Table of contents for Issue 583 May in Record Collector

Incredible to think that it’s 28 years since I spent a couple of days – one in London, the other down at his Black Barn studio in Ripley, Surrey – with Paul Weller. I’d gone there to interview him for a front cover article that I was writing for the music magazine that I was working for back then. Even then he was punk’s grand old master, a veritable writing and recording machine, well into Stage three of his career after era-dominating phases with The Jam and The Style Council; even that long ago, the statistics were piling up and quite impressive: he was just about to release a solo single, Brand New Start, his 20th such release (and that’s not even counting his Jam or TSC 7”s). Him with…

Acoustic SUSS Counting Sunsets, with Pat Irwin (ex-The B-52’s), Northern Spy, 15 May. ★ Jeff Buckley Grace BDA, with Steven Wilson 5.1, Dolby Atmos mixes, Sony, 24 April. Due: April (17) Anana Kaye Are You There?, Meridian (24) Jim Lauderdale & The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys The Birds Know DL. Biz The UK Entertainment Retailers’ Association reported in March that high street shops increased their share of physical music sales from 31.7% in 2021 to 41.2 % in 2025, thanks to about 500 independent shops and 120 HMV stores. ★ The 3,800-capacity London Kensington Olympia West Hall British Airways ARC venue opens 16 June with Self Esteem. ★ The Townsend Exclusive Vinyl series was launched in March with Van Morrison Somebody Tried To Sell Me A Bridge 180g LP/gold 180 LP and Frank Turner Campfire Punkrock…

Duane Betts Isle Of Hope, Sun, 12 June: Robert Randolph, Jimmy Hall, Jason Isbell, Marcus King, Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr. Skid Row’s Rachel Bolan Bolan CD, LP, earMUSIC, 12 June: Skid Row, New York Dolls’ Steve Conte, Danko Jones, Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme), Corey Taylor (Slipknot), Damon Johnson (Lynyrd Skynyrd). Robin Beck Living Proof, Frontiers, 15 May: James Christian (House Of Lords), Tommy Denander (Radioactive). Bedouine Neon Summer Skin, Thirty Tigers, 5 June: Michael D’Addario, Brian D’Addario (The Lemon Twigs). BAG This House Is A Body, Phantom Limb, 29 May: Iggor Cavalera (Sepultura). Stephen Becker Gravity Blanket, One Is Three, 24 April: Jason Burger (Vanessa Carlton), Nora Stanley (The New Pornographers). Oteil Burbridge/Lamar Williams Jr The Offering, Floki Studios, 1 May: Melvin Seals (Jerry Garcia). Cro-Mags’ latest, [TBC]: Greyson Nekrutman (Sepultura).…

Along with fellow discographer, Howard Rye, you expanded the fifth edition to 1,500-plus pages. It’s come on since the first edition. In 1964, it was published as Blues & Gospel Records, 1902-1942, with 764 pages compiled by John Godrich (1926-91), who was a shipping clerk, and Robert MW Dixon, a linguist (born 1939). By the time that the fourth edition appeared in 1997, with Howard Rye as co-compiler, B&GR was 1,370 pages and covered 1890-1943. The first edition featured mainly commercial pre-war blues and gospel recordings. It was originally a guide for record collectors who wanted to know what they were listening to and what else existed. The heart of the book has always been what were originally called ‘race’ records. But it also documented field recordings held by the…

WAX AND WAYNE Ian Shirley talks to dancer and West End star, Wayne Sleep, about his 1982 one-off single Got a really interesting 12” by an artist called Wayne Sleep. Looking him up, he was a ballet dancer? It is a 12” single in a picture sleeve. The Tracks are Man To Man (Full Version), Man To Man (Edited Version) and Fugitive. The catalogue number is WS 01. Looks like it was self-pressed. There is a picture of Wayne on the front and it states that it came in a limited edition of 1,000 copies. Tony Slade via email Wayne Sleep was indeed a ballet dancer who was the lead male with the Royal Ballet from 1966. During the 70s he branched out into choreography and musical theatre (in productions…

ERIK GRONWALL Ex-Skid Row singer on his latest solo effort Tell us about the new album. It’s the most honest thing that I’ve released in a long time. It’s me answering the question, “Who the fuck is Erik Grönwall?” It’s unapologetically me. What film could it soundtrack? Deadpool. If you could re-visit any of your albums, what’d you change? I did the best that I could with what I knew at the time, but listening back to certain older songs with the knowledge that I have today, I might question a few song and production choices. I’d work more on the lyrics and vocals. Is there anything still unissued? There are early demos floating around that should probably never see the light of day! But you can hear the hunger…

Y KANT TORI READ Y Kant Tori Read (Atlantic 818451, LP, US, 1988) £50 The resounding flop before Little Earthquakes (cover concept: Tori poses with cutlass in a Bavarian barmaid’s dirndl) turns out to be a perfectly decent Tori Amos album, but with an LA gloss. TORI AMOS To Venus And Back (Atlantic 7567832422, 2CD, UK, 1999) £5 Under-celebrated double album, half-studio, half-live. The former half – electronica/trip hop plus pianos – is as brilliant as the more popular From The Choirgirl Hotel. American Doll Posse (Epic 82876861401, 2LP, US, 2007) £130 Amos splits into five personalities for a concept work; the ballads have a Harry Nilsson-esque poignancy and the up-tempos sound like elevated glam rock. Abnormally Attracted To Sin (Universal B 001290601, 2LP, US, 2009) £60 Gothic atmospheres (e.g. Give; Strong Black Vine)…

Musical Youth co-founder and guitarist Kelvin Grant is telling RC about the day the group hit No 1 with their 1982 single, Pass The Dutchie. Just 11 years of age at the time, he was walking back from a newsagents in Ealing, where he and the group were staying with friends, when a white limousine pulled up beside him. “The record company had sent it,” he says, a sense of disbelief still in his voice, talking to RC in February 2026. “It took us to their office. There were balloons hanging everywhere and a big cake. I said, ‘Who is this for?’ expecting some pop star to be there. The receptionist said, ‘You. You are No 1.’ I had no idea what that really meant but life changed immediately. That…

Did you feel you were making an album for the ages or one required in the cultural moment? The album was a gauche attempt at pop. It felt like a radical gesture to go there. It was a move away from the critically privileged ways of making music. Pop was the corrupted deviant alternative then. What was it that triggered Scritti’s transition from the scratchy, monochromatic, disjointed early EPs to the immaculate beauty of Songs To Remember? Who were the artists that affected your thinking? So the received wisdom was that post-punk, like jazz, was creative, authentic and unmediated. Whereas pop music was trivial, artificial and simple. That was nonsense and I wanted to show that I thought it was nonsense. The ideas of Derrida were important. The music of…

Like every other group of music fans in the world, the metal crowd is divided into young ’uns who actually care about new releases and old folk who prefer to stick to tried-and-tested stuff. This here column caters for both species of headbanger, so for the youths let’s dig into Lamb Of God’s ferocious new album Into Oblivion ( Century Media), their tenth effort since 2000. Although they’re a more sober and thoughtful bunch than the nutters they once were, this Richmond, Virginia quintet bring as much energy and focus to the music as they ever did, sample bangers here being Sepsis and Para Social, both heavyweight examples of the chug and the groove. Reggae and metal combine uniquely and brilliantly with the Welsh band Skindred, whose new album You Got…

Sugar enjoyed immediate critical and commercial success in the UK. Did that take you by surprise? Yeah. I spent all of 1991 doing solo touring to try out new material, so I had a good sense of the quality of the songs for Copper Blue and Beaster. Grunge was in full flight, shoegaze was popular in the UK, and I could sense that what I was doing could fit well next to either of those lanes. I was surprised at NME Album Of The Year (for Copper Blue), I was surprised at Beaster being No 3 on the national British charts. I didn’t see all that coming! Many grunge bands claimed a mix of punk and metal influences, but a lot of them sounded closer to Black Sabbath than the…

Queen Queen II (Collector’s Edition) Universal 7839742 (5CD, 2LP) It’s strange that 1974’s Queen 2 isn’t routinely cited as one of the holy texts of British Glam Rock. It gallops and gambols through great crashing waves of sublime showing off, always reaching to be fabulous. Queen soon became something else, their commercial explosion shunting them into self-parody and pantomime. But here – hungry, young, desperate to make it – they decided that nothing was over the top, that pretentiousness was fine as a launchpad and they’d rocket upwards into hysteria and histrionics from there. They were also a fantastic heavy rock band – hostile to synthesisers – with secondary notes of prog. So, enabled and encouraged by inspired producer Roy Thomas Baker, they made their big look-at-us statement, a bold…

Kneecap Fenian Heavenly HVNLP 232 RT (CD, LP) Tiocfaidh ár lá/Our day will come. That Irish Republican slogan, prominent in the works and performances of Kneecap, must at times over the Irish rap trio’s last 12 months have called to mind another well-known phrase: careful what you wish for. Because Kneecap’s day has come, in numerous senses. Their day in the sun (28 June 2025, when they delivered a televised set on the West Holt Stage at Glastonbury, despite covert efforts from numerous music business figures to have them kicked off), which became their day in The Sun, when Kier Starmer told that newspaper that Kneecap appearing at that festival was “not appropriate”. Their day in court (Mo Chara’s charge – later dismissed – under the Terrorism Act was for…

Failure Is Always An Option – Glorious Adventures On The Beta Band Front Line and Other Tales Steve Mason New Modern, £25 ISBN 9781917923576, 330 pages Failure Is Always An Option would be a very different book if Beta Band leader Steve Mason had written it a decade ago. Mason, or ‘Depressed Steve’ as he calls himself, was one of the first pop stars to talk openly about his mental health, at a time when it simply wasn’t done. Although he may not exactly be clicking his heels and crooning Whistle While You Work, he is in a good place to write a strong and measured memoir. It reads exactly as if Mason was saying it out loud: warm, open, eccentric and very Scottish. His strong sense of self-sabotage shines…

This month: Tami Lynn Soul singer Gloria Brown, better known as Tami Lynn, achieved a modicum of celebrity in this country with her 1971 Top 10 hit, I’m Gonna Run Away From You, collaborations with Dr John and cameo appearance on arguably The Rolling Stones’ best album. She was born in New Orleans, the home of Dixieland jazz and birthplace of Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong, and a melting pot of multicultural musical styles. She attended RT Dannell Elementary School, where she studied music alongside Allen Toussaint and Ellis Marsalis Jr, and joined several spiritual choirs such as the Clara Ward Singers. She appeared on Dr. Daddy-O’s Sunday Gospel Show on WMRY Radio, prompting Mahalia Jackson to declare that she would be a “fine singer” one day. In high…

SEND YOUR PRAISE, MISSIVES AND CALLS FOR THE DEIFICATION OF MICHAEL HEATLEY TO: rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk, or to Record Collector, 4th Floor, Harmsworth House, 13-15 Bouverie Street, London EC4Y 8DP, or via social media rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk www.recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Magazine @RecCollmag RecordCollectormag @recordcollectormag SHOE, WHAT, WHEN, WHY, HOW? I don’t know whether it’s intentional to get me to buy your magazine every month, but that’s the fourth months in a row you’ve advertised shoegaze in next month’s issue?! Hopefully, you won’t keep me waiting any longer and the feature will actually appear in May’s issue. Or are you just waiting for a shoegaze revival? Peter Morey, Felixstowe Ha, thanks for bearing with us re: the multiple shoegazing teases. It needs 10 pages, is the problem, so, hopefully, it’ll be in the next (June)…

Marking 30 years since Spice Girls issued their Wannabe debut single, the Royal Mint on 3 March unveiled a £5 coin featuring the group, along with 15,000-copy colour coin editions featuring Baby, Posh, Ginger, Scary and Sporty designs. In addition, it made available a 150-copy print, the 5,000-copy 1oz silver proof colour coin, 200-copy 0.25oz gold proof coin, 500-copy 2oz silver proof coin, 250-copy 5oz silver proof coin, 96-copy 1oz gold proof coin and 30-copy 20z gold proof coin. See royalmint.com.…

COMMERCIAL BREAK Jemma Patton talks to Gaye Advert and Henry Rollins about the release of two previously unheard 1970s recordings by The Adverts Henry Rollins sparked excitement last year by announcing that he was working on a new project. Rumours circulated that perhaps he and his lifelong friend, Fugazi’s Ian McKaye, were collaborating. But then Rollins revealed that the project didn’t actually feature either of them. A huge punk rock fan and collector, he had received a message from The Adverts’ bass player Gaye Advert; what followed was the saving and releasing of two previously unheard Adverts recordings. RC spoke to Rollins and Gaye Advert to find out more. Rollins tells RC: “Months ago, Gaye Advert contacted me and said she had a tape in her home studio and asked…

Phil Campbell, died 13 March, age 64. The rock musician was the long-time guitarist for Motörhead. Born in Pontypridd, Wales, he played with local groups Contrast and Roktopus before co-founding the NWOBHM act, Persian Risk, in 1979. He went on to play on two of their singles, 1981’s Calling For You and 1983’s Ridin’ High. Following Brian Robertson’s departure from Motörhead in 1984, he auditioned for the vacant role alongside Michael “Würzel” Burston. After hearing the two guitarists play together, frontman Lemmy Kilmister decided to hire them both. First performing on Motörhead’s 1986 album, Orgasmatron, he went on to contribute to 16 albums with the band in total including Bastards (1993) Motörizer (2008), and Aftershock (2013). After Motörhead disbanded following Lemmy’s death in 2015, the guitarist formed Phil Campbell &…

Singer-songwriter Marty Wilde rose to prominence in the 50s and 60s as part of the UK’s first generation of homegrown rock’n’rollers. In later years, he helped guide the career of his daughter, Kim Wilde, penning several of her biggest hits. His latest solo album, Let’s Rock This Place, marks a return to his vintage roots. As you’ve become older, have you come to appreciate your importance in the history of UK music? I never, ever think of it. Like so many other artists – they very rarely think of it. All of us are so damn self-critical. I always think everybody else is great, and I’m in the lowest order of rock’n’roll. I was the Skoda of rock’n’roll! I was cheap, I was available, but I wasn’t the best. I’m…

Born in Rochester, New York, in 1950, the young Lou Gramm was surrounded by music. His father, Bennie Grammatico, was a band leader and trumpeter; his mother, Nikki, sang with her husband’s group. Gramm can pinpoint the exact moment his ambition to become a professional musician blossomed. “It was as soon as I saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show,” he recalls, in a Zoom call from his home in Webster, New York State. “That turned the corner for me.” That would have been in 1964 or ’65, but Gramm was already playing music by then. “I was eight years old when I started taking drum lessons. When you play drums, all four appendages are doing different things at the same time. I really enjoyed that.” Post-high school, Gramm…

The Madfish label, an imprint of Snapper, has for the last decade produced definitive sets of British and Irish bands under the direction of Ian Crockett. Subjects have included Family, Wishbone Ash, Gentle Giant, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and Al Stewart. As Universal had released their own, now sought-after box set of Harvey studio highlights a decade ago, Scots-born Crockett took a different tack. Talking in Snapper’s central London offices, he explained its provenance. “It was my idea, probably two to three years ago, to produce a different animal – purely The Sensational Alex Harvey Band from 1973 to 1977, all live and licensed from the band, in a limited edition of 2,000. So, I phoned Dave Batchelor, who had seven unreleased soundboard recordings from the 1975 and ’76 tour. I…

Scritti Politti Songs To Remember Rough Trade RTO 565 LP (LP) NME’s C81 cassette, issued in 1981 and available on receipt of coupons and a postal order, was a far superior collection than the more storied but altogether greyer, duller, smaller C86. It reflected the radically eclectic tastes of its staff and writers. No more so than its opening track, The “Sweetest Girl” by Scritti Politti. On the basis of the EPs they had released thus far one might have expected something in the distinctly post-structural post-punk vein, scratchy, disjointed. The “Sweetest Girl” was, however, an absolute revelation, a butterfly fluttering free from a squirming indie chrysalis. Atop a river of plaintive keyboards from Rough Trade stablemate Robert Wyatt, Green Gartside delivered an exquisitely turned, creamy, seductive pop masterpiece, absorbed…

Various Artists Soul To Soul Wienerworld LIB 2192 (CD, LP) In February 1971, a host of US soul, gospel and jazz singers arrived in Ghana to take part in a festival to celebrate 14 years of west African independence. The landmark concert took place on March 6 at Black Star Square in Accra, the spot where independence was declared, with such acts as Wilson Pickett, the Staple Singers, the Voices Of East Harlem and Ike and Tina Turner socking it to a 100,000 strong audience over 14 straight hours. The affair was documented by director Denis Sanders in Soul To Soul, a truly great concert flick that sits alongside WattStax and Summer of Soul in capturing the soulful expression of the black experience. This month sees its reissue on DVD…

Sugar File Under Easy Listening The Singles Collection BMG 964211891 (3LP) In the late 70s and early 80s, there were better known punk scenes than the one centered around Minnesota’s Twin Cities, but with Hüsker Dü in Saint Paul, and the Replacements in Minneapolis, it punched way above its weight in terms of impact. Though Nirvana and Green Day cited Hüsker Dü as a key influence, they’d been out of commission for four years when Nevermind (1991) opened the floodgates for the revolution they’d helped to inspire. By 1992, frontman Bob Mould had begun preparations for his third solo album, when the chemistry with newly recruited bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis convinced him he had a vital new band on his hands, swiftly christened Sugar. By year’s end,…

The D’Addario brothers on experimenting, updating Eddie Cochran and being heckled by Brian Wilson I know you’re both prolific songwriters. How do you figure out what makes it onto the album? MD: Some songs we’ll be really excited about but just can’t finish the words and they sit around forever until one day they’re finally done. And some songs, you don’t know if they’re going to be that good until you record them. BD: Fire And Gold was one that was finished right before we decided to record it. So that felt like an experiment when we were actually laying it down. It’s rare for us to not have any sort of demo beforehand. Look For Your Mind was like that, too. We had an idea of how we wanted it…

Kevin Morby Little Wide Open Dead Oceans DOC 391 LP C 1 V 1 (CD, 2LP) What does 20 years on the road do to a man? The endless highways, the vast landscapes, the itinerant life in half-familiar small towns, the constant haze of the morning after the night before? Even for a natural born troubadour like Kevin Morby, it can take a toll. “I’m still happy to be breathing in,” he confesses on Javelin, the lead track from eighth album Little Wide Open, as he contemplates how a life spent pursuing dreams while chronicling Midwest America can sometimes feel a lot like getting thrown around; especially when the lifestyle runs concurrently with that of your partner, singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield. It’s one of many such admissions on an album that…

Charm School Schadenfreude Ploy Surprise Mind / SMR 002 (Cass) This lot are endorsed by fellow Louisville resident Will Oldham, aka Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, but do not expect his trademark gentle alt-folk. No, it reminds Ol’ Willy of the crazy stuff that came after punk, in the 80s. Indeed, in Charm School can be heard echoes of Flipper, The Birthday Party, Scratch Acid, Cows and the like. The EP’s title track rattles along raucously, threatening to career off the rails at several junctures. They nearly make it to the three-and-a-half-minute mark before crashing to a halt. Scene Queen is more straightforwardly punk. What it lacks in melody it compensates with pace and energy. Two slower grinders follow. Disgrace has shades of chanty noiseniks from the 2000s, such as Sightings, Liars…

The Bluetones May (20) Swansea Bunkhouse (21) Worcester Marrs Bar (23) Stowmarket John Peel Centre (24) Nuneaton Queen’s Hall Madison Beer May (30) Greenwich O2 (31) Manchester Co-op Live Black Label Society May (28) Glasgow O2 Academy (29) London Kentish Town O2 Forum (30) Bournemouth O2 Academy D:REAM May (28) London Shepherd’s Bush Bush Hall (29) Leeds Brudenell Thomas Dolby May (15) Manchester O2 Ritz (16) Bournemouth O2 Academy (17) Bristol O2 Academy (20) Birmingham O2 Institute (21) London Shepherd’s Bush O2 Empire (24) Leeds O2 Academy (27) Edinburgh Queen’s Hall Haircut One Hundred May (1) London Palladium (2) Coventry Warwick Arts Centre (3) Poole Lighthouse (7) Cambridge Corn Exchange (8) York Barbican (9) Manchester Albert Hall (10) Glasgow Pavilion (14) Bath Forum (15) Bexhill De La Warr Pavilion (16)…

This month: Fischer-Z Anyone familiar with the music Fischer-Z made during the late 70s and early 80s likely recalls a proficient, if slightly brittle-sounding new wave outfit with a penchant for white reggae akin to The Police. Guitarist and frontman John Watts’ passionate, high-register vocal delivery and lyrical dexterity also set him apart – though the widely held belief that he was a bookish intellectual is some way wide of the mark. “I’ve no problem with taking the audience on, and the first gig we ever played in Germany turned into a huge fight,” Watts tells RC today. “Our United Artists labelmates, The Stranglers, were well-known tough guys, but they were really wary of me. They kept well away because they thought I was a psychopath rather than a psychologist.”…

Lois Wilson marvelled at Paul Weller’s (p74) jukebox and the blooms in his back garden. She also discovered Musical Youth’s (p70) 60s Jamaican roots. Chris Wheatley is a writer and music journalist based in Oxford. This month he talks to Foreigner’s Lou Gramm (p56) about career highs, lows, and becoming an AOR legend. Michael Heatley first experienced The Sensational Alex Harvey Band (p60) live at the inaugural Knebworth Festival in 1974. Three decades later he encountered them again on the road: Vambo still rooled, and does today! Jemma Patton chats to Henry Rollins and Gaye Advert (p34) about the release of previously unheard Adverts recordings, and their views on the future of punk. She was disappointed, but not surprised, that Rollins didn’t remember meeting her at the 1992 Reading Festival.…

A’s singer on their first studio set in 20 years How come you’re back now? Because usually we spend two years per song and we’ve done 11 and a half, so you do the maths! It’s somewhere between our second album, Monkey Kong, and our third, Hi-Fi Serious. Were there any amusing episodes during its creation? We had a good time and lots of barbecues. How long did it take? About 18 months, though most of the songs were written very quickly. It was only when we wrote our first song back, Hello Sunshine, that we knew we could make an album and, since then, we’ve been in full-on album mode. What happened during the interregnum? I’ve been a record producer and have a TV show, Song Cake. Where have…

The Thin Wild Mercury Dylan 1966 exhibition is due this summer at the Bob Dylan Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma. ★ KISS’ Paul Stanley has an art exhibition at Wentworth Gallery, Tysons Galleria, International Drive Mall, McLean, Virginia, 2-3 May, and Elvis Costello has one at The Mall At Short Hills, Morris Turnpike, Shirt Hills, New Jersey, 29 May. ★ Jack White These Thoughts May Disappear art exhibition is at London Newport Street Gallery, 29 May-13 September. ★ Ace Frehley stage wear and guitars (one estimated at $600,000) are on display, 28-29 April, at Tokyo Hard Rock Roppongi, and 13-29 May at New York Hard Rock Café. They feature in a 29-30 May Music Icons auction via juliensauctions.com, which includes guitars from Stevie Ray Vaughan ($500,000), Metallica ($350,000), Guns N’ Roses ($50,000), The…

The US RIAA announced in March that vinyl sales rose there 9.3 per cent in 2025 to 46.8 million units, while the IFPI revealed that global revenues from new vinyl sales increased 13.7 per cent to top $1 billion for the first time since 1983 (reaching $1.04bn). New CD sales revenues rose globally by 3.7 per cent and music videos by 10.8 per cent, with overall physical format revenues up 8 per cent in 2025. Overall, new recorded music revenues in the UK rose by 5 per cent to £1.57bn, while the total in the US was up 3 per cent to $11.54bn. In addition, Midia Research surveys found that global recorded music revenues including live/merchandising rose in 2025 by 9.4 per cent to $39.5 bn, with that particular sector…

On the book front, on 15 May, Liam Colner David Bowie: From Berlin With Modern Love is on Wymer, followed by Mick Wall Bowie Takes America, Diversion, 21 May, Claudio Fabretti David Bowie: Forever And Ever, Schiffer, 1 June, Tobias Ruther Heroes: David Bowie And Berlin, Reaktion, 1 July, Geoff MacCormack/Jerome Soligny David Bowie: Music Lover – The Inside Story Of David Bowie’s Record Collection, ACC Art Books, 15 September. The Bowie Mio Fratello photo exhibition is at Spazio Musa, Via Della Consolata, Turin, Italy, 17 April-12 July; the Bowie France Convention is at La Java, Rue Du Foubourg De Temple, Paris, France, 14 June; the Cosmic Voyager – A Tribute To David Bowie exhibition is at Cleveland Museum Of Natural History Shafran Planetarium, US, to 30 August; and the Late…

Q&A Label boss: Grégoire Maus and Nicolas Michaux Interview: Charles Donovan Where are you based, what do you do and why? Grégoire Maus: We’re based between Brussels and Paris, and run an artist-owned, artist-driven label. We put out beautiful records by artists who have something to say – musically, lyrically, emotionally. Capitane Records is the discographic wing of Capitane Coop, an artist collective. The idea is pretty simple: to keep control over our music, our time and our working conditions and to experiment with post-capitalist ways of making records together. Why the name? Nicolas Michaux: It comes from Akira Kurosawa’s film Dersu Uzala, which tells the story of a deep friendship between a Russian army officer, Vladimir Arseniev, and a hunter, Dersu, travelling together through the taiga. Throughout the film,…

I’ve always wanted to write a rock novel. I don’t know why. There’s something about the sheer difficulty of conveying the way music makes people feel through the medium of the written word which interests me. I mean, it’s impossible: rock novels are like movies about fashion – it’s impossible to capture the sheer insanity (and inanity) of the music business. Why? Because whatever you say about it, and however you try and encapsulate the madness and the excess, it’s never enough. Just as people bang on nowadays about “you can’t satirise the news, it’s too deranged” (you can, you just need to try harder), so it’s hard to satirise rock music. For every excess you make up in a book, there’s a real one that’s 10 times as excessive…

“You shush yourself down now.” This might read like something a camp 1970s gameshow host would say to an over-enthusiastic contestant. But sung by Tori Amos at the start of her new album, it is blood-run-cold chilling. In Times Of Dragons is a Margaret-Atwood-meets-JRR Tolkien concept work centred on a despotic billionaire – the “Lizard Demon” – and the wife who escapes him. The wife is a what-if version of Amos: the woman she might have become had she chosen wealth/proximity to power instead of art and independence in the 90s. As the story unfolds, she goes on the run, slowly transforming into a dragon, aided by mythological allies as her husband plots to create a women-subjugating plutocracy. Political statements in music tend to invite mockery and at least one…

Foreigner 4 (Atlantic ATL 50 796, LP, UK, 1981) £15 The band’s fourth LP saw them firmly established as kings of smooth rock territory. Featuring Motown great, Junior Parker, and a young Thomas Dolby. Journey Escape (Columbia TC 37408, LP, US, 1981) £15 Technicolor dreams polished up to near perfection. Don’t Stop Believin’ is the epitome of AOR. Boston Boston (Epic S EPC 81611, LP, UK, 1976) £20 As slick as slick can get. Wistful hooks, rocking anthems and pure vocals. Oozing with crowd-pleasing charm. Toto IV (CBS CBS 85529, LP, Europe, 1982) £10 Packed to the gills with unimpeachable rock-pop burnished to a gleaming shine. Starship Knee Deep In The Hoopla (Grunt FL 85488, LP, UK, 1985) £10 The (formerly Jefferson) Starship takes off with this, their debut, which…

What was the ‘X factor’ that made SAHB a unique live act? Disparate minds and conflicting egos are always a good start. Alex saw the potential of deploying his idea of an overall visual persona. The dynamic worked almost immediately, as Alex and I formed a very healthy and often hilarious rivalry for stealing the limelight. It was this that fuelled the band’s extreme originality. And Alex revelled in his role as artistic director. Where did he learn to handle the audience the way he did? Did things ever go wrong? Alex had worked in the Star-Club in Hamburg, at the same time as The Beatles. He was brought up in the era of Elvis and Little Richard. I think something of that showbiz persona got into his blood. He…

What Was | Made For? Recorded for BBC Sofa Session at Maida Vale. First transmitted 12 June 2024. “One of the things I love about music is how we all pass it around. I hear stuff off my kids that they are into, some of it I like, some of it I don’t, and they hear stuff I am into and again they like some of it, so it just goes around. I heard Billie Eilish’s What Was I Made For? through Nova, my youngest daughter. She’s a big Billie Eilish fan and I just love the song. It’s a great lyric, a very clever lyric. I found the chords to the track while Nova was playing it, and I could imagine how it could be and how it could…

Founded in 1947 by jazz impresario Joe Segal, whose centenary is this year, Chicago’s storied Jazz Showcase venue has hosted (and recorded) some of jazz’s greatest musicians, from Count Basie to Sun Ra. Although Segal died in 2020, his son, Wayne, keeps the venue alive. Now he’s teamed up with producer Zev Feldman to release some of the treasures from the venue’s prized recorded archive. First in the queue is a 1978 concert by saxophone master JOE HENDERSON leading a well-oiled group comprising pianist Joanne Brackeen, bassist Steve Rodby, and drummer Danny Spencer. That particular concert is now released on CD and as an RSD 3LP pack, as Consonance: Live at the Jazz Showcase Resonance), in which Henderson delivers epic extended versions of some of his classic tunes, including Recorda Me,…

PAT KELLY had one of the most distinctive and soulful voices in Jamaican music: an instantly recognisable tenor which seemed to gain in intensity on the top notes. This golden voice brought him success as a vocal group member, when in 1967 he led The Techniques on the flawless rocksteady of You Don’t Care and, a couple of years later, as a solo singer whose How Long Will It Take was a huge seller and was followed by further hits. Yet Pat was not a full-time musician - a bright sort of fellow, he had gained a degree in electronics and earned his daily bread as a studio engineer. In 1979, the part-time star went into Channel One Studio with producer Phil Pratt to record the LP which sees reissue…

All You Good People: Britpop & Beyond, 1995-1999 Cherry Red CRCD 4 BOX 205 (4CD) The post-Britpop comedown never sounded so good You won’t find Blur, Oasis or Suede on this stacked compilation of post-Britpop nostalgia, even if these well-curated four CDs to contain some of the movement’s latter-day gems – Pulp’s Mis-Shapes, Elastica’s Waking Up, and Echobelly’s Great Things are all here. All You Good People… does an even better job mapping out Britpop’s many evolutions into psychedelic dreampop (Doves), indie-pop (Wannadies), retro rock (Reef), and feminist punk (Bis, Kenickie, Lush). And, for good measure, the compilation even features righteously shambling songs by the Fall (F-’oldin’ Money), Idlewild (Everyone Says You’re So Fragile) and The Jesus & Mary Chain (I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll). In the end, All You…

The Lemon Twigs Look For Your Mind! Captured Tracks CT390LPC1 (CD/LP) If even The Lemon Twigs – preternaturally talented, multi-instrumentalist, pop savant brothers Brian and Michael d’Addario – are feeling under threat thanks to the brave new world of AI, then we’re all in trouble. “I’ve been beaten up so black and blue, and now I’m feeling mean/They’re gonna take my job and give it to a metal machine,” howls Brian on Bring You Down, having already kicked out against rent hikes, wage freezes, the effect of the cost of living crisis and gig economy job conditions. That his concerns are set to surf-rock so lethal it’d give Dick Dale a nosebleed, backed with pitch-perfect Beach Boys ’63 harmonies, only makes them that bit more vital. If Bring You Down…

Wat’s it like being Steve Mason, author, rather than Steve Mason, musician? It’s not something I’ve done before, and this is almost like the first interview for the first record, Champion Versions. I’d never spoken about a record that I’d written before, and now, I’ve never written a book. There are all kinds of worries, but I’m really happy with it. What worries? That people would assume it was just a book about The Beta Band and nothing else, and it was never my intention to write that. That’s how I sold it to the publishers, was, that it was to be a book about various things that happened to me throughout my life. Did anything catch you by surprise? There was a point when I was writing about myself…

Sell Vinyl/CDs direct to RC readers, call us on 0208 752 8172 or email listings@recordcollectormag.com. Rates: recordcollectormag.com/advertise NEXT ISSUE: JUNE ISSUE 2026 (on sale 14 MAY) Deadline for submitting adverts (Listings & Classified): Monday 20 APRIL Please email your advert (Word doc/Excel file/plain text) to: listings@recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Listings, Diamond Publishing Limited 4th Floor, Harmsworth House, 13-15 Bouverie Street, London EC4Y 8DP Following issue: JULY 2026 (on sale 10 JUNE) Deadline: Monday 18 MAY…

Mr Bloe Groovin’ With Mr Bloe (DJM DJS 216, 7”, UK, 1970) £5 When I was about six, my nan got me records from the junk shop near my grandparents’ newsagents in Brighton, but they didn’t have sleeves, so she made some out of their candystripe sweet bags. One of them was Groovin’ With Mr Bloe. It’s the first instrumental I really loved; that and the Persuaders theme. It’s probably the record I’ve played more than any other when DJing. Sparks Amateur Hour (Island WIP 6203, 7”, UK, 1974) £2 The first record I bought with my own money, in Woolworths in Redhill. It taught me how the best glam had to be very concise. Amateur Hour’s a good example: not a wasted second, hook after hook, and the production’s…

The Last Poets The Last Poets (Douglas 3, LP, US, 1970) £30 An essential signpost along the way to hip hop and rap, poetry collective The Last Poets came out of East Harlem, New York City, in 1968. Combining socially conscious, eloquent, and politically minded lyrics with a stripped back, funky jazz-inflected backdrop, this, their debut recording, is hypnotic and powerful. In approach, style, rhythm and attitude, these tracks foreshadow much of which was to come. Little wonder the band was later sampled by Nas, NWA, Notorious BIG, A Tribe Called Quest, and many more. Murray Lachlan-Young Vice & Verse (EMI CDEMCS 3767, CD, UK, 1997) £10 An intelligent writer of great charisma, Lachlan-Young absorbs the zeitgeist, twists it inside out, and plays it back with such good-natured wit that…