Category c) Eighties [1980 – 1989]
SONG TO ODYSSEUS
I We tended to play Dungeons and Dragons without music in the background. Distractions could be dangerous — while you were tuning in to Bauhaus or Tangerine Dream, the chances were you’d get smeared by a troll or jumped by some pesky hobbit thief. But during the refreshment breaks (food, drink, mind altering substances, as […]
FIELD TESTING THE THEORY
It is a funny thing, the vinyl hunter-gathering lifestyle. Although I have a number of tasty records in transit from exotic locations world-wide (all right, you got me; from the US and UK), the prospect of a record fair last Sunday was too good to miss. A leave pass negotiated, off I trotted, returning home a […]
YOU SCROOGE, YOU LOSE
Having had a crack at describing categories of record collectors (called Vinyl Hunter-Gatherers around these parts), this post continues looking at further case studies, your correspondent once again being the mandated patient. Sorry, that should read ‘volunteer’. Enthusiast (B): ‘Excellent — a very satisfying find. Wonder if I can swing a discount’. Chicago — Live […]
DIGGING
TOWARDS A TYPOLOGY OF VINYL HUNTER-GATHERERS While admiring the melodic pop savvy of Paul McCartney, I’ve never felt compelled to follow his solo career that closely. I was always a Lennon man. Yet you cannot help picking up info and vibes about an album —a magazine article here, an on-line mention there— which eventually resulted […]
LISTENER’S DIGEST #1: BJH, JT, MUTTON BIRDS, BLOSS & SCHULZE
While we love celebrating album cover art here at Vinyl Connection, it’s worth remembering that those sleeves contain records (or, ahem, CDs). So for this first edition of (yet another) occasional feature called “Listener’s Digest” I have chosen four albums that appeared in Album Cover posts over recent months. Variety being the ear-spice of musical life, […]
FLOYDITTIES
What do you do when you have the entire catalogue of an artist, the ‘Best of’ albums, most titles on at least two formats, plus a goodly selection of bootlegs? If you answered, ‘See your therapist’, you get points plus that special superior feeling that attends the suspicion a fellow music lover may just be […]
ALMANAC PLAYLIST – 21 JULY
Today I employed the Almanac Strategy © for my ‘work at home’ playlist. This is what it yielded for the 21st of July. The information in italics is sourced from various internet sites. There are links to youtube videos for most featured songs. 1947 Born on this day, Cat Stevens, singer, songwriter. 1967 UK No.2 single ‘Matthew And Son’, […]
10 ALBUMS TO SAY YES TO
Following the recent departure of Yes co-founder and bass supremo Chris Squire, it seems fitting to revisit the music of a band central to 70s ‘Prog’ who continued to make music through every subsequent decade. Who would have thought that the song-writing partnership that began when Jon Anderson and Chris Squire hit it off in […]
PINK DISCO
It is amazing what you’ll buy when the need for vinyl outweighs good sense. I’m not sure what mood I was in a few weeks back when the best I could bring home was an album of disco versions of Pink Floyd songs, but it may have been certifiable. Ignoring a raft of warning signs […]
KOMPUTER WORLDS
“Beam myself into the future” Needing to choose a CD for an album-length child-accompanied drive across the Melbourne suburbs, I pulled out Kraftwerk’s Computer World. There wasn’t much risk as the boy really likes Man-Machine. When he saw what I’d pulled out, he gave it the thumbs up and even an endorsing, ‘Good choice Daddy’, so […]
LASTING FIRSTS
Debut albums are a bit special. Often the result of a long gestation period that may well have begun in someone’s teenage bedroom, there is an exuberance and excitement to a first offering that combines confidence (“Look at me! Listen to my music!”) and nervousness (“Is it OK? Will anyone like me?”). Over the life of […]
TIME OF THE PREACHER
In the mid-80s I shared a house in Kensington. That’s not the Kensington next to Hyde Park in London. It’s the inner city village adjacent to North Melbourne, squeezed between Flemington Racecourse, the railway line, and the Maribyrnong river. It was a good time. Ali and I got on well, sharing some commonalities –uncommunicative mornings, […]
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