The legends of my youth are in their sixties or seventies now. Happily, I’ve seen most of them, often more than once. As regular readers of this blog will know, I go to a lot of gigs. But there are still a few soul giants I’ve never had the chance to see. According to our Scouse taxi driver this morning, Al Green’s voice is shot, so I’ve left that too late. I’ll probably never get to see Aretha Franklin either. Marvin Gaye died too young. Did get to see Millie Jackson twice in her hey day. Diana Ross. Tick. Smokey Robinson was an unexpected delight. After his recent bout of cancer and talk of Alzheimers, though, I thought there was no chance of seeing…

1978 was my first full year in Nottingham, where I was studying English Literature and American Studies at the old university and found myself editing the students’ union newspaper, Gongster. I often used to visit the Midland Group gallery on Carlton St in Hockley. Two exhibitions from that time stick in my mind: drawings by Kevin Coyne, who also gave a poetry reading/performance and a showcase for the Nottingham artist Paul Waplington, which I returned to more than once. Of course I couldn’t afford to buy anything at either one. A postcard of Waplongton’s Basford Hill Silver Prize Band (do have a look at the full slide show on this link) stood on my mantelpiece for years, until it became worn out, and I was delighted to…

Here are my top thirty albums of the year. Tracks from many of them are in the post below. 1          John Murry – The Graceless Age 2          Prefab Sprout – Crimson/Red 3          Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires Of The City 4          Laura Marling – Once I Was An Eagle 5          Kanye West – Yeezus 6          Arctic Monkeys – AM 7          Daft Punk – Random Access Memories 8          Arcade Fire – Reflektor 9          Tamikrest – Chatma 10         David Bowie – The Next Day 11 Roy Harper – Man And Myth 12 Slaid Cleaves – Still Fighting The War 13 Kurt Vile – Wakin’ On A Sunny Day 14 Jason Isbell – South Eastern 15 Rod Stewart – Time…

  Every year since 1988, we’ve made a best of year music compilation for our friends, and this year is no exception. In recent years, I’ve put the songs up on here for readers to enjoy. Our cd is intended to promote the artists featured and the songs will only remain on this site for a short time, but if copyright holders are concerned, just email me on the link above and the relevant song will be removed. This post will be updated once a day or thereabouts, until New Year’s Eve. Those of you lucky enough to receive a copy in the post may want to look away until yours arrives. I haven’t actually started burning them yet, but once this big pile of…