Colin H on Mike Westbrook

A wander down memory lane with Brit jazz colossus Mike Westbrook, published in ‘Record Collector’ in October 2017.

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Take a trip around Ebay and Discogs and you will conclude that Mike Westbrook is a man who makes rare records. Periodically, something from the first decade of his remarkable 50-year career is reissued and within five years it becomes a pricey second-hand prospect itself. Meanwhile, original pressings of those classics go on ascending the twin escalators of legendary greatness and practical inaccessibility. Absurdly, the current resale price for a 2008 Japanese CD edition of 1969’s ‘Marching Song Vol.1’ is around £100 – £20 higher than the (conservative) ‘Rare Record Price Guide’ price on a mint Deram original.

I can think of no other significant British artist whose 60s/70s oeuvre is currently so out of reach. However, with expanded CD editions of his 1972 ‘Live’ on Hux and his long unobtainable two-volume masterpiece ‘Marching Song’ out last year on RPM’s Turtle imprint (including unreleased 1966-70 tracks), with hopefully further expanded RPM/Turtle releases, this golden anniversary of Mike’s singular career in music is also a golden opportunity for new listeners to find out what all the fuss » Continue Reading.

Colin H on Stuart Bailie’s ‘Trouble Songs’

There aren’t many people from Northern Ireland who have made a living in what was the music media, but Stuart Bailie and me – for certain periods of time – have been two such curiosities. Stuart’s heartland is in the punk era he grew up in and in young people thereafter making noisy music; mine is in pre-punk musical history, only occasionally popping in to visit the here and now. Aside from neighbourly greetings and the odd cup of coffee there has never been a Venn diagram within which we have converged. And then Stuart’s long-promised book about ‘the Troubles’, and music’s part in its downfall (or vice versa), started to become a distinct possibility.

I was surprised but touched when Stuart asked me to help him with some of the logistical aspects of bringing his magnum opus to the masses. Knowing very well the lonely path of the musical history author, I hope I’ve been able to give some moral support along the way, too. The offer last year of generous part-funding towards printing costs from the British Council – provided that he delivered finished copies in time for a Troubles anniversary » Continue Reading.

Colin H on Linley Hamilton

Of all the great characters I’ve met in the music game, trumpeter Linley Hamilton is among the greatest – and one of the funniest. A master of shaggy-dog stories and witty remarks, a brilliant onstage raconteur and entertainer, and a man always ready to help fellow musicians in any way possible. He’s also among the greatest musicians I’ve met. For many years, Linley himself might have replied, ‘You don’t get out much, then?’ – his own harshest critic.

Recently, though, it seems to me that he’s become more assured about the quality of his own playing – and very definitely an artist deserving to be heard around the world. If I was to boil Linley’s story down to one sentence, the mid-90s Belfast bar-band hustler became a mid-2010s international jazzman, regional BBC personality (with a weekly jazz show on Radio Ulster), session man supremo, Irish jazz facilitator, music college tutor and inspiration… and still a bit of a bar-band hustler and casual comedy king.

No doubt all local musical scenes have individuals within them who are characters, scenesters, larger-than-life people who make things happen and get talked about. Linley was certainly one such » Continue Reading.

Colin H on Liam O’Flynn

In 2015 I wrote ‘The Wheels of the World: 300 Years of Irish Uilleann Pipers’, with piper John McSherry. The recently passed Liam O’Flynn was one of John’s piping heroes, and featured in three sections of the book. Here’s one, a profile of a quiet man.

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Colin H on Andy Powell

On March 1, I interviewed Wishbone Ash bandleader, scholar and gentleman Andy Powell for an Afterword exclusive – me in snowy Belfast, Andy in sunny Connecticut. In a couple of weeks, the Madfish imprint of UK label Snapper releases the colossal 30 CD + book/posters/etc set ‘Wishbone Ash: The Vintage Years 1970-91’. Cherry Red have also just released expanded 2CD editions of the band’s two mid-80s albums ‘Raw To The Bone’ and ‘Twin Barrels Burning’.

In 2015 I had the great pleasure of helping Andy with his autobiography ‘Eyes Wide Open: True Tales of a Wishbone Ash Warrior’. I’d recommend it to anyone interested not only in the glory days of British rock but in the nuts and bolts of how a band from that era has been kept alive in the changing times and circumstances since then, to the point of becoming the central cog in a kind of giant fan family around the world – a robust cottage industry thriving outside of the mainstream of what remains of the music business.

It’s well-documented that five years ago Andy Powell and Martin Turner, co-founder of Wishbone Ash, met in court to address » Continue Reading.

Colin H on Big Pete Deuchar & his Professors of Ragtime

A couple of years back I posted on the Afterword a short feature on Big Pete Deuchar, one of the great ‘footnote’ characters in British music of the 50s and 60s – and one of the great characters in the British cycling and cycling administration worlds of the 70s and 80s.

That piece, around 3,000 words, was all that I could muster in time for ‘Bathed In Lighting’ (Jawbone, 2014), the first of my (now) two books on John McLaughlin’s musical adventures pre-1975. It ended up being one of the extra chapters appended to the e-book edition, with Big Pete & his Professors of Ragtime – John McLaughlin’s first experience of being in a professional band – getting a couple of paragraphs in the print version.

In essence, in such a long and illustrious career, the key role of the Professors of Ragtime in John’s story was to give him stage experience and, crucially, allow him to move from being a 16-year-old school-leaver and precosious sitter-in with older jazzers in Newcastle-upon-Tyne to being a gifted man with a go-getting attitude to playing music for a living, come what » Continue Reading.

Raymond on a band who could have been contenders …

In 1993, the rock press started to talk about something called ‘Britpop’. I had no idea what it meant, other than that someone had invented yet another music genre. The phenomenon went on to carry some cultural weight, although perhaps not always for the reasons celebrated by some commentators. Depending on your point of view, Noel Gallagher hanging around Downing Street with Tony Blair was either the zenith of ‘Cool Britannia’ or the precise moment at which rock music relinquished its risible claim to be the standard bearer for anything resembling a counter-cultural movement. Here’s a clue: If you’re sipping tea with the Prime Minister, you may still fancy yourself as a rebel, but you are most definitely inside the tent, pissing out.

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Raymond on the remarkable rise of Doctor Peterson

If there is anyone out there who still hasn’t watched Cathy Newman’s Channel 4 News interview with the Clinical Psychologist Jordan Peterson, I would strongly recommend that you check out what was a wonderfully illuminating piece of television. I found it riveting, but I’m not sure if that was in spite of -or because of- the interviewer’s insistence on trying to put words into her interviewee’s mouth at almost every turn. If you try counting the number of times she says “so what you’re saying is …” before inserting a ridiculously skewed interpretation of what he has actually said, you will need all of your fingers and some of your toes. It is evident that ‘listening’ and ‘responding to what the other person has actually said’ were not part of Ms Newman’s game plan.

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Dave Amitri on It’s been 21 years…….

21 years ago this week Billy MacKenzie took his own life in his Dads shed. It was the end to a sometime glorious, often difficult, sometimes beautiful but ultimately unfulfilled life. For some reason I don’t quite understand Billy affects me more than any other pop star. Something about his ridiculous talent alongside his suffocating vulnerability and self doubt constantly draws me back. Like most of us he only came to my notice through his appearances on Top of The Pops in the summer of 1982. He laughed and pissed around while performing the still ahead of it’s time “Party Fears Two” and the impossibly catchy “Club Country”. He looked like someone with the world at his feet he had the looks, the swagger and that voice from some otherworldly place like nothing heard before or since. I went a bought “Sulk” expecting 10 more foot tapping pop songs and was left scratching my head at the likes of “Bap de la Bap” and “Nude Spoons”. It still confuses and delights in equal measure. After that despite insane record company spending and Billy wasting time and money on his whims and fancies only » Continue Reading.

Colin H on Pentangle 1969-73

The first half of the tale, chronicling 1967-69, with supplementary diversions on repertoire, releases and broadcasts during that period, appears here:

Pentangle: A History in Several Parts

It seems that there must be a word limit to threads, as I’ve had difficulty uploading the next installment on the original page. So here, in the comments, is Part 3 (of 4) of the tale, with similar supplementary diversions to be added.

Colin H on Pentangle

This may turn out to be the longest Afterword feature there has been. There may be those who falter before the end… there may be others who can’t be bothered starting… I was unexpectedly at a loose end this evening and, somehow, digging up and posting this piece for the sake of making it available to anyone who may be interested came to mind. I’ll post the first tranche (about a quarter of it) now, and the rest in instalments over the next few days.

Here’s the context: In 1999 I wrote a book about Bert Jansch. In 2006 I was commissioned by Sanctuary Records to prepare a tracklist and annotate a box set on his 1967-73 band Pentangle. I created an essay for the set by drawing from, editing and finessing a large slab of text I’d researched and drafted circa 1990-91 on the band, with a book in mind, before becoming a professional writer for a time (1994-2001, and again from 2012). Some of that early 90s material had been adapted for use in the Jansch book, but in it I covered really only the beginning and end of the band. Somewhere between that » Continue Reading.

fentonsteve on Vinyl cleaning

Full review in comments

Raymond on the template for an eccentric pop career

As a tragically obsessive consumer of music, I am used to the idea of ‘expectation’ out-performing ‘reality’. It has too often been the case that the act of imagining the tantalising possibilities of an eagerly-anticipated album has provided rather more fun than the experience of actually listening to it. Having learned to live with that kind of disappointment, it was always a particular treat when something managed to match my hopes and expectations.

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Colin H on Musings on the byways of British Jazz

That got your attention, didn’t it? Rather like the Afterword (definitively described once, by Hannah, as ‘still not as good as it used to be’), the British jazz scene has FOREVER been whingeing that it’s all gone to hell. There is some unreachable, vague point at which the British jazz scene was apparently great – but that point is ALWAYS years before the date at which a given person is stating it. Maybe in the 60s it was great in the 50s; maybe in the 70s it was great in the 60s, etc. etc…

Certainly, as my recently acquired April 1957 copy of British magazine ‘Jazz News’ would have one believe, the whole thing was all over already – flee at once, jump overboard, every man for himself…

I was delighted to find this on eBay recently. The magazine ran from 1957–63, beginning as monthly and then becoming fortnightly, even trying weekly at one point. I have many 1960-63 copies but ‘50s copies are much rarer.

I thought the Afterword might enjoy this wander down memory lane, around the beginning of the pop/rock era. So here is a » Continue Reading.

Raymond on tracing the musical lineage of your heroes

For a nerdish young music-obsessed Glaswegian in the late 70s and early 80s, the ‘Lost Chord’ record shop had an almost mythical status. It was located in the bohemian West End, the part of town where poets, intellectuals, posh kids and people who played in bands hung out. If -like me- you lived on the dull south side, getting there required not only dedication, but an ability to decipher bus timetables which openly mocked the restrictive notions of linear time.

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Raymond on buying vinyl

I recently bought my son a turntable for his birthday and, since he owned no vinyl, I spent a couple of weekends scouring various second hand and charity shops in the hope of assembling an interesting little ‘starter’ collection for him.

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niallb on The story of a support band.

This is an extended version of a post I wrote a couple of years ago. Think of it as the 12” remix.

If I could have jumped on any band wagon in my 34th year, then the FA Cup run of non-league Woking FC, in 1990, was as good as any tiny little band wagon around. It turned out that the little band wagon became a runaway train.

The date was Saturday 8th December 1990. A few friends had been following Isthmian Premier League team, Woking FC, throughout the Qualifying rounds. The Isthmian Prem was one division down from the Conference, the Holy Grail of non-league football. My mates had been to the home game against Bath City, from the Conference, in the 4th Qualifying round. Woking had won 2-1.

In the First Round Proper, The Cards (short for Cardinals, from the Cardinal Red colour of their red & white halves shirt,) drew high flying Conference side Kidderminster Harriers, again at home. It was a 0-0 draw and the replay, at Kiddy, was 1-1. The second replay (remember them?) also at Kiddy, was 1-1 until Woking scored in the dying minutes. » Continue Reading.

Colin H on Buddy Mondlock, Tommy Halferty and cunning plans

I’ve had an Interesting couple of days and, given the current clamour for long-ish new pieces of writing on the Afterword, in the wake of the Barge-gate controversy, I thought I’d tell the tale…

It all began a long, long time ago, in the morning of the world, when the trees were tall, the valleys fair and the beards less grey. In fact, 1994. Buddy Mondlock, a Chicago singer-songwriter with exquisitely crafted lyrics of gentle profundity and observation and a gossamer voice, had been signed to an Irish record label in some way associated with U2 for his debut album – which was and is a sublime set of songs, unshackled to any particular time or sound.

I reviewed the album somewhere and went to see him perform live in the upstairs room of a Belfast bar during a local festival. I seem to recall he had Guy Clark’s son on bass – a very effective two-piece. The live performance was as compelling as the record. I may even have reviewed the show somewhere as well.

Buddy has made a point of coming back to tour Ireland almost every » Continue Reading.

Colin H on Gene Perla

Given the recent demand for more long-form pieces on the Afterword blog ¬– coupled with my cunning marketing genius (not) – here’s a short chapter from my book ‘Echoes From Then: Glimpses of John McLaughlin’, which will be self-published around October this year. I posted a heads-up couple of weeks back about the beginning of a Kickstarter campaign, and I know a number of Afterworders have already very generously supported it – thank you one and all! But never mind that: even if you’ve only a passing interest in John McLaughlin’s career, I hope you’ll find jazz bass legend Gene Perla’s tale as entertaining as I did…

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Carl on The Beatles songbook explored

Times flies and more than a month has passed since Please Please Me was posted as part of this series.

Perhaps this song is a true landmark in that it starts the tradition that continued through the rest of The Beatles career: the B Side of a single that is as good as (or nearly as good as) the A side. A song whose quality far surpasses 99% of the rest of singles’ chart content.

But having said that I think it is fair to say that this is one of the more obscure songs from the very early days and It is difficult to understand why.

This contrasts markedly with the schmaltz of P.S. I Love You. It can be argued that it’s equivalently sentimental, but is much more muscular and musically far more interesting. But then it is a vocal by John, so it is hardly surprising.

I’m not sure when I first heard this. We had neither the Please, Please Me single nor album. It’s not on The Red Album and given how rare it was to hear any “popular” music on the old Light Service, be it by The Beatles » Continue Reading.

Colin H on Vincent Crane

As requested over at the mental illness thread, here’s a piece on Vince Crane written in 2004 for a magazine but never published. I have a feeling I may have posted this before on a previous version of the AW. Still, here it is… The 2CD VC compilation ‘Close Your Eyes’ (one disc Atomic Rooster, one disc other items and rarities) is recommended.

‘There was always the sense that it could slip out of control,’ says Roger Glover, engine room of Deep Purple, ‘a lot of heart, a lot of attack, a lot of flailing of hair. That’s probably my over-riding image of Vincent Crane: the flailing hair! Organists at that time – Jon Lord and Keith Emerson, they were the ‘twin towers’, and Vincent was right there with them. Even though Emerson threw knives at his thing, it was all very controlled. Vincent was more of a wild man. He looked great on stage – and there was a chance that this machine might run amok.’

Thirty-five years ago, on Friday August 29 1969, the world – or that part thereof which had wandered up The Strand at midnight, paid their 20 shillings and » Continue Reading.

Colin H on Dinosaurs

On October 1970 the Melody Maker revealed astounding new research that antedated the Mock Jogger and his garage band cronies at least 30 years prior to the existing understanding of their formation. Somehow swept under the carpet by the Rolling Stones’ publicity machine, this remarkable research deserves to be re-examined. It means Jogger is about 112.

Here is the text from that original 1970 expose:

‘MICK – YOU NEVER TOLD US!’

Nothing is new – back in 1932 the Melody Maker was raving about The Rolling Stones.

Our delightful picture shows an incredibly camp looking band who must have been a sensation. Al Smith was the drummer and the Jagger-like lead singer was Jack Lewis – “an accomplished dancer, a noted athlete and once schoolboy boxing champion of Great Britain”, according to the contemporary report. Al used to lead a group called the Broway Melody Makers until he formed the Stones, “a bright and popular act”.

The review goes on to say of Jack Lewis: “besides his terpsichorean efforts, which are a big feature of the act, he gives a clever exposition of ball-punching to music. Dolly Lewis, his sister, sings and dances equally well, and » Continue Reading.

Carl on The Beatles and the Please Please Me single

Come on, come on, Come on, come on, Come on, come on, Come on, come on…

Now we’re getting down to business. John calls, Paul and George respond. The first taste of John and Paul getting really serious with their songwriting.

It’s just so much more muscular than Love Me Do. Featuring another Lennon harmonica riff, the repeated come ons, each one slightly more intense and emphatic than the previous one indicate their growing songwriting prowess. Their sense of creating dynamics within the song. It’s lyrically a world away from Love Me Do with it’s single rhyme pattern. Here there is a middle eight that really works in providing a contract to the verses and choruses. In the space of three months they’ve really started to develop their songwriting artistry.

MacDonald suggested in Revolution in The Head they were spurred on by the threat of having How Do You Do It released as their second single and so they came up with something that gave George Martin no sensible » Continue Reading.

Carl on The Beatles

The b-side of Love Me Do. Here is the first taste of things to come – McCartney’s saccharine side.

I don’t have problems with songwriters showing a softer, emotional side, but there is a line between showing a softer, caring side and oleaginous sentimentality. This is on the wrong side of that divide. And, as we are all aware, there was more to come from that side of Paul (as well as plenty of great songs).

Having said that, no-one, least of all the band, expected things to last more than year or two. Remember Ringo at one time said that when it was all over, he was going to open a chain of hairdressers.

It’s strange that this song doesn’t feel like part of my childhood, because it still seems as familiar to me as so many other Beatles songs.

I’m fairly indifferent to it. It’s a long way from Paul’s worst, but in terms of a song being a B-side it’s definitely inferior to to Love Me Do and deserving of its B status. A saving grace is that it clocks in at under two minutes.

At this stage it is the worst Beatles » Continue Reading.