Music

Gordon Giltrap free gig; GeogAss festivities… & lectures!

50 Years Ago… a good day with a free lunchtime gig and a GeogAss party in the evening. Some prescient lectures too!
Bandy Legs, Medicine Head & Loschian Models – a perfect day for a student

Pretty much a perfect day – for me as a student in London in 1976. Morning and afternoon lectures, lunchtime and evening gigs, plenty of beer – all for £2.91!
Morning exam; evening gig – Kursaal Flyers & Eddie and the Hot Rods for 85p!

Fifty years ago: after a harrowing exam it was good to make it to the Marquee in London’s Soho for a gig – two bands for 85p!
So, where did Syd Barrett get the idea to call his new band ‘Pink Floyd’?

You may never have heard of Pink Anderson, but you will certainly know Pink Floyd. What is the connection between the two?
The Leyton Buzzards: Saturday Night Beneath the Plastic Palm Trees.

The Leyton Buzzards were a minor punk/new wave band but they did some good stuff – and they headlined a Rock Against Racism gig at the LSE.

Ian Dury & the Blockheads were hoping for a No.1 with Sueperman’s Big Sister – but it wasn’t to be…

Ian Dury & The Blockheads were hoping for a No.1 with the 100th single on the Stiff Records label – but it was a flop. I can see why. The ‘b’ side was good though…
UFO/No Sound Is Too Taboo – a superb album you will not find on streaming services

Some of the best albums are not available on streaming services – No Sound Is Too Taboo is one of them and is not only excellent but certainly lives up to its name.
AC/DC, Gordon Giltrap, Wishbone Ash, Colosseum II, Split Enz, Stretch… great gigs in 1976; how many do you remember?

From the London college scene to large venues and small clubs – I was at a lot of gigs in ’76. Eric Clapton and Curved Air at Torquay Town Hall; Genesis and Caravan in London; John Martyn and Kevin Coyne at the London School of Economics.
A psychedelic fuzzed & funk’d up Goat from Sweden

New LP from Swedish band Goat is lively, fun, mellow, and well & truly fuzzed and funk’d up!
Roy Harper: what should have been a great gig was marred by a weird audience

A gig that was pretty unpleasant, not because of the artist but because of the audience.

John Otway, sans Wild Willy?! Just John at the Torquay gig; Willy had testicular accident…

21 Dec 77: an evening at the 400 Club in Torquay to enjoy John Otway, beer & friends. But where was Wild Willy Barrett?
Dave Edmunds’ Rockpile headlining; so who were these men in black bin bags called Ultravox?

26 Feb 77: Dave Edmunds’ Rockpile headlining – and very good – but many were for an answer to the question: who are Ultravox?
Jazz Is Dead 15: listening to this brought back memories of the band Redbone – remember them?

An excellent Jazz release that combines rich latin, jazz, jazz-funk and Afro-Cuban sounds; complex yet accessible; thoughtful yet danceable.
Blues to Bliss: enjoying a rest from writing a lengthy blog post

Remembering New Orleans gave me a taste for funk – plus jazz, blues and an excellent beer. The thought of not being able to go back made me feel blue for a moment – but that’s all gone now!
From Caravan to AC/DC in one day

12 May 76: listening to Caravan in the morning and down to the Marquee in the evening for a completely unknown band called AC/DC…
There is nothing quite like seeing your favourite band live on stage; living in London – and within walking distance of venues like the Brixton Academy – made it easy. Looking back, 1992 seems to have been a particularly good year…

For some reason I seem to have saved quite a few concert tickets over the years, and sifting through them the year 1992 stands out as a particularly good vintage – for me at least.
National Health @ LSE – prog rock, jazz fusion & the Canterbury Scene

I sometimes forget that jazz fusion was big in the 70’s, with Brand X (Phil Collin’s band) being my favourite at the time (and now!)
Great Music new & old: Weather Station & Gentle Giant

Ignorance by Weather Station released February 2021 and Octopus by Gentle Giant released in December 1972. Two records for people who really like music.
Steel Pulse, Graham Parker, The Damned… & the Crazy World of Arthur Brown – live in 1977

Second year at Uni and I was engrossed in Ents (entertainments), beer, music and gigs. No wonder I only scraped through exams!
It was late; we were huddled in a student flat in London and had no idea we were about to witness The Birth of Punk

In a bedsit in Fitzrovia, London, it was almost midnight and a revolution in music was about to take place…

My thoughts on live music, hi-fi, CD/LP & streaming

There is nothing to beat the sound, look, ambience and feel of a live performance. I don’t get out anything like as much as I would like and, even if I did, the availability of good music where I live is severely limited.

A lot of music is, of course, created in a studio over a period of days, months and even years. If my life had taken a different path I often believe I might have been a producer or sound engineer. I can’t help but hear the detail in the music, so getting as close as possible to the live performance or studio session is very important to me.

A good high fidelity system and a good quality source are essential. I can’t afford the kind of hi-fi system I would really like, but what I have at the moment is perfectly acceptable.

CD or LP?

The problem for me, and many others like me, is the poor quality of the sound source. I grew up with vinyl records and know the sound of albums recorded before about 1984 pretty well. Which is why I cringe when I hear songs I know and love in CD quality, which is, of course, inferior to LPs. I was very pleased when the replacement for CD came along, albeit in two competing formats: DVD-A and SACD. I have a number of discs of both flavours and they sound very good indeed.

I have recently come full circle and purchased a Rega P6 record deck. It sounds fantastic. I can hear every instrument, every hum of guitar strings; every subtle stroke of the brush on cymbals. It is as if I am hearing old sounds for the first time.

Tidal & Apple Music – and now Qobuz

After being dependent upon Tidal for a long time I am pleased to say that at long last Apple offer hi-res music, so in 2022 I finally caved in and subscribed to Apple Music. I must say that some of the Dolby Atmos recordings sound very good on Apple TV linked up to my 6.1 cinema sound system. Not as good as multi-channel SACD but pretty good all the same.

In October 2023 I switched from Tidal to Qobuz, mainly for reasons of price. Qobuz is cheaper and I am enjoying it immensely.

Music on the Move

Since Covid I do not get a chance to listen to music on the move, but when I have done I have always been impressed with the quality that is possible when listening on my Bowers & Wilkins headphones and iPhone; the sound quality is surprisingly good. Apple and Tidal both sound good in the car, thanks to Apple CarPlay but, of course, you are dependent upon what you download to your phone. I do not have a car any more, so CarPlay is not an option!

In September 2023 I purchased a Chord Mojo 2, highly rated by the HiFi press and I can confirm it is an astonishing device – a DAC or Digital Analog Converter – with amazing sound quality. Mine is connected via USB-C to either my iPhone 15 ProMax or my iPad Pro and I am stunned at how good it sounds.

Soul & Blues backbone

Soul (especially anything on Stax and Atlantic) and blues have been in the background throughout my listening years. The great soul and blues acts are many – you know who they are! But just in case… Aretha Franklin, Same & Dave, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Wilson Pickett, Buddy Guy…. need I go on?

Incidentally, my trips to London are not complete without a visit to Soul Jazz Records in Soho – my favourite record shop. Well, I still call it that (and I’m sure a lot of other folks do too!) but actually they changed their name some years ago to Sounds of the Universe – pretty forgettable eh? I just had to run upstairs to find an old bag to remind me of the name. An old plastic bag I hasten to add.