I’ve just woken from a fitful doze, 34,000 feet above the Caspian Sea. Not that it is visible as we hurtle through an orange-pink upper altitude cloud carpet at 578 mph, but it’s down there somewhere below the crumpled sheets of puffy stuff. That is what the animated map tells me, anyway. What a clever little […]
Not a sedan in sight as we venture into more exotic internal combustion territory. I’m sure there are album covers out there with traction engines adorning them, but sadly I couldn’t find one. So we’ll have to settle for motorbikes, vans, semi-trailers, agricultural vehicles, a bus or two and, er, a tank. Happy motoring! * […]
It was well after leaving High School that I acquired my first stereo. Sure, the family home had several devices capable of emitting music: a Bakelite mantle radio in the kitchen, my Father’s Elcon reel-to-reel tape recorder, the sideboard sized stereogram in the lounge, all polished wood and frowning classical records. But all of these […]
There was a great response to the recent post of album covers featuring automobiles. Folk enthusiastically shared suggestions for covers that could have been included and nominated some personal favourites. So why not build another ‘Car Covers’ post? I’ve added a few more of my own favourites too. * * THE COVERS Delany and Bonnie – On […]
What do you do when you have the entire catalogue of an artist, the ‘Best of’ albums, most titles on at least two formats, plus a goodly selection of bootlegs? If you answered, ‘See your therapist’, you get points plus that special superior feeling that attends the suspicion a fellow music lover may just be […]
* THE ALBUMS Miles Davis – A Tribute to Jack Johnson [CBS 1971] The Orange Humble Band – Humblin’ (Across America) [Half A Cow 2000] Beach Boys – The Capital Years [Capital/EMI 1983] Chuck Berry – Motorvatin’ [Chess 1977] Original Soundtrack – Rikky and Pete [EMI 1988] The Cars – Since You’re Gone (12″ Picture […]
THE MUSIC OF TANGERINE DREAM, PART TWO After Electronic Meditation, Klaus Schulze moved on from Tangerine Dream, leaving band leader Edgar Froese in need of a replacement. There was a young musician Froese had encountered in the Berlin scene as the drummer of Agitation Free (a brilliant, inventive band I hope we’ll get to at […]
Today I employed the Almanac Strategy © for my ‘work at home’ playlist. This is what it yielded for the 21st of July. The information in italics is sourced from various internet sites. There are links to youtube videos for most featured songs. 1947 Born on this day, Cat Stevens, singer, songwriter. 1967 UK No.2 single ‘Matthew And Son’, […]
What a strangely captivating album is Starfire, the 9th from Norwegian band Jaga Jazzist. I stumbled across this recent release, took a punt on the album after auditioning a track on youtube (below) and… got excited. The grooves are inescapable though far from standard issue. Often the melodic lines seem to be layered on top […]
Following the recent departure of Yes co-founder and bass supremo Chris Squire, it seems fitting to revisit the music of a band central to 70s ‘Prog’ who continued to make music through every subsequent decade. Who would have thought that the song-writing partnership that began when Jon Anderson and Chris Squire hit it off in […]
One Saturday afternoon in October 1976 I rode my bicycle round to Rod Amberton’s place to watch a total eclipse. It seemed like a friendly thing to do, given that this sort of solar phenomenon only occurred every few decades and Melbourne was, apparently, a prime location from which to view it. Assuming the clouds […]
A COVER ART JOURNEY * Some Girls – Heaven’s Pregnant Teens [2006] Barclay James Harvest – Baby James Harvest [1972] Various Artists – In the Beginning [1985] Matthew Sweet – 100% Fun [1995] James Taylor – James Taylor [1968] James Taylor – Live in Germany [1986] James Taylor – Before this World [2015] The Cure […]
