He was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Montreal. His father, who had an engineering degree but ran a clothing business, died when he was nine years old. During degree studies that were solid rather than stellar, he did receive one endorsement indicating future directions: an award for creative writing. A member of the […]
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 […]
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 […]
Having received polite encouragement to pursue the ‘Curiosity Corner’ series from indulgent readers, I rushed off to compile a list of candidates, pulling out LPs and CDs with butterfly abandon. I thought about the 1956 Folkways album, Folk Music of Jamaica, then jumped to the recent haul of library records and the battered Heavy Rock […]
There was a poster I recall seeing many years ago that captured those difficult times with insight and humour. It came to mind this week. The quote is variously attributed to Ashleigh Brilliant, Aunty Acid, Jennifer Yane and Author Unknown. I reckon it’s Brilliant. As one does in trying times, I turned to music. Something […]
A few years back I came across a seemingly serious new event: International Cassette Day. Apparently some misguided souls were entirely genuine in wanting to reenergize this obsolete and never-very-good-in-the-first-place medium on the back of the (then) nascent vinyl revival. Well, LPs are certainly going strong, but thankfully cassettes remain consigned to the back of the audio wardrobe in […]
I Never Loved A Man The Way That I Love You was one of four—count ‘em, 1-2-3-4—albums released under Aretha Franklin’s name during 1967. Four albums for two different labels. And that’s the key point of Lady Soul’s ’67 story. Aretha released her first long player, Songs of Faith, way back in 1956 when she was […]
This occasional series* will present something a little unusual from the Vinyl Connection collection We’ll open proceedings with this album of middle of the road smoothness from the catalogue of the Australian World Record Club. Regular readers will know that WRC cover art is something of a passion round these parts and there you have the entire […]
Is that a trickling water feature or a leaky lavatory cistern? If you were at The Festival of Mind Body and Spirit at the London Olympia between the 21st and 29th of April 1979, the question would probably not have bothered you. Blissed out on asparagus acid and tripping on tofu, a sample bag of […]
When you are in pain, time has the capacity for slowing to a torturous crawl. Such was the lot of your correspondent this week, as one of the Vinyl Connection bicuspids decided it was sick and tired of meekly sitting between ripping canine and grinding molar and transformed, Jekyll and Hyde-like, into a small white […]
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 […]
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 […]
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