Tag Archives: Fruit Tree Records Monthly Playlist

Monthly Playlists

December 2025 Playlist

This past month has delivered the sad news about the passing of Stone Roses and Primal Scream bass legend Mani. I have to admit, at a time when barely a week will go by without the passing of someone whose records I bought or who played on tracks I loved or simply was involved in music of the last 75 years in some way, the news that Mani is gone felt like a significant light had gone out. This has something to do with his personality, he was a life force and an uplifting presence wherever he roamed who possessed a highly unusual facility, for a non-singing bass player, in that he was always a focal point on stage. A front man without actually being the front man. He was the source of the funk in the Stone Roses when they changed the UK musical landscape with that legendary 1989 debut album. Throughout the 1990’s that self-titled classic was routinely voted or acclaimed as one of, if not ‘the’ on occasion, greatest albums of all time and whilst that status has levelled out in modern times, it remains a brilliant LP that was responsible for a lot of welcome changes. No longer were indie bands restricted to the outsider, floppy fringe sporting diffident introspection so atypical in a British scene where The Smiths were the benchmark; suddenly these acts could proudly wear their Beatles or Simon & Garfunkel influences out loud as well as ambitiously storm the pop charts and, as Mani proved whenever the Stone Roses took to the stage, they could dance.

The other thing that Mani helped revolutionize as the eighties were escorted from the stage was the return of the working class English youth to the top table. There would not have been an Oasis without The Stone Roses knocking down the doors first, stealing the mantle of credibility away from the up-hair poseurs and placing it firmly back in the hands of the natural mod hair renegades found in every pub and club up and down the country. Mani always came across like someone you knew, a lad who was well into his music that you might have bumped into giving it large smoking with his mates at the bus shelter. That was the exact same thing that Americans said in 1964 about The Beatles, that they saw them on the TV for the first time and John Lennon had a cynical, mocking look in his eye just like any number of their teenage tearaway friends. It saddens me that the pathway, based on a kind of monetary meritocracy, has been lost to the under privileged classes today. Back when The Stone Roses broke through, they could hit the mainstream and take advantage of the major label business model to realize a very lucrative career break. Nowadays, a few thousand streams means diddly-squat in financial terms compared to the earnings a few thousand record sales would have yielded. This is why the working class young bands breaking through feel like a dying breed, leading to a situation where too many of the newest acts are those fortunate enough to have inherited or family financial backing, who do not seem to have the same hunger because they can afford to help themselves to a self-appointed music career. Obviously, as I try to prove every week, there is still plenty of exciting new music being created for the right reasons, but I do hate how the cards are stacked these days compared to the past.

I never got to interview Mani and the closest I came to meeting him was at Glastonbury in 1994 when I was wandering around the site and looked up to see him right in front of me heading in the opposite direction. I gave a polite nod and he smiled back because he saw I had recognized him where maybe most had not. He was attending the festival as a punter and a music fan I guess, this being the period before The Stone Roses had released their second album, which actually landed at the end of 1994. In fact, at that time the band were acquiring a legendary status partially for the wrong reasons because it looked like they had disappeared those past four years with a shed load of major label money causing people to speculate if they had any real intention of ever releasing that second album. Obviously when they finally did it had no hope of living up to the expectations foisted upon it but, listened to away from the Britpop and grunge sounds of the period, ‘The Second Coming’ is clearly a record with a lot going for it. They then spent another 18 months slowly disintegrating as a functioning unit before calling it quits after a lukewarm Reading Festival appearance in 1996. By then Mani and Ian Brown were the only original members left but the positive gained from the split was its opening up the opportunity for Mani to join, and enjoy a brilliant long term stint in another legendary band, Primal Scream. He always remained loyal to his mates though and, interviewed by the NME after the Roses called it a day in 1996, he said “we wanna leave two classic LP’s untainted. We wouldn’t wanna do anything which would detract from them” before adding about his impending recruitment by Primal Scream, “I’ll have to get me leather keks and winkos out, won’t I?”

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Monthly Playlists

November 2025 Playlist

The cover star for this playlist is Scott Lavene, whose show at the Portland Arms in Cambridge last week will be reviewed on this site later this week. A lot of my time this past month has been spent diving into music documentaries and cinematic biopics. For my documentary fix I watched the whole of Ken Burns 2001 ten feature length installment series simply titled ‘Jazz’. Each episode ran to over an hour making this a deep dive into the history of Jazz, putting forward a compelling argument for it being America’s greatest contribution to the cultural landscape. As you would expect, some of the meat on the bone of the series was the incredible archive film clips incorporated into each episode, lacking in the earliest episodes simply because they centered on the late nineteenth, early twentieth century but from the 1950s onwards this is a jazz archive bean feast. It is the main reason to view a program of this nature for a jazz fan because the stories themselves are often well known and time restrictions, due to the sheer scope of the project, lead to only surface level commentaries. Key figures like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis are appreciated in greater detail than many others, the knock-on effect being the surprising absence of certain big names. I spotted a couple of photos of Lee Morgan but not an actual mention, Chet Baker was spoken about in passing as was Glenn Miller (who is almost totally dismissed as a commercial phenomenon only), whilst I do not think I heard the name Nina Simone even once.

All that said, it does remain a worthy watch. Some of the talking heads stitching the historical contexts together are very listenable and explain their points concisely whilst (then) modern day faces like Wynton Marsalis proves himself to be an absolute master student of the music. Historical music documentaries often struggle with contextualizing more recent events leading up to the present day and Ken Burns ‘Jazz’ is no different. The period 1970-2000 is speed-skimmed over and even though I get the point they are making about Jazz’s marginalization in the eighties, to imply that the music was all but dead is inaccurate. They also appear to believe that Wynton and his jazz revivalist peers were the key to the future of the music, but it is all too easy for me with all this hindsight to go picking holes in that, overall ‘Jazz’ is a superb visual document and precursor to a similarly deep series about country music that Burns would turn his attentions to later.

I also went to the cinema this month to watch the Bruce Springsteen biopic ‘Deliver Me From Nowhere.’ I approached this one with a little trepidation because the potential for a cliché-ridden rags to riches story of rock ‘n’ roll savior seemed like a possibility. However, lead actor Jeremy Allen White is a serious performer who gives the impression of some professional integrity, so I felt this alone was a bit of a safety blanket. The film is actually a thoughtful piece of accurately shot cinematography, set in 1981-82 when Bruce was on the cusp of the worldwide acclaim and success he would soon be indelibly showered with. Here we see Springsteen hit a mentally low ebb as he channels deeply personal background issues into the new music that would become the lo-fi ‘Nebraska’ album. He home records demos onto a cassette and the difficulties in recreating these songs in the professional studio environment is heavily focused on, as is the record company frustration expressed as Bruce holds firm about releasing the cassette demo as the actual record. We also see him capturing, during the same sessions, the first few tracks of what would become 1984’s mainstream smashing ‘Born In The USA’ album, which does point to the most obvious omission from the script. As Bruce’s manager defends his artist to the Columbia hierarchy, keen to support his acts artistic vision and holding firm that ‘Nebraska’ is to be issued with no promotion, no singles and no Bruce Springsteen face on the album cover, it is hard not to assume he also would have bartered “but don’t worry, if we indulge Bruce now and put this out, the record he’s nearly got ready to go after this is going to make us all millions, so let’s just play the long game and go along with him for now”. But the script did not include such a calculating line. Either way, a good film with impressively authentic audio performances in which the Bruce Springsteen legend remains intact.

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Monthly Playlists

October 2025 Playlist

One thing that can derail my attempts to keep on top of new music releases at this time of year is the deluge of archive box set and deluxe editions that suddenly come out at roughly the same time. OK, you could argue that I do not have to listen to them, and it is true that many of these clearing out the archival cupboard sets only get played once. Something like The Beatles Anthology releases from thirty years ago, of which there will be remastered and expanded versions dropping before the end of the year, really contained very little in the way of essential additions to The Beatles body of work. It was all fascinating to hear but tracks that were still being learned or constructed in the studio, or different mixes halfway on their journey to full production, add nothing to your appreciation of The Beatles recorded output. It is like seeing a rough early development sketch of an esteemed artist’s famous masterpiece, interesting to get a glimpse of the creative process but you are never likely to return to it in preference to the completed work. The same applies to the Beatles Anthology, I regard myself as occupying the top tier of Beatles fanatics, but I can honestly say I have not listened to any of the Anthology this century; and I listen to The Beatles at some stage most weeks. This fact alone should ensure when the new Anthology arrives, regardless of whatever additional archival cherries have been dug up, it will feel like something fresh. This month I did check out the new remix of ‘Free As A Bird,’ which uses the same technology to enrich the lo-fi vocal recording of John Lennon as heard astonishingly on ‘Now And Then.’ My reaction was massively positive, not only did John’s voice seem a hundred times clearer, but the rest of the sound too, including the vocals recorded in 1994 by Paul McCartney and George Harrison, had far more body and texture to them. I would assume that on this occasion, the remix will become the standard version.

The problem is, at least in terms of time, that if the releases are from artists whose music you have had a relationship with for decades, you are going to want to make time for whatever comes out. Bob Dylan is as relevant to the music culture of our time as The Beatles and his long running archive releases,‘The Bootleg Series,’ is a shining example of how these kinds of projects should be curated. Still, it is absolutely mind blowing that there could be that much left to release, especially from his early years, but there obviously is because by the end of October the 18th volume of the series will arrive entitled ‘Through The Open Window 1956-1963’. Among the 8 CDs chronicling his early years in Greenwich Village we will hear rare and unheard home recordings, studio outtakes, coffeehouse, and nightclub shows all from brand new tape sources. The jewel in the archivist crown here will be an unreleased complete recording of Dylan’s landmark show at Carnegie Hall on October 26th, 1963, mixed from the original tapes. In terms of attracting the Dylanologist completists out there, with mouth watering contents such as these this release already sounds like the definitive early years of Dylan article. Most editions of the Bootleg Series feature Dylan recordings that can justify their place in the main canon of work thanks to his being a one off. Not many performers present themselves as they are feeling that very day quite like Bob does, his singular quest to capture spontaneous magic through exploration ensures any given concert recording might throw up something wonderful. That the opposite also applies is all part of the same fascination. In the studio he has never sought clinical perfection, more like real life reflecting soulful imperfection seems to be the aim. There are very few artists like this. Some might think they are, but Dylan trounces them all.

If ‘The Bootleg Series’ is the prime example on how to get this kind of thing right, then it should also be a measure to help siphon out the fool’s gold. I have written in the past on these pages about my love of the band Genesis, favoring the Peter Gabriel era but with an ever-growing acknowledgement that the Phil Collins years had some merit. Therefore, the recent appearance of Gabriel’s 1974 Genesis swansong album ‘The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway’ as a 50th anniversary deluxe edition inevitably has sparked some interest in me. Much has been made in the prog press of Gabriel and Tony Banks being photographed in the studio earlier this year working on the remaster. However, I have just been listening to it and honestly, despite giving it my best shot on quality audio equipment, I am struggling to spot any real impact of this rather over-hyped remastering. If anything, they might have lessened the punch in Phil Collins drums but even there, I cannot really spot any difference. Then, to add to the farce of it all, the 1975 two-disc concert recording included as part of the package is the exact same concert that took up the first two discs of Genesis’s 1998 ‘Archive’ box. OK, so maybe Gabriel and Banks were focusing on the Blu-ray audio 96/24 stereo mix and there are also three download only unreleased tracks from the sessions, but it does all feel a little elitist and over-sold. Especially when you consider the year long, anniversary missing delay around its eventual appearance. I would argue that the new box set I have enjoyed most this month, David Bowie’s ‘I Can’t Give Everything Away (2002-2016)’, sets a standard for how these releases can exquisitely compliment an artist’s catalogue. It is the sixth and final installment in a career spanning series of box sets that could be all you will ever need as an extensive Bowie career appreciation. Each focus on his career chronologically, includes all the original albums and singles from the period, all the live albums and relevant additional live recordings from the era and then devotes at least one disc to mopping up additional rare recordings, B-sides, and off cuts from that time as well. On top of it they have appropriate, well selected art and design, informatively written content, and authentically mastered sound quality. They really are collections that anyone taking a deep dive into the mans work will return to again and again, which is all you can wish for really.

The new edition of Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series will be released at the end of October…

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Monthly Playlists

September 2025 Playlist

I have fallen well short of my aim to publish the monthly playlist on the first of the month this time around. The past two weeks have been packed with music festival shenanigans ahead of travels from southern Dorset up to the Inverness coastline of Scotland via stopovers in Cumbria on the way up and the Galashiels borders area on the way back down. Then the return road trip was delayed by a car breakdown scenario seeing me stranded for the best part of a day on the Scotland/England border viewpoint, which would have been a lovely spot at least if not for the fact that it was depressingly wet, cloudy and grey. On top of that the so called famous Carters Bar that gives the viewpoint its name was nowhere to be seen, so I had to pass the hours nibbling on a half finished bag of nuts, stretching out the bottle of water I had with me and running the car battery down playing the playlist attached to this post. Luckily, the recovery vehicle sorted that out when it arrived after five hours and diagnosed that I had misfiring cylinders and needed towing back into Scotland to wait for repairs. The borders garage was pretty cool, run by a beardy dude called Dougie who appeared to work alone whilst blasting out Radio 4 and sharing stories of the local musical glitterati whose motors he has fixed. For example, there was once a day some years back when he introduced the drummer from Shooglenifty to the legendary folk guitarist and former Pentangle member John Renbourn while they came in for repairs. It also turned out Mike Heron used to live nearby and the Incredible String Band would rent a local house to get their mystical freak folk together in the hilly Scottish landscape.

I had actually seen Mike Heron at the start of this two-week excursion when he appeared with the Broadside Hacks at End Of The Road festival playing a set of ISB music. I am not going to say too much about the festival here because I wrote a full review for another publication which I will link to here when it is published. It was a great weekend though, awash with great performances and new discoveries. In particular I would highlight a track called ‘Broke’ by Scott Lavene that appears in this playlist; he was a real find, especially in terms of his live presence, that I had previously been unaware of. The cover stars for this edition too, The Bug Club, came over like a band that are really on a roll, getting better and better every time I see them. Still, this was all just an opener to a full on two weeks that included a miserable, for the locals, night in a Cumbrian pub on transfer deadline day where the words “Isak” and “vermin” could be frequently heard in the same sentence and then a number of nights drinking in the Shore Inn at Portsoy. A pub that feels delightfully unfazed by the passing of time, wherein locals cheerfully mock the visitors unaware of doric dialect and the difference between a ‘quine’ and a ‘loon’ (turns out ones a girl, the others a boy). The walls are covered in framed Peaky Blinders photos as a lot of that TV series was filmed in this scenic location. Anyway, it was a refreshingly real experience and by the time a local fisherman came in late one evening handing out freshly caught mackerel for free it was hard not to dream of a Scotland relocation sometime.

After a welcome catch up with some dear friends on the borders, including an unscheduled extra night while the car was fixed, Dougie was able to get my “horrible Honda” back in a drivable condition. The only issue was, at such short notice, he could only get his hands on four cylinders and the engine actually has eight. None of them looked that healthy either but he fixed the faulty ones and got me going. By the time I was around an hour away I hit difficulty climbing a very steep hill, the engine warning light came back on and the car felt disturbingly wobbly at certain speeds. Having no appetite for another roadside wait and rationalizing that the car is still driving, I decided to do the remaining five hours of the journey only ever tickling the accelerator and never raising my speed above 50mph. Luckily, I mean extremely fortuitously, I managed to do it with no more than just one stop at Scotch Corner. I may never use the car again, but I made it back, although my nerves are shot. I might have written this piece last night, but I could not unclench my tension filled hands until today. Still, at least I can say this month’s playlist is properly road tested.

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Monthly Playlists

August 2025 Playlist

Following Friday’s Old Fruit feature that used the TV re-broadcast of 1985’s Live Aid concert from England and the USA as a launchpad for those retro film clips, I have additional reflections on that famous day’s concert. As highlighted with my comments on Dire Straits, there was some inevitable wiser head re-evaluating of other big name sets that I may have previously been lukewarm about. Top of that list is Queen who, I have to confess, have always been a musical blind spot for me but, as much as I am aware that praising Queen’s Live Aid set goes way beyond stating the bleeding obvious, I cannot find fault with it or them as a band. I thought The Who also were far more punchier and energetic than I previously recalled (was their set really interrupted by an outage prompting the broadcaster to show David Bowie & Mick Jagger’s ‘Dancing In The Street’ video? I do not remember that). Little wonder it is written that the old timers won the day over the eighties pop acts appearing earlier. The likes of Spandau Ballet and Ultravox sounded so thin in that arena, not to mention ridiculous looking in mid-summer heat with their ankle length trench coats and gallons of mullet holding hairspray. And what was Paul Young thinking playing ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ in July sun when he surely knew the whole ensemble were closing the concert with it? For me, the two mid-eighties pop stars coming out with most credit on the day were Howard Jones and George Michael; the former for being head and shoulders the best grand piano player on stage and the latter, joining Elton John for a version of ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’, simply down to his showcasing that strong and pure singing voice he possessed.

Dig back in time to the July 1985 music press and it appears that Live Aid was not given unconditional support despite the undoubted good intentions of Bob Geldof. The NME claimed that the concerts were “unwilling to address the furious conflicts of ideologies that allowed the African disaster to happen” whilst the writer Don Watson also dismissed the shows as “corporate pop turned corporative charity.” Amidst the criticisms of the occasions inability to address underlying political and social issues contributing to the famine there were equally loud voices pointing out certain non-participants and the lack of prominent black artists. From a personal point of view there were a number of bands and artists making a noise in 1985 who arguably deserved a slot; of those Billy Bragg, The Smiths, R.E.M., The Waterboys, The Fall, Talking Heads, Fine Young Cannibals and The Pogues are all good shouts (certainly stronger than Adam Ant that year). However, Bob Geldof did acknowledge the issue about black artists and was undoubtedly sincere in his frustration that scheduling and performance condition preferences prevented booking big names like Michael Jackson and Prince. As for the other nuanced critiques, Geldof had an endearing way of cutting through that objectional noise to focus people’s attentions on the far more basic and urgent prerogative of raising money to supply food for starving people and you cannot knock him for that.

On the BBC repeat broadcast there were a few of the American sets that did not get a re-run. I touched upon the Led Zeppelin absence in the Old Fruit feature last week, but the penultimate appearance on the night by Bob Dylan, backed by Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards, was also surprisingly cut. I went online and found most of his set and it turned my thoughts to earlier this year and the ‘A Complete Unknown’ film which recalled the mid-sixties outburst of hysteria from the folk scene after Dylan went electric. I spotted members of that folk community in the Live Aid footage; Peter, Paul & Mary were definitely on the stage during the ‘We Are The World’ finale whilst earlier in the day Joan Baez had sung ‘Amazing Grace’, utilizing that rather irritating folk trope of speaking every line to the crowd before singing it. The idea is to encourage audience participation but it has the unfortunate opposite effect of making Joan appear like a vibe-sapping try-hard head mistress. Still, I could not ignore that, twenty years since he was booed for abandoning topical folk material to play electric music of a more personal, surrealistically poetic nature, here was Dylan heading up a mainstream public event with a topical undercurrent playing the same acoustic folk music he had been accused of dropping two decades earlier and getting panned for it. Bob’s setlist at Live Aid was ‘Blowin’ In The Wind,’ The Ballad Of Hollis Brown’ and ‘When The Ship Comes In’ and upon revisiting it I felt strongly that the fundamental issues were out of his control. Behind that thin curtain backdrop was an impossible to ignore turbulence of set-building activity for the closing number alongside a gathering throng of unconstrained performers preparing a land grab for a prime onstage position during the rousing show closing chorus. Still Bob being Bob, he had to throw his own spanner into what could have been a mainstream career resurrecting moment by expressing a desire for some of the money to go towards American farmers struggling to pay their mortgages. Ultimately, that did inspire Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp to launch Farm Aid but on the day, it is fair to say the sentiments felt off colour to many who were solely, and rightly, focused on the famine crisis at hand.

Anyway, enjoy this month’s playlist which does not feature many artists who appeared at Live Aid although Neil Young and the Beach Boys do get a look in…

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July 2025 Playlist

I don’t like cricket… I love it! That was the kind of mood I found myself in when compiling this months 75 track playlist. Put it down to the current heatwave gripping the UK, in conjunction with some delightfully gripping entertainment delivered by our much maligned summer sport, not to mention my laid back ice cold beer in hand disposition I adopted while watching it. Whatever, for one month I have abandoned my regular monthly mission of representing my current new musical discoveries and vinyl hunting obsessions and instead just put together a four and a half hour compilation of excellent summer tunes. Most of them have some summer sun front and centre, in the song titles or the subject matter (there are a good few surf tunes featured, only right as the world lost the genius of Brian Wilson over the past month), whilst there are others that simply have the feel of those hot months in the sound, style and tone. And of course, as this is a Fruit Tree Records playlist, there is some warm weather melancholy to be found amongst these selections too. And if you think there are some glaring omissions, well I just do not care that much for Bryan Adams or Will Smith and I cannot separate the association Mungo Jerry’s ‘In The Summertime’ has with road traffic accidents after it was used in an anti-drink driving advertising campaign years ago. That’s just me I guess, but I back these 75 pieces to work just fine as you pour yourself a tall cool one then kick back and enjoy.

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June 2025 Playlist

As Bruce Springsteen currently tours the UK, he has been making the news with a frequency that you might not expect of a septuagenarian playing a career spanning show with no new music to promote (not counting the seven previously unreleased albums that are about to land). The spotlight has fallen on Bruce right from the opening night in Manchester when he made a couple of on-stage speeches establishing his critical stance against the current Trump regime in America. He really went for it too, in a manner that few artists, especially of such high profile, ever do by using words like “corrupt” and “incompetent.” If this made President Trump unhappy, it is strange that he did not rationalize that it would blow over in a few days but instead gave it a whole lot more oxygen, attacking Springsteen in response as an over-rated irritant and even more bizarrely mocking his skin complexion.

This only served to make the episode quite funny so maybe as a tactical retort he feels it worked, for Bruce was not being flippant or playing this for a laugh, The Boss is hurting at the state of affairs in the USA he has written about for fifty years. Maybe too he is sick of being misrepresented, being the man who wrote one of the most devastating take downs of life in his homeland with ‘Born In The USA’ only to watch it be adopted as a jingoistic anthem by multitudes who obviously could not look beyond a four word chorus and understand what the song was actually about. Springsteen has always been on the side of the worker, a left-leaning humanitarian painting broad pictures of everyday US life by homing in on the minutiae of the folks living on those streets, in those towns and working in those factories. Still, it is clear even this front-page detail can escape the casual observers as offended right wing Donald supporters took to social media and accused Springsteen of never having stood for anything.

I did like the tone of Springsteen’s speeches, he definitely wanted his position to be understood and seemed prepared to accept that his core fanbase, especially in the US, might take a hit or even diminish rapidly. He is also having to deal with the blatant threat in the president’s social media post of trouble waiting upon his return. But he appears to have tempered his expectations of what can be achieved in posturing and rally-call announcements, Bruce knows there are always going to be large numbers on the other side of the political and humanitarian fence but his words reflected just that, quoting James Baldwin with “in this world, there isn’t as much humanity as one would like, but there is enough”. Bruce is reaching out to those ready and able to hear and understand. My monthly playlist may not feature enough, or any, Bruce this month (I figure that with those seven albums coming out there will be a fair few Brucey bonuses later in the year) but it is presented for those ready to listen with the usual range of sounds and evolving styles to keep one entertained for a good five hours or so…

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May 2025 Playlist

Are tribute bands somehow still beyond the pale? Are they still something of a guilty pleasure, that is if you pay any attention to them at all? Still an area of the live music scene that appears to not attract any critical word space or analysis and is maybe even a bit of a joke in some cases. Are an Oasis tribute band nothing more than a vehicle for lads in casual Adidas sports wear and limited music ability to stand on stage and shi-iiii-ne a little? Is a Robbie Williams tribute act performing to a backing tape nothing more than an attention seeking karaoke dude with an ego that requires a bit too much kneading? Does the world really need a Coldplay tribute band when the real thing are perfectly capable of occupying enough space on the circuit with plentiful coma-inducing corporate arena textbook shenanigans to keep the estate agents and mobile phone franchisee shop owners topped up with their annual musical night out? These attractions have their place I guess and as long as I am nowhere near them, no problem. Personally, the world of tribute acts has given me nothing more than a bit of light relief when the Counterfeit Stones came on at Guilford ’98 Festival and an occasional bit of Rock ‘n’ Roll frugging fun when chancing upon a decent fifties style rockabilly act or such like.

Which brings me to the reason I have been thinking about this lately, namely there now being a lot of music that I love with zero chance of ever hearing performed live unless it is in the hands of a tribute act or covers band. As a sixteen-year-old Peter Gabriel fan in 1988 I had dug into his solo work to the point of completeness when one day I found a compilation album called ‘Rock Theatre’ by Genesis.” It featured a front cover image of Peter in a baffling globule decorated green monster outfit trying to position a microphone in the general vicinity of his mouth on some unidentified early seventies concert stage and looked appealing enough for my next avenue of exploration, the Peter Gabriel fronted 1969 – 1975 era of Genesis, to begin. Ultimately this particular chamber of doors would lead me to many other progressive landmarks and collectable obscurities from the era, but it has always been those early Genesis albums, probably because of the heightened and impressionable time of life that they arrived, which would endure and remain lifelong favorites with me.

So last month I noticed in the local Cambridge listings that the highly regarded, long established, Genesis tribute act The Musical Box were playing the Corn Exchange with a recreation of the 1972-73 how that resulted in the 1973 album ‘Genesis Live’ and I found myself itching to go. I still, weirdly, felt the need to play it down amongst people I know and did not invite anyone to attend the gig with me, not that I knew anybody who would have wanted to. But I have never heard any of this material played live, solo Gabriel will not go anywhere near it, and my relationship with these songs / concept pieces is now over thirty-five years old. Not only that but the visual aspect was a drawer too, by the time of this tour Genesis, with four of the five band members remaining seated at all times, had let Peter unleash his theatrical leanings so the show had strong visual and lighting elements. Modest by today’s standards admittedly but I really wanted to, if only just once, get a taste for what the early Genesis live experience must have been like. And The Musical Box did deliver, I had a wonderful night near the back of a large venue that was, impressively, close to sold out.

My hope before the show was for it to be primarily about the music with little cheapening the experience by scripted repro ad-libs but my hopes were dashed on that front. There is a moment on that live album where Mike Rutherford, pre-song, makes a couple of noises on his bass pedal and Gabriel quick-wittedly got a laugh with a comment about it being a bass pedal solo. The Musical Box recreate that moment too, which I kind of didn’t need them to do although I can accept they are merely pursuing as exacting a portrayal of those original gigs as possible. I do think the long-term answer is to move away from the photocopying aspect of these shows and focus more on honestly interpreting the material for a present-day audience. When Cat Power played the Albert Hall reciting the same set-list as Bob Dylan had played there in 1966, one audience member tried to help out with the famous “Judas” heckle, which just inspired a weary groan from the performer. Still, the best sequence of the Musical Box gig might have been after the completion of the original concert recital, which they acknowledged is a little short, continuing to play a sequence of 1971-72 deep cuts which, freed a little from the re-enactment shackles, made for a wonderful section of thoughtfully played and sung progressive music. Since I went to the show I have mentioned it to others who, gradually, have come out of the woodwork and confessed to also enjoying a tribute act or two, the Australian Pink Floyd being one that seems to get frequently mentioned so who knows, maybe that will be on my list a little further down the line? First up though, one of my best loved folk singers of today is touring a show playing the music of Sandy Denny which arrives in Cambridge in June for which, especially given the positive notices that I have heard so far, I will say out loud, my appetite is whetted and I truly cannot wait.

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Monthly Playlists

April 2025 Playlist

Before embarking on a house move (which is the reason this monthly playlist post is so late by the way) I indulged a musical itch I have been dying to scratch for many years attending a Friday night show at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London. As a jazz lover whose appreciation and journey into the music form now feels perpetual, this has long felt like the ultimate place to sit back and soak up an evening of the ever-progressing journey that arguably remains Americas greatest contribution to world and musical culture. Ronnie Scott’s has of course been mythologized thanks to its impressive, decades long, cast of legendary jazz names that have walked those modest boards and the kudos that is picked up over the years with documentaries and the sense of jazz establishment permanence it exudes. I have seen those old pieces of footage too, tantalizing images of thespians and faces from the art world sitting amongst the crowd in a smoky, dimly lit, sixties / seventies ambience. And best of all, with inevitable concessions to some appropriate, tasteful maintenance and gentle refurbishing over the years, the place still resonates with the same hazy mid-century orange, underground after-hours club vibe.

I went to see John Scofield, a real deal in terms of catching an artist whose legendary jazz credentials stand up to scrutiny and this could genuinely be described as a rare club appearance. His electric guitar playing was indeed mesmerizing likewise the interplay between Scofield’s lead and the bass and drum support from his trio ensemble. Better still, the seats me and my partner were shown to at the side of stage left felt like they placed us in the heart of the action as we bore witness to John seemingly picking the set list out of thin air, calling out the tunes to the band as he played. And to top the experience off, there were even one or two famous faces in attendance, most notably the actor Simon Callow propping up the bar in relaxed off-duty actor splendor as he delighted in the jazz fireworks sparkling from John Scofield’s guitar. Overall, this Friday night at Ronnie Scott’s gave me the jazz experience I had long craved but nevertheless, I do still have a gripe.

After the main set of the evening there was due to be another late-night set which, as ticket holders, we were entitled to remain in the club for. The itinerary sees a DJ play for at least an hour while a substantial proportion of the Scofield crowd leaves the club and a new crowd are slowly admitted. Nothing wrong with any of this obviously, I can even accept the need for the over officiousness shown to us by the waiters when we thought we’d take a little wander up to the bar before being pounced on and informed that if we abandoned our seats we might lose them altogether. OK, club rules observed. The problem was the music pumping from the DJ booth. If you have ever had a gig going experience tarnished by the house PA playing wholly unconnected music the second the final notes of the onstage musician have faded you might relate to my annoyance. If you have just got lost in a deep live experience, in the moments after it has ended one surely needs to allow the after-impressions to spin and settle inside your head for a time? The sudden invasion of unrelated, generic background music has the effect of a disinfectant being wiped across your audio senses and instantly kills any lasting sensations.

That exact same thing had happened the night before actually (yes I had been on a little musical road trip) at the conclusion of a dissonant John Cale set at the De La Warr Pavilion at Bexhill-On-Sea. He had encored with a free-flowing run through of the Velvet Underground classic ‘I’m Waiting For The Man,’ a brilliant fusion of improvised character-acting lyrics and foundation shaking piano stabs that concluded an evening in the company of an art-rock titan on a real high. So, what piped through the in house PA the second the lights went up? Bob Marley, not someone I feel the need to critique negatively but in no way connected to what the audience had just witnessed, it felt like whoever made the choice did a quick internet search on John Cale, decided he was a 1970s act before consulting a streaming service for popular seventies music. Totally irrelevant to the evenings program that had just preceded. I felt the exact same irritation with the DJ that followed John Scofield. His bland, 4/4 repetitive beat loving sound instantly robbed Ronnie Scott’s of its identity transforming the joint into just another central London Friday night club and not a particularly good one at that. No doubt the DJ in question would argue that his set was a jazz centric feast, but I was not convinced, the odd suggestion of saxophone or trumpet did not save this from the middle-ground-mass pandering tedium I felt assaulted by.

So, by the evenings end, some time in the drunken early hours of the Saturday morning, my partner and I had riffed extensively on the horror that is predictable, uninspired electronic dance music invading and mostly ruining too many public situations nowadays. My point is its such a lazy choice, it is a cowardly option too made either by people fearful of unpopularity or just too narrow an awareness of all that music has to offer. There is, as I have said many times, over a hundred years of recorded music to select from now, there really is no excuse for opting to play anything crap. By the end of the night, we had formed a new collective called CLUBBED and were hatching plans to assault social media looking to swell our numbers, you never know we might even be a silent majority. CLUBBED is the Collective Lacerating Ubiquitous Bland Boring Electronic Dance. As the later morning arrived and sobriety fought its way back to the table, we realized the name is possibly a bit wordy. Then it dawned on us the whole idea was a bit rubbish really. Enjoy the playlist…

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Monthly Playlists

March 2025 Playlist

I cannot claim to have worried too much about the impact AI might have on my musical world. I trust my own ears to recognize the authenticity in older music and I would argue my tastes in newer releases tend to lead me towards the more organic sounds played by legitimate musicians and even in the realms of more electronic sounds, there is usually a human element; a creative hand controlling the technology that will draw me in. I believe that in the same way anyone paying a modicum of attention could spot a fake or a poor photocopy of a hit on one of those tacky seventies cash-in Top Of The Pops albums, not to mention a synthesized eighties original artist re-recording of a sixties hit (and there are far too many of them floating about) a mile off, so could I immediately identify a piece of music that has been made with AI.

But I was wrong. Late last year I found a couple of tracks by an artist that ended up featuring in my monthly playlists. I liked them for their retro soul sound and the attention-grabbing precision of the lyrical observations. The cover art of these releases came with an all-too authentic looking vintage vinyl presentation, looking for all the world like cleverly detailed throwbacks even right down to the fonts and the way the covers adopted that seventies trope of visually representing the title with the sleeve image. The name of the band was Almost Vinyl and I featured them twice, not being too put off by the total lack of any biographical information about the artist, I just assumed this was probably some enigmatic collective managing to maintain an air of mystery much like SAULT have and, thus far, continue to cloud themselves with.

My discovery and theory that this is the work of AI is still unconfirmed (although a google search including the words Almost Vinyl and AI seemed to support my suspicion) but I got to wondering after reading about a worrying new trend on Spotify. Apparently the music streamers business model sees them still paying a large percentage in licensing for every track streamed and recently, in order to push themselves towards greater profitability, successfully by all accounts, they have started creating their own tracks by fake artists using AI technology and including them subtly and yet consistently within their curated genre playlists. The Almost Vinyl songs would indeed sit unobtrusively inside a Retro Soul playlist and not jump out to anyone as something illegitimate.

Luckily whenever I find a new interesting release I do, especially now this has cropped up, dig around for any information about them, up coming live dates or festival appearances especially, so I do not expect to be caught out by AI fakery too often, if ever, going forward. That said, I cannot quite get my head around what this all means. Does the lead vocal on those tunes I enjoyed, ‘I’m Back On My Bullshit’ in particular, actually belong to a human being because it sounds for all the world like an off-the-rails soul veteran straining the last juice out of his engine before descending into another long night of over-refreshment? Are any of those analogue sounding instruments played by anybody? Does the audio actually feature any instruments in the traditional sense? Does any of this matter when I enjoy the end product without knowing anything about it? I suppose it does because after all, it was the spark of human creativity and sonic exploration that brought these sounds into existence in the first place and ultimately, even if the technology has advanced to previously unimaginable sophistication, a copy is still a copy and a fake remains a fake. The search for new talented musical creatives will never die even if sometimes it feels like scientific progress can look to take the fun out of everything. It does not work, I mean for example, many people still appreciate the experience of playing music on vinyl even though we are in the fifth decade after the arrival of CD and all that followed, music lovers still relish that needle drop and the unbeatable vibration of deep grooved sound. There are many such examples in the Fruit Tree Records Discogs store https://www.discogs.com/seller/Fruit_Tree_Records/profile right now with AI fakes nowhere to be seen…

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