I once served a big burly bloke when I worked in Our Price who came in asking for the place-bo single. I couldn't work out whether to laugh at the idea of this hairy-knuckled hulk boogieing away to the oh-so-forced gender confusion of Brian Molko and co, or to snigger at his mispronunciation. Instead I just told him the release date. Perhaps he became a goth. I've seen it happen. They're not born that way; it's a choice.There was a regular customer who, one Saturday was a nerd, in glasses and a buttoned-up shirt, and the next Saturday had all these piercings and neck-rings and black clothes and make-up. He was into Depeche Mode, which should have made it a less alarming change than it was.)

• Porcupine Tree (Embarrassing Prog. Oh, deary me. I'm a closet Pink Floyd fan. Boo me.)

• Radar Records (Who I presume don't exist any more, but who knows?)

• Radiohead

• Sparklehorse

• Supergrass

• The Auteurs (disbanded! And Luke Haines solo stuff is shit! This card is the last link to when he was good!)

• Two for the Chemical Brothers. (Presumably one for Tom, and one for the other one, who, for these purposes we'll assume is called Colin)

• Ultrasound (like what I said before)