Tag Archives: Music writing
1971—WHERE ARE WE UP TO?
Almost half-way through the year. Almost half the time allocated for this 50th anniversary survey. So how are we going with this delve into Vinyl Connection’s 1971 holding? It would appear, on the basis of the pictorial evidence above, a good start. Yet this gallery, I am crestfallen to report, displays but a quarter of […]
SPRING 1971, GERMANY
Achim Reichel was part of The Rattles, a German pop/beat band who had a 1969 hit with “The Witch”. It’s an edgy late psychedelic single that’s worth checking out (if you like that kind of thing). After going solo, Reichel immersed himself in exploring the magic of guitar effects, releasing a number of albums through […]
FEBRUARY 1971 — PART TWO
Continuing our trawl through Vinyl Connections holding from February 1971, and beginning with an absolute classic. [Part One here] Pretty much everyone agrees that Carole King’s second LP is a flawless album that boosted singer-songwriter artists towards the top of the first division. And not just in the US and Canada where the LP was […]
JANUARY 1971 — THREE LATE ARRIVALS
It is tempting to believe that the internet knows everything about everything. When it came to finding release dates for Vinyl Connections bushel of 1971 albums, it became clear that the www is not as all-knowing as you think. Sure, I discovered a number of errors in the VC spreadsheet, mostly albums where I had […]
SPLIT DECISION
Veteran British blues-rockers Groundhogs deserve respect. They were there, in one form or another, from the early days of the UK blues explosion, taking their name from a John Lee Hooker song (‘Ground Hog Blues’) and backing the legend on his mid-60s visit to old Londinium. After a debut album in 1968 showed them in […]
A DAY IN THE LIFE (OF A TURNTABLE)
Today I thought it would be fun to dig a little deeper into the collection and spin some albums that haven’t seen the turntable for ages. Years. In some cases, decades. The only rule was to wait until (at least one side of) the record finished before choosing the next. 8:30 am We had friends […]
OPERATION COVID
Whenever I come home with yet another compilation album, the Conscience Gnome who sits on the amplifier with his little legs dangling over the volume knob shakes his head and waggles an admonishing finger. He never speaks; he doesn’t need to. Why do you do this? Back in the day, there were reasons. Not necessarily […]
ROCKIN’ ALL OVER THE WORLD #4 — USA
There will be a globe-straddling spread of ROCKIN’ ALL OVER THE WORLD posts, as promised. But right now, with the USA teetering on the brink of collapse into a terrifying Idiocracy, I’m thinking of my US friends. So Edition 4 of the series inspired by the WordPress Map Statistics (WorMS) is dedicated to anyone, anywhere, […]
PART ONE
There is a myth that no worthwhile progressive music came out of Australia during the 70s. This furphy needs addressing. There may not have been much ‘Prog’—in the sense of rock bands influenced by the Western Art (aka Classical) tradition—but there was an abundance of adventurous, innovative music. I can think of no better place […]
NO WAY STREET
It has taken a while, but I have landed on an album that captures 2020. It was released in 1979. Walk tall walk straight, spit the world right in the eye The stronger the wood, the straighter the arrow The eccentric 10CC formed in the UK in the early 70s, producing off-kilter pop music that […]
1970 COUNTDOWN | NUMBER 7
7. VAN MORRISON — Moondance With albums one has lived with for years, knows inside out, and sings along with, it can be easy to forget just how good the songs are; familiarity can obscure the craft. Then you notice you are singing—or at least humming—the whole damn thing and realise it’s because there isn’t […]
1970 COUNTDOWN | #70 — #61
70 HAWKWIND — Hawkwind Transitional sounds from the veteran space-rockers. Of course they weren’t veterans in 1970, more young psychedelic hippies feeling their way from free street-party gigs to the recording studio. Still, any album that opens with an endearing blues-based groove as infectious as “Hurry on Sundown” is all right in my book. After […]
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