Where were you and what were you doing in 1976? Me, I was at school, dreaming of becoming a rock journalist. This, I must tell you, was about as likely as becoming an astronaut, not least because I looked less like one of those pale but interesting, “hospital-thin” rockwriter legends such as Nick Kent than I did Danny Bonaduce from The Partridg…
The profoundly influential Birth Of The Cool – a 1957 LP featuring recordings first released as a series of 78 rpm singles in 1949 and 1950 – was arguably the first indication of Miles Davis’s restless creative spirit and desire to innovate. Tired of bebop, he assembled a short-lived nonet that included Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz, and Max Roa…
It’s been reissued before: frankly it should be reissued weekly, and made mandatory listening for anyone who thinks they know 70s glam rock. Essentially the best album Ziggy Stardust never made, it finds Bill Nelson, in his early twenties, fronting a spectacular band and throwing himself into the then prevalent sounds with commitment and chutzpah…
As off-the-wall rockers went, the Sect were kings, making even the Pretty Things look safe and sophisticated. Diminutive singer/guitarist Don Craine in his deerstalker hat contrasted wildly with the looming figure of bassist Keith Grant on crashing live shows, while their records veered from proto-punkish R’n’B to doom-laden shock rock to primi…
If The Whole Of The Moon remains The Waterboys’ de facto signature song, Fisherman’s Blues (released three years later in 1988) was, to all intents and purposes, the game-changing album. It looms large in their discography, its significance highlighted again by the 2013 bumper six-disc deeper dive into the sessions, Fisherman’s Box.
