Category Particular platters
PLEASURE SPLINTERS
When an artist wears their influences on their sleeve, your response is likely to depend on what side of the shirt you are looking at. If it is front on: fresh new patterns and design, then delight will erupt and you won’t give a rat’s arse about what went before. Contrariwise, in the view from behind […]
TUBULAR RIDGE
I Wanting to build upon his established mail order record business, Richard Branson went into retail. The first Virgin store opened above a shoe shop at “the cheaper end of Oxford Street”1 in 1971. By Christmas the following year, Branson and his team had “fourteen record shops: several in London and one in every big city”1 […]
STITCHING TOGETHER JAZZ, ROCK AND FUNK
When Miles Davis went electric at the end of the 60s he may not have actually ‘invented’ jazz-rock (or fusion, if you prefer) but he certainly plugged some serious voltage into it. What’s more, the musicians who played on the seminal Miles albums In a Silent Way (1969), Bitches Brew (1970), and Jack Johnson (1971) […]
TURNED OUT NICELY
I remember buying my copy of Jethro Tull’s Stand Up at a Record Fair many years ago. The stall belonged to a guy I knew vaguely from the public radio station I presented on, 3 PBS FM. He was part of the Heavy Metal crew. Their show preceded Late Night Shopping on a Friday evening and […]
THE AMAZING PUDDING
David Gilmour reflected that Atom Heart Mother, Pink Floyd’s first album of the 70s, was “us blundering about in the dark” [1, p.92]. Keyboard player Rick Wright does not remember it fondly. “Looking back it wasn’t so good” [2, p.82]. For his part, Roger Waters would prefer the suite be “thrown into the dustbin and […]
THE DAILY PLANET
Back in the 90s I enrolled in a writing course at the CAE. Confusion Anxiety and Entropy. No, sorry. That was me in the 80s. The course was with the Council of Adult Education and it was in the city one evening each week. I completed ‘Writing for the Stage’, and I finished ‘Writing Fiction’. […]
AS WE WIND ON DOWN THE ROAD – ZEPPELIN AND FOLK
This article continues a feature on the bursting forth of folk influences on Led Zeppelin III. It uses as a springboard quotes from Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones and looks at albums that would have been important for the musicians as well as those released in the lead-up to the writing of material […]
THE NEU! GROOVE [PART 2]
Last week Vinyl Connection introduced the self-titled debut album by the highly influential German band Neu!. The story continues… * For an unknown band releasing a first album, Neu! achieved significant success. It helped that highly respected and influential radio disc jockey John Peel was a big fan, resulting in solid sales in Great Britain […]
OMAR AND THE DEAD
For those who share Vinyl Connection’s love of cover art, the Album Cover Art Hall of Fame blog is worth a visit. In a recent article film-maker and long-time record collector Eric Christensen shares some of his favourite covers. One comment caught my eye. It relates to the striking 60s designs of San Francisco artists Kelley and Mouse whose iconic […]
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN…
Carlos Santana was rather busy in 1973. Early in the year he got together with British master-guitarist John McLaughlin to continue working on the exciting, spiritual music that appeared on the under-appreciated Love Devotion and Surrender. To celebrate the end of recording they went out to buy a snappy white suit which the cover shot suggests that […]
THE SHOW THAT NEVER ENDS…
Easter 1972. The rambling gambolling bead-strung throng that was The Grateful Dead tribe arrived in Europe for a major tour. Musicians, technicians, kids and consorts; amps and desks, instruments and condiments, the Dead family was primed and ready for a leisurely trundle around the continent… and Britain too. Naturally the shows were recorded; obviously there […]
FULL SHELVES AND WILD TALES
Dear Vinyl Agony Aunt I have a problem. It’s a space and time problem. Yes, I know, I should just call Dr Who but I’ve lost the piece of psychic notepaper with his mobile number and you’re my next best guess. Also, you have helped me before. Being such a busy virtual confidante you won’t […]
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