Innehållsförteckning för Issue 577 från Record Collector

As pop years go, 1956 is seen as the dawn of rock’n’roll, 1966 as the year of landmark long-players, 1976 is synonymous with punk, 1977 with early synth-pop, 1978 with new wave, 1979 with post-punk and disco… 1980 is harder to classify, though, clearly, it was a good year for donkey jackets (thanks to Dexys), ska/2-Tone (The Beat, Madness, Specials), double drummers (Bow Wow Wow, the Ants), and bleach boys and girls (Sting and Debbie Harry), though the latter seemed to be losing her grip on the nation’s affections as our preeminent blond pop star, so fast-moving were these times. John Lennon may have died, but the UK pop charts never felt so vibrant, so alive. Ian Curtis died, too, but his death seemed to mark the start, not the…

David Stubbs has published books on krautrock, electronic music and British comedy and writes this issue about 1980 music (p66) and My Bloody Valentine (p54). He is currently working on a top secret 70s-based literary project. Paul Bowler has been intoxicated with Detroit music (p58) since hearing Stevie Wonder’s effervescent soul as a child. His survey of the city’s greatest 45s this issue ranges from Yusef Lateef’s global jazz to The Stooges’ proto-punk. Johnny Sharp, who interviews prog legend Steve Howe (p46), was a relative latecomer to Yes, as an obsessive passion for Marillion as a teenager led to further adventures acquiring extravagantly illustrated gatefold LPs from secondhand shops for a quid a pop. Chris Roberts loved immersing himself in the astounding albums of 1980 (p66), a year in which he…

Acoustic+ Bob Dylan Bootleg Series Vol 18: Through The Open Window, 1956-63 42-track best-of 2CD, 4LP, and 139-track 8CD box set with 48 unissued cuts, including an unedited remix of a concert at New York Carnegie Hall, 26 October 1963, Columbia, 31 October. Due: January 2026 (30) Bob Lind It Oughta Be Easy, Ace. Biz The 140-capacity Upstairs At Ronnie’s venue opens at London Ronnie Scott’s, February 2026. ■ On 15 September, Universal, Sony, Capitol, Arista and other record labels filed at joint notice at a San Francisco federal court, along with the Internet Archive, for dismissal of a two-year legal case over its Great 78 Project streaming of vintage 78s, and settlement to be within 45 days. ■ The US record subscription service, Vinyl Me, Please, relaunched after a hiatus, in…

Rick Wakeman celebrated with stamps from his former home In September, a set of six Rick Wakeman stamps designed by Yes album sleeve artist Roger Dean was issued by the Isle Of Man Post Office. The Yes keyboardist lived on the island in the 80s and 90s, and he’s celebrated with stamp sheets, sheetlets, a first day cover, booklet, booklet pane, presentation pack, imperforate sheetlet, 50-copy printer’s pane (£250), and a Collector’s Pack containing a perforated sheetlet, presentation pack and six postcards. See iomstamps.com.…

Imminent/current limited-run vinyl releases to look out for Joshua Idehen I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have Got To Try (Heavenly HVNLP 238 C, LP, 2026) From Talking Heads covers to jazz collaborations, from giving legendary spoken word performances to producing dancefloor anthems with Benin City, Joshua Idehen is a visionary. Now we have a new full-length album on the way in March 2026. It’s being pressed on transparent yellow vinyl, while Rough Trade also have a “half & half yellow & black” edition, limited to 1,250 copies. Peter Cat Starchamber (Trapped Animal TAR 175 V, LP, 2025) A weird and wonderful record from the Glasgow-based songwriter. It’s an LP full of surprises, with synthpop bangers, arresting lyrical couplets, and subtle flourishes. There are two separate…

PRESSING MATTERS Your Bill Haley feature in Record Collector 574 reminded me of a pair of pressings I have in my collection that I know little about. Titled “Demonstration Sample Not For Sale”, they are both sides of the 1956 Brunswick 05616 single Rudy’s Rock/Blue Comet Blues by Bill Haley And His Comets, on a pair of single-sided discs with a short reference tone track on the reverse of each and with handwritten timings and catalogue numbers on the pink labels. They came from my mother-in-law, who worked in the typing pool at EMI in their Hayes, West London facility in the 1950s. They are in plain brown sleeves, are in Excellent condition and sound great. Rudy’s Rock has matrix 45-86595-1C hatched out with 45-89595-1C underneath. Blue Comet Blues has…

No 24: Metro Records, Little Neck, NY Metro Records was a UK-music specialty shop on the eastern edge of Queens, New York City, on Northern Boulevard in Little Neck, from 1979 to 1984. Metro also had a distribution arm that worked with Rough Trade and VP records, and even had a fledgling label of its own that released an early Slits 12”. I bought my first record at the age of six, worked at record shops in the NYC area from 1977 to 1984, and have never stopped listening to and collecting records, cassettes and CDs. I started working at Metro in 1980. Until 1984, Metro ran as a retail record shop and also started a distribution business and small record label. The distribution business was called Skydisc Records and…

John Lodge, died 10 October, age 82. The singer, songwriter and bassist was a longtime-member of The Moody Blues. He joined the band in 1966 after original vocalist, Denny Laine, and bass player, Clint Warwick, had departed following the release of the band’s debut album, The Magnificent Moodies. Installed alongside new guitarist and fellow singer Justin Hayward, the pair formed a potent vocal partnership, with Lodge’s falsetto vocals contrasting with Hayward’s baritone. The new line-up’s first album was 1967’s Days Of Future Passed, a hugely ambitious effort combining psychedelic themes with a grand orchestral backing. Sometimes referred to as the first progressive rock album, its hugely successful single, Nights In White Satin, became their signature track. Continuing the experimentation on follow-up effort In Search Of The Lost Chord (1968), the…

In The Summertime (1970) became an iconic number almost overnight, propelling the unknown Mungo Jerry – and the band’s creative force, Ray Dorset – to stardom. The song, covered by everyone from heavy rockers to disco darlings, continues to be known around the world as Dorset rocks on. Now Mungo Jerry’s 1990 album, Snakebite, is re-released in deluxe, expanded form, with 24-page book, on the heels of 1971’s Electronically Tested, the album with that debut hit and follow-up No 1, Baby Jump. Dorset is still recording as Mungo Jerry, and there’s more to come. Snakebite is a hard-rocking album, different to what people might remember as Mungo Jerry. Is it a big part of your history? I suppose it must be! It’s all played live in the studio, which you can…

My Bloody Valentine were, in the late 80s, happier to be called a pop band than a rock band. “We’re much closer to Kylie Minogue than David Coverdale,” vocalist and guitarist Kevin Shields once said. Certainly, there is a honeyed, lush, melodic centre to them, obscured, even obliterated, by their blizzards of guitar. My Bloody Valentine are not rock in the rock-solid sense – they are liquid, gaseous, evanescent. Nor are they rock in the blood and thunder, guts and passion sense. “The sound literally isn’t all there. It’s the opposite of rock’n’roll,” Kevin Shields told Melody Maker’s Simon Reynolds in 1988. “There’s no guts, just the remnants, the outline. The sound’s an after-effect.” He also explained, “I’d almost forgotten about 60s music, but then I saw this video of…

RC Loves 1980 When 1980 was seen in retrospect, one act cast a huge, dominant shadow over the year. That was reflected in NME voting Joy Division’s Closer Album Of The Year and Love Will Tear Us Apart Single Of The Year. The group lent a sense of gravitas and finality, wholly unwanted by the surviving band members, due to Ian Curtis’s suicide. If there was an overriding movement in 1980, however, it was away from the monochromatic tendencies of post-punk towards a creeping colourisation, manifested in various ways. Dexys Midnight Runners offered a compellingly austere, unsmiling rereading of 60s soul with Searching For The Young Soul Rebels; Elvis Costello mined the same genre and period on Get Happy!!, a title curdled in irony but still marking a genuinely upbeat turn.…

1980 was a pivotal year for Bow Wow Wow with the release of your debut single, C30 C60 C90 Go, and mini-album, Your Cassette Pet. How did you join the group? I was working my Saturday job in a dry cleaner’s, singing along to the radio. A customer who was also a scout heard me and told Malcolm McLaren. Malcolm was putting together a band with guitarist Matthew Ashman, bassist Leigh Gorman and percussionist Dave Barbarossa who had all been in Adam & The Ants… I didn’t know who Malcolm was or his history with the Sex Pistols, or the band’s history. I was just doing a part-time job for pocket money and at school. It wasn’t something I set out to do, to be a singer in a band.…

RC LOVES 1980 Orange Juice Falling And Laughing/Moscow Olympics/Moscow (Postcard 80-1, 7”, fold-over p/s in poly bag + postcard and flexidisc: Felicity (live) on “I Wish I Was A Postcard” label, 963 only, UK, February 1980) £800 The debut single by Glasgow post-punks Orange Juice (fronted by Edwyn Collins) is unarguably the juicy jewel in the crown of 1980 collectibles. It was a blueprint for jangly indie pop and the first release on legendary indie label, Postcard. Inexplicably, the band and label boss Alan Horne were unhappy with the mix, so the single was recalled. An inferior remake found its way on to their debut LP for Polydor. Orange Juice Blue Boy/Lovesick (Postcard 80-2, 7”, hand-coloured p/s in poly bag, blue labels, August 1980) £100 Simply Thrilled Honey/Breakfast Time (Postcard…

One of Blue Note Records’ unsung heroes, tenor saxophonist IKE QUEBEC, played a crucial role at the label between 1958 and his death in 1963, where he worked as an in-house arranger, A&R man, and talent spotter. Influenced by the big, vibrato-toned tenors Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, Quebec, who persuaded Blue Note boss Alfred Lion to sign Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell, released a string of jukebox singles for the label, which have now been assembled into The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions ( Blue Note), a 3LP Tone Poet set. Recorded between 1959 and 1962, the compilation’s 26 tracks range from easy swinging blues grooves (Buzzard Lope) to toe-tapping R&B (Zonky) and mellow nocturnal ballads (Blue Monday), the latter highlighting the fluttery and soulful side of Quebec’s playing. Motor…

In August JACKIE-O MOTHERFUCKER toured the UK for the first time in 16 years. Promoting Fire Records’ reissue of 2005’s Flags Of The Sacred Harp, the gigs found JOMF in a relatively accessible mood. With three guitars, a keyboard and piles of effects pedals at their boots, the band made a heavenly psychedelic sound, somewhat akin to folk music from another planet. Give Me Shelter ( Feeding Tube) reminds us of their jazzier tendencies. The LP hosts two vintage live tracks on which an alto sax wails expressively away while other members of the collective tinker in the background making weird electric wheezings and other washings of sound. If they are at any point genuinely paying homage to The Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter, their deconstructed rendering resembles the source material less…

The Who Who Are You Polydor 4886487 (7CD/BD/2CD, 4LP) It’s staggering, in retrospect, that The Who – punks before punk was invented – should have run scared from Rotten and company. Yet by 1978 there’s no doubt they had lost their way: Quadrophenia and The Who By Numbers had scarcely added to their stage set list and they were unashamedly trading on past glories, while Roger Daltrey had more than one eye on his parallel solo career. A reset was desperately needed, and Who Are You was it. But as the accompanying book to this set explains, civil war was breaking out on several levels in the band’s Ramport Studios. Daltrey headbutted co-producer Glyn Johns, leaving Pete Townshend’s brother-in-law Jon Astley to pick up the musical, if not physical, pieces.…

Cheap Trick All Washed Up BMG 964193221 (CD, LP) When you think of power pop or bubblegum metal, one of the first names that springs to mind is Cheap Trick. Originally out of Rockford, Illinois, the roots of the band stretch back to 1967 with Rick Nielsen and Tom Petersson’s Fuse. After the usual comings-and-goings guitarist Nielsen, bassist Petersson, drummer Bun E. Carlos and frontman Randy Hogan became Cheap Trick in 1973; the following year Robin Zander took over front and centre, and after a modicum of success, three albums and six years’ slog the band became an overnight sensation with the release of Cheap Trick At Budokan. Originally only for release in Japan the number of imports flooding US record shops convinced the suits to issue the album worldwide…

It was touch and go for the band before …Bethel Woods. Did you want to capitalise on that record’s momentum? Yes and no. I understand that it’s in the best interests of a band to be consistent, maybe prolific if you can, but I don’t think we’ve been either. We weren’t sure if we were going to make another record, but there were songs flying around and we were writing… And for a band like us, putting out music is almost a means to an end because it provides us with the opportunity to see one another and play shows and meet people and see the world, which we’re fortunate to do. How did the theme of hope emerge? The title track became what I felt was an embodiment of…

Nord Electric Loneliness For Sale Outer Battery / OBR 034 (12”) While Andy Bell has been busy this year touring with the gobby Gallagher siblings, his partner in Ride is keeping himself busy with this new project. Mark Gardener joins forces with Giulio Sangiraldi of Italian shoegazers, Votiva Lux. On drums is ex-Prefab Sprout session man to the stars, Neil Conti. Their debut EP opens with its title track, an indie-pop song with dreamy textures and such an upliftingly catchy chorus it could’ve been written by New Order at the height of their powers. Traces is a little moodier, with darker chords and pedal effects. Still tuneful with it, mind. When Are You Going To Wake Up seems to want to spellbind and swaddle as The Cure often do. Alas,…

NEXT ISSUE: CHRISTMAS 2025 (on sale 27 NOVEMBER) Deadline for submitting adverts (Listings & Classified): Monday 3 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 2026 (on sale 24 DECEMBER) Deadline: Monday 1 DECEMBER…

This month: ROBERT LEVON BEEN OF BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB How have you been preparing for the tour? It’s one of those albums that you record for fun or as an experiment. It was nerve-wracking after the fact to try to figure out how to play it live in the real world. Do you have any pre-/post-show routines? Just make sure you piss and don’t eat a meal before the show. Will you be playing any songs that you rarely perform? Most if not all of Howl in the first half, then the more cacophonous songs in the second. There were a few back in the day that we almost never played live, Still Suspicion Holds You Tight being the hardest. It’s still in question whether we’ll be able to…

This month: Laurie Styvers Back in 2016 a Vinyl Fetish piece in Record Collector described Laurie Styvers as “a lost artiste”. Her two solo albums had long been deleted and never given CD release. Biographical info about her was scant. That situation changed with the recent release by High Moon Records of Gemini Girl, a 2CD set containing those two Chrysalis albums plus 13 bonus tracks. Though it was too late for Laurie, who died at 47 in 1998. Laurette Stivers was born in Texas in 1951. Dad was in the oil business, and his work often brought him to London. So it was that the late 60s found teenage Laurette attending the American school there. She was already writing songs and around 1968 she answered a newspaper ad placed…

This month: The Primitives Formed in Coventry in 1984, The Primitives managed to shine among some stylish competition on the indie scene. In 1988 they enjoyed a memorable Top 5 UK hit with the shimmering indie pop song, Crash. Four years later, the group went on hiatus, a state which lasted over two decades before a tentative return to the scene. Now, Cherry Red are releasing a long-overdue recap of the first phase of their career, spread across five discs, featuring live sessions and previously unreleased material. Guitarist and founding member Paul Court sat down to talk with RC about unexpected success, the highs and lows of the record industry, and how bubble bath spoiled a potential hit. “I wasn’t striving to be in a band,” explains Court, “I just…

Ray Charles The Genius Sings The Blues (London American LTZ-K 15238, LP, UK, 1961) £25 It was 1961, and I was 10 years old. My mom and dad didn’t play instruments, but they loved music. My mom used to play this record a lot. One of my memories was walking into a room and my mom was in there by herself sobbing like a little baby. A song called Hard Times (No One Knows Better Than I) was playing, and it made me immediately aware of the incredible emotional impact music can have on somebody. Ray Charles Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music (His Master’s Voice CLP 1580, LP, UK, 1962) £25 Ray now had an orchestra and backing singers. Mom would play I Can’t Stop Loving You; she’d…

SEND YOUR PRAISE, MISSIVES AND CALLS FOR THE DEIFICATION OF NICK HASTED 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 REID: HIS LIPS! Bless you, Nick Hasted, for your perceptive, respectful elegy to Terry Reid (The Guvnor) in RC 576. I cherish every well-crafted, considerate word, and I easily forgive one understandable slip – that’s not May Day on the Terry Reid album; it is, of course, the heart-breaking May Fly (which is on my funeral playlist). I also beg you all to reincarnate your sensations with the hypnotic, addictive, faultless CD, Alive! (Are You Sure?) (Castle Music/Sanctuary, 2004) wherein Terry’s flawless, raucous vocals and Elliot Easton’s superb, amplified guitar…

On 28 November, the yearly Black Friday version of Record Store Day sees the unveiling of 120-plus singles, EPs, albums and box sets in the UK. Among them are Dr Who The Last Voyage yellow LP, Bluey The Bluey Album zoetrope LP, Lester Young Lester Leaps In: Live At Birdland 1951-52, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee Live From The Ash Grove, Darlene Love Live 1982 LPs, Miles Davis Live At The Plugged Nickel December 23 1965 – Second Set 2LP, Eric Burdon & WAR The Very Best Of 2LP, 2CD, three unissued, Alan Silvestri The Back To The Future Trilogy brown LP, Albert Ayler With Don Cherry Complete 1964 Recordings 4LP box set, Alice Cooper Welcome To My Nightmare Live From The Forum 6/17/1975 unissued LP, Los Angeles Forum, BB King Broadcasting The Blues: Live From Germany And Sweden 2LP, Bad…

In December, Ultravox’s The Collection is due on 14-track 2LP and CD with five unissued bonuses. In addition, a 2,500-copy clear 4LP set adds six tracks, while a 5,000-copy 12” x 12” six-disc box set includes two booklets. It takes in the 14-track The Collection II (nine unissued), unissued 10-track The Remixes, 19-track The B-Sides, and two BDs or DVDs. One disc includes 15 promo videos and 12 others, while the companion has the 11-track At The BBC: Top Of The Pops and 16 other TV performances. Ultravox The Collection CD, 2LP, clear 4LP, 4CD/2BD, 4CD/2DVD, are out via Ultravox.tmsotr.es, 5 December.…

Our regular look at the more arcane corners of record collecting. Includes Label Of Love and Vintage Vinyl The late 1950s witnessed a golden age of Lebanese music. A thriving post-war economy had seen the country branded as the “Switzerland of the Middle East”. Movie stars flocked to its bustling capital Beirut, which was known for high-end hotels, lively nightclubs and a thriving arts and intellectual scene. Its artistry and musical innovations placed the country at the centre of the Arabic music world, just as a new breed of musical artist emerged from the fertile cultural landscape. Among the cornucopia of record labels that sprang forth to capture the fast-developing music scene, Voix De L’Orient became its most powerful voice. “They had Fairuz and Sabah, the top icons of the…

When I was a child, running naked and covered in woad through the forests of Devon, a trip to Woolworths’ record department was a minefield (not literally) because lurking among the legitimate releases was a host of evil soundalike albums. I don’t mean the Top Of The Pops albums, each one seemingly recorded by a beautiful woman in a bikini, but those records which featured hit songs sung by famous groups but re-recorded without all the original members of said group. If you were lured in by the low price of the album, you would find yourself listening to badly produced versions of much-loved songs performed by people who sang like Mike Yarwood doing Tina Turner. (For some reason, most of these records seemed to be by either The Coasters…

As RC talks to Steve Howe, he’s preparing to fly to the US to start rehearsals for a world tour, where he will lead Yes, the band with whom he will forever be associated, in playing one of the prog giants’ classic albums in full: 1971’s Fragile. At 78, he seems anything but fragile – despite his craggy, lived-in features and white hair, he possesses that lean, robust physique and seen-more-fat-on-a-sparrow’s-kneecap frame seemingly only found in men of his age when they’ve spent a lifetime in rock’n’roll bands. He’s as dazzlingly dexterous as ever on the guitar fretboard, and in conversation, whip-smart and talking with a speed of thought and expression to match his most urgent solos. “Things still take maintenance,” he says of his advancing years. “It’s a bit much…

If Detroit is primarily known for cars and music, that’s no coincidence. The two are intrinsically intertwined in its economic and cultural history. The city’s booming auto industry led to a wave of African-American migration. Forced to settle in specific areas of the city through racially discriminatory housing, a burgeoning blues and jazz scene fomented as Black cultural creeds from the American South combined. Areas in the city’s lower east side soon became known nationally for their thriving jazz and blues clubs. Alongside those genres, it was with soul music that Detroit made its biggest cultural impact, thanks chiefly to ex-auto plant worker Berry Gordy and his all-conquering Motown. It goes without saying that this list could have been made with a selection of its indelible classics alone (at least before…

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark / Organisation (Dindisc DID 2/6, LP, UK, October 1980) £50/25 Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys released not one but two albums in 1980, each with its own supernova pop song, poised to detonate the charts. Electricity, from the self-titled Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, never officially charted but has passed into legend; Enola Gay, from Organisation, became the duo’s first Top 10 hit and remains perhaps their best-known song. Inspired by Kraftwerk, McCluskey and Humphreys – with their trusty reel-to-reel machine Winston – called themselves Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark for one night only at [Liverpool club] Eric’s, and then miraculously got signed for a one-single deal with Factory Records (Tony Wilson wasn’t a fan but his first wife Lindsay Reade certainly was). Then Dindisc…

1980 was the year UB40 broke through. It was a complete surprise. Only six months before we released our debut single, King/Food For Thought, we bought our instruments and were learning how to play. It was crazy. And then suddenly we were at No 4 and on Top Of The Pops. Were you part of a scene? No, we were independent of everything. We grew up listening to reggae and we were always going to play reggae because we loved it. We sent our first demo to Steel Pulse, and we got a letter back saying, “Stop trying to sound like somebody else.” Me and Robin [Campbell] also hitchhiked to Cropredy to see Dave Swarbrick from Fairport Convention. He’d been in my dad [Ian Campbell]’s folk band and he was…

Colossal Youth (Rough Trade ROUGH 8, LP, UK, February 1980) £50 While their post-punk contemporaries weaponised noise and dissonance in their fight against the establishment, Young Marble Giants headed up a quiet revolution with their sole album, Colossal Youth, a very different but equally powerful sound of cultural resistance. The group, a three-piece comprising brothers Stuart and Philip Moxham on guitar and bass respectively, plus the latter’s then-girlfriend and singer Alison Statton, formed in Cardiff in 1978 from the ashes of covers band True Wheel. After two of their songs, Ode To Booker T and Searching For Mr Right, were included on a DIY compilation of Cardiff bands issued on the Z Block label, they came to the attention of Rough Trade owner Geoff Travis, who signed them to his…

In 1980, you were 18, and your brother Jeff (aka vocalist Stinky Turner) was only 15. Greatest Hits Vol I and Volume II both went Top 30, and are seen today as street punk classics. You also had five chart singles, and three Top Of The Pops appearances… It went off like a rocket, it was magic. I had most of Vol I written, so recording that wasn’t that difficult. EMI demanded the second album, [and] rushed us into Rockfield [dtudio], so it was me with the tape running, taking loads of cocaine, just riffing. I’d say, “Put that bit there, use that as a middle-eight.” It doesn’t stack up as well, but it’s got its moments. Oi Oi Oi was a response to a review that said those were…

Producer Giles Martin on reworking and adding to the Anthology set… It really comes across on the early tracks just how thoroughly happy they seem to be doing what they’re doing. Well, that’s the thing about them. There was that accusation that we were Disney-washing Get Back, which really wasn’t the case. People talk about the argument between George and Paul being the classic example of the group not getting on, but I was in a band where we used to have far worse arguments than that daily. Yes, there was lots of bitterness, acrimony and things said after they split up, but in general, in the studio, from everything I can tell, they had a good time. They were riding a wave for that whole period, and they were…

From way out west to the backwoods, there’s a wealth of new releases that absorb the timeless sound of America, old new and sometimes even borrowed, criss-crossing the borderlands on both sides of the Atlantic. TODD SNIDER used to be at the front of the Americana new wave but, given that his debut album came out in 1994, he’s now one of the old guard. He used to also be a rocker but High, Lonesome, And Then Some ( Lightning Rod) reinvents him as Americana’s version of a back-porch bluesman, growling voice, a juddering electric guitar or two, dobro, harmonica and percussion even there’s girly backing vocals – tracks like It’s Hard To Be Happy and The Human Condition (Dancing Like I Don’t Know How) sum it up, a beautifully rambling…

Ian Dury Too Nutty To Be Naughty: Studio Recordings 1977-2002 Demon Music Group EDSL 0272 (9CD) Although not as immediately iconic as Bowie singing Starman or Roxy Music’s visual flair on Virginia Plain, Dury’s 1978 Top Of The Pops debut had the feel of a watershed moment. What A Waste was at the high end of the charts, and here was a genuinely maverick, genre-bending new star. While The Blockheads cut a slinky, sinister, jazz-like groove, their singer’s conversational vocal delivery and eloquent wordplay poured out of the screen like a hybrid of world-weary barrow boy and witty beat poet. There may not have been many further big hits (Dury troubled the Top 10 only twice more over the next 18 months), but his catalogue of nine albums teased and…

How do we describe you – co-producer and mixer, or peacekeeper? I did fulfil a lot of roles and tried to keep the whole project on the rails. It was a very dysfunctional band; everybody knows Keith wasn’t playing very well and was pretty out of it a lot of the time in the early days. Also Pete liked to work daytimes… Roger would only sing in the evenings, so they didn’t speak that much. Pete used to say as he was leaving, “Make sure he sings the right melody here, cos that’s important.” Then Roger came in; he didn’t work late, so it wasn’t a 24-hour imposition. I felt sorry for Glyn [Johns] because he loved Pete so much it really irked Roger. There was that going on in…

Mavis Staples Sad And Beautiful World Anti- 280783 (CD, LP) Some 60 years ago, when Mavis Staples sang alongside her father Roebuck ‘Pops’ Staples, sisters Cleotha and Yvonne and brother Pervis in gospel/soul outfit The Staple Singers, she and her family heard Dr Martin Luther King speak in Montgomery, Alabama and were transfixed. “If he can preach the civil rights message, we can sing it,” Pops said to her. And they did, on marches with Dr King and on record; songs such as 1965’s Freedom Highway and 1971’s Respect Yourself soundtracked the civil rights movement. Living through Donald Trump’s second US presidency, Staples is still needing to sing her resistance songs. Her last album, 2019’s Ben Harper-produced We Get By, came out during Trump’s first presidency and called for change.…

The Royal We Roddy Bottum Jawbone, £20 ISBN 9781636142692, 245 pages He cared a lot The most accomplished rock memoir in quite some time, Faith No More keyboardist Roddy Bottum’s The Royal We is an evocative account of three decades of chaos and confusion. A self-described literary fellow, Bottum writes in a very readable, conversational style that invites the reader into the anecdotes with senses-rich notes. He’s big on smells and feels, for example, urging us to imagine the scent of a splitopen dreadlock (yum) and to picture sticky legs rubbing against each other in summer. This highly intimate, fleshly tone established, we’re given equal doses of joy, fear, horror, humour and shame, the last of which is prominent because Bottum talks a lot about his teenage sexual experiences and…

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 CDs. 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 and cassettes at the most…

This month: Cabaret Music Marlene Dietrich Dietrich In London (Columbia OS 2830, LP, US, 1965) £10 By the time of this live performance, Dietrich was into her third decade of stardom, which originated with her breakthrough role as vampy cabaret singer Lola Lola in Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel. During this later period, Dietrich toured extensively as a major singing attraction. Her vocals display the same enigmatic, smouldering charisma as her screen roles, and here she sizzles through a fine selection of numbers, including her trademark Falling in Love Again, accompanied by an orchestra under the auspices of Burt Bacharach. Jacques Brel Olympia 64 (Barclay 80 243, LP, France, 1964) £20 Despite primarily recording in French, Belgium-born actor, singer and composer Jacques Brel rose to become a major international…

This month: Southampton Gaumont, 24 November 1975 I was 17 when I went to see Queen at The Gaumont in Southampton (now The Mayflower) for their Night At The Opera tour. I went with my brother-in-law and friends. It was my first gig and I had no idea what to expect. We purchased the programme and took our seats very close to the front of the stage. The support act was Mr Big, who had a hit at the time with Romeo. I can’t really remember about them playing, but when Queen entered the stage with Freddie dressed in his ermine cloak and crown, the crowd was ready to be entertained. One of my first memories was that we all had to stay seated and, if you dared to stand…

Lilla Weinsheimer is a Hungarian living in Germany, in her early thirties with “an endless passion for record collecting and music in general”. Lilla works for underground metal label, FHM Records, and is part of the Keep It True festival community, run for 22 years by her husband, Oliver Weinsheimer. “We have a huge record market and pure heavy metal music for three days every year in April and October,” she says. “I very often travel around the world and visit record stores in every city I visit – it’s safe to say that I never leave empty-handed…” What do you collect, and why? I have collected vinyl records since I was 15. I got my very first record [Black Sabbath’s Mob Rules] from my father’s childhood collection and I’ve…

THE FABULOUS FILTRATIONS Wait Till I Find Her (D-Clef 211 71) £5,023 Funky soul, single-sided 7” release from 1969. (eBay item number: 326730792697) JACKIE MCLEAN Presenting… Jackie Mclean The New Tradition (Ad Lib ADL 6601) £4,520 Bop-flavoured jazz from 1955, engineered by Rudy Van Gelder. (eBay item number: 306440499425) KISS The Originals 1974-1979 (Mercury PHJR-20002) £4,120 A limited-edition, 11-disc vinyl box set issued in Japan during 1999. (eBay item number: 306304184823) NAS Illmatic (Get on Down GWT 9006) £280 Limited to 2,000 copies, features 24 karat gold CD disc housed in cherry wood box with gold plaque. (eBay item number: 187448139718) BOB DYLAN Blood On The Tracks (CBS no cat no) £6,950 Promo test pressing with annotated white sleeve. TAYLOR SWIFT 1989 (Big Machine BMRBD0500L) $4,550 Double-album presented in pink…

LEE RYAN Blue singer on their latest studio set What film could your new album soundtrack? Sliding Doors. Have you done anything that fans may not know about? I worked on the film The Passion Of The Christ and wrote Time Flies about Jesus’ life for a 27-piece orchestra. I sent it to Mel Gibson, but he commissioned a version of Johnny Cash’s Why Me Lord? instead. But Mel wrote me a lovely note. What was your favourite record shop when you started out? Tower Records, Los Angeles. What was your first record? A Brian McKnight album. What record made you want to go pro? Boyz To Men Evolution. What records most influenced you? Michael Bolton, Scorpions’ Wind Of Change, Toto, Michael McDonald, Marvin Gaye, Elton John, Eagles. Did you…

Tomorrow Revolution (7”, 1967) £70 A psychedelic gem co-written by Howe that seeks to seduce the listener into the counterculture via swirling lyrical surrealism and a hypnotically anthemic chorus, plus some baroque guitar flourishes from our hero. “Free flower children, spreading love” – what’s not to like? Yes Clap (from The Yes Album, 1971) £150 Recorded live at The Lyceum in London in 1970, this Chet Atkins-style acoustic interlude, while startlingly different to the rest of the band’s oeuvre, introduced Howe as a nonpareil instrumentalist, and a master of both acoustic guitar as well as electric rock styles. Yes Siberian Khatru (from Close To The Edge, 1972) £70 A trademark chunk of organised chaos from what would come to be regarded as the band’s classic line-up, with keyboard ace Rick…

Roland Gift came to prominence in 1985 when, as the lead singer in Fine Young Cannibals, he made the UK Top 10 with their first single, Johnny Come Home. That same year they also reached the Top 10 with their self-titled debut album, although it was their 1989 follow-up, The Raw & The Cooked, that hit No 1 in the UK and US and yielded US No 1 singles She Drives Me Crazy and Good Thing. When they split in 1996, Gift, who’d previously starred in films including 1987’s Sammy And Rosie Get Laid and 1989’s Scandal, returned to the screen, starring in 1997 TV mini-series, Painted Lady, alongside Helen Mirren. In 2002 he made his eponymously titled solo album, then, in 2013, went on tour with Jools Holland’s band.…

RC Loves 1980 Pretenders Pretenders (Real Records RAL3, LP, UK, January 1980) £10 “The first important album of the 80s,” insisted Melody Maker, and Chrissie Hynde’s quartet’s debut remains one of the most exhilarating, soulful and badass of new wave landmarks. Special, so special. Peter Gabriel Peter Gabriel aka Melt (Charisma CDS4019, LP, UK, May 1980) £10 From Games Without Frontiers to Biko, from inventing the “gated reverb” drum sound to singing about paranoia, Gabriel’s third was post-punk art-rock genius. “The history of a decaying mind,” he said. Bob Marley & The Wailers Uprising (Tuff Gong/Island ILPS 9596, LP, UK, June 1980) £15 The last album recorded in Marley’s life, it focused on Rastafarianism while Could You Be Loved became another crossover hit. Acoustic closer Redemption Song became a standard.…

Remain In Light (Sire SRK 6095, LP, UK, October 1980) £20 In 1980’s cross-cultural post-punk landscape, New York typically took the revolutionary musical upheavals and collisions coursing through the city to extremes, producing startling blueprints for the coming decade. These included hip-hop emerging as a major force, confrontational no wave funk and electronic innovations as still punk-driven action upgraded from CBGB to the Mudd Club. Leading the charge in studio experiments and moving on from punk’s minimalism, Talking Heads had been quiet after 1979’s Fear Of Music as David Byrne and its producer Brian Eno created the samplestrewn, African-influenced My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts. While that album floundered in sample-clearing limbo (it wasn’t released until 1981), bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer Chris Frantz commenced reactivating Talking Heads in early…

You began the year with the Too Much Too Young EP which gave The Specials their first No 1. Was it an exciting time? We were having the time of our lives, but it was quite a surprise to be toppermost of the poppermost, especially with those lyrics. I thought 2 Tone was going to be more of an underground thing. We were aiming for No 17 and we overshot! When we were recording the album version with Elvis Costello producing, we all went outside for a break and a crowd gathered to stare at Elvis, with kids appearing from nowhere on chopper bikes and asking for autographs, it was very freaky and a real eye-opener for us. Soon, Elvis had to go back inside. So, when we went to…

What do you remember of 1980, musically or otherwise? It was the year that changed my life. I remember going to the depths of despair with the band breaking up. People just couldn’t hold on. All that was left was me and [Peter] Sketch [Martin, bass]. We had one last throw of the dice when Brian Freshwater got behind us and started to manage us. He funded the mixing and pressing of You’re Lying. One thousand copies were made. I went to bed one night wanting to give up and woke up to hear the track being played on the Robbie Vincent show on Radio London. Soon, all 1,000 copies had sold out and we had a hit on the way. Chrysalis signed the record and the band. What do…

The Beatles Anthology Collection Calderstone/Apple 7584043 (12LP/8CD) The original Anthology TV series from 1995, three LP releases (’95-96) and the accompanying book, later reasserted The Beatles’ position in the post-Britpop world, smoothly facilitating the transition from mere Fabs to The Beatles™. Yet, after years of anticipation and its huge sales (450,000 copies on its first day alone), there was an ever-so-slight feeling of “meh” when the first volume of The Beatles Anthology was finally issued. The excitement and then ennui that surrounded the brand new ‘Threetles’ track, Free As A Bird, that spearheaded the project, seemed to overshadow the release. This writer can still never understand why it was made available on single the same day as the album, which diluted its sales and denied the Fabs their first No…

Bob Dylan The Bootleg Series Volume 18: Through The Open Window, 1956-1963 Sony/Legacy 19802912982 (8CD/2CD, 4LP) Launched in 1993, Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series was initially a modest undertaking. Essentially a 3CD “best of” of outtakes and alternate versions spanning the years 1961 to 1991, the first instalment proved that Dylan’s output had often been far greater than the music industry could manage – and that plenty of gems had fallen by the wayside in his rush to capture a moment before his boot heels once more went wandering. Comprising volumes one to three in the series, it came out in a very different market to the one that exists today, in which fans and record labels alike now clamour for an endless stream of content. In light of what’s since…

Blockhead and co-producer Chaz Jankel on respecting the legacy of a one-off. What was the first song you and Ian wrote together? One of the first was Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, but we wrote a lot of songs very quickly, which became part of New Boots And Panties!! and released just under Ian’s name. There were just four of us back then, before The Blockheads expanded to a six-piece for live shows and the subsequent Do It Yourself album. Did you think you had something that set you apart from the chasing pack? I think we were offering something different that could challenge the best in the business, and Ian’s thrust as a frontman, his appetite for living and language made people sit up and take notice. Nothing…

Where’s home? Tampa, Florida: that’s where I’ve lived for 32 years now. But I started out in Rock County, Wisconsin, and at eight years old moved to Rockford, Illinois, where I joined a rock band when I was 20. And for 52 years now I’ve been in the same band. You’ve got a new album, All Washed Up, which is a record you should be really pleased with. Oh yes, I am. I think it’s a wonderful record. It’s Cheap Trick. It’s like the good, the bad, the ugly, really! Great title, too! Whose idea was it? And is it a backhanded swipe at journalists who’ve written you off over the years? Thank you! The title was my idea, but, actually, it’s more like taking a shower and getting ready…

Midlake A Bridge To Far Bella Union BELLA 1688 (CD, LP) In 2022, Midlake returned after almost a decade with For The Sake Of Bethel Woods, a record spurred by a longing to reconvene with cherished fragments – from people to ideals – of the past. A quicker turnaround ushers in A Bridge To Far, which in many ways arrives as its predecessor’s natural follow-up. Hybrids of reflective gratitude and driving determination underpin the record’s reflections on time, hope and constancy, where the demands of the present seem more salient than the ghosts of the past. Recorded in their Denton, Texas homebase, the results are simultaneously balmy and soothing, immediate and urgent. Days Gone By opens proceedings serenely, the Tull flute a reassuring presence as singer Eric Pulido counsels thankfulness…

Spinal Spinal Tap II: The End Tap II: The End Continues Castle Rock Sequel to legendary comedy mockumentary is surprisingly low on laughs It would be churlish to condemn Spinal Tap II with a two word review à la “Shit sandwich”, though coming 40 years after arguably the greatest comedy movie of all time, it was always going to struggle against the immense weight of expectation. The shadow of former glories looms over this sequel like a Stonehenge trilithon in the midday sun, and the endless recycling of jokes tells its own story story. The interaction between. The interaction between stars Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) still elicits emotional engagement and moments of comedy, though there’s an unwelcome reliance on slapstick, and the addition of…

Alabama 3 December (5) Manchester O2 Ritz (11) Coventry HMV Empire (12) Bristol O2 Academy (13) London Shepherd’s Bush O2 Empire Big Country, Toyah December (9) Cardiff Tramshed (12) Leeds Project House (14) London Islington Assembly Hall (16) Manchester Academy 2 (17) Newcastle Boiler Shop China Crisis December (18-19) Liverpool Cavern (22) Edinburgh Voodoo Rooms The Charlatans December (6) Leeds O2 Academy (7) Stoke Hanley Victoria Hall (8) Bath Forum (10) London Camden Roundhouse (11) Manchester Academy (12) Glasgow Barrowlands Del Amitri December (22) Edinburgh Usher Hall (23) Glasgow Barrowlands Fatboy Slim November (20) Coventry HMV Empire (21) Middlesbrough Town Hall (22) Warrington Pyramid & Parr Hall December (4) Bournemouth O2 Academy (6) Wolverhampton Wulfrun Halls Thea Gilmore November (29) Cardiff Gate Arts December (1-2) Birmingham Hare & Hounds (6)…

This month: Barney Hoskyns I feel a little like a lifelong Catholic would feel if he ever got the opportunity to visit the Vatican. For here on the third floor of this modern office building in Hammersmith, London is an archive… sorry, THE archive… of popular music history. I am at Rock’s Backpages headquarters. All around me are hundreds of neatly shelved files of magazines: bound volumes of Melody Maker, New Musical Express, Kerrang! and Record Mirror; precious Sniffin’ Glue copies and Pete Wingfield’s Soulbeat fanzine; thousands of copies of Rolling Stone, Blues & Soul, The Face, Paste, The Fader, Smash Hits, Let It Rock, Beat International, Record Collector and hundreds more. Meanwhile, in the centre of the room, computers and scanners quietly hum as they take biographical detail, sharp…