Innehållsförteckning för Issue 564 från Record Collector

Christmas has come early for Record Collector in the form of a letter to us from the frontman of U2 (see p86). In it, Bono, who joins a long list of music celebrities who regularly get in touch to discuss their work, recalls the making of the band's 2004 album, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, the personal circumstances and global events that fed into the writing and recording of their 11th studio album and the motivations behind the creation of Dismantle's “shadow” project, the brand-new How To Assemble An Atomic Bomb LP. This month's 14-page cover story also includes a lengthy interview with guitarist the Edge about U2 and where they were at circa 2004, and with bassist Adam Clayton about the past, present and future of U2. Finally,…

Rob Fitzpatrick has been writing and making audio shows about musicians and music culture for 25 years. This month, he contributes the cover story: an interview with U2 (p78). He has a new podcast covering the world's most iconic independent record labels that is launching in 2025. Jane Duffus grew up in Somerset, where she became immersed in the music of Yeovil's finest indie-pop quartet, The Chesterfields (p68). These days, she is a journalist and the author of seven books, including These Things Happen: The Sarah Records Story. Joel McIver, who interviews ex-Runaways singer Cherie Currie (p54), is a long-time RC contributor and author. He recently gained a place on the permanent geological record after a 434-million-year-old species of brittle star, ophiolofsson joelmciveri, was named after him. Nick Dalton has followed…

Kurt Cobain's smashed guitar from an 18 January 1991 gig at Evergreen State College (while debuting the unreleased Endless Nameless) is offered via hakes.com in December. ■ On 9 October, an Eddie Van Halen guitar was offered via ha.com. ■ The 28 September Legends In Motion sale via juliensauctions.com included Taylor Swift video artwork, $35,750, hat, $22,750, boots, $11,700, BTS video outfits, $88,900, Michael Jackson jacket, $52,000. A 29 October Tony Bennett auction included 350-plus lots, notably awards, personal scrapbooks, paintings, jewellery, sheet music, correspondence with Frank Sinatra, Lady Gaga. The Played, Worn & Torn II auction of 20-22 November includes a George Harrison guitar used at 300-plus gigs, and on recordings from 1959 to 1962, estimate, $800,000. ■ In September, Rancid's Lars Frederiksen offered 30-plus guitars via reverb.com, while…

On 26 September, the UK Entertainment Retailers' Association announced that “car makers are turning their backs on seven million music fans by removing CD-players from new cars”. ERA, the body that represents hundreds of record shops, as well as other purveyors of physical media, such as DVDs and BDs, was responding to research by the consumer rights organisation, Which? It found that no new cars made in the UK now come equipped with a CD player as standard kit. As ERA CEO Kim Bayley commented, “with 15 per cent of the UK adult population reporting that they listen to CDs in their cars, this is a remarkably short-sighted move by car makers to stop fans listening to the music that they love”. This is one-fifth of all active driving licence…

Rose City Band Sol y Sombra (Thrill Jockey THRILL 620 LPX, LP, 2025) Ripley Johnson and his band of players return for a fifth album in six years. Straddling the worlds of country, Americana and classic rock, this album is the aural equivalent of a free-wheelin' road trip, distilled into 10 excellent songs. There's a 'Coke bottle clear' edition of the vinyl available to order from UK record shops, a 'clear & pink' pressing in the Thrill Jockey online store, plus a highly limited 'opaque turquoise' version, which is exclusive to Norman Records. Bartees Strange Horror (4AD, 4AD 0746 LPE, LP, 2025) Having built up a real head of steam with his previous collection Farm To Table, Bartees Strange makes an incredible statement of intent with this new LP on…

STREET LEVEL TRIBESMAN Would you be able to shed any light on the UK roots reggae band Tribesman? I have their only LP, Street Level released in 1979, which is amazing but there is literally no information about the band and their history on the internet. Even books devoted to reggae don't really cover them. Here's hoping. Branston Timmons via email Tribesman formed in January 1978. The main force pulling the musicians together was keyboard player, songwriter and arranger Paget King who had previously played the club circuit with the Otis Waygood Group. He'd also made some recordings, appearing on two singles released on the Jamal label in 1976 under the name Pajet, Hugh & Larry. As these B-sides were “versions”, he probably played on the A-side tracks, too, which…

JOAN ARMATRADING Singer-songwriter on her latest studio outing What film could your new set soundtrack? I hope it'll be the soundtrack to people's lives. Have you done anything that fans may not know about? I wrote a bunch of jingles for a radio station in the 70s. Where were you when you first heard one of your songs on vinyl? City Girl came on the radio as I was driving down the King's Road, London, in 1972. I stopped to listen. I was so excited. What was your first record? Free Fire And Water. What's the last album that you bought? Kanye West Jesus Is King. Was anyone in your family a musician? My father played guitar and he taught me how to tune it. What's the oddest circumstance that's…

Manchester, like Liverpool, has generated pop and rock to a degree that has determined, as well as been determined by, its civic identity. However, in the early 60s, Manchester, like everyone else, had to try to keep pace with The Beatles, who had permanently reset popular music. Hits by The Hollies, Herman's Hermits and Freddie & The Dreamers were all determinedly chipper, in keeping with the times, free of subsequent Mancunian moroseness. The foundation of Strawberry Studios in Stockport in 1968 would further help etch Manchester's place on the pop map, helping foster talent like Barclay James Harvest and 10cc, whose Eric Stewart was a partner in the studios. But it was Tony Wilson, the TV presenter-cum-situationist, who really established a sense of Mancunian pride and identity, setting up Factory Records,…

Sweet Revenge (The Subway Organization, 7”, 1986) £5 “I'm gunning for sweet revenge, sweet revenge, I'm gunning for you.” Never has anyone sounded so unerringly chirpy while issuing a threat of destruction as Davey Goldsworthy does here, on the band's debut single. One of those 7”s that came in a wraparound sleeve slotted into a plastic bag. Completely & Utterly (The Subway Organization, 7”, 1986) £5 “This is Davey's great lyric,” says Simon Barber: “'Here come the saviours/They've come to break your heart/Here come the saviours/They've got electric guitars in their hearts.” Still a crowd favourite today. Ask Johnny Dee (The Subway Organization, 7”, 1987) £10 Fanzine editor, and later an NME writer, Johnny Dee was an early fan. For fun, Barber had written “a silly song” about all the…

Adam Clayton, U2's bass-player for 48 years, is at home, wearing a very smart looking robe - it would be a gross disservice to call it a dressing gown - and drinking an espresso from a fine china cup when RC calls. But then, it is 8am. Adam has a busy day ahead of him so we have a strict 35 minutes, so strict, in fact, that five minutes before the call must end, he slips off to put eggs in a pan. Tell us about The Sphere shows, what they were like to play, and what it was like to inhabit that space. Well, it was Bono who started to hear about this project called The Sphere happening in Las Vegas and in many ways, one's prejudices against that were rife. It was…

A mentor to Miles Davis who played in the big bands of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Quincy Jones, St. Louisborn CLARK TERRY (1920-2015) is often omitted from the roll call of all-time great jazz trumpeters. Certainly, his prodigious talent deserved a wider audience so perhaps the Original Jazz Classics reissue of In Orbit( Craft Recordings), his excellent 1958 Riverside outing featuring THELONIOUS MONK, will now put him on the radar of younger record buyers. Leading a quartet including dependable bassist Sam Jones and live-wire drummer Philly Joe Jones, Terry blows the mellower, fuller-toned flugelhorn throughout, showing his skill on a blend of original uptempo hard bop barnstormers (In Orbit), slow blues (One Foot In The Gutter) and jazz standards (Trust In Me). Monk, whose sideman appearances were rare, contributes the…

LARRY LUREX: I Can Hear Music (EMI 2030, 7”, UK, 1973) £300 In a year when faithful approximations of Phil Spector's famed Wall Of Sound were scaling the UK singles chart (Wizzard, Dave Edmunds), Queen's own recording bow was preceded by pseudonymic solo Freddie Mercury's multitracked, echo-filled cover of a Beach Boys hit, itself co-written by Spector. Keep Yourself Alive (EMI 8E00694681, 7”, Portugal, 1973) £270 The curtain-raising debut single. UK copies go for about £35 today, but the most sought-after of the various European pressings is this one, in a rare picture sleeve. Queen (Elektra EKS75064, LP, US, 1973) £34 White label promo shipped to American radio stations and record stores, with an embossed golden logo and crest. Also includes an A4 biography insert and what the industry of the times called…

LEE “SCRATCH” PERRY, though he played no instrument except percussion and with a singing voice only slightly more musical than Keith Hudson's, served a successful musical apprenticeship at Studio One thanks to his energy and creativity in the mid-1960s. In 1968, he launched his own Upsetter label in Jamaica, with a UK version following the year after. Doctor Bird have taken on the daunting task of collecting all the original Jamaican Upsetter releases on disc. A double CD, People Funny Boy – The Upsetter Singles 1968-1969 ( Doctor Bird) offers all Perry's single releases from 1968 and 1969, the sounds which built his reputation as a producer to be reckoned with. It starts with a knockout punch: People Funny Boy is an irate tirade against a former employer, set to a…

Michael Kiwanuka Small Changes Polydor 6590465/0472 (CD, LP) “God knows I gotta be,” sings Michael Kiwanuka on his fourth album, “bringin' the best of me this time.” Five years after the acclaimed and deeply accomplished Kiwanuka, he aspires to do just that on Small Changes, in more ways than one. Not only a record that reflects on a need to rise to the tests of marriage and parenthood, it also locates and distils his purest virtues: that soft voice, the open-eared attitude to influences, the emotionally charged guitar and – above all – the searching, soulful depths of his writing. If the result is a sparer album than its sometimes saturated predecessor, it's none the lesser for it. The impression of an artist leaning into his strengths and instincts is…

Eva May Where Does The Time Go / In My Heart (Full Time Hobby FTH 5285) Eva May is a Bristol-based ballad writer who's supported the likes of Mary Lattimore and Shannon Lay. Don't know whether she's classically trained but the range and control she demonstrates with her voice certainly suggests so. Joni Mitchell comes to mind, an obvious comparison, admittedly, albeit an appropriate one. Ruminating on the relentless passage of time and the changes that occur over the course of our lives, the first song opens with sparse piano playing and builds from there, with deft use of wordless backing harmonies. In My Heart is sparse. “No longer I feel blue for you,” May insists. The desolate melancholy of the piece suggests otherwise. The Ex Great! / The Evidence…

Sell Vinyl/CDs direct to RC readers, call us on 0208 752 8172 or email listings@recordcollectormag.com. Rates: recordcollectormag.com/advertise NEXT ISSUE: CHRISTMAS 2024 (on sale 28 NOVEMBER) Deadline for submitting adverts (Listings & Classified): Monday 4 NOVEMBER Please email your advert (word doc/excel file/plain text) to: listings@recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Listings, Diamond Publishing Limited, 4th Floor, Harmsworth House, 13-15 Bouverie Street, London EC4Y 8DP Following issue: JANUARY 2025 (on sale 29 DECEMBER) Deadline: Monday 2 DECEMBER…

Dionne Warwick Don't Make Me Over (Pye International NEP 44026 7” EP, UK, 1964) £5 The pairing of Warwick with Burt Bacharach and Hal David was (for the most part) a harmonious marriage – and few singer/songwriter partnerships have yielded so many minutes of pleasure. Originally, I Smiled Yesterday had been assigned as the A-side until Detroit DJ 'Frantic Ernie' flipped the disc. Sister Dee Dee and Aunt Cissy Houston feature on backing vocals together with The Gospelaires, and Warwick gives a faultless performance. Make Me Over? You wouldn't change one thing, would you? Dionne Warwick Make It Easy On Yourself from Presenting Dionne Warwick (Pye International NPL 28037 LP, UK, 1964) £20 While most people are familiar with The Walker Brothers' cover, Warwick's version on her debut album is…

SEND YOUR PRAISE, MISSIVES AND CALLS FOR THE DEFENESTRATION OF MICHAEL HEATLEY TO: rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk, or to Record Collector, 4th Floor, Harmsworth House, 13-15 Bouverie Street, London EC4Y 8DP, or via social media rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk www.recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Magazine @RecCollmag RecordCollectormag @recordcollectormag WAVE OF MUTILATION I gasped with disgust when I read the headline at the top of the front page of the November edition: Magazine – Post-punk Legends Return. PLEASE. The correct term is New Wave. However, congratulations on the best feature that I have read in years on one one of my favourite bands. A very informative and well-researched article. I was present at many of their early gigs, including JBs in Dudley, where they played three times. By the third occasion, they were so popular that the group were…

In October, photographer Sharon Latham's photo exhibition of Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, A New World Blazing, was launched at the Gibson Gallery, Gibson Guitar Studio, Eastcastle Street, London, with a Q&A and a performance by Noel supporters, The Lottery Winners. Comprising shots taken between 2016 and 2023, the former Manchester City FC official photographer, Sharon, revealed at the exhibition launch that she'd first snapped Oasis at Knebworth in 1996. She's also captured the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Kasabian, Bon Jovi, Coldplay, Elbow, U2, Elton John, The Stone Roses, Muse and One Direction. The exhibition is curated by RedHouse Originals Gallery, and all the onstage and behind-the-scenes images were chosen by Noel, including a handful that will only be publicly displayed at the Gallery. The exhibition is open daily for six months, and limited-run prints are available for £495-£3,950.…

Apocryphal Facing The End CD, LP, The Circle Music, 12 November: Bjorn Strid (Soilwork). Brooks & Dunn Reboot II, Sony, 15 November: Halestorm, Megan Moroney, Hailey Whitters, Lainey Wilson, Morgan Wallen, Jelly Roll, Marcus King, Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram. The Black Keys Ohio Players Trophy Edition 2LP, nine bonuses, Nonesuch, 15 November: Alice Cooper, Beck. Matt Berry Heard Noises CD, sky blue, serenity blue, orange LPs, Deluxe CD with two bonuses, Acid Jazz, 24 January 2025: Eric D Johnson (The Shins). The Breeders' Kim Deal Nobody Loves You More CD, LP, orange, coloured LPs, 4AD, 28 November: colleague Jim MacPherson. Die For My Sins Scream, ViciSolum, 22 November: Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear), Ian Parry (ex-Elegy). The Doohickeys All Hat No Cattle, Forty Below, 24 January 2025: Jack Hackett, Eugene Edwards, Skip…

Kris Kristofferson, died 28 September, age 88. The US country singer, songwriter, and actor was known for hits like Me And Bobby McGee, For The Good Times and Help Me Make It Through The Night. Based in Nashville, he began his career as a songwriter. Combining plainspoken grit with literary qualities, his compositions were a perfect mix for Johnny Cash, who championed the young songwriter and made a hit of his song, Sunday Morning Coming Down. Kristofferson's track, Me And Bobby McGee, originally released by Roger Miller, would become a hit for many others including Janis Joplin, whose version topped the US charts in 1971. As a solo artist he released his debut album, Kristofferson, in 1970 and his reputation built with subsequent releases, The Silver Tongued Devil and I…

OPINION Half a century since his Just A Boy album turned a quirky pierrot-clad singer into a major star, the single Long Tall Glasses a transatlantic Top 10 hit, Leo Sayer is still dancing. So often remembered for his cheery Top Of The Pops persona, he was always a creative force, co-writing six of seven Top 10 singles, plus five Top 10 albums between 1973 and 1977. Despite a career blighted by financial mismanagement, he's back with an album, an autobiography, even a mooted biopic. Your recent UK tour was called Still Feel Like Dancing? Do you? And does the clown outfit still fit? I do! I'm 76 now but still moving, still got the hair, the voice. People in the house me and the ex-wife lived in found a…

CHERIE CURRIE Read Cherie Currie's 2010 autobiography, Neon Angel, and you'll be left with mixed emotions. Born in Encino, California in 1959, she became a star overnight when she joined The Runaways, one of the first all-female rock groups, at the age of 15. At first, she and the other musicians -among them future rock stars Joan Jett and Lita Ford – had a high old time, adored by audiences in North America, Europe and Japan, hoovering up a truckload of drugs and pleasuring groupies, hotel staff and each other. So far, so enjoyably familiar for anyone who's heard the usual 70s rock'n'roll stories. Subsequently, it all got rather dark. In fact, any critical review of The Runaways is difficult thanks to the presence of their late manager Kim Fowley,…

BRAND NEW HEAVIES Guitarist Simon Bartholomew is telling Record Collector about the time The Brand New Heavies, the group he co-founded with his school pals from Ealing – bassist Andrew Levy and drummer Jan Kincaid - opened for James Brown at Wembley Arena in April 1987. Then unsigned and yet to record, they were soundchecking, jamming on a groove, when, out of the corner of his eye, Bartholomew spied a figure. Could it really be James Brown, the godfather of soul, the hardest working man in show business, watching them? Brown was leaning against Bartholomew's amp, nodding his head, swaying side to side and getting into it. “We were all trying to look cool, not get too excited,” Bartholomew recalls. “After we finished, he shook our hands and went over to…

Born Innocent (Smoke Seven, LP, US, 1982) £50 Their feral, thoroughly enjoyable debut LP, which Thurston Moore calls “one of the Top 5 records of the US punk era – or of any time!” Teen Babes From Monsanto (Gasatanka, LP, US, 1984) £30 Recorded in one crystal meth-fuelled night. Their “powerfully, demonically transcendent” Bowie cover freaked out Geza X – and he'd produced the Germs! Phaseshifter (This Way Up/Mercury, LP, UK, 1993) £50 The best of their major-label era. Sounds like Nirvana's Nevermind crossed with the Posies' Frosting On The Beater: irresistible power pop with a pop-metal edge. Yesterday Once More (A&M, 7”, UK, 1994) £30 Their highest-charting single (UK No 45!) was harvested from Gen-X Carpenters tribute If I Were A Carpenter and had Sonic Youth's haunted Superstar on the flip. Redd Kross (In The Red, 2LP, US,…

Phil Manzanera 50 Years Of Music UMR 5523617 (11CD) Phil Manzanera's recent book Revolución To Roxy revealed a multifaceted life that proves he's more than just the guitarist with the Antony Price bug-eyed sunglasses and the well-maintained beard from Roxy Music. There are stories of fleeing revolutionary Cuba as a child and picking up the guitar in Venezuela as a teenager, collaborating with David Gilmour and helping to revive Pink Floyd, producing global artists like Café Tacvba, the “Radiohead of Mexico” as he describes them, and plenty more besides. A solo career, though, hadn't really occurred to Manzanera before he was persuaded to make Diamond Head in 1975. His friends Brian Eno, Andy Mackay and Robert Wyatt – who all play on that record – were each making one themselves,…

From Detroit, BOBBY HUTTON started singing aged five and, chiefly influenced by Jackie Wilson, his voice was similarly big and soaring. He had an early stint at Motown writing with Raynoma Gordy, Berry Gordy's business partner and second wife, but never released anything for the company. It was at Chess under Billy Davis that he got his big break, put with Fontella Bass and as a solo act recording 1965's Lucky Boy under his birth name, Harold Hutton. A handful of sevens followed for Blue Rock (1968's superlative That's How Heartaches Are Made) and Philips (1969 Stafford All-nighter floorfiller Come See What's Left Of Me; 71's You're My Whole Reason which he performed on the first ever Soul Train) then stepping up a gear, by 73's Piece Of The Action (Expansion),…

New Order Brotherhood Warner 0825646253104 (2CD/2LP/2DVD) Released in late 1986, New Order's Brotherhood has forever languished in the shadow of what came immediately before, and what followed. 1985's Low Life is a favourite of many, capturing the group completing their transition to a discrete unit from Joy Division. 1987's Substance is arguably the greatest compilation album by anyone of the decade, so it is little wonder Brotherhood never got the full love and attention it deserved, at the time and retrospectively. Like its love triangle, Brotherhood is quite bizarre, split as it is between the dance and indie sides of the group's personality. Like so many in the mid 80s, technology began to control musicians rather than the other way around – the advent of the MIDI at the end…

The Cure Songs Of A Lost World Fiction/Polydor 7503674 (CD/2CD/BD, LP/2LP, cassette) The frequency of new Cure albums has slowed to that of minor comets. Their 14th arrives 16 years and four days since the last, putting it on a par with P/2022 S1, a Jupiter-family celestial body first observed when The Cure were gearing up for their Shows Of A Lost World tour – the tour Robert Smith vowed wouldn't happen unless there was a new album, to knowing eyerolls from fans – and which will next come around in 2038. The last time The Cure released an album, the Large Hadron Collider had just opened, Barack Obama was days away from being elected President, and there were still people alive who had fought in the First World War.…

A Few Words In Defense Of Our Country: The Biography Of Randy Newman Robert Hilburn Constable, £25 ISBN 9781408720363, 544 pages Essential study of a true maestro Articulate chronicler of the American condition, savagely witty satirist, family-friendly Pixar poet. Randy Newman is all of the above, and finally, at the age of 80, he has the biography the breadth of his talent and influence deserves. Fittingly, it's taken a similarly articulate friend of more than half a century to deliver it. The author, chief critic of the Los Angeles Times for 35 years, hails his subject as combining the musical sophistication of Gershwin or Porter with the social commentary of Dylan, before mapping out a breathtaking catalogue that relentlessly puts his homeland under a microscope. Newman's politics inform such eloquent…

READER SERVICES Call on 020 8752 8172 or email stockists@metropolis.co.uk for more information or to sign up today! SOUTH EAST 101 Collectors Records – 'Established in 1991. Now under new management. Buying and selling new and second hand vinyl and cd's. Stock a range of quality artist merchandise in store.' 101 West Street, Farnham, GU9 7EN. Tel: 01252 734409. richard.101collectorsrecords@hotmail.com www.101collectorsrecords.com 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 Ben's Collectors Records – Long standing record shop in the heart of Guildford with an ever changing large stock of records cds &…

Lives Chappell Roan London Brixton O2 Academy 21/9/24 Los Angeles sensation, Chappell Roan, played the third sold-out night of her three in the capital, this time celebrating The Pink Pony Club. Each night of her Midwest Princess Tour is themed around songs from her debut, The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess, and the venue was engulfed in a sea of pink cowboy hats and boots. The show onstage was incredible, too, and her fans sang every word of every song that she played, almost drowning her out in the process. She was overwhelmed at several points in the evening, and poignantly included the uber-ballad, Kaleidoscope, as well as the mass dance-along of Hot To Go. She wove her magic throughout, and put 5,000 fans under her spell with…

This month: Steamhammer During the blues boom of the late 60s, Steamhammer proved to be one of the genre's finest exponents and might have achieved the level of recognition they deserved had not bad luck and trouble repeatedly crossed their path. Formed in Worthing in 1968 by singer Kieran White with Martin Pugh (lead guitar), Steve Davy (bass), Michael Rushton (drums), and the addition of Martin Quittenton (guitar) five months later, they soon came to the attention of blues legend Freddie King, who hired them as his backing band for his UK tours during 1968 and 1969. “My early musical influences were formed by listening to local skiffle groups playing Lonnie Donegan songs that led me to discovering American rock, soul and blues,” Pugh tells RC. “In particular Freddie King,…

This month: The Artful Dodgers/Dantalian's Chariot, North Romford Comprehensive School, 9 February 1968 It's 9 February 1968, and the Williamsons of Collier Row, Romford, are setting off to see my brother's mod-rock band, The Artful Dodgers, play a gig at the North Romford Comprehensive School (later they poshed it up by renaming it Forest Lodge School), opening for Dantalion's Chariot, with Steamhammer also on the bill (I can't remember if they played, though). The Artful Dodgers were world famous in Romford and the surrounding areas and even had an agent and a fan club! They had played many gigs in pubs and clubs and had quite a following. They won a few of the beat competitions that used to be held back in the day; prizes included making a demo…

Record Store Day Black Friday in North America and other territories runs on 29 November. Among the releases on offer are Allman Brothers Band Manley Field House, Syracuse, NY, April 7 1972 3LP, Biohazard Mata Leao LP, The Blasters Over There LP, The Byrds/Buffalo Springfield Live At Monterey International Pop Festival 2LP, Cypress Hill Live At Rock Im Park 1999 LP, CD, The Doors Live In Detroit 4LP, Billie Elish Hit Me Hard And Soft (Isolated Vocals) LP, The Beat Special Beat Service 2LP, Bill Evans Live In Konigsberg 1970 2LP, Explosions In The Sky/Steve Jablonsky Lone Survivor 2LP, The Flamin' Groovies Let It Rock! LP, Garbage Copy/Paste LP, Jerry Garcia Electric On The Eel 3LP, Grateful Dead Veterans' Coliseum, New Haven, CT, 5/5/77 4LP, Herbie Hancock Possibilities 3LP, Jimi Hendrix Songs For Groovy Children LP, John Lee Hooker Don't Turn Me From Your Door LP, Al Jarreau Wow!…

COLLECTING David Pusutka aka ACT!, self-styled purveyor of sound design soul and futurist yacht rock – “think 10cc Y3K, a deconstructed Hall & Oates, or a zonked-out Zapp” according to his press release – is a Canadian record producer and musician. He has recorded and released music with various projects/in various guises, including ACT!, Anamai, Ceramic TL and Egyptrixx. As a collaborator he has worked widely with artists such as Junior Boys, Colin Fisher and myst milano. Stylistically, his work “tends to embrace abstract compositional techniques such as textural sound and formlessness”, and much of his practice (whether as principal artist, producer or label head) is collectivist, and often results in new intersections between artists. For over a decade, he has been working in creative music: as a member of…

I spent the summer touring in the good company of the twin talents of the Manic Street Preachers and Suede, and it got me thinking about the lost art of the B-side. Both bands are renowned for the quality of their non-singles, with Suede even going so far as to release theirs as a standalone collection: the 1997 double-album Sci Fi Lullabies, a collection of songs so staggering in their quality that it's astonishing that tunes such as Killing Of A Flash Boy didn't get a release as singles in their own right. The 90s were arguably the last heyday for the B-side, perhaps in part due to the boom in the practice of labels releasing multiple versions of CD singles (in an attempt to ride the charts) offering ample…

Mike Batt has always viewed himself as a serious musician and been a big name around the world. Yet at home, despite astonishing success as a songwriter, producer, arranger and movie soundtrack composer, it always comes back to one thing. “If I was introduced on a TV game show it would be, 'Here's chief Womble, Mike Batt,'” he says, cheerily. He agrees that many would delight in being typecast as an eco-conscious Furby who happened to be a member of 1974's biggest UK hitmakers. Yet he insists that he has a far fuller CV than that. His world has a fairytale edge. He was 18 when a New Musical Express ad landed him a job as songwriter and artist at Liberty Records but within months, he was head of A&R.…

The Runaways The Runaways (Mercury, LP, UK, 1976) £20 This album of unreconstructed, sub-Suzi Quatro rock songs isn't sophisticated but it's a lot of fun, with the obvious big hit of Cherry Bomb still a nostalgic blast all these years later. An uncredited Nigel Harrison, later of Blondie, plays bass. The Runaways Queens Of Noise (Mercury, LP, UK, 1977) £18 Bands like The Runaways weren't built to last, even without toxic management hindering their progress, and there are some signs of early fatigue on this second album. Joan Jett takes some of the lead vocals here, causing serious intra-band stress. Cherie & Marie Currie Messin' With The Boys (Capitol, LP, UK, 1980) £10 A minor hit in commercial terms but something of an underrated curio in early female-fronted rock. The…

The Brand New Heavies (JAZID/Acid Jazz LP 23, LP, UK, 1990) £15 Where it all began: the group with Jay Ella Ruth establishing their funky brand with uptight instrumentals and hymns to positive thinking. Brother Sister (FFRR 828 490 1, 2LP, UK, 1994) £40 The first of two platinum-selling albums. Hitting No 4 in the UK, it took them to a pop audience with singles Dream On Dreamer, Midnight At The Oasis and Back To Love. Trunk Funk: The Best Of (FFRR/Acid Jazz 3984 291642, CD, UK, 1999) £5 A grab-bag introduction with three newies featuring the gorgeous-voiced Carleen Anderson, daughter of Vicki Anderson, for the BNH connoisseur.…

Dear Record Collector, Loud music may have dimmed me brain but here's some unreliable recollections… HOW TO DISMANTLE AN ATOMIC BOMB Apart from what was going on in the world at the time, with rumours of weapons of mass destruction supposedly being hidden in Iraq, the unspoken thread in the lyrics of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb was the fact that my father had recently died [during the Elevation tour], something I didn't know at the time would have reverberations right up to the present day. It was the “atomic bomb” that at least I was trying to dismantle. A sort of psychological ground zero for me… All of us have them… So on the original album, you have the presence of these father figures throughout. There's Sometimes You…

Getting your own studio was a boon for your solo career wasn't it? My solo work, if you like, was never intended to be a solo career. I realised that if I built a studio, I wouldn't have to ask permission from a record company to make an album. Then I was free. That's what it's all about. If you wanted to do some music, you'd do it. It doesn't really matter if it's a hit or not. Most of them would absolutely not be considered hits in any shape or form but it made me happy. You've done 10 solo albums, loads of collaborations, production work, etc, but people still see you as the guy with the fly glasses and the beard. Is it partly because beards were verboten…

Queen Queen I: Deluxe Edition EMI 6525877 (6CD/LP/2CD, LP) “And nobody played synthesizer.” The boast on the back sleeve of Queen's 1973 calling card let listeners know that everything they heard on the record was achieved through more traditional instruments and voices, by four men righteously proud of their sonic masterpiece. The message would remain on the next four albums (shortened to just “no synthesizers” by the time of Sheer Heart Attack), but here is where the group first realised it was doable, painstakingly assembled in studio downtime, ie late evenings or overnight, the previous year. However, in celebrating those pioneering efforts, guitarist Brian May refers to this lavish box set as not so much a reissue as an artful “rebuild.” Key to that, in terms of the original nine-track…

Brotherhood (Factory FACT 150SP, LP, UK, metallic foil edition, 1986) £40 Early pressings of Brotherhood had Peter Saville's high art sleeve of Yves Klein-inspired zinc foil-stamped to simulate the texture of the brushed metal. The foiling continued throughout the CD press (£15) and as an insert in Factory's then standard over-sized embossed cassette editions (£20). Brotherhood (Factory YX-7413-AX, LP, Japan, 1986) £60 Factory's customary attention to detail was always going to go down well with the fastidious Japanese market, and here was no exception. With its obi- and insert with band biography and discography, a first pressing through the label's Japanese counterpart, Nippon Columbia, is always a good find. State Of The Nation/Shame Of The Nation (EMI TC-GOOD 144, cassette single, yellow plastic case, inlay, NZ, 1986) £30 Only the third New Order…

Primal Scream Come Ahead BMG 964059221 (CD, 2LP) Speak to Bobby Gillespie himself and he'll readily admit the music of Primal Scream has fallen into formula in the 21st century – that apocalyptic electronic grind which has served them well enough since XTRMNTR announced itself as the first great album of the 2000s. Compare this situation to the 90s, when they released three albums which revealed vastly different interpretations of rock's past, present and future. In the eight years since 2016's Chaosmosis arrived to a lukewarm response, Gillespie's memoir Tenement Kid and his 2021 Utopian Ashes collaboration with Savages' Jehnny Beth have been and gone. It's also been a period of musical soul-searching which has brought about two significant changes for the new model 2020s Scream: an emphasis on Gillespie's…

In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon Altitude (Cinemas, Streaming) Extensive look at an extraordinary 60-year career It's easy to remember Paul Simon as an all-conquering behemoth of song, given the colossal success of Graceland. In Restless Dreams reminds us that Simon's career could have gone either way after the indifference shown to One-Trick Pony and Hearts and Bones, a difficult period that coincided with a short, tumultuous marriage to Carrie Fisher. Had Simon's career gone the way of the dodo then his place in history would have already been assured – his partnership and eventual breakup with Art Garfunkel is covered in forensic detail with a wealth of spine-tingling footage, including the inclusion of producer Roy Halee's cutting and looping in the studio, suggesting they were more sonically…

Open since 2014, David Sternberg's north London shop is a friendly and atmospheric place to buy records. As the name suggests, it's a small shop, but it stocks a superb range of music. Firmly committed to shop-based record retailing, David tells Steve Burniston about this fascinating place, packed with enthusiastic music fans when Steve visits, only 15 minutes after opening. How did you come to own your own record shop? I had to get the records out of the house! One day my wife said, “The records go, or you do.” I thought about it for a few minutes. Then I went looking for a space and found an old criminal lawyers' office that wasn't being used. So, from criminal records to vinyl records it was to be. I'm a…

Black Stone Cherry November (17) Cardiff Utilita Arena (18) Birmingham BP Pulse Live (20) Glasgow OVO Hydro (22) Manchester AO Arena (23) London Wembley OVO Arena Culture Club December (5) Liverpool M&S Bank Arena (6) Leeds First Direct Arena (7) Newcastle Utilita Arena (9) Cardiff Utilita Arena (10) Nottingham Motorpoint Arena (11) Manchester Co-op Live (13) Glasgow OVO Hydro (14) Birmingham Resorts World Arena (15) London Greenwich O2 Del Amitri December (1) Newcastle Boiler Shop (3) London Shepherd's Bush O2 Empire (4) Leeds O2 Academy (5) Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall (7) Norwich UEA Nick Rays LCR (8) Bristol O2 Academy (10) Liverpool O2 Academy (11) Manchester Albert Hall (12) Sheffield Leadmill (18) Aberdeen Music Hall (19) Perth Concert Hall (20) Edinburgh Usher Hall (22-23) Glasgow Barrowlands Eddie Garrity's Slaughter December (28)…

CODA Pixies' Joey Santiago… on the soundtrack to his life The Jimi Hendrix Experience Are You Experienced (Reprise Records RS 6261, US, 1967) £50 I love Fire and Purple Haze, which is just sonically awesome [Purple Haze is only available on the US edition of Are You Experienced]. I love the guitar playing for obvious reasons, and the drumming is phenomenal. I use the “Hendrix chord” a lot, it's in a lot of Pixies songs, I sneak it in there. And he threw the Devil's Interval in there, too. I wasn't one of those guitarists who'd sit down and figure out other people's songs. It took too long. The Beatles The Beatles (Apple Records PCS 7067-8, UK, 1968) £250 Still my favorite record. You just don't get sick of it.…