Category A PERSONAL APPROACH
I’LL BE GONE (BUT NOT YET)
The silver-haired gentleman in the skull motif shirt may have had an iPad to remember the set list, but the singing was strong and the words tumbled out like freshly minted coins. The band were great—tight and energetic—and their fearless leader even managed a few quirky dance steps during an uptempo number. At a time […]
IN ORBIT AROUND THE SATELLITE HEART
Hear It Is Oh My Gawd!!!…The Flaming Lips Telepathic Surgery In A Priest Driven Ambulance (With Silver Sunshine Stares) Hit To Death In The Future Head Transmissions From The Satellite Heart By the mid-90s Compact Discs were the only game in town for listening to music. Prices had dropped and the volume being sold meant […]
ECHOES
Piper At The Gates Of Dawn A Saucerful Of Secrets More Ummagumma (½ live–½ studio) Atom Heart Mother Meddle Meddle (1971) was the first Pink Floyd album I owned. Purchased second-hand from Bentleigh Sewing & Records, probably in late 1973 or early ’74, its centrepiece, the side-long “Echoes” mesmerised me as I sat in the […]
NOW WE ARE SIX
The first Vinyl Connection post was on 10 May 2013. Six years later, forty-odd posts shy of 500, we’re still going. From a personal perspective, 2019 has thrown up challenges to posting regularly. I’m not complaining, mind you. To grizzle about having paid writing work would be disingenuous and just plain wrong. But I do […]
STONEDHENGE
A cold winter’s day in England; frost layering the ground even mid-morning. But I didn’t care, I was visiting Stonehenge for the first time and totally in thrall to the mystery of these most famous standing stones. I envied those who had visited them in the past, being able to walk between the towering neolithic […]
A BOX AND A HOLE
I don’t often pre-order records. Has to be something pretty special and I have to be feeling expansive (pre-ords are always expensive) and patient (the lead time is usually considerable). But having missed out on the multi-CD issue of Bowie At The Beeb back at the turn of the century, I was determined not to […]
1969 ARCHIVE DIVE (PART 1)
As many readers know, we love anniversaries here at Vinyl Connection, especially the ones ending with a zero. One decade, two decades, three decades, four… And of course the half century! Over the past couple of years we have featured many albums from 1967 and 1968 and reckon it’s a tradition worth continuing. But because […]
WHITES OF THEIR EYES
I remember the first copy vividly. Bentleigh Sewing and Records, that oddest of retail combinations, lurked down the western end of Centre Road, owned by veteran sole-trader Bill McAndrew. Those entering his domain seeking records had first to negotiate the labyrinth of sewing machines and associated paraphernalia that crammed the front of the shop. As […]
ALL THINGS MUST PASS
In Australia we did not get the impressive boxed version of All Things Must Pass. Our version was a three-panel gatefold sleeve with the lyrics printed inside. We did get the poster, though. A dark 3’ x 2’ portrait of a morose, hairy George. But our flimsy fold-out was disappointing. The box had solidity, gravitas. […]
DARK SIDE OF THE MOOMIN
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 […]
PICKING BY THE BUSHEL
Oh Joy is Me! Oh Woe is Me! I’ve Harvested A CD Tree* – *And more… A DVD Or Three. * Feel free to ask “Why?” about any of the above. I’d be curious to see whether I have answers other than ‘feeding frenzy’. * Apologies for the photo quality. Such was my haste to […]
THE KING HAS ABDICATED (1)
It was always worth checking out Allans sales. Although determinedly mainstream and totally in thrall to the hits of the day, the music shop occasionally ordered—and got stuck with—oddities, outliers and obscurities. These ended up in the SALE bins, usually at excellent prices. I loved those sales; you could take a punt of three or […]
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