Reissue CDs
Kieron Tyler
The booklet coming with Just Like Gold - Live At The Matrix frequently refers to the band as “The Solution.” It will be the same here.With respect to the name this pioneering San Francisco psychedelic outfit did choose, their drummer John Chance is quoted in the booklet as saying “My mother was really upset about it [the band’s name], and I knew why.”Lead guitarist Ernie Fosselius adds “We knew vaguely somewhere back in history it was heavy. I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t realise how much the name could mean to a Jew.” Or, Ernie, anyone else.One person who realised the resonance of the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
One of the more interesting tracks on Paul Weller’s fascinating new cover versions album Find El Dorado is his interpretation of “When You Are a King,” originally a 1971 hit for White Plains, an ensemble which evolved from the touring version of “Let’s go to San Francisco” hitmakers Flowerpot Men. White Plains, it turns out, are represented on another new release.White Plains are on Chip Shop Pop - The Sound of Denmark Street 1970-1975 with the cascading, harmony drenched “Every Little Move She Makes,” the February 1971 non-charting A-side released between charting 45s “Julie do ya Love me” Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Pale Fountains played their first live show on 12 February 1980 as the support to on-the-up fellow Liverpudlians Wah! Heat. Their final stage appearance – notwithstanding the odd reunion – was on 21 May 1987 at their home city’s The Majestic Club, a venue which also traded as Mr Pickwick’sIn between, The Pale Fountains’ live schedule was erratic. Nothing was undertaken which constituted a full UK tour. Beyond one-offs or odd consecutive shows, there were a handful of December 1985 dates supporting Echo & The Bunnymen, three Japanese shows in May that year, a sprinkling of UK Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Wheels of Fire was Cream’s third album. Issued in the US in June 1968 and in the UK two months later, it was a double LP. One record was of live recordings, the other of studio material. Of the nine tracks on the latter, three were co-written by the band’s drummer Ginger Baker – who wrote the lyrics – and British jazz pianist/composer Mike Taylor.This was the closest Taylor got to the mainstream. The tracks recorded by Cream – "Passing the Time," "Pressed Rat and Warthog" and "Those Were the Days" – also appeared as the B-sides of singles. In the UK and the US, “Pressed Rat and Warthog” was Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Tubeway Army’s “Are ‘Friends’ Electric” hit the top of the UK single’s chart in the last week of June 1979. It stayed there for four weeks. Its parent album, Replicas, lodged itself in the Top 75 for 31 weeks. In April, just as Replicas was out, Tubeway Army began recording demos for the next album: the band which had been assembled for the task debuted on BBC2’s The Old Grey Whistle Test on 22 May.At this point, Gary Numan – who, effectively, was Tubeway Army – was beginning to think a change in terminology was necessary. On 29 May, just a week on from the OGWT appearance, he and Billie Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Manticore was owned by Emerson, Lake and Palmer and their manager. The organisation provided the name for the band’s label. Apart from ELP and its individual members, the best-known signees to the imprint were Italian prog-rockers PFM and former King Crimson member Pete Sinfield. Despite this new album’s title, Motörhead were not with Manticore.However, Lemmy and co used ELP’s Manticore Studio in Fulham – in what used to be a cinema – during August 1976 when they showcased for prospective record labels. The release of the album they had recently completed for United Artists appeared to be Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” was an instant phenomenon. Recorded in April 1967 and issued as a single on 12 May after pre-release play on pirate station Radio London, it topped the UK charts four weeks later. Globally, it hit big on most pop markets and was integral to launching the classical music/pop hybrid which evolved into prog rock.“A Whiter Shade of Pale” also spawned imitators: singles this-close to its arrangement, atmosphere and style. Amongst the British sound-a-likes and analogous recordings were Svensk’s “Dream Magazine” (issued on 25 August 1967), Felius Andromeda’s “ Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Theirs is truly rock in extremis, a précis of the youthful impetuosity and cathartic chaos at the heart of real rock ’n roll.”This extract from the essay in the booklet coming with the handsome box set High Time bluntly lays it out: The Sonics, as is also said, played “it fierce and feral.” Although “The Witch,” the topside of their debut single, was issued in November 1964, it was and is as ferocious as The Stooges, the most untrammelled aspects of punk rock and, geographically closer to home for The Sonics, grunge at its grungiest. A first reaction to hearing the single out of the blue was Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
"It was really strange. Really quite conflicting, the sort of thing most bands didn't have to deal with. At the front, we'd have the kids who'd come along to scream and at the back were the people who'd come along to hear the music. We didn't know whether to talk to the kids at the front or to speak over their heads to the other people.”While speaking to Melody Maker in September 1976 after the release his band’s third album Morin Heights, Pilot’s guitarist Ian Bairnson recognised a difficulty: that their hit singles had attracted one audience, and that another audience was also interested in Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Forest and the Shore” by Keith Christmas is remarkable. In his essay for Gather In The Mushrooms, compiler, author and Saint Etienne member Bob Stanley says it is “as evocative as its title. The song has a deeply wooded sound, like a cross between Serge Gainsbourg’s “Ballade de Melody Nelson” and Ralph Vaughan Williams.” To this can be added the brooding, dramatic melancholy of Scott Walker’s “The Seventh Seal.”Despite the grandeur of “Forest and the Shore” – and the astounding Richard Thompson-esque, Tom Verlaine-predicting guitar solo taking it to its close – Gather In The Mushrooms: The Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Pete Shelley’s departure from Buzzcocks felt abrupt. When he left the Manchester band which had been integral to British punk since 1976, the other members thought it was still a going concern. Shelley had reached a different conclusion.Buzzcocks played what turned out the be their final show on 23 January 1981. At this point, making a new album, their fourth, was on the table. Neither the band or the audience in Hamburg knew it was the last time the band would be seen on stage. A little over a month later, on 4 March, Shelley put his name to a letter dissolving the band. “Homosapien,” his Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Johnnie Taylor’s big break came with the ever-fabulous September 1968 single “Who's Making Love.” His ninth 45 for the Stax label, it went Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100. Up to this point, the Arkansas-born singer had been on the R&B charts only. Hitting the mainstream countdown had taken a while: Taylor’s first solo single had been issued in April 1961.Before this, he had been in gospel outfits The Five Echoes – who he joined in 1951 or 1952 at age 17 – and, from 1957, The Highway QC’s, who Sam Cooke had passed through. In August 1960, he took on the Cooke role in the Soul Stirrers – Read more ...