for those who never gave up their turntables
THERE ARE LOADS OF STUFF on the Internet about the Moody Blues, the super-successful, much beloved group fabgear pop-rock that critics just can’t seem to stop hating! Yet there is almost nothing on the origins of the group’s first music video for their Go Now single of 1964. A piece [Continue reading]
WAY BACK ON JULY 31, 2014, Bill Tobelman of Good Humor Smile fame (if not fortune) posted a link to a promotional video that the Troggs had made for their single Love Is All Around in 1966 on his Facebook page. He noted that this was “Another cool promo film from these guys.” [Continue reading]
IN THE EARLY ’70s, I discovered that when a British fan bought a copy of the Beatles’ 1965 album HELP! on Parlophone in the UK, he got a Beatles album with fourteen new Beatles recordings. When an American fan bought the same title on Capitol in the US, he got an “original soundtrack album” with only seven new Beatles recordings! [Continue reading]
A FEW DAYS AGO, I posted a piece titled “tears are falling and I feel the pain” in which I offered a few words on Del Shannon and the briefest of introductions to his music by including links to YouTube to hear a sampling of his recordings. In the article, I mentioned a “song he wrote and arranged as a nod to the British Invasion: I Go To Pieces, which was an international hit for Peter & Gordon. [Continue reading]
WE OLDER ROCK FAN—meaning fans of pre-Beatles rock & roll—were surprised back in 1973 when United Artists released a new album by an artist we hadn’t heard from in a while. Del Shannon was being peddled as a One Hit Wonder (“tears are falling and I feel the pain”) on oldies stations. [Continue reading]
THIS IS THE FIFTH of five articles devoted to the trio of albums and their related singles that Chad & Jeremy released in 1967-1968. OF CABBAGES AND KINGS and THE ARK and the soundtrack to 3 IN THE ATTIC reflect the more ‘pop’-oriented psychedelicism of the English musicians at the time and have long been held in a bit of contempt by older aficionados and collectors of Sixties psych. [Continue reading]
I MOVED FROM PENNSYLVANIA TO CALIFORNIA in 1978, ending up in Napa. It was a nice little city that more or less served as the northbound gateway to the wine country. I immediately made friends with the owner of the city’s only used-record store, who I will call Haitch. [Continue reading]
IT’S 6:36 IN THE MORNING and I had just dropped Berni off at work. I turned on the radio to the oldies station and lo and behold, there was Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Blinded By The Light.’ Delighted I sat back and listened, then realized that I had never heard the record on the radio before! [Continue reading]
EARLIER THIS YEAR, I posted my first Amazon review, this one of the Rolling Stones’ album THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES REQUEST. It had the over-long and grammatically cumbersome title of “Clearly their answer to PET SOUNDS—or at least Good Vibrations—SGT. PEPPER is actually as disparate an artifact as REVOLVER.” [Continue reading]