Vinyl Release

So many stories, where-oh-where to begin? Maybe we could start on the 14th of July 1973 at that fateful gig at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California, when Don's so hammered that he's butchering the songs and Phil smashes his guitar in frustration, tells the crowd he's tired of being an Everly Brother and says that they, in fact, died as a meaningful entity ten years before – thus revealing the fraught fabrication behind all those celestial harmonies. It was an acrimony so strong that it kept them full-on apart for the entire next decade.

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…'

The Rolling Stones have just released their first original track for eight years. 'Living In A Ghost Town', started some time ago when the band could convene together in a swanky recording studio and hastily rounded off with isolated overdubs. It's getting a bit of a pasting from the online community who are having a lot of fun mocking Mick Jagger and Co for moaning about being stuck at home when they live in mansions with acres of land, hot tubs and snooker rooms, etc.

Occasionally I get asked who was the most unpleasant rock star I encountered during my decades writing for the music press. That's a toughie, although Robert Palmer and Phil Lynott hover near the top of the pile. Far easier to say who was the scariest. Answer, without doubt: Henry Rollins.

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.

Remember Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong? Of course you don't. No reason why you should. They didn't amount to a hill of beans. To elucidate: they were one of those thousands of bands heaped on the steaming pile of what was rather cruelly described in the mid-'90s as Landfill Indie.

Afew decades ago I read an interview with Tom Waits where he was asked about the art of songwriting. Tom thought about it for a second, then declared that in fact he found it very easy, thanks to a nine-word magic formula. Those words were: 'Things will be better when we get to Chicago…'.