On the cover of the magazine this month are The Who: Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, exclusively talking to Record Collector about their history of live performance. Roger recalls 10 of the band’s greatest, most significant gigs – from The Railway Hotel and The Marquee through Monterey, Isle Of Wight, Quadrophenia and Charlton all the way up to Wembley 2019 – while Pete more generally assesses the impact of The Who’s concerts and the band’s continuing status as a premier live attraction. He even makes the surprising admission that he doesn’t enjoy being onstage (yeah, right!). Finally, we have a discography covering The Who’s official live recordings. You won’t want to miss it.
There is, of course, more. Pauline Black discusses the contribution made to British pop by 2 Tone band The Selecter and considers whether it was a good idea for her to accept her OBE. We go record shopping at his favourite London store with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys and The Arcs. Lewis Taylor, the “lost boy” of 90s psych-soul, explains where he’s been this past decade and a half. We feature an extract from a book about The Only Ones, focusing on the new wave band’s perennially thrilling Another Girl, Another Planet. There’s a photo special about the life and career of ELP’s keyboard supremo Keith Emerson. We pay tribute to composer extraordinaire Burt Bacharach and “hippie hopper” Dave Jolicoeur of De La Soul. We spend 33 1/3 minutes in the company of Paul Jones, formerly of Manfred Mann. John McNally of The Searchers discusses the 10 key records of his lifetime. Lieutenant Pigeon are the band Under The Radar this month, Mike Vernon is the producer in the Engine Room and we nominate 10 Of The Best Trad Jazz records. We have a bumper reviews section: albums by 10cc, Pink Floyd, Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach, Depeche Mode and Lana Del Rey, books about Karen Carpenter and AC/DC, and live shows by KT Tunstall and John Cale are under inspection.
The News section details all the releases for this year’s Record Store Day and NatalieMerchant of 10,000 Maniacs returns while in The Vinylist Thunder talk, inevitably, vinyl. The Collector this month is a Sonic Youth fan, RC Investigates looks at Australian pop museums, Value Added Facts answers readers’ letters about Delphina James, Blue Mitchell and UFO Robot, Diggin’ For Gold unearths a neglected Marianne Faithfull album and in Most Wanted Abbey Road consoles and Elvis Presley’s sheriff badge are up for sale. Bob Stanley conjures the joy of library music while David Quantick considers whether major artists suffer from Best Known Album Syndrome. And there are records for sale by everyone from Aphrodite’s Child to Zappa in our Listings pages.
RC can be purchased from your local newsagent, our loyal army of record shop stockists, or you can start a subscription or buy individual copies from our shop.
See you next month – out 20 April will be our fifth issue of 2023. Expect a major article on goth and interviews with Nick Heyward talking about 80s Britfunk/janglepop hybridists Haircut 100’s comeback, Courteeners on their record-breaking success, former Beta Band member Steve Mason on his back catalogue and Eddie Piller taking us on a mod photo odyssey.
Thanks for reading,
Paul Lester
