Innehållsförteckning för Issue 531 från Record Collector

What's hot for record collectors to invest in? This month: Biffy Clyro Back in 2003 I was sent a promo copy of the upcoming release of Biffy Clyro's The Infinity Of Bliss. I can't recall if I reviewed it anywhere but when it hit the streets Beggars Banquet were good enough to send me a finished copy. Sadly, for my pension planning, this was a CD copy, worth a whopping £2 today. Now, if that had been a copy on vinyl - and I had kept my hand on it - it would be worth £75 today. The point is, all original early vinyl LPs by these Scottish rockers are worth money. Their debut LP from 2002 - The Blackened Sky (BBQLP226) - is worth £70 as Beggars probably only…

COLLECTING RC investigates The Who sang about the traditional Postcard, a tune penned by the band on the road that was sent second-class to their 1974 appropriately-titled Odds & Sods grab-bag of outtakes and oddities. We've shone the spotlight before on pirate LPs/CDs (RC 520) and cassettes (RC 526), and now we turn our attention to the pirate-infested climes that spawned ‘postcard flexidiscs’, aka ‘postcard picture discs'. They had their heyday during the Cold War years of the 70s and 80s, when music was stamped onto the plastic format's gloss-finish lacquer - or ‘dispersion varnish’ - which not only looks attractive, but could be written on and then popped into the postal system. 2022 is the 60th anniversary of the first commercial flexidisc, issued as a ‘Soundsheet’ by Evatone. By the…

Q&A Label boss: Mike Solo Interview: Charles Donovan Where are you based, what do you do and why? Bird's Robe is a record label, management, booking agency, promoter, publicist and, recently, film producer in Sydney, Australia. When we started there was little support for artists making prog, post-rock and other interesting music. Why the name? My friend Alex Tulett came up with it. It doesn't mean anything; it just made it easier to design show posters in the early days by putting birds on them for a consistent visual theme. The retro-fit explanation is “birds of a feather flock together”, which is what it felt like when our prog and post-rock bands found each other and started playing shows together. When did you launch it and how have things changed…

Being a pop star isn't a proper job. Being a songwriter isn't either, not really — it's a hobby that's more than compatible with regular hours as a butcher, a baker, a politician or a spycatcher. Not that she was any of those things, but I think of someone like Hedy Lamarr who managed to combine being a Hollywood actress and “the world's beautiful woman” (according to Louis B Mayer) with a penchant for invention. As World War Two was getting underway, she invented an anti-radar jamming device, which the American military ignored. They finally began to use it in the 60s, just after Hedy's patent had expired, and the basics of her invention are still used in Bluetooth today. I can't think of anyone in pop with such a…

Young people. They're rubbish, aren't they? I know this. I own two young persons. But I feel I'm in a safe space here. A space where we do not have to pretend otherwise. OK, young people are good at some things; filming themselves miming to boring music and going on about recycling, mainly. But let's not focus on the positives. Let's stick with the negatives. Young people and their pop star familiars are particularly rubbish at reading books. This wasn't always the way. It was great when pop stars read (or at least pretended to read) books. Dylan banging on about ‘Jack’ (Kerouac), Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, and the Beats. However, after seconds of research I can report that the ‘literary’ bent of the strummers of guitars really started with…

Elvis Costello began 2022 with a hit album. The Boy Named If made an impressive bow at No 6, his highest UK chart position since Brutal Youth almost 28 years earlier and was a resounding affirmation that one of this country's most celebrated singer-songwriters was still at the top of his game. It was his 29th studio album in a career stretching back to 1977, when the man born Declan Patrick MacManus changed his name and debuted with My Aim Is True, a set of songs fuelled by frustration and anger but delivered with an articulacy alien to many of his contemporaries on the burgeoning New Wave scene. Recorded in fits and starts during days off from his job as a computer programmer at a cosmetics factory in West London,…

PAUL NICHOLAS For a generation, Paul Nicholas will always be synonymous with Just Good Friends, the John Sullivanpenned 80s sitcom in which he played Vince Pinner, the loveable Jack-the-lad. But Nicholas, born Paul Oscar Beuselinck in Peterborough in 1944, has a rich and diverse portfolio. In love with rock'n'roll from a young age, he fronted Paul Dean & The Dreamers, a Cliff and Elvis covers band, before joining Lord Sutch's Savages. He recorded four singles under the pseudonym Oscar - his second name and name of his father, the former MI6 agent and renowned entertainment lawyer Oscar Beuselinck - for Robert Stigwood's Reaction label. One, 1966's Join My Gang, was penned by Pete Townshend, and one, 1967's Over The Wall We Go, was written and produced by David Bowie. His…

FIVE UNSUNG CLASSICS FROM 1983 Redskins - Lean On Me (CNT Productions CNT 016) £8 Dynamite second single from York skinheads led by Chris Dean, aka X Moore, who mixed Trotskyist politics with a Motown stomp Carmel - Bad Day (London 810 1437) £3 The sound of young Lincolnshire: a deep soul ballad with a gospel edge built around Carmel McCourt's delicious, strong vocal. Animal Nightlife Native Boy (Inner Vision A 3584) £3 A simple rewrite of Nat King Cole via George Benson's Nature Boy, helmed by Andy Polaris and featuring Dee C Lee and Carol Kenyon. The Truth - A Step In The Right Direction (Formation Truth 2) £3 Ebullient northern soul styled dancer from the band formed by post-Nine Below Zero Dennis Greaves and NBZ fan Mick Lister.…

But this wasn't the only coincidence in their careers. As Rob Hughes discovers after speaking to various members of Bowie's and Roxy's camps — from Woody Woodmansey to Phil Manzanera - their stories, especially in 1972, were often intertwined… The Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park has form. Back when it was known as the Astoria, The Beatles held Christmas shows here, it's where Jimi Hendrix first set alight his Fender Strat in March 1967 and The Beach Boys chose to record a live album under its roof. More recently, The Who toasted its reopening in spectacular style, Frank Zappa took a tumble from its stage and Pink Floyd held a mini residency. Tonight, however, marks something altogether different. It's Saturday 19 August 1972 and David Bowie is playing the first…

Reviews From The Vaults Reissues, remasters and compilations Suicide Surrender ★★★★★ Mute/BMG SUICIDECD 06 (CD, 2LP) Perhaps incredibly, Surrender is the first retrospective compilation from New York's visionary outsider duo whose fearless alien bombardments and rooftop serenades realigned the city's cultural skyline at gutter level before presaging the global electronic sound to come. Alan Vega and Martin Rev had been attracting ignorant hostility since birthing Suicide in 1970, walking a confrontational super-voltage high wire with Vega taking Iggy Pop's confrontational mayhem to fearless extremes and Rev's jazz-motored DIY keyboard incantations, drum machine subliminally spiked by Donna Summer's I Feel Love which he considered “the beginning of a new sensibility in terms of electronics”. When Suicide was released in December 1977, no other band had so effectively skewered America's damaged post-Vietnam psyche,…

With its gruff, resonant sound, the baritone saxophone has never proved as popular with musicians as the more fashionable alto and tenor varieties of the instrument. Even so, the jazz world has produced several virtuoso masters of the baritone horn, ranging from Harry Carney, who played in Duke Ellington's band, to Gerry Mulligan, a leading light of California's cool school scene. Another formidable baritone specialist was Michigan-born PEPPER ADAMS, a hard bop disciple who was noted for his distinctive bark-like tone and athletic solos. A prolific sideman whose credits range from John Coltrane to Quincy Jones, Adams is mainly remembered for his work alongside the Detroit trumpeter Donald Byrd between 1959 and 1970 but a magnificent new archival release, Live At Room At The Top (★★★★ Reel To Real), reveals…

Colin Towns Full Circle OST Virgin V2093 These days multi-instrumentalist Colin Towns is renowned as a prolific film, television and theatre composer and the founder of The Mask Orchestra, but in 1978 he was better known as the keyboard player in the Ian Gillan Band. This was the year Gillan ditched the jazzy, arty stuff and went back to playing hard rock, a change in which Towns' role was pivotal; it was also the year Towns released the soundtrack LP to the supernatural horror film Full Circle. Starring Mia Farrow as Julia Lofting, Full Circle opened in London in May 1978 but wasn't exactly a major box office smash, so you can be forgiven for scratching your head. Three years later it was released in the States as The Haunting…

Kevin Morby This Is A Photograph ★★★★ Dead Oceans DOC 316 LP (CD, LP, Cassette) Shaken by the collapse of his father, Kevin Morby began sifting through old family photographs. As he wondered how the man in the faded Polaroid, captured in the prime of his life, had become so frail, the big questions were swirling through his mind: about aging, mortality, and what do we do with the time we have on earth. The 34-year-old uses his seventh solo album to address his fears. “This is what I'll miss about being alive,” he sings on the title track, a rare affirmative statement on a record that tries to make sense of uncertainty, of how families age and horizons narrow, and how time is precious. Morby's music has always been…

READER SERVICES SOUTH EAST Across the Tracks - ‘On busiest corner of hip pest city, open seven days. Thousands of rarities in the shop that aren't on the net. All genres, including classical and new CD promos, nothing mundane. Collections bought.’ 110 Gloucester Road, Brighton BN1 4AF. Tel: 01273 677906. edfrombrighton@tiscali.co.uk www.acrossthetracksrecords.com Alan's Record & CD Shop - ‘Diggers paradise! Over 18,000 quality used 7“/12“ LPs/CDs. Specialising in Reggae, Soul, Jazz, Rock, Hip Hop, Dance. Open Tuesday to Sunday from 11:30am, Wednesdays by appointment only. Independent and stubbornly individual.’ 218 High Road, East Finchley, London N2 9AY. Tel: 0208 883 0234. alanrecordman@tiscali.co.uk Ben's Collectors Records - Long standing record shop in the heart of Guildford with an ever changing large stock of records cds & cassettes at the most reasonable…

ELLIE GREENWICH LET IT BE WRITTEN… LET IT BE SUNG (MGM 2315 243, LP, UK, 1973) £8 Brooklyn-born Ellie Greenwich was one of pop's most prolific and successful songwriters. Along with husband and writing partner Jeff Barry she was one of the famed Brill Building tunesmiths, in the company of Goffin & King, Mann & Weill, Sedaka & Greenfield. After years of writing hits for others to sing, this album put Greenwich herself before a microphone. Not for the first time, though. She and Barry had recorded as The Raindrops, and she had sung on so many demos she was known as New York's “demo queen”. She had also released an earlier album in 1968, though not all the tracks were self-penned. But this time around she recorded 12 of…

CALI-FAILURE JERRY SOLOMON A The Show Biz (Fountain Records F 104, LP, US, 1978) £200 If only I could have been in the audience the night this album was recorded. We're talking 1978 and tonight's guest at The Show Biz Club in North Hollywood is one Jerry Solomon. He will be performing a series of covers as well as some original songs accompanied by his trusty, er, cassette recorder. There are some weird rumours flying around tonight; rumours that Solomon is mentally ill and only occasionally allowed out of an institution and rumours he has difficulty maintaining pitch while singing or, in fact, singing in tune at all. In both rumours lies some truth. Hailing from Nebraska, Solomon moved to Los Angeles in the mid-60s. His recording career started in…

FLEETWOOD MAC Poster £395 From 1968, Peter Green hadn't long left John Mayall's Bluesbreakers' collective, hence his spotlight billing, apart from Fleetwood Mac. Supplied by MEM SEX PISTOLS T-Shirt $850 Unused, original sleeveless T-shirt to promote the album, Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols from 1977. The back features silk-screened artwork from the rear of the album. Supplied by Rockaway JIMI HENDRIX/FLEETWOOD MAC/PENTANGLE Flyer £1,795 Hendrix played eight songs at this 1968 festival, which were posthumously released in 2009. Supplied by MEM MOTÖRHEAD No Remorse (Bronze MOTOR 1) £75 A limited-edition, 24-track double compilation LP from 1985, complete with original illustrated lyric inners and special embossed black leather sleeve. Supplied by 991 WINGS Back To The Egg (MPL PCTCP 257) £1,995 Promo-only picture disc LP from 1979, for…

It is a Wednesday, and I am worried about Ukraine. Music is a comfort, a distraction, a diversion. But what sound is strong enough to take your mind off the collision of hemispheres, philosophies, and mindsets? I try Ethiopian Peace Song, AI Taschith Joe's adaptation of AI Wilson's La La Peace Song, but it only warms your cockles while it's playing. Lee Dorsey's Holy Cow provides all-too-brief relief. As ever, it is my wife who begins to turn her head around, by asking if there are songs for Wednesday. Of course. Elvis Costello's Wednesday Week. The Undertones' likewise. The Paradox's The Wednesday Theme, a Northern soul monster. We started to think of songs for the days of the week (busy, are we?) until we reached Tuesday, when Chairmen Of The…

JIMI TENOR Tony Allen collaborator on his own latest set What film could your new set soundtrack? The Long Goodbye. Is there anything still unissued? A gold Kodak CDR with good versions of my late 90s recordings from Barcelona. Have you done anything that fans may not know about? A free jazz album with Edward Vesala, City Of Women, and the eponymous 150 lathe cut-copy Itetune, plus some documentary films. With whom would you like to make a split 7“? Yamantaka Eye. Who'd you like to produce? A Philophon label band in Kumasi, Ghana. What was your favourite record shop when you started out? One in my hometown, Lahti. What was your first record? Dead Kennedys Plastic Surgery Disasters. What's the last album that you bought? Mamman Sani Abdoulaye Unreleased…

How to buy Costello in concert Live At The El Mocambo (CBS CDN 10, LP, Canada, 1978) £40 The Attractions in fiery form in a show recorded at a Toronto club, on a promo disc sent to North American radio DJs. A belated commercial release followed in 1993. Deep Dead Blue (Nonesuch 9562460732, CD, UK, 1995) £5 From the Meltdown festival on London's South Bank, with jazz guitarist Bill Frisell backing EC on deep cuts, Broadway show tunes and a Charles Mingus cover. Costello & Nieve (Warners 9465692, CD, US, 1996) £10 Five-EP set, each disc recorded in a different US city, on which Elvis trawls his back pages with the sole accompaniment of Attractions/Imposters keyboard whizz Steve. My Flame Burns Blue (Deutsche Grammophon 002894775961, CD, UK, 2006) £5 From…

5 OF PAUL'S BEST Oscar Club Of Lights (Reaction 591003, 7”, UK, 1966) £60 An under-the-radar mod-pop dancer ripe for rediscovery, Nichoias's debut 45, released under the guise of Oscar, was written by Speedy Keen, best known for scribing Thunderclap Newman's Something In The Air. Oscar Join My Gang (Reaction 591006, 7”, UK, 1966) £40 That The Who never recorded it at the time is a travesty: Join My Gang is a classic piece of Pete Townshend gender subversion a la I'm A Boy, which, in Nicholas' hands, Is an underrated freakbeat nugget. Paul Nicholas Where Do I Go? from Hair, Original London Cast (Polydor 583043, LP, UK, 1968) £15 Nicholas is cast as the Seeker on Where Do I Go? and channels David Bowie in his vocal delivery -…

Roxy Music tended to attract unexpected followers. While touring Europe in April 1973, they were invited for tea in Paris by surrealist art legend, Salvador Dali (as pictured below) The common denominator was model and muse Amanda Lear (cover star of the recently released For Your Pleasure, complete with black vinyl dress and black panther), who was romantically linked to Bryan Ferry for a short time. “Bryan was in that crowd with Amanda Lear,” explains Phil Manzanera. “And she was one of Dali's ladies. He had this permanent hotel suite [at the Hotel Meurice], so we all gathered in the middle of this huge room, having a cup of tea together. What a strange character he was, just extraordinary. It felt like an out-of-body experience. There I was with Salvador…

From Aylesbury, SARAH BROWN was raised on her sisters’ Mahalia Jackson and Aretha Franklin records. She honed her expressive voice and range from a young age in the local Pentecostal church then when her parents split she moved with her mum to Luton and at 17 joined The Inspirational Choir Of The Pentecostal First Born Church Of The Living God. One of their featured singers, Brown sang with the group for 10 years, appearing on their 1985 debut album Sweet Inspiration and on Madness’ 1983 No 2 hit single Wings Of A Dove. In the 90s she sung with Incognito, as a part of an ensemble with Quincy Jones at the 25th Montreux Jazz Festival and made up one part of jazz duo Lush Life. An in-demand sessioner, she has…

Norma Tanega I'm The Sky; Studio and Demo Recordings, 1964-1971 ★★★★ Anthology Editions ARC 0841 (2CD, 2LP) Norma Tanega is best known for her 1966 wry hit single Walkin' My Cat Named Dog Norma had wanted a dog but lived in a small apartment that didn't allow them so got a cat instead and did indeed call it dog and walk it. It's a gorgeous song, equal parts folk-pop and soulful beat, with Norma's rich contralto-to-alto-and-back-again, playful as befits the subject matter and utterly engaging, as she accompanies herself on guitar and also plays harmonica. While it may be her only hit - a No 22 in the US and UK - it's only a small part of her story as I'm The Sky: Studio And Demo Recordings, 1964-1971 reveals.…

Kurt Vile (watch my moves) ★★★★ Fiction/Verve B3485101 (CD, 2LP) A slacker-rock Springsteen from Philadelphia, Kurt Vile has always seemed in his element in a state of baked repose, mind flickering freely through the record-store racks of his influences and otherwise. For his eighth album, Vile found himself well-positioned to double down on his default mode, and to take the time to rarefy matters. Half recorded in his new home studio OKV Central during lockdown, and half-recorded in LA with Elliott Smith producer Rob Schnapf, the result is an immersive, inviting set of beatifically zonked songs from the couch, with room left open for collaborators, covers and psychedelic colours in that tight-but-loose manner Vile has made his own. Vile's control is key to moves, an album of rich, warm rewards…

Pop Before Pop Let's Do It - The Birth Of Pop Bob Stanley ★★★★★ Faber, £25 ISBN 9780571320257, 602 pages Not content with having written a landmark history of modern pop music with 2013's celebratory Yeah Yeah Yeah, Bob Stanley has written its prequel. Let's Do It explains how music developed in the first half of the 20th century, from the advent of recorded sound to the easy listening of the early 70s. Every significant US and UK musical form of the time is discussed - ragtime, music hall, musical theatre, blues, jazz, crooners, country, rock'n'roll, you name it. In doing so, Stanley tells a fascinating alternate history of the era, underlining the extent to which pop was a product of the fast-moving times. The impact of technology on music;…

Over two floors, Mike Moran's long-running Chester shop features all time-periods and genres. With dedicated attention to customer service and stock quality, the shop is thriving, selling new, second-hand and collectible records. Mike tells Steve Burniston about all this and much more. Tell us about the shop's history and the kind of music you sell. I started In The Land Of Grey & Pink (Collectors' Records) - which is situated five minutes from the city centre - as an independent second-hand record shop in 1986. After 12 years' repping for Chrysalis, Arista and Ariola Records, redundancy came, and I felt with my musical knowledge that the obvious path was to start record retailing. I have always had an intense love of music from an early age, later becoming a musician.…

Recent limited-run vinyl releases to look out for Yumi Zouma Present Tense (Polyvinyl PRC 446 LP, LP, 2022) This stunning fourth album from the New Zealand band has seen them expand on their alternative pop credentials. Despite the pandemicrelated logistical challenges which might be faced by having bandmembers based in three different corners of the globe, their collaborative songwriting process has flourished, with synthpop anthems like In The Eyes Of Our Love and Where The Light Used To Lay showing a faster pulse than some of the band's earlier, dreamier work. As well as a transparent vinyl edition, there's a Lemon Eggshell colourway in Rough Trade shops, plus an Ivory Rose version from Polyvinyl's online store, limited to 1,000 copies. Maria BC Hyaline (Fear Of Missing Out FOMO 035 LP,…

Readers' stand-outs from their record collection Various High Society Motion Picture Soundtrack (Capitol Records LCT 6116, LP, UK, 1956) £15 My first real introduction to “popular” music and I still love it to this day. Bing Crosby, Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong kick up a storm on what is a faultless album. Favourite track has to be Crosby/Satchmo's Now You Has Jazz. Gene Clark No Other (Asylum Records SYL9020, LP, UK, 1974) £35 I was late discovering the incredible voice and songwriting talents of Gene Clark. Unbelievable: the title track is so spaced-out you could fall between the grooves. Tim Buckley Tim Buckley (Electra EKL 4004, LP, UK, 1966) £75 This is Buckley's first album and is more straight pop than subsequent releases, but as a scene-setter it's perfect. How can…

VALUE ADDED FACTS COLLECTING I have got a great punker called Richmond/Love Substitute by a band called Pinpoint from 1979 on Albion. A bit of research shows that they made two further singles and an LP with Martin Rushent at the controls. That shocked me - I thought he was an electronic rather than a punk producer. Is there a story there? Metgzer Hund via email Pinpoint were a punk rock trio with a line-up of David (Dave) M Allen (bass/vocals), Arthur Billingsley (guitar/vocals) and Hugh Griffiths (drums). Signed to Albion Records, they released their debut single Richmond/Love Substitute (DEL 8) in 1979. It's now worth £80. They recorded two more singles and an LP - Third State (Albion ALB 103, 1980, £20) with famed producer Martin Rushent before spiitting up.…

A regular look at unsung haunts near you No 43: Cottiers Theatre, Glasgow Nestling in an affluent residential part of Glasgow's west end is Cottiers Theatre. It was formerly a church; in 1984 it was converted to a theatre with an acoustically refined, 1865 hammerbeam interior. It has since been augmented by a bar and restaurant and is now a popular wedding venue. Over the years, the 206-seater venue has played host to acts as diverse as Judy Collins, Ron Sexsmith and the Scottish Youth Theatre. Back in 1997, my vinyl junkie friend Alan and I headed along to see John Sebastian who was promoting his new album I Want My Roots, credited to John Sebastian And The J-Band. Almost 25 years later, my memory is hazy but I recall…

Once upon a time as everybody knows and I have said a lot here, almost all songs were cover versions. Even after the idea of copyright had been, er, copyrighted, every singer from opera hall to local pub performed someone else's material. It was only when, or so we are told, The Beatles came along that the idea of writing your own stuff was seen as Authentic (as well as, just as importantly, Lucrative). Soon it was only manufactured pop acts like The Archies and The Monkees doing other people's songs (The Archies had an excuse, as they didn't actually exist) and even the great hit factory of Motown fell victim to the idea of artist-powered records as the genius of Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson flourished alongside…

OPINION Little / Miami Steve Van Zandt has been searching for the heart and soul of rock'n'roll since he first formed The Asbury Jukes with Southside Johnny back in the early 70s. In '75 he joined The E Street Band for Born To Run, having been friends with Springsteen since the mid 60s, and has continued to perform and record intermittently with Springsteen since, as well as forging a successful solo career. He became an unlikely TV star in 1999, when he was cast in The Sopranos, and in 2011 in Lilyhammer, which he co-wrote. He has not one but two box sets available from his website. The first is a mammoth 13CD set combining all of his music from 1982-1999, and the second is an expanded version of his…

Like hairstyles, trainers and iPhone cases, carrier bags are a part of lifestyle branding. If you wanted to look on-trend in the 90s, you got a Rachel-from-Friends “bouncy shag”. Liked hip-hop in the 80s? Unlaced white Adidas shell-toe Superstars told the world. And if you were a record collector during the golden era of record stores, you tucked an array of coloured plastic and paper bags under your arms, simultaneously advertising the cool places you shopped and the genres you pledged allegiance to, while also seeking to create mystique over which much-sought rarity you may be scurrying home with. With the rise of inner-city rents and online retail, many record stores have closed in the past few decades, with warranted environmental concerns expediating the death of the carrier bag. As…

Six 70s bands with an Anglo angle DWIGHT TWILLEY BAND All the way from Tulsa to London to record after Twilley and bandmate Phil Seymour met in 1967 at a showing of A Hard Day's Night. Big hair, good looks and an easy-going power pop sound led to the 1975 US Top 20 hit I'm On Fire. THE RASPBERRIES Early 70s hitmakers led by later solo star Eric Carmen. UK 60s influences but with a somewhat slick Radio 1 delivery, which didn't halt the 1972 US Top 5 hit Go All The Way - although they didn't trouble the British charts. THE EXPLOSIVES Skinny tie trio from Austin, Texas, playing power pop, not least fab 1978 single A Girl Like You. Singer/ songwriter/drummer Freddie ‘Steady’ Krc became a regular visitor…

Ziggy meets The Boss On 5 February 1973, during a break from rehearsals for the US leg of the Ziggy tour, Bowie called In at Max's Kansas City in New York. Accompanied by photojournalist Geoff MacCormack, he wanted to catch a performance by singer-songwriter Biff Rose, whose Fill Your Heart Bowie had covered on Hunky Dory. “It was a small room upstairs and David and I sat at a little table,” MacCormack remembers, “Biff wasn't really my thing and I think David was underwhelmed, too. Then when he'd finished, this other bloke turned up and sat at the same piano, making this dreary noise. His vocals were just as depressing. He went on for a while and we were like, ‘Oh God, please.’ We were sitting right at the front,…

Marvin Gaye What's Going On - 50th Anniversary Edition ★★★★★ Motown/UMG 3558417 (2LP) After the tragic death of his beloved duet partner Tammi Terrell from a brain tumour at the age of 24 in March 1970, Marvin Gaye was a broken man. He withdrew from making music and fell into an abyss of depression that was exacerbated by marital problems, tax troubles and an escalating coke habit. Such was his despair that Gaye even tried to kill himself. But by June that year, something had changed; a glimmer of hope had returned and he was back in the studio, pouring his angst into a thematically linked song cycle that became his defining masterwork: What's Going On. From a musical perspective, What's Going On, with its loose jazz-tinged grooves and outright…

THE PREACHERS were the kind of band who, back in the mid-60s, would surely have terrified conservative parents, and not just because of their unkempt barnets. Integral to LA's garage rock movement, the 45s compiled on Stay Out Of My World (★★★★ Sundazed) sound so primal, they're verging on evil. You know, like the Stones (at their surliest), Iggy Pop, Link Wray, or Bo Diddley. Proper malevolence. Just Don't Complain is apocalyptically bleak. There are no lyrics to The Zeke, only howls. Chicken Papa is sublimely simple, and splendidly contagious. The ballads are less powerful, but there ain't many to skip through. Recording in the early 70s, THE HIGH KEYS dealt in a sophisticated variety of stomp. A Little Too Heavy (★★★ Sundazed) showcases gnarly guitar tones, dominant organ pressure,…

Warpaint Radiate Like This ★★★★★ Virgin/Heirlooms 2438887880 (CD, LP) It's hard to believe Warpaint's debut album emerged 12 years ago, as their nebulous, indefinable, floating grooves still feel as fresh as a field of crackerjacks. They still sound new, different, impossible to pin down. Then again, this fourth album glows with a maturity, a consummate confidence. They know what they're good at and do it very, very well - and yet perhaps even they couldn't identify or diagnose the alchemy with which they conjure up improbably fluid atmospheres dreamy but muscular, hazy yet crystalline, enigmatically exuding more sunlight and shadow than the sum of their parts. The four women click and connect in a way so rare that theoretically you could put the four greatest musicians in the world in…

Rhode Dakar Walking After Midnight/ Midnight Skank Sunday Best S 296 Rhoda Dakar, the woman who helped change the world - really - drops the latest 7” missive from the Version Girl project, an album of covers named after an antique Dandy Livingstone single. Following her doover of The Man Who Sold The World (superior to the Wally Brothers initial reggae interpretation), she takes on Walking After Midnight, a tune which evaded the reggae industry's cover version harvester, chiefly because Patsy Cline's cut was so famed in Jamaica that skanky versions were surplus to requirements. While you're not hearing anything you couldn't imagine, right down to the patented 2Tone snare sound, the song suits Ms Dakar's mature, tangy tones, and the delicious flugel horn and trombone solos light it up.…

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Now Booking Check with venues to see if gigs are still on, postponed or cancelled Bryan Adams May (13) Brighton Centre (14) Birmingham Utilita Arena (15) Nottingham Motorpoint Arena (17) Manchester AO Arena (18) Liverpool M&S Bank Arena (20) Newcastle Utilita Arena (23) Glasgow SSE Arena (26) London Greenwich O2 Arena (29) Belfast SSE Arena July (5) Durham Emirates Riverside (6) Kelso Floors Castle (8) Norwich Blickling Estate Alt-J May (7) Glasgow Barrowlands (9) Leeds O2 Academy Leeds (13) Manchester O2 Apollo (18) London Brixton O2 Academy (25) Belfast Telegraph Building (27) Birmingham O2 Academy Bloc Party May (26) Birmingham O2 Academy (27) Nottingham Rock City (28) London Alexandra Palace (30) Bristol O2 Academy (31) Manchester O2 Victoria Warehouse June (2) Newcastle O2 City Hall (3) Glasgow Barrowlands (4) Leeds…