Category: Music
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Another Look At The Top of the Pops Annual 1978
Like the sad, drippy mess revealed to the world by Janet Ellis in the Blue Peter Garden (and I don’t mean her daughter Sophie Ellis Bextor) the 1978 Top of the Pops Annual is a fascinating time capsule of life in the seventies. I expected to see Blondie, The Undertones and The Clash. Instead, featured…
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A Look Back At Top of the Pops: 1978
As I was growing up, something of a ritual established itself on Thursday nights at 7.30pm. After tea had been consumed, typically consisting of a home made beef lasagne lovingly cooked by mum and the washing up duties squabbled over and completed, the family settled down together to watch TV. Ours was a particularly fine…
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Rock star “Faithful To Wife” Shock Claim
The music world was left in shock today when a prominent musician, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was described as having a “monogamous relationship” with his well known wife. The revelations may leave the indie star’s reputation in tatters as close friends rallied round. “I can’t believe it’s true” said one band mate.…
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See Sweet Billy Pilgrim and Ed Harcourt at Free Village Green Festival This Weekend
Life is busy, right? What with the need to prevent bosses and clients banging at the door with pitchforks and flaming torches with the day job, keeping my wife and kids entertained with brilliant jokes, silly walks and bad singing, the ever growing number of DIY tasks that loom like an iceberg in the mid…
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Beelzebub Had A Devil For A Sideboard and Other Misheard Lyrics
With the possible exception of deciphering the lyrics to 2Unlimited’s “No Limits” (it really loses its sparkle when listening to the 12″ extended remix. By Pete Waterman) it’s quite fun to decipher lyrics, mainly because there’s quite a lot of scope to get it wrong. You have probably seen that there’s an entire website devoted…
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Rock Stars in Comics: Coldplay, McCartney, Elvis and Kiss
Despite the obvious merits of the comic books I enjoyed many years ago such as Sin City, Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns and so on (I lost touch with things in the mid-nineties) comic books have unfortunate baggage that accompanies them. If you ever look up the word “Geek” in the dictionary, there tends to…
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Sneaking Off To Record Stores In Disneyland – A Users Guide
Vinyl records enthusiast? Going on holiday to Orlando, Florida? Want to find a record store? Read on… As an aside to the previous post about Yesterday and Today, I secured my copy of this Beatles record during a holiday in Florida at one of a couple of decent used record stores that I found. I…
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The Beatles: Butcher LP Covers and How A 1966 Album Actually Lost Money
It was very confusing being an American Beatles fan in the sixties. Apparently. I have the disadvantage from a perspective point of view of a) being British and b) having been born in 1970… In the years up to 1966, Capitol in the USA had a rather cavalier attitude to albums. Rather than promoting them…
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Look Out For… John Grant
Song of the day, not that I have a feature called “song of the day”, is by this fellow called John Grant who released an album called Pale Green Ghosts in March of this year. The song is called GMF. It’s a belter. Pale Green Ghosts is a break up album, and it’s almost as…
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Look Out For…Tom Hickox
I wanted to mention Tom Hickox today. Since I mentioned Tom’s song “The Pretty Pride of Russia” last year, he has secured an opening slot with Richard Hawley, including the latter’s forthcoming Somerset House concert. “The Pretty Pride of Russia” was one of my favourite songs that I heard last year and now Tom has…
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Bieber Meltdown Latest: He’s Not The First Pop Star This Has Happened To…
Noel Redding, the Jimi Hendrix Experience bass player had a handy quote for anyone who wanted to enter the music business and who asked his advice: “Study law. Buy a gun…” Not a stun gun though, presumably. What with Rhianna allegedly “romping with £5,000 strippers” (I say allegedly – it must be true – I…
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Why Do Most People Dislike Heavy Rock But Think One Direction Are Good?
Read on for my ten point action plan to make rock music more popular… Last week, I held a Focus Group on why Heavy Metal music isn’t popular amongst certain demographics. As part of this scientific approach, I surveyed a number of listeners of Radio 2, Heart FM and Magic FM to seek their views…
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Record Store Day: How was It For You?
Yesterday, a large number of men were on their knees, crouched over a glossy picture, filled with an ecstatic mixture of lust, anticipation and relief. That’s right, it was Record Store Day and we were all looking at our new purchases. How was it for you? I was pretty happy with my haul which included…
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Everything You Need To Know About Record Store Day 20 April 2013
Record Store Day is just a week away – on the 20th April. Although RSD sounds like it should be some form of communicable disease, it is actually one of the most anticipated days of the year for hipsters, music obsessives and general nerdlings throughout the land. It’s right up there with the Bridlington Annual…
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The Bowie Bet part 6 – London’s Record Shops
The story so far: I have made a bet that I can buy a full set of Bowie‘s albums (in their original vinyl versions – and in excellent condition with all the inserts) from The Man Who Sold The World to Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). That’s fourteen albums in fourteen days. Total budget: £100.…
Every record tells a story 