Table of contents for Issue 548 in Record Collector

rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk www.recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Magazine @RecCollmag RecordCollectormag @recordcollectormag VINYL WARNING Reading several reviews of the new Yusuf/Cat Stevens album, King Of A Land, I decided to check it out. Not because I usually need the opinions of others, but because the writers seemed to hint that our Cat is back on track, as it were. My local record-pusher readily supplied me with a vinyl copy and apologised for the high price of the product but assured me he’d compared gross prices and ordered from the least expensive source, something he takes a pride in doing. The record came through in a week or so and the package is certainly lavish, with the vinyl housed in a thick sleeve with a beautiful booklet with lyrics and likeable illustrations. Unfortunately, with a…

Biographer of Leonard Cohen (p76) and Serge Gainsbourg, ghost-writer of Debbie Harry, Sylvie Simmons has written about music since 1977 when she left London for L.A. to write for Sounds and Creem. She also writes music and has released two albums, a third to come. Michael Heatley, who writes the Manfreds (p62) feature and contributes to 1973 Live Debut Albums (p62), is a Liverpool-born writer and musician. His relationship with RC began with a feature on Welsh progressive rockers Man. Three decades later, he’s graduated from Man to the Manfreds! Wesley Doyle first saw Tom Waits (p54) on Saturday Superstore back in 1983 and was hooked. So, listening to all his albums for our feature was no great hardship. Wesley’s current book, Conform to Deform – The Weird And Wonderful…

Nanci Griffith Working In Corners 4CD, 4LP boxes, with Working In Corners, Once In A Very Blue Moon, The Last Of The True Believers, Poet In My Window, CD adding bonus; More Than A Whisper tribute LP, with John Prine, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Brandy Clark, Shawn Colvin, Steve Earle, CD adding two, Rounder, 22 September. ■ Holly Gleason Prine On Prine John Prine book, Chicago Review Press Writers, 12 September. ■ Kath Bloom Finally, five bonuses, Chapter, 8 September. ■ Neal McCoy/Be Good At It/The Life Of The Party/ 24-7-365 2CD, Morello, 8 September. ■ Mae McKenna/ Everything That Touches Me/Walk On Water 2CD, bonuses, BGO, 1 September. Due: August (25) Tim McGraw Standing Room Only, Big Machine September (1) Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening Cloud Horizons, Resilient (8) Josh Turner Greatest Hits, Snakefarm (15)…

In July, a TikTok user, mischief_marauder, posted online videos revealing that her ochre 3LP of Taylor Swift’s Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) included a mispressed disc. Instead of Taylor’s own re-recorded versions of her songs, it featured a 15-track compilation from March, Happy Land (A Compendium Of Electronic Music From The British Isles, 1992-96 Vol 1). The triple-album was pressed for European release in France and sold via Swift’s UK webstore. Universal noted the error, acknowledging that, “we’re aware that there are an extremely limited number of incorrectly pressed vinyl copies in circulation and we’ve addressed the issue. If you’ve purchased one of the affected goods, please contact customer service at your respective retailer for a replacement or refund”. Alternately, hang onto what could become a valuable rarity. See tiktik.com.…

Mark Robinson is the founder of independent record label, Teen-Beat, and founding member of D.C. bands Unrest and Air Miami that epitomised the indie-rock sound of the 90s. Teen-Beat began in 1984 while Robinson was still in high school, and now boasts 500 releases over its 39-year history, having shaped the D.C. independent music scene with its progressive genre-hopping roster and DIY roots. As well as running Teen-Beat, Robinson continues to make music, playing solo and as a member of various bands, alongside projects in graphic design, art direction and filmmaking. What do you collect, and why? I like to collect anything and everything, but most recently, I’ve been especially interested in pop culture records that are TV-, sports-, or corporation-related. Score… by the New England Whalers WHA hockey team…

THE BEATLES Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Capitol MAS 2653) £137,309 Sealed, Capitol limited-edition, featuring executives on the sleeve instead of the band. (eBay item number: 184803868744) Supplied by eBay THE BEATLES Introducing… (Vee-Jay VJLPS 1062) £11,509 First print, early press edition with ads on the rear. (eBay item number: 155519264150) Supplied by eBay THE BEATLES Let It Be (Apple AR 34001) £5,571 Sealed DJ promo copy and promo sticker. (eBay item number: 374355394082) Supplied by eBay CELINE DION Have A Heart (Columbia CSK 3171) £740 A CD single promo from 1990. (eBay item number: 374355394082) Supplied by eBay IRON MAIDEN Twilight Zone (EMI 5145) $6,767 Clear edition 7” vinyl from 1981 with Wrathchild on the flip. Supplied by Popsike THE MARK IV Take This Love (Brite Lite LHL…

GRACE BOND When Rivers Meet guitarist on their latest blues-rock set What film could the new album soundtrack? A Marvel movie. Is there anything unissued in the archive? So much. I recorded several CDs as a solo artist, and with various bands, plus my husband, Aaron, before we were When Rivers Meet. Who’d you like to produce/remix? With Adam Bowers, I’d take Cream’s Sunshine Of Your Love in a more psychedelic direction. What records made you want to go pro? Dusty Springfield. Did you ever write songs ‘under the influence’? A few after a beer or two. Which of your songs is the most personally meaningful? Tomorrow – about being frustrated that you’re postponing happiness. Of all the people that you’ve worked with, who taught you the most? My husband,…

Billion Dollar Babies (1973) Any of the first five Alice Cooper band albums will hit the spot, but the platinumselling Billion Dollar Babies is among the most thought-out and deftly executed, with Alice’s lyrics detailing a long list of gleeful anxieties. Welcome To My Nightmare (1975) Alice’s debut album had a lot to prove – not least whether he could cut it as a solo artist after splitting the muchloved Alice Cooper band – but it did just that. The glammed-up Department Of Youth is a standout. Dragontown (2001) Thirty years into his career, Alice would have been excused for phoning in his studio albums. However, this millennial effort is a taut, muscular slice of metal, and much better than anyone might reasonably have expected. Rise (2019) Hollywood Vampires’ second album…

Terry’s death shocked thousands of fans. Did you know he wasn’t well? I wasn’t fully aware of just how ill he was; he was a very private man in many respects. After we’d been involved in putting the box set together I got the sense he wanted to get going on another Specials album as soon as possible – he seemed really focused on it. Looking back now, it was probably an indicator to how his health was. I’d taken a break to have spinal surgery, and when I got back to England last October his wife told me he wasn’t very well at all. We were just about ready to record, the studio had been booked, and I was supposed to be finishing off pieces of the songs Terry…

David Bowie Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars: The Motion Picture Parlophone 5054197561153 (2CD/2CD/Blu-ray, 2LP) As with The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, the significance of David Bowie’s final Ziggy concert now looms so large as to overshadow the actual thing itself. At Hammersmith Odeon, on 3 July 1973, before closing the show with Rock’N’Roll Suicide, Bowie effectively sacked The Spiders live on stage, telling the audience, “Not only is this the last show of the tour, but it’s the last show that we’ll ever do.” “Bowie Quits,” ran the NME’s frontpage headline four days later. Fifty years on, we’re still discussing that moment. It was all captured on film, too, and what’s now known as Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars:…

The Boo Radleys Giant Steps Two-Piers BN 7 CD (CD, 2LP/3LP) One of Creation Records’ most high-profile signings of the 90s spoke endlessly about being the new Beatles, but another, more modest group which got there a couple of years earlier really walked the walk. The Merseyside-founded Boo Radleys didn’t have the same lightning-in-a-bottle qualities as Oasis, but after the patchy indie debut Ichabod & I in 1990 and their tentative 1992 Creation debut Everything’s Alright Forever (recorded for Rough Trade and snapped up on the cheap by Alan McGee when that label went down), 1993’s Giant Steps – now celebrating its 30th anniversary with a vinyl reissue – lived up to its name. Here was a group stepping out of the squalling shoegaze noise of the indie disco and…

Public Image Ltd. End Of World PiL Official PIL 009 LP (CD, 2LP) When news broke this January that PiL planned to represent Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest, many assumed it was a publicity stunt. Those who follow John Lydon’s new wave legends a little closer than the screaming headlines and the column inches the singer tends to generate, would have been less surprised, especially if they’d already heard Hawaii, an uncharacteristically emotional song written for Lydon’s wife Nora Forster, who was just entering the final harrowing stages of dementia. In the song, Lydon recalls the holiday they enjoyed together in the titular Polynesian paradise during the early 80s: “Aloha!” he cries, with a reciprocal echo, before asking: “Remember me? I remember you.” The ex-Pistol has tackled tough topics…

Sigur Rós Átta BMG 4050538918946 (CD, LP) Over the last decade, Sigur Rós have encountered unusual degrees of turbulence for a band who always seemed to carry a microclimate of calm with them. Their last album, 2013’s Kveikur, was an atypically fractious offering, like a storm brewing. Since then, relationship break-ups, tax headaches and resigning drummers (Orri Páll Dýrason, following accusations of sexual assault) have left them buffeted. On their eighth album, Sigur Rós’ answer is to revisit known shores with revivified focus and feeling. Following his 2013 departure from the band, multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson’s return registers in an emphasis on mood and minutiae. After splitting from his partner Alex Somers, singer Jónsi Birgisson looks to Iceland longingly from his LA base. Most clearly, Átta is Sigur Rós purified, their…

They All Came Out To Montreux BMG/Beyond TNC (BBC iPlayer) Riveting three-part history of iconic Swiss festival The Swiss resort town Montreux didn’t know what hit it in June 1967. That’s when Claude Nobs, a music-loving accountant from the town’s tourist office, woke up a quiet, sleepy, lakeside community by starting a jazz festival. Surprisingly, perhaps, the event quickly mushroomed and put the town firmly on the music map; by the 70s, it was hosting jazz icons alongside rock stars. As writer/director Oliver Murray’s superlative new triadic documentary reveals, the festival’s long and colourful history is inextricably entwined with Nobs’ extraordinary life. Keith Richards describes him as “an island of culture in an otherwise barren place” while Van Morrison found a connection with Nobs through their mutual love of black…

Vince Monticelli’s shop is proof of the continually thriving market for new and vintage vinyl. Clearly proud of his extensive stock, Vince says he has never looked back since opening The Record Store in 2016. He tells Steve Burniston about the shop, including some ace rarities. Tell us about the shop, including how it got started. I started the shop with my daughter in 2016; she has since moved onto a teaching career. As a collector I had the usual 2-3 copies of certain records, as we collectors do! We set out to see if there was a taste for vinyl in Ashford after downsizing out of London due to my health and an uncertain future – this before the big recovery in vinyl. We once featured in [another music…

How do you keep fit for tours? Some of us go to the gym as much as possible. Personally, I meditate and practice mindfulness. Do you write much on the road? We’ve never written any new material on tour, though Paul [Banks, vocals/guitar] and myself have worked on extra Interpol material separately on the tour bus. When are you most productive? Typically, when we’re in a small room together, with the collective volume way too loud. There’s a point when an idea becomes a song. It’s like meeting a new lover. Infatuation takes over, flooding your brain with dopamine. Such a great experiential phase. What’s next? I’ve been working on material with Faultline’s David Kosten as The Boy In The Wood. Next year, we’ll be bringing some noise.…

Los Lobos Kiko (London / Slash 828 298-1, LP, Europe, 1992) £40 “The Wolves” may be known by many thanks to their multi-million selling cover of Ritchie Valens’ La Bamba but, as is usually the case, this highly influential band offer far greater depth and variety than their big hit reveals. Kiko might be their defining statement, offering a surprisingly diverse sonic palette from quirky café music to sprightly, shuffling folk, mean rockers and country-inflected laments. Texas Tornadoes Texas Tornadoes (Reprise 9 26251-2, CD, US, 1990) £8 “You’ve heard of New Kids On The Block,” quipped singer and guitarist with the Texas Tornadoes, Freddy Fender, “we’re the Old Guys On The Street.” By the time of their 1990 debut album, the core members of the group had already enjoyed long…

I may not have been ’round when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain, but I was ’round when William Jellett, the infamous hippie known as “Jesus” who danced at seemingly every gig, certainly in London, in the 70s, grooved outside The Roundhouse in Camden ahead of the gig there by Pink Fairies supported by Little Bob Story, The Hammersmith Gorillas and some bunch of upstart punks called The Stranglers. Nineteen seventy-six was my first year of gig-going, and so the 1973 live albums – and, by extension, the concerts – celebrated in this issue make the past seem like a very exotic, foreign place to visit indeed. I may not have been there at the Rainbow to witness Eric Clapton battling his demons or at Leicester’s DeMonfort…

Jethro Tull’s Broadsword And The Beast is due this month in two boxes, one with eight vinyl sides, the other eight CDs and DVDs. The 4LP includes a Steven Wilson remix, his mixes of associated tracks as the Double Edge Sword 2LP, and The Maison Rouge Demos LP. The Monster Edition 5CD/3DVDA box takes in Wilson’s album mix and Early Sessions 1971 CDs, Demo Recordings CD and Live In Germany 1982 CD. DVDAs have album stereo/5.1 remixes, associated stereo/5.1 mixes, and Live In Germany 1982 in stereo remix/quadrophonic mixes. Jethro Tull The Broadsword And The Beast Vinyl Edition 4LP, The Monster Edition 5CD/3DVDA boxes are on Warners, 1 September.…

The Who’s Who’s Next is due this month on three LP variants, along with Who’s Next/Life House 21-track 2CD with eight unissued and four remixes, and the San Francisco 1971 180g 4LP and Pete Townshend’s Life House Acetates 180g 3LP. A 155-track Who’s Next/Life House Super Deluxe box has 89 unissued and 57 remixes, taking in Who’s Next, Record Plant NYC Sessions March 1971, Olympic Studios London Sessions 1970-72, Singles And Sessions 1970-72, Live At The Civic Auditorium San Francisco December 12 1971 CDs, Pete Townshend’s Life House Demos Pt 1 & 2, Live At The Young Vic London April 26 1971 2CDs, and a BDA of Who’s Next and 14 bonuses with 5.1/Dolby Atmos mixes by Steven Wilson, a 100-page book, 170-page Life House – The Graphic Novel hardback,…

Greg Foat on Gordon Beck Trio’s Gyroscope “This record changed my life. From the moment that I first heard it, age 15, I realised that I wanted to play like Gordon Beck. I’d met Jeff Clyne, and he sent me a cassette with this and Experiments With Pop on. The trio interaction is almost telepathic. There are moments of blistering virtuosity, combined with delicate, beautiful, sensitive playing. I still get moved to tears after 30 years of repeated listening.” Greg Foat & Gigi Masin Dolphin LP, clear LP, CD are on Strut.…

Q&A Where are you based, what do you do, and why? We’re a studio and record label, based in Streatham, South London. I currently work from Walthamstow, East London. We record and put out music we love – predominantly as quickly as we can – but not always. We do it because we love it. Why the name? Why not? I think Dan [Carey, label co-founder] was partly inspired by a noodle place called Speedy Noodle and Stevie Wonder, but that could be an urban myth. When did you launch it and how have things changed since? It started it in February 2013 – so 10 years ago – with the help of some friends at Heavenly Recordings. At first it was strictly a 7” label – physical only, no…

OPINION The Public Enemy founder is Zooming Record Collector from his study at his LA home. It’s the middle of the night, which is when he works best, he says. Dressed in de rigueur black T-shirt with baseball cap, he’s sat with rows and rows of neatly filed CDs to one side and, to the other, a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf crammed with art books. He’s just become the subject of his own, Livin’ Loud, which collects over 250 of his paintings, sketches and drawings of musical and sports heroes from Gladys Knight and James Brown to basketball player Julius Irving aka Dr J. In between are political cartoons and satirical skits. Always the restless creative, he’s also just launched the cultural app, Bring The Noise, and published his first of what…

Soiled out – Mannfred Mann’s Earth Band in 1978 (l-r): Chris Slade, Dave Flett, Pat King, Chris Thompson, Manfred Mann Manfred Mann, born Manfred Lubowitz in Johannesburg in 1940, has been leading his progressive Earth Band since 1971, turning down participation in the Manfreds’ reunion. Now living in Sweden, the reclusive musician expressed his musical philosophy and attitude to fame to Michael Heatley. [Looking back] is of no interest to me at all,” he says. “I’ve done that; why am I doing it again? I’m not trying to make a big deal of moving forward but it’s a natural thing. “I figured out that, when I was 18, I wanted to be a musician, but… the role models were Oscar Peterson, Errol Garner, Bill Evans, Miles Davis, and I just…

NOT FADE AWAY 1973’s IMMORTAL LIVE DEBUT LPs 1973 LIVE DEBUT ALBUMS Live albums appeared on vinyl not long after the introduction of the LP in 1948, and numerous landmark sets popped up during the following quarter-century. Ask any two fans what’s the best year ever for live albums, and you’ll get two different answers. It depends on your favoured genres and artists, and your personal experience of gigs. But, arguably, 1973 saw the live album come of age, labels issuing live sets by standout performers of the day, making the case for their place in the rock pantheon based on their live as well as studio prowess. From the late 19th century on, the limits of recording/playback technology meant discs were recorded live, and the louder the better. Hence the…

Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, saxophonist ALBERT AYLER was noted for his raw power and searing, soul-searching tone. He made his name as an avant-garde trailblazer at Bernard Stoller’s New York-based ESP-Disk imprint in the first half of the 1960s before John Coltrane persuaded his producer Bob Thiele to allow Ayler to join him at Impulse! “Trane” was honoured by his mentee via the track, For John Coltrane, the opening cut on Ayler’s Impulse! debut In Greenwich Village ( Superior Viaduct), a mind-blowing collection of live performances presented in a suitably far-out, psychedelic cover. A landmark in free jazz, the record is now revived on vinyl for the first time in three decades. Another imperishable avantgarde classic resurrected on the same US reissue label is guitarist SONNY SHARROCK’s Black Woman ( Superior…

What do you remember about the final Ziggy gig? First of all, I was aware of what was going to happen, which made it difficult for me because all the Spiders were friends of mine… And then, what made it even wackier is: a couple hours before we went on, David came over to me, and he was a little nervous and asked me to open the show, playing a medley of four of his songs… So then I was nervous. And he told me after the show that he was more nervous for me than he was for himself. I did this bizarre overture-slash-medley of Changes into Space Oddity, Ziggy and John, I’m Only Dancing. And then the band came on. And the rest is history. What did you…

What are you up to? We’re touring Giant Steps live, playing it from start to finish, which never happened back in the day. It’s going down incredibly. Talking to people afterwards, this album meant a lot to people of a certain era. Then it’s back to the day jobs. I’ve been a psychologist for the last 14 years, I run a private practice in Oxfordshire. Tim [Brown] is a teacher. Why isn’t Martin Carr involved? I’ve promised him I won’t talk too much about this, because there’s not one objective truth. After [1998’s] King Size, it’s fair to say we lost interest – or we were a bit tired; we’d been at it since school days. We should have gone on hiatus, seen where we were, but we all went…

Hi, John, how was the Eurovision experience for you? I didn’t do Eurovision, I was asked onto an Irish TV programme [PiL competed to represent Ireland on The Late, Late Show]. That was a very, very wonderful and nice thing that they asked me over to do. They’d heard I wrote a song about my lovely wife [Nora Forster, who died in April] and they just thought, “Well, he’s every bit as Irish as the rest of us can ever be, so let’s get him on TV and see what he’s got.” It was very, very hard to do because that was shortly before Nora died, and I was at my saddest, shall we say. Grief was overwhelming and it was so hard to do live. When I came back,…

Route One (XL Recordings, XL 918 LP, 7LP, 2018) £95 Music to travel to, based on the band’s YouTube-streamed road trip around Iceland’s Ring Road in the summer of 2016 and issued as one of four RSD albums. Using generative music software, Sigur Rós forged unexpected sonic directions from the multi-track stems of Óveður. Von (One Little Indian, TPLP 661 DMM, LP, 1997) £99 Before Hollywood and Radiohead adopted them, Sigur Rós issued a baby-faced debut. Ten-minute opener Sigur Rós sets the controls for interstellar orbit, followed by the Solaris-esque rainfall of Dögun. With Jónsi’s celestial coo not fully harnessed, progrock atmospherics prevail, though Myrkur sounds suspiciously jangly. Liminal Remixes (XL Recordings, XL 920 LP, LP, 2018) £65 Also released for Record Store Day, this remix album draws on the…

Beck Thinking About You/Old Man Capital 602455 599339 Ooh, remember when Beck was the biggest thing since sliced egg, churning out chirpy choons and cheering up a chippy planet? S’all a long time ago now, innit? Thinking About You is some way different: gentle fingerpicking opens this mournful ballad, which finds our man fretfully pondering whether if the person he believes in is genuine and if it even matters. Or something. There’s no “building” quality here, despite an increasing swell of strings, mandolin, etc, the song just gently does its gentle thing, and the regretful vibe is reiterated with a, gulp, harmonica solo. The flip offers a straightforward acoustic version of Neil Young’s classic with CSNY-style harmonies – wonder if it’s a message to the grand icon? Both sides are…

Sell Vinyl/CDs direct to RC readers, call us on 0208 752 8172 or Email listings@recordcollectormag.com NEXT ISSUE: OCTOBER 2023 (on sale 7 SEPTEMBER) Deadline for submitting adverts (Listings & Classified): Monday 14 AUGUST Please email your advert (word doc/excel file/plain text) to: listings@recordcollectormag.com NEW Postal address: Record Collector Listings, Diamond Publishing Ltd, 2nd Floor, Saunders House, 52-53 The Mall, Ealing, London W5 3TA Following issue: NOVEMBER 2023 (on sale 5 OCTOBER) Deadline: Monday 11 SEPTEMBER…

The Anchoress September (21) Liverpool Leaf (22) Edinburgh Summerhall (23) Hull Central Library (24) Leeds Brudenell (30) Cardiff Acapella October (4) Cambridge Junction (6) London Islington Union Chapel Big Big Train September (10) Edinburgh Queen’s Hall (11) Birmingham Town Hall (12-13) London Cadogan Hall Christine & The Queens September (6) Birmingham Symphony Hall (7) Manchester Albert Hall (8) Edinburgh Usher Hall Judy Collins September (28) London Barbican (29) Deal Astor Theatre October (1) Birmingham Town Hall (4) Wavendon Stables (6) Edinburgh Queen’s Hall (7) Manchester RNCM (9) Bury St Edmunds Apex (10) Leeds City Varieties Deacon Blue September (15) Liverpool M&S Bank Arena (17) Newcastle Utilita Arena (18) Sheffield City Hall (20) Birmingham Utilita Arena (21) Nottingham RCH (23) Cardiff Motorpoint Arena (24) Plymouth Pavilions (25) Portsmouth Guildhall (27) London…

This month: The Who, New Edmonton Gardens, 21 August 1967 At 8.15am I, Greg, Jim L. and Alan board the Greyhound bus for the 300km ride from Calgary to Edmonton. Aged between 14 and 16 years old, we are going to see The Who. We are all huge Who fans and are eagerly anticipating seeing them live. The show is actually The Herman’s Hermits Show but we are only interested in The Who. Contrary to what was erroneously stated in Andy Neill and Matt Kent’s book, Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere, The Who did not open for Herman’s Hermits at the Calgary Stampede on 13 July 1967 – the tour started in Portland Oregon on 14 July, so we haven’t had the opportunity to see them until now. We arrive in Edmonton…

Singer-songwriter on her first set in nine years How come you’re back now? It was planned to coincide with the 20th anniversary of my first album, in 2020. Then the pandemic broke. It’s a celebration of songs I love: Amy Rigby’s Brand New Eyes; When The Roses Bloom Again, with Steve Earle; my tribute to Rosie Flores, Just Like A Rose; and collaborations with Don Fleming, David Mansfield, Paul Burch. Were there any interesting episodes during its creation? Early 2020, we shared ideas, to prep for Don Fleming. We had a demo of Push The Swing, made at Mark Spencer’s studio, in 2019. He worked on it after I left and sent me a very rough mix. Then the pandemic hit. One day, Don emailed the finished version. I was…

In July, Mat Harwood of Unearthed Sounds, Ventura Place, Factory Road, Poole, announced that, after nine years, “with deep regret,” it was ceasing operation on 31 July. “After many months of internal discussions, planning meetings and external consultations, we’ve reached the conclusion that there’s no way that this business can continue”. The specialist dance/hip-hop/reggae shop/distributor rued that it had “been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit and the cost of living crisis. We’ve not been placed into receivership. This is a voluntary decision, and all stock that’s owned by customers will be available to collect or be sent to you. We faced difficulties due to disruption caused by lockdowns. It was very difficult to manage vinyl deliveries, as our cashflow was eaten up by thousands of records getting delivered all…

Pink Floyd’s Meddle is reimagined this month by Yes’ Geoff Downes, Rick Wakeman, Steve Stevens (Billy Idol), Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge), James LaBrie (Dream Theater), Derek Sherinian (ex-KISS), Martin Barre (Jethro Tull), Alan Davey (ex-Hawkwind), Mark Stein (Grand Funk Railroad), Bob Daisley (ex-Ozzy Osbourne), Rat Scabies (The Damned), Graham Bonnet (Alcatrazz), Chris Poland (ex-Megadeth), Joe Bouchard (ex-Blue Öyster Cult), Dave Lombardo (Slayer), Bootsy Collins, Brian Auger, Terry Reid. Meddle Reimagined is on Cleopatra, 1 September.…

You wrote the set’s 360-page book. Why such a big box? The idea was to include recordings by Memphis performers and companies offered as ‘blues’ during the five decades when black audiences purchased 78s and 45s. It brings the full Memphis story together – music, photos, history, biographies, and commentary on every track. How long did it take? I pitched the idea in 2011. Bear Family said, ‘go for it’. I spent years researching the disc information and photos, and I persuaded half a dozen experts on the blues to contribute features. Over a dozen others helped. What are the highlights? The music starts in 1914 with WC Handy’s Memphis Blues, and includes classic jazzy blues, jug bands, and itinerant blues musicians from the 20s and 30s – Memphis Jug…

TOES COMPANY THE CHOSEN FEW/Footsee (Trans-World TW 1705, 7”, Canada, 1968) £30 (Roulette R 7015, 7”, USA, 1968) £30 WIGAN’S CHOSEN FEW/Footsee (Pye DDS 111, 7”, UK, 1975) £5 The story of Footsee starts in Jerusalem, wends its way through the dancefloor of the Wigan Casino, and ends… well, it doesn’t really end, because many of the details are still out there somewhere. In the mid-60s, David and Robert Asch, twin brothers from Montreal, were visiting Jerusalem and saw a group of Arab children playing a game on the street. The kids had attached a ball to one end of a string and tied the other end of the string to their ankles. Then they moved their legs so that the ball and string swung in a circle, and hopped with the other leg…

Oldies stations are almost entirely geared to oldie charts from the olden days. I love a chart myself, but mere Top 10s can’t conjur up hits that were in the public domain. Growing up in a house that played Radio 2 in the morning, I heard dozens of songs on a regular basis that never reached the Top 10. Paul Simon’s Train In The Distance, Olivia Newton John’s Let Me Be There, Air Supply’s Lost In Love, Gordon Lightfoot’s Sundown: all of these songs were well known in hundreds of thousands of households across Britain thanks to surreal Scouser Ray Moore – on the early shift – and Terry Wogan on the breakfast show. There was a shadow chart, partly cooked up by Wogan’s producer Paul ‘Paulie’ Walters, which obeyed…

"The rock world today mourns the death of Alice Cooper, who was accidentally killed last night when the safety screws failed on the guillotine he uses in his act,” observed Melody Maker in 1973, its writer Michael Watts having witnessed an onstage malfunction in Cooper’s grisly stage act. Fortunately, Watts was just kidding. At the time, Cooper was 25 years old, relatively healthy despite a couple of nasty substance habits, and already several years into a career where he routinely pretended to off himself every night. Fifty years later, he’s still at it. Depending on your age and predilection for theatrical hard rock, you’ll know at least some of the many faces of Cooper, or Vincent Furnier as no one calls him. ‘Seasoned’ readers will remember his self-titled band as…

TOM WAITS The one that changed it all. Waits swaps the cabaret for the junkyard and forges ahead with a new creative partner (his wife), a new label (Island), and new methodology (no saxophones). The result is a masterpiece that was out of time and remains timeless: “There’s a place where your memory becomes distorted like a funhouse mirror…” To say Tom Waits took to marriage would be an understatement. It didn’t just suit him, it saved him. Waits had been in New York for four months when the call came through from Coppola to work on One From The Heart. He was not in the best shape – he may have broken ties with LA and his barfly persona, but the move exacerbated certain problems. So, despite issues with…

There’s a passage in Janis Ian’s 2008 memoir, Society’s Child, that is unforgettably stark. It comes in the late 80s when, having survived childhood fame, psychological collapse at the end of her teens and an abusive marriage at the height of her 70s comeback, she discovers that, through the fraud of an accountant, she has lost everything, along, seemingly, with any possibility of being solvent again. Her properties are sold, her equipment, pianos and most guitars. Her royalties go straight to the IRS, and she can’t tour. She goes from wealth to penury in a split second and, just when the IRS show clemency and permit her a bank account, provided the balance doesn’t exceed $1,500, they swoop in for that jackpot, too. Then her tawdry rented room above a car…

Fun Boy Three The Complete Fun Boy Three Chrysalis CRB 1428 (5CD/DVD) Never let it be said Terry Hall, Lynval Golding and Neville Staple allowed the grass to grow under their feet. Barely two years elapsed between the release of The Specials’ debut single Gangsters and the announcement of their departure from the band when Ghost Town was top of the charts, and the lifespan of Fun Boy Three, in terms of records issued, was only slightly longer. There was an overlap between the groups, though, as the latter’s debut single, The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum), was written for the former but met with short shrift by other members, notably the most frequent originator of new material, Jerry Dammers. In that sense, bruised but unbowed, Fun Boy Three…

Del Jones was raised in West Philadelphia and, informed by Gil Scott-Heron and Amiri Baraka, he formed DEL JONES’ POSTIVE VIBES, a psych-funk-spoken word vehicle to protest societal injustice. Intense performances at local community hubs the African Tea Room and The Church of The Advocate landed him the sobriquet “the war correspondent” and his 1973 debut Court Is Closed ( Now-Again) throughout, calling out oppression. Limited to a run of only 500 copies, it went largely unnoticed but then adding brass overdubs, arranged by his uncle, the jazz trumpeter Herbie Jones, who’d made his name with Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, he reissued it under the name Positive Vibes. This time it reached a larger audience and today is something of a holy grail. Both versions are included on this great…

Even the keenest reggae collectors may not remember LLOYD CHARMERS’ 1973 album Moody And Blue. Indeed, it would be surprising if they did because, although scheduled to come out as Trojan TRLS 96, it was never actually pressed. Now Doctor Bird Records, in their increasingly familiar guise of Raiders Of The Lost Album, have exhumed the original tapes and bulked them up into the 38-track double CD Moody And Blue ( Doctor Bird). The core 12 tracks find Lloyd, stylish and urbane, singing melodic songs like Sweet Harmony, Mr. Bojangles and his own Play Me over carefully crafted rhythms. It’s a set of refined lounge reggae, but the plethora of bonus tracks show what a versatile and musically articulate artist he was, as he works through soul classics like Let’s Get It…

Primal Scream Reverberations (Travelling In Time) Young Tiki YT001 CD (CD, LP) Even leather-trousered Stones acolytes and rebel-rock noisemakers had to start somewhere. Released on Primal Scream’s fledgling Young Tiki label, this compilation of 1985-6 material is the sound of a young band who needed nothing more than a paisley shirt and a Byrds best-of to get loaded. Long before some of the damning stories surrounding the recent, tragic death of keyboardist Martin Duffy, it stands as a salute to more innocent times in the Scream camp: dreamy, wide-eyed and ready to jangle. Gathering BBC session recordings and five tracks from the Scream’s first two Creation singles, the results won’t excite a clamour for a Screamadelicastyle tour in their honour. Some of the songs are flimsy and breathless, with Bobby…

Pretenders Relentless Parlophone 5054197615344 (CD, LP) That voice, the finest fusion of swagger and desire since Dusty. The knowingness, the to-themillisecond timing which means she can sing a line like “a fluffy cloud way up high” and let you know she’s rehabilitating any inherent cliché. The attitude (“They even say that we must die/I don’t believe that, that’s a lie”) and the guts to express its antithesis (“Things that are too delicate are never gonna last”). Chrissie Hynde and her current gang, with James Walbourne now inhabiting the guitarist/ co-writer role with confidence and flair, have come up with the best Pretenders album in 20 years. It’s evident from the whip-cracking start Losing My Sense Of Taste, and this sense of it happening, of everyone involved getting it, of catching…

The Monkees: Made In Hollywood Tom Kemper Reaktion, £10.99 ISBN 9781789147070, 216 pages The serious business behind Monkeeing around The Monkees arrived just at the point when pop began to take itself seriously. As Bob Dylan went electric and the Fabs were spending more time in the studio, The Monkees seemed forever running, jumping and standing still just like The Beatles had done, way back in the 24-month-old past. In short, because of this, few thought that The Monkees would be remembered. Many existing texts portray them as puppets, soon-to-be fighters against their image, striking for freedom, and the system that made them a bad thing. The Monkees: Made In Hollywood offers a different take: ultimately, the group are important for highlighting the very need for the system, and when…

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This month: Kavus Torabi of Gong How have you been preparing for the tour? We’re always prepared, but we’ll be changing our set from the one that we played with Ozric Tentacles last year. Do you have any pre-/ post-show routines? I like to have a decent walk by myself after the soundcheck. I warm up on guitar for at least an hour, and I don’t like to eat for three hours before a show. Ian, the sax player, eats the hour before it and, as a band, pre-show, one routine was passed on by Daevid Allen that Gong has always done. You have to be in the band to experience it! Will you be playing any songs that you rarely perform? A few new ones. Will the set-list change…

Cherry Red’s Atomhenge label is proud to mark the 50th anniversary of Hawkwind’s legendary live album, Space Ritual, with reissues across the formats. Recorded in London and Liverpool, December 1972, this superb deluxe gatefold double-LP (transparent vinyl) edition also comes with a poster that replicates the original 1973 artwork. To be in with a chance of winning one of two copies on vinyl, please tell us who designed the album’s iconic sleeve: a) Barney Rubble, b) Barney Bubbles, c) Barney Kessel…

This month: The Clientele “We always felt we were a special kind of band, and there were a few people and fans who agreed with us. That’s what kept us going.” Thus confides Alasdair MacLean, leader and songwriter-in-chief of The Clientele, self-proclaimed purveyors of the ‘invincible crystalline sound’. Now onto their eighth (or 10th – it depends on how you count them) album, the London-based trio are an unknown quantity in their homeland yet buried treasure to a select few. MacLean sings about people, places and half-forgotten moments, from a woody and resinous English perspective. “If our music is about anything, it’s about things that you can’t really talk about,” he says. “Music is about the turning of the light. If you could put it in a sentence then you’d…

This month: John Carter Many of the successful singer/songwriters of the 60s and 70s began their careers during the postwar skiffle craze. Among their number were John Shakespeare (aka John Carter) and Ken Hawker (aka Ken Lewis) who began performing together at school as LVI. “We were both in the Lower Sixth at Waverley Grammar School, Birmingham,” Carter tells RC. “I was listening to Buddy Holly, Big Bill Broonzy, Elvis, Chris Barber’s Band and Ken Colyer.” Together they formed a songwriting partnership, and by the beginning of the 60s they gravitated towards London’s Denmark Street where they were encouraged to start their own group. As Carter-Lewis & The Southerners they released Back On The Scene (1961), and even if reminiscent of The Everly Brothers’ blissful harmonies, it proved to be…

U2 The Joshua Tree (Island U2 6, LP, gatefold, insert, 1987) £25 I was 12 when I moved to Manchester [from Ireland] and U2 became incredibly important to me. They were the biggest band at that time and there was a lot of Irish pride around them; it was like carrying a part of home with me. For six months I bought everything by them, starting with this. When I was 14, I went to see Sonic Youth, and the next day, I took everything I had by U2 to Stockport Record Exchange and, with the credit bought [1988’s] Daydream Nation. It was bye-bye, U2, hello madness, my old friend. Sonic Youth Daydream Nation (Blast First BFFP 34, 2LP, 1988) £25 I still remember what Kim Gordon was wearing at…