Category Archives: Uncategorized

Who remembers Borders? An outbreak of civilisation, it always seemed to me: books, music, movies, coffee shop. Joy! The Leeds branch was actually in the same premises as Virgin Records had occupied when I worked there. So it was amusing to sit in the first floor cafe and sip my large Americano while looking outContinue reading “Covers #2: I Will”

What do you think about cover versions? A few years ago, when I first started really being able to develop dedicated music modules for the degree I teach on I took an idea that had occurred to me on a course I’d taught at a university in Hungary. The module’s topic was recording technologies, andContinue reading “Covers #1: a Fab Four”

After an interminable pause, far beyond the Beckettian and well ahead of the Pinteresque, here is Blog #5 from Pete Sounds. This time I have decided to get my musical muscles working again by reflecting on a song (and a musical form) which suggests pure relaxation. Which we could all do with just now. SoContinue reading “Corcovado”

Sorry for that terrible pun-of-a-kind in the title of Blog #4. It just seems appropriate. And we like being ‘appropriate’, don’t we? So there it is. This one is about looking more than listening, I must confess; it’s about the infinite beauty and variety of record sleeve design. In this case all LPs but I’llContinue reading “The Art On Your Sleeve #1”

A while ago Pat Thomas asked me if he could look at the material I was obliged to leave out of my book Hymns To The Silence: Inside the Words and Music of Van Morrison. Pat has been a great friend to the book (and although we have never actually met, to me) and IContinue reading “Ian Matthews and Michael Nesmith”

Earlier this week fell the birthday of one Andrew John Partridge of Swindon, aka Andy Partridge of the band XTC. Or should I say, with some sadness, formerly of the band XTC. Yet being an optimistic sort, I hold that caveat to possibly be a temporary one because not only are all former members ofContinue reading “…then she appeared…”

Choosing the first song to write about on here should probably have been a difficult choice to make. But it wasn’t. In fact it came to me while walking around the supermarket. Probably uncoincidental. ‘Pinball’ by Brian Protheroe was a hit in 1974 during a period when , for strange and asbestos-related reasons, our schoolContinue reading “…and I feel like a pinball…”