“I tried to be honest,” says Jim Reid, when I ask him if this collection of records has any kind of unifying theme. “I looked at a couple of other people’s lists and I think some people were just being deliberately obscure and I didn’t want to do that.”
Instead, what you have here are records that have been utterly, undeniably, and infinitely important to the life of the Jesus and Mary Chain man, who has just co-authored the acclaimed memoir, Never Understood, with his brother William Reid. “They may seem a bit obvious,” he adds. “But I guess the brief is records that shaped your life and, well, the records that shaped my life are not the ones that I discovered three weeks ago. These are the records that really did chisel out the Mary Chain. So while they may seem a bit obvious now, at the time that we discovered them they really weren’t.”
However, as our conversation carries on, Reid does begin to pick up on something. “There’s a bit of a theme, I’m just noticing,” he says, as we’re in the middle of chatting about The Pastels. “Looking at this list, it’s all bands that should have made it that never did.”
So, from proto-punk classics to unearthed 60s folk records via a CD he found in his bag with no recollection of how it got there, these are the records that have proved to be a vital road map for Jim Reid’s life.
The Reid brothers’ new memoir Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain is out now via White Rabbit. To begin reading Jim’s Baker’s Dozen, click ‘First Record’ below
