For all the dross albums and dodgy views he’s taken to spouting (“spyhtin’” if he’s in full-on Nornarsh mowad) of late, few artists occupy a more exalted place in my heart and record collecting firmament than George Ivan Morrison.

Colossal prick he may well be (there’s actually no “may well” about it but that “be” looked a little forlorn sitting there on its own), but like the proverbial pint of plain, Van very often really is your only man.

My love affair with VTM began the 1972 afternoon I walked into a Coventry city centre second-hand shop who’d filched the name Exchange and Mart (E&M) from the dead tree eBay of its day. With the store likely to feature in a few of these recollections, a little description might not go amiss here.

Dull, shabby and impossibly narrow this particular emporium of abandoned and unloved ephemera might have been, but my God its selection of second-hand albums was to die for. Best of all, having nary a clue about the artistic merits or emotional heft of what they were selling, the owners used to flog its extensive stock of vinly 12”ers for peanuts.

While I cannot remember how » Continue Reading.

I’m sure that, like me, your record shelves are groaning under barely played LPs and CDs from artists whose every new set of songs you used to eagerly snap up on its day of release.

Up until 2000 or so, new releases by the likes of Neil Young and Van Morrison were barely out before they were home and being played and replayed. Early this century, both Neil and Van moved from the “must buy” to “might buy” category, Neil after the unfortunately titled “Are You Passionate?” (Sorry, Neil, but NFW!) and Van after his equally foolishly monickered “What’s Wrong with This Picture?” (got a couple of hours, Van?).

The intervening two decades have seen me buy the occasional release from both former favourites. After releasing lazy collection after lazy collection of blandly inoffensive wine bar noodlings, finally gave up buying Van albums about 10 years. Ultimately, not even his incredible feat in making a blandly offensive album via which to platform his crackpot anti-vaxx views could persuade me to finance another day of Van’s retirement.

Always the contrarian, NY has been a lot more adventurous in his choices – think A Letter Home and Le Noise. Here again, » Continue Reading.

Just noticed that of about 20 CDs reviewed on the first three pages of the Uncut website’s review section, only one has less than 4 stars; and that one, Sufjan Stevens, got three and a half.

Given that every new release by a wrinkly whose records stopped being “must-buys” 10 or 20 years back is hailed as being a “return to form”, I take what reviews I read nowadays with a backload of Saxa.

FWIW, if you held a gun to my head and asked me to itemize my music buying patterns, roughly 80% of the CDs I buy nowadays is back catalogue, with around 10% by new artists and 10% by old farts (sorry cultural touchstones).

How about you? Is there a writer of publication that has you hitting the record racks as quickly as say, Nick Kent’s wonderful Marquee Moon review in the NME did backj40-odd years ago?