Vinyl Release

One of last year's musical highlights was the release of Summer Of Soul, the documentary lovingly assembled by Questlove about the Cultural Festival that took place on six Sundays between June the 29th and August the 24th 1969 at Mount Morris Park in Harlem, New York.

Say hello to Jesus Malverde. He may or may not have actually existed, apparently sported a handsome moustache, and today he's Mexico's patron saint of drug smugglers. Yup, you read that right. Mexico is such a marvellously messed-up place that it remains highly religious but simultaneously economically reliant on the dope trade.

Prior to the current condemnatory climate where all fake news is regarded as a deadly sin, we often used the word 'apocryphal'. It meant an event of dubious authenticity which was so enticing that, despite the lack of any absolute proof, it was widely and enthusiastically embraced as being true. In other words, we didn't always let the facts get in the way of a good story.

I'm reading a book at the moment called Seasons They Change: The Story Of Acid And Psychedelic Folk by Jeanette Leech. Pretty much on every page there's reference to an artist or band that I've never heard of, which is some going as I like to think I know a thing or two about music. Anyway, with Spotify or YouTube at the ready, over the past few weeks I've sampled the wares of such artists as The Habibiyya, Jan Dukes De Grey, Malicorne and many more.

The twenty seventh of September 1957, the morning after the night before, and the reviews are in... 'The most savage, restless, electrifying dance patterns we've been exposed to in a dozen seasons... a profoundly moving show that is as ugly as the city jungles and also pathetic, tender and forgiving... flaring scores that capture the shrill beat of life in the streets... The astringent score has moments of tranquillity and rapture, and occasionally a touch of sardonic humour… This is a bold new different kind of musical…'

Before we get started, be warned: 'It's too easy for this album to turn you into a pretentious t**t.' These aren't my words by the way. They're from a book all about Loveless by an American chap called Mike McGonigal, who immediately goes on to prove his point by stating that the first time he heard the album in question, he felt, 'as if I'd been suspended upside down in a tank filled with beautiful fish'.

Lars Ulrich is not amused. 'Is this the test pressing?' he asks his manager, Peter Mensch. 'No', Mensch answers emphatically. 'That's the jacket, the cover that's going out across the country.'