A bloke I worked with in the Post Office, was mad into McCarthy, Half Man Half Biscuit and the Wedding Present and the tapes he did for me became the soundtrack to my time trudging round my walk as a postie or flying round on my bike like a maniac.
McCarthy had the best political lyrics. Red Sleeping Beauty is one of the three best Thatch songs (along with Shipbuilding and Tramp The Dirt Down). I still wonder that they remain so relatively unknown.
When I was putting the record back in its sleeve, I noticed it had a stamp on the inside. My extensive research tells me that 376 Pitt St, Sydney is no longer the home of Ashwoods record store, but of Silver Fox massage parlour ($100 for 30 mins, apparently.)
Sometimes you have a run of good luck at a shop. I picked up a couple of Robert Palmer LPs at a proper old junk shop in Dagenham, just because they were there and I'd quite liked Every Kind Of People. This was part of one of my best ever runs of record finds at a shop. I'd go down there in my lunch break and strike gold.
I really like this album, particularly Johnny and Mary. So eighties, it's got a mullet with highlights and a Filofax and is coked-up and berating the barman at a fun pub because they don't have beaujolais nouveau.
A bloke I worked with in the Post Office, was mad into McCarthy, Half Man Half Biscuit and the Wedding Present and the tapes he did for me became the soundtrack to my time trudging round my walk as a postie or flying round on my bike like a maniac.
McCarthy had the best political lyrics. Red Sleeping Beauty is one of the three best Thatch songs (along with Shipbuilding and Tramp The Dirt Down). I still wonder that they remain so relatively unknown.
When I was putting the record back in its sleeve, I noticed it had a stamp on the inside. My extensive research tells me that 376 Pitt St, Sydney is no longer the home of Ashwoods record store, but of Silver Fox massage parlour ($100 for 30 mins, apparently.)
In about 1985, I struck up a friendship with the bloke who worked in the wholefood shop where I'd go to buy my vegeburgers and whatnot. He was the first crustie I'd ever met.
We ended up swapping compilation tapes, (my introduction to Cardiacs, Zappa, Beefheart) and one of them contained Sound Chaser from this LP. It's a totally bonkers tune.
I'd been indoctrinated by punk at an influential age to think all prog was shit. So powerful was this programming, that I still hold a little shame for loving a bit of prog - the love that dare not speak its name.
Joe Gibbs & the Professionals - African Dub All-Mighty, Chapter 3
Despite the line-up of reggae royalty playing on this album, POTM goes to engineer, Errol Thompson, who, basically, goes fucking bananas and dubs it past the defence, through the legs of a hapless goalkeeper and into the back of the fucking net. Ten times.
This is an album so full of joy, it's hard to describe. My favourite dub album by a country mile.
I believe that this was the first proper jazz-fusion LP I bought. I remember picking it up in JiFS Records, Chadwell Heath in about 1984. (Man, I'd fucking love to go back and have a dig in that shop again!) I was an avid reader of guitarist magazines at the time and kept reading about McLaughlin and his Gatling gun playing-style, and just had to hear it. There was no way of hearing it before buying in those days, so it was a bit of a gamble, although to be fair, I knew I was going to love it.
All the big guns are wheeled out in support of McLaughlin on this album and they all get a fair shake of the sauce bottle.
The second track, Friendship, is a frequent spinner on my earworm jukebox, and has been for some 40 years now.
I listened to the Apache episode of Andrew Hickey's podcast The History of Rock Music In 500 Songs the other night and, being as meticulous as he is, he included the version from this album. And rightly so.
I first became aware of the Apache sample when it was used in Double Dee & Steniski's Lesson 3, being played by Jonathan More at Caister Soul Weekender in the 80's.
To be honest, there's very little else of any value on this album, and it's a bit of a chore to play all the way through. Especially on my barely adequate Italian pressing.
Return To Forever featuring Chick Corea - Where Have I Known You Before
This is a super-intense slab of jazz-fusion, created by just four players (Corea, Clarke, Di Meola and White) all at the top of their games and going at it hammer and tongs.
I picked this up in Melbourne for $15 in 2019, which seems so cheap in today's cozzylivs world.
An album recorded just a year after Wyatt's accident, in which he works through his experience and tries to invert the stylistic norms of jazz-rock-fusion and comes up with a work that is widely considered both brilliant and harrowing.
I'd first heard this album when a mate had lent me the CD a few days before my dad died and I played it a lot through that time, finding it the perfect musical expression of my feelings. I can still feel that lurch in my gut when I play it now; side one especially. Oddly enough, I find side two offers a bit of soothing resolution. It always makes me feel like crying.
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Tinselwig
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John Spithead
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