Luke Haines

9½ Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970s and Early ’80s Fantastic Plastic ****

9½ Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970s and Early '80s Fantastic Plastic****

Back in the day, kids, when all we had on TV was a maximum of five channels, there used to be on UTV every Saturday afternoon the ridiculous sport of wrestling. Comin’ atcha from places in Britain such as Crewe and Stoke-on-Trent, we watched as grown men (Including Mick McManus, Big Daddy, Kendo Nagasaki and Giant Haystacks) in leotards and Spandex knickers stomped on and threw each other around the ring. Cue former Auteurs/Black Box Recorder agitator Luke Haines, who, rather wonderfully, across music that touches on trippy pop and ambient spoken word, recounts a life in suburbia lived in the monochrome glow of such a sport, eating sausage sarnies while watching the contestants growl and gurn. Submit! See lukehaines.co.uk

Download tracks: Rock Opera – in the Key of Existential Misery, We Are Unusual men

Tony Clayton-Lea

Tony Clayton-Lea

Tony Clayton-Lea is a contributor to The Irish Times specialising in popular culture