Reissue CDs
Kieron Tyler
“As much as I love New York City, it’s all too obvious that Cleveland is about to become the musical focal point that the Big Apple has been on and off since the beginning of the century,” wrote Peter Laughner in October 1974. “I want to do what Brian Wilson did for California and Lou Reed did for New York.” To a degree, the new five-album/five-CD set Peter Laughner achieves this, albeit 42 years after his death.Laughner’s full-page article in Cleveland newspaper The Plain Dealer pointed to the north-east Ohio city’s 15-60-75, Jimmy Ley and Mirrors as the bands who would represent this Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although British folk-jazz stylists Pentangle played their first official concert in May 1967, their name is borrowed for the title of Unpentangled, a box set of their guitarist John Renbourn’s work on album which kicks off two years earlier. It’s not the disconnect it might seem from the billing as the set includes his 1966 collaborative album Bert and John, made with Pentangle's other guitarist Bert Jansch. The band’s singer Jacqui McShee is heard on Renbourn’s Another Monday album, issued later that year. Their bassist Danny Thompson appears on early 1967’s Watch the Stars, which Dorris Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Last month, this column pondered a vinyl-only R.E.M. reissue. Despite the mystifyingly high sales price of original pressings, reissuing a best-of mostly collecting easily available tracks seemed a tad unnecessary. Moreover, it lacked imagination. If vinyl is an ascendant format, why not do something interesting or say something new? The questions again become apposite with the arrival of two imaginative new vinyl comps which set the (relatively) recognisable in unfamiliar contexts and promote fresh appreciation of what might be repeatedly trodden ground.Jon Savage's 1965–1968 – The High Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Belém’s population is one-and-a-half million. Located 100km south of Brazil’s north coast on the east bank of the Amazon feeder river Pará, it’s the capital of the state sharing its name with the waterway. The city is only 160km south of the equator, an entry point into the rain forest and closer to Trinidad and Tobago than Brazil’s cultural magnet Rio de Janeiro.Named after Bethlehem and founded in 1655, Belém’s economy is defined by its role as an incoming and outgoing port and has its roots in an early 17th century Portuguese fort. Its location and the attendant potential for the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Like Lemmy, the bassist with their fellow London-based freaks Hawkwind, Pink Fairies crossed the bridge between the late-Sixties underground and the great British punk rock boom of 1977. After being sacked from Hawkwind Lemmy formed the punk-friendly Motörhead, whose debut album was issued in ’77. Their short-stay first guitarist was the Fairies’ Larry Wallis. After he exited Motörhead a fleetingly reformed Fairies issued a single on Stiff in 1976, the label’s second release.Wallis then produced The Adverts and issued his own single on Stiff in 1977. His pre-Motörhead band’s drummer Twink re- Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003 was issued by Warner Bros. in October 2003. Hitting shops in time for Christmas, it mixed hits like “Everybody Hurts”, “Man on the Moon” and “Orange Crush” with album and soundtrack cuts, and a couple of previously unissued tracks. Released as an 18-track CD, it was initially issued as double-disc set with the additional material drawn from B-sides, more film soundtracks and live performances. There was also a Europe-only double-album version featuring the core 18 tracks.That vinyl version has sold for between £40 and £220. At the time of writing, copies Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although Marty Wilde will forever be inextricably linked with the late 1950s British rock ‘n’ roll wave he rode, his career did not peter out as musical styles transformed. While he didn’t have the high-profile mutability of Cliff Richard or claim a niche like the moody Billy Fury, he was enviably chameleonic. Wilde adroitly embraced folk-rock, wrote late-Sixties hits for The Casuals and The Status Quo – “Jesamine” and “Ice in the Sun” are his – and even tackled glam rock in the Seventies with his Zappo alter-ego. With his son Ricky, he co-wrote daughter Kim’s 1981 hit “Kids in America”.The Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Jeanette’s “Porque Te Vas” is a prime example of a type of Europop which – beyond a brief flirtation around 1968 to 1971: think Clodagh Rogers – Britain had little time for. It’s not quite schlager, but still has the tell-tale martial rhythm. The singing voice conforms with the breathy stereotype still favoured in France. Like the best bubblegum pop, the melody and brass-studded arrangement are instantly hooky.“Porque Te Vas” is a fantastic single. Issued in Spain in 1974 by Jeanette it got wider exposure after being heard in the film Cría Cuervos, which was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Debates about whether 1964’s Marnie presaged Alfred Hitchcock’s downslide as a force will run and run. It is however certain that it was the director’s last film scored by Bernard Herrmann, who had worked on 1963’s The Birds, 1960’s Psycho, 1959’s North by Northwest and, before that, a run of Hitchcock’s films back to 1955. After Marnie, the affiliation continued – for a while. Herrmann’s music was heard in the TV show the Alfred Hitchcock Hour and he provided a score for Torn Curtain which the director neither liked or used. The professional relationship was over.Although the music for Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It was inevitable that Rod Stewart’s distracting solo adventures would eventually kill off Faces, the band he fronted. Less predictable was the departure during their lifetime of another founder member, their bassist and key songwriter Ronnie Lane. A hint the split was coming arrived in late 1972 when Lane and Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood recorded the soundtrack music to the film Mahoney's Last Stand while their band began work on the Ooh La La album.At that point, Stewart was then riding high with his Never a Dull Moment album, a US and UK smash. In March 1973, the singer churlishly Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Repackaging and resuscitating the catalogues of endlessly reissued bands is fraught. By their nature, completists already have everything and the casually interested are not fussed by alternate versions of obscure tracks or disinterred lo-fi live recordings. It’s challenging to freshen up or put new spins on predominantly familiar material by endlessly reissued bands. Preaching to the converted is frequently the best which can be hoped for.To varying degrees, current archive releases of material by Manfred Mann, The Searchers and The Yardbirds feed into these concerns. To wit: Manfred Mann’s Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Bill Evans Trio played London’s Ronnie Scott’s from 1 to 27 December 1969 as a co-billing with Blossom Dearie. The season would have remained less than a footnote if it were not for a French fan identified only as ”Jo” in Evans in England’s booklet. He took an Uher reel-to-reel tape recorder into the club and placed it under the stage-side table he and a friend occupied. It sat on his knees and was hidden under the tablecloth. A Beyerdynamic microphone was hooked up to the Uher.This was no mean feat. The Uher model mostly in use at the time was the Report 4000 (pictured below left). Read more ...