Category Particular platters
GOOD VIBRATIONS
We’ve spent quite a lot of time in 1967 recently. (Running tally here) Time to pogo forward ten years to 1977 and one of the ‘first wave’ punk bands, The Vibrators. Pure Mania was released in June 1977 Is it ‘true’ punk? There is some debate amongst sad (now middle-aged) former punks as to whether […]
VERITIES AND BALDERDASH
Back in the seventies I listened to quite a few singer-songwriters as I made a feeble attempt to be one myself. Wrote a few tunes, performed at a few threadbare church-connected coffee shops, gave it away (both the church part and the songwriting). But along the way, I listened to some artists who really were […]
HE’S BEHIND YOU!!!
Disconsolate piano notes descend in a maudlin trickle; the guitar squawks like a tortured chicken. Then the band hits a catchy riff, though it’s not the spine of the song. The central nervous system is a four chord descending figure in counterpoint to a rising vocal line. The music is powerfully rocking, the words gloomily nihilistic, […]
COME AND GO BLUES
Back then, Brothers and Sisters was a notable purchase: a new record, still on the charts. What led to this profligate expenditure? Perhaps the infectious boogie of the radio single “Rambling Man” demanded more frequent playing than AM radio offered; doubtless hearing the instrumental “Jessica” on 3XY’s Sunday night Album Show fanned desire. A late […]
BIRDS OF PARADISE
Browsing the ‘Cover Pairs’ posts for the compilation/deletion project, I came across SEABIRD [COVER POST #37]. Having written on Chick Corea’s Return to Forever—my first ECM album and a record that still brings great enjoyment—it’s time to tell you about a favourite feel-good album, Paradise Volume One by Australian composer/musician John Sangster. Now Mr Sangster […]
10 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT PAN
1 Pan is the Greek god of Nature, of untrammelled wilds and rustic settings. He is the player of music, the companion of nymphs, the patron of shepherd and flocks, and a bit of a lad with the ladies. Goat from the waist down, crowned with curling horns, it is sometimes written that Pan is […]
WORLDS IN A MAGICIAN’S HAT
Yesterday I ran a beginner’s dungeon for a group of children between the ages of 11 and 15 (plus an embedded 50-something). Today I’m recovering. The convalescent state rekindled a process of memory-mining around my introduction to the prince of all role-playing games, an excavation that began last year when I read David M. Ewalt’s […]
