A Lark Ascending

No Mole in the book. The author set himself a limitation of no more than one shop per town. Despite thinking twice, he decided not to waive the rule for London. Rough Trade got chosen (he's dealing with shops he did lots of business with over the years; maybe something so specialised as Mole was off his beat. Can't remember if they dealt in Proper boxes). The egalitarian treatment of the provinces alongside the capital is quite unusual...but in the spirit of a book that celebrates the small scale in danger of being swamped by behemoths.

Expensive, time-consuming joke. And not all that funny.

I suspect 'Dylan and the Dead' might just be about to lose its poll position.

Can't wait for him to cover 'I was born under a Wanderin' Star'.

Here is the fate of the shop in Newquay, Cornwall I bought my first record ('Question', The Moody Blues) in back in 1970. It used to be a music shop (instruments, music paper etc) that also sold records. I still can't see how they got a piano in there, let alone several! I took that one back in April this year. That area is now one of the tackiest bits of Newquay. Here's a close up from the web: Maybe someone else bought a Who record there back in the day!

Somebody should write a book about that place ! It gets mentioned in the frighteningly long lately-departed list at the front of the book. The writer's career has been mainly in the rock area so I doubt if Mole will figure highly. I'll let you know if it gets mentioned. Actually, I was thinking that between us we could probably write a book about London's lost jazz record shops. The only problem would be that we're the only people who would want to read it.

One of the sad stories mentioned by several different owners in the book is of being sold chart CDs by the record companies for £9 when the local supermarket was selling them for £6. So the independent owners would take a trolley to the supermarket, buy up all the stock at £6 so they could sell it for £7. Still cheaper than buying direct from the company. Reminds me of a conversation I had with the chap who used to run Music Matters in Bath - he was saying he was getting to the point where he would no longer stock Blue Note releases because he was constantly undercut by the likes of Fopp and the never ending sales in HMV. There's a nice tale from Threshold Records in Cobham (owned by the Moody Blues) which refuses to stock mainstream chart CDs and X-Factor type things. The owner takes pleasure when a rep asks how many copies of the new Kylie CD he wants in replying 'None'.

As I recall, getting down that staircase safely after a couple of pints could be problematic ! I'm almost certain it was St Martin's Lane. Rooting around on Google I noticed that a shop I recall seeing that only sold recordings from shows and musicals still seems to be functioning. There also used to a shop selling only opera recordings next door to the Coliseum (why is that so hard to spell?) and a recall a large classical only shop on the Strand just opposite Charing Cross Station. Do they still exist?

Could have been Honest Jons - though for some reason I'd have expected a more modern name! I recall the original Rays very well - in its latter days it too had a good folk/blues/country section down a spiral staircase in the basement. I went into the original Dobells a few times during its latter days. It was on CCR but I can't recall if it was above or below Cambridge Circus. Did it have two separate shops right next to one another - I might be wrong, but I seem to recall the folk stuff being separate from the jazz. I still have a John Kirkpatrick and Sue Harris LP with a Dobells sticker on it. Going back to the book, there are a couple of pictures of MG's favourite haunt, Spillers in the book. I've not yet got to Wales in the text.

Written by one of the people who run Proper Music (yes, yes, I know...) who worked his way from a market stall and has seen the changing fortunes of the record market. The first bit describes his career in record shops and managing bands. But the heart is just a 2008 tour round the independent shops he has dealt with all his life. A fun read for his affectionate defence of the little shops, especially when it's a shop you've used...but also enlightening about why the record shops have closed so quickly (and E-bay, Amazon and downloading are only part of the story...he's scathing about the treatment of independents by the record companies). He's not a natural writer - it can be a bit stilted and the 'funny stories' are often not that funny. But if you spent as much time in UK record shops as I did up to a few years back, you'll enjoy this. Published by Proper so not hard to find! *************** Side question. Someone - might have been BillF or Sidewinder - mentioned in the last few days not being able to find the relocated Dobells when it left its main base. It made me think of a shop I recall from the early 80s (maybe even very late 70s) that stood in the Covent Garden area about one or two roads parallel to Charing Cross Road. It looked very modern with quite spartan walls. The front room had jazz records on sale, the back had folk records. I can recall seeing lots of Andrew Hill and Bobby Hutcherson Blue Note imports there - too expensive for me to take a chance on though later I regreted it (and later still was pleased as the music appeared on CD). Was this the relocated Dobells or somewhere else?

I'm only mildly interested in 'ground-breaking' - it's an issue of historical analysis. What's much more important to me is 'interesting, enjoyable, engaging' and both 'Revolver' and the Byrds music have that range of melodic interest, unusual effects, strange takes on existing approaches and great vocals to keep me listening....40 years later at that. Maybe it's because I'm in my 50s, but I find the first two albums don't have a great deal of that sort of interest and the lyrics are so aimed at what we'd later call a teenybop market that you have to really suspend your disbelief listening to them. I don't even hear much rawness there. In spite of the Decca examples, I'd imagine the Beatles would have sound very different in the Cavern or Hamburg. Those first two albums sound to me like very tamed versions of their existing approach. Which was undoubtedly necessary - learning how to work in a studio, developing their songwriting with the assistance of someone who could point them down different avenue etc all helped make what came after possible. Without that they'd probably have been the Dave Clarke Five. Put a historical hat on and try and imagine those records as first heard - especially by teenagers - in 1962/3 and I can see exactly why they were so exciting (after all, those teenagers had never heard 'Revolver'). It's a bit like listening to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (who, like the Beatles, were performing a music taken largely from a different culture) - I can understand why they created such a stir as the First World War came to an end but I can't feel anything in the records. Whereas Louis Armstrong a few years later has done so much more that the shivers can still go down my back 80 years later.

Absolutely. Though I heard all the Beatles singles in the background growing up in the Sixties I was very late in hearing them on album. So those first two albums do litttle for me. But I can see why they might be thrilling to other ears. Thank the lord we don't all hear things the same way.

And there you have it. That's why everyone who can afford it has jumped all over the mono box. The first two albums are only of historical interest to me. HDN, BFS and H are hugely enjoyable but... It's Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt P (with reservations), the White Album and Abbey Road + the singles album that are the big atraction for me (I've not heard 'Let It Be' as an album ever!...should be remedied in the next couple of weeks). Mono, stereo, cylinder disc, download...doesn't enter into the equation for these ears.

I was a bit befuddled by this - couldn't work out if I had heard it before (they often repeat these programmes). But the mentions of her appearance at the London Jazz Festival in a couple of months would suggest it is new as she is there. Intrigued by the Christmas disc from which a track was played at the end...though I know that tune from somewhere else, probably one of her tunes in a different title. Can't find mention of it on the web though she does seem to have done some concerts in Germany. Carla does Santa...who'd have thought it. Actually, given her whacky approach to things, she's a natural for a seasonal disc.

Due to run live on BBC Radio 3 in a few minutes. Available on the replayer for a week afterwards: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006x41z

I read that back in the 90s and found it very enlightening...though I've seen it rubbished by classical critics (probably irked that some pop oik has dared to enter the portals of high culture). I really enjoyed his collection of essays and articles 'The People's Music'.

Can Anthony Braxton twist? Can he shout?

One of the interesting things about the edition I have is that it gives jazz-rock/fusion a great deal of space, seeing it as a major marker in the way jazz was developing. I'd be interested to know if later editions altered that perspective in the light of what happened and the relative marginalisation of fusion.

If it's a bio you want, 'Revolution in the Head' won't do the trick. It is as you suggest more analytical/descriptive of the music (without being technical). It also has an intriguing social analysis in the long introduction. But don't be scared of it - you won't need a detailed chronological knowledge to make sense of it. I always find it greatly increases my pleasure in the albums to read the Macdonald descriptions first. I once went through most of the albums song-by-song, pausing to read what he had to say first.

Still have my copy from 1977 that I used to guide my early steps into jazz. I owe it a great deal.

Will the mono recordings be based on the 2003 mix or the 1983 (to my mind definitive) mix? And will there be a computer game where you can join in playing across the barline and simulate eating three chicken dinners whilst drinking gallons of alcohol and imbibing other substances? If so...awesome!

I'm looking forward to getting to 'The End' so I can finally work out what make of strings each one was using.

Would I be right in thinking that this is the 'only' way to hear Kind of Blue? Matter of taste I presume, the remixed stereo version on the Mosaic is quite good too, to my ears, just different. I don't believe in dogma like this, maybe because I was born in 1962, I wasn't there when KOB reached record's shops, so I am not emotionally attached to one specific version. Bev is referring to the Beatles mono/stereo ho ha. We need an 'I am being ironic (or even sarcastic)' smiley! Not that I'd use it!

Would I be right in thinking that this is the 'only' way to hear Kind of Blue?

My Dad always hated pop/rock music (he's a songs from the shows/light classics/MOR sort of chap - did the 'that's not music/is that a boy or a girl?' responses to TV pop quite naturally) but he liked the Beatles. He'd be hard pressed to name many of their songs but they did enough melodic things and had that amiable image in the early 60s to make them loveable to the pre-rock generation. One of their great achievements was to reference - however fleetingly - such a broad range of styles and genres that most people could get drawn in by something - r'n b, country, music hall, kiddy songs, psychedelia, Dylanesque folky (and electric) stuff, eastern exoticism, avant-garde experimentalism, slushy love songs etc..... And there was never too much of the novelty stuff on one album to alienate the core audience. Makes me wonder how far they were a significant cause, how far just a symptom of the late-20thC (and beyond) taste for musical diversity.