Category A PERSONAL APPROACH
GAMES FOR MAY?
The Commonwealth Games are a bit of an anachronism, aren’t they? Not in the games sense; it’s basically Olympic sports with a few important additions such as lawn bowls and Royal tennis and a few omissions such as curling and skate boarding. At least, that’s my understanding. No, the oddness is the Commonwealth bit. British […]
PLAY IT AGAIN, TIM
Video may well have killed the radio star, but the song also came very close to provoking the death by strangulation of my friend Tim. Released in September 1979, “Video Killed The Radio Star” was co-written by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley a year earlier. Fans of Yes will know the first two […]
TOWARDS THE LIGHT
So it has been a little over two weeks now, and I can report that progress has been made. The combination of pharmaceuticals, cognitive behavioural therapy and aversive therapy seems to be doing the trick. I’m feeling much lighter. Thanks to the nightly medication, I’ve stopped dreaming about record shops and actually had a conversation […]
REARVIEW MIRROR #4 (WINTER)
Being an multi-part wander through the Vinyl Connection year in music JUNE The question posed at the end of May was resoundingly answered in June. The log of purchases book shows over two pages of entries, ending just one shy of a half-century. Book me into the clinic, doctor. This boy needs vinyl detox. Or […]
REARVIEW MIRROR #3 (AUTUMN)
Being an multi-part wander through the Vinyl Connection year in music MARCH Taking a stall at a record fair is good for the soul. A chance to reduce the holding a little, clear some shelf space, clean the springs. Bullshit. Though it wasn’t when I started doing fairs in the mid-90s. Then I was flogging […]
REARVIEW MIRROR #1
Being an multi-part wander through the Vinyl Connection year in music JANUARY On vacation you often have to settle for charity shops for your crate-digging fix. Sometimes you’ll be lucky and the local Sunday market coincides with your time in a sea-side town, but not necessarily. Even if it does, chances are the solitary box […]
IN THE SPOTLIGHT, SO CLEAR
It’s a Friday night in the late nineties. Steven and I are lounging around talking shit about music. A single slice of Capricciosa sits uneasily in the grease-stained box and half a bottle of red stands on the coffee table. The pizza gets ignored; we’re either too full or too polite to take it. Not […]
