The absence of Roberto Bolano’s novel ‘2666’ is a huge oversight, in my opinion. It has already become.a popular academic talking point since 2004.

Rome and Benidorm.

In the last fifteen years or so, Ghost Box Records have promoted the UK “hauntology”, weird electronica aesthetic very well in both music and label design, although the artists (Belbury Poly, Focus Group, […]

And, if 70s vibraphone psychedelia is you son’s bag ( and that is bloody cool) he must already know Poli Palmer with Family , like this?

Yeah, Patto. This song is iffy but the vibraphone part near the end made a great sample for the Andy Vogel Vertigo mash-up album some years ago.

From the great PSF staple of bands

Porridge (The Movie) is, I think, the one 1970s comedy spin-off that really stands up, because of Ronnie Barker / Fulton Mackay squaring off in the Clement and Le Frenais screenplay. Otherwise, I get […]

Mention above of The Creation reminds me of some vinyl greatest hits that capture a more minor group in a better light than a longer set, especially when they had good sleeve notes.

Electric Prunes- Long Day’s F […]

Tim Buckley’’s Monterey, on Star Sailor, is an anguished and pent-up performance of hurt and frustration until Buckely overreaches himself and lets out a sort of yodel that sounds like a Jimmy Saville imp […]

The Simon and Garfunkel Collection (the one with the photo of them on the beach)
The Kinks, Ultimate Collection.
The Doors, Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine ( the original ‘deep cuts’ collection)

I read that the sixties psychedelic legends The Misunderstood used to perform a long spacerock piece, “The Trip to Inner Space,” at their gigs in 1966- 67 but no one ever recorded it.

On a related issue, the […]

Yep, my first thought of nanopop as well. What could have been…

Primal Scream as well for me, at the UEA on the Screamadelica tour in 990 or so. Hadn’t anticipated what a “maximum rock n’roll” ( ha!) band they aspired to be despite the blissed-out heights of the album.

Annette Peacock, “I’m the One”

and, if you must, ELP, “Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends”

Blur’s Country House was stodgy and crass, although popular, and seemed to epitomize the worst of the Britpop moment.

Massive Attack, Blue Lines; Triphop

My Bloody Valentine, Isn’t Anything; Shoegaze (the previous mini-LPs don’t count)

Ooh er missus, how embarrassing. I meant “blowing” as in the American phrase for vomit “blowing chunks” because, to quote Paul Whitehouse, “I was very, very drunk” at that moment. .Nothing more exciting than that in 1987.

The James Taylor Quartet at the Town and Country Club in 1987: I was new to underage drinking and had too much vodka and Strongbow on route to the venue , and once inside became indisposed. I may have heard them […]

The ‘Boy Child’ album also includes ‘The Plague’, a great b-side that was sadly left off the recent box set.

Years ago, The Word ran an article on US/UK musical differences, and one of the examples was Wal […]

If you like, try the Neues Museum: it’s not so large as to be overwhelming, but you can see wonderful exhibits like the Queen Nefertiti statue and a mysterious Bronze Age headdress made of gold.