Been an eternity since a cover art post. What better reason to dust off some interesting album covers than the current ‘Dune’ series? So don your hat and sandals, slop on some sunscreen and let’s get sandy! THE ALBUMS Gong — Shamal [Virgin 1975] Helmet — Dead To The World [Ear Music 2016] Uriah Heep — […]
It is a rule of cinema that any successful novel will eventually be made into a film, no matter how challenging the translation from page to screen might appear. It is a rule of the known universe that any film adaptation of a beloved book will disappoint bibliophiles. It is a rule of pop that […]
Have you ever gone on a bender? Not an over-imbibing, CH3-CH2-CH2-OH-God-Where-Did-That-Stethoscope-Come-From escapade, but the pop-cultural kind. Where you discover—or re-discover—an author and simply must immerse yourself in their world. So it was with your correspondent and Frank Herbert’s Dune, sometime last year. It went like this… I’d been listening to X, the tenth album by […]
Having had a less than stellar university career the first time around, it would be fair to say I was a little nervous about returning to higher education a mere three years after having been shown the door. Trepidation notwithstanding, back I toddled for another crack, this time via the Creative Arts stream in an […]
Vinyl Connection has been thoroughly enjoying presenting a selection of the albums released in 1968. So far, we have featured a goodly number of debut records (D) but what really stands out is the variety of different sounds. Here’s the list to date: Jeff Beck – Truth (D) Arthur Brown – The Crazy World of Arthur […]
First albums by bands are always interesting, though not necessarily essential. Sometimes the artist is feeling their way, often the vision is a work-in-progress, occasionally it’s “All Change!” after the first effort. The two 1968 debuts we’re looking at in this post cover most of the bases mentioned above. Both are worthy of attention; both […]
Released in November 1968, Ars Longa Vita Brevis was the second album by The Nice. Their first, 1967’s The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack, has some classic psychedelic songs (“Flower King of Flies” is a personal fave) and clear progressive characteristics, exemplified by Keith Emerson’s keyboard work on “Rondo”, but you could not call it a […]
