NO LAUGHING STOCK
Record Collector|September 2022
One of the great living Liverpudlians, Michael Head has plenty to smile about. But his has been a bumpy journey, as widely admired albums he’s made first with The Pale Fountains then Shack, under the aegis of The Strands and now The Red Elastic Band, have come either side of addiction-related potholes. Reanimating the latter project in some style at 60, fresh from another withdrawal induced by Covid lockdowns, he tells Pete Paphides how “I got my shit together, got focused” for his latest release, the Top 10 LP, Dear Scott.
Pete Paphides
NO LAUGHING STOCK

"Has it really been seven years?” exclaims Michael Head, moments after hellos are exchanged with your correspondent. The first thing you notice about the fanatically revered Liverpudlian songwriter on this overcast spring afternoon is just how trim he looks inside his matching denim apparel. Nimbly ascending the steps outside Lime Street Station, he’s quick to establish the last time we met, when his condition gave rise to slightly greater concern. In 2015, with a standalone 7” single Velvets In The Dark to promote, Head decided it was once again time to confront the dependency issues that have dogged his career since his days spinning baroque-pop magic with The Pale Fountains and the red-brick romantic poetry of Shack.

Not for Head, though, the managed, structured withdrawal of 12-step programmes or prescribed replacements to ease the comedown. That summer, he boarded a train to London and stayed with author, musician, and former addict friend Simon Mason, who shadowed Head at his family home in East London. It was a profusely sweating, somewhat fragile songsmith that greeted me two days after I messaged him to see if he might be up for joining me on a show I hosted for online station Soho Radio. Courteous but shy, he attempted to manage his physical discomfort by drinking fizzy pop, but really it was only when he cradled his guitar and started to pick out a melody that he hit his stride.

Denne historien er fra September 2022-utgaven av Record Collector.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

Denne historien er fra September 2022-utgaven av Record Collector.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

FLERE HISTORIER FRA RECORD COLLECTORSe alt
Paperback Blighters - The books every record collector should read.
Record Collector

Paperback Blighters - The books every record collector should read.

The books every record collector should read. Vinyl, you may have heard, has made a big comeback. In 2022, sales of vinyl albums surpassed compact discs (CDs) for the first time in more than three decades in terms of global revenue, racking up more than $1.2bn.

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"Beware the Savage Lure/of 1984..." - David Bowie is one of the most venerated musicians ever. But even he had his bad periods.
Record Collector

"Beware the Savage Lure/of 1984..." - David Bowie is one of the most venerated musicians ever. But even he had his bad periods.

David Bowie is one of the most venerated musicians ever. But even he had his bad periods. For many, 1984 remains the nadir of his Phil Collins” phase; an artistic/sartonial/tonsorial disaster area. But was it really that awful? Forty years on, Matt Phillips explores Bowie's so-called annus horribilis.

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7"  Heaven & Hell the Story of the 45 - The 45 turns 75 this year. Matthew Quinlan charts its history, recalling the RPM wars and two belligerent titans who went into battle over the speed of spinning sound
Record Collector

7" Heaven & Hell the Story of the 45 - The 45 turns 75 this year. Matthew Quinlan charts its history, recalling the RPM wars and two belligerent titans who went into battle over the speed of spinning sound

Someone needs to come and empty the bins behind the Lloyds Bank branch in Kingston-upon-Thames. It’s been raining and flattened cardboard slumps next to a flytipped air conditioning unit and a rusting clothes rack. There are two signs at head height on the red brick wall. One warns that you’ll be clamped if you park here; the other, a stainless-steel plaque, marks Nipper’s 100th birthday. Nipper, the dog at the heart of the HMV and RCA Victor logos, was a white terrier with chocolate brown ears, maybe a Jack Russell, Smooth Fox, or Bull Terrier, more likely a mix. This is his final resting place. He was buried under a mulberry tree but, you know, urban sprawl, progress, etc. The plaque was unveiled by the Chairman of HMV Stores on 15 August 1984, while Captain Sensible, Janice Long, and a Nipper doppelganger looked on. Round the corner, at HMV and Our Price, George Michael’s Careless Whisper was flying off the shelves, and every copy turned at 45 RPM.

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STARS ON 45s
Record Collector

STARS ON 45s

A BUNCH OF MUSICIANS - 45, COUNT 'EM! RHAPSODISE ABOUT THEIR FAVOURITE SINGLE

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Record Collector

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John Coleman celebrates the great art of vinyl collecting on the 45th Anniversary of Record Collector and finds out, in an exhausting series of anxietyinducing sprees, how much vinyl you can buy today, ina variety of outlets, with 45.

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Young American
Record Collector

Young American

A serendipitous collaboration with David Bowie in 1974 kick-started Luther Vandross' recording career. But he still faced an uphill struggle to succeed as a solo artist. Charles Waring talks to some of the singer's most trusted collaborators about his early years and how he battled to be heard....

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MOD ALMIGHTY
Record Collector

MOD ALMIGHTY

Steve Ellis began his career as a mod in flower-power clobber as frontman of chart-toppers Love Affair. Quitting in 1970, he worked with The Who's Roger Daltrey then gave up music to become a docker before a near-death experience. Interest in his work was rekindled after hooking up with long-time fan Paul Weller. Lois Wilson hears how his romance with music endures.

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ANARCHISTS IN THE UK
Record Collector

ANARCHISTS IN THE UK

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The boy with the thorn in his side
Record Collector

The boy with the thorn in his side

David Cassidy was arguably the biggest solo star of the immediate post-Beatles era, yet his fame as well as his boyish good looks and extracurricular excessesovershadow the excellence of his breathily intimate, musically accomplished records. Simon Goddard, RC contributor and author of an acclaimed series of books on David Bowie, hails the work of the tortured pop idol

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"I COULD JUST THROW MUD AT THE WALL"
Record Collector

"I COULD JUST THROW MUD AT THE WALL"

There's little sign of slowing down from the 19-year-old Pete Townshend. Currently on the go: multi-media project The Age Of Anxiety; a dance production of Quadrophenia; and Pete Townshend Live In Concert 1985-2001, a 14-disc boxset of his solo in-concert recordings. Not, he admits, that his every whim and fancy are worth deeper exploration. \"Some of them are good ideas, some of them are pretty dumb,\"

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