1960s
Close-Up: The Twiggy Musical, Menier Chocolate Factory review - a tourist's view of a Sixties iconFriday, 29 September 2023
The Biba dresses are way too colourful, the shop’s interior about 10 times too bright… and did anybody really say ”happening threads” in 1965?Taking Ben Elton to task for his portrayal of the Sixties, which feature in the first half of Close-Up, his... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Shake That Thing - The Blues in Britain 1963-1973Sunday, 24 September 2023
In September 1955, the grandly named London Skiffle Centre set up for business each Thursday in a room above the Round House pub in Soho’s Wardour Street. A prime mover in the venture was blues acolyte Cyril Davies. Two months after the opening,... Read more... |
AngelHeaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan and T Rex review - musical doc falls between two stoolsThursday, 14 September 2023
Seeking to be both a documentary and a musical tribute to Marc Bolan, AngelHeaded Hipster doesn’t quite pull it off on either count. It’s based around the making of an album (whence the film gets its title) of versions of Bolan’s songs by an... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: March of the Flower Children - The American Sounds of 1967Sunday, 03 September 2023
“March of the Flower Children” was a June 1967 B-side by Los Angeles psych-punks The Seeds. The track was extracted from their third album Future, a peculiar dive into psychedelia which was as tense as it was turned on. While the song’s lyrics... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Playing for the Man at the Door - Field Recordings from the Collection of Mack McCormickSunday, 13 August 2023
Between the late 1950s and around 1971, Robert “Mack” McCormick (1930–2015) travelled through his base-state Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, west Louisiana and parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma looking for musicians to record. It wasn’t a random process:... Read more... |
Judy Collins, Cambridge Folk Festival review - celebrating a seminal Sixties' albumMonday, 31 July 2023
It’s 15 years since Judy Collins last stepped out at the Cambridge Folk Festival. She was a mere 68 then and, in the time since, little has changed except her hair, the famous rock-star mane lopped so that she now resembles the cover of those... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Glenda Collins, Heinz, David John & The Mood - the latest treasures from Joe Meek's Tea Chest TapesSunday, 30 July 2023
Restraint wasn’t the watchword. Around March 1965, Heinz was in Joe Meek’s North London recording studio taping “Big Fat Spider,” which became the B-side of his April single version of “Don’t Think Twice it’s Alright.” A run-through which didn’t end... Read more... |
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny review - a baggy, finally poignant finaleSaturday, 01 July 2023
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) revived Thirties adventure serials’ simple thrills, a George Lucas notion adrenalised by Spielberg. Its hero Indy Jones wasn’t built for depth or pathos, and the struggle to find reasons for his return notoriously sank... Read more... |
Stumped, Hampstead Theatre review - Beckett and Pinter, waiting for DoggoWednesday, 28 June 2023
Much of cricket comprises waiting – you wait on the boundary to hear news of the toss, you wait your turn to bat, you heed the call of your batting partner to wait to see if a run is on, you wait for the rain to stop. A friend once told me that he... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Blossom Dearie - Discover Who I AmSunday, 25 June 2023
Had Blossom Dearie overtly embraced pop, her vocal style could be characterised as along the lines of Priscilla Paris, Jane Birkin or Saint Etienne’s Sarah Cracknell – intimate, a little breathy, oxygenated. However, jazz was her bag and June... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Let's Stomp - Merseybeat and BeyondSunday, 11 June 2023
The words “Mersey” and “beat” were first publicly paired-up in July 1961 when a newspaper titled Mersey Beat went on sale in Liverpool. The debut issue – dated July 6-20 1961 – was distributed to newsagents. Its editor, art student Bill Harry,... Read more... |
Album: Yusuf/Cat Stevens - King of a LandSaturday, 10 June 2023
Yusuf/Cat Stevens’ latest combines his apparently effortless immediacy at acoustic guitar songwriting with an orchestrated opulence that sometimes pushes the sound towards the realms of musical theatre. Lyrically, he’s in fine form too, but what... Read more... |
