Music
Record Collector
The Collector
This month: Seth Lakeman
6 min |
September 2025
Record Collector
FACTORY RECORDS THE VERNONS GIRLS
The Vernons Girls (Parlophone PMC 1052, LP, mono, UK, 1958) £45
4 min |
September 2025
Record Collector
THE SUPERBAD SUPERNOVA OF SLY STONE
Fronting his livewire mixed-race, multi-gendered Family Stone, Sly Stone looked like he could have stepped out of a blaxploitation film, except that era was still to come in 1968 when he ignited his psychedelic soul inferno with Dance To The Music and changed black music overnight.
10+ min |
August 2025
Record Collector
20/20 VISIONARIES
In the space of two days in June, we lost two giants of popular music, aged 82: Brian Wilson and Sly Stone. Both were leaders of family bands, both deeply troubled, yet both created radically beautiful/brilliant music in the studio. Here, Bob Stanley pays tribute to the adored Beach Boy while on page 84, Kris Needs salutes the genius formally known as Sylvester Stewart.
10+ min |
August 2025
Record Collector
MONUMENT
Numerous rockers have been immortalised with statues. Joe Geesin surveys some star-studded memorials
4 min |
August 2025
Record Collector
"STOP TRYING TO BE CLEVER, AND JUST GO WITH THE FLOW"
A leading figure in the 60s UK folk revival, Martin Carthy always relied on a simple songwriting philosophy, through his friendship with Bob Dylan and Paul Simon to his role in moulding the folk-rock movement with Steeleye Span. Since then, his creative and romantic partnership with late partner Norma Waterson helped create the “first family” of British folk. “There have been several ‘me's’ through the years, and some of them are very interesting,” he tells Rob Hughes.
10+ min |
August 2025
Record Collector
Generation Z- the future of collecting?
BPI report spotlights music habits, interests and priorities of the Y2K-plus cohort
4 min |
August 2025
Record Collector
HITE MAN'S BLUES
Just as Canned Heat were reinventing electric blues for the Woodstock generation, their founder members were avidly collecting old records. Their leader Bob 'The Bear' Hite's death saw him leave behind a trove of 78s, 45s and old blues recordings. Tony Burke tells the story of a band of blues-obsessed record collectors
7 min |
August 2025
Record Collector
The Collector
This month: Rob Wheeler
7 min |
August 2025
Record Collector
CHILD'S PLAY
Before he became a world-conquering songwriter/ producer, Desmond Child tore up New York for one glorious year at the end of the 70s with his rock-R&B-disco fusion group, Desmond Child & Rouge. Now, the Laura Nyro-adoring 70s Scissor Sisters™ tell Charles Donovan they're coming back to finish what they started.
10+ min |
August 2025
Record Collector
AI Quality
Back in the mid-70s, when all sorts of imaginative music could be heard emanating from the city of Canterbury, Hatfield And The North ranked as one of the most interesting groups on the scene. Little wonder, when you consider they featured ex-members of Caravan, Gong, Matching Mole and Egg. It was a short, fascinating trip, with a lengthy genesis, as Hatfield's bassist and singer Richard Sinclair and keyboardist Dave Stewart tell Chris Wheatley
9 min |
August 2025
Record Collector
33½ minutes with...Skin
Skunk Anansie singer Deborah 'Skin' Dyer OBE, born in Brixton, London in 1967, was the first black British artist to headline Glastonbury in 1999. Skin once described her band's dynamic music as 'clit-rock', but she can't be confined to a single sound, as her two solo albums demonstrated in 2003 and again in 2006.
4 min |
August 2025
Record Collector
SUGAR COPPER BLUE
I bought Sugar's Copper Blue in 1992 on the back of a great review in the NME and I also got to see the band live when they toured the UK.
6 min |
August 2025
Record Collector
ROBERT FORSTER & THE GO-BETWEENS
As co-founder of The Go-Betweens, Robert Forster was one half of the greatest songwriting partnership in Australian pop, alongside the late Grant McLennan. His solo career hasn't been too shabby, either, and the latest fruit of his labours is new album Strawberries, in which he responds to more challenges in his personal life with some of his most luminous songwriting to date. He takes Johnnie Johnstone through his back catalogue.
10+ min |
August 2025
Record Collector
Special Relationship
Special Relationship Ex-R.E.M. guitarist and British indie maverick's surprise pairing showcases a heady psych-rock haul...
2 min |
July 2025
Record Collector
Acid Test
Recently reunited Scotland art-rockers reissue the tripped-out debut which made their name and took them briefly to Hollywood.
3 min |
July 2025
Record Collector
SOUL COLLECTOR
Based in Loveland, Ohio, Tery Cole founded the Colemine label in 2007 and, with his brother Bob, he started his own record shop Plaid Room Records in 2015.
4 min |
July 2025
Record Collector
THE ENGINE ROOM
The unsung heroes who helped forge modern music
4 min |
July 2025
Record Collector
Run Ragged
The Chrome Hearts bypass quality control as their leader approaches his ninth decade on Earth. By Jason Draper
3 min |
July 2025
Record Collector
From The Vaults Reissues, remasters and compilations
Back to the beginnings, and proof that behind the scandals and celebrity affairs lay genuine talent.
3 min |
July 2025
Record Collector
A TANGLED WEB
Pentangle were among the vanguard of British folk-rock, drawing on progressive and psychedelic influences as well as the traditional acoustic sounds that first fired up the scene. Their initial lifespan would be barely five years, but during that time they would prove hugely influential to a wide range of artists. Now 81, Jacqui McShee, one of the defining voices of the era, speaks to Rob Fitzpatrick
10+ min |
July 2025
Record Collector
The Joys Of Spring
Mick Head's luckless, luminescent first band collated.
3 min |
July 2025
Record Collector
Down To The Roots
Newly discovered outtake reels give wonderfully intriguing insight into the making of singer-songwriter's classic debut.
3 min |
July 2025
Record Collector
Heard Ya Missed M WELL I'M BACK!
This month: I Monster
4 min |
July 2025
Record Collector
THE FOREST HILLS ARE ALIVE..
When the Ramones came to the UK in 1976, they were a major inspirational force for the burgeoning British punk movement. But back home in New York, the artists soon to be known as Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy had been moulding their oft-mocked brand of back-to-basics rock'n'roll to barely credulous but slowly growing crowds since 1974-5. Kris Needs, who was there at that UK debut, speaks to Joey Ramone's brother Mickey Leigh, Craig Leon, Lenny Kaye, Chris Frantz, Jayne County and others, also drawing on his own historical encounters with the band, to trace the backstory of four like-minded suburban outcasts and the ‘chemical imbalance’ that helped catalyse a revolution.
10+ min |
July 2025
Record Collector
Shot In The Dark
xPropaganda singer unveils a late-career gem. By Charles Waring
2 min |
July 2025
Record Collector
33½ minutes with...Ezra Furman
Born in Chicago in 1986, Ezra Furman studied English at Tufts University in Somerville, MA. She also helmed Ezra Furman & The Harpoons, with whom she recorded four albums between 2006 and 2011.
4 min |
July 2025
Record Collector
HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER
Slim Whitman's peak success - when he set a UK chart record that stood for 36 years - came just before the 50s rock'n'roll explosion, which may be why this American country star isn't as acclaimed as he might be. Jack Watkins yodels his praises...
10 min |
July 2025
Record Collector
THE ROAD TO ELLIOTT
A quarter-century on from Figure 8, Elliott Smith's final studio record before his untimely passing, we shine a spotlight on one of America’s most enigmatic artists. The songwriter was taken too soon but left behind a compelling body of work. Felix Rowe joins two of his closest collaborators, Rob Schnapf and Larry Crane, to explore his output.
10 min |
July 2025
Record Collector
UNDER THE RADAR
Artists, bands, and labels meriting more attention
4 min |