Every Record Tells A Story
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“One Of The Greatest Records Ever Made”: Dexys “Don’t Stand Me Down”
In March 1985, Kevin Rowland, lead singer and songwriter of Dexys Midnight Runners was facing total ruin. “Don’t Stand Me Down”, his labour of love and an album he had spent two years of his life writing, recording and mixing, might just have been burned in a fire at the record label’s office in New…
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Sweet Billy Pilgrim New Album News
Studio news reaches my ears from Every Record Tells A Story favourites (and ERTAS Album of the Year 2012 winners) Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Sweet Billy Pilgrim are looking towards crowd-funding to help raise the funds needed to produce their fourth album (no working title yet, just a hashtag of #SBP4). Given that the band made…
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Ten reasons why record flippers are in league with Satan
Traditions. We have a number of traditions in the UK, and many are wonderful. Afternoon tea. Cricket. Moaning about the weather. And there are those that are less wonderful. Queueing. Apologising to the person who has just bumped into you. X-Factor. Add to that list the traditional post-Record Store Day look at eBay. There’s that…
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Don’t Panic! The Secret To Investing On Record Store Day
Don’t Panic! Those “hot” new Record Store Day releases may not be as essential as you think…. As Record Store Day looms ominously like a looming, ominous thingy, and the first flurry of tents begin forming queues outside the nation’s record stores in the same way Eastern European Migrants do outside the UK in the…
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New Oasis Exhibition: Chasing The Sun: 1993-1997
On my way to Chasing The Sun: Oasis 1993-1997, a new exhibition in Shoreditch, I attempted to picture what might be in store. Might the visitor enter somehow slowly walking down a hall, faster than a cannonball? Preserved carefully under a glass case, perhaps the visitor might examine the sight of one of the Gallagher…
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The Worst Ten Records You Must Avoid This Record Store Day
You know what it’s like. You’ve been camping overnight on the street outside Rough Trade East. You are sleep deprived. For the last hour you have been listening to a record dealer talk to a hipster as they swap tales of limited edition versions of obscure Nigerian goat flute music. It has started to rain,…
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Ten Reasons Why People Who Sell Record Store Day Records On eBay May Not Be Evil, Mercenary Scumbags
Life’s bad guys are pretty well defined. Tax collectors are pretty unpopular, as are traffic wardens and traffic policemen hiding behind hedges holding speed guns. But we all know these are not inherently evil people. It’s the job that is evil. The people who choose to do these jobs may well, when they remove their…
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Help Launch Zoe Howe’s New Book About Lee Brilleaux!
Lee Brilleaux was the charismatic singer of Dr Feelgood. An Alpha Male and hard drinking front man, backed by a tight band, including the bug-eyed mop-topped Wilko Johnson. Wilko Johnson and Lee Brilleaux parted company at the height of their success, having blazed a trail for punk. It was over forty years ago since they released their…
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Record Store Day Gets Metal
The Record Store Day 2014 Announcement has revealed some exciting releases this year for rock and metal fans. Mastodon lead the pack with a vinyl and DVD release of “Live at Brixton”. Green Day has announced an album of demos and out takes available on LP and cassette. On the re-release side, there’s Motörhead’s self…
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Unreleased Gems: Neil Young’s Chrome Dreams – Rust Edition
Good news: Neil Young has announced a Record Store Day exclusive: a limited vinyl box-set re-release of his “Ditch Trilogy” of albums, plus Zuma. Sadly, however, there’s an album missing from that stellar line up. Chrome Dreams might well be the best album Neil Young ever made, at a time (1976) when he was hitting…
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The Best Records of 2014 So Far: Embrace – Refugees EP
A Tale of Two Bands… It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… In 2000, a young Chris Martin must have been feeling good about life. After his band Coldplay had released three EPs without troubling the charts, latest single “Shiver” had broken the top 40. Moreover, Coldplay had been picked…
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The Best Records of 2014 So Far: Damien Jurado
Damien Jurado’s Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Sun is a barking mad “dream” concept album – but a great one. I have a mixed view of concept albums. At best, they are all-encompassing and wonderful things. At worst, well – they’re just about as bad as it gets. I think of all musical theatre…
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Wilko Johnson Attends Signing For LP with Roger Daltrey: Going Back Home
Fourteen months have passed since Wilko Johnson’s public announcement of his diagnosis of terminal cancer of the pancreas. The former Dr Feelgood guitarist and current National Treasure expected the cancer would claim him in October last year, but he’s nothing if not a fighter. Even though it has been over a year since he performed…
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The Best Records of 2014 So Far: The Horrors – So Now You Know
“So Now You Know” is the second track to be revealed from The Horrors’ fourth album “Luminous” which is out on May 5th. Whilst the first preview from the album “I See You” was a seven and a half minute epic awash with atmospheric synth work from Tom Cowan alongside singer Faris Badawan’s trademark vocals,…
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Bowie, Nirvana, Tame Impala, Damon Albarn: The Pick of Record Store Day 2014 Releases
So what do you make of this year’s Record Store Day List of Releases? There are already a few lists doing the rounds, and the official announcement is at 4pm today. (the official announcement will be found here at RSD HQ) The annual announcement is as widely and eagerly anticipated amongst the vinyl loving fraternity…
Every record tells a story 