Tag Archives: music

SETTING SUNBURY

It was late in 1979, and the shop was closing. Naturally, there was a closing down sale. While un-tempted by appliances or transistor radios, I remember having my eye on one of the albums reclining in the slowly thinning racks of records. Over the course of a few weeks I’d um-ed and ah-ed. Not weeks […]

FRENCH OPEN — DAY FIVE

This evening’s night match was a dark affair, with Richard Pinhas taking on Magma. Neither conceded a point either to the crowd or each other and as the tense battle unfolded, you could hear the stadium exhale at the end of every game. Pinhas, perhaps still finding his way after (temporarily) abandoning his band Heldon, […]

GAMES FOR MAY?

The Commonwealth Games are a bit of an anachronism, aren’t they? Not in the games sense; it’s basically Olympic sports with a few important additions such as lawn bowls and Royal tennis and a few omissions such as curling and skate boarding. At least, that’s my understanding.  No, the oddness is the Commonwealth bit. British […]

TOUGH WEEK?

there’s a song snatch in my fragmented brain… I’m on a train   * the space is co-created, shared. what flows into it is often pain a unique snowflake drop, individually etched with wounds.   with the pain, sadness. hello, how low?   wrenching creeping weeping.   the pain of the other infiltrates the listener. […]

KIDSBOP! – LESSONS IN BRAINWASHING YOUR CHILD

I was always going to fertilise my child’s life with music. In utero he heard Miles Davis In A Silent Way almost every night of the third trimester. His mother and I loved the album and often relaxed into its kind of blue groove, so why wouldn’t it enhance the development of a soon-to-be-released little […]

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 […]

AUTUMN ALMANAC

Born in Melbourne, Australia on 25th October 1941: singer Helen Reddy. Her song ‘Delta Dawn’ was a #1 hit in the liberating year of 1973. Diary – Turned on the transistor and heard that dreadful song about the jilted woman who goes crazy. I’m going crazy trying to work out what to wear to school […]

CLOSE TO PERFECTION

CONTEXT Just in case it isn’t immediately obvious, music is a passion and hobby here at Vinyl Connection. There are several thousand titles in the collection and no imminent danger of a  growth plateau. [Picture here, if you will, the crestfallen expression on Ms Connection’s face.] Close to the Edge sits high on my list […]

NOWHERE AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME

A brief hum of feedback echo then a scuzzy crash of drums, a squall of guitar; “First Wave Intact” is crunching the gravel of my neural driveway with a heavy, insistent tread. the open way’s too dangerous listen close, they’re watching us Welcome to the opening song on “Now Here is Nowhere”, the 2004 album […]

VINYL HUNTER-GATHERER GOES FORTH

In these parts the financial year begins on 1st July. A good time for fiscal resolutions and for a vinyl addict with fast diminishing storage space and finite resources to ponder stemming – or at least reducing – the flow. The original idea was to have a purchase-free month. Catch up with some listening. Cleanse […]