Omnivore CD/LP
I am looking at my 1992 copy of BIG STAR Live. It came in one of Ryko’s distinctive sea green cases, packed in a wildly environmentally-unfriendly “long box”. Three CDs were released at the same time – Live, Third/Sister Lovers and Chris Bell’s I Am The Cosmos. For me this was a significant expansion of Big Star, since all I had heard thus far was #1 Record and Radio City.
Today we are all a lot better informed about the whole Big Star Thing. Third is now regularly feted as a ground-breaking and influential LP and Chris Bell’s contribution to the artistic success of Big Star is now well established.
So that leaves Live as the runt of the litter. Certainly it was an unsophisticated recording , done direct to two track in front of an invited audience in New York’s Ultrasonic Studios in March 1974. There are fourteen tracks and a revealing interview with Alex Chilton: listen to the relish with which he describes touring conditions as ‘pretty scummy’. Whilst original drummer Jody Stephens was still in the band his colleague in rhythm Andy Hummell had gone back to college and was replaced by John Lightman on bass. The mix underplays Alex’s guitar until the third track Mod Lang.
Big Star were always an erratic proposition in performance. No live tapes exist of the original Chlton/Bell/Stephens/Hummell line up, although their live-in-the-studio take of In The Street done for a promo single is impressive. So all extant live recordings are of the three-piece band, which in no way resembled other power trios such as Cream or the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Jody is a powerful drummer, but Lightman is tentative and Alex is also economical with his guitar parts: no lengthy jamming here. I am reminded of the Kinks, who had a similar endearingly uncertain live sound before they tightened up and went balls-out professional after signing to Arista in the late 70s.
Omnivore have remastered the original WLIR recording. Compared to the original Ryko disc this new version is more of a Rock sound, louder and heavier. It is probably more commercial and may even be better suited to modern playback devices but I prefer my lighter, poppier Ryko version. Robert Gordon has upgraded his original liner notes and there is an interesting interview with John Lightman. Recommended if you do not have the Rykodisc original.
Also recommended but harder to find is Beale Street Green , a CD which contains 8 tracks recorded at rehearsals for the WLIR performance with a looser and more punchy sound. These tracks are also available on the official Norton Records release Nobody Can Dance. And watch out for a recording from the same tour made in Cambridge on 31/3/74 : lesser sound quality but interesting covers of Baby Strange, Candy Says, Til The End Of The Day and We Gotta Go.
Eat A Peach CD EAT 105
In May 1976 the Patti Smith Group stunned London with two nights of rock’n’roll quite unlike anything we had seen before. And now thanks to Eat A Peach we have an excellent aural document of those amazing gigs, a mere 42 years ago.
The gigs were highly anticipated and had quickly sold out. Patti was the first of the CBGB crowd to make it to London and her image preceded her. Time Out ran a cover story which featured “New York’s rock’n’roll poetess” in a battered leather biker jacket, too tough to prove it. Then there was Maplethorpe’s front cover picture of debut LP Horses, where Patti wore the men’s black suit / white shirt / skinny black tie combo featured by all her band. As a clueless teenager I found her sexy as hell, but in a different way to previous girl singers. Patti was fierce – more Sandie Shaw than Marianne Faithful.
The Roundhouse was then having a renaissance with incessant Hawkwind Sunday afternooners now replaced by a new wave of bands of which Patti was the harbinger. Support was the deeply unpleasant Stranglers, managed by Dai Davies who just so happened to book the Roundhouse. Unsurprisingly The Stranglers were the support band on the other epic Roundhouse gig of that summer, the Ramones / Groovies double header on July 4th.
I went on the Sunday night, May 16th. As the lights went down I recognised the opening tune – it was We’re Gonna Have Real Good Time Together! At that point only available on the Velvet Underground 1969 Live double LP, it remains a perfect set opener and message of intent, and reminds us that guitarist Lenny Kate always had impeccable taste. Free Money started off with Richard Sohl’s solo piano before the rest of the band piled in. Another obscurity follows, Paul Jones’ Set Me Free from the soundtrack to the movie Privilege. The set then dipped with three unfamiliar tunes – Pissing In A River, Pumping (My Heart) and Radio Ethiopia. All three would appear on album number two Radio Eithiopia but none of them match prime Horses material. Which then follows in the form of a phenomenal Land which merged seamlessly into a reckless Gloria, the group by now the garage band of your dreams. Encore was Patti’s patented version of My Generation without the John Cale bass solo but with Patti’s rewritten lyrics (wonder if Pete Townshend gave his approval?). On the Sunday night we were treated to a second encore of a Patti poem that ended “tick tock…f*ck the clock” and swang seamlessly into a lovely Time Is On My Side.
The CD from Eat A Peach does a great job in conveying the atmosphere and music from these gigs. Recorded on the Monday night (May 17) there is no Time Is On My Side but the other 12 tracks are here in remarkably good quality for an audience recording. The entertaining sleeve notes tell how ‘Mike B’ and ‘Pete’ taped the gig from centre-stage upstairs at the Roundhouse. After our intrepid duo blagged their way into the aftershow Patti and Lenny listened approvingly to the cassette and suggested it would make a fine bootleg one day. They were right. The CD looks as good as it sounds. Front cover is a colour repro of the gig ad, inside is a printed inner sleeve and fold out insert, all featuring great pics from the gig itself as well as a reproduction of the afore-mentioned Time Out cover.
Patti Smith would never be this groundbreaking again. The Jack Douglas production on Radio Ethiopia did the band no favours, and whilst Todd Rundgren was more sympathetic on Easter the material was now inconsistent, although the singles Frederick, Dancing Barefoot and Because The Night still sparkled. Then marriage, motherhood, retirement.
So remember the Patti Smith Group this way. From its release in December 1975 Horses rarely left my turntable and being able to relive the live version via this CD is a real thrill. Bravo!
Fifty years on from the live recording of the MC5’s incendiary Kick Out The Jams debut LP Wayne Kramer fronted a five-piece band who reproduced those eight tracks with a professionalism the original 5 could never muster. In addition to Wayne on trademark Stars ‘n’ Stripes guitar the band was Kim Thayil (Soundgarden) on rhythm guitar, Brendan Canty (Fugazi) on drums, Billy Gould (Faith No More) on bass and Marcus Durant (Zen Guerilla) on vocals, looking unnervingly like Mick Farren. Ramblin’ Rose and Kick Out The Jams made for a knockout opening duo and if Starship remains a sub-Hawkwind dirge then Borderline and Rocket Reducer 62 more than compensated.
Support Michael Monroe (ex-Hanoi Rocks) leant his pink saxophone to the coda of a sizzling Sister Anne and stayed on for the ballad Let Me Try, a welcome change of pace. Absent comrades Fred Sonic Smith. Michael Davies, Dennis Thompson and Rob Tyner were all saluted and the set concluded with a ferocious cover of Van Morrison’s I Can Only Give You Everything and a politically charged encore of Looking At You. Brother Wayne at 70 – still testifying, still dancing and an example to us all.
Review written for Record Collector magazine
Picture Credit: Simon Nicholl
Here are the first three songs from the gig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyTJBRQJJWE
And finally here is how my review looked when it appeared in the January 2019 edition of Record Collector magazine:
Yes, even more than “I am an antichrist”.
Try this: “Who cares if you’re Jewish and your breath smells of garlic and your nose is a shiny red light…”.
It actually gets worse after this.
The song When I Turn Out The Living Room Light comes from a time when Ray Davies was writing extraordinary songs at such a rate that there was no room for them on regular Kinks LPs. So the first time I heard this delicate melody was on the now impossibly rare vinyl LP The Great Lost Kinks album. Thankfully the track has been added to the excellent expanded re-issue of The Village Green Preservation Society so now everyone can hear it and be gobsmacked. Only right at the end of the song do you realise that the singer is equally challenged in the physical attraction stakes and so we have that rarest of things, a love song that involves real people. Or as Todd Rundgren was to put it a few years later “But love between the ugly is the most beautiful love of all”.
Laugh in a slightly embarassed way as you listen here
Looking forward to the MC5 gig at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire on Monday ? Me too. I was hoping to be your DJ for the evening but I lost out to someone rather better known…
Had I got the gig I planned to play only 7″ singles released in 1968, this gig celebrating the 50th anniversary of Kick Out The Jams. So there follows a list of what I would have been playing. Seem to me that 1968 was not such a vintage year for singles as 1966 or 1967. Some great tracks, but lacking the depth of the previous two years. Why should this be ? A growing emphasis on the LP, FM radio playing less chart singles, changes in drug consumption – who knows?
Let me know what tracks I’ve missed! Must have been released as the A or B side of a single during 1968…
Amboy Dukes – Journey To The Centre Of A Mind
Beach Boys – Never Learn Not To Love
Beatles – Revolution / Helter Skelter / While My Guitar Gently Weeps / Birthday / Back In The USSR
Jeff Beck Group – I’m Drinking Again
Boxtops – Cry Like A Baby
Eric Burdon and the Animals – Sky Pilot
Byrds – You Ain’t Going Nowhere
Canned Heat – On The Road Again / Going Up The Country
Cream – Anyone For Tennis / Crossroads
Dave Davies – Lincoln County
Deviants – Let’s Loot The Supermarket
Doors – Hello I Love You
Julie Driscoll / Brian Auger Trinity – This Wheel’s On Fire
Easybeats – Falling Off The Edge Of The World
Fleetwood Mac – Need Your Love So Bad / Shake Your Moneymaker / Black Magic Woman / Albatross / Jigsaw Puzzle
Grateful Dead – Dark Star
Jimi Hendrix Experience – All Along The Watchtower / Crosstown Traffic
Honeybus – I Can’t Let Maggie Go
Kinks – Days / She’s Got Everything
Monkees – Valleri
Tommy James & The Shondells – Mony Mony
Move – Fire Brigade
Nazz – Open My Eyes
Nice – America
Nirvana – Rainbow Chaser
Rolling Stones – Jumping Jack Flash / Child Of The Moon
Sly & The Family Stone – Life / Everyday People
Small Faces – The Universal
Spirit – I’ve Got A Line On You
Steppenwolf – Born To Be Wild
Syndicate Of Sound – You’re Looking Fine
Traffic – Feelin Alright?
Turtles – Sound Asleep / Elenore
Velvet Underground – White Light/White Heat
West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band – Smell Of Incense
Who – Dogs / Magic Bus
Yardbirds – Think About It
Zombies – Time Of The Season
The recent release of the 4CD set An American Treasure has bought some new outtakes and alternate versions into the public domain. Whilst I regard some Petty LP’s as unimproveable (Hard Promises fits into this category) there are others that I think could use some help. By also utilising tracks from the earlier Playback set I have reconfigured two LPs which at the time of release I found disappointingly inconsistent.
Long After Dark Revisited
- A One Story Town
- You Got Lucky
- Deliver Me (alt)
- Change Of Heart
- Finding Out
- Keep A Little Soul
- Straight Into Darkness (alt)
- Turning Point
- Between Two Worlds
Tracks 1, 2, 4. 5, 8 and 9 from the original Straight Into Darkness (1982)
Tracks 3, 6 and 7 from An American Treasure (2018)
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were in fine form when they toured this LP around Europe in 1982 but for me the original LP rather ran out of steam after Side 1. Adding Keep A Little Soul – the best unreleased track from An American Treasure – and the tougher live TV version of Straight Into Darkness makes for a better listen. The band really like another outtake called Keeping Me Alive which is included on both An American Treasure and Playback but it means nothing to me. Talking of which…
Southern Accents Revisited
- Rebels (alt)
- Walkin’ From The Fire
- Southern Accents
- Dogs On The Run
- Trailer
- Cracking Up
- The Apartment Song (demo)
- Big Boss Man
- The Image Of Me
- The Best Of Everything (alt)
- Don’t Come Around Here No More
Tracks 1, 2 and 10 from An American Treasure (2018)
Tracks 3, 4 and 11 from the original Southern Accents (1985)
Tracks 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 from Playback (1995)
Southern Accents was originally planned as a double LP and it could have been terrific, it could have been their Exile On Main Street. What eventually emerged was a mess. Whilst Dave Stewart did a brilliant job on Don’t Come Around Here No More – only placed last here because of over-familiarity – the other three tracks he produced were total turkeys. However the LP also contained two of Tom Petty’s best ever ballads in The Best Of Everything and Southern Accents. Adding the more country/roots orientated material such as the cover of Nick Lowe’s Cracking’ Up delivers a more consistent listen.
So sacrilege or creative improvement ? Let me know…
Let The Airwaves Flow 1 : Live At Olympia , Paris 1965-66 – The Rolling Stones
Side One
- Everybody Needs Somebody To Love (Russell, Burke, Wexler)
- Around and Around (Berry)
- Off The Hook (Nanker, Phelge)
- Carol (Berry)
- Little Red Rooster (Dixon)
- Route 66 (Troup)
- I’m Alright (McDaniel)
- Crawdad (McDaniel)
Side Two
- Everybody Needs Somebody To Love (Russell, Burke, Wexler)
- The Last Time (Jagger, Richard)
- The Spider And The Fly (Jagger, Richard)
- 19th Nervous Breakdown (Jagger, Richard)
- Hang On Sloopy (Berns, Farrell) / Get Off My Cloud (Jagger, Richard)
- (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (Jagger, Richard)
Recorded live at the Olympia, Paris for RTL Radio
Side One 1-8 and Side Two 1-2 First Show April 18th 1965
Side Two 3-6 Second Show March 29th 1966
Mick Jagger – lead vocals, harmonica
Brian Jones – guitar
Keith Richard – guitar, backing vocals
Bill Wyman – bass
Charlie Watts – drums
Sleeve Notes
The lengthy career of the Rolling Stones divides fairly neatly into three eras, each defined by the identity of their second guitarist. So 1962-1969 is Brian Jones: 1969 – 1974 Mick Taylor and 1975 to date Ronnie Wood. Whilst we have an abundance of good quality live releases from the Taylor and Wood years there are virtually no good quality live recordings from the Jones period. Admittedly there is the Got Live If You Want It EP from 1965 and a selection of BBC Sessions, released in 2017 as On Air: both are welcome but the former is primitively recorded and the latter lacks an enthusiastic audience. So the real value of the record you have in your hands is that it is well-recorded and delivers an accurate representation of the mid-60’s Stones live set delivered to a very vocal and largely female audience. It is simply the most exciting live record of the Brian Jones era yet to emerge.
A brief snippet of Everybody Wants To Someone To Love acts as the introduction to a rockin’ Around And Around, Jagger’s vocal exuberance matched by the Richards / Jones guitar team tearing into the solos. The loping rhythm of overlooked B-side Off The Hook highlights the dexterity of Watts and Wyman. Carol kicks off with an electrifying intro from Keith Richards, whilst Brian Jones’ slide guitar is the focus of Little Red Rooster (introduced here by the rarely-vocal Charlie Watts). Sheer punk energy drives Route 66.
A lengthier Everybody Needs Somebody To Love kicks off Side 2, Jagger really testifying here. The Last Time features Richard’s distinctive backing vocals. Then it’s a flashback to the Crawdaddy club in Richmond for two rarely-played Bo Diddley covers I’m Alright and Crawdad itself, both of which have the desired effect of making the crowd go completely bonkers.
Finally we have four Stones originals from their return to Olympia the following year. The wry Spider And The Fly is the second ace B side to receive an airing. Next up is a driving 19thNervous Breakdown that features more Keith Richards harmonising, giving the middle eight a country feel. Get Off My Cloud is preceded by the intro to Hang On Sloopy but it is a momentary distraction. The intertwined twin guitars really come into their own here, beautifully complementing the call-and-response vocals. Finally the unmistakable riff of Satisfaction brings the set to a close, a role the song is still performing 52 years later!
The NME review of the 1965 gig was published on April 24th. Jack Hutton reported that he band performed “exceptionally well and they got wild acclaim”. That was it for the music – the remainder of the 600 wordarticle was spent criticising French bouncers, although the Stones are described as “producing mild pandemonium” and Jagger’s “latest innovaton in the leaping and jumping department brought ecstasy and uproar”. Nicole Portier in Disc (April 24th) was more circumspect in her assessment that “four days in Paris with the Stones seems like a couple of years”. Paris would remain a Stones stronghold, with audience reaction at their most recent shows in October 2017 proving equally adulatory.
Sleeve notes: Elmo Lewis
Primal Scream releasing The Original Memphis Recordings 2CD (Sony) provides a heaven-sent opportunity for a record geek like me to re-write history and create my own alternate version of the record.
Short history lesson: these sessions were thoroughly mucked around with in post-production by George Clinton, George Drakoulias and Jimmy Miller and ended up on the murky Give Out But Don’t Give Up LP (1994), the follow up to the titanium-bright Screamadelica (1991). I saw the band give a memorable performance in Manchester on the Give Out… tour, as captured for Radio 1 on the Rocksucker Blues CD (recommended). So the mood of indolence and creative confusion that permeated the original Give Out…came as a disappointment.
Hearing these tracks for the first time as they came out of Ardent Studios, Memphis in June and July of 1993 shows a band at the top of their game, consistently hitting the groove laid down by the house rhythm section of David Hood and Roger Hawkins and ably supported by the Memphis Horns and Tom Dowd’s sympathetic production. Of the nine songs only Free remains underwhelming, although I do prefer the version here sung by Bobby Gillespie rather than the Denise Johnson version that was released on the original Get Out…. What the track does spotlight is Duffy’s phenomenal piano playing, a complete Nicky Hopkins throughout – check the coda at the end of Jesus.
There is also an additional CD of outtakes, interesting rather than essential. The medley of Billy (Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid ost) and To Love Somebody (Burritos) is fun, the latter performed in the style of Ooh La La-era Face as confirmed by the guitar picking out the riff from I Wish It Would Rain.
So here is my suggested tracklisting, which makes for a great 45 minute LP (CD), five tracks a side. What’s yours ?
Get Off But Don’t Nod Out – Primal Scream
SIDE A
- Rocks (Jimmy Miller)
- Jailbird – (Tom Dowd)
- Everybody Needs Somebody (Tom Dowd)
- Sad & Blue (Tom Dowd)
- Big Jet Plane (Tom Dowd)
Track 1 from Dirty Hits 2CD version
Tracks 2-4 from The Memphis Recordings
Track 5 from Give Out But Don’t You Give Up
SIDE B
1.Call On Me (Drakoulias)
2. Jesus (Tom Dowd)
3. Cry Myself Blind (Tom Dowd)
4. How Does It Feel To Belong (Primal Scream)
5. Billy / To Love Somebody (Tom Dowd)
Track 1 from Give Out But Don’t You Give Up
Tracks 2-3 and 5 from The Memphis Recordings
Track 4 from Star 4 track EP
You will note that I favour the Memphis Recordings version of the ballads. The exception here is Big Jet Plane where I go for the Give Out…version partly because of the presence of Jim Dickinson and partly because of how Bobby sings “Jesus Christ!” at the fade ( I do wish the guitar intro sounded less like Octopus’s Garden). Of the rockers, Jimmy Miller made Rocks even more Stones-like by sharpening up the drum sound and replacing the horn section with a wailing harmonica a la Magic Dick (probably Charlie Jacobs). George Drakoulias delivered a faster, snappier version of Call On Me which just edges it over Tom Dowd’s more relaxed swing through the song. And whoever took the horns off Jailbird should be shot – the Memphis Recordings version reinstates them to Exilent effect. How Does It Feel To Belong was cut at the abortive Roundhouse sessions that preceded the move to Memphis – it is a strange VU ballad that no-one can remember recording, with the closest reference point being Big Star Third (also recorded at Ardent).
June 1 1974 – Kevin Ayers, John Cale, Nico, Eno and the Soporifics with special guests Mike Oldfield and Robert Wyatt (Elemental Digipak CD, released May 2018)
The Death of Rock’n’Roll – Peter Holsapple vs Alex Chilton (Omnivore CD, to be released October 2018)
These two CDs have formed my summer listening thus far. None of the parties involved has ever had anything as vulgar as a hit record but there is some fine music to be found herein.
I was 17 when the June 1 ACNE gigs took place – there was a free Hyde Park gig in addition to the Rainbow concert recorded here – and exams prevented me from going. However the LP that resulted was a lynchpin of my teenage years and accordingly my copy is now rather tatty so the chance to get a limited-edition pristine remaster was not to be missed. Sound quality is terrific. No extra photos or added sleeve notes but decently done.
I like the Kevin Ayers side best. His studio LP’s are maddening, each featuring one or two good-to-great songs interspersed with sub-Soft Machine dissonance or limp balladry. So taking five of his best songs and putting a rocking band behind him really ups his game. And what a great band were the Soporifics: Rabbit on keyboards, rhythm section of Archie Leggatt on bass and Eddie Sparrrow on drums, plus Robert Wyatt on percussion and Mike Oldfield and Ollie Halsall on lead guitars. Here Stranger In Blue Shoes sounds even more Velvetine than the studio original, whilst Halsall’s solos on Shouting In A Bucket Blues are simply marvellous. I was too young to see Halsall in Patto and although I subsequently saw him in Boxer the spark had gone by then. The fluidity and precision he brings to his playing makes his under-recognition bewildering. Mike Oldfield (ex-Ayers bandmate) also plays a career-best solo on “Everybody’s Sometimes And Some People’s All The Time Blues.”
On the Other Side the brace of Eno tracks are treasurable since so little live Eno material exists – only Derby 1974 (unlistenable audience tape), a Peel Session and then much later 801 Live. And this was Eno at his poppiest and most playful. Driving Me Backwards benefits from John Cale’s viola, Baby’s On Fire features Cale on piano. Both feature two bass players with Ayers joining Leggat. So there are a lot of people on stage but somehow it all works. Eno lends effective synth to the other tracks here, Nico doing The End and Cale doing a slow-burn Heartbreak Hotel: both striking if not exactly The Chuckle Brothers. The onstage drama was matched backstage with Ayers seducing Cale’s wayward Cindy the night before the gig (remember “The bugger in the short sleeves f*cked my wife…” ?). So the tension manifest here may come from more than just the tunes.
Some kind soul has put together an audience-recorded CD of the songs played on June 1 but not released on the initial LP. If Island still have the original tapes it would be great to stick the whole thing out as a 2CD set. That said, listening to the out-takes does support the initial track selection selection that producer Richard Williams made 44 years ago. Ayers’ Whatevershebringswesing has a lovely Oldfield solo but meanders at over nine minutes: Nico singing Das Lied der Deutschen is not something you would play too often, and Cale has done Buffalo Ballet and Gun better elsewhere. The only omission I would reinstate would be rousing set-closer I’ve Got A Hard On For You Baby.
Not sure what my 17 year self would have made of Alex Chilton as I did not discover the wonders of Big Star ‘til much later. I think Alex would have enjoyed at least some of June 1 – not sure if he ever came across Kevin Ayers but he was a big fan of Eno and once got thrown out a bar for humming Here Come The Warm Jets too loudly. He covered Velvets tunes – Femme Fatale, Candy Says – and coexisted with Cale on the NYC club circuit. And he would have appreciated Nico’s sense of humour.
Omnivore are to be congratulated on releasing The Death Of Rock, a real rock’n’roll exhumation. The tapes were found amongst the late Richard Roseborough’s possessions. Richard had been engineering at Sam Phillips Recording Service studio, Memphis in the summer of 1978 when these tracks were recorded with him on drums. The other musicians are a pre-dBs Peter Holsapple and a Like Flies On Sherbert-era Alex Chilton plus Ken Woodley on bass.
Just as with June 1, the players may be consistent throughout but the record splits very noticeably into a Chilton side and a Holsapple side. Some tracks we have heard before – Holsapple’s Bad Reputation was a dB’s career highspot and We Were Happy There and The Death Of Rock (later I’m In Control) have also been released elsewhere. Four of the excellent songs that Alex sings – Tennis Bum, Marshall Law, Train Kept A Rollin’ and Hey Mona – were released in lesser quality on the Beale Street Green CD, Punk Vault somehow missing Heart and Soul (Carmichael/Loesser) from the same session. The remaining tracks are largely inessential – Holsapple should not have been allowed anywhere near Baby I Love You. Instrumental rehearsals of In The Street and O My Soul can only interest Big Star obsessives and power-pop karaoke singers.
However if you don’t have Beale Street Green this is highly recommended to LX fans, and the two version of Bad Reputation here are well done. Holsapple contributes insightful sleeve notes with Robert Gordon and previously unseen photos with Pat Rainier.
London 1974 and Memphis 1978. In both places the musicians get real gone, make fascinating music and sell zero records. Forty years later the tunes they made still resonate. Maybe this brace of re-releases indicates an appeal that is becoming less selective…
After our visit to Colombia last summer a change of pace was clearly needed so this year it’s a week in a Premier Inn on the outskirts of Braintree. Clean, comfy, very good breakfasts. Some great pubs in the area such as The Jolly Sailor in Maldon and the Galvin Green Man in Great Waltham. And only a short train ride away from Chelmsford, home of Intense Records. Intense is owned by my second cousin Jon Smith and I spent an entertaining morning there with Jon and his assistant Tom, working my way through the vinyl and having a chat.
Intense grew out of Jon’s DJing and love of drum and bass – indeed when Intense opened it was purely a drum and bass shop. With the renewed interest in all things vinyl Jon has evolved the shop into a more mainstream proposition, whilst still retaining its focus on all things dance-related.
Record Store Day was huge for Intense this year, the busiest to date with over 300 people coming through the doors. It’s also a busy time for Jon’s wife, Jennie, as her company Get Customised supplies the official RSD merchandise to all the record shops around the country.
Intense is very much embedded with the local music scene. Once a month they host the Chelmsford Record Fair at The Ale House, a pub two doors down. When I got to the shop Jon was restoring the vinyl racks to their usual position, having moved them out the way to host the launch of a local reggae label in the shop the night before. And they stock Asylum magazine, a completely bonkers local fanzine and guide to what’s going on locally, which turns out to be a lot. Musically there is a lot more to Chelmsford than just hosting the nearby V festival (now rebranded as Rize).
Ferreting through the Intense racks and boxes turned up a Led Zeppelin RSD 7” (Rock And Roll / Friends) and a Beatles Long Tall Sally EP, both very fairly priced and in good nick. The shop is next to the bus station and across the road from the railway station, making it an excellent place to while away a few minutes / hours / days. Highly recommended, and tell them I sent you.
For more information on Intense Records and four other independent retailers in Chelmsford check out this informative online article in Essex Live.
Only Rock 'n' Roll 