The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

It’s the little things

by 95 Comments

Amongst all the doom and gloom, what little things have perked up your day of late?

Mine came in threes yesterday:

1. After mentioning my new chazza holy grail item, i.e. the Geoff Love-arranged Mandingo LP, a Twitter chum sorting out his shed found he had two copies, and sent me his spare.

2. I bought an interesting looking German record in a charity shop for £2, and it turns out to be quite sought after. https://www.discogs.com/Siegfried-Matthus-Bernd-Wefelmeyer-Paul-Heinz-Dittrich-Galilei-Protest-Kammermusik-2/release/3634066

3. I got an email from WhoSampled.com informing me that I’ve won a copy of this new double LP, which from the clips sounds rather groovy indeed. https://www.mrbongo.com/products/mr-bongo-record-club-volume-two-vinyl-2-lp-cd-1

What about you?

A Love Affair With Music

by 8 Comments

Author:Bill Birch

Subtitled “The life and times of musician, bandleader and show business icon Geoff Love”, this beautifully bound and presented hardback, published by its author Bill Birch and funded by donors, is only available via mail order from the local Information Centre in the village of Todmordon, the West Yorkshire hometown of the easy listening legend.

Beginning with Geoff’s African-American grandfather and part-Cherokee grandmother, his background is traced through to his bumpy upbringing as the son of “dance artist” Kidd Love, who specialised in a tabletop sand dance, and Yorkshire lass Frances Maycock. Once this early biographical detail is dealt with the book turns into a slightly dry collection of ‘facts’ on Geoff’s blossoming and ultimately hugely prolific career as an arranger and bandleader. Sadly for me there was little on the many albums of movie and TV themes so loved by charity shoppers of the UK, but considering the size of the man’s catalogue and the variety of people he worked with through the years this is perhaps unsurprising.

The author also reproduces testimonials from collaborators and friends such as Tommy Steel, Dame Vera Lynn, Ron Goodwin, Sir Ken Dodd, Max Bygraves and many more, all of which » Continue Reading.

CBVD Episode 20

by 13 Comments

The latest ep is now online, with possibly my fave selection of tunes so far. Includes the inaugural Compact Disco spot featuring a recording that makes me so happy I can’t really put it into words.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra must be stopped!

by 53 Comments

I made the mistake of switching on Radio 2 this morning* before 9.30am, and my shell-likes were assaulted by the horror of Roy Orbison’s beautifully aching ‘I Drove All Night’ slathered in syrupy strings by the criminals that are the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It does not sound good. Also, there’s some bird overdubbed onto it, so that they can call it a “duet”. Ugh!

They’ve got form, in the shape of the 2016 Elvis Atrocity that’s being reissued soon as an expanded edition. No doubt come January it will be lining the shelves of charity shops alongside the original version.

Who’s buying this stuff?

*it went off again soon after, because Toploader

http://royorbison.com/a-love-so-beautiful-roy-orbison-with-the-royal-philharmonic-orchestra/

Mojo For Men

by 84 Comments

Having just seen a photo of the November issue of Mojo mag (Bowie headlining), I noted that not one single female artist is featured on the cover. Looking at the last few issues on their website it seems that this is not a new phenomenon; Kate Bush gets a cover story, but apart from that, looking at the last few months at least, female artists featured in any way on the front of the magazine can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Poor Laurie Anderson appears, but only in terms of “The Lou I knew”.

It’s a total sausage-fest*!

http://www.mojo4music.com/magazine/

Charity Shop Classics: Listener’s Choice

by 20 Comments

20/08/2017

Those handsome guys* from the most excellent Charity Shop Classics on Manchester’s All FM 96.9 need a bit of holiday cover, so have roped in a few of their regular listeners to fill in for some shows. Tomorrow (Sunday) morning from 11-12 I’ll be playing my selection of chazza-bought tunes, from both CD and the vinlies, and obviously I’d love it if you could listen in to me making a twat of myself.

The show can be streamed here: http://allfm.org/ (I’d recommend using the Tune In widget, as the All FM one doesn’t seem to be loading lately), and if you’re in the Manchester area you can listen on the actual proper radio at 96.9 FM. I believe @beany’s turn will be in the next few weeks, so, er, look out…

* @simongmusic, @wholehogg and @dr-volume

The Afterword Crowd-Sourced Album Reviews Thread

by 40 Comments

What does it sound like?:

Well you tell me. I don’t know about you, but perhaps due to the small pool of reviewers here, very few album reviews lately have been of particular interest to me. Of course we are all to blame, but I thought this thread, posted in Nights In, might be a good place for us to ask the Massive about particular albums we’re perhaps thinking of getting but would like to hear opinions/info from our trusted Afterchums before diving in.

In addition, it may be a good place for those who’d like to big up (or put down) a particular release but don’t necessarily want to write a ‘formal’ review or start a whole thread about it. Whether it’s a single sentence or a couple of paragraphs, it could make all the the difference to a potential purchaser.

Recent releases or vinlies of old, it doesn’t matter. What do you need to know? My query will follow in the comments, and I have a feeling that Colin H will be able to help.

What does it all *mean*?

Who knows?

Goes well with…

I dunno, gin?

Might suit people who like…

Findus Crispy Pancakes.

The Vinyl Detective: Written In Dead Wax

by 18 Comments

Author:Andrew Cartmel

I rarely read fiction these days, but for some reason this popped up in Mr B’s Kindle recommendations and he passed it on to me. The Vinyl Detective can supposedly find any record, not matter how rare, and here he is tasked by a shadowy agent (a gorgeous woman, of course) with tracking down an obscure jazz title from the 1950s by a long-dead pianist. The mystery deepens as a series of grisly murders begins to follow him around, and our hero realises that this is about more than just record collecting.

A gripping detective story of two halves (in fact Side 1 and Side 2), it’s also very funny, with some lovable characters, and some not so lovable. The level of detail aimed at music fans and vinyl geeks should appeal to many here on the Afterword; as well as runout grooves and catalogue numbers there are charity shops, a car boot sale, jazz chat, copious amounts of weed, more charity shops, cats, an LA record store, yet more more charity shops and even a Disco Antistat. Also, be sure to keep some decent coffee in the house, because even if like me you don’t often drink » Continue Reading.

What classic album have you only got round to hearing recently?

by 143 Comments

When it comes so-called ‘classic’ albums I assume that they’ll find me eventually, perhaps via an article or a review, or maybe a chance discovery in a chazza, ye olde recorde shoppe or boot sale. Sometimes it’s a case of wondering what all the fuss was about, but every so often one will knock me little socks right off and I’ll wonder where it’s been all my life.

I write this because on Sunday I stumbled across a few such classics at a car boot, and over the last two evenings have been left reeling – REELING I tell you – by the wonder that is Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On, and aside from the well-known title track I’ve clearly been missing out; despite owning a couple of his other LPs, and being aware of its good standing, I never felt the need to seek it out.

Anyway, what classic album(s) have you only just discovered recently? And was it shit or not? Do tell.

N.B. It must be commonly thought of as a proper ‘classic’. Points will be deducted for wilful obscurity.

What have you learned this week?

by 153 Comments

I invite you all to share any snippets of info, fascinating facts or anything else that’s entered your brain this week. I have two. The first is that it seems that the Singing Postman briefly went electric! Oh yes, a small number of his later tunes not only boasted a small brass section, but also electric guitar and bass, as you can see here in the pic from a book wot I read.

The second, even more mind blowing revelation is in the comments…

View post on imgur.com

CBVD Episode 19

by 55 Comments

The latest episode of CBVD is now online, with loads of great tunes plucked from the fields and chazzas of Suffolk. PLUS an astonishing (to me anyway) bit of pop trivia.

New Britxotica! album from Trunk Records

by 10 Comments

‘Strictly Britxotica! – Palais Pop And Locarno Latin’ is soon to hit the shops, and is already available on the Trunk website. It of course looks brill. The dilemma now is whether to get the LP right away (it’s only available on vinyl), or wait (possibly for ages) for the inevitable 3CD box set after a couple more volumes have been added to the series.

http://i1350.photobucket.com/albums/p773/minibreakfast/34056845830054_zpsz9le3y98.jpeg https://trunkrecords.greedbag.com/buy/strictly-britxotica-0/

Paul Merton’s Beatles

by 10 Comments

Over the last few weeks Fabs fan Paul Merton has been looking at some “what ifs” of Beatledom, namely “What if they’d never broken up? What if they were still playing live? What if they made another album?”

Of course the Afterword did this years ago, but I thought some of you might find this four part Radio 2 series of interest. Tonight’s final episode concludes the second part on the 1974 album that they could have made. Will it compare to the AW’s version? What will @tiggerlion make of it all? Does anyone care?

Link to the series overview in the comments.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08tvbz5