The Bee Gees – Extended

…otherwise known as Record Store Day 2015 indulgence part 2.

I can’t say I have ever been a particularly big Bee Gees fan but I can’t deny them their place in popular music history, they really did have an astonishing career. Forming in 1958 (yes 1958!) and selling a shade over 200m records, Robin, Barry and Maurice Gibb never really got the praise they deserved and were easy targets for mickey-taking, some less affectionate than others. In the UK their popularity came in waves, principally in the late 1960’s (Massachussets, Gotta Get a Message to You), the mid to late 1970’s (Saturday Night Fever) and the mid to late 1980’s (writing for Diana Ross, You Win Again, etc). Lots of people I know say they don’t like the Bee Gees. I don’t believe any of them.

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Teenage Fanclub – What You Do To Me (1992)

By most people’s reckoning, 1991 was a strong year for albums (apart from those a little older who cite 1972. Whatever). Screamadelica, Out of Time, Loveless, Blue Lines, Achtung Baby. Oh and err… Nevermind of course. So, it might surprise you to know that Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque (from where What You Do To Me came) finished above all but Nirvana’s grunge-juggernaut in NME’s end of year top albums poll, beating even that Spin magazine’s own list.
Not bad for a band who were once described (to me at least) as sounding like listening to your Dad mowing the lawn.

S ‘Xpress – Hey Music Lover (Spatial Expansion Mix) (1989)

You know when you think you are the only one who knows or loves a particular record or band and then all of a sudden you find out someone else feels the same? And that’s sort of a good thing for a while until there’s someone else. And then another person. And another… And all of a sudden it’s not yours any more

The Art of the 12″ Single – an update

You may have read an earlier post about my mild anxiety over the forthcoming Record Club 12″ single night I am organising. Two months later and those anxieties are soothed somewhat by the swell of support (and offer of vinyl) from fellow Clubbers.

So over the next few weeks I’ll be posting thoughts on some of the records I will be playing on the night at the end of January. They will come from my own modest collection or from fellow Clubbers. Come January, if you click on the Art of the 12″ Single category you’ll have a pretty good idea of how the night will sound.

So keep your eyes peeled and your ears… err… peeled and we’ll begin.

The Art of the 12” Single. And a Cry for Help.

Much of my vinyl attic “archive” (as I never refer to it) is made up of 12” singles. I think the first one I ever bought was Thompson Twins’ King For a Day picture disc, sadly no longer in my possession and probably thrown out when my sense of undergraduate post-modern irony was underdeveloped. Which makes me wonder what that Rick Astley one is still doing in there…? And that’s where my problem lies…