"The cords of all link back...strandentwining cable...
"Hello...put me on to Edenville... aleph, alpha: nought, nought, one"
Tuesday, March 26, 2013 at 6:48PM 
With the annual Record Store Day just a few weeks away, an opportunity to reflect on the case for vinyl, as set out on a Colombia inner sleeve from the early seventies.
I'm not sure all the individual arguments hold up today – I've not been making extensive use of an auto-changer recently, it has to be said – but overall it's pretty compelling, forty years on.
Monday, March 25, 2013 at 8:59PM 
A really nice burst of Billy Bragg on the latest from the always admirable Secret Sessions.
His new album Tooth and Nail seems - on a first few lstens - to build nicely on his earlier Americana-tinged excursions with Wilco on Mermaid Avenue with a set of mellow and essentially personal songs.
I'm looking forward to seeing him in Brighton again in May. Meanwhile, 'Handyman Blues' definitely rings true for me: I'd always opt for songwriting over putting up shelves...
Tuesday, March 19, 2013 at 6:47PM 
Well, the gamble paid off.
It was certainly worth the trip to Belfast and a stonking ticket price and braving the washed-out St Patrick's Day weekend weather to take front row seats to see Van Morrison playing on his home patch to an audience of 250.
The Man was in mellow mood, clearly enjoying himself: teasing the band and treating us to a range of apercus - on subjects ranging from grumpy people who manage to avoid the criticism he gets (eg HM The Queen) to the equally regal Cliff Richard (substituting 'when Sir Cliff shines his light' in the lyrics when he revisited their one - award winningly unlikely - collaboration).
We travelled up in the lift afterwards with MD Paul Moran, who confirmed with a grin that a good time had been had by all.
It was a jazzy set, geared to the supper club ambience - as the setlist shows. Two songs from last year's album, some standards; the band trading solos fluently and Van contributing a fair amount of sax himself.
The highlights for me were an unexpected rearrangement of 'Wavelength' and a beautiful, luminous, reading of 'In The Garden' - real hairs on the back of the neck stuff.
The bluesey triptych at the end was great,too - muscular performances with Van blowing some fine harp. The audience got up and crowded to the front of the stage and suddenly it could have been some small club, way back when.
Daughter Shana Morrison opened the evening with three songs of her own and then sang backing vocals through the evening, which also seemed to suit the home town vibe.
It's great that Van has found a way of working that really suits him, but the growing sequence of Irish supper club gigs this year may test his fans' wallets and diaries. People seem to be flying in from all over - we were sitting next to a Dutch couple, there was a good sprinkling of Americans, apparently some from Australia - and I hope they continue to do so and he can carry on filling the venues.
I leave you with a man and his mouth organ...
16 March, Belfast, Europa Hotel, Van Morrison Saturday, March 9, 2013 at 10:50AM 
Excellent to hear that a new studio album from Tunng is on its way. They're probably my favourite discovery of recent years and their sabbatical through 2012 left a definite gap in my personal soundscape.
There was an attractive substitute in the shape of Mike Lindsay's Cheek Mountain Thief album, which I liked a lot, but it will be good to have the full band back in action.
The other Tunng-related release last year was Sam Genders' Diagrams release Black Light. It didn't immediately grab me: I felt at the time that it was a bit too poppy and the lyrics too deliberately zany. But 12 months later, I've got there and have really warmed to an upbeat and consistently inventive set of songs. And - while I don't particularly want to plug Amazon - I now find they have vinyl copies available for the knockdown price of £6.45... Grab while stocks last. Here's a taste.
