The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

Spare tickets for Scarlet Rivera and Rob Stoner playing ‘Desire’

by 7 Comments

Knowing there are those among you who would appreciate this, I have two spare tickets for the show being put on this Wednesday night at Dingwalls in Camden. Rob Stoner, Dylan’s musical director on the Rolling Thunder Revue tours, and violinist Scarlet Rivera, are to perform Dylan’s masterpiece with a stellar band featuring Michele Stodart from The Magic Numbers, drummer Darren Beckett and an array of special guest performers, hosted by actor and Word Podcast announcer Kerry Shale.

Message me if you’re interested.

https://londonnewsdesk.co.uk/2026/05/29/david-ford-scarlet-rivera-rob-stoner-celebrate-50-years-of-bob-dylans-desire-in-camden/

Jerry Douglas tickets going spare

by 4 Comments

I’ve had to postpone my annual northern summer trip to the UK, so I’m unravelling various bookings. Elbow at Ludlow Castle already offloaded. I have tickets going spare for Jerry Douglas at Union Chapel next week https://unionchapel.org.uk/whats-on/jerry-douglas

£25 a pop. Message me if you’re interested.

Shawn Colvin tickets going spare

by 4 Comments

Wife and I have been fans of Shawn Colvin since her first album Steady On c1990. I was lucky to see Shawn at City Winery in NYC a few years ago, but Mrs D had not seen her live. We have tickets for her show at The Stables in Milton Keynes on September 18th, but due to circumstances we are heading back to NZ sooner than expected.

So if anyone is interested, two tickets, good seats (front stalls) – 30 quid a pop. DM if you’re interested.

Dark Side Of The Moon – which vinyl is best?

by 84 Comments

A simple question really, with apologies if you’ve discussed this before.

My 1970s copy of DSOTM is no longer optimal – frankly it’s knackered. I just put it on, because everyone’s tweeting about it being the 49th anniversary of the album’s release. It was played to death back in the day and it shows.

If I’m looking to replace the vinyl, I can see there are various remixes, half-speed masters, etc. Which is best? Thanks

View post on imgur.com

RIP Little Feat’s Paul Barrere

by 11 Comments

Just seen a post on FB indicating that Paul passed away on Saturday, after a prolonged bout of liver cancer. Not much detail at the moment.

He was a mainstay of Little Feat from 1973 onwards, when he joined the band and wrote songs from their classic period such as Skin It Back and All That You Dream. He also co-wrote Feats Don’t Fail Me Now and Romance Dance, among others.

In the band hiatus after Lowell George died, he had various solo band set ups, and penned one of my favourite song titles – If Your Phone Don’t Ring (You Know It’s Me).

RIP Paul

View post on imgur.com

https://imgur.com/vHepKmE

So I went to Woodstock…

by 16 Comments

I spent a hugely enjoyable week in the Catskills region of upstate New York this month, the focal point of which was my time at Bethel Woods for the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival. You can read about it on my blogsite. Hopefully the link works. Let me know if it doesn’t.

https://bangnzdrum.blogspot.com/2019/08/my-woodstock-50th-anniversary-diary.html

A Skunk in the White House

by Leave a Comment

Fans of The Steely Dan will perhaps know of guitarist Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter’s second career as an expert on missile-defence and counterterrorism. It’s quite a story, told in the article link below.

So Skunk was at the White House yesterday, not as part of the Kanye circus, but to watch Donald Trump sign the Music Modernisation Act, which reforms copyright laws, one of the more enlightened moves of his presidency. The famous tash is present and correct.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lXE_Q5ZtB18

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/trump-white-house-meeting-with-musicians-included-jeff-skunk-baxter-2018-10?r=UK&IR=T

Geoff Emerick has died

by 8 Comments

Another direct link to the creation of the Beatles’ classic albums is no more. RIP Geoff. Let’s recall one of his choicest anecdotes from the Beatles sessions, the legendary Digestive biscuit incident.

He also worked on Elvis’s Imperial Bedroom and All This Useless Beauty albums, and was involved with Badfinger, Jeff Beck, Supertramp, Robin Trower, Split Enz, Big Country, Gentle Giant, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Ultravox.

Feel free to share your thoughts and memories of this influential studio engineer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPL9SI_L8hE

“No Breadheads” – phrases from another era

by 57 Comments

Declan’s thread appears to have gone in the direction of phrases (Americanisms mostly) we hate. So, (ha) prompted by Vincent’s comment, “I’m not a breadhead”, let’s celebrate some phrases from the past.

No breadheads was the stock phrase from ‘musicians wanted’ ads in the Melody Maker. “Progressive folk band seeks mandolin player, into Gryphon and Tir Na Nog. Must have beard. No breadheads”

By the punk era, this had been adjusted to ‘No sausages’

Frank Zappa joins Pink Floyd

by 7 Comments

This is pretty cool. Specially for all you ‘heads’ out there. Actual live footage of FZ avec Telecaster jamming with Ummagumma-era Floyd at a festival in Belgium.

https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/pink-floyd-frank-zappa-jam-interstellar-overdrive-1969-belgium

https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/pink-floyd-frank-zappa-jam-interstellar-overdrive-1969-belgium

Kansas – “Leftoverture Live & Beyond”

by 12 Comments

What does it sound like?:

So, Kansas, possibly the ugliest band in the world. Not hip or trendy in any way, but if you can put that aside and you have an appreciation for prog, read on. To put my interest in context, 1977 was a schizophrenic year. My old concert tickets show that I saw Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd, but I also saw the Clash and the Sex Pistols. In the middle of all that, in the summer of ‘77, I went to America for the first time and stayed with a family in the heart of Long Island, New York. I had met the girl when she came over on a school exchange trip. We bonded over a shared appreciation of Boston’s first album. The other music she and her friends listened to was Aerosmith (Toys In The Attic), Foghat Live, Frampton Comes Alive, Rumours (you couldn’t get away from it) and Leftoverture by Kansas, which contained their big hit at the time, Carry On Wayward Son. Some of it has stayed with me. In fact all of it, except Foghat. So that’s the background to why I chose to review this double CD, a cash-in » Continue Reading.

If you’re going to San Francisco…

by 26 Comments

..forget the flowers in your hair, just mind your step.

Since it’s the Summer Of Hate, the Grauniad reports that hundreds of San Franciscans plan to prepare Crissy Field – the picturesque beach in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge where right wing protest group Patriot Prayer will gather – with a generous carpeting of excrement.

They should put some acid in the water while they’re at it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/24/san-francisco-dog-poo-protest-patriot-prayer-rally

Great two-album bursts

by 152 Comments

My wife and I have had a splendid evening dancing round our living room for several hours to the one CD, a combination of John Hiatt’s two classic albums. It was an inspired choice. I hadn’t played them for a while and they just hit the spot. We must have listened to the two albums five or six times over without a break.

I know there are plenty of artists who have put a decent run of albums together. We’ve done Steely Dan and Bowie and Stevie Wonder and, most recently, the great Santana trilogy.

But is there a better two album burst than Bring The Family and Slow Turning? Right now, I think not

Rundgren and Fagen collaboration

by 9 Comments

Haven’t seen anyone posting about this. Not everyday two of my heroes work together, and it has added political piquancy. This, from a recent interview in a Variety:

Variety – Donald Fagen sings lead on the anti-Trump song “Man in the Tin Foil Hat,” but it’s hard to tell who wrote what in the tune, because the chord progressions and biting humor both sound like both of you.

TR – That was one of the more interesting collaborations on the record, because it’s the only one in which me and my collaborator were in the same physical place at the same time. I’ve known Donald since he spent some time living out at Kauai, where I still live, and he just happened to be on vacation on the island in January. We went out to dinner, and I thought, well, geez, why don’t I just spring it on him? The song was primarily driven by our common frustration with what happened in the recent election. It was still pretty fresh, and we were still pretty mad about it, so it happened pretty organically. So who knows? If I’m actually in the room with a collaborator, a lot of things can » Continue Reading.

The Hissing Of Summer Lawns

by 60 Comments

Everyone has their own favourite period or album by Joni Mitchell and for some, including myself, she peaked artistically with this 1975 release. It was Prince’s favourite Joni album too and I noticed it appeared in several top 10s in the AW’s teenage albums thread.

Context is everything and Joni’s achievement in crafting such a magnificent record as ‘The Hissing Of Summer Lawns’ was tainted by the negative reaction of the critics at the time, a reaction which now looks foolish.

The author Leonore Fleischer concluded her 1976 biography ‘Joni Mitchell – Her life, her loves, her music’, at the moment when Joni had just released ‘The Hissing of Summer Lawns’. It is interesting to note how the tone of the book changed at this point, as if the biographer was perplexed by the shift in her musical style.

Fleischer notes that with her previous album Court and Spark, “Joni had come a long way from the Newport Folk Festival days, and she had brought her audience with her every step of the way.”

Sadly, many of those loyal followers were to desert her after hearing The Hissing of Summer Lawns – an album of beautifully crafted » Continue Reading.

Here’s a game we can all play

by 11 Comments

Well, those of us who still have vinyl 45 singles anyway.

Someone on the web has helpfully pointed out that if you play the single of Dolly Parton’s Jolene at 33rpm it actually sounds rather good.

I tried this on some of my own 45s, with surprising and often hilarious results.

Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi – yep, definitely made a me chuckle that one

B-52s – Rock Lobster – yep, that works at 33

Jo Jo Gunne – Run Run Run – sounds like they’d taken some ‘ludes before the session

Sparks – This Town… – Russell’s voice still sounds impossibly high

Pretenders – Kid – love the guitar twang on this one

Oh, what fun! Have a go and let us know what you find. Works best with singing that’s fairly high-pitched to begin with.

Dear Santa….the Afterword Christmas gift list

by 11 Comments

I’ve just found something I want for Christmas. I’m pretty sure there are others amongst us (do we still call ourselves the Massive?) who will be similarly tempted.

If you’re not a Feat fan though, I’m sure there are other Afterword-friendly pressies you covet. So what will you be asking Santa for?

http://i866.photobucket.com/albums/ab226/NickDuvet/Feat%20T_zpsnbsonysb.jpg

The Doors – London Fog, 1966

by 2 Comments

What does it sound like?:

This recently unearthed audio recorded at the London Fog club on Sunset Strip in May 1966 is, we are told, the earliest recording of the band. It’s a small café club and the few people in attendance are often chatting away, oblivious to the future Lizard King’s charms. But even at this stage the trademark sounds of Ray Manzarek’s keyboards and Jim Morrison’s blues wail are present and correct. Robby Krieger hasn’t found his guitar voice at this point and his playing sounds tentative compared to the others. John Densmore’s drums are familiar but don’t yet have the swing he brought to the records, and he struggles with anything approaching a straight fours groove. The songs are mainly blues, with the band sounding reasonably well-rehearsed but not exactly gig-hardened, which is to be expected. Jim tries some blues harp playing but thankfully only on a couple of tracks. Their version of Hoochie Coochie Man gets the most applause. Strange Days is the only staple Doors track that would later appear on their second album. Even at this stage though, the song is well-formed, at least for Morrison and Manzarek. The other Doors original, You » Continue Reading.