Sheffield-born Peter Stringfellow who died yesterday, aged 77, was Britain’s most famous nightclub entrepreneur. The glitzy London club that bore his name a magnet for celebrities during the ‘80s, epitomising the glamourous world he always sought, in contrast to his cash-strapped working class roots.
50 years ago today an album was released that took pop music, something previously regarded as disposable, into the realm of art, whilst helping enable a vital generation of young people to throw off the shackles and express themselves in ever-ambitious ways – ‘Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ soundtracked the fabled ‘summer of love’, which had spilled out into an unsuspecting world via the US West Coast, its psychedelic epicentre being San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood, where the original hippies had gathered and pondered the meaning of it all, adopting a lateral LSD-laced stance on life that would be a defining feature of the decade.
This Friday (May 19th) I’m playing a pretty extraordinary gig in Liverpool within one of the city’s most iconic buildings, the Anglican Cathedral. It’s a free event, part of the LightNight celebrations throughout the city, and I’ll be appearing between 9pm-11pm.
I wanted to do something to mark the 50th anniversary of 1967 – a truly magical, myth-laden, musical year when so much changed, separating old from new and leading to a seismic cultural shift, especially via the recording industry – artists becoming increasingly ambitious, with pop music no longer regarded as throwaway fodder for the kids, but the great artistic statement of the age.
It was half a century ago today that one of the great albums of the pop era, ‘Revolver’ by The Beatles, was released. It was the 7th Beatles album and their 7th UK #1 (all of The Beatles’ studio albums topped the UK chart). It generally places highly on critic’s best album of all-time lists.
Technology is often a double-edged sword, announcing on the one hand exciting new possibilities, but on the other a break from a tradition you once thought was always.
North London born A&R man and record producer of The Beatles, George Martin, died yesterday aged 90.
I wanted to write in greater personal detail about David Bowie and the depth of impact his music and words had on me during my formative teenage years – this occurring when I was between the ages of 12 and 15. I’d uploaded a blog post once I’d heard about his death, but I’ve found myself needing to revisit what was a magical mystical part of my musical / life initiation, as much for myself as anyone else, both by listening through the records I loved, and still love, whilst getting it all into words somehow. Once I started writing this I couldn’t contain it – it was bursting out of all sides. So please excuse me for the tangents I go off on and the jumping about – there’s no easy coherent way for me to express this. For a period following his 6th July 1972 ‘Starman’ performance on Top Of The Pops, until 1975, when I began to disengage, Bowie ruled ok in my world.
Woke up to the news this morning that David Bowie had died from cancer, aged 69, just a few days on from his birthday last Friday when his latest album, ‘Blackstar’, was released.
Today The Beatles made their back catalogue available to stream online. This provides a significant cultural marker for, as in the ’80s when CD was on the rise, the endorsement of The Beatles gives the ‘format’ full validity within the music industry.
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