Being a penniless nurse, I always had one of those all in one hi-fi systems. It was a good one though, but when I bought my first house I went down to Richer Sounds at Swiss Cottage and treated myself to a separate system. I took their advice and was very pleased with it. As I’d flogged most of my vinyl in the 90s and only had a small amount left that was to be shortly carted down to Notting Hill to flog, I didn’t get a turntable as part of the system. I got a tuner, even though the only radio I ever listened to was Sound of the Sixties, and later I got a minidisc player. There was this short period between Walkman and MP3 players where minidiscs were ace. You could shuffle them and even type in the names of the tracks.

When I was stuck in hospital for several months of rehab, post spinal cord surgery, my portable minidisc player kept me sane. Although if there was nobody around to help me I couldn’t always get the earpieces in my lughole. I perfected a technique of chucking the wire up towards my ear and once » Continue Reading.

If Austin Butler doesn’t win the Best Actor Oscar I’ll eat my hat!

Record Day is a good idea, in principal. I’ve been aware of it since it started and, whilst I didn’t buy vinyl, I like the idea of there still being independent record shops, so something that is designed to lure people into shopping there is a good thing.

Like most on here, record shopping used to be one of my favourite hobbies, until eBay took it away, by enabling me pretty quickly to buy everything I was looking for. I’d pretty much stopped going into record shops, cos I knew they wouldn’t have any of the few CDs I was still looking for, which are pretty obscure rap albums, but I liked the shops being there. But then I was given a record player.

My brother-in-law has said he debated about whether to give it to me, cos he knows what I’m like, and yep, I did exactly what he expected me to, and started buying records by the bucketload, which only stopped last week when I ran out of money. I’ve particularly enjoyed buying 12” singles, as I used to love them. They are also pretty cheap to pick up (when you like the stuff that I do!) » Continue Reading.

He’s just on a different level to everybody else isn’t he.

His new one looks to be continuing along the theme of the last one. A shame, because in amongst all the anti-vaz, anti-lockdown rubbish on his last album were some of the best songs he’s done for decades.

I’m beginning to think I should have been a bigger fan of Elvis Costello over the years. I bought, or was given to be more precise, the Oliver’s Army (one of my favourite three songs of his) single when it came out, but that was the only record of his I owned until I bought the Mighty Like a Rose CD in 1991. That one’s a patchy album, but not as bad as the bottom position it usually occupies when Costello fans rank his albums. All Grown Up from that album’s another of my three favourite songs.

After this I bought a greatest hits CD and over the years I bought his first few and Imperial Bedroom, the latter being the one that was played the most (Man Out of Time – the third of my top three Costello songs). I downloaded all the others some time back and had begun to think I had been overlooking him last year after listening to a couple of them whilst ploughing on with my project, so I went through them all and ended up buying another dozen, quite cheaply, on CD.

But then this year he released The Boy Named If. It » Continue Reading.

I’ve always enjoyed the fact that my favourite Beatles album, Abbey Road, is 2 days younger than me, but I’ve just bought Laura Nyro’s New York Tendaberry on CD and found the album was released on the day I was born.

Anybody else share a birthday with a decent record?

You know when you descend into YouTube hell, when every video you watch there’s something else pops up to tempt you and before you know it an hour has disappeared from your day, and then you happen upon something that has to be seen to be believed…

If you’re a Beatles fan and were considering buying the newly released book of Paul McCartney’s lyrics (and have the money, as it isn’t cheap), don’t hesitate, buy it. It’s the best new Beatles related book for a long time. It isn’t just a collection of the lyrics (for 154 of his 500+ songs), there are hundreds of never before seen photos from the McCartney archives, including photos of the original handwritten lyrics and other artefacts, but the best bit is his song by song commentary. This isn’t just related to the composing of the song, but contains loads of information about what was going on at the time the song was composed.

I’ve only dipped in and read a few random entries so far, but there was loads I’d never read/heard before, so he’s gone way over the ‘it came to me in a dream, and I had to ask everyone if they’d heard it before’ type anecdote. And the books look great in the outer slipcase too. Honestly, if you’re a Beatles fan you won’t be disappointed.

Only yesterday I finished loading all my bootlegged live Duffy CDs into my iTunes library, and they vary in sound quality, as you would expect. And then today I learned that a show from his 1991 tour is to be officially released in a 3 disc 30th anniversary release of The Lilac Time’s fourth album, Astronauts. I was at the Manchester show on that tour and it was fab, so I’m very much looking forward to this. As a Duffy completist though, it could be an expensive release, as triple vinyl albums are never particularly cheap. Can we please go back to the days of CD releases only???

But wait, there’s more. He’s also finally releasing the demos that he and Dave Kusworth recorded with their band The Hawks. I’ve only heard bits of this, so it’s another exciting release whilst waiting for the 11th Lilac Time album.

http://stephenduffy.com/

When Aimee Mann released Whatever I bought it on the strength of the review in Q magazine and loved it, played it loads. Yet I never got around to listening to any of her other albums. This is strange behaviour from me, because whenever I have an album I like my usual reaction would be to buy every album that artist has done. This has led me to discovering some great albums, but it has also seen me buy a right load of old rubbish out of loyalty to a band whose debut album I liked. I’d listen to the album, decide it’s rubbish, put it on the shelf, from which it will never be plucked again, and then wish that said band would just quit, like wot REM did.

It’s only in the past couple of years that I have been able to stop this stupid habit of mine. Ironically, after years of buying increasingly disappointing Morrissey albums I stopped just before he released a couple of crackers, but there you go.

Back to Aimee Mann, I always intended to buy her follow up album, I’m With Stupid, I just never got round to it. I’d just moved to » Continue Reading.

We’re just about at the halfway stage of this very strange year. I hope everyone and your friends and families have got through the past few months unscathed, although I don’t think we’re out of the water just yet. But now seems as good a time as any to look back on what have been your favourite albums so far, and what have been the disappointments. We’ve just had a few outstanding years for new music, 2017 in particular, so it’s no surprise that 2020 has already seen lots of very good new albums and, in my opinion, a couple of outstanding ones from a pair of seasoned campaigners.

Bob Dylan has just released what is probably his best album for decades. I’m expecting it to win all the album of the year awards in December. But it’s Marc Almond’s Chaos and a Dancing Star which is leading the way for me. It is absolutely fantastic. He said it was going to be his final album, but I hope he was kidding, as he has said things like this before. It’s the second album he has made with producer and co-writer Chris Braide, after 2015’s equally fantastic The Velvet » Continue Reading.

In October 2018 (which shocked me, cos I only thought it was around 6 months ago) I wrote a post titled I Don’t Like Reggae, as I had tried listening to bits and pieces over the years, but it never really grabbed my attention. Like other genres that have become firm favourites over the past few years (rap, grime, drum and bass, dubstep), just listening to the odd track here and there made it all sound a little samey, which is always a great thing to say to get people offended and start recommending great music to you! So I wrote the post, basically to ask for a way in, as I was sure I’d become a fan if I persevered, and I wasn’t disappointed. There were loads of albums/artists recommended and I found that i pretty much liked it all.

So I’m pleased to say that, 19 months later I am properly converted and have amassed a nice little reggae/dub collection, many of which were the albums recommended. I’ve even added a couple of UB40 albums to my collection (I would have referred anyone who suggested that would ever happen for psychiatric therapy a couple of years ago!). I » Continue Reading.

I was digging around my music DVDs/Blu Rays earlier and happened upon Imagine, the John Lennon documentary from 1988. I watched it first at the big cinema on Lime Street in Liverpool (the Cannon?) and then many times on video. It got me thinking about all the other Beatles related films (not including the 5 actual Beatles films) I had on videocassette in the 80s. I used to record anything Beatles related, like all the re-runs of Ready Steady Go, and the excellent Granada TV programme from 1984, The Early Beatles.

The daddy of them all was The Compleat Beatles. I couldn’t begin to imagine how many times I watched this one, but I certainly saw it as the definitive Beatles documentary at the time! It must be 30 years since I last saw it though, and all I can really remember is Gerry Marsden showing how to Merseybeat up a Hank Williams song. I always thought The Rutles was a spoof of this, totally overlooking the fact that it was made 4 years after The Rutles. It was only a few years ago that I saw the episode of All You Need Is Love on which it is actually » Continue Reading.

I’ve just totted up that I have 41 different live versions of Bob Dylan singing Like a Rolling Stone. I wondered how many times he has sung the song live and apparently it was over 2,000 by 2019. So it got me thinking, I wonder which song has been performed the most times live by a single artist or band?

Any ideas?

Here’s one of the Dylan performances, with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpxTvpmOY6k

I mentioned on another thread the other day that the Oasis CD single of Whatever, with It’s Good To Be Free and Half the World Away reminded me, very specifically, of a time and place in my life and how I was feeling at the time (not particularly good feelings, I must add). It got me thinking about all the other songs that have a similar effect, whether they bring back good memories or bad, and there are many, but I don’t think there’s any song that has that effect more than this one, from the pen of the brilliant (although more people really need to realise this) Joe Pernice.

This album came out about 20 years ago, in the several rotten months between a relationship with the love of my life ending and me going back and finding her [dear reader, we married 2 years later and the youngest of our 2 children turned 10 yesterday]. When we were apart, listening to this was like a cold blade going straight through my chest and, even today, when I listen to it I get a momentary flash of panic, just in case I wake up back in 2000.

Anybody else » Continue Reading.

Me and a mate of mine finished off the 92 (football league grounds) last year. He did the driving, I chose the music (cos he has very few CDs and a limited musical taste/knowledge), but his one stipulation was “no bloody rap music!”. So I decided to make him a CD of the more accessible rap tracks to try to convince him it’s not all shouty old rubbish and I wondered whether it may interest anyone on here. Sort of repaying the favour for everybody who gave me recommendations (and CDs) when I said I didn’t like reggae and asked for some pointers last year. Yes, some rap music is very shouty and some is indeed rubbish (just look at whatever is in the singles charts), but there is such a variety of rap music that I’d be surprised if there’s not at least one track out there for everybody.

So I am going to stick the tracks on here, over the next howeverlongittakes (I have no idea how to do a Spotify playlist, nor do I know if all these tracks are on Spotify, but they’ll be on YouTube, cos everything is!), and hopefully folk who say they » Continue Reading.

A fab Sheffield artist is making ‘cartoon workshop for beginners’ tutorials and will be posting them online, starting today. So if you have kids who are budding artists it might keep them entertained for a while. My son usually does after school Cartoon Club on a Wednesday, so this is perfect for him, as becoming a cartoon artist/animator is his back up plan for if he doesn’t make it as an actor (don’t worry, we’ll ensure he has a different back up plan too!).

https://www.petemckee.com/news/pete-mckees-cartoon-workshop-for-beginners!

I defy you to look at the contents of this book without deciding you must be too. Some of his choices are quite baffling. I reckon he needs to change ‘unhip’ for ‘underappreciated’, but even then he’s pushing it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/100-Unhip-Albums-Should-Learn/dp/1909360716/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2RSNC2AKXBCQN&keywords=100+unhip+albums+that+we+should+learn+to+love&qid=1583839789&sprefix=100+unhip%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-1

I think it’s accepted on here that, amongst other things, we’re all music nerds. All of us will have spent loads of time, and most of our money, trawling through second hand record shops and car boot sales, looking for the excitement of finding that record we’ve been searching for. And many of us will have started over when CDs took over from vinyl (I imagine I’m not the only one who shudders to think how much our vinyl collection would be worth now, had we not flogged it all to buy CDs!). A hobby that seemed to disappear overnight with the rise of eBay and demise of record shops. But how did it begin?

When I was little I had a dansette and a handful of multi-coloured records with nursery rhymes and the like. I used to love the Bay City Rollers and my mum even made me a little tartan trimmed Rollers outfit. My first memory of watching TOTP is when David Essex (now a friend of my mum’s, weirdly!) was in the charts with Gonna Make You a Star. I then moved from the Rollers to Showaddywaddy, Darts and the Barron Knights and started getting their records » Continue Reading.

Kirk Douglas, one of the last remnants of Old Hollywood (and the way Old Hollywooders used to do things), has died, aged 103. The next few days could be interesting. I imagine Natalie Wood’s sister is currently dusting off the statement she’s been hanging on to for a very long time, as she has been looking forward to this day.

Now then folks, this is a heads up about a website you ought to be checking out. Tolhurst Vinyl Art take old vinyl records and cut them by hand to make pretty stunning pieces of, well, art. I’m a sucker for quirky pop art, so this was right up my street. There were loads that I wanted, so many that I couldn’t choose, but the decision was made easier, as Mrs Wad told me she didn’t want vinyl silhouettes of Prince, Mark E Smith, Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan or Gary Numan adding to the other stuff on the walls she now tells me she doesn’t like, so I couldn’t have any of them!

Fortunately, they do commissions, so I managed to find two that the missus would agree to. Not only did they make them for me, and at the same price as their other pieces, they’ve even added them to their online catalogue, so if anybody else fancies a Stephen Duffy or Sophie Ellis-Bextor one, you have me to thank! Take a look though, cos some of them are just fantastic. I wish I liked Tom Petty enough to want him on the wall, as that one is » Continue Reading.

There’s two fantastic bargains available from the tax dodgers for Dylan fans. Two boxed sets, each comprising of 10 CDs, for the princely sum of £14 and £17. Much of the music is from TV radio broadcasts, with several full concerts spanning his career. Apart from a few tracks recorded to tape in 1961, the sound quality is excellent, way better than I expected it to be. A lot of the music has been knocking about in bootleg form or grey area releases over the years, but the sound quality of these CDs is a big step up from the bootlegs I have.

The first boxed set has a few discs of recordings from 1961, including a full Carnegie Hall concert, the album released as ‘Folksinger’s Choice’ a few years ago, a stack of good quality radio broadcasts from 61-64, a complete Manchester Free Trade Hall show from 1965 and a show recorded at the BBC in 1965. For £14!!!

The second box kicks off with three shows with The Band at Madison Square Garden in 1974, then there’s three discs of shows with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, his 1994 Woodstock show and loads of TV and Radio Broadcasts » Continue Reading.

I’ve been really into Gary Numan the past few years, buying up all his later period albums and listening to them loads, trying to track down the hard to find ones for a price I can afford (not easy!) and I’ve seen him a couple of times in the past year or so. I’ve always liked his early stuff though and have had Are “Friends” Electric? in one format or other ever since it came out. But I’m just listening to his new live album now and when the track came on I quickly realised that I only really know the first line and ‘smoking a cigarette’. Isn’t it weird that you know all the words to some tracks after 2 or 3 listens, yet others you can listen to hundreds of times without the words ever really sinking in.

Anyway, the new live album was recorded with an Orchestra and they seem to have similar issues with their memories, because at around 6:23 they appear to break out into the theme from Superstars. Didn’t half spoil the mood. I’ve gone from imagining Gary wandering through a bleak, desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape, to diminutive England strikers with no skin on their » Continue Reading.