Innehållsförteckning för Issue 535 från Record Collector

SEND YOUR PRAISE, MISSIVES AND CALLS FOR THE DEIFICATION OF DARYL EASLEA TO: rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk, or to Record Collector, 7th Floor, Vantage London, Great West Road, TW8 9AG, or via social media rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk www.recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Magazine @RecCollmag RecordCollectormag @recordcollectormag BLESS THE WHETHER Really enjoyed the Island cover story [RC 534]. Been meaning to write for years to see if you can shed any more light on the John Martyn Live At Leeds LP. Never been clear if there was any system at all for the numbering and signing of copies. I have a copy which I bought many years ago from your back pages, annotated, “Godblessyer Alan” [pictured] and numbered “1”. Definitely seems to be numbered with the same pen as the signature, but I wonder how many number ones…

Of his photobook, Early Liverpool, which provides the images for this month's Beatles cover story, Mike McCartney (p76) says: “In early 60s Forthlin Rd, I was in one room, learning photography, and my brother [Paul] was in another, learning music. Neither of us had any idea what was about to happen. This book captures the moments before the explosion!” Author of the Beatles (p76) book The Unreleased Beatles, Richie Unterberger has been intrigued by their 1962 recordings since hearing some tracks off their Decca audition tape as a teenager. He investigates all their rarities from that year in this month's cover story. With Michael Head's (p70) new album, Dear Scott, propelling him into the UK Top 10, what better time for Pete Paphides – a devoted fan ever since clocking him on…

Willie Nelson Me And Paul book, Harper Horizon, 20 September, American Rebel, Cleopatra, 19 August. Due: August (12) The Monkees’ Michael Nesmith And The Hits Just Keep On Comin’/Pretty Much Your Standard Ranch Stash 2CD, Music On CD (19) Gretchen Peters The Show 2CD, Proper, Ashley Hutchings More Songs From The Shows, Talking Elephant (26) Jim Lauderdale Game Changer, Sky Crunch September (2) Shania Twain Not Just A Girl, EMI (9) Buck Owens Bakersfield Gold 2CD, Omnivore (16) Rhett Miller The Misfit, ATO, Michelle Branch The Trouble With Fever, Audio Eagle (23) Maddie & Tae Through The Madness Vol 2, Mercury Nashville, Vonda Shepard Red Light, Green Light, Kelsea Ballerini Subject To Change, Tom Chapin Hold Our Ground [TBC] (30) Jesse Malin Glitter In The Gutter, Wicked Cool March 2023…

A 30 June auction by ICZ, Palm Harbor, Florida, included guitars from Eagles, Eddie Van Halen, while a 14 July sale had Led Zeppelin, Traveling Wilburys, Jeff Beck/Jimmy Page/Eric Clapton. ■ A 9 July ha.com auction included The Beatles guitar, record awards. ■ Drake's 12,500 sq ft, seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom house with cinema, studio, pool, wine cellar, 3.1 acres, in Hidden Hills, California, sold in June for $11.3 million via The Beverly Hills Estates. ■ Ex-REM's Mike Mills’ 4,000 sq ft, four-bedroom, three-bathroom Hollywood house with spa, pool, aquarium, 0.5 acres, was offered in June for $6.5 million via Engel & Volkers Calabasas. ■ Johnny Cash's onetime five-bedroom ranch with pool, six acres, in Ventura, California, was offered in July by Douglas Elliman Realty for $1.795 million, while the 6,600 sq…

Bert Jansch has a 48-track 4LP box and 147-track 8CD/book box out in November, including unissued live/session cuts. The latter offers 1966-77, 1980-87, 1988-94, 1996-2009, BBC 4 St Luke's Concert 2003/Radio 2 Folk Awards 2001 and Extras 1968-2000 CDs, plus Queen's Hall Edinburgh 17/8/04 2CD, housed in a coffee-table book. It incorporates the transcription disc, BBC Radio 1 Live In Concert, recorded in 1980/82, and issued in 1993, while the vinyl set offers a sample of the 8CD selection. Among the guests appearing are Pentangle's John Renbourn, Jacqui McShee, The Smiths’ Johnny Marr, Suede's Bernard Butler, Danny Thompson (John Martyn), Mary Hopkin, Ralph McTell, Altan. Bert Jansch Bert At The Beeb 4LP, 8CD/book boxes are on Fire, 4 November.…

David Sinclair on The Rolling Stones’ Black And Blue “1976 was difficult for the Stones. What did they have left to say? Black And Blue's sleeve is one of the most telling ‘fuck-you's in rock. The five chiselled faces telegraph their message of virulence, authority, attitude. Hot Stuff, Hey Negrita, Hand Of Fate, Memory Motel: a brilliant collage of grooves and the best drum sound ever. I love it so much, I got it framed.” David Sinclair Four Apropos Blues is on Critical Discs, 2 September. They play London Putney Half Moon, 1 September.…

JOHNNY HAMPTON Not My Girl (Dotty's D 345) £4,000 Northern soul 7” with Don't Lead Me On residing on the flip. (eBay item number: 115362767398) Supplied by eBay PAUL MCCARTNEY McCartney (Apple PCS 7102) £3,995 Promo album plus press materials. (eBay item number: 203935670121) Supplied by eBay KENNY DORHAM Quiet Kenny (New Jazz NJLP 8225) £3,921 Mono first pressing for this hard bop jazz outing from 1959. (eBay item number: 284718506017) Supplied by eBay JAZZ MASTERS Legendary Jazz Recordings Series (STS Analog 6111162) £139.95 Series of six jazz CD collections, mastered in Holland. (eBay item number: 255020049087) Supplied by eBay VASHTI BUNYAN Just Another Diamond Day (Philips 6308 019) £1,946 Feather-light folk produced by Joe Boyd, from 1970. Supplied by Discogs CAKE No.29 (Upbeat no cat no) £1,969 An eight-album…

When I was young enough to stand up and wobble about, I saw funk bands big and small. Fatback; Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers; The Meters; The Gap Band; P-Funk incarnations; Klymaxx; American Gypsy; a James Brown-free JBs, surprisingly loud when left to their own devices. But perhaps the most entertaining was Zapp. Their first hit, More Bounce To The Ounce, had a P-Funkish vibe; Bootsy produced it with Zapp's star figure, Roger Troutman. The P-Funkadelic bass icon grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, 50 miles south of Dayton, hometown of Zapp's Troutman family. The Troutmans had been trying to catch a break for years. Bootsy provided it, but their stardom eventually led to a horribly dark and brutal place. However, their career was glorious, and the music of Zapp,…

BRIAN AUBERT Silversun Pickups frontman on their sixth indie-rock set What film could your new set soundtrack? Let The Right One In. Where were you when you first heard one of your songs on vinyl? Huddled together in our old house in 2002, an early version of Kissing Families on a split 7”. We were over the moon! What was your favourite record shop when you started out? Sea Level Records, Echo Park, Los Angeles, was our clubhouse. What was your first record? Cyndi Lauper She's So Unusual. “I ALWAYS COME UP WITH IDEAS IN TOILETS” What's the last album that you bought? Juana Molina Halo. What's the oddest circumstance that's inspired a song? Back when I was at a show every night, weirdly, I always came up with ideas…

BILLY'S BEST Generation X Generation X (Chrysalis CHR 1169, 1977) £50 With producer Martin Rushent and engineer Alan Winstanley, the foursome go wild capturing their live set. Ready Steady Go is a brilliant burst of glam-punk-pop; One Hundred Punks channels 60s Who; Promises Promises defies punk orthodoxy, stretching to over five minutes in length. A classic debut. Generation X KMD Sweet Revenge (Empty Records MT 421, 1998) £6 The group's ‘lost’ album, aborted when the group split in late '79 before it was completed – Idol and James would re-group the following year as Gen X. Includes raw demo for Dancing With Myself. Gen X Kiss Me Deadly (Chrysalis CHR 1327, 1981) £15 The reconfigured lineup – Idol and James with drummer Terry Chimes – are joined by guest guitarists…

SPARKS When one pictures Sparks, chances are it's the 1974 glam rock incarnation: Russell on Top of The Pops with long, tousled hair singing theatrically in knitwear to a bevy of teenyboppers; Ron astride an electric organ staring into the camera with an arched eyebrow, looking like, well… like Ron, but with that moustache. There may be fewer screaming teens now, but there's a case to be made for Sparks being more successful now than they've ever been, in relative terms. Look at the figures. They've all but matched pound-for-pound two Top 10 UK albums in succession: Kimono My House and Propaganda went to No 4 and No 9, respectively, in 1974; Hippopotamus and A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip both peaked at No 7 in 2017 and 2020. Secondly, their…

The British rocker who influenced the early Beatles Of the hundreds of songs The Beatles are known to have performed before 1963, only a small handful were covers of numbers by British artists. Joe Brown was the British rocker The Beatles covered most, as the group performed his hit A Picture Of You on their June 1962 BBC broadcast and modelled their Decca audition cover of The Sheik Of Araby on how they'd seen him perform it on TV. Brian Epstein included Joe's 1961 single, What A Crazy World We're Living In, on the list of suggested songs for George Martin to hear the group play at their EMI audition. The Beatles were also inspired to cover the early jazz standard, Darktown Strutters Ball, and I'm ‘Enery the Eighth, I…

Reviews From The Vaults Reissues, remasters and compilations Blondie Against The Odds 1974-1982 ★★★★ Capitol/Numero Group 876069 (8CD, 4LP, 3CD, 10LP/10”/7”) In many ways, Blondie are the ultimate group who should never receive the box set treatment. Their very essence was high-intensity art-pop on 45, not given to deep treasures and acoustic demos. However, in spite of that, Blondie have not only produced the goods, but done so in the same scene-stealing manner they did when they tore the charts up in the late 70s. In its fullest version, Against The Odds 1974-1982 features 124 remastered songs (36 previously unreleased) cut at Abbey Road with alternate versions and outtakes plus a 120-page discography and a 144-page hardback book with commentary from all the band. It is quite a spectacular thing. Against…

THEE SACRED SOULS are a three-piece – drummer Alex Garcia, bassist Sal Samano and singer Josh Lane. Signed to Daptone, they play vintage-styled soul typical of the label with the 12 songs that make up their Gabe Roth-produced self-titled debut (★★★★ Daptone/Penrose) drawing on Chicago and Philly and delivered in Lane's expressive falsetto voice, part Al Green, part Aaron Frazer. Mr Frazer provides guest vocals on THE HARLEM GOSPEL TRAVELERS’ Look Up! (★★★★ Colemine), the reconfigured three-piece's superb Eli Reed-produced second album. The line-up now comprises co-founders Thomas Gatling and George Marage with Gatling's college pal Dennis Bailey but their sound is little altered and their messages are just as strong, their religious hymnals doubling as empowerment anthems. SHEMEKIA COPELAND'S Done Come Too Far ★★★★ Alligator) is the follow-up to 2020's Uncivil War and is…

Existing in many different forms, perennially whipped out in concerts and often expanded to album length, Pink Lady Lemonade is Acid Mothers Temple's signature tune. Not to be confused with 2011's Pink Lady Lemonade ~ You're From Inner Space (which is also excellent), Pink Lady Lemonade ~ You're From Outer Space ★★★★ Riot Season) dates from 2008. It was billed under the Japanese band's ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE COSMIC INFERNO incarnation and was originally issued only on CD, now out of print. The reissue rejigs and expands the music slightly. Due to its sheer length, the epic first piece fades out and in, slightly awkwardly, to fit the double-LP format. Leaving aside quibbles over having to heave yourself off the futon to turn the vinyl over, it's a bombastic, ever-shifting…

Cass McCombs Heartmind ★★★★ Anti- 87546 (CD, LP, Cassette) Ten albums in, does anyone know the real Cass McCombs? The Californian singer-songwriter has always evaded easy categorisation, breezing through various scenes and US cities like musical weather; from his stripped-back Americana foundations, his music has flitted stylistically, often across the same record, from folk to jazz to art-pop to soft rock. That McCombs’ thoughts reveal themselves through a curious, arms-length storytelling – unreliable narration, oblique references, quirky non-sequiturs – only adds to an odd sense of unknowability: his music has hidden layers and double meanings; a sleight-of-hand that leaves his songs open to interpretation. It has perhaps impeded his success, which remains cult-like. Now here he is, after more than 20 years, wondering aloud if there is more to life…

Lawrence Of Belgravia ★★★★★ BFI (Blu-ray, digital) Brilliant portrait of an indie maverick Whether one views Lawrence (Hayward) as a deluded self-mythologising misanthrope or as pop star, aesthete and visionary, Paul Kelly's unflinchingly honest portrayal of the singer remains utterly compelling. Occupying a council flat in Belgravia in the 90s (hence the title), Lawrence appeared to be on the cusp of a long-awaited commercial breakthrough with Denim, but encountered instead mental collapse, drug abuse and homelessness when success failed to materialise. Kelly neither avoids nor sensationalises that reality but his naturalistic approach still occasionally makes for uncomfortable moments, such as his subject standing on top of his kitchen sink peeling through the pages of an erotic photo journal, to the accompaniment of Go-Kart Mozart's Mandrax For Minx Cats. Yet nothing…

We're talking this month to Jeff Hopson, owner of Mudshark Records. With a local student population among the regulars at his multi-genre shop, he offers some interesting observations about record retailing in 2022 to Steve Burniston. Tell us about the shop's history and the music you sell. The shop opened in 2012, mainly from persistent encouragement from a friend who owns VOD Music in Mold. I had done many record fairs with Colin over the years and the fairs he organises are brilliant. Although I've always been a music lover, so much was learnt at this time; there was always great camaraderie among the stall holders. The range of music that we sell is rock, indie, reggae, jazz, soul & funk, blues, electronics, dance and even some classical. How does…

Glastonbury Festival 24-26/6/22 After a two-year absence, 200,000-plus punters couldn't wait to enter the gates of Glastonbury, with its dozens of stages. Billie Eilish drew huge crowds, as did Macca, with guests Bruce Springsteen and Dave Grohl, and mass singalongs were guaranteed, not least by the likes of Elbow and St Vincent. But there was more. Kendrick Lamar added his voice to a weekend of discontent about US anti-abortion laws, as did Olivia Rodrigo, a consummate entertainer/musician. Blonde Lorde created an incredible set featuring a staircase to parade her musicians, while Self Esteem sported a costume reminiscent of Madonna's cone-breasts. Arlo Parks played with sunflowers and sophistication, Skin of Skunk Anansie jumped into the crowd with boundless energy and vented her anger on Yes It's Fucking Political. Olly from Years…

This month: ROBB FLYNN OF MACHINE HEAD How've you been preparing for the tour? To combat the boredom of the Covid situation, we started livestreaming on Facebook Live every Friday. Our two-hour Electric Happy Hour has no set-list – I just call it off the top of my head – and so we stayed active. Do you have any pre-/post-show routines? Meet-and-greets impact my preshow. We soundcheck with VIPs, then have a signing session/photos. Then the routine kicks into high gear. I do vocal warm-ups, jam some of the trickier catalogue, and stretch a lot. Maybe a drink or two, listen to some music, then crush it! Will you be playing any songs that you rarely perform? Definitely. We prepare 80%, then have a variation of the set. There'll be…

This month: Max Middleton Never one to steal the limelight, Max Middleton made his presence felt on those recordings to which he was invited to contribute during a long and distinguished, if underappreciated, career. A classically trained pianist, he developed a sound knowledge of R&B and jazz. While earning his keep as an office wallah at London's docks he was invited by Trinidad bassist Clive Chaman to join a local soul/funk combo with Latin American overtones appropriately called Flare, who backed Jimmy Cliff for his hit reggae cover of Cat Stevens’ Wild World (1970). When Chaman joined The Jeff Beck Group he suggested auditioning Middleton at a time when he was seeking a tougher Motown sound overlaid with a decidedly Blue Cap Bop flavour. As Middleton told Beck's biographer, Martin…

CODA Diana Krall I Get Along Without You Very Well on The Look Of Love (Verve 549 846-2, CD, UK, 2001) £5 I'm always searching for melodies, and I go right back to the early 20th century to find them, to Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, early English music hall. This has one of the greatest melodies. It was written by Hoagy Carmichael, the Tin Pan Alley songwriter — he also did Stardust, Georgia On My Mind, etc. I heard Diana Krall's version on the radio and got the album, which she recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra. It's a great album of standards. Simon and Garfunkel Song For The Asking on Bridge Over Troubled Water (CBS S 63699, LP, UK, 1970) £15 It's the…

Ash Ra Tempel Ash Ra Tempel (Ohr OMM 56.013, LP, Germany, 1971) £400 Berlin's Ash Ra Tempel aspired to be Germany's answer to Cream when they formed in 1970, but their off-target imitation of their Anglo-Saxon contemporaries is arguably more interesting. This debut is a fabled cornerstone of krautrock and one of the greatest rock'n'roll records of all time according to the arch-drude, Julian Cope, “breaking down all of your senses until you are crushed and insensible”. Manuel Göttsching and Klaus Schulze both drifted towards ambient solo experiments later, though Ash Ra Tempel is cosmic in its unabashed heaviness. Hawkwind In Search Of Space (United Artists UAG 29202, LP, UK, 1971) £150 Hawkwind aren't German but they share many musical characteristics with their Teutonic counterparts – indeed, they might have…

It was quite a year, 1962. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. The world was on the brink of all-out war during the 13-day Cuban missile crisis. Marvel's SpiderMan made his first appearance in a comic. Marilyn Monroe serenaded President Kennedy on his birthday and, within three months, died. The Rolling Stones made their live performance debut, and Cliff and The Shadows’ The Young Ones, Dion's The Wanderer and Neil Sedaka's Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, were in the UK singles chart. It could hardly be described as a dour, inauspicious time, just waiting for a jolt of excitement to shake it to life. But that was, indeed, what we got in October 1962, when The Beatles released their debut single, Love Me Do. Well,…

TALKING SHOP One of the problems with the passing of time is how the decades you lived through get homogenised by history. When it comes to music of the 80s, the media will have us believe that it was the age of Duran Duran, Wham!, Culture Club, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Bruce Springsteen and U2. The Smiths only get a look-in because they wiped t’ floor with everyone else. But what about the Shop Assistants? I saw them play live a few times – their drummer was like Mo Tucker of The Velvet Underground and she played standing up! They even got signed to the Chrysalis label. Big money. The sole Shop Assistants album is a classic; I bought it the day it was released back in 1986. What's it…

IN VINYL MEMORIAM The Delfonics The Delfonics (Philly Groove Records Incorporated PG 1153, US, LP, 1970) £80 Philadelphia soul group The Delfonics proved just as adept at the album format as they were at 7”singles. With lead singer/lyricist William Hart and writer/producer Thom Bell on top form, their third long-player contains a wealth of riches. One of their signature tunes, the richly layered, slow-burning ballad Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time), boasts swelling strings, punchy horns and dreamy vocal harmonics; Funny Games pairs psych guitars with R&B stomp while Trying to Make A Fool Of Me combines funky grooves and doo wop vocals to thrilling effect. Peaking at No 61 in the US charts, it was the most successful album of their career. Paul Bowler William Hart, died 14…

Once upon a time, we are told, they blues had a baby and they called it rock'n'roll. Cue short section to insert later about how the paternity here might be disputed, not to mention the maternity, because if rock'n'roll is anything, it's the product of a variety of parentages – but I guess “the blues, rockabilly, R&B, gospel and the post-war baby boom had a baby and they called it rock'n'roll” doesn't quite have the same ring to it and wouldn't fit easily on a T-shirt, unless it was one of those generic internet template ones with loads of words on like OLD ROCK'N'ROLL BARBECUE DADS WHO LOVE GUNS'N'ROSES NEVER DIE THEY JUST FLIP THE MEAT OVER WHEN IT'S DONE or something. The above said, though, the blues and rock'n'roll…

OPINION Born Pauline Matthews in Bradford in 1947, Kiki Dee made her debut at 16 with 1963's Early Night for Fontana. In 1970 she became the first UK singer to record an album, Great Expectations, for Motown, then after signing to Elton John's Rocket label in 1972, she enjoyed Top 20 success with singles Amoureuse and I've Got The Music In Me from 1973 and ‘74 respectively. In ‘76, she hit the UK and US No 1 with the year's biggest-selling single, Don't Go Breaking My Heart, her duet with Elton John, and the pair reunited in 1981 on a cover of the Four Tops’ Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever and then again on True Love in 1993. In 1988, she took the lead role in West End musical…

ANDY ELLISON The concept of rock'n'roll vocalists moonlighting as actors is almost as old as the genre itself, but singing stuntmen are a rarer commodity. In his youth, Andy Ellison's imagination was fired equally by the daring feats performed by the unknown stuntmen (to quote singing actor Lee Majors) he saw in westerns, and the music of The Beatles. Accordingly, throughout a sevendecade career, fronting The Silence, John's Children, Jet, Radio Stars, and as a solo artist, he's tackled mod-style maximum R&B, proto-punk, psychedelia, glam, and hard rock, while trampolining over drummers, leaping from PA stacks, provoking riots, and surviving a bone-crunching fall from the Marquee Club's lighting rig (witnessed by this writer from the stage, as a member of Radio Stars). He's recorded one of the rarest records in…

Beatles eye-witnesses remember 1962 A few revisionists claim other early Merseybeat bands, like The Big Three or Remo Four, were as good as, or even better than, The Beatles onstage. According to most eye-witness accounts, however, there's no doubt The Beatles were a brilliant live act by 1962, even before they'd made a record, as various scenesters tell RC… John McNally, Searchers guitarist When The Beatles came on the scene, we were still playing country. We saw The Beatles play, and they were a far heavier band. The first time we ever went to the Star-Club Hamburg and saw The Beatles, they were playing very, very loud. Pete Best on drums was playing straight bass drum, four-on-the-bass, bam-bam–bam all the time. We thought, “This is a powerful sound. We should…

With his dazzling displays of virtuosity, Jimmy Smith was the undisputed king of the Hammond organ in the soul jazz era of the late 50s and early 60s though JACK McDUFF came a close second. Between 1960, when he made his recording debut, up until his death in 2001, the Illinois organ grinder born Eugene McDuffy was a prolific maker of LPs, cutting tracks for the Prestige, Cadet, Atlantic, Blue Note, and Concord labels. In June 1982, when Live At Parnell's (★★★★ South Bank Music) was recorded, McDuff was on the roster of Joe and Sylvia Robinson's pioneering hip- hop label Sugar Hill. He spent a week at Parnell's, a Seattle jazz club, with his quartet, where a fan captured one of his shows on tape; that recording, preserved on…

Wu-Tang Clan Wu-Tang Forever ★★★★ Get On Down/Legacy 74321457682 (4LP/7”/double dassette) By the time Wu-Tang Clan released their second album, Wu-Tang Forever, in the summer of 1997, the RZAled unit had spawned a classic solo album apiece from its five major MCs – Method Man, 01’ Dirty Bastard, Raekwon, GZA and Ghostface Killah – making the group's next effort both a long-awaited comeback and a test: with key members finding individual fame, could they put ego aside for the greater good? And, with hip hop's golden age having all but cast its final glow, what would a Wu-Tang Clan album mean four years after Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) introduced the Staten Island collective as standard-bearers of a defiantly old-school mentality? With a militant sense of mission, Wu-Tang Forever found…

Pierre Barouh and The Saravah Sound ★★★★ Wewantsounds WWSLP 62 (CD/2LP) Cult 60s and 70s French label profiled French singer and actor Pierre Barouh hit the big time in 1966 after his appearance in the film and soundtrack of the international hit A Man And A Woman. Newly rich, he invested his money in a recording studio and label. The resulting imprint Saravah would go onto have a galvanising effect on France's avant-garde music scene, giving creative freedom to a diverse range of underground musicians. An unfettered mixing of styles links the diverse music on this compilation. Marva Broom's Mystifying Mama melds groove-heavy strains of R&B with wild saxophone skronks. Baroque Jazz Trio intertwine tabla beats with harpsichord improvisations while Cohelmec Ensemble's Desert Angel thrillingly melds rock and free jazz…

Osees A Foul Form ★★★★ Castle Face CF 147 (CD, LP) Osees are one of the most restless bands on the planet. Led by the rockaholic, Rhode Island-born John Dwyer, the group barely settles on a band name for long, let alone a style. Since 2001's debut, they've been OCS, The Ohsees, Thee Oh Sees, Oh Sees and, as of 2019, Osees. To describe their unrelenting output in the broadest terms, it's veered across alt-folk, garage rock, psychedelia, space rock and prog. These hyperactives coped during lockdown by releasing three albums in 2020, plus further socially bubbled live recordings. Dwyer also began making jazzy improv with a different set of collaborators. Downtime was spent revisiting swathes of his vast record collection. That includes plenty of classic punk and although 2020's…

Hefner Steve Lamacq Session 24.03.99 Precious 014 You can learn more about life in an indie band from reading Darren Hayman's notes to this record than you will anywhere else: the contrast between being indulged in a BBC studio to their gritty everyday existence is sharply drawn. I'd snap up this double 7” EP for that sleevenote, but there's fine music, too: Hayman wailing though The Weight Of The Stars, a poetic tale of a oneoff romantic encounter and facing your feelings about it afterwards; the shortcomings revealed in Hymn For The Things We Didn't Do; in the same vein, Every Little Gesture, numerous personal details noted in the lyrics, establishing Hayman as a master of body language as a maudlin violin squeaks in the background, barely noticed at first. There's…

NEXT ISSUE: OCTOBER 2022 (on sale 8 SEPTEMBER) Deadline for submitting adverts (Listings & Classified): Monday 15 AUGUST Please email your advert (word doc/excel file/plain text) to: listings@recordcollectormag.com (Postal address: Record Collector Listings, Diamond Publishing Ltd, 7th Floor Vantage London, Great West Road, London, TW8 9AG) Following issue: NOVEMBER 2022 (on sale 6 OCTOBER) Deadline: Monday 12 SEPTEMBER…

Altered Images September (8) Edinburgh Liquid Rooms (9) Paisley Spree (11) Nottingham Rescue Rooms (12) Bristol Fleece (13) Brighton Concorde 2 (14) Leeds Brudenell (16) London Islington Assembly Hall Ash September (15) Manchester O2 Ritz (17) Birmingham O2 Institute (18) London Kentish Town O2 Forum Blue Orchids September (23) Manchester Night & Day (24) Middlesbrough Westgarth Social Club October (8) Stourbridge Claptrap (20) Exeter Cavern (21) Bristol Thunderbolt (22) London Hope & Anchor (23) Brighton Prince Albert Ian Brown September (25) Leeds O2 Academy (26) Glasgow O2 Academy (27) Edinburgh O2 Academy (29) Newcastle O2 City Hall (30) Manchester O2 Victoria Warehouse October (1) Liverpool Mountford Hall (3) Birmingham O2 Academy (4) Bournemouth O2 Academy (6) Nottingham Rock City (7) London Brixton O2 Academy Banks September (16) London Camden Roundhouse…

This month: Steve Swindells Keyboard virtuoso, singer/songwriter, multimedia artist, clubland innovator and hired hand for Hawkwind/Hawklords and Pilot – Steve Swindells, who grew up near Bath and Bristol before moving to London in his late teens, has excelled at almost everything he's attempted. Among his finest achievements are a trilogy of albums from the 70s that still deserve a broader audience. But his solo career span off-track more than once through no fault of his own. And his early experiences, signed to RCA, are nothing short of a #metoo horror story. Swindells took to the piano in early childhood when he and his brothers were sent to stay with relations in Surrey. “They had a piano, and I was just instantly drawn to it,” he tells RC. “And then, when…

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Poster $256 A record shop promo poster distributed by Columbia Records for Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ plus The Wild, The innocent And The E Street Shuffle. Supplied by Julien's Auctions DAVID BOWIE Poster £350 A UK printing from 1980. This one has a white background. Other colours are available. Supplied by Flashback Records ORGANISATION Tone Float (RCA SF 8111) £280 Early krautrock suggesting early Kraftwerk structures with elements of early Pink Floyd. Early? If it had appeared on the Dawn label, it would have made more sense. Supplied by Omega Auctions JOHN PEEL Cassettes £256 Eighty-four C120 cassette tapes spanning 1979-1983 (or thereabouts) and bought by the John Peel Radio Show Discussion Group (https://groups.io/g/peel) whose aim is to host and archive every single John Peel radio show that…

I love Charli XCX. I think How I'm Feeling Now is a modern pop masterpiece and she's one of those rare stars who makes records that still sound like the future (remember them?). In the lead up to this year's No 1 album, Crash, Charli kept talking about how hard she was working on her choreography and her stage show; her Twitter account made her sound more like David Gray than a be-bobbed pop magician. It was all a bit “hard-working families”. Now, I'm sure this magical stuff doesn't come easy, but I really don't want my pop stars to leave visible sweat marks. Where's the magic in that? In reality, most great songwriters try very hard. Look at ABBA. Where are the outtakes from The Visitors? There aren't any,…

Remember when you were 13 years old? You'd watched The Monkees during the summer holidays and Marc Bolan's show Marc on ITV when you came home from school. There were Moondogs Matinee, Pauline's Quirkes (with Flintlock), and Get It Together with Christian hunk Roy ‘Mr Roy’ North. You'd even seen clips of A Hard Day's Night on Michael Rodd's Screen Test. What you were going to do when you got out of school was be in a pop group. You would live in a beach house in California, shake your long hair, and sing groovy songs that would end the uncool hegemony of The Man. Girls would do sexy dances in front of you then drop at your feet. Boys would want to be you. You'd get to hang out…

Born in Stanmore, Middlesex in 1956, William Broad spent his years from age two to six in Long Island before his family returned to the UK and eventually settled in Bromley. Music provided a lifeline: first, The Beatles and the Brit Invasion bands, then the Stooges, New York Dolls and the CBGB scene. On the edge of the Bromley contingent – he was friends with Steve Bailey aka Severin and almost joined Siouxsie and the Banshees – he started an English degree at Sussex University (“to help with my lyrics,” he tells RC) but dropped out after receiving a postcard from Bailey telling him about the Sex Pistols. “He said, ‘Get back to London,’” Idol says, reliving the moment as if it were only yesterday. ‘“You've got to see this…

John's Children Midsummer Night's Scene b/w Sara Crazy Child (Track, UK, 604 005, 7”, test pressing, withdrawn, 1967) £4,000 Record Collector once described this Bolan-penned, Shakespearean psych freakout as “one of Britain's rarest and most sought-after 45s”. According to www.johnschildren.info, “There was only a test pressing made – 25 to 50 copies, no one seems to remember.” John's Children John's Children (White Whale, US, WWS-7128, LP, 1970) £600 The shelved Orgasm (1967) album's first release, Issued post-split. Jet Jet (UK, CBS, CBS 80699, LP, with lyric insert, 1975) £20 Irresistible glam-rock from this short-lived crew. Brian Damage a particular highlight. Radio Stars Dirty Pictures (Chiswick, UK, S9, 7”, picture cover in transparent plastic Radio Stars sleeve, 1977) £350 Cover star Kelly St John sang backing vocals on follow-up single Nervous…

The lives of Love Me Do Love Me Do had an unusually complicated release history, even at a time when inexplicable domestic and foreign variations of UK discs were far from unknown. The take with Ringo on drums was used on the original UK single, as well as on the Canadian 45 in February 1963. But the take with Andy White on drums (and Ringo on tambourine) was used when the song was included on the Please Please Me LP the following month. Later pressings of UK singles also used what we might call the “tambourine take”, which was also used on the September 1963 EP, The Beatles’ Hits. Even before 1963, the first cover of Love Me Do (and the first cover ever of a Lennon-McCartney composition) by an…

Neu! 50! ★★★★ Gronland GRONX (5CD,6LP) Let's be clear, the Neu! who entered Star Studio, Hamburg with producer/divine noise conduit Conny Plank back in December 1971 to record their self-titled debut album would've been baffled at best, most likely actively hostile to the idea that the music they were about to make would be celebrated in this manner 50 years on. One of the pair – Michael Rother, only 21 at the time of recording – had already cast aside the bluesbased guitar music he'd loved in his youth (Hendrix, Cream, the Stones) with a puritanical zeal. This was real Year Zero stuff. Years before the punks toyed with the notion, Neu! lived by it. Now, to celebrate their half-century, their albums – Neu! (1972), Neu! 2 (1973), Neu! ‘75…

Prince Rakeem Ooh I Love You Rakeem/Sexcapades (Tommy Boy TB 968, 12”, 1991) £60 Released during RZA's short-lived incarnation as a ladies’ man, Ooh I Love You Rakeem aspired to kinship with Digital Underground's Humpty Dance, and was even released on DU's then-label, Tommy Boy. Note the presence of “Wutang” remixes on the flip. Wu-Tang Clan Protect Ya Neck/After The Laughter Comes Tears (Wu-Tang PR 234, 12”, 1992) £500+ The release that started it all. Featuring a Radio Edit, Bloody Version and instrumental mix of the lead cut, plus vocal and intro mixes of the more introspective After The Laughter Comes Tears, this self-pressed release lit up the underground in the winter of ‘92-'93. With RZA's Staten Island home address listed in the copyright line, it's clear Wu-Tang Clan were a self-contained…

Loudon Wainwright III Lifetime Achievement ★★★★ Proper PRPCD 164 (CD) It's over half a century now since John Peel played the hell out of a young American singersongwriter who self-confessedly had aspirations of being “the new Dylan”. Here, in 2022, Bob is taking the plaudits for reaching his four-score years… and good ol’ Loudon is still doggedly in pursuit five years behind. Many of the songs on his 31stt studio album – which he will promote in Europe in September – didn't exist when Covid first took away his touring ticket. Yet Lifetime Achievement, like much of Wainwright's music, has its roots planted firmly in the past. It Takes Two reflects recent years of domestic bliss with Susan Morrison, an editor at The New Yorker magazine – unusual, given his…

When Does The Mind-Bending Start? The Life And Times Of World Of Twist Gordon King ★★★★ Nine Eight Books, £20 ISBN 9781788705387, 288 pages It would be a pity if World Of Twist's comparative lack of profile kept readers from taking a chance on an impulse purchase of When Does The Mind-Bending Start?…, because this memoir by co-founder guitarist King is one of the most vivid, celebratory and honest books ever published about love for music and aspiring to the heights of your heroes. Too late for Madchester and too early for Britpop, the band nonetheless surfed the crest of a modest wave of critical acclaim, if disappointing commercial returns. Despite signing to a label that “didn't really know what to make of us”, the group toiled away on a…

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