My name is Simon and I have a download problem.More specifically, I have a Bruce Springsteen download problem. One of the joys of being a Springsteen fan is that no two shows of his are ever the same – he really does change the setlist every night, and even then rarely keeps exactly to what he wrote down before the show. When he does multi-night stands in one place, it changes even more.So there’s always Continue Reading
Live Review: The Unthanks. St George’s, Bristol 1 May 2019
Gigs on consecutive nights! I think I’ve only done that once before, when I saw The Strypes at the Thekla on the night before a classical concert at St George’s – not the greatest of scheduling given how loud The Strypes were! The contrast between Tuesday’s Tubular Bells for Two and Wednesday’s Unthanks show couldn’t be greater – something like 20 instruments on stage for TB, no instruments for The Unthanks. I think they had Continue Reading
Live Review: Tubular Bells for Two. St George’s, Bristol 30 April 2019
When I saw something called “Tubular Bells For Two” in the listings for St George’s, I thought it had to be worth investigating. Mike Oldfield’s album is one of my absolute favourites and will always feature in my all-time top 10 albums – I usually have it on my phone and do listen to it fairly frequently. It turns out that TB For Two is a performance by two Australian multi-instrumentalists (Aiden Roberts and Tom Continue Reading
Buying Vinyl – Toyah
The car boot sale this morning had thin pickings, apart from one stall with masses of pretty good looking vinyl – as long as you like 50s rock n roll. Which doesn’t really do it for me. The only thing of real interest I found was a 10″ Django Reinhardt record, with Stephane Grapelli – it’s actually a Hot Club de France record, and they are very listenable. The best buy of recent days came Continue Reading
Terry Riley – St George’s, Bristol. 13th April 2019
I was quite surprised when I saw this concert in the listings for St George’s in Bristol. What, the Terry Riley? At the lovely little 500 seater venue in Bristol?Yes, that Terry Riley – he of “In C”, “A Rainbow in Curved Air”, half of the inspiration for Baba O’Riley by The Who, and one of the pioneers of minimalist music. So we booked.As an aside, it was really unfortunate timing, as we then found Continue Reading
The Modern Jazz Quartet – LPJT56
I found this in my dad’s collection a couple of weeks ago, and I’d bought one of their LPs earlier in the year – fortunately not the same one. This is rather pleasant listenable jazz, recorded in the mid 1950s. The main difference is that while it has your regular piano, upright bass and drums, they also have a virtuoso vibraphobe player. Vibes have a unique sound – warmer and fuller than a glockenspiel or Continue Reading
Reading List
As this blog is supposed to about more than just records and gigs, I thought I would start its new iteration with a reading list – some of the music books that I’ve read and some I plan to read. Joe Boyd “White Bicycles” – I read this on the back of his work with Fairport Convention – someone who seemed to be there at every key event in the 60s Glyn Johns “Sound Man” Continue Reading
An update…
So here we are with this new blog, which replaces the “My Dad’s Vinyl” Tumblr account. I’ve copied all of the Tumblr posts over to here, and have supplemented it with some Twitter posts from the last couple of years, which might hopefully give a feel for the sort of thing I want to do on here.
Charity Shop Pickings
Aretha Franklin: I picked this up at a charity shop today and it’s just as good as you’d hope – the disc is in tip-top condition too, not a pop or click on it. A definite keeper. I also took a punt on this – I’m not a huge fan of big band/swing stuff but I’d heard of Gene Krupa and an album by two drummers sounded interesting. And it’s great, unchallenging listening, drums to Continue Reading
An Evening’s Listening
And we’re back – I’ve been digging through my dad’s vinyl today and cataloguing, so we’re listening to some of it to see if we want to keep it. First up this evening, Peter Paul and Mary. Yeah, not great. Anything with a song called “I dig rock and roll music” is trying too hard to be down with the trendy hepcats. We’re hanging on for Puff the Magic Dragon… Not a keeper. Average of Continue Reading