Tag Archives: 70s music
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 […]
WELCOME BACK MY FRIENDS…
During the wildly exciting process of compiling the new Vinyl Connection Index page it was noted by the VC auditor that many months have elapsed since we last ventured into the sweaty mosh pit of live recordings. How better to remedy that lamentable oversight than by tackling that monster of vinylosity, the triple live album? […]
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 […]
THE WINDOW AND THE WALL
In the late 80s I was living alone in a small house in Footscray, an inner-west suburb of Melbourne nestling between industrial docklands and a waste management terminal. Bunbury Street was quite special not for any Oscar Wilde association but because a railway line ran underneath it, lengthwise. It was a goods line from the […]
ETERNAL WARRIOR RETURNING
One of the tell-tale signs of the activated Vinyl Hunter-Gatherer is how their speed increases when they approach a Record Store. Up on the balls of their feet, there is a pronounced spring in the step as the shortest possible distance from here to the records is calculated with pinpoint precision. Breathing may be more […]
HOW DO YOU THINK IT FEELS
1 The last time I recall pulling out a Lou Reed album was to refresh my memory of Rock n Roll Animal for one of a series of articles on the joys of ‘live’ albums. I didn’t actually need to play it again – it’s an album whose slashes and strokes are burned into my […]
Homemade Halloween
Made the CD a while ago – quite suitable for Halloween I reckon. The music is great B-Movie fun. Well, the boy thought so anyway. And, to complete the picture, a portrait from the Ozzie period (earlier this evening).
ALL HOPPED UP AND READY TO GO
Part of the energizing outré CBGBs scene in mid-70s New York, the Ramones story is well known. How a lanky outsider by the name of Jeffrey Hyman linked up with Douglas Colvin and Johnny Cummings to form a three-piece called Ramones. Band manager Thomas Erdelyi recalled ‘they were terrible. It was the worst thing I’ve […]
OF FLEAS AND FAUST
Like a down-market department store for heads and hippies, Goesunder Flea Market in the heart of Melbourne’s retail district was the unlikely venue for an import record shop, yet that is where I first encountered Krautrock. It was my first year at the university, a 15 minute walk north of the city centre. I was […]
THE ART OF TEA
The on-line forum is a strange beast. Often it is a series of blokes (the record collector groups are almost all male, you know) taking turns at “show and tell”. The bargain of the century, my latest rarity, the best, the worst; there is no real dialogue or any genuine discussion but there is lots of […]
BIRTH AND DEATH OF A WORLD
Not long ago I wrote about an unscheduled month in the UK in the late 90s. A side trip to Wales was mentioned and that is where our story begins today. Every music tragic knows that it is not civic architecture or religious edifices that get the music hunter-gatherer’s pulse a-quickening; it’s record shops. We […]