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Record Club

I was a regular at The Record Club in its first few years in the Kirkgate Community Centre in Shipley, eventually becoming one of the organisers. By the time I left Yorkshire in 2014, we had regular attendance of around 20–50 people. Some people will go to any lengths to get off a committee!

The (Shipley) Record Club logo.

Record Club had an unwritten ethos* that I admired: to encourage listeners to broaden their musical appreciation by the sharing of hidden gems. On top of this, it provided a space for music aficionados to nerd out on their favourite subject, in a sociable setting, once a month. People loved the club because it enabled them to discover new music in the company of fellow music nuts. I had this in mind when I decided to start a record club in the small seaside town of Swanage, in Dorset.

My first idea was to find a small group of friends who had more than a passing interest in music, and see if they wanted to meet in each other’s homes to listen to something they might not have heard before. It would be just like a book group, but for records. We tried this for a few months, and, although it was good, I felt that we needed to open it up to more people. And we couldn’t really do that in people’s living rooms.

The Mowlem Theatre, Swanage.

So, I contacted a friend who just so happened to be the new Events Manager at the Mowlem Theatre (did I mention that Swanage is a small town?). I asked if they were interested in hosting a Record Club, like the one I enjoyed back in Yorkshire. It all worked out really well, as they already had the audio equipment to play vinyl set up semi-permanently, and a show bar which needed more business. All I needed to do was buy a couple of turntable styli and make sure that the gear was set up properly.

Yours truly, inaugurating the first Swanage Record Club.

We kicked off in November 2024 with the first of a series of themed sessions, beginning with Time, and followed by Colours, Sea & Coast, Valentines, Ireland, Technology and Give the Drummer Some. Each session featured two albums, which were played from start to finish, as well as a couple of hours of tracks which matched the theme, brought in by the group. Last week, we had our first pub social. Next month, we are getting a time machine back 50 years to 1975.

It’s early days, and the club is evolving. I’m starting to hear the magic words “what’s that you’re playing?” more often. We seem to have a good number of regulars, and new people still appear every month. We are playing with the set up and the format, and people are coming forward, eager to curate monthly sessions or have a go at being DJ for 20 minutes.

If you live in Purbeck and are reading this, why not come along to a session soon? If you have some vinyl which fits with next month’s theme, bring it along to play. If you don’t have anything, just bring along yourself. If you love listening to music, you’ll be among friends.

Swanage Record Club: on Facebook; on Instagram.

[* No, not “you do not talk about Record Club.”]

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Three Great Albums from 2024

It’s hard keeping up with the youngsters, the older you get. I used to pride myself in being fairly up-to-date with music, but latterly I have found myself slipping behind. Nowadays, festival line-ups read like Thai restaurant menus. Fortunately, I have a couple of musical daughters in their twenties, and they drip feed me with suggestions. Occasionally, they are successful, and I reap the rewards of tapping into a rich seam of new music.

So Medieval (Blue Bendy)

First off, I finally got to hear the new debut album by one of my recent favourite bands Blue Bendy, who I saw playing in Bristol last year (supporting Squid — result!). I loved their Motorbike EP, and I was looking forward to more of the same.

That wasn’t what I got though. They have clearly moved onwards and upwards since Motorbike. Their Cloudy single from the previous year was more of an indication of where they went next, with a broader range of compositions, styles and dynamics. It’s an interesting album of 21st century progressive indie, and I guess that this is what you get from six creative people pulling in different directions and then pulling together. No one idea is over-used, no song is any longer than necessary.

Tangk (Idles)

I probably wouldn’t have liked Idles if it wan’t for a series of random events. I’d heard them a few years back and moved on quite quickly, dismissing them as a shouty racket band. I’d heard Pop Pop Pop early this year in a random playlist, and it got stuck in my subconscious. So, when I saw the music video for the single, I realised that there was something cool going on here, and got hold of the album called, strangely, Tangk.

Tangk was co-produced by Nigel Godrich, otherwise known as the 6th member of Radiohead, and you can clearly hear the influence. Idles have been pushed to a new level of creativity and performance. Vocalist front man Joe Talbot actually sings as well as shouts, the guitars’ sounds are richer and more complex, we hear atmospheric keyboards, rumbling off-kilter bass lines and the drums crack with almost inhuman power. I soon realised that Idles hit the same pleasure centre in my brain that was inhabited by Killing Joke in the 1980s.

You’ll Have to Lose Something (Spirit of the Beehive)

The last album by Spirit of the Beehive (Entertainment, Death) was one of my most played albums last year (late to the party again). I love the way their music morphs throughout a song, changing form from one minute to the next. When I heard that their new “sweeter” album You’ll Have to Lose Something was coming out, I was actually worried it wouldn’t be as good. On first play, I thought maybe they had tried to make a softer, more accessible album, but like most good records, I discovered there were more layers waiting to be uncovered.

Despite the romantic break up of the longest serving core members (Zack Schwartz and Rivka Ravede) almost ending the band a couple of years ago, they instead changed and embraced the drama, writing about love and relationships in a new band dynamic, which continues their taste for sampling, chaos, morphing grooves, and adds delicate passages of subtle electronica and even classical instruments. This band has been on fire since the addition of Corey Wichlin five years ago. Long may they burn!

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Performance

If a tree falls in in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Despite the length of time I have spent on Earth, this philosophical question has only just become relevant to me. Let me explain…

When I joined what was to become known as Crimson Creatures in 2021, there was always the aspiration that the band would gig, if all went well. I was nervous about the prospect, not having played in front of an audience since the 1980s, but nerves are normal and, sure enough, just before our first gig, they left me, and I was raring to go.

3 gigs later, and I am no longer in the band. The gigs were successful, in that we played well and sounded good. Did I enjoy the experience? Hmm. Yes, and no. I mostly enjoyed the 45–60 minutes I was on stage, but the rest of it?

I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to do any more gigs. The lead up to each gig was filled with repetitive rehearsals, gear prep, and a nagging apprehension that something might go wrong on the night. The next gig was always lurking in the back of my mind.

The gigs involved lugging gear up and down stairs from badly parked cars, solving equipment problems, sound checks and fighting sound systems, playing to half empty rooms, and packing up late at night. I was sober in a room full of well-oiled people, before a long drive home, when I really could have done with relaxing. You can keep your Rock ‘n’ Roll lifestyle.

Now, when friends ask about my musical activity, I tell them that I’m concentrating on writing and recording. They will inevitably ask when I’m gigging again, to which I reply that I’m not keen, and it may not be for a long time, if ever. The reaction is always the same — total dumbfoundment. It’s as if there’s no point making music, unless I’m playing it live, probably in a bar near to them. This is where the philosophical falling tree comes in…

What is the point of making music, or being in a band, unless there are gigs and the performance? I’ve thought about this a lot recently.

Listening

I’ve been listening to and collecting music since the 1970s. I can’t usually remember what I ate for lunch, but I can tell you in what year Band X made their 2nd album and who played on it. There’s no feeling like discovering and going through the honeymoon listening phase of a great album.

Once I learned to play an instrument and how to record and mix, it was natural to want to make something vaguely resembling the amazing stuff I loved. So, by the age of 17, I’d made my first album and played in front of a big audience.

To be clear, those first gigs were playing covers of popular songs to crowds which were coming anyway. We were the entertainment, and we were appreciated. It was great. We later introduced our own songs, with limited success, and realised that the public wasn’t ready for our stuff. Still, a crowd is a crowd, and memories were made.

But, isn’t that what being a musician is all about? Well, no. Music isn’t made to get a round of applause and a pat on the back — though it’s nice when that happens. Many people make music because they they want to create something great sounding, thought-provoking and rousing, that they can listen to and can be proud of. If other people like it too, fabulous, so much the better. It’s a huge buzz to add another great recording to your collection, especially if it’s been made by you.

Of course, people like to play music in front of a crowd too, because they want to share, perform and entertain, and that’s fine. But not all musicians are entertainers. And not everyone makes music for entertainment.

Keep Music Live

When recording studios really took off in the 1960s, until piracy became widespread, popular music was consumed voraciously in its recorded form. But, as artists lost revenue from falling sales, they had to hit the road to make a living from music. And now streamed music is king, and all but the biggest recording artists get very little income from streaming, nothing is set to change.

Digital technology has enabled anyone to become a recording artist. This is a double-edged sword, and there are more recordings being released now than ever before. It’s difficult to get noticed amongst the sea of music, unless you have any marketing skills or staff at your disposal.

So, musicians are expected to perform, whether they like it or not. “Keep music live,” they said. Well, music wasn’t always live.

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Progressive Punk?!

Some said it couldn’t be done, but, finally, it has. Wire and The Stranglers both had a good stab at it in the late 70s. But, we are now seeing what happens when you cross-breed two seemingly incompatible musical genres.

For the First Time (2021) by Black Country, New Road

It started in 2021 with Black Country, New Road‘s debut album For the First Time. It was a Post-Punk album with clever arrangements and striking contrasts. It was closely followed by Squid‘s debut album Bright Green Field. This was arguably more Post-Punk than Prog, but the extended instrumental sections begged to differ.

Bright Green Field (2021) by Squid

Black Midi, who had been getting a name for their blazing rapid-fire controlled explosive music and Mercury Prize nomination, finally harnessed their full potential, and dropped Hellfire! on an unsuspecting public.

Hellfire (2022) by Black Midi

Their third album is a dizzying whirlwind of genre-hopping, face-slapping, sprinting thrash-laden, crooning horror. It’s an eloquent, masterful album, with equal measures of raw power, Dadaist technical brilliance and Zappa-esque humour. The first time I played the album, I couldn’t listen to anything else for at least an hour, my senses had been so assaulted.

Motorbike (2022) by Blue Bendy

Struggling to follow this up in 2023, I eventually stumbled upon the Motorbike EP from 2022, by another young band called Blue Bendy. A bit less Post-Punk and a bit more Progressive, their music is bristling with ideas, condensing a huge array of sounds, rhythms and emotions into their songs.

Blue Bendy’s music is so dense, it might be a difficult listen for some people. But it is saved by their sweet and delicious sounds, which reward the listener with new layers with every play. I have played this at least once almost every day this year, making it a clear winner of my ‘album’ of the year, without either being an album, nor released this year.