With the Spiral Scratch EP, Buzzcocks became the first British band of the punk rock era to issue a do-it-yourself seven-inch. Everything was organised and paid for by the band: the recording session, the manufacture of the record and its sleeve, its design. It hit shops in January 1977.
Well this is rather groovy! National treasure and the man with that voice, Matt Berry has been locked away in his lair, channelling the early seventies and twiddling with lots of knobs. Save for the drums, he plays every instrument (all 19 of them) on this magical mystery tour de force – that includes piano, Wurlitzer, Mellotron, Moog, Hammond, Vox and Farfisa organs.
With over eight million copies sold in its 50-year lifespan, Déjà Vu was, as Cameron Crowe writes in the booklet accompanying this compendious four-CD edition, “one of the most famous second albums in rock history”.
At the end of 1976 Al Stewart talked to Melody Maker, contrasting how he was seen in America and the UK. He was in Los Angeles. “I haven’t played in England for nearly two years,” he told Harvey Kubernik. “The best way of looking at it was that I had Love Chronicles [his second album, issued in 1969], and I was getting a lot of good press. Then Zero She Flies and Orange were not as good, and consequently I received some bad press.
If you want to understand the psychic harm that prolonged lockdown can do to a man, then take a listen to Van Morrison's new 28-song set. Actually, you don't need to listen, the song titles say enough: “Where Have All the Rebels Gone?”; “Stop Bitching, Do Something”; “Deadbeat Saturday Night”; “They Own the Media”; “Why Are You on Facebook?”
Close to the back of Jon Savage’s 1991 book England’s Dreaming, there’s a section titled “Discography.” In this, he goes through the records which fed into and were spawned by punk rock and the Sex Pistols, the book’s subject. The wide-ranging selection begins with Fifties rock ’n roll and Max Bygraves, and ends with the “post-house dance music” of The Justified Ancients Of Mu and Renegade Soundwave.
Over 50 years into her career, Suzi Quatro could be forgiven for taking a break. And yet, last spring, staring down almost one hundred cancelled shows, her first instinct was not to put her feet up but to team up with her son Richard Tuckey on a new collection of songs as a follow-up to their recent collaboration on 2019’s No Control.
“They think it’s all drugs and sex up here, Mrs H.” “Bless me.” The reality, at Kitchenly Mill Race, runs more to a nice pot of Tetley’s and a plate of Gypsy Creams. But “people are funny around famous folk”. At this Tudor manor house in Sussex – boldly enhanced in the 1930s by an Arts-and-Crafts wing – resides none other than Marko Morrell, lead guitarist of prog-rock legends Fear Taker.