I’ll give you the guitar solo, but take away that glorious riff, and it’s just a meandering song without a tune.

The Burning of the Midnight Lamp by Jimi Hendrix. You only need the first 10 seconds, but what a riff that is.

When I lived in Italy a few years back, Weetabix made an unsuccessful attempt to break into the Italian market. The lack of success may have been partially due to the fact that the local supermarkets stocked them […]

I think it’s Budgie.

You must have different copies of Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die than I have, Rigid. The ones I have are full of clunkers.

This one would make the case that after Led Zep IV, only Physical Graffiti really cuts the mustard.

Sheer Heart Attack

When the Kate Bush fanzine Homeground did a poll of her best songs this was just outside the top 10 I think. Great song. Just about of her B sides in the first half of the 80s are really good, but they got a bit […]

A quick look on Spotify shows that Maggie May is Rod Stewart’s most popular song. This of course was originally a B side. I can’t imagine there are any other acts whose most popular songs were originally B sides […]

Sir Walter Scott certainly has a continuing influence in Scotland: the modern kilt may be pretty much his invention, while Edinburgh has both a football team and a railway station named after novels.

But I […]

There is a subscription service called Marvel Unlimited which basically works like a Spotify for Marvel comics. You can read the comics online, or download up to 12 at a time and read offline. Pretty much the […]

“containing maybe the band’s best ever track Rime Of The Ancient Mariner”

*looks sideways to camera*

It’s a fair point, Colin, one of the reasons why I’m looking at an electronic option is that I’d like to add digital images as well, like I could do in a blog. I just want to record things that have happened, and […]

Chris, I was in almost the exact same position at the end of 2017. I left a company after 18 years with a similar package and then had a few months break before starting new work. I was in a Scientific R&D role […]

Nope Freddy, Franco’s right, it’s ace.

Sparks also qualify via Lil’ Beethoven, securing them platinum status in this thread, giving them a complementary seat upgrade and a choice of champagne, orange juice or […]

Yay! It’s great stuff isn’t it? The main influence seems to be 60s Southeast Asian go go groups like The Stylers, who made records that were played at dances in places like Singapore and Thailand. God knows how […]

ABBA during their 1976 Australian tour*. The one that’s captured in ABBA – The Movie. I think they must have been the best live band in the world at that point. No, I’m not kidding, go and watch the movie: the […]

I think that’s a great point. Another thing about Queen is that they learned from their mistakes. After their first single (Keep Yourself Alive) flopped, the record company told them that the intro was too long […]

You can play this with a few artists. My favourite is Queen and Sparks. At the end of 1974, both bands had broken through in the UK charts. Each had released two successful albums that year. Each had had a big […]