Innehållsförteckning för Issue 540 från Record Collector

rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk www.recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Magazine @RecCollmag RecordCollectormag @recordcollectormag OUR PRICES ARE RIGHT In the RC Presents Paul Weller bookazine (2021), Modern Classics (2LP) is valued at £25 and At The BBC (3LP) is valued at £140. Yet in RC 538 the former is valued at £50 and the latter at £100. In both magazines the double-vinyl CatchFlame! is £150. Are these values based on record dealers' feedback, the opinion of your writers, both, or some other form of valuation? Gavin Alexander, email RRPG editor Daryl Easlea writes: “The Weller market remains strong and is always a pleasure to investigate - all prices, as always, are a guide, not written in stone. The values in the recent issue are in line with the brand-new RRPG, which came out in October 2022,…

Chris Roberts once sat laughing in the middle of the road with Iggy Pop (p88) after they'd narrowly avoided getting run over. Some years on, he talks to Iggy, now 75, who has survived many more perilous incidents to become perhaps the world's greatest living rock'n'roll star. Hamish Ironside hates the internet and has never owned a mobile phone, which may explain why he still loves fanzines (p64) so much. He is currently working on a fanzine about Sparks - please email your Top 10 Sparks songs to tackytiger@yahoo.com for his readers’ poll! Long-standing RC contributor Steve Burniston has waited many years to hear Linda Hoover's (p72) 1970 recordings. Finally released after 52 years, I Mean To Shine is an artistic triumph, and Steve was delighted to hear Linda's inspiring story.…

The original 0.25” reel-to-reel tape recording of The Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground & Nico has been located in the archives of the Andy Warhol Museum, Sandusky Street, Pittsburgh, and features in an exhibition there later this year. Recorded by the unsigned band at New York's Scepter Studios, in April 1966, the session was overseen by Warhol, and nine tracks were cut in mono. The tape was subsequently used to produce an acetate, and remixed and re-recorded for a Verve release in March 1967. The original tape was gifted by the band to Warhol, and the Museum's manager, Matt Gray, observed, “You're hearing the album as the band originally intended. The tracklisting alone is a retelling of the album, the quality of the sound is remarkable, and it gives you…

Queen: The Vinyl Collection is out as a 25-part series in Argentina, issued fortnightly with La Nation newspaper. The Planeta 180g edition partwork costs 4,999 pesos and comprises A Kind Of Magic, A Night At The Opera, Queen LPs, Innuendo 2LP, followed by Queen II LP (7 January), Made In Heaven 2LP (21 January), The Miracle LP (4 February), Greatest Hits 2LP (18 February), Sheer Heart Attack LP (4 March), Live Killers 2LP (18 March), Greatest Hits II 2LP (1 April), A Day At The Races LP (15 April). Live At The Rainbow '74 2LP (29 April), The Works LP (13 May), On Fire: Live At The Bowl 3LP (27 May), News Of The World (10 June), Greatest Hits III 2LP (24 June), The Game LP (8 July), Live At Wembley…

RD Thomas What Circus Is This? (Victory March VMR 001 LP, LP, 2022) The long-anticipated solo material from RD Thomas is a wintry combination of mournful folk and atmospheric chamber pop. The former Brother & Bones frontman recorded and produced the album across various home studio sessions during the pandemic in Cornwall, London, and Sweden. There's a special gatefold edition of the vinyl. Asylums Signs Of Life (Cool Thing CTHING 78, LP 2022) This Essex band have enjoyed a prolific run of excellent releases since first emerging midway through the 2010s. They worked on this latest album with Dave Eringa, resulting in a collection which encapsulates some Britpop-esque melodies alongside their trademark punk spirit. As well as a ‘pumpkin orange’ version, the record has been pressed on limited edition ‘autumn…

COLLECTING RC investigates The Stones did it, The Beatles did it, The Yardbirds did it, and The Kinks did it, while Small Faces did it, but only in France. What they did was release EPs, or Extended Play 7” vinyl discs, the size of a standard single but, typically, with four tracks playing at 45rpm. Many EPs boasted tracks that were unavailable elsewhere, as well as often cool picture sleeves, and many are now highly sought-after. Check out recent prices for Five Yardbirds or Kwyet Kinks as examples. The heyday of the vinyl EP was 196367, though there were sporadic attempts to resurrect the format during the 70s pub-rock and punk heydays, resulting in classic releases like The Count Bishops' Speedball and Eddie & The Hot Rods Live At The…

Not Forgotten OBITS In the soft-rock soap opera of Fleetwood Mac at the height of their global fame, Christine McVie was a calming presence. While no stranger to the relationships freefall and wild substance abuse that unwittingly became shorthand for the making of Rumours, there was something steady and reassuring about her ice-cool voice on You Make Loving Fun, Oh Daddy and possibly the finest 200 seconds of her entire career, Songbird. Then there's Don't Stop, written by McVie and with lead vocals shared between herself and Lindsey Buckingham, the California-raised, few-years-younger comparative newcomer to the lineup, whose volatile on-off romance with Stevie Nicks would have made the couple a shoo-in for a 21st-century reality TV series. Buckingham opens the track with tightly wound aggression, before the soothing purity of Christine's…

Do you know too much? Does your musical knowledge get in the way of having a good time? Do you go to family parties and watch people going mad when Don't Stop Me Now comes on and think, “If only they'd played McFadden & Whitehead's Ain't No Stopping Us Now instead” (a big favourite of RC's advertising department). Does thinking about that put you in a tizzy about what th e best version of Ain't No Stopping Us Now is: the original, or maybe further songs inspired by it such as Willie Williams’ super-mellow reggae gem No One Can Stop Us, or Ras Midas’ syndrum skank Can't Stop Rasta Now, or Risco Connection's reggae disco cut, or Cygnus’ elegant lover's rock piece? That's not to mention alternative “sport” versions by…

JOE LOUIS WALKER Bluesman on his latest studio endeavour What film could your new set soundtrack? My 31st album covers a lot of issues in today's world, so A History Of The World, Pt One. If you could revisit any of your albums, what'd you change? I'd have started The Gift with that song, as it expresses its feeling. Have you done anything that fans may not know about? An ad for a cable TV company in Canada, several years ago, promoting Zoom-style communication. With whom would you like to make a split single? The Beatles (laughs). Who'd you like to remix? Robert Johnson's Crossroads. Where were you when you first heard one of your songs on vinyl? Cold Is The Night, KPFA radio, Berkeley, California, 1985. What was your…

JOHN CARPENTER “Total bum!” yells John Carpenter on the line from his home in California. “I'm a total bum!” The legendary Kentucky-raised filmmaker and composer, known for such independent studio classics as Assault On Precinct 13, Halloween, and They Live (to name but three), is referring to the oft-quoted assessment he made of himself back in 1996: “In France I'm an auteur; in Germany, a filmmaker; in Britain, a genre film director; and in the USA, a bum.” When I suggest opinion might have shifted more towards veneration in recent years, he's quick to downplay any kind of acceptance from the film cognoscenti. As for Carpenter's soundtracks, there's little doubt the Master of Horror is starting to receive some of the dues he richly deserves for his huge contribution to…

FUN HOUSE (Elektra, 1970) After the mediocre response to their eponymous debut, The Stooges recorded this by emulating their live set-up as closely as possible. Iggy's said he channelled Howlin’ Wolf as tales of hedonism and depravity roared over debatably the greatest hard rock album of all time. Black Francis told me his entire career was inspired by Side One. THE IDIOT (RCA, 1977) Getting clean in Europe with Bowie, Iggy's solo debut saw his new pal testing out shapes for the ‘Berlin trilogy’. A cross between “James Brown and Kraftwerk”, said Pop, whose lyrics and uniquely deadpan yet dramatic vocals make it very much his album. “So direct and uncompromised,” said Siouxsie Sioux. It invented post-punk, said many. LUST FOR LIFE (RCA, 1977) After touring The Idiot with Bowie…

REVIEWS From The Vaults I Will Set You Free Mute A 068202 (CD, LP) Know Where To Run Mute A 069513 (CD, LP) Deserved re-releases for impossibly versatile talent The omniskilled Adamson still seems slightly underacclaimed, though this ongoing reissue series of his solo work is reminding the world of his titanic gifts. 2012's I Will Set You Free is a delicious production, bounding between modern funk, retro grooves and dazzling diversions into cinematic swing. Perhaps its pinnacle is Stand In, where he gracefully morphs into Scott Walker (whose vocal style he takes on without toppling) over a backing that's part Massive Attack, part David Arnold. It's quite breathtaking. 2016's Know Where To Run is overall a more playful album, trying on different hats, but In Other Worlds has progadjacent…

Thin Lizzy Live And Dangerous 45th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition Universal Music Recordings 8190322 (8CD) One of the legendary “statement” double live albums of the 70s receives its umpteenth makeover. But this time around it offers the donor sets from which the final track selection was made, plus a Mark Blake essay and an illustrated 12 by 12-inch format book. The original release is presented as disc one, followed by three consecutive nights from Hammersmith Odeon in November 1976. The 15th is incomplete due to tapemachine problems, but for those who witnessed this tour, an odyssey that saw Lizzy grab rock stardom with both hands, this will be a truly cathartic experience. A four-man musical whirlwind in full flight, guitarists Gorham and Robertson pushed to the limit by Brian Downey's…

Rough Trade boss Geoff Travis on keeping Arthur Russell's spirit alive You would've seen the tapes at Arthur's apartment and over 30 years later they've become this amazing series. All credit to Steve and his brilliant curation of our catalogue, really, and his relationship with Tom, who dedicated his life to Arthur and going through the tapes on his shelves. When I visited, he had those two-inch tapes all around the walls of his apartment. It was remarkable to see that, really. There's a unique calmness in Arthur's world. It's quite a healing world to be in. That's the thing about Arthur. There's a tranquility but also a facing up to reality, in a good way. I suppose it's that Buddhist thing. The little things count. He looks them square…

Would you say Turn The Car Around is the most mature album you've done? I think it's probably the most confident record I've made, if that's the same thing. I've felt more comfortable about pursuing subject matter I'd previously shied away from, because I have a stronger understanding of what I want to put across. There's a lot of ambiguity in the lyrics still, I think, so people can form their own interpretations of the songs. I still think of myself as a poetic writer, but I'm more disciplined as I get older, and I'm able to edit myself better. There's more focus to my songs now, I'm not as rambling as I once was. Your family is a strong influence on some songs. Don't Say It's Over stems from the…

The Murder Capital Gigi's Recovery Human Season 850018479769 (CD, LP) In May 2020, with lockdown at its most disorientating, The Murder Capital reconvened at their Dublin base to begin work on the follow-up to 2019 debut When I Have Fears. It was a record that picked at similar post-punk threads as Idles and fellow Irishmen Fontaines D.C., but came with so much pain and doubt it bled from the speakers. Singer James McGovern had drained so much emotion into the songs – the agony of a friend's suicide, anxiety, vulnerability, existential dread – that once the whirl of The Murder Capital's rise dissipated, helped by their incendiary live show, he felt like anything new he had to say would appear trite in comparison. What comes after intense grief has subsided?…

Special Interest featuring Mykki Bianco/Special Interest Midnight Legend/Midnight Legend Rough Trade RT 0359 SE Another fascinating rockelectronic-disco record from New Orleans no-wavers Special Interest, whose (Herman's) House was one of the more thought-provoking 45s of last year. Full of sheer joyous sound, it kicks off with muted but sunny electric piano like something out of A Wizard, A True Star matched to thunderous bass drum, and builds with brainy guitar and layers and layers of indefinable musical atmosphere soaring into the distance. The song celebrates a woman filling gaps in her life with clubbing, grabbing what joy is available to her in an imperfect existence. There are two versions here, both utterly adorable. Really. Love disco, love new wave electronica? Love music with a mind? Look no further. Bruno &…

NEXT ISSUE: FEBRUARY 2023 (on sale 26 JANUARY) Deadline for submitting adverts (Listings & Classified): Tuesday 3 JANUARY 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: MARCH 2023 (on sale 23 FEBRUARY) Deadline: Monday 30 JANUARY…

This month: EX-SAVAGE GARDEN'S DARREN HAYES How have you been preparing for the tour? I've been preparing for 11 years! I started conceptualising the idea of a retrospective show when I performed at Mardi Gras, Sydney, Australia, March 2022. Just playing some of the older Savage Garden songs and hearing the reaction from the stadium sparked a nostalgia kick. I'm working with my director/ designer, Willie Williams (U2), with a focus on a musical journey – the setlist – and, with my musical director, Trevor Yasuda, the arrangements. Do you have any pre-/postshow routines? I'm extremely neurotic, superstitious, and fanatical about keeping my voice in shape – no drinking, partying, talking, unless onstage. I warm up, and down. I drink copious amounts of water, inhale hot steam before and after…

This month: Tomita Even if recognised as one of the founding fathers of modern electronic music, Isao Tomita, often known simply as Tomita, is less well-known today than his contemporaries such as Jean-Michel Jarre or Vangelis. But his work is no less worth of your attention. Born in Tokyo between the wars, he studied art history while receiving private tuition in orchestration and composition. After graduating in the mid-50s, he became a fulltime composer and soon found himself in demand writing for television, film, and theatre. By the close of the 60s, Tomita had begun to take an interest in electronic music, influenced by Switched On Bach (1968), an album that featured several faithful renditions from the canon of the Germanic genius, performed by Wendy Carlos on an early monophonic…

Cat Stevens Matthew And Son (Deram DM 110, 7”, UK, 1966) £7 Stevens had already marked his territory with his Top 30 canine canticle, I Love My Dog, and Matthew And Son set him On The Road To Find Out with a temporal zeal. Inspiration for his early material often came while doing the washing-up in his Greek father's restaurant on Shaftesbury Avenue and reflected his impressions of London life as the familial Matthew And Son confirms. The song's upbeat melody and breezy orchestral arrangement are at odds with the disparaging lyrics and yet, in a Teenage Opera sort of way, it works. The Move I Can Hear The Grass Grow (Deram DM 117, 7”, UK, 1967) £10 Not so much the signature tune of gravediggers as an invitation to…

I'd struggle to choose my favourite pop album, ditto my favourite soul, punk, post-punk, electronic, funk or future R&B album. Take the latter. Aaliyah's One In A Million, Missy Elliott's Miss E… So Addictive, Kelis's Kaleidoscope, N*E*R*D's In Search Of…? Tough one, virtually impossible to make that call. No such difficulties, however, when it comes to choosing my all-time No 1 favourite rock album. That accolade, according to my own personal pantheon, always has fallen - and always will, unless a bunch of 21st-century renegades succeeds in reinventing the squeal - to The Stooges’ third album, Raw Power. The best rock album of the early 70s, argues Johnnie Johnstone in his feature this month on the 50th anniversary of the LP's release, the one that presaged punk. I'd go further…

The Vinylist NEWS Mull Historical Society mainstay Colin Maclntyre lifts the lid on his vinyl reissues and box set Tell us how the reissues came about. It's 21 years since my debut, Loss, and 20 years since Us. It felt like a good way to mark those lines in the sand. I'm usually all about looking forward, creatively, but it's been quite a life-flashing-before-the-eyes experience, revisiting my first four years of releasing records. The collection includes an 80-track 4CD box set, including my first three albums, plus rarities, live and session tracks, covers, and B-sides, plus a 36-page booklet. Did you suggest the albums coming out on vinyl? Bernard Butler produced my last Mull album, Wakelines, and he was doing a reissue with Demon and recommended them. I contacted them, and…

(OFF BEAT WIK 55, 1985) £3 Among the many vocal groups to emerge during the early 60s US folk boom were the Modern Folk Quartet (MFQ): Henry Diltz, later a noted rock photographer; Chip Douglas, later to work with The Turtles and Monkees; Cyrus Faryar, solo artiste and producer of the Firesign Theatre; and Jerry Yester, the unfortunately latterly disgraced musician, songwriter and producer who would join The Lovin' Spoonful and produce albums by Tim Buckley, Tom Waits and many others. They made a brace of fairly typical folk albums and various other releases before drifting apart as their individual careers blossomed. Then, in 1984, came a new direction. Diltz had been working with John Stewart – background vocals, and also photography work on a number of his albums. Stewart…

There used to be – there probably still are, but Woolworths went bust so I don't know – albums, compilations they were mostly, which contained all your favourite songs, apparently in the original versions. But when you looked at the small print, which is something nobody under the age of 70 ever does, the back of the record said something like, SOME OF THE SELECTIONS ON THIS ALBUM HAVE BEEN RE-RECORDED BY THE ORIGINAL ARTISTS, which explained why, say, Saturday Night At The Movies sounded like it had been re-recorded by a bunch of old men in a dungeon being forced to re-enact their ancient triumphs. The re-recorded hit was one of the great traps of 60s-80s compilations, along with the old electronic reprocessing for stereo (which made old songs…

OPINION A prodigious talent, Jake Bugg burst out of Nottingham aged 18 with his self-titled debut album in 2012. Featuring timeless rock'n'roll hits Lightning Bolt and Two Fingers, it saw Bugg championed by Noel Gallagher and starting a fascinating career that has led to albums produced by Rick Rubin and The Black Keys singer Dan Auerbach. After 2021's poppier Saturday Night Sunday Morning returned Bugg to the Top 3, his debut has recently been reissued as a deluxe set adding demos and a London Royal Albert Hall show. Bugg tells RC of rediscovering teenage demos, hanging out in Rick Rubin's garden, and getting walloped with indie stars at football. You're only 28, but you've got a 10th anniversary deluxe edition reissue out. Are you a veteran now? There's a long…

Humble Pie The A&M CD Box Set (1970-75) UMR/Polydor 4588188 (8CD) This collection of Humble Pie's output for A&M Records in the 70s – their recording career shorn of the first two Immediate-label albums, of which more later – owes its existence to indefatigable drummer Jerry Shirley. With the aid of music business insider Steve Karas, he got the project moving, first as a since-hard-to-find vinyl set and now a next-level CD box. The bait for collectors, apart from the music's impressive remastering by Andy Pearce, will be a 14-track collection of rarities, five never before heard, liberated by British rock historian Steve Hammonds from the A&M archives. Shirley wasn't sure at first, but eventually sanctioned “almost everything Steve found” and is particularly fond of a Twist And Shout cover…

Now enjoying a well-earned retirement, the 92-year-old Pittsburgh pianist AHMAD JAMAL – whose music with its chiaroscuro-like contrasts of sound and silence, had a profound influence on Miles Davis – is celebrated by two archive sets, both 2CD packages, recorded in the 1960s at The Penthouse, an iconic Seattle venue. Emerald City Nights: Live At The Penthouse Vol. 11963- 1964 Jazz Detective) features two sets by Jamal's trio, one with bassist Richard Evans and the other with Jamil Nasser, though both offer exquisite examples of the pianist's transcendent music with its finespun piano filigrees and lightly swinging grooves. The second volume Jazz Detective) covers a later period, 1965-1966, and features the excellent New Orleans drummer Vernel Fournier. Among the highlights is an inspired reading of Jamal's immortal signature number, Poinciana, which is propelled by…

UK Tour 75 (Major League Productions MLP16CD, CD, 2008) £10 Lizzy caught in Derby promoting the 1975 album Fighting. Four tracks never before released in live versions, plus soundcheck jam and then-unrecorded Cowboy Song. Boys Are Back – Live In Chicago 76 (Cult Legends CL84893, LR 2021) £25 Variable-quality radio broadcast, released on multiple labels. The pull here is Angel From The Coast, a Jailbreak track abandoned by the time of L&D. BBC Radio 1 Live in Concert (Windsors WINCD024, CD, 1992) £10 This belated show from the Reading Festival in 1983 is arguably a better souvenir of the band's last tour that the official live double. John Sykes is Scott Gorham's guitar foil. Life (Vertigo VERD6, 2LR 1983) £20 The 80s successor to L&D brought back former members for its fourth vinyl side…

OSWALD “COUNT OSSIE” WILLIAMS started playing nyabinghi drums in the 50s, and appeared on record as early as 1960 when he and his fellow drummers were recruited by innovative young producer Prince Buster to play on the Folkes Brothers' Oh Carolina and Bunny & Skitter's Chubby. By the early 70s, he had expanded the group to an aggregation of some dozen musicians, with the core of repeater and bass drums augmented by tenor saxman and Studio One sessioneer Cedric Brooks and trombonist Nambo Robinson. This was the band which, in 1973, went into the studio for producer Arnold Wedderburn to record Count Ossie & The Mystic Revelation Of Rastafari: Grounation Soul Jazz). Wedderburn allowed the music to flow naturally, as it would in a session at Count Ossie's camp in the hills,…

REVIEWS Barefoot On Diamond Road Fire FIRELP 702 (CD, LP) Dutch dreampop artisan maps new routes Relocated from Utrecht to Amsterdam and bored with guitar music, Annelotte de Graaf banks an exploratory self-restart with her expansive third album. While 2018's European Heartbreak reflected her experience in human rights law. Barefoot… is a poised set of baroque-pcp reflections on matters personal and creative, aided by film-music producer Ben Greenberg. Diamond Road is an up-close rhapsody in widescreen, all plucked harps, pedal-steel and blossoming choruses. Stand-out Odd To Even is a chamber-pop beauty, its cello chugs chivvying steel drum-ish patterns towards an ecstatic chorus. Contain's treacly balladry, Just Like Me's dance-pop and True Love's Mono-ish cosmopolitan romanticism tap rich imaginative reserves, while I'm Not There aims for intimate-epic terrain. “I'm all new,”…

What did you mean by “the evolution will not be compromised”? We started this album thinking less about the destination, more the journey being different. It's definitely very bleak and very full of angst and obviously directly about death and loss. There was a lot of discussion around tone and texture, colour and atmosphere, musically. I wanted to sing more and use more melody. Those are the kinds of conversations we had in the beginning, about how can we evolve in a way that satisfies us but also feels organic. You said at the start of the process you were unsure about what to write about. Why was that, and how did that change? I really did not know what to write about. And I felt, because it was so…

READER SERVICES SOUTH EAST Across the Tracks – ‘On busiest corner of hippest 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…

Taylor Hawkins Tribute London Wembley Stadium 3/9/22 An emotional live-streamed concert tribute to the late Foo Fighters drummer saw Dave Grohl and bandmates celebrate his life with a host of stars who were friends or artists that he idolised. Grohl was not only compère, but remained on-stage for almost all the six-hour show, playing bass, guitar and drums. Liam Gallagher pumped things into life with a fitting Rock‘N'Roll Star and immortal Live Forever. Nile Rodgers provided funk with Let's Dance and Modern Love, before Hawkins' garage bands, Chevy Metal and Coattail Riders, gave a taste of his sideprojects. Wolfgang Van Halen made a mighty impact, paying respect to his own father with flaming versions of On Fire and Hot For Teacher, vocals provided by cat-suited Justin Hawkins. Supergrass were more…

This month: Roxy Music, Crystal Palace Bowl, 29 July 1972 Your amazing Bowie/Roxy front cover article [RC 531] made me remember when I saw Roxy overshadow the other five bands at the 1972 Garden Party. Us four 14-year-old boys thought we wanted to see all those denim-andflares bands: Arlo Guthrie, Edgar Winter, Stone The Crows and Loggins & Messina. Roxy Music had been on The Old Grey Whistle Test, but. Bob Harris had said that they were a “triumph of stye over substance”, so I followed the party line with my friends. Disagreeing with Bob's whispers was frowned upon in our playground chats. Then Roxy came onstage like something out of a science fiction film, and I was an instant convert. They cast a giant shadow over the rest of…

Gram Parsons & The Fallen Angels The Last Roundup 2LP, CD, Philadelphia Bijou Café, March 1973, are due via Amoeba Music in August, a kickstarter. com campaign to 16 January offering subscribers Demos, Home Recordings 10”s, Emmylou Harris Demos 10”. ■ Howdy Glenn / Can Almost See Houston, seven unissued, Omnivore, 20 January. ■ Joni Mitchell Ladies Of The Canyon, Blue 45rpm 180g 2LP, SACD box sets have pre-orders via mofi.com, followed by For The Roses, Court And Spark, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, Hejira sets. Due: January (20) Wizz Jones Personal Best, Sunbeam (27) Tom Rush Classic Rush, Wounded Bird February (3) Seals & Croft The Longest Road, Music On CD. Blues John Lee Hooker Bumin’ Expanded 11-track 180g LP, orange, red, orange-red 180g LPs, 23-track CD, one unissued, Craft, 24 February. ■ Robert ‘Mack’ McCormick's…

The eponymous Ocean Colour Scene is due in February on red 2LP, along with Moseley Shoals orange 2LP, and Marchin' Already blue LP. At the same time, a 230-track 15CD box set with 72-page book and a signed print appears, featuring Ocean Colour Scene, Moseley Shoals, Marchin' Already, One From The Modern, Mechanical Wonder, North Atlantic Drift, A Hyperactive Workout For The Flying Squad, On The Ley Line, Saturday, Painting, and the 104-track B-Sides And Rarities Parts 1-5. Ocean Colour Scene, Moseley Shoals 2LPs, Marchin' Already LP are on Demon, Yesterday And Today 1992-2018 15CD box is on Edsel, 24 February.…

Pretty Things S.F. Sorrow (Columbia SCX 6306, LP, UK, 1968) £700 To my mind, this was the first rock opera and everything that followed did just that – followed. Stand-out tracks include S.F. Sorrow Is Born, Balloon Burning and Loneliest Person. Small Faces Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (Immediate IMSP 012, LP, UK, 1968) £250 A brave and successful attempt to distance the group from the pop world without losing their commercial edge. From the psychedelia of the title track through the heavier Afterglow Of Your Love, which showcases Marriott's vocal strengths, to the cockney singalong of Happy Days Toy Town, this album is the real deal. The Moody Blues Days Of Future Past (Deram SML 707, LP, UK, 1967) £30 It started as an experiment to test a new sound…

KEITH THE FAITH So sad to see that Keith Levene has just passed away. I always thought he was an amazing guitarist and it's sad that he didn't record more. Saying that. I bought a copy of the debut single by Public Image Ltd when it was released in 1978. I was lucky enough to get one of the initial run with the free newspaper and have kept both in near-pristine condition for the last 40-something years. A few friends have the same record but without the newspaper and I wondered, does that make a difference to the price? Brian Glover via email When the Sex Pistols imploded after their US tour in January 1978, there was a musical interregnum. Manager/media conductor Malcolm McLaren put his energy into finishing the…

Q&A Label boss: Bruce Licher Interview: Charles Donovan Where are you based, what do you do, and why? Main operations are in Bishop, California, a small town midway up the state near the Nevada border. The main office and warehouse for the label is just off the main drag in this small Eastern Sierra town and incorporates the Independent Project Press letterpress studio where most of the packaging for our releases is produced. We create unique, lovingly-crafted artefacts of musical endeavour that we feel express an important aesthetic to our shared human experience. No one else is doing it quite the same way. Why the name? The first release was created while I was an art student at UCLA at the turn of the 80s. “Project 197” was made in…

NIRVANA Love Buzz (Sub Pop SP23) £8,500 From 1988's Sub Pop Singles Club with Big Cheese on the Flip. (eBay item number: 175480590247) Supplied by eBay THE CALENDARS What Are You Gonna Be (Cyclone 5012) £8,342 From 1958, this slice of doo wop emerged from the US with If I Could Hold Your Hand on the flip. (eBay item number: 195445448957) Supplied by eBay THE BEATLES Love You To (Parlophone 7 KPF) £3,400 From 1966, this multi-coloured 7” with a unique tracklisting was produced in Pakistan. (eBay item number: 195445448957) Supplied by eBay FRIDA Something's Going On (Polar 00602547418456) £104 A 2015 reissue of the 1982 original, this limited, numbered edition includes a CD, DVD and a 7”. (eBay item number: 334616656786) Supplied by eBay THE WHITE STRIPES Live in…

I've always been intrigued by 60s groups who were big in the States but meant zip here, like Spooky originators The Classics IV with their Geoff Hurst lookalike singer Dennis Yost (rhymes with ghost). But recently I've dug deep into Paul Revere and the Raiders’ catalogue, beyond their 12 top 30 hits. They started out as a raw, organ- and sax-led crew playing rock'n'roll in the Pacific north west, where they had local competition from primal rockers The Waiters and The Kingsmen. The Raiders’ version of Richard Berry's Louie Louie was first out of the blocks in 1963 but lost out to their local rivals’ (admittedly far better) version. Having been bested by The Kingsmen, they had a rethink. If they had been devised to repel the British Invasion —…

What, I hear you ask, is the most important attribute to creating holy rock'n'roll? Is it drugs? No. Drugs are good but not really that important. Is it chords? Nope. Music? Don't be daft. Ah, it's hair, isn't it? Hair is good. Thin arms? Yes, they're good, too. But the most important quality you must possess in popular music is ‘attitude’. Jim Fry has written a book all about it: A Licence To Rock And Pop — An Inventory Of Attitude. Fry makes the point in his book, that if you want real rock attitude then you must: a) hate sport; b) have thin arms. Jim [brother of ABC's Martin] was once in Earl Brutus. When one of your members’ — take a bow, Shinya Hayashida – main purpose is…

Do you feel Humble Pie have been overlooked in the history books and do releases like this help redress the balance? Jerry Shirley: Yes and yes. There's a bunch of great bands who are still not in the Hall of Fame – Little Feat, Bad Company, Peter Frampton and Humble Pie, to name but a few. Steve Marriott is in there as part of the Small Faces, but his work with Humble Pie should also be recognised. Was 1972's Smokin' the creative as well as commercial highpoint of Pie's later recording career? JS: It was certainly our personal favourite. We loved making it and we were thrilled with the outcome. I definitely think it was the highpoint after Peter left. Peter loves it, too! Clem Clempson: It remains a very…

From Los Angeles, Jimetta Rose is a singer, producer and arranger who has collaborated with Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Erykah Badu and Georgia Anne Muldrow, the latter with whom she has much in common. Like Muldrow, she makes what she calls, “borderless music” with an afro-futurist gaze, her solo recordings weaving together neo soul, hip hop and funk. With JIMETTA ROSE & THE VOICE OF CREATION and their debut How Good It Is Daydreamer), she's returned to her childhood roots as the choir director of her local Pentecostal church, forming a community-based choir via social media with the emphasis on music as healing for herself. Its multi-generational, non-professional members include Sly Stone's daughter, the KCRW radio deejay Novena Carmel and their audience, “We are the Voices Of Creation, we came to bring you…

Arthur Russell Love Is Overtaking Me Rough Trade RTRADLP 481 (2LP) Corn Rough Trade RTO 371 (LP) Finding myself sandwiched between Allen Ginsberg and Arthur Russell on a landing in the New York apartment block where we were all neighbours in 1987 remains a particularly surreal scene in the old mental movie archive. I actually had no idea that this pleasant chap in the sensible sweater was the trailblazing genius behind Dinosaur L's mutant disco and 1986 voice-cello masterpiece World Of Echo. Not only that, he was deep into recording hours of music in his home studio, doggedly continuing until succumbing to AIDS in 1992. Rough Trade's Geoff Travis willingly financed these final years, continuing his Arthur mission after his label's US managing director Steve Knutson started releasing albums on…

Gaz Coombes Turn The Car Around Hot Fruit HF 015 LP (CD, LP) Now a married father-of-two in his mid-40s, Gaz Coombes spent much of 2022 reliving his youth by dusting off teenage anthems like Alright and Caught By The Fuzz on Supergrass’ reunion dates. The man who made Turn The Car Around, however, has weightier thoughts in his head; “Life's not the same…” he sings on the opening Overnight Trains. “The dam must hold, the dam must hold.” This is a thoughtful, and thought-provoking, set of songs from a writer whose responses to the world around him illustrate an ever-deepening maturity, which is intriguing to chart across his four solo releases to date, it's not necessarily to do with the acquiring of wisdom, more the confidence to admit you…

Iggy Pop Every Loser Gold Tooth/Atlantic 0075678628467 (CD, LP) “I got a dick and two balls,” roars Iggy over the opening thrash of Frenzy, “so shut up and love me!” It's a long way from the Dylan Thomas recitations of 2019's Free, where he shimmied out of the rock cage in which, in his words, he'd become “encased overtime”. Well, Iggy's id is back, the musings on mortality are (sometimes) parked, and at 75 he's hurling himself around with wanton disregard for niceties, turning up the guitars, swearing liberally and imploring, “Give me a try before I fuckin’ die.” On, for example, the ferocious two-minute blaze of Neo Punk, he's exhibiting the life force with such conviction that his spontaneous closing cackle of “heh heh heh… all right!” is the…

Tresor: True Stories Dimitri Hegemann, Paul Hockenos, Regina Baer Mikrofisch Verlag, £40 ISBN 9783982466712, 352 pages Sumptuous monument to pioneering techno niterie Visiting Berlin in 1992, post-Wall celebratory energy still charged the city as the Love Parade claimed the streets and non-stop party continued at myriad clubs, notably the fearsome Tresor. Started in 1991 by Interfisch Records boss Dimitri Hegemann in the basement of a former department store near Potsdamer Platz, Tresor (“vault” translated) was first and remained the globally revered embodiment of German techno. Old deposit safes lined the bar and the overwhelming red-lit DJ room boomed incessantly as the ultimate electronic music inferno. Instantly successful, that insane dancefloor was soon attracting techno's biggest deities, from Juan Atkins on down. Tresor started its clubreflecting record label that October, opened…

Animals As Leaders January (10) Birmingham Mill (11) Glasgow Garage (12) Manchester O2 Ritz (13) London Shepherd's Bush O2 Empire Black Stone Cherry, The Darkness, Danko Jones January (28) Cardiff Motorpoint Arena (29) Liverpool M&S Bank Arena (30) Glasgow OVO Hydro (31) Birmingham Resorts World Arena February (2) Manchester AO Arena (3) Leeds First Direct Arena (4) London Wembley OVO Arena Black Flag January (20) Belfast Limelight (24) Sheffield O2 Academy 2 (25) Wolverhampton KK's Steel Mill (26) Glasgow Garage (27) Manchester O2 Ritz (28) London Kentish Town O2 Forum Lewis Capaldi January (14) Leeds First Direct Arena (16) Sheffield Utilita Arena (18) Manchester AO Arena (19) Liverpool M&S Bank Arena (21) Newcastle Utilita Arena (23) Aberdeen P&J Live (24) Glasgow OVO Hydro (26) Birmingham Utilita Arena (27) Nottingham Motorpoint…

London: Haircut 100, Shepherd's Bush O2 Empire, 12 May. ■ Maneskin, 8 May, Tenacious D, 16 June, Maroon 5, 3 July, Sugababes, 15 September, Greenwich O2. ■ Steve Harley, Holborn Pizza Express Live, 23-25 March. ■ Lucinda Williams, 21 January, Eliza Carthy & Martin Carthy, 4 February, A Winged Victory For The Sullen, 13-14 May, Barbican. ■ Blur, Wembley Stadium, 8 July. ■ Jack Johnson, Hammersmith Eventim Apollo, 21 June. ■ Dana Gillespie, Twickenham Patch, 16 February. ■ Röyksopp, Brixton O2 Academy, 19 February. ■ The Pillowman play, with Lily Allen, Duke Of York's Theatre, 10 June-2 September. ■ The Jordan (aka Caro Emerald), Shepherd's Bush Bush Hall, 17 March. ■ James Bay, 26 April, Sparks, 2930 May, Royal Albert Hall. ■ Joss Stone, Palladium, 7 March. ■ The Moldy Peaches,…

This month: Vladislav Delay Sasu Ripatti has been making reverberant, minimal techno since the late 90s, mostly under the nom-de-guerre Vladislav Delay. The ‘Delay’ in his assumed name certainly has nothing to do with a lack of productivity: Ripatti is the anti-Lee Mavers, the contra-Kevin Shields. Commissioned to score the gripping Scandi drama Arctic Circle in 2018, set in the icy landscapes of Lapland, he turned out a whole album's worth of glacial, low-thrumming music for each episode. That's 10 episodes each with its own separate score (perhaps sensing irritation from the sound editor, he turned out just a single 30-track soundtrack for season two). This is not a man who tortures himself as he awaits inspiration from his muse, and neither is he hemmed in by one alter-ego. During…

CODA Stan Getz/Joao Gilberto The Girl From Ipanema (Verve VS 520, 7”, UK 1964) £5 I lived in Spanish Harlem at this time, and we constantly had the radio playing. I remember hearing this when I was four. I loved Astrud Gilberto's voice and said to myself, “She doesn't sing like other grown-up ladies. If I ever become a singer, I want to sing like that.” I sort of patterned my singing style on hers - no vibrato at all, and a simplicity about my phrasing and tone. I've since been back to East 109th Street. It's slightly more gentrified now, but the character of the place is still the same. Judy Collins Suzanne (From In My Life, Elektra EKS 7320, LP, UK, 1967) £5 My stepfather was musical. He…