Category Records
WEIRD SCENES
1/1 Hey, get that couple dancing. Her latin rhythms hot and slippery as a bourbon kiss, his rock energy thrusting towards her like an ICBM. They’re one explosive unit; the floor can scarcely hold ‘em. Something’s gonna give for sure. “Break On Through (To The Other Side)”. 1/2 “Soul Kitchen” is a lush with a couple too […]
THAT FUSION VIBE
Between 18th and 20th April 1967, while The Beatles were in Abbey Road mixing ‘Good Morning Good Morning’ and ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)’, influential young vibraphone player Gary Burton was in RCA Victor’s New York Studio B recording an album with his new quartet. Although only twenty-four years old, Burton was a […]
BEARDED RAINBOWS
Eric Clapton and girlfriend Charlotte Martin were at London musician’s club The Speakeasy in Spring 1967. It was the same club where, not long previously, Eric had his first taste of LSD in circumstances that were probably not your average first trip, even in that much mythologized year. The way Eric tells it, ‘the Beatles came in […]
ANTISOCIAL IN THE INNER SANCTUM
Music Room full yet? Almost [smile] Can I check it out? Er… Sure [Are you lint free? Dandruff free? Dusted? Scrubbed? Fully prepped?] New shelves! Neat. All the better to file you in, my dears. Alphabetical order, of course. [covert sigh] A, top left. Z round there, low. No system, no find it. Compilations? You, […]
2016 — THE FIELD OF JAZZ
…Being Part 2 of the Vinyl Connection end-of-year round-up Could this be the 10 days of Jazz Christmas? Not really, just highlights selected from those jazz discs arriving at VC this year, presented in chronological order. * Solar system huge, supernova-hyped. To these ears, pretty disappointing. As someone 1537 times wittier than me observed, those vocals just evoke Star Trek every time. Visit […]
CHRISTMAS DREAMING
Want a Christmas album by a New York composer of Jewish heritage that is totally not a turkey? Step this way. John Zorn started recording in 1980 at age 27. Later than Mozart, certainly, yet in the years following he has amassed over one hundred recordings under his own name. And there’s more. He has […]
DARK SIDE OF THE VALLEY
When you think about the world-straddling colossus they became in the latter half of the 70s, it is easy to forget that Pink Floyd started life as just one spray of colour in the kaleidoscope of Swinging London. Like many bands of the 60s, Pink Floyd embraced side projects and commissions. After all, it was […]
LIGHT FINGERED
They are one of my favourite groups. The VC collection holds over forty of their albums. Their catalogue holds some two dozen soundtrack albums, recorded between 1977 and 1999. All good reasons for a Film [Soundtrack] Festival piece on Tangerine Dream. Although I might wish to crow about having all the TD OST albums, in fact I have […]
WINNER TAKES IT ALL
Tomorrow I’m playing a third match in the Watsonia Tennis Club Championships. Lots of members enter multiple events; Open Singles and Doubles, A Grade Men’s, Parent and Child Doubles, Mixed. Given my level of fitness, I decided to enter just one event, especially as the boy was decidedly cool on the idea of playing competition tennis […]
8 ALBUM COVERS THAT SCREAM “EIGHTIES!”
With this selection of bold and colourful 80s album covers, I’ve tried to steer away from the dead obvious – rolled up jacket sleeves, bushels of big hair, heavy metal cartoon covers – yet capture something of the vibrant self-belief embodied in these sleeve designs. Naturally there were many others vying for inclusion – Joe Jackson’s Beat Crazy and Cyndi Lauper’s […]
STRUT REDUX
If you survive initial rock and roll success, what follows is very much like growing up in public. To be sure, survive is a potent word in this context. So many musicians have gone to join the choir invisible it’s a wonder that there are enough left to form a band. Yet numerous artists who […]
PROLOGUE: CONCERNING HOBBITS, AND OTHER MATTERS
Needing to choose a book to read and reflect upon for a literature project in his Grade 5 class, I was surprised and delighted when the boy asked to borrow The Hobbit. Other than some pathetic attempts to conquer Lego: Lord of the Rings on the Play Station, we haven’t really done much Tolkien in the family […]
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