News this week that one of my old haunts is set to feel the merciless punch of the wrecking ball – The Cobbler’s Thumb, in Brighton, is finally to be demolished after years of structural neglect. The old girl will [more...]
I’ve got one or two articles in the pipeline but while I’m working on that, I’m posting some good stuff on Facebook. To help me get back in the saddle on this blog, let’s have a competition, and the closing [more...]
Away. And now I’ve got a little bit of what the fellow in the video has.. it’ll clear soon. Pedestrian Verse, from wide-screen blue sky Scottish indie rockers Frightened Rabbit is keeping me going right now. Here’s video of the [more...]
Take a Christmas album, forget it’s a Christmas album, listen to it. Is the music good? Then it’s a good album. Mere Christmassiness is not enough. Tracey Thorn’s Tinsel and Lights is just delightful, and here’s the opening track from [more...]
Hey, welcome back to the blog. It’s been a while. As you can see I changed the appearance, which should now be a little more iPad and mobile friendly – hopefully it works pretty much the same way however you [more...]
Part 4 – Pure gold, and what might be described as Northern Soul’s biggest ever ‘find’, Frank Wilson’s Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) was originally released on Motown’s subsidiary label Soul in 1965. Frank wanted to concentrate on [more...]
Part 3 – The daddy of all Northern Soul clubs was Wigan Casino, though, as this fine article by Chris Hunt says, it may not have been the coolest or the most innovative. If you wanted to dance, however, it [more...]
Part 2 – a large part of the excitment of the underground Northern Soul scene was provided by the discovery of obscure records and the battles of one-upmanship between DJs. Find a record with that sound that no one else [more...]
Part 1 – No music genre more perfect than Northern Soul? Mix a fanboy’s dedication to unearthing obscure record releases, the regimentation of fashion, and a nonpareil club scene, each venue with its own distinctive politics and sound. Songs that [more...]
Australian indie band The Triffids were ruined by a big budget for their fourth album, conflicting ideals from the label and the band leading to a long, drawn-out, over-produced disaster. Well, that’s an opinion, and one I read recently on [more...]
Just had to share this one with you.. a terrific clip of B.B. King in blazing form, electrifiying festival goers at the Medicine Ball Caravan, Placitas, NM, in 1970. I’ve seen Mr. King live a few times in his later [more...]
Pre-order, wait until Saturday, log in, press the download button.. ..and hey presto, here’s the new Radiohead album, following the virtual trip home from the record shop. Anticipation at a peak, it’s time for the first listen, track-by-track. Let’s put [more...]
Nothing caught my eye in the pulpy crime fiction section of the library the other week, so I mooched over to the music books and borrowed what turned out to be one of the best rock and roll biographies I’ve [more...]
(The final album in a series of 10 albums that shaped my musical taste) Our own particular brand of Northern Soul, the Roses were. Self-belief in bucketloads, strong instrumental ability and a staggering ambition to make their debut the next [more...]
Classical music.. how do you approach it? There’s so much of it. How do you find out what you like and what you don’t, where to begin, which direction to go? There may be a temptation to just ignore it. [more...]
(#9 in a series of 10 albums that shaped my musical taste) I’d just like to say to all you young folks that if you’re playing in a band and your raison d’être is complete indifference.. if you’re playing that [more...]
Johnny Kidd and the Pirates were in the vanguard of the 60s rock and roll movement in Britain, and Mick Green was head of the line of aspiring British guitar players with both the attitude AND the chops to pull [more...]
(#8 in a series of 10 albums that shaped my musical taste) We took a deep breath and held it, in the late post-punk era. Not much joy in serried ranks of earnest young men in long grey raincoats poking [more...]
(#7 in a series of 10 albums that shaped my musical taste) Punk didn’t really hit the English northern industrial city of Sheffield as hard as it did elsewhere. “Rebel? What against? I’ve been doing it all my life, mate, [more...]
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