Innehållsförteckning för Issue 572 från Record Collector

Avid readers of the British music press in the late 70s will have noticed that NME scribe Nick Kent’s Big One-Page Review was an annual occurrence: in 1977, it was the turn of Television’s Marquee Moon to get the Lengthy Overview Treatment (“Elektra’s best record since Strange Days… listen and levitate along with it”), in 1978 it was Elvis Costello’s This Year’s Model (“an alternative to the placebo syndrome… recoil at your peril”), and in 1979 it was Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps (“poignant, perceptive, (“poignant, perceptive, menacing, dangerous, witty and cataclysmic… a veritable embarrassment of riches”). Forty-nine years ago this month, give or take, in May 1976, the subjects of Kent’s fervid prose were a bunch of unknown pseudo-siblings from Queens and their self-titled debut album, which he described…

Felix Rowe has performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, barbequed with a Blues Brother, and sung with a Chili Pepper. He writes regularly for publications including Classic Pop and Record Collector Presents. This month, he investigates the catalogue of Elliott Smith (p50). Exactly 18 years passed between journalist and podcaster Rob Fitzpatrick speaking to Pentangle (p44) at the Radio 2 Folk Awards and interviewing the irrepressible Jacqui McShee at home in Surrey for this issue. Their story, like their music, will never be repeated. RC’s long-serving jazz columnist, Charles Waring, was spellbound when he first heard saxophonist Joe Henderson’s (p56) solo on the track, Canyon Lady. In this issue, he explores Henderson’s life and music, shining a light on the man that other musicians dubbed “The Phantom.” Ex-Kerrang! writer Stevie Chick taps…

How come you’re back with your new album now? Conflict is more important offstage than on, so we’re putting what we practice into words. There are elements of the old Conflict, but the new line-up has a style of its own. It’s an evolution, though we’re still angry that the same old system and pantomime remain. Were there any amusing episodes during its creation? I got lost popping out to the shop for supplies. Thankfully, we recorded in a lovely village, so I just had a walk along the river while I got my bearings. How long did the record take? I had This Much Remains in my head for 10 years, and Gav [King]’s been writing since he joined us 15 years ago. We needed the time to be…

The Going Electric: Bob Dylan 65 exhibition is at the Bob Dylan Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 26 July-spring 2026. It includes Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Mt Tambourine Man manuscripts, plus Mike Bloomfield guitar, Sally Grossman jumpsuit. Dylan’s free Point Blank exhibition of 97 paintings is at Halcyon Gallery, New Bond Street, London, to 6 July. ■ A Sum 41 exhibition is at Canadian Music Hall Of Fame, Studio Bell, Calgary, Canada, to February 2026. ■ A campaign for KISS: The Exhibition at Stockholm Oak Island Gallery, Sweden, August-September, ran via indiegogo.com to 29 May. ■ The Music America: Iconic Objects From America’s Music History exhibition is at the Lyndon B Johnson Presidential Library, University Of Texas, Austin, to 11 August. It includes John Coltrane saxophone, Public Enemy’s Chuck…

EXCLUSIVE Clifton Chenier’s birth 100 years ago, in June 1925, is marked with a collection of his zydeco music. Born in Leonville, Opelousas, Louisiana, he was its foremost exponent, playing on accordion from 1947. A year later, he was in a band with his brother, Cleveland Chenier. Clifton cut his first record in 1954, starting a career that led Paul Simon to dub him ‘King Of The Bayou’ on 1986’s Graceland. The Arhoolie Foundation’s CEO, Adam Machado (pictured), gives RC the low-down on the label’s upcoming six-album 3CD box. What’s in it from Clifton’s early years? His first recordings for a small Los Angeles company, Elko, in 1954, where his name is misspelled Cliston Chanier, The King Of The South. We’ve also Ay Tete Fee, from Specialty, in 1955, his…

In April, Roy Gregory, owner of Clocktower Records, Bridport, Devon, contacted RC’s Charles Donovan about an issue that he believes warrants wider attention among the music community. As Roy explains, “My belief is that too many people are overpricing records for sale, whether they’re resellers or retail outlets like record and charity shops. They’ve piggybacked the ‘vinyl revival’ to make more money, while their customers face ever higher prices. It’s a bubble that will burst. I’ve been selling since I had a market stall in 2007, then moved to Bridport in 2008, when I started Vinyl Saturday, which went on to be voted ‘Record Fair Of The Year’. I opened Clocktower in 2015 and made the decision not to sell online. I wanted to make the shop a destination for…

EXCLUSIVE A 300-page Bernie Mardsen photobook covering his career, notably Whitesnake, is due 12 June via Rufus. With a foreword by David Coverdale, it includes hundreds of behind-the-scenes/stage photos. Among them are Bernie (below right) at London Hammersmith Odeon, October 1976; June 2011, at Hammersmith (top left) with Whitesnake’s Doug Aldrich, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page; and (top right), backstage with flight-cases in Newcastle, May 2013. See rufuspublications.com.…

Journalist Graham Sharpe used his love of records when he began working for bookmakers William Hill, introducing annual betting on each year’s Christmas No 1 single, and the Eurovision Song Contest. His recent books about being a self-confessed, hopeless vinylholic, Vinyl Countdown and On The Record(s), were big sellers. Now retired, he disc-usses how and why he has been collecting 33s (and 45s) since acquiring his first single in 1962, and LP, The Beatles’ Please Please Me, in 1963. There have been thousands of each since… What do you collect, and why? In my earliest days of collecting it was just about records I’d heard, usually on various BBC radio stations, and almost always chart hits, such as my first ever record, Duane Eddy’s 1962 hit (Dance With The) Guitar…

The Welshman, who died 29 April, was frontman and chief songwriter for Welsh rock band The Alarm. Formed in the early 80s, they became known for post-punk anthems such as 1983’s Sixty Eight Guns (which reached No 17 in the UK) and the following year’s Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke? Joining U2 as the opening act on their 1983 tour helped break the band in America, where they retained a loyal following. Their live prowess earned them further support slots with The Police, Bob Dylan, and Queen. Their album Strength (1984) was the first of five studio releases before the group disbanded in 1991, though Peters revived the band with a fresh lineup in the new millennium. First diagnosed in 1995, he battled cancer for decades, becoming…

Born in Chicago in 1986, Ezra Furman studied English at Tufts University in Somerville, MA. She also helmed Ezra Furman & The Harpoons, with whom she recorded four albums between 2006 and 2011. In 2012 she launched her solo career with The Year Of No Returning. She has since soundtracked the Netflix TV series Sex Education and in 2018 wrote a book on Lou Reed’s Transformer as part of the 33 1/3 series. This year’s Goodbye Small Head, her 10th solo record, is named after a Sleater-Kinney lyric from their 1999 single Get Up. She describes the album as “an orchestral emo prog-rock record sprinkled with samples.” She Zooms Record Collector from her home in Boston and is in thoughtful mood. Tell me about the new album, Goodbye Small Head.…

Like many aspiring musicians, Elliott Smith was a Beatles obsessive, a passion that stretched all the way back to his formative years. See Heatmiser’s fuzzed-up but otherwise faithful cover of Lennon’s Revolution to get a sense of its depth. Of the Heatmiser days, Rob Schnapf says: “Tony [Lash, the drummer] was into more precise, pristine production, and Elliott was, like: ‘White Album’.” Several childhood dreams were fulfilled when Schnapf conspired to arrange a session at the legendary Abbey Road, for Figure 8. In one of those zen moments, the stars aligned – in a brief window of downtime before the start of a European tour, they managed to book time, and even call up old friend, session drummer, Joey Waronker, who just happened to be in town with R.E.M. Over…

Lee Dorrian (right) is pondering that brief period in the late 60s and early 70s when rock bands – especially in the UK, and particularly in the Midlands – got darker, louder, hairier and, above all, heavier. Few are better qualified to ruminate on the heavy era than Dorrian, former frontman of grindcore pioneers Napalm Death and founder of Cathedral, the UK’s premier exponents of doom metal – the subgenre that cured the Thrash-era’s obsession with velocity and returned Metal to its fundaments of riff, volume and heaviness. He’s also the proprietor of Rise Above Records And Relics – a second- hand record shop on London’s Archway Road that specialises in jazz, reggae, punk and, yes, heaviosity – approaching this role with admirable seriousness (“I don’t like to use words like ‘stock’…

Grammy-nominated producer Andrew Batt on compiling the defining boxset of Marianne Faithfull’s early years. How did Marianne look back on these early recordings? Eventually very fondly, but Marianne definitely had a chequered relationship with them. For years she didn’t like them at all, and in fact her autobiography barely mentions them. You could read that book and think she maybe had a couple of singles and never really had a pop career. Part of her response was connected to negative associations with the experiences she had at that time. Also, when she successfully reinvented herself with Broken English, that success in a way hinged on her seeming as far away as possible from her former musical self. But over time, she came to love them, and certainly when we were…

Based in Loveland, Ohio, Terry Cole founded the Colemine label in 2007 and, with his brother Bob, he started his own record shop Plaid Room Records in 2015. The latter has an all-analogue studio and live music venue which he uses for his label’s acts. His CV is vast, with writing and production credits for the likes of Delvon Lamarr, Andrew Gabbard, Kendra Morris, Parlor Green and Okonski but when time allows he’s also an artist in his own right, first honing his craft in Soundscape, a hip hop, funk, soul fusion band he helmed while in college, and more recently as a solo artist working under the sobriquet LEROI CONROY. A Tiger’s Tale ( Colemine) is his impressive debut album, an atmospheric work that could pass as an old 70s…

Any new release from PRINCE BUSTER, the man they called “Jamaica’s Greatest”, is an event, particularly if it’s sourced from original master tapes as Funky Jamaica ( Rocka Shaka) Five years ago, the label issued an album of rare and unreleased Buster productions as Roll On Charles Street, promising a further volume. Well, soon come: five years later, here it is. The Prince himself appears on half of the LP’s 12 tracks, starting with the title track, a vibrant Jamaicanisation of Funky Nassau. Some of Buster’s tracks, like the uptempo Clap Your Hand, haven’t been issued anywhere before, and while a couple of titles may look familiar, they’re not you think. His version of James Carr’s Dark End Of The Street has a completely different rhythm from the issued version, while…

Chris Bangs Presents The Playbox Ace Records BGP 2319 (2CD, 2LP) Groove heaven Pioneering DJ Chris Bangs, who coined the term “acid jazz” and went on to mentor a young Gilles Peterson before producing records for Paul Weller and Galliano, goes back to his musical roots with this, his first ever compilation. As his recent solo albums revealed, Bangs is passionate about Latin music, and it’s reflected in this beautifully curated fourteen-track collection, which combines Brazilian and Afro-Cuban gems with 70s jazz-funk touchstones and rare fusion nuggets. Highlights range from Johnny Hammond’s mystical Los Conquistadores Chocolatés to Flora Purim’s sublime samba Vera Cruz (Empty Faces) and Cal Tjader’s pulsating, vibesled Mambo Mindoro. Other contributors include Patrice Rushen, Tania Maria, Lonnie Liston Smith, and saxophonist Willis Jackson, whose slithery 1964 soul…

Luke Haines & Peter Buck Going Down To The River… To Blow My Mind Cherry Red BRED 925 (CD, LP) As unlikely as it may seem, the pairing of Luke Haines and Peter Buck has proven to be a fertile one. Of course, we had enough distractions in 2020 to include the meeting of a stadium-honed US guitarist with a British outsider art-rocker on our bingo cards. Yet when Buck bought one of Haines’ paintings, the connection would lead to a debut album, Beat Poetry For Survivalists (2020), and its sprawling, experimental sequel, All The Kids Are Super Bummed Out (2022). Across both records, it emerged that Buck and Haines had found harmony in an encyclopaedic musical knowledge and a shared conviction that rock’n’roll is best pursued in prolific practice.…

Neil Young And The Chrome Hearts Talkin To The Trees Reprise 93624835073 (CD, LP) Is there an objective way to approach a new Neil Young album? If you’re listening to the 48th studio release by any artist, you’re surely aware of their missteps and willing to indulge in at least a few of them. And in Young’s case, those missteps can range far beyond what he once termed the deliberate career sabotage of “the ditch” and land in something altogether more whiffy. But you’ve come this far, so you wait, and you make a cautious advance because there’s still hope for some of that old Spook. New track Let’s Roll Again exemplifies the conundrum: at 79, Young remains capable of wrestling a furious noise from Old Black, his long-suffering Les…

The Sun Kings B Sides & Rarities / 7 Uncles Country Mile / CMRO 39 (7”) Presuming we haven’t done this already, it’s about time this magazine published an article compiling songs about record collecting. If there are enough of them, that is. Old Dan’s Records by Gordon Lightfoot. Spin The Black Circle by Pearl Jam. A Case For Vinyl by Tim Burgess. 7” Singles by Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott. LPs by Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage. Send your ideas to the letters' page. There’s only one stipulation. Please don’t propose Girl From The Record Shop by Frank Turner because it’s less about the art of collecting than the unsolicited stalking of an innocent female staff member. Another addition to the canon is B Sides & Rarities by The…

Alice Cooper July (22) Cardiff Utilita Arena (23) Edinburgh Playhouse The Black Keys July (8) Leeds Millennium Square (9) Manchester Castlefield Bowl (11) London Alexandra Palace Park The Chameleons July (26) Hope Valley Peak Cavern Devil’s Arse Cave November (12) Brighton Concorde 2 (13) Southampton 1865 (14) London Camden Electric Ballroom (15) Bristol Trinity (16) Birmingham XOYO (17) Nottingham Rescue Rooms (19) Glasgow Garage (20) Clitheroe Grand (21) Manchester Albert Hall (22) Liverpool Camp & Furnace Bill Callahan July (2) London Hackney EartH (3) Bristol Trinity (5) Liverpool Arts Club (7) Glasgow Òran Mór The Doobie Brothers July (11) Glasgow OVO Hydro (15) Manchester Co-op Arena Live (17) Birmingham Utilita Arena (19) London Greenwich O2 Lita Ford, Vixen July (23) Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill (24) London Greenwich IndigO2 Lynyrd Skynyrd…

The Monkees Long Title: Do I Have To Do This All Over Again? (from Head, RCA RD 8051, LP, UK, 1969) £90 I didn’t grow up in a household filled with music, but the telly was on all the time. The Monkees was a big thing when I was six, seven, eight years old. I loved all the songs, and being in a band seemed like so much fun, living together, having adventures. It definitely played a part in me wanting to be in a band. I got into Head later: it’s where they’re proving themselves, writing their own material. Do I… is an amazing 60s wig-out. Associates Sulk (Beggars Banquet ASCL 1, LP, UK, 1982) £10 I was 15 in 1982. I’d met Emma [Anderson, Lush guitar/vocals] at school…

The Zombies As Far As I Can See… (Go! REDHCD3, CD, UK, 2004) £5 After occasional get-togethers since 1968, singer Colin Blunstone and keyboard king/songwriter Rod Argent made low-key appearances as the century closed, which led to this fine album, which in turn led to a new 20-year career. Performances of music and chat exploded to transatlantic concerts, US management and three more albums, plus reunions by the original line-up celebrating iconic 1968 album, Odessey And Oracle. Only Argent’s 2024 ill health brought proceedings to a halt. Big Star In Space (DBK Works DBK 115, LP, US, 2005) £40 A band that should have hit the big time, although the Memphis pop sound continues to resonate. They made only three albums in the 70s with a 27-year gap before this.…

SEND YOUR PRAISE, MISSIVES AND CALLS FOR THE DEIFICATION OF MARK MCSTEA 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 HOLIDAY SNAP First RC magazine spot of the year while on holiday. At the newsstand (Edicola Piazza Pitti) outside the Pitti Palace in Florence for 11.99 of those Euros they have these days. Cheaper than the ice cream cone I’ve just had near there! Kenny, Edinburgh Readers, where’s the most unexpected place that you’ve seen RC on sale? Do let us know. PL REMINISCE (PT 1) I read with great pleasure the article on The Vapors [RC 571] for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I was at school (Woodhatch Junior) in…

Acoustic Dolly Parton Billy The Kid Dances His Heart Out book, [TBC], 2 December. ■ Cat Stevens Cat On The Road To Findout book, audiobook, Constable, 18 September. ■ Beans On Toast Wild Folk People! book, beansontoastmusic.com, 16 September. Due: July (11) Don Gibson The King Of Country Soul/More Country Soul/Dottie & Don/Sings All Time Country Gold 2CD, Morello August (15) Marissa Nadler New Radiations, Bella Union. Biz Watford Colosseum re-opens 29 August, with Ocean Colour Scene. ■ The Vinyl Me, Please subscription record club, founded in Denver in 2012, went into bankruptcy 4 April and shut down operations in May, with administration taken on by Vinyl Liquidators. It is accepting customer claims to 1 October. ■ The Ace label celebrates its 50th anniversary with gigs at London Camden Koko, 4-10 August, including Booker T…

On 15 April, the Internet Archive posted an “open letter” calling on “labels and members of the RIAA – including Universal, Capitol, Concord, CMGI, Sony and Arista – to drop your lawsuit against the Internet Archive”. It contends that the “$700 million lawsuit, targeting the Archive’s efforts to preserve and provide access to historical 78rpms, is not just about music, it’s about whether our digital history survives. These fragile recordings are part of a vanishing American culture. They capture early jazz, blues, gospel and folk. The Archive’s Great 78 Project seeks to preserve that legacy and make it available for research. But your lawsuit threatens the very existence of the Archive, including the Wayback Machine, a vital public service used by millions every day to access historical snapshots of the…

In May, the Cherry Red stable was boosted with the US Platinum Garage catalogue, including The Spinners, Preston Glass, Ali Woodson and Chubby Tavares. Other additions include 80s rockers Wild Horses’ eponymous debut and Stand Your Ground, plus live set and Brian Robertson’s Diamonds And Dirt and That’s All…!, bolstered by live cuts/demos; The Action’s In The Lap Of The Mods CD/DVD from London Tufnell Park/100 Club in 2000; two albums by rockers Snips; two sets from 60s mods Outer Limits, including unissued; and a collection-plus from Ruperts People. In addition, the label was boosted by the acquisition of the US Dome imprint, taking in, among others, Beverley Knight, Incognito, Lulu, James Taylor Quartet, Andrew Gold, Graham Gouldman, Wax, Carleen Anderson, George Duke. See cherryred.co.uk.…

Jack Mellin, known for his work with Glasgow legends Spinning Coin among others, is making some incredible music as The Mary Column, with this very special debut album now available. Mixing elements of surf-pop and lo-fi indie rock into a gloriously summery sonic palette, Very Sparrow is the sound of a hugely-talented songwriter and an engaging storyteller, re-discovering his creative edge with admirable nous. The vinyl is available to buy now, with a first pressing of just 300 LPs. Welsh punks Panic Shack EP Baby Shack go for a small fortune these days, so it’s worth moving quickly to snap up one of the vinyl variants which accompany this release, with a ‘latex red’-coloured LP and an online storeexclusive ‘alcopop clear’ version up for grabs. There are also 600 Dinked…

TRANS ISSUES Got a really sweet double album by the American band Trans AM. It’s called Red Line and was released by Thrill Jockey. I actually bought it around 1999 or 2000 as I was a fan of that type of music: strong and powerful instrumental rock, or post-rock as it’s now described. I note on Discogs that there was no UK pressing but I bought my copy in a record shop in Soho so wonder if that might be some kind of mistake? Dennis Harris via email Back in the 90s I used to review the output of Chicago-based Thrill Jockey records on a regular basis. They used to have a UK PR firm who handled all their press and kept journalists like myself up to date on new…

DAVID VAN TIEGHEM David Byrne percussionist on his new solo collection What film could your new set soundtrack? It’s a curated collection of several earlier recordings – a kind of mash-up of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Casablanca and Carnival Of Souls. Is there anything still unissued? A few early works that I’m preparing for release, and more recent music for theatre and dance. Also, unheard 70s material by Flying Hearts. Have you done anything that fans may not know about? Several things, gradually becoming available through Patreon. I composed music for sports events at New York Madison Square Garden and collaborated on sound sculptures with my wife, Cate Woodruff. Who’d you like to remix? Duran Duran – we’re friends. I could take their music to strange new places. What was…

“I thought, ‘Fuck, man, this is so powerful!’” Blue Note boss, Don Was, is recalling the epiphany he experienced when he first heard tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson. It was a Sunday in Detroit circa 1966. The future Grammy-winning producer was 14 and playing with the radio dial in his mom’s car. He serendipitously landed on a local jazz station. What came out of the speaker changed his life. “I heard these wailing saxophone cries,” he recalls. “It was not about notes or saxophone technique: I could feel this guy’s anguish and it was compelling.” Was learned he was listening to the title track from Henderson’s latest Blue Note LP, Mode For Joe. His discovery would begin a life-long love affair with the saxophonist’s music and Blue Note Records, then a small,…

In the analogue era of the UK singles chart, a song enjoying an unusually long stay at No 1 invariably drew press speculation as to whether it could beat Slim Whitman’s record-breaking 11 weeks on top with Rose Marie from July to October 1955. When Bryan Adams surpassed it with (Everything I Do) I Do It For You in 1991, he asked Whitman to fly over from the States and duet with him at his Wembley show. Whitman duly obliged but joked that “it jarred my insides out”. To most of the Wembley audience, he’d have been a hazy figure from the dim and distant past. But even in his pomp, he eluded facile categorisation. When Whitman did two weeks at the London Palladium in 1956, the programme billed him…

Marianne Faithfull Cast Your Fate To The Wind: The Complete UK Decca Recordings Proper Records UMCLP 109 (6CD, 5LP) Oh, but there was a place and time for girls like her. If the 60s didn’t already have Marianne Faithfull, it would have needed to invent her. Nobody else embodied, so effortlessly, the decade’s slide from innocence to decadence. You can map it in visual terms, from the teenage ingenue sprawled in The Salisbury in floral frock and knee socks in that Gered Mankowitz portrait to the leather-clad libertine getting unzipped by Alain Delon in sexploitation classic The Girl On A Motorcycle. You can map it in headlines, cleaving starkly into before or after The Evening Standard’s hysterical “Nude Girl And Teapot” screamer when cops and colluding hacks found her wrapped…

The Beta Band The Three EPs Because BEC 5615818 (2LP) Listening to the Beta Band’s The Three EPs collection nearly 30 years after release is like stepping into a time capsule. Not into the past, but towards a bright new alternative future in which the global, wildly eclectic possibilities available to the modern music maker have evolved with analogue musicianship as their prime driving force. The Scottish quartet, who were fully formed in London but who share origins in Edinburgh and the county of Fife, collapsed amid internal apathy and personal issues in 2004, but the news that the long-awaited live reunion is happening in 2025 has brought much excitement and already sold-out concerts across the UK and US. To go alongside the dates, this 1998 debut collection is getting…

Nick Drake The Making Of Five Leaves Left Island 7762691 (4CD, 4LP) With the Nick Drake story now all but consumed by its dominant narratives of cultdom, tragedy and myth it’s nice to be occasionally reminded that in the late 60s he was just another talented young hopeful in a long line of talented young hopefuls trying to make a name for himself. If Bryter Layter was the lusciously arranged summation of an artist in the fullness of his talent and Pink Moon was the stark unadorned masterpiece, Drake’s ’69 debut, Five Leaves Left reveals the promise and potential in its first display. This expansive and sensitively assembled 4CD/4LP box set fully justifies its title by including a plethora of try-outs, cast-offs and demo versions which showcase those early songs…

The Pale Fountains The Complete Virgin Years Cherry Red CRCD 4 BOX 189 (4CD) Fame and fortune – who needs ’em? By conventional standards, it would be tempting to suggest Michael Head hasn’t quite made it. After all, he’s hardly a household name. At the same time, if being almost universally regarded as the elder statesman of British guitar pop qualifies as ‘success’, then Head has been very successful indeed. As for financial reward, well, he has probably earned – and blown – a few bob over the years too, not least the astonishing £150,000 contract advance from Virgin received by his first band, the Pale Fountains, in 1982. Back then, these Forever Changes-obsessed inner-city Scouse lads threatened to pockmark the charts with hits. It never happened. Their inspirational brand…

Claudia Brücken Night Mirror Demon Music Group DEMREC 1294/EDSL 0250 (CD, LP) Along with Marlene Dietrich, Nico, Nina Hagen, and Nena, Claudia Brücken belongs to an elite cadre of German “sängerinnen” whose music has smashed through international borders. But with just four albums to her name, she’s not exactly been prolific as a solo artist. Brücken’s solo albums don’t come along very often because she’s a dedicated team player and a collaboration queen. After leaving German synth-pop pioneers Propaganda in 1986, she briefly became half of Act, an avant-pop duo with Thomas Leer, before unleashing her solo debut, 1991’s Love And A Million Other Things. Following that, Brücken became an in-demand guest singer, making cameos with the likes of Oceanhead and Blank & Jones. Continuing to park her solo career…

Ted Kessler on co-authoring A Sound So Very Loud… You had the idea for the book before the reunion. Why did you want to tell the story of Oasis “via the music rather than the arguments?” What we love about Oasis, above everything else, is where the music has taken successive generations of fans. That’s what we’ll all be singing along to in the stadiums this year and next, not the bitchy quotes, though those are obviously genius, too. So, we thought, let’s tell the story behind each one of those songs and use the music as a kind of biography by stealth, something useful for fans of all ages and knowledge. You can play and read at the same time. Listening back to the catalogue for the book, did…

Sell Vinyl/CDs direct to RC readers, call us on 0208 752 8172 or email listings@recordcollectormag.com. Rates: recordcollectormag.com/advertise NEXT ISSUE: AUGUST 2025 (on sale 10 JULY) Deadline for submitting adverts (Listings & Classified): Monday 16 JUNE 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: SEPTEMBER 2025 (on sale 7 AUGUST) Deadline: Monday 14 JULY…

This month: Dawn Of The Replicants The twilight years of the 90s were a wonderfully strange time for British indie music. In the liminal space between Britpop’s peak and the invasion of The Strokes, Evening Sessions and Melody Maker cassettes were filled with off-kilter acts who couldn’t be herded into a scene. Hailing from Galashiels in the Scottish borders, Dawn Of The Replicants were a prime example. An angular five-piece influenced more by Tom Waits and the Pixies than Paul Weller and The Beatles, they nevertheless reached for glory. They almost succeeded, too. They were signed to a major; their EPs, with cool, grainy artwork and cryptic lyrics, were NME Singles Of The Week; Peel championed them, and The Times named them ‘Best New Band Of 1997’. It was all…

This month: 1950s R&B Jamboree, 23 August 1983, Electric Ballroom, Camden Town, London. This 50s-style R&B revue, promoted by Ted Carroll’s Rock On record shop and Ace Records, has great memories for R&B and rock’n’roll fans. Interest in postwar R&B and jump blues was at its zenith in the early 80s. Ace, Charly, Mr R&B and Krazy Kat were releasing albums almost every month, with Charlie Gillett, Stuart Coleman and John Peel spinning their discs on radio shows. Willie Egans, Chuck Higgins, Young Jessie and Big Jay McNeely flew to London a few days before to rehearse with British R&B bands: Juice On The Loose and Red Beans & Rice. Pianist Willie Egans (aka Egan) had recorded for indie labels in the 50s, and opened, to a full house, backed…

On 13 May, a 1913 acoustic guitar used for recordings in the 60s by George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Delaney Bramlett was offered via reverb.com for $949,999. On 14 May, Sonic Youth offered pedals, synths, Lee Ranaldo’s first electric guitar, acoustic guitar. ■ On 27-29 June, co-founder of Mobile Fidelity, Herb Belkin, has his private archive for auction via thomastonauction.com, including The Beatles The Collection box set (15/5,000). ■ The Louie Vega Collection of equipment, test-pressings, was offered 27 May via waxpoetics.com. ■ In April, The Fix’s 200copy Vengeance US 7” (Mint) sold via discogs.com for $15,000. ■ The 30-31 May sale by juliensauctions.com featured 700-plus lots, including guitars from Nirvana, Noel Gallagher, Ronnie Wood, Eddie Van Halen, Jim Morrison microphone, handwritten lyrics from Bob Dylan, Kurt Cobain, John Lennon, clothing from…

In April, the Vinyl Alliance industry body pondered the effects of the Trump administration’s on-off tariffs policy and cited Billboard’s take that tariffs could damage the record industry due to uncertainty about the economic future. It pointed to effects such as higher industry production costs and product retail prices, supply chain issues, and weakened consumer confidence that could hit sales. Independent labels and retailers were seen as facing the biggest threat, while consumers may seek alternative sources outside the US. The Alliance stated that it is engaged in an “active conversation with pressing plants, labels and logistics partners to assess the impact,” though a clear picture has yet to emerge. However, according to Discogs Marketplace, inflation and higher profit-taking strategies have already increased the average price of a vinyl record,…

In June, Metallica’s Load is reissued on CD, cassette, 180g 2LP and orange 2LP. In addition, a 41-track 3CD adds unissued demos, mixes and live cuts. A box set includes the 180g 2LP, Mama Said picture disc 7”, Loadapalooza 96 3LP from the Lollapalooza Festival, Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, August 1996, a 301-track 15CD/4DVD collection of live shows, mixes and demos (245 unissued, 30 hours’ video), plus a 128-book, five plectrums, poster, print, lyric sheets, two repro tour passes and patch. Metallica Load reissues and box set are on Blackened, 13 June.…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the urge to look back, artistically speaking. I’ve had the good fortune to be involved in my first “reissue”, which has seen my very early work, a minialbum titled Communion (under my previous guise of Catherine AD), getting a “proper” release (via Last Night From Glasgow) a mere 14 years after I first recorded it back in 2011. It’s a strange thing to look back at the work you made when you weren’t quite fully formed. In literary circles it’s called “juvenalia”. I like this term for its etymological emphasis on the child inside the work and Communion was the first thing I ever recorded properly, captured live in a single afternoon at the legendary Church Studios in London: just me, a Steinway…

Henderson’s desirable vinyl Page One (Blue Note, BLP 4140, US, 1963) £500 Henderson’s impressive debut featured trumpeter Kenny Dorham, who wrote the classic Brazilian-tinged opener, Blue Bossa. The saxophonist revealed his talent as a composer via the infectious Recorda Me, which he wrote as a teenager, and later recorded under a different title, No Me Esqueca. Pianist McCoy Tyner played on the album but due to contractual reasons was credited as ‘ETC.’ Power To The People (Milestone, MSP 9024, US, 1969) £65 Accompanied by an all-star band (pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Jack DeJohnette), Henderson produced an album weighted with socio-political references. It contained one of his most memorable compositions, the supremely lyrical Black Narcissus, a delicate jazz waltz. Reissued on vinyl in 2024. Canyon Lady (Milestone,…

North Wind (Imperial 8208, 1953) Eerie and enigmatic, straddling western and folk. £3 The Singing Hills (Imperial 8267,1954) Who else sang with such a combination of gravity and sweetness? £5 Roll On Silvery Moon (Imperial 8290, 1955) Clever revival of old vaudeville number. £5 A Very Precious Love (Imperial 8316, 1958) Big pop production and echoey steel guitar. £5 Put Your Trust In Me (Imperial 8318, 1958) A beat-driven update of the eerie steel guitar sound. £10 Roll River Roll (Imperial 8326, 1960) Nice folksy vibe on this and on the flipside, Twilla Lee. £5 Tomorrow Never Comes (Imperial 66441, 1970) Closer in spirit to the Glen Campbell version than the Ernest Tubb original, but better than either. £5…

Still going strong at 84, Detroit saxophonist, bass clarinetist, and flautist BENNIE MAUPIN is probably best remembered for contributing to Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew and Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters, arguably the two most iconic jazz records of the 1970s. During his time creating funky grooves in Hancock’s band, Maupin was invited to make his first solo record by Munich’s ECM Records in 1974. Those expecting danceable jazz-funk grooves would have been surprised, and perhaps a tad confused, by the resulting The Jewel In The Lotus ( ECM), an adventure in free expression reflecting Maupin’s Buddhist faith. Now reissued in ECM’s impeccable Luminessence vinyl series, the album is best described as a questing spiritual jazz masterpiece defined by avant-garde topography. Maupin’s collaborators include Hancock, bassist Buster Williams, drummer Billy Hart, and percussionist…

Steve Mason on The Beta Band’s difficult ending and becoming more popular than ever now they’re back together. How did the Beta Band reunion come about? It was 2004 when we finished, so it’s been a lifetime. John tried a couple of times to make it happen, but for various reasons the timing wasn’t quite right. When you’re in the band at that age it’s the only thing that’s important, you’re doing it 24/7, but 20 years later, people have got families and commitments, you can’t just drop everything and run off. It’s a lot more complicated. Then suddenly everything starts to align, everybody’s ready to do it, it all slots into place and you’re there. Did you maintain good relationships? We didn’t really keep in touch, but that’s not…

Cally Callomon, who runs Bryter Music, the Nick Drake estate, on piecing together this set. There is an idea that Nick arrived at Island fully formed but several of the tracks here seem to show him as a work in progress, albeit someone very focused… I compiled and edited the earlier Family Tree compilation. In it, one can see Nick playing around with the obvious – honing his craft. By the end of it, by the time he was writing his own material, the curve races upwards at an alarming rate. This can be judged by his songs that didn’t even make it onto his debut album and the fact that there are no cover versions on it as one may have expected. In the snippets of between song chats…

Haines and Buck on rock’n’roll groups and recording fast… You recorded the previous albums remotely. Did it differ doing this one in person? LH: We had no choice, really. We’re a fucking good rock’n’roll group live. If we hadn’t done this album together in a room, we might never have got the chance again because you never know what’s gonna happen. We had to take the ball. PB: Only in the sense that time with the band is different to sitting by yourself in the studio. I really like the first two records, but this one sounds more like what we do as a live band. Is working quickly essential? LH: There’s no point in not working quickly. I don’t think there’s any record that’s been improved by a huge…

Claudia Brücken on mindfulness, working in the wee small hours, and Propaganda. What’s the story behind Night Mirror? The story is about my ongoing collaboration with John Williams, whom I’ve been writing with since 2013. We live very close and meet once a week to write together. John was also writing for xPropaganda’s The Heart Is Strange album, and once we finished that, he and I just kept writing for writing’s sake. At some point, we just realised I should make another solo album. What inspired the album’s title? I’m a night person. I think about stuff a lot at night, so when I work on tunes, I often wake up at three o’clock in the morning. John also works very late at night, sending me mixes and things, so…

A Sound So Very Loud: The Inside Story Of Every Song Oasis Recorded Ted Kessler and Hamish MacBain Macmillan, £25 ISBN 9781035078257, 384 pages Lots will be written about Oasis this summer, but little with the flair, insight and adventure of A Sound So Very Loud. Ex-NME staffer and Q editor Ted Kessler and ex-NME writer Hamish MacBain personally and professionally followed Oasis every step of the way; using a mix of archive interviews and their own experiences in the Gallaghers’ orbit, the pair tell the Oasis story through lovingly and painstakingly detailed and contextualised analysis of each and every song, Revolution In The Head-style (Revolution From My Bed, if you will). Alongside the big hits and the life-changing songs, there is sober reflection on disappointing album tracks and forgotten…

Jesse Malin London Islington Assembly Hall 2/5/25 Benefit shows can be sloppy. Not this one. Malin was on top form, accompanied by his spot-on band, enlivening the second night of this residency by delving deep into his catalogue, and performing classics such as the seldomheard Wendy and irresistible She Don’t Love Me Now. Cheered every time he rose (having suffered a spinal stroke in 2023), he united the crowd with empathy and musical excellence. Guests included, on a poignant version of Ameri’ka, Billy Bragg, and a sprightly Peter Perrett on Another Girl Another Planet, with son, Jamie, providing explosive guitar. Oliver Gray John Lodge London Islington Union Chapel 11/4/25 Lodge conducted a magical mystical tour through his Moody Blues compositions, plus a second set of Days Of Future Passed. At…

This month: Jean-Claude Vannier The name Jean-Claude Vannier may not be instantly familiar to you, but check the credits of your French LPs – or the good ones, at least – and there’s a chance he was involved. Vannier is a pianist and arranger par excellence, with a preternatural gift for majestic string arrangements that swoop and stir. He arranged and co-wrote Serge Gainsbourg’s 1971 chef-d’oeuvre, Histoire de Melody Nelson, while contributing to large swathes of the music on Gainsbourg’s soundtracks from the late 60s such as Les Chemins De Katmandou and Paris N’Existe Pas (check out Vannier’s remarkable La Horse as a taster). While he might be best known in Britain for his work with the French singer, their working relationship came to an abrupt end in 1972, though…