Category ACROSS THE DECADES
FEBRUARY 1971 — PART ONE
We’re running late, by about two months, so let’s get into it. * FEBRUARY 1971 ALBUM RELEASES Simply the most infectious collection of straight-ahead electric boogie that you’ll ever hear. John Lee was a savvy veteran by the early 1970s, he’d witnessed the surge in interest following the British blues boom of the early 1960s […]
JANUARY 1971 — THREE LATE ARRIVALS
It is tempting to believe that the internet knows everything about everything. When it came to finding release dates for Vinyl Connections bushel of 1971 albums, it became clear that the www is not as all-knowing as you think. Sure, I discovered a number of errors in the VC spreadsheet, mostly albums where I had […]
JUTE THE OBSCURE
Rare records with eye-watering price tags do not always live up to their reputation nor their scarcity-inflated value. Although Vinyl Connection does not own a vinyl copy of the one and only Kahvas Jute album Wide Open, the excellent Aztec Music re-issue is playing as I write. Thus it can be loudly proclaimed: this is […]
JANUARY 1971—50 YEARS AND TWO MONTHS AGO
Even while the 70 FROM ’70 finalists were still being mentally debated by your correspondent, lists were being compiled and assessments made for the following year. This year, in fact. The one in which we are currently deep into March and sniffing the yellow-brown air of autumnal decline. Where is the spring in Vinyl Connection’s […]
SPLIT DECISION
Veteran British blues-rockers Groundhogs deserve respect. They were there, in one form or another, from the early days of the UK blues explosion, taking their name from a John Lee Hooker song (‘Ground Hog Blues’) and backing the legend on his mid-60s visit to old Londinium. After a debut album in 1968 showed them in […]
HAVE SPACESUIT—WILL TRAVEL
Ordering a book from the dreaded ‘Big River’ company, I was lured by the ‘on your list’ bait and, of course, bit. The item was a CD I’d removed from an order months ago, something that had caught my attention but not fully hooked me in. On a whim, I added it to the cart; […]
EUROPE ENDLESS
Teaching English at the Volkshochschule Wiesbaden was one of the highlights of my time in Germany. The Head of the Language Department seemed delighted to have someone who actually had a teaching qualification. Though this was correct in principal (I did indeed have a Bachelor of Education) I’d never actually taught in schools nor practiced […]
DO ANDROIDS DREAM?
Is Vangelis the Greek Jean-Michel Jarre? Is Jean-Michel the French Klaus Schulze? Is all European synthesiser music the same? If you answered ‘No’ to all three questions, go to the top of the class. Vangelis O. Papathanassiou was born in the town of Agria some 120 km north of Athens as the seagull flies, or […]
NOW HE SINGS
If I delay writing, I’ll stall for sure. Too much information will kill the personal resonance. What do I do with this Chick-shaped hole? Attempting to cover a sixty year career is daunting. … a few of the thoughts tumbling through the Vinyl Connection brain box as the news of Chick Corea’s death hits home. […]
VILNIUS VISIONS
“ROCKIN’ ALL OVER THE WORLD” …A series of posts featuring an artist from a country that has topped the Vinyl Connection WordPress stats map for a particular period. You can read more about the project here, but essentially it’s an excuse to dig deeper into the collection and share some discoveries. This post is the […]
ALL AT SEA
King Crimson, captained by the redoubtable Robert Fripp for well over half a century, have never been timid about re-jigging the rigging and giving the band’s back catalogue a lick of varnish. As time has passed, the offerings—aimed squarely at cashed-up Boomers—have become more lavish. But unlike some artists (or their estates… not looking at […]
PINING FOR THE FJORDS
Rockin’ All Over The World — #8 Vikings, fjords, Slartibartfast, and homesick parrots. Such are the images springing to mind when Norway comes up in conversation. But did you know it has a reigning King and a conservative female Prime Minister? That the Norse people invented Thor before Marvel comics? Most of the population of […]
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