991.com Sleevenotes : A Blog about Collecting Rare Vinyl 7", 12" & LP Records, CDs, Memorabilia & Music

Insane Record Collections and the People Who Own Them

Joe Bussard sitting in his basement in Frederick, Maryland, with some of the rarest 78s in existence. The brown paper record jackets behind him are all uniformly discoloured in the middle as a result of Joe’s hands sorting and searching through them for the past 60 years.

Photographer Eilon Paz left Israel in 2008 to try his luck in New York. “It was the worst time to try your luck. It was the beginning of the recession. There were no jobs to be found so I just found myself in record stores spending my money on records and nothing much more than that,” he said.

All that time spent around records gave Paz the idea to do a project on the people who collect them. After meeting African record collector and DJ Frank Gossner in Brooklyn, he became introduced to other collectors around the city and started posting photos and stories about them on his blog, Dust and Grooves. “I thought it was cool to shoot record collectors. I'm a collector myself,” he said. “I had shot musicians in Israel, but it was more of a job than a personal thing. This was my opportunity to express myself.”

You can read the rest of this fantastic article (and others) written by Jordan G. Teicher at www.slate.com here

....if you'd like to share any pictures of your collections, please do - we'd love to see 'em...

...and finally, if you're feeling just a little record collection envy don't forget that's easily fixed by visiting 991.com where you can find an incredible range of cool vinyl, collectables and more!

 

Records Collecting Dust: Great New US Punk Documentary

Keep your eyes (and ears) peeled for this upcoming US Punk documentary - featuring interviews with the American punk scenes key players, what you get is a sneaky peek into the vinyl record collections of artists like Jello Biafra, Mike Watt, Nick Oliveri, Chuck Dukowski and loads more - in other words     lots of cool, nerdy stuff about your favourite US punksters record collections N-I-C-E!

Check out the trailer for Records Collecting Dust here...

...and, if after watching you feel a little punk rock envy, don't forget you can top up your punk collection at 991.com

VINYL is BACK and you can thank Sonos for that

The format that wouldn’t die is officially in remission

Breaking Fad Vinyl has been the music format that wouldn’t die for the best part of three decades. Not since Kenneth Williams quipped “Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!” has a death scene seemed so protracted. Now, however, it seems the format is officially in remission.

With renewed interest in pure stereo, stoked ironically by hi-res audio file formats, sales are soaring and manufacturers have been quick to capitalise with a new generation of digital friendly 12-inch disc spinners, aimed at the green fields between audiophile and nostalgia buff.

The latest vinyl sales figures, released by the British Phonographic Industry, make for fascinating reading. This year, UK album sales are on course to top the million mark for the first time since the heyday of Oasis and Blur.

By September, 780,674 platters had already been purchased by new age vinyl junkies. Compare that to a format low in 2007, when annual UK disc sales sunk to 205,292 units

The BPI’s Lynne McDowell suggests that initiatives like Record Store Day andAmazon Autorip have all contributed to the growth. Apparently, even Listening Parties are now a thing. “In an increasingly-digitised world, it appears that music fans still crave a tangible product that gives them original artwork, high audio quality and purity of sound,” she says. At least two of those points are probably true.

The biggest selling vinyl album of the year is currently Arctic Monkeys’ AM. Other 12-inch biggies include Jack White’s Lazaretto, Oasis’ Definitely Maybe and the remastered titular Led Zeppelin. Of course, this should all be viewed in context. To become a vinyl bestseller, an album only need shift more than 1,000 copies, based on the Official Charts Company data.

Read the full article here at The Register

Need vinyl for your turntable? Find thousands of back catalogue, audiophile & rare pressings at 991.com here

 

Our Xmas Sale starts today - You can save up to 75% on over 25,000 items!

Today our Xmas sale went live and you can save up to 75% off rare Vinyl Records, Collectable CDs, vintage Posters, Music Memorabilia and so much more at 991.com now.

Got a fixed amount to spend?  No problem, just search by price.

Collect by country? Look at what's grouped into each territory.

Do you collect only paper goods?  Vinyl or CD only? Want official industry sales awards to adorn your walls?  Cassettes for your car hifi? Find it all here grouped by format.

25,000 items have been reduced so Happy Saving!

 

Walt Disney Collectors Edition Vinyl Picture Discs - perfect for stocking fillers!

Produced in very limited quantities, these fabulous Walt Disney picture discs produced this year make brilliant luxury "stocking filler" type gifts. For Disney lovers, Disney collectors or for  children to keep as future collectables.  We all covet them!

If you sit entirely in the nostalgia camp though, we've got rare and original vinyl pressings of many iconic and memorable Disney films which will take you straight back to your childhood.

What's your favourite Disney movie?

 

Find the full list of Walt Disney vinyl and CD in stock at 991.com here

 

BBC Television Centre Memorabilia Sale Raises Thousands

The "flesh tone" test card sold for £1,250

The final wave of BBC memorabilia from Television Centre has been sold off at auction, raising thousands of pounds.

Studio signs and backdrops were included in the auction, alongside large items such as industrial washing machines and a cherry-picker lorry.

Television Centre was built in 1960. The BBC sold it to developers in 2012 and moved operations to other buildings.

Among the lots sold were a vintage microphone and a test card.

Items from Studio 8 - which housed classic shows such as Fawlty Towers and Monty Python's Flying Circus - attracted a number of bids, with one clock fetching £780, and the "Studio 8" sign going for £478.

A collection of black-and-white portraits taken by David Bailey of stars including Michael Caine and Mick Jagger ended with bidding reaching £1,264.

Read the full story on the BBC website

Be sure to check out the extensive range of music memorabilia here at 991.com

Robert Fripp, interview: 'I’m a very difficult person to work with'

Guitarist Robert Fripp influenced David Bowie and Peter Gabriel but it's only the latest revival of his band King Crimson that has brought out his happy side

Satisfied: Robert Fripp

Happiness isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. At least according to Robert Fripp. In the early part of 2012, having given up playing live altogether, he found himself in a curious position. “I began to be happy, personally happy,” he explains.

“But while paradise is a wonderful place to be, nothing happens. My wife told me that I was in danger of becoming dull. So what I’m doing now was partly a personal necessity. When you’re happy, it’s time to pull out the pointed stick.”

Fripp’s response was to try things he might not otherwise have done. Having more or less retired from public life, the first visible manifestation bordered on the perverse: an appearance on TV’s All Star Mr & Mrs, with wife Toyah Wilcox.

The second was the revival of his band King Crimson.

Founded in 1968, Crimson were pack leaders in what became known as progressive rock. The dizzying intensity of their recorded work – a dense fusion of freak-rock, jazz, ambient textures and neoclassical fugues – took the band into places that most others were simply incapable of reaching.

Read the full interview here by Rob Hughes at The Telegraph

991.com has the most extensive selection of back catalogue material from Robert Fripp, King Crimson and more - find it here.

Is vinyl the best music format?

With vinyl undergoing yet another revival, Sam Rowe talks to those in the know about our enduring love of the humble record

Vinyl appeals to man's urge to collect and arrange

Vinyl is dead!

At least that’s what every music fan, artist and producer was told in 1982 (and every year since), upon the release of a pioneering new technology known as the compact disc.

For a long time, they were right: sales of records declined steadily after '82 as their smaller, shinier cousin moved in on the home music market. Vinyl, it seemed, was not long for this world. The same scrap-heap that held the gramophone, Betamax and the transistor radio beckoned.

But then, years later, something happened. Whether through efforts made by musical purists, initiatives such as Record Store Day or the cachet of vinyl in the nostalgia (or even hipster) stakes, the sales tide began to turn once more.

And with the news that vinyl album sales are due to hit the one million mark by the end of the year (the highest since 1996), it seems the record has been formally resurrected

Read the full article by Sam Rowe at the Telegraph

Here at 991.com, most of us still collect - and are unequivocably in love with - vinyl.  We live and breath it, and we buy and sell it.  Get in touch with us at 991.com whether you want to expand your collection or pass a once cherished collection on to a new home.

Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Queen: Can 'Dad Rock’ save Christmas?

Led Zep, Bowie and Neil Young all have 'new' albums out. As the record industry repackages old rock favourites to be bought a second time by baby-boomers, we ask if this is clever reinvention or cynical recycling?

Pink Floyd is releasing 'The Endless River', an album of instrumental leftovers, recently unearthed by Dave Gilmour and Nick Mason

The record industry is in trouble, album sales are falling, kids only download singles and stream music for free… But who is this, charging over the snowbound horizon to save Christmas? Why, it looks a lot like Pink Floyd, with Neil Young riding shotgun, leading a herd of red-nosed reindeers being whipped into a frenzy by Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Genesis, David Bowie, AC/DC, the Who, Bruce Springsteen and the ghost of Freddie Mercury. It is the Charge of the Dad Brigade.

Or at least that is one of the stories being told by the record industry to keep its spirits up in the bleak hours of midwinter. Dismal figures suggest 2014 could set an all-time low for album sales, unless the traditional seasonal retail boom comes to the rescue. But what music will we actually be spending money on this Christmas? Reports this week have highlighted a plethora of stocking-filling box sets, repackaged classics and new albums from vintage artists. “This is going to be the oldest Christmas I can remember,” according to senior music industry consultant Nick Stewart. “The biggest album of the year, by some way, is going to be the new old Pink Floyd album. It’s going to be huge.”

Read the full article here at the Telegraph by Neil McCormick

Do you collect genuine, original pressings of these all time classic albums? You'll find them and more at 991.com here.

'9 to 5': what kind of music are people listening to at work? Tell us what you're listening to!

Ever wonder what songs are being piped through your colleagues' headphones? We've got the answer.

British workers are listening to a lot of Pharrell

If you hear your boss listening to classical music before a meeting, brace yourself.

When people listen to music to get themselves in a certain mood for a meeting -- whether it’s a brainstorming session, a targets update or a performance review -- they choose pop music almost all the time, a new survey has found.

The only exception? Respondents said they listen to classical music when preparing to deliver bad news

The kind of music people listen to in the office has been shown to affect their output. A recent survey from the music licensing campaign MusicWorks, which found that nine out of 10 workers perform better when listening to music, also discovered that different genres of music are better tailored to certain tasks.

The research recommended choosing pop music while working to deadlines and dance music while proof-reading or problem solving, for example.

You can read the full article here by Lauren Davidson at the Telegraph.

More importantly, here at 991.com, we'd love to know ... what are you listening to at work? 

Future Vinyl LP Collectables - U2 Songs Of Innocence pressed on White Vinyl - in now

U2 Songs Of Innocence - in stock now at 991.com

2014 UK limited edition 12-track double LP pressed on heavyweight WHITE VINYL, includes an exclusive bonus track The Crystal Ballroom [12" Mix]. Housed in a gatefold picture sleeve - still sealed in title stickered shrinkwrap

U2 Songs Of Innocence White Vinyl LP

Find this and U2 back catalogue, out of print, rare and limited vinyl, CDs and items of memorabilia here at 991.com

Get 15% discount off your 991.com order with this voucher code

For a very limited time, get 15% off your order value at 991.com

 

Just enter voucher code 9SX1510 at the checkout and the discount will be applied to your basket value.

See the latest arrivals here including not least some very rare tour and crew clothing and merchandise, original tour itineraries and vintage posters. And then there's the best in investment pieces to be found here at our Blue Chip store.

We've also just had a delivery from our buyer in Japan, you can see what's being added here.

Use the voucher code as many times as you like - there is no minimum spend!

Happy shopping at 991.com

Get 15% discount with voucher code 9SX1510

 

 

Bigger than the Beatles! Rare single from obscure Scottish 1970s heavy metal band more valuable than classics from the Fab Four

• Glory Hunter's four members pooled resources to record debut single Thoughts of Destiny in 1979
• But the band, from Livingston, West Lothian, split up weeks later 
• Now record from run of 1,000 are changing hands for more than £1,000
• Outstripping classics by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen 

By JAY WILLIAMS FOR THE SCOTTISH DAILY MAIL

Kenny Hanlon 1979

Kenny Hanlon now

They were an obscure, short-lived 1970s rock band whose only achievement was an undistinguished second place in a Perth talent contest.

But now, 35 years after they split up, a single recorded by Scots group Glory Hunter has become one of the world’s most sought-after records, with copies changing hands for more than £1,000.

Back in 1979, the four members of the outfit from Livingston, West Lothian, pooled their resources to record debut single Thoughts of Destiny but they split up only weeks later.

One copy fetched £1,090 on eBay in 2011 and another is the most valuable single listed on collectors’ site 991.com [sister co. to eil.com], its £895 price tag outstripping classics by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Springsteen.

Grandfather and father-of-five Mr Hanlon, 59, said yesterday: ‘I suppose I should be chuffed, but to be honest I’m more mystified.

‘I’ve absolutely no idea why a single by an unknown band from Scotland that fell apart a few weeks after recording their only single should be so valuable.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2784664/Rare-single-obscure-1970s-heavy-metal-band-Scotland-valuable-classics-Fab-Four.html#ixzz3FZ5H8X8d
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

#

Find the single for sale now at 991.com

Fleetwood Mac: 'Amen to Christine McVie's return'

New album on way and full Fleetwood Mac reunion, as return of Christine McVie is hailed as 'a beautiful poetic new chapter' in band's history

Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham has hailed "a beautiful, profound and poetic new chapter" in the band's history with the return to touring of singer and songwriter Christine McVie.

The 71-year-old from England's Lake District area has been mostly absent from the band for 16 years but her arrival on stage at New York City's Madison Square Garden was marked by Mick Fleetwood looking to the ceiling and shouting "Amen".

With Stevie Nicks in her trademark shawl, and ex-husband and bassist John McVie, also on stage, it restored the band to its mid-Seventies and most successful five-strong configuration.

There is another New York show tonight as part of a 33-city On With the Show tour that began in Minneapolis and ends on December 20 in Tampa, Florida

Read the full article here at the Telegraph

Find back catalogue, rare, vintage Fleetwood Mac here at 991.com

Fleetwood Mac: ‘Amen to Christine McVie’s return’

New album on way and full Fleetwood Mac reunion, as return of Christine McVie is hailed as ‘a beautiful poetic new chapter’ in band’s history

Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham has hailed “a beautiful, profound and poetic new chapter” in the band’s history with the return to touring of singer and songwriter Christine McVie.

The 71-year-old from England’s Lake District area has been mostly absent from the band for 16 years but her arrival on stage at New York City’s Madison Square Garden was marked by Mick Fleetwood looking to the ceiling and shouting “Amen”.

With Stevie Nicks in her trademark shawl, and ex-husband and bassist John McVie, also on stage, it restored the band to its mid-Seventies and most successful five-strong configuration.

There is another New York show tonight as part of a 33-city On With the Show tour that began in Minneapolis and ends on December 20 in Tampa, Florida

Read the full article here at the Telegraph

Find back catalogue, rare, vintage Fleetwood Mac here at 991.com

We're open to sellers of Vinyl & CDs this Friday, 10th October!

Our Kent offices are open once again in two days time, Friday 10th October from 9:30am to 4pm.

Let our buyers pay you top prices for your LPs, EPs & 45s, rare CDs, pop memorabilia and autograph s plus concert programmes, posters, handbills and tickets, picture discs, coloured vinyl records, boxed sets and limited editions.

We'll give you a free purchase appraisal on the day but we can also consider selling items on consignment or trading for items from our warehouse.

We've lots of free onsite parking and plenty of hands to help you unload

Check the site for more info and a map:

http://991.com/features/buying-open-day-to-sell-us-your-records-in-kent.aspx

Can't make the date?

Come to our two-day buying bonanza in December on Friday and Saturday 12th & 13th or Saturday 24th January 2015 in Soho London.

Alternatively, get in touch with our buyers and arrange another time to call in. We can also arrange to visit you and we can arrange collection.

Call us on 01474-815099 or email [email protected]

 

http://991.com - the UK's leading buyers of rare vinyl records, CDs & music memorabilia since 1987

Come to our buying day with your mint Vinyl & CDs, this Friday, 10th October

Our Kent offices are open this Friday 10th October from 9:30am to 4pm.

Our buyers will pay the best prices for your LPs, EPs & 45s, rare CDs, pop memorabilia and autographs plus concert programmes, posters, handbills and tickets, picture discs, coloured vinyl records, boxed sets and limited editions.

Whether you've got one item or 5,000 items, we'll be happy to give you a free purchase appraisal. We also sell items on consignment.

We've lots of free onsite parking and plenty of hands to help you unload and if there's something you want to buy or trade for at the same time just let us know.

Check the site for more info and a map:
http://991.com/features/buying-open-day-to-sell-us-your-records-in-kent.aspx
Can't make the date?

Come to our two-day buying bonanza in December on Friday and Saturday 12th & 13th or Saturday 24th January 2015 in Soho London.

Alternatively, call our buyers and arrange a convenient time to drop by. We can also arrange to visit you and we can arrange collection.

Call us on 01474-815099 or email [email protected]

 

http://991.com - the UK's leading buyers of rare vinyl records, CDs & music memorabilia since 1987

How to show off your record collection

If you’ve spent many years – and a lot of money – on your record collection, try Julian Mash’s tips to store it in a stylish way.

One of the few positive stories to have emerged from the music industry over the past few years has been the resurgence in vinyl sales.

Lost in music: John Cusack in the film adaptation of 'High Fidelity’

Where most physical sales have been plummeting, the format once thought dead is making a comeback. Last year 781,000 vinyl records were sold, the highest number since 1997.

Vinyl is the connoisseur’s choice, but it does have two major drawbacks: its lack of portability, and the amount of storage space it takes up.

I was reminded of this when I recently moved house, lugging 2,500 LPs with me. Musician and writer Bob Stanley had to do the same four years ago, moving his collection of 20,000 singles and 8,000 LPs first into storage and then his new flat.

Now his LPs sit in bespoke shelves, while his singles are accommodated in old Schweppes boxes, recovered from a record shop when it shut down. “My flat does look a lot like a record shop, which is quite weird,” he says.

Weird yet, surely, very reassuring. Anyone familiar with Nick Hornby’s novel High Fidelity will recall the moment where Rob Fleming sits on his living room floor after breaking up with his girlfriend, surrounded by piles of records that he is arranging chronologically, mapping his life through his music purchases. It is difficult to imagine sitting in front of a glowing computer screen and rearranging your iTunes as quite so romantic a vision.

Vinyl is much more durable than CDs, but there are a few things that must be avoided.

Sunlight is no friend of vinyl, and it is worth keeping records out of direct sunlight as they are liable to warp or become faded. “I had an Elvis single on HMV that I had cleaned and then left on the draining dish rack before going out, forgetting about it until the following day. By the time I got to it, it had warped,” sighs Stanley. Cats are another worry. I was thrilled to see a new collection being priced up recently. Rare prog, folk and psych gems winked at me from the pile. It was only when they were turned round that I realised all the spines of the LPs were ripped to shreds. “The owner’s cat used his vinyl as a scratching post,” I was told. And that is why I shall never own a cat.

Realistically, keeping your prized Beatles Sgt Pepper mono press in good shape requires a plastic cover, but beware what type you choose.

A few years ago vinyl fans discovered that PVC record covers were damaging their albums. The PVC was reacting with the vinyl, causing the surface of the records to turn cloudy and sound dreadful.

If only someone had told the BBC in the Eighties.“The whole BBC archive collection of singles was kept in thin polythene tucked inside PVC sleeves so they sweated and many of them got fogged and sound terrible,” says Stanley. We both shudder, and head around the corner to check out a record shop. Spotting something I need, I grab it.

Well, I’m sure I can squeeze a few more in somewhere.

TOP 5 TIPS FOR ORGANISING & STORING YOUR COLLECTION:

1 Ikea Kallax shelves perfectly fit LPs. There was an outcry when they announced they would stop producing the Expedit range but this new version thankfully still fits vinyl.

2 Wooden crates such as Schweppes boxes for singles, or old beer or milk bottle boxes for LPs work really well. They are now highly sought after, but you can find them in vintage shops for about £30.

3 Avoid solid PVC covers and go for the polythene ones.

4 Avoid sunlight unless you want your favourite Cure LP warped beyond recognition.

5 Do not stack records on top of one another. This will result in dishing – where the album will bend out of shape

See the full article at at the Telegraph here.

Spandau Ballet's True story: 1980s pop stars on how their hits were written

How did Lolita inspire Spandau Ballet's True? What did God have to do with the Bunnymen's Killing Moon? And why is Girls on Film like an orgasm? The bands tell all (by Jonathan Bernstein)

When I, a sour Scot raised on the NME and my co-author, an ebullient American weaned on MTV, set out to write a book in which the greatestpop stars of the Eighties recounted the stories behind their signature hits, a few cultural differences quickly emerged. Should we use the term New Wave? If so, did Rick Springfield qualify as New Wave? Did I have to sum up the career of Morrissey with anything more than “Not a fan”?

The answers were yes, no and no. But what we both agreed on from the inception to completion of Mad World was that the period stretching from 1979 to 1985 was the last golden age of pop. And we were happy and privileged to tell the true stories behind 36 of the era’s biggest hits. (It would have been 37 but Bananarama kept playing hard to get.) Here are six of these stories.

1. Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp and Tony Hadley on True

Spandau Ballet

Kemp: "I was having a very unrequited romance with Clare Grogan. It was unrequited on both ends. It was courtly - I think that's the expression I can correctly use - but it was romantic. She gave me a Nabokov book, Lolita, and that sort of represented her. I took two lyrics that I based on lines in Lolita. One was "seaside arms" which was an expression that Humbert Humbert used about Lolita. I thought that was rather beautiful and I was ridiculed for that for years. "What's that line about? It's stupid?" Well, go and argue with Nabokov. And the other one was "With a thrill in my head and a pill on my tongue,' which I kind of paraphrased."

Hadley: I don't think True is Spandau's best song - for me, Through The Barricades is. But True had some connection, and I really don't know why. It's not a specific lyric, is it? "Head over heels when toe to toe" - sometimes you'd be like, "Right, Gary, what's this about, mate?" Is it "I'm head over heels in love?" "Am I in bed because our feet are touching?" I don't know. But then. I suppose, we grew up on David Bowie and Roxy Music. Virginia Plain - what's that about? Half of the Bowie songs, I couldn't tell you what they're about. With True, you have to create the imagery for yourself.

Kemp: 'True became a song about writing a love song. Why "Why do I find it hard to write the next line? I want the truth to be said?" Because I didn't want to write it down - because there's nothing more embarrassing

2. Adam Ant and Marco Pirroni on Kings Of The Wild Frontier

Ant: 'Kings Of The Wild Frontier is really a mark on all sorts of colours and societies where you feel held back. The lyrics, “I feel beneath the white there is a red skin suffering from centuries of taming” - it’s not just the colour of your skin, it’s the class you’re born into. If you’re born poor, it’s quite a hard life for you. The Apache war stripe was a declaration of war on the record industry I was up against.

Pirroni: It was the first song we wrote together. It was just two guitars. We didn’t have any recording equipment. We didn’t even have a Dictaphone. We had to remember it every time we did it. It was like we were working on this formless thing that didn’t exist: African drumming plus twangy guitar. There was a stage show called Ipi Tombi that was all African drummers and Adam was like, “We should get the guys from Ipi Tombi.” I was terrified. I didn’t know anything about African drummers or where to get them. It took f______ ages. We worked a few hours a day - you can’t do more than that or your mind starts going. When we recorded it with a band, it was the first time it sounded like an actual song.

Read the full article here at The Telegraph

Find the original vinyl and CDs for these and and thousands more titles from the 80's and beyond at 991.com

This weeks Record Collector Weekly Newsletter brought to you by 991.com

to get the full unedited version of the newsletters each week, including reviews, news, offers, compeitions and more just email: david harvey and mention 991.com

*****

Spent the weekend working up material with my new jazz-rock band, Unquestionable Integrity. Our motto is “no sell out (and we’re not doing it for free either, OK?)”. We’re working up a fantastic set list of mellow progressive precision reworkings of modern pop hits in a new style that the critics (ie, me) are already calling Diet Fusion – or Put You Off Your Dinner Music. So far we’ve created radical rearrangements of Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off in 17/8 time, flattening all the fifths and ninths (not that there are any in the song), and Beyonce’s Single Ladies refreshed as a samba with all the drum parts played by yours truly on our bassplayer’s mum’s boyshorts. We’re also performing Paloma Faith’s eyebrows as if we were Weather Report circa Birdland, using Cheryl Cole’s cellulite as a percussion instrument, played with eyelash curling tongs. We’ll soon be debuting on Hampstead Heath at an open-air palaver called The Vertical Sausage; hope you can make it a long. One.

So Scotland, you chose to stay with the rest of us. (So we are told, anyway.) God help you. You’ve missed the chance to turn Coldplay away at the border (“sorry Chris, your papers aren’t in order, you’ll have to go home”) and slap punitive import duty on downloads of rubbish music. Plus you’ll have to let Bobby Gillespie back in, even if he does look like he’s been enjoying himself a little too much. You’ll still be able to receive Jools Holland jamming along to some doom metal act on his show, and horror of horrors, Sunday Night At The London Palladium is back: you’ll have to watch that too. When I was a little kid, the theme music on that show meant a cloud of depression setting in. I didn’t know it was normal to feel depressed when Norman Vaughan came on TV; I thought there was something wrong with me. My missus has since admitted to the same black hole in her soul when Palladium came on, which means she had two reasons to be fed up last Sunday: watching the new series and being married to me. We tuned in briefly. It was weird to see Earth, Wind & Fire opening the show. Look, I know they had slices of Edam in their career, and all that astral connections on a high five stuff always rung kinda false to me, but they were one of the great bands of the 70s in terms of delivering the goods on vinyl. When Funkadelic turn up on The Royal Variety Performance, we know that will be the day that the funk finally said adios. Oh, and James Brown was once booked to appear on that show, but refused to believe he wasn’t the regal one in the title.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Scotland. Delighted to have you still aboard. Hope some of you feel the same. To celebrate/commiserate, I’ve been enjoying playing the great Jesse Rae, composer of Inside Out and the man who first patted the Atomic Dog.

Time flies and we are already facing another deadline at the end of the week. Next issue will bring you Debut Albums (that’s not the frontman of Blur, by the way), Frankie Valli, Aphex Twin, Downliners Sect, Billy Rath, house rarities, Fire Records and a vast heap more. It’s in the shops on 9 October. We think ahead. Sometimes.

Hope you’re having a great week and aren’t buying the records I am looking for. Thank you for reading this newsletter, and RC.

Best wishes

Ian McCann (Editor)