Innehållsförteckning för Issue 555 från Record Collector

rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk www.recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Magazine @RecCollmag RecordCollectormag @recordcollectormag Hello, and welcome to RC 555 There are about 217 bands that I like more than The Beatles, from Associates to Zappa, Mantronix to Mantovani. They generally leave me cold and puzzled as to the degree of reverence afforded them (see also: Dylan, B). But every so often, usually when I'm listening to ‘The White Album’, specifically Birthday or Truffle, Guitar, Martha or Monkey, I suddenly get a glimpse of the magnitude of the experience, the titanic event, that is The Beatles. More than anything I get it during Glass Onion: the overall sound and sheer wry insistence of the drums, but especially the bit where, breaking the fourth wall, John Lennon turns to the camera and winks, “Well, here's another clue…

Melanie One Night Only – The Eagle Mountain House, Jackson, New Hampshire, 1984, gold 2LP, 2CD, Cleopatra, 15 March, while Stoneground Words Deluxe 2CD with 11 bonuses is out this month and a 6CD rarities box is due in June via Easy Action. ■ Pete Seeger/Daid Bernz Chopping Wood book, Jawbone, 16 April. ■ Urban Folk Quartet True Story, including Joe Boughton (Fairport Convention), Tom Chapman (Jacqui McShee), SAE, 29 March. ■ Joan Baez, 10 bonuses, Hoo Doo, 22 March. Due: February (23) Glen Campbell I Am A Lineman For The County, Ace, David Crosby Live In New York 1984, Timeline March (1) Hal Lone Pine I Hear The Bluebirds Sing, Jasmine (22) Charlie Parr Little Sun, Smithsonian Folkways, Sandi Thom Warpaint (29) Kenny Chesney Born, [TBC] April (26) Holly Lerski Sweet Decline, Laundry. Blues Due: March (1) Jesse…

Tangerine Dream Phaedra (Virgin V2010, LP, UK, 1974) Innovators, leaders, pioneers – Tangerine Dream were all of these and this album was at the forefront of the development of electronic/German music. Edgar Froese really pushed the envelope (so to speak) with this wonderful soundscape which was light years ahead of everything else. Burnin Red Ivanhoe W.W.W. (Dandelion Records 2310 145, LP, UK, 1971) Probably the best and most underrated band to come out of Denmark, and purveyors of a brand of jazz rock which led the field of progressive music. This album is their best: just listen to 2nd Floor Croydon and the title track – John Peel thought the band good enough to release W.W.W. on his Dandelion label. Focus Moving Waves (Blue Horizon 2931 002, LP, UK, 1971) Two superstars, Thijs…

VALUE ADDED FACTS Ian Shirley, Editor Emeritus of the Rare Record Price Guide, answers your questions I don't have an extensive or large record collection but do have one LP worth money. It's by the band Megaton. It was actually passed down to me by my late father when he sadly passed away some years back. He told me that it was very rare and worth nearly a grand and if I ever needed money I could sell it. I would never dream of doing that as it's wrapped up in the memory of my father. Someone gave me a copy of your brilliant magazine recently and I greatly enjoyed reading it. I wonder if you might have any information about the band; searching online there's no information at all.…

Mary Weiss, died 19 January, age 75. As lead vocalist of 60s girl group The Shangri-Las, the US singer leant a sense of vulnerability and edginess to hits such as Leader Of The Pack. Born and raised in Queens, New York, she formed the group with older sister Betty and twins Mary Ann and Margie Ganser while at high school. Paired with songwriter and producer George “Shadow” Morton, they scored an early success with 1964 single Remember (Walking In The Sand), which reached the US Top 5. Its release kick-started a series of seminal hit singles such as Give Him A Great Big Kiss, Out In The Streets, I Can Never Go Home Anymore and Leader Of The Pack. The latter, which topped the US charts, was a classic example…

Howard Jones broke into the Top 40 with his debut single, New Song, in 1983, and scored a further 10 more Top 40 singles and three Top 10 albums over the next three years. As success started to fade in the UK, the US embraced his unique brand of synthpop and he continued to score chart successes through to the early 90s. Jones continues to tour the world, with huge audiences across North America and Japan as well as domestically and in Europe. You attended the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester in the mid-70s. What was the game-plan at that point? I had no desire to become a classical musician, but I thought that all the training would help me be a little more like my hero, Keith…

DWIGHT TWILLEY Dwight Twilley and his musical partner, Phil Seymour, began working together in 1967 when Twilley was only 16, Seymour a year his junior. The duo made a pilgrimage to Memphis's Sun Studio, where they met Jerry Phillips, son of legendary studio founder Sam Philips. That encounter helped steer Twilley and Seymour toward a more rockabillyflavoured sound on their return to Tulsa.. They moved to Los Angeles not long after Twilley left Northwestern Oklahoma A&M College in 1973. As a duo, Twilley and Seymour had been playing live billed as Oister; after they landed in LA, they came to the attention of a small label, Shelter. Founded in 1969 by Leon Russell and Denny Cordell, Shelter Records was based both in Los Angeles and 1400 miles to the east,…

Tony (Decca LK 4406, 1961) £5 It's rare to find a 1961 album where every track is different – music hall, comedy, romantic ballads and Basin Street Blues in French. Like a British Bobby Darin, Newley wants to do everything. Stop The World – I Want To Get Off (Original Cast LP) (Decca LK 4408, SKL 4142, 1961) £5 A groundbreaking album from a groundbreaking stage show. Everyone knows the standards (What Kind Of Fool Am I, Gonna Build A Mountain) but the comedic songs are equally fine (Typically English, Lumbered). Who Can I Turn To? (Songs From The Roar Of The Greasepaint) (RCA Victor RD/SF 7737, 1965) £8/10 A lacklustre show but Newley's greatest score – who can argue with Feeling Good, On A Wonderful Day Like Today, The…

THE BEATLES 1964 The year 1964 was a huge leap forward for the Fab Four. This was the year they further exploded into the UK mainstream and ‘invaded’ the US. Parlophone Records couldn't cope with demand and there were further ‘contact pressings’ by non-EMI companies. The first two UK Beatles singles were issued again, and Polydor Records cashed in, big time, by making Tony Sheridan and The Beatles recordings available on 7”, EP and LP. SINGLES SINGLES: CONTRACT PRESSINGS EPs: 1964 SINGLES: POLYDOR RECORDINGS (All have push-out centres & orange labels) SINGLES: POLYDOR EPS ALBUMS LPs: POLYDOR RECORDINGS A SELECTION OF RARITIES, PROMOS AND CURIOS…

In April 1957, saxophonist JOHN COLTRANE experienced both the worst and best of times. The month began badly with him being fired from the Miles Davis Quintet for his drug addiction – a watershed event that would make the saxophonist take stock of his life and initiate a personal as well as creative rebirth – but ended on a brighter note with Prestige Records offering him his first solo contract. His debut session for the label was The Cats (**** Craft Recordings), an all-star session on which he was jointly credited alongside pianist TOMMY FLANAGAN (who would later play on Coltrane's Atlantic debut Giant Steps), trumpeter IDREES SULIEMAN, and guitarist KENNY BURRELL. Impeccably mastered by Kevin Gray for a long-overdue vinyl release as part of Craft's Original Jazz Classics series,…

The Big Music (Ensign 12ENY508, 12”, UK, 1984) £5 Limited run 12” of a key track from A Pagan Place, and a phrase Mike Scott would frequently use to characterise The Waterboys’ sound. “It's really difficult to describe something that there's no words for,” he told NME. “It's not about music, it's more like a religious thing.” Church Not Made With Hands (Island ISL97009, 7”, Canada, 1984) £8 Another cut from A Pagan Place, not released as a single in the UK. The band were reportedly unhappy with this North American radio edit, shaving a minute and a half off the running time of the full six-minute album version. Don't Bang The Drum (Island PR840, 12”, U2, 1985) £4 Second single from This Is The Sea, Scott's pleas to release it before The…

Yard Act Where's My Utopia? Zen City/Island 5850836 (CD, LP) With all the concern about follow-up albums after strong debuts, Yard Act needn't worry. Their muchcherished Mercury-nominated 2022 debut The Overload felt jaundiced enough at times to sound like an embittered second album. The product of an old indie musical partnership – writers, lyricist James Smith and bassist Ryan Needham – who were on the verge of obsolescence. They refocused and brought their experience to bear with guitarist Sam Shipstone and drummer Jay Russell in a post-punky, sometimes funky stew, showcasing Smith's unfathomable singspeak. Wrapping a deep-felt passion and love of life within a carapace of sneering, they effortlessly encapsulated the despair of post-Lockdown Britain, with its embrace of superficiality and corruption in public office. After being garlanded through a…

Upside Down (Creation Records, CRE 012, 1985) £100 Reputedly the first proper success for Alan McGee's upstart independent label Creation Records with an impressive 50,000 7”s sold, the splenetic Upside Down announced to the 80s that there definitely weren't nearly enough 45s around with ear-lacerating feedback permeating every inch of the groove. The clamour for the Reid brothers that ensued saw them soon snapped up by WEA subsidiary Blanco y Negro, leading them to chart success and more improbably onto the cover of Smash Hits a year later. Riot! (Fierce Recordings ‎– Fright 004, 1985) £175 It's hard to imagine now, but the Mary Chain were in such demand in the early days that a recording of the riot they caused at the North London Polytechnic in March 1985 made it out…

Blossom Toes Postcard/Everyone's Leaving Me Now Think Like A Key Music TLAS 002 Like many others, I guess, I learned about Blossom Toes in August ’73 when Pete Frame included them in his Rock Family Tree of (who else?) Family in an excellent edition of Zig Zag, which I still have somewhere. But I heard of them too late; Postcard, their third single, amounted to nearly three minutes of psychedelic perfection from the autumn of ’68, offering a tale of kipping on the beach, mozzy bites and dodgy doctors that's a touch wittier than Traffic's Paper Sun. Giorgio Gomelsky (Yardbirds et al) corrals a rambling song into audio order, making this charming band utterly accessible and as whimsical as a toddler's conversation. Poli Palmer's Everyone's Leaving Me Now is a…

This month: Soda Stereo It's a hot June afternoon in 1986, and three Argentine musicians are somewhere in the crowd at Glastonbury having the time of their lives. Charly Alberti, Zeta Bosio, and Gustavo Cerati had been in need of a getaway – a respite from the pressures of their own rock group, Soda Stereo – and they've found it here at the festival, soaking up the sounds of headliners like The Cure and The Psychedelic Furs. It's a particular thrill to be in the homeland of their idols, given that all three members of Soda Stereo are obsessed with British music. Of all the days to be an Argentine in the UK, though, the members of Soda Stereo have picked one of the worst. The bass player from Lloyd…

This month: Ed Banger Records DJ Mehdi Lucky Boy (Ed Banger 6143676, LP, France, 2006) £20 Mehdi Favéris-Essadi started out making beats for MC Solaar and Daft Punk, and later became Ed Banger's first superstar DJ. With Lucky Boy, he bestowed on the label its first LP proper, following a raft of hot 12”s from the likes of Busy P, Mr. Flash, Justice and even a one-off from N*E*R*D. DJ Mehdi's forward-thinking fusion of b-boy electro, hip-hop and filter disco – which he called “future breakdance” – was the perfect hotbed for the likes of Chromeo; the French-Canadian electro-funksters appeared on I Am Somebody at the peak of their powers. Krazy Baldhead The B Suite (Ed Banger EDCD 009, 2LP, France, 2009) £20 Marseille electronic producer Krazy Baldhead (Pierre-Antoine Grison)…

An 8 February auction by Dalshire of Carrollton, Texas, included signed drumheads from Jefferson Airplane, CSNY and Mötley Crüe, and signed guitars from George Harrison, Red Hot Chili Peppers, plus a Stella acoustic guitar sporting the signatures of, among others, The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood, Queen's Brian May, Freddie Mercury, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Gregg Allman, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Slash, KISS’ Gene Simmons, Eagles’ Joe Walsh, Glenn Frey, Don Henley. The “holy grail” instrument was described as being in Good condition, with an estimate of $500,000. The 19-20 March auction via hakes.com includes a Nirvana handwritten set-list. ■ Omega Auctions plans to put on the block…

SKATE OF THE ART VARIOUS UNCREDITED ARTISTS/ MUSICIANS Toller Cranston's The Ice Show… On Broadway (Robden RDR 1001, LP, US, 1977) £5 When ice skater Toller Cranston retired from amateur competition in 1976, he rejected the idea of touring in glitzy commercial ice shows; he wanted to create a new form of theatrical skating that would be “the way of the future”. That idea led to The Ice Show and its accompanying soundtrack album, the one and only release on the Robden Records label. Cranston won bronze at the 1973 World Figure Skating Championships and the 1976 Olympics, but his impact went far beyond. He was widely admired for his extravagant artistry and exquisite musical interpretation – that's him in the black unitard on the back cover of Joni Mitchell's Hejira. He…

ELVIS PRESLEY Christmas With Elvis (RCA EPA 4340) £68 From 1969, this 7” EP arrives with a rare orange label. (eBay item number: 386329890988) Supplied by eBay ELVIS PRESLEY The Other Sides Vol.2 (RCA LPM 6402) £157 Still sealed in its original shrink wrap. (eBay item number: 126214209379) Supplied by eBay MERCYFUL FATE Live 95 USA (no label no cat no) £125 Limited to 500 copies, issued in the USA in 1995. (eBay item number: 204491130703) Supplied by eBay WINGS Wings 1971-73 (MPL B 002822602) £1,130 Multi CD and DVD box set featuring albums: Red Rose Speedway, Wings Over Europe, Wild Life and extras. (eBay item number: 166348612014) Supplied by eBay LITTLE NICKY SOUL I Wanted to Tell You (Shee SR 101) $3,383 Northern soul on 7” from 1964 with…

Aston “Family Man” Barrett, died 3 February, age 77. As bassist for Bob Marley & The Wailers, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Burning Spear, Augustus Pablo, Peter Tosh and many others, the Jamaican musician provided the rhythmic backbone to countless reggae classics. Self-taught, he began his career as part of The Hippy Boys alongside his brother, the drummer Carlton Barrett – the pair contributed to the classic 1969 instrumental track, Liquidator (credited to Harry J Allstars). After hooking up with Lee Perry's studio band The Upsetters for a period, the brothers next joined The Wailers with Aston Barrett becoming the bandleader of Bob Marley's backing group following the departure of Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer in 1973. He went on to play bass on all the singer's subsequent music, his rhythms anchoring…

Suicide's astonishing story has been told many times since the world finally embraced their confrontational electronic future portents in the late 90s, from their beginnings 54 years ago as New York's most vilified band to Alan Vega's 2016 death, which brought down the curtain on the group. In 2024, the mysterious figure in shades who extracted rhapsodic street cacophonies from his self-hotwired keyboards still acknowledges the trailblazing enormity of what Suicide achieved but prefers to focus on the parallel solo career, now numbering nine albums, that started in 1980. Away from the tales of hostile crowds and music industry ignorance, Martin Rev's own remarkable story loomed again on last year's The Sum Of Our Wounds (Cassette Recordings 1973-85), collating early sketches from his large tape archive. In a rare stretch…

SHED 7 Indie music might have turned out differently had it not been for Rick Witter's biology teacher. Aged 11 in 1984, the shy youngster's family had moved from Stockport to York. Due to an admin error, Witter was placed in the second year at Huntington Secondary School, a year ahead of where he should have been for the new intake. During a lesson on birth in nature, Witter's teacher asked six children for their DOBs. When Witter rattled off 23 November 1972, the confusion led him to be belatedly dropped back down to the correct school year. “I'd just begun to make friends in York with my classmates,” Witter recalls. “Maybe I'd have seen out my schooldays in the wrong year if it wasn't for that science lesson. I'd…

Martin Carthy Martin Carthy Topic TTSLP 005 (LP) Few albums from 1965 sound as if they could have been made in the past year; Martin Carthy's debut is one of them. Recorded simply and effectively at London's Philips studio, it captured Carthy's live act at that moment, alone, and on six of the album's 14 tracks, accompanied by the fiddle and mandolin of Dave Swarbrick. Although both men would later play key roles in the electrification of the genre, this album captures the acoustic ‘folk scare’, as Carthy calls it, at its UK peak, before ‘rock’ had fully been appended to it. It's a misconception to think that this catalogue was well-known at the time – it was the scrupulous inquisitiveness of Carthy and his peers, influenced by revivalists Bert…

BEN E. KING AND THE DRIFTERS’ Five Classic Albums (*** Avid) is a rum collection with its three Ben E. King solo albums, one Drifters album that he's not on and one that he's partially on. The earliest outing included is The Drifters’ Rockin’ And Driftin’, the group's second album from 1958, which rounds up their recordings after Clyde McPhatter left the line-up and before Ben E. King joined, with songs featuring leads from at various times Johnny Moore, Bobby Hendricks, Bill Pinkney and Gerhart Thrasher, the first named providing the high point with the Jackie Wilson-esque It Was A Tear. By the end of 1958, the group had reconfigured with King at the helm but by the time their 1962 third album Save The Last Dance For Me was…

Going one small step beyond selftitling their 1970 debut album, ATOMIC ROOSTER plumped for Atomic Roooster (**** Music On Vinyl) (note the extra “o”). The band's first line-up featured Vincent Crane and Carl Palmer, ex-members of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, along with Nick Graham. Together they made a phat old stomp with proggier elements which served to embellish the sound without undermining its essential heft. Despite this promising start, Palmer and Graham left the group a few months after this album's release. Crane kept the band name and recruited a new line-up for the mighty second effort, Death Walks Behind You. He really should've called it Atomic Rooooster. Overlooking the chance to shoehorn extra letters into their debut LP of the same year were QUATERMASS who simply opted…

Liam Gallagher John Squire Liam Gallagher John Squire Parlophone 5054197893957 (CD, LP) For a whole tribe of indie music fan, the news of a collaborative album between Liam Gallagher and John Squire was what the world was waiting for. And if you're of the baggy/Haçienda/Britpop/Manc-pop persuasion, then why not get excited: the voice of Oasis, the peerless snarl that defined the 90s, and the mercurial guitar hero of The Stone Roses – that initial effortless, chiming melodicism and the latter ear-piercing riffage – teaming up is the stuff of supergroup, and Manchester, legend. And if you weren't enthusiastic, then some pure Liam-ism might do the trick: the singer trailed the album by calling it the best since Revolver (if we're going all 1996, we might as well go the whole…

Yard Act frontman James Smith on fame, optimism and maintaining the indie ethos on a major label Good grief – you exploded! How has it all been? Up and down, but wholeheartedly better for having happened, for sure. What has been the most amusing by-product of ‘fame’ for you My dad was helping me pick up a big TV from Argos a few months back in his van. While loading I noticed a young lad starring at us. I asked if he was alright, and he started singing The Overload at us. My dad was well impressed. The boy couldn't believe I was just buying a telly from the retail park like a normal person. What steps have you taken to avoid ‘second album syndrome’? Never stopping writing and ignoring the…

Strange Things Are Happening Richard Norris White Rabbit, £25 ISBN 9781399609760, 304 pages Memoir breezes through punk, psychedelia and acid house An intense chat in a Stoke Newington cafe with Bill Drummond inspired Norris to cast his mind back to childhood and begin his autobiography. As a producer, engineer and DJ, best known for forming the core duo of The Grid with Dave Ball, he's seen the music industry's multiple scenes from the inside out, meeting and collaborating with a string of rock characters from Genesis P Orridge to Robert Fripp, and becoming good pals with the likes of Joe Strummer. He possesses a vivid memory, and his almost accidental ascent – he admits he's an ideas-and-spontaneity DIY guy, rather than a musical maestro – is recalled with an even…

Last month's RC found this page frothing at the mouth (and several other orifices) over Dave McLean's MONSTROUS solo single, which delivered – and how! – two mindblowing versions of Kaleidoscope's Faintly Blowing. But it's a horribly limited 8” lathe-cut edition of 100 copies and the little bugger is almost impossible to get hold of. Of course, you'll be able to stream it on Pootube or Campband, but that won't be enough for you, RC reader, will it? So, we have managed to secure just ONE copy to give away courtesy our friends and gaslighters at Fruits de Mer, mostly by holding a gun to their heads and barking like we're Danny Dyer's pet bulldog. To be in with a chance of grabbing this modern scarcity, we've Set you this…

Cast March (1) Glasgow SWG3 (2) Manchester O2 Ritz (8) Birmingham O2 Institute (9) Leeds O2 Academy (15) London Kentish Town O2 Forum (16) Liverpool Uni Mountford Hall Echo & The Bunnymen March (3) Brighton Dome (5) Bournemouth O2 Academy (6) Bristol Beacon (8) London Camden Roundhouse (10) Cardiff Uni Great Hall (12) Nottingham Rock City (13) Birmingham O2 Academy (16) Manchester Albert Hall (19) Sheffield City Hall (20) Glasgow Barrowlands (22) Leeds O2 Academy (23) Newcastle O2 City Hall (25) Liverpool Empire The Moody Blues’ Justin Hayward March (12) Swansea Grand (13) Weymouth Pavilion (14) Truro Hall For Cornwall (16) Reading Hexagon (17) Birmingham Town Hall (18) Northampton Derngate (19) Bury St Edmunds Apex (21) Basingstoke Anvil (22) London Cadogan Hall (24) Llandudno Venue Cymru (25) New Brighton Floral…

This month: Allan Holdsworth From the outset, British jazz-fusion and progressive rock guitarist (as well as violinist and composer) Allan Holdsworth chose to adopt a technique that might best be described as complex and challenging. As inscrutable as Confucius, he could manipulate the notes to make the kind of music that won him the admiration of Eddie Van Halen, Frank Zappa, George Benson, Joe Satriani and many more. Born and raised in Yorkshire, Holdsworth was very much a product of his upbringing, exposed to bebop/free jazz at an impressionable age like his fellow northerner John McLaughlin, with whom it is easy to draw comparisons. While he had always wanted to play the saxophone, it was through the encouragement of his jazz pianist father that Holdsworth took up the guitar in…

Singer/songwriter on his first studio set in 14 years How come you're back with a new project now? I thought that it was a good time to release a record of songs newly-written for myself as an artist. It's been 20-plus years since I did that. During the Covid period, I had a lot of time on my hands, so, I called my friend, John Bettis, and I asked him to collaborate. Writing the record on FaceTime was amusing because we'd never written that way before. John was in Nashville and I was in Spain and Gibraltar. How long did it take? Two and a half years to write and complete. We wrote about 35 songs and used 17. Where have your most successful markets been in recent years? In…

COLLECTING Jake and his grandad Dave Kapusta are affectionately known online as The Vinyl Hunters. Dave was a black cabbie who has been collecting records since the 60s, ranging from prog through to heavy metal. Jake followed in his footsteps and started collecting records of his own –they both have hundreds. They share their vinyl-hunting journeys on YouTube on their channel The Vinyl Hunters. Jake says: “I know if you like this article, you'll love to watch our adventures.” What do you collect, and why? Jake: I like to collect a variety, ranging from soundtracks from my favourite films to original albums of prog, death metal, folk – if an album contains a song I like, it'll be on my wants list! My life revolves around music but when it…

I like the idea of musicians getting paid but I'm fugged if I would fork out in excess of £100 to see a small singing dot on the horizon, even if she or he is magnified by a big screen. I am a male over the age of 80, not a young woman, but I like Beyoncé. Yet the thought of paying a small fortune to see her at a stadium doesn't work for me. When I saw James Brown at Wembley Arena in 1986, it wasn't a patch on his gig at Brighton's Top Rank five years previously. I'm glad I saw Bowie's Serious Moonlight show at Milton Keynes Bowl, but how much better would he have been at Hammersmith Odeon? I have enjoyed some stadium gigs: U2 and…

PHIL PULEO SWANS drummer on his latest collaborative project with The Children The new album features ex-colleague Norman Westberg. What film could it soundtrack? It was recorded many years ago, but I've been collaborating with Robert O Leaver on That's Far Enough: Cast Away. Have you done anything that fans may not know about? A Cop Shoot Cop track that I composed and played on for a Nike ad, Warriors; Teho Teardo, for a fashion show in Italy; Christopher Pravdica WEOWE; Marco Porsia's soundtrack for a documentary, What You Could Not Visualize: REMA REMA. Where were you when you first heard one of your songs on vinyl? Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 1988 – Dig Dat Hole test-pressing. What was your favourite record shop when you started out? Sam Goodie, Menlo Park Mall, New…

SUICIDE Suicide (Red Star/Bronze BRON 508, LP, UK, 1978) £60 Initially disparaged or ignored, Suicide's monolithic debut brutally mirrored New York's shattered post-Vietnam psyche in its lacerating rockabilly ghost rides, swirling love ballads and the terrifying carnage of Frankie Teardrop. Immortal, Suicide now towers among the last century's electronic landmarks. SUICIDE American Supreme (Blast First, BFFP 168, 2LP, UK, 2002) £60 Sucking hip-hop and acid house groove elements into its smoke-dense maelstrom, American Supreme caught the aftermath of 9/11 with its chilling death disco confessionals. “That album's always been under the shade,” says Rev of this still overlooked masterpiece. MARTIN REV Martin Rev (Infidelity JMB-228, LP, US, 1980) £30 Kicking off with Mari's buoyant tribute, Rev's maiden solo voyage explores his cerebral playground beyond Suicide on startling musique concrète, lascivious vocal vamps and…

ANTHONY NEWLEY In November 2023, I read about Anthony Newley's romance with Barbra Streisand in her autobiography, My Name Is Barbra, and how he had written Too Much Woman about her. Then, in conversation last year with TV's Louis Theroux, Joan Collins admitted she felt humiliated about her husband parading his affairs in the 1969 film, Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe And Find True Happiness? and it ended their marriage. Anthony Newley died in 1999 at the age of 67 and has been largely forgotten, but maybe those remarks will renew interest in this quirky, murky writer, actor, singer and philanderer. Maybe 2023’s Wonka film will draw viewers to the 1971 original, Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, with its score by Newley and Leslie Bricusse, featuring The…

GOING FOR GOLD (Polydor 576 214-7, 7”, yellow vinyl, 1996) £10 (from A Maximum High) Rather than yield to second album pressure, becoming a success boosted Shed Seven's confidence. Yet there's a melancholy here suggesting their biggest anthems are seeking affirmation, rather than demanding it. Their only Top 10 single, it reached No 8. CHASING RAINBOWS (Polydor 575 928-7, 7”, gatefold sleeve, 1996) £20 (from Let It Ride) Released just two months after On Standby, the final single from A Maximum High, by the end of 1996 Shed Seven were bulletproof. Sounding as massive as guitar band ballads get, it remains an instant singalong, so it's jolting to be reminded it only reached No 17. SHE LEFT ME ON FRIDAY (Polydor 569 540-7, 7”, gatefold sleeve, 1998) £8 (from Let…

North American Beatles releases would vary in odd and intriguing ways from their original UK iterations throughout their career, from the time Vee-Jay misspelled their name as “Beattles” on Please Please Me. Some of the most interesting ones from the era of their US breakthrough include the items detailed here. Picture sleeves for singles were far more common in the US, and as a demonstration of their belated commitment to promoting the group, Capitol put a Dezo Hoffmann picture of the collarless-suited quartet on I Want To Hold Your Hand, which used I Saw Her Standing There rather than This Boy as the B-side. It sold so many copies that the original p/s isn't exactly rare, though not so easy to find in anything near mint condition. As a quirky…

Folk hero Martin Carthy casts his mind back to the mid-60s… Although your debut album is reissued here as part of Topic's Topic Treasure series, it was originally released on Fontana. How did you get signed to such a well-known 60s pop label? Because of the folk boom at the time, people like Fontana decided to move in. I was the male soloist, Julie Felix the female and The Spinners were the group. They covered as many of the bases as they could. I think they used it as a tax write off. I didn't mind that at all. I had a five-year contract and brought out six albums. You recorded at Philips Studio in Stanhope Place, didn't you? That's right. My producer was a fellow called Terry Brown. I didn't…

The Waterboys 1985 Chrysalis ENCLB 5 (6CD) Mike Scott's multi-disc dissections of the nuts and bolts that went into the making of both Fisherman's Blues and Room To Roam were a fan's wet dream, so it was inevitable, perhaps, that those albums’ predecessor, the commercial breakthrough This Is The Sea, would be afforded the same treatment. Far from the typical ‘deluxe’ reissue with a bonus disc of off-cuts and demos, these are essential artefacts for devotees, fleshing out the story of the source album with insight and a sense of cultural context. Chrysalis and its Ensign imprint knew they were onto a winner with The Waterboys, and despite underwhelming sales stats for the group's 1983 eponymous debut and the following year's A Pagan Place, the label's confidence is evident in…

Hidden treasures from 90s lo-fi cult hero. Linda Smith Nothing Else Matters Captured Tracks CT 370 LPC 1 (LP) I So Liked Spring Captured Tracks CT 371 LPC 1 (LP) Bedroom recording is now both commonplace and convincing. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, this wasn't the case, as home demos were whispered and tracked almost apologetically. They were considered mere scribbled notes, for a “proper” studio's reference. Some, however, turned limitations into strengths. Few more effectively than Linda Smith, the Baltimore-born Brooklyn resident whose sketchings – initially intended for her then band – became more significant than their planned blossoming. Her cult status has morphed into full-on mythology since the 2021 compilation Til Another Time. Now her catalogue of lo-fi creativity receives another boost with the release of…

John Squire, the exStone Roses guitarist, on his team up with Liam Gallagher Is it true this collaboration began when you played Champagne Supernova with Liam at his 2022 Knebworth gigs? Yeah, the first face-to-face on it was a quick rehearsal with him before that gig. We carried on chatting backstage at the two shows. I got an idea of what we wanted to do and it all went pretty smoothly from there. I hadn't written anything at that point. I've read that [I had], but I don't know who's spreading that. I didn't have anything. What has spurred you back into writing songs? It was a combination of things. I broke a bone in my hand [playing basketball with his son] and had a long recuperation. I was worried about…

The Jesus And Mary Chain Glasgow Eyes Fuzz Club FC 226 V 12 GR (CD, LP) The anatomy of any comeback these days requires that the artists in question play it reasonably safe. A recognition of everything that went before and a summoning of the essence of what made them popular in the first place is required. The Jesus And Mary Chain achieved that with 2017’s Damage And Joy, their first studio album in nearly two decades, which ticked enough boxes and homed in on previous triumphs, such as bringing in Isobel Campbell for the Hope Sandoval role in some souped-up Nancy and Lee-style psychedelic pop. Nobody went off script, so job done, especially given the notorious antipathy between brothers Jim and William Reid. The second studio album of the…

Queen Rock Montreal Pathé Live (Cinemas) Multi-storey Mercury… The way Brian May tells it, director Saul Swimmer wanted Queen to wear the same clothes over two nights to film their November 1981 Montreal Forum gigs. Cue massive huff. Freddie Mercury was displeased; the band weren't too happy with cameras all over their stage. Not to worry: a stroppy Queen is a killer Queen in this concert film, spruced up and emlarged for multi-storey IMAX reissue. With the previously questionable syncing remedied, …Rock Montreal finds the band in their pomp, galvanised by The Game’s success and fabulously peeved off with filming demands. Despite the editing out of Flash/The Hero (a less necessary Jailhouse Rock stays), the setlist is spot-on. Staples like Now I'm Here gain fresh attack; new cuts like Under…

Sell Vinyl/CDs direct to RC readers, call us on 0208 752 8172 or Email listings@recordcollectormag.com NEXT ISSUE: APRIL 2024 (on sale 21 MARCH) Deadline for submitting adverts (Listings & Classified): Monday 26 FEBRUARY Please email your advert (word doc/excel file/plain text) to: listings@recordcollectormag.com Postal address: Record Collector Listings, Diamond Publishing Ltd, 2nd Floor, Saunders House, 52-53 The Mall, Ealing, London W5 3TA Following issue: MAY 2024 (on sale 18 APRIL) Deadline: Monday 22 APRIL…

Spotlighting an upcoming road trip This month: GRANT NICHOLAS OF FEEDER How have you been preparing for the tour? We had a quick rehearsal day last December, to see how much work was needed, then rehearsals at the end of January, into February. I'll be listening to the new songs while running, to get them into my system. Do you have any pre-/postshow routines? In the old days, a large shot of brandy and a few screams. Nowadays, I take more care of myself. I like a quiet place to do quick vocal warms-ups and a bit of acoustic guitar. Then I go through the set-list in my head, then into the band dressing room to see the guys and to get the vibe. Will you be playing any songs…

CODA Ian Dury & The Blockheads Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll (Stiff FREEBIE 1, 7”, UK, 1978) £20 It's really where it all began. It fed into my soul at a very young age, listening to and seeing what dad was playing, the music he was making. There's no denying being so close to what was happening was amazing and I got an example of the sharpest crossover music that existed then. It was very powerful; I was a bit like ‘woah’. I felt the power and I saw how hard they all worked and how they perfected it. That was my early musical education. I was on the front cover of New Boots And Panties!! I was five and dad asked me to come along, so I…