Reissue CDs
Kieron Tyler
Fifty years after their first album The Garden Of Jane Delawney was issued in April 1970, Trees seem to be better known than when they were active. Despite Françoise Hardy’s cover version of the title track a couple of years after it hit shops, the UK band’s debut album was a poor seller. Original pressings fetch upwards of £200. It’s the same with its follow-up, January 1971’s On The Shore. This one sells for at least £250.The band formed in London in 1969, split in 1972 and even though they recorded seven BBC radio sessions as well as the two albums, it took a while for their reputation to Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“During 1975, 1976 and the first half of 1977 punk was the future but, after the highpoint of ‘God Save the Queen’, London punk already seemed spent. By the time that the Sex Pistols ‘Pretty Vacant’ was tumbling out of the charts in early September, there had been two huge hits that changed the way I heard music. Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ and ‘Magic Fly’ by Space made it clear: electronics were the future. And it didn’t matter whether it was post-punk or the despised disco.”So begins the titular writer’s essay accompanying Do You Have The Force? (Jon Savage’s Alternate History Of Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Manchester’s Slaughter and the Dogs were perfect for 1977. In May, their debut single “Cranked up Really High” sported bee-in-a-jar guitar, a hoarse vocal and an unstoppable forward motion. Its follow-up, September’s impeccable “Where Have All the Boot Boys Gone?”, was more muscular and prefigured the chart-bound terrace-chant punk of Sham 69. Next, in November, the brash “Dame to Blame” revealed a glam-rock undertone.All great and all essential, but not necessarily reviewed positively at the time by the weekly music papers. The first was Melody Maker’s “saddest single of the week.” The Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
After their final records were released in 1969, that seemed to be it for Apple and Jason Crest. Releases by both psychedelic-leaning British bands had first hit shops the previous year, and neither oufit made any waves commercially. Of course, that wasn’t the end of the story.Just over a decade later, Apple’s dark, mysterious “The Otherside” featured on 1980’s seminal-for-real compilation Chocolate Soup For Diabetics. Gathered alongside it were equally extraordinary but barely known gems such as Tintern Abbey’s “Vacuum Cleaner” and Dantalian's Chariot’s “The Madman Running Through The Fields Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Half-way through the 22 tracks of Showdown – The Complete 1966 RCA Recordings, what’s been increasingly apparent from the opening cut is confirmed: this is an extraordinary archive release, as much so as the live Stooges album looked at by this column in early September.“What’s That on Your Finger” opens Showdown's second half. A mid-tempo, deftly arranged, fully orchestrated uptown soul cut, it has a guitar figure subtly nodding to “Tracks of my Tears”, dexterous backing vocals, a confident, soaring lead voice and an irresistible melody. Yet the recording of the song, co-written by its Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
After Florian Schneider left Kraftwerk in 2008, Ralf Hütter was left in the driving seat. The pair had first been heard on record in 1970 as members of Organisation, and their first album as Kraftwerk followed later in the year. Although others were in Kraftwerk and contributed to the ethos to varying degrees, it was always about Schneider and Hütter. In 1973, titling the third Kraftwerk album Ralf und Florian confirmed this.Post-Schneider (he died in 2020), Kraftwerk’s first outputs were, in 2009, a series of 3D live performances and reissues of most of their albums. Really though, Kraftwerk Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
La Locura de Machuca translates as “the madness of Machuca.” A Colombian label which issued its first record in 1975, Machuca was active until 1995. Around 26 singles and 36 albums were released. The new compilation brings together 17 tracks from its first five years.While choosing the word “madness” as the title's operative word is questionable, there’s no doubt that what’s heard is arresting and unusual. The opening track is “Eberebijara” by Samba Negra. It sounds like a DIY collision of “Life During Wartime” Talking Heads and West African drumming with a repeated chant as a vocal overlay. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The cultural imprint Crass were leaving was apparent while they were active. As well as their own music, their label Crass Records released records by Flux Of Pink Indians, the pre-Sugarcubes outfit Kukl and The Damned’s Captain Sensible – Crass were instrumental in him becoming a vegetarian.Crass also had significant boundaries-testing brushes with the establishment: the Penis Envy album led to court cases; a montage tape of a supposed conversation between Reagan and Thatcher was linked to Crass. Further subversion came when the song "Our Wedding" was given away with the mainstream Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The title comes from the lyrics of “Andy Warhol”: track two, side two of David Bowie’s late 1971 album Hunky Dory: ”Put a peephole in my brain, Two new pence to have a go, I'd like to be a gallery, Put you all inside my show.” The new pence reference recognised Britain’s recent adoption of decimalised currency. Whatever the album’s sales on release it was only in 1972 that Bowie hit the single’s chart with “Starman”, the proof he was more than 1969’s “Space Oddity” one-hit wonder.In 1971, Marc Bolan and T.Rex were cleaning up as a singles phenomenon. “Ride a White Swan”, issued in 1970, was Read more ...
Graham Fuller
An aerial shot gliding over red-streaked buttes in the Southwestern American desert picks out a man striding across the blasted terrain some miles away. He halts and the camera comes close for a montage. We see that he is middle-aged, bony, and unshaven and wears a jacket, tie and red baseball cap.He drains his water bottle and a hungry hawk settles on a rock nearby. Each unforgiving twang of Ry Cooder’s slide guitar on the soundtrack signals a crisis, but the man has only a vaguely worried expression on his face. He hasn’t realized that tramping across this death valley is bringing him no Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
What happens when the hits dry up? And what happens a little further down the line, as the years of being on the charts recede into the past? For Helen Shapiro, the questions are answered by the intriguing Face The Music: The Complete Singles 1967–1984, a 25-track compilation collecting all her pop singles from the period covered by the title. Her work in jazz is not heard. The latest tracks were originally issued by Charlie Gillett’s Oval label and became her final singles.Helen Shapiro is the UK’s first home-grown female pop star. At age 14, she charted high in 1961 with “Don’t Treat me Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Giant Steps doesn’t suffer from a lack of availability. A couple of weeks ago, two editions of John Coltrane’s 1960 landmark set were available in a central London music store. One was a 2002 CD version which supplemented the album’s seven tracks with eight bonus cuts: alternate studio takes which were not originally released. It was selling for £7. For the same price, there was a 2CD set teaming Giant Steps with three other Coltrane albums. Internet sales sites have even more keenly priced reissues of the album.The first CD reissue appeared in 1987. Since then, the master tapes have never Read more ...