Jeff Lynne had caught the tail end of Birmingham’s The Nightriders, formed in 1959 and with line up changes galore, a new vision with Lynne at the creative helm made them decide to change their name to The Idle Race in 1966. Despite glowing reviews and memorable songs The Birthday Party (1968) failed to ignite […]
The Association were that strange and wonderful beast – Middle Of The Road Psychedelic Easy Listening Pop Folk. A splinter group that began as a loose collective called The Inner Tubes before becoming house band at sixties LA Folk hot spot The Troubadour with a floating line up of around thirteen, called The Men. The Association were […]
Hooray, Yippee, it’s birthday week! Celebrating my 59th on May 7th, I thought I might try and collect some Birthday songs together and see whether I can find anything interesting about them despite the cheesy subject matter. So, The White Album 1968, McCartney singing in one of his many different voices – his different tones and […]
Staying at Anekdoten singer and guitarist, Nicklas Barker’s flat in Stockholm comes with a list of privileges for which we are truly grateful. It’s a lovely place in a great location and apart from harbouring a real mellotron it also is home to a wonderful record collection. Over the next two weeks I will be […]
Today, January 31st 2017, Olivia and I are in Buenos Aires for a day staying at El Sol hostel run by Paul Gallinato with whom we just sat in the foyer playing a version of Big Star’s Thirteen (with Paul on bass) – the unexpected highs of traveling. Although we will be back here soon […]
Who were the great lyricists before Dylan? Well, from the fifties into the sixties you would probably say the men that wrote the words for the musicals, writers like Lorenz Hart. Hart wrote the lyrics for The Lady Is A Tramp and My Funny Valentine and was Richard Rodgers partner till alcoholism (Hart died tragically of […]