DVD: CREATURE FEATURE: THE SHE CREATURE

In 1956, She came from the past!

In 2001, She came from the sea!

 In both cases you have the privilege of seeing before and after. Except for one of them you have to stand on your head in front of your pc to see what the after is like.

This is actually the first of the Creature Feature series, though they were all made in a fairly short span of time, and I'll be suprised if it isn't the best. Sewell runs a fake freak sideshow in Ireland just after the turn of the last century and Gugino (with a convincing non-American accent) is his fake mermaid and lover with a shady past. One aging and drunk customer who has come to check out the mermaid actually has a real one in captivity and it killed his wife. Sewell, seeing money signs in front of his eyes, kidnaps it with one of his men (who plays a fake zombie) accidentally killing the old man in the process. Sewell gets it on board a ship bound for the States without the crew realising. Which is when thing start to get bad.

The mermaid is very effectively done. Human (and naked) from the waist up without swirling hair conveniently obscuring certain parts, but with odd bits of fins sticking out from her back and a long and very finny and warty lower half. Although non-speaking per se, the actress playing the mermaid is convincing. 

She also has psychic powers and it's clear quite early on that she is playing a game with Gugino, Sewell, and various supporting characters. One of the crew (Gill Bellows) knew Gugino from when she 'worked' in London and took all his money.  Shortly after threatening her, the mermaid gets loose and he disappears with claims that she's eaten him. This is ludicrous of course as she's human size. Eaten large chunks of him yes, but not swallowed him whole. Or did she?

Tension builds, new facts are discovered, and mist covers the ship until the mermaids plans are revealed and it becomes an all-out monsterfest when we see her true form and it's pretty ugly. This is a good well-made chiller and a nifty variant on the mermaid legend. Plus a neat little surprise at the end as all good horror movies should have.

Okay, She also comes from the sea as well.

This mermaid you don't want to bring home to meet your mum.

Happy Halloween.

DVD: CREATURE FEATURE: EARTH VS THE SPIDER

In the early years of the 21st century someone came up with an idea which would revolutionise nothing. It would, nevertheless, provide some entertainment for fans of monster movies. The idea was that, using the titles of some AIP horror movies produced by the legendary Samuel Z (pronounced Zee) Arkhoff, a new production team which included Lou, son of Samuel Z, and the equally legendary Stan Winston would create new and different movies. While made for cable on a relatively low budget, these movies would nevertheless look good and star moderately well-known actors including the likes of Rufus Sewell, Carla Gugino, Clea Duvall, Dan Aykroyd, Theresa Russell, Natassia Kinski, etc.

I'd seen a couple of these when they were first released on DVD, under the banner title Creature Features, borrowing them from a nearby and now long-closed Blockbuster store and rather enjoyed them. In the last few days I've discovered all five of them available on Amazon and all for £3.00 or less. A couple of them have pretty terrible reviews but what the hell I thought and ordered the lot. And here is the first I watched.

Now the original was a giant monster movie so popular in the 50's but this one comes over as a cross between Spiderman and Cronenberg's version of The Fly.

Nice but ineffectual security guard superhero obsessed (The Arachid, a Spiderman type) Quentin has a crush on a pretty young nurse who lives in the same rundown apartment building and they are both harrassed by a couple of young thugs. After a tragedy at work (genetic engineering research experimenting on spiders) Quentin injects himself with spider juice which at first appears to give him super powers -he's certainly strong enough to save the girl from a serial-killer- but is actually turning him into a spider-monster with all the attendant inclinations. He even got his own action-figure.

Investigating is weary detective Grillo (Aykroyd) haunted by the death of his partner and stressed out by his slatternly wife (Theresa Russell).

And it's all rather good fun with plenty for both superhero and monster movie fans. The acting is fine, the effects, both cgi and mechanical (Stan Winston remember) are very good, the pace is good, particularly towards the end and Devon Gummersall (of whom I've never heard) is excellent as the nerdy hero turning into haunted monster. I'd seen this before and remember it as being fun and it still is.

Coming soon to this blog -explosion of thunder- is She Creature!

BOOK REVIEWS: CHRIS MULLIN -DECLINE & FALL: DIARIES 2005-2010

From the introduction:

"... by the end of the Thatcher decade, male unemployment in Sunderland stood at well over 20%; today it is less than half that... In 1997 you could wait up to two years for a hip operation at City Hospital Sunderland; at the time of writing the waiting time is 18 weeks and falling. At Sandhill View, a secondary school  in my constituency, in the early nineties fewer than 10 per cent of pupils were achieving the standard 5 GCSEs at grades A to C; today that figure is nearly 80 per cent. There are many other examples I could cite. No-one can tell me that Labour governments don't make a difference."

Chris Mullin was my Member of Parliament for the last 23 years, standing down at this year's General Election, and these are the diaries of his last five years in Parliament. As with the previous volume, they are well written, honest, perceptive, compassionate, possessing a sly wit, and, for political diaries, extremely interesting and very readable.

When I first learned that Chris was to be our MP, which was as soon as he was selected -a Labour victory in Sunderland being a foregone conclusion- I was both impressed and a little wary. Impressed, because he came here with an established reputation for integrity as his victorious uphill battle to free those wrongly convicted of the Birmingham bombings (when he was excoriated and vilified by the right-wing press, among others) demonstrated. There was never a question in my mind that he would do his best for Sunderland. I'd also read and enjoyed his novel The Last Man Out Of Saigon. A writer (and journalist) as our MP! 

My reservations concerned his reputation as a member of the loony left -a phrase I now despise and maybe I'd been reading the Daily Mail too much (which I did at the time).  Back then I'd have considered myself to be maybe a tiny bit left of centre while Chris, I regarded, as being of the far left. Having read his diaries and learned more about him, this is probably something of simplification and a disservice to him. He is a socialist (with a small 's' as he describes it), always was and always will be, but he also an open-minded person seeing truth when it is shown to him from different ends of the political spectrum and he has good friends from both (including a man I find absolutely loathesome -the Tory grandee Nicholas Soames). I suppose I'd really call him a principled pragmatic idealist. He's probably moved over to the slightly right of centre left (whatever that is) while I've gone the other way and am probably on the borders of left of centre left and the radical left (whatever they are).

For 23 years as an MP Chris has fought for the City of Sunderland and for the people of Sunderland, including (though it didn't win him many friends among his constituents) for immigrants who wanted to stay in Sunderland, something I approve of. I remember being on the City library enquiry desk and trying to help an immigrant who wanted to be relocated from Sunderland because of the racism. I could only apologise and tell him we weren't all like that. He's fought to do the right thing in Parliament and to get Parliament to do the right thing to regain the respect of the public for its representatives, and he has been knocked back so many times. He's seen the Labour Party nearly tear itself apart because people who should know better keep doing the wrong thing.

All this is detailed in his diaries. What is also mentioned, all too briefly, is his love for his family, indeed absolute adoration of his daughters (the pride he has in his eldest who is studying at Oxford), and his love for the North East countryside. I have heard it cynically said that now he's no longer an MP he'll be buggering off back to Birmingham as if his tenure here is over. The Mullins may well move but it won't be because his sentence has come to an end.

Chris Mullin was my MP for 23 years and I couldn't have wished for a better one. Thank you, Chris, for all you have done. Now enjoy your retirement, mate. You've earned it.

Photo of Chris and his daughters, ironically, from the Daily Mail, as is the one below.

He's even mates with-

God, I'm so jealous.

DVD: THE MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND

So:

Is there more gore than Brides of Blood? Yes!

Is there more nudity than Brides of Blood? Yes!

Is there more sex than Brides of Blood? Yes! (But then there wasn't any really at all in BoB)

Is the monster better than Brides of Blood? Um, possibly.

Is it better than Brides of Blood? Yes! Er, no, er, maybe. Ah hell, I just liked of Brides of Blood more.

First off, this isn't the same Blood Island as the last one. It just happens to be an island named Blood where strange things happen. There are no wobbly plants or other mutations. John Ashley returns as the lead but he's a different character. So it's a sequel in name only, and that it's a horror movie set on an island named Blood.

Ashley (see main cast on poster above) is a pathologist sent by the government to investigate stuff. Pettyjohn (a younger actress than Beverly Hills in BoB but just as well endowed) has come to find her father whom she hasn't seen since she was twelve -he's become an alcoholic beach bum. Remy is the doctor with a gammy leg, a sinister manservant, and a superior attitude. Guess who is the title character? Go on, guess. No, you're wrong, it isn't Ashley it's Remy. What a shocking reveal. Not listed above but the third person on the boat is young Alfonso Carvajal as Ramu who has come to get his mother off the island where his father died several years ago. His mother, Tita Munoz is quite a hottie (40 at the time and looks younger and Ramu -or rather the actor- looks as if he's looking at her wishing she wasn't his mum or what she's doing when shooting is finished for the day) and she doesn't want to leave, preferring to stay and help the Mad Doctor. Also hanging around the Mad Doctor's house is Ramu's childhood friend Marla, now a nubile and available young woman.

Um, oh yes, the Chlorophyll Monster. There seem to be a few people O.D.ing of excess chlorophyll as diagnosed by the Mad Doctor who recommends soup for a recovering victim, "but no vegetables." But there is only one Chlorophyll Monster who follows a naked native girl (she'd been skinnydipping) and rips her apart in the opening scene.

After that there's a lot of character stuff and info dumping broken up by odd stuff like Pettyjohn's alky dad doing the peeping tom act on a skinnydipping native girl -bad! bad!- before we cut back to the monster doing the hack and slash and shaking it (severed heads, limbs) all about.

Ramu finds a letter from his departed daddy dated a few months after departed daddy's death. What can this mean? Let's open his tomb and find- a python which Ashley manly throws into the bushes- but no body.

To cut a long story short: Marla had sex with Ramu's dad starting when she was fourteen and he was the best lover she's ever had but this doesn't stop her stripping off and jumping on Ramu. Pettyjohn gets naked and gets it on with Ashley. Tastefully, despite a briefly glimpsed boob. Or it might have been a shoulder. I'd taken a statin tablet earlier than I should have, closed my eyes and opened them again at the scene below.

The Mad doctor kidnaps Ramu. The Monster kills several more people. Ashley discovers the secret laboratory where the Mad Doctor has been experimenting on people and rescues Ramu. The Monster (Ramu's father) arrives and rips his nubile young ex-girlfriend to shreds Oh, and he also killed his wife earlier, the luscious Tita Munoz whom I suspect I've gone on way too much about. Big explosion, Mad Doctor and Monster die. Our three heroes leave the island older and wiser.

Well, yes I enjoyed it but it somehow lacked the more naive charm and clunky chunky monster of its predecessor. The jacket blurb quotes someone saying that it's the goriest of horror movies from the 60's except for Herschell Gordon Lewis's sadistic schlock. This may be true in terms of body parts strewn about but you don't actually see them being removed in detail unlike, as I've said, the sadistic and cruel garbage by Lewis so they don't really have much impact. Still, I'll be keeping it and watching it again sometime.

And before I go, here's the Mad Doctor himself with Ashley and Pettyjohn.

And here's the Mad Monster about to turn his ex-girlfriend into top quality mince.

COMING SOON!

COMING SOON!

COMING REAL SOON!

 DARE YOU READ THE POST?

dARE YOU LOOK AT THE HORRIFYING IMAGES WHICH WILL BE DISPLAYED HERE!

IN THIS BLOG!

VERY SOON!

IN BLOOD COLOR!

DO YOU REALLY DARE?

DVD: BRIDES OF BLOOD/ BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT/ KEEP MY GRAVE OPEN

In the right mood, I'm quite fond of a series of US/Phillipines co-production, particularly this one, which usually have blood in the title and are sometimes even related like Mad Doctor of Blood Island which I've recently ordered. But Brides of Blood (1968) in particular is big fun. They're made cheaply enough, a fading/aging star as lead, with a handful of American actors in the other major roles, the rest done by Phillipino cast and crew. The director is Eddie Romero, a national treasure (if you're a Phillipino) and legend in his homeland and this is one of his earlier works.

Basically an aging American scientists (Kent Taylor) comes to Blood Island to do some scientific research. He's brought along his younger sluttish wife (Beverly Hills aka Beverley Powers, who is damn sexy) who has a quickie with a rough trade sailor before they've disembarked.

Also along is John Ashley as the young male lead here to help the primitive people with social projects like irrigation.What they find is that plant and insect life are prone to sudden  mutation which sometimes just abruptly reverses itself which is all a result of nuclear testing a few hundred miles away. So we get lots of dangerous plants with wobbly rattling branches and lumpen roots just waiting for someone to grab and turn and wrap them around themselves as if they were actually moving. To be fair, this is quite effective.

They soon learn that there's a monster on the island and the islanders are sacrificing, by means of a lottery, the local virgins to appease its hunger. This means the population is on a rapid downward spiral as it's a small island with a small and getting rapidly smaller population. So the sacrifices are pretty stupid really but at least the monster doesn't wreck the village as it passes through on its way to the sacrificial area where the girls are tied up after having their tops riffed off to entertain the viewer, I mean to make it easier to get at the meat. The headman has a nubile daughter who speaks English and the young male lead isn't exactly immune to her charms. And who can blame him?

This still is taken from the ritual courting dance (at the end of the movie after....) where the soon to be ex-virgins dance to entice their chosen mate. Towards the end the headman's daughter gets up and couldn't make her intentions more plain if she had a neon sign above her head saying "Shag me! Now!", though it takes the young male lead a little while to get the message before he finally stands up and she drags him into the bushes. Literally.

But you aren't interest in that soppy rubbish, you want to know about the monster. Well it so happens there's an old mansion on the hill where lives an educated and handsome Spanish type aged between the young and old leads (and you just know can't be totally kosher as he has a sinister manservant  and load of midgets to do the housework) and whom Beverly gets the hots for. This is a mistake as every night he turns green, toothy, and carnivorous.

There are various exciting bits with man-hungry plants (as opposed to man-hungry Beverley), the monster, chasing the young lead when he rescues her above before she can be eaten by the monster, and stuff like that. This is the movie that the word cult was created for.

Just recently, and as a result of my foray into the world of Rareflix, I came across another Eddie Romero film -Beast of the Yellow Night (1971)- as part of a Grindhouse double with Keep My Grave Open (1976).

John Ashley from Brides is the lead here. The idea is interesting but not much happens with it. Satan sort of  saves an American murderer (living in the Phillipines, as if it would be set anywhere else) from the police and has him inhabit the bodies of decent people and corrupt them at which point he moves on to someone else. Twenty years later he's given the body of an American businessman whose face was blown thereby enabling Ashley to have his own face restored.

Much to Satan's annoyance he begins to fall in love with his new wife and to start having regrets about his previous evil deeds so Satan has him change periodically into the Beast of the title. I don't, however, know what a Yellow Night has to do with anything as it's never mentioned once. Needless to say, it all ends badly and with a face like this it's no surprise.

Keep My Grave Open is an interesting little curio. Someone in a big house appears to be murdering intruders, or anyone they dislike, with a sword. Now there are only two people living there, a brother and sister, but we only ever see the sister -the lead played by Camilla Carr- who is as batty as a fruit cake.

Aha, thinks the perceptive horror fan -in this case, your humble writer- there is no brother! (Did you hear the rumble of thunder at the end of that sentence?) Or he's dead and she killed him because she is the murderer!

That he's not around at the very least appears to be born out when she puts on makeup and offers herself to him for sex. We seen no sign of him, though the camera takes what would be his point of view. Fruitcake, murderer, right?

She has a young handyman and a girl comes round pestering him at work for sex. Once night she comes round and the madperson with a sword kills her. A few scenes later, just after the sort of sex scene, the handyman calls and it appears the sister is trying to seduce him. What happens is, wearing the clothes of the killer, she kills him. With the sword. Now, totally bananas, she lures a prostitute, whom the handyman had sex with, to the house to have sex with her brother just in case he'd told her anything. She then appears, dressed as her brother and, after a long stalk and chase during which she gets slashed in the arm, she manages to kill the woman who tried to hide in a station wagon where the sister had stored the bodies.

She calls her shrink, gives him her will, and takes an overdose. Only two people attend the funeral. And that is it.

Hold it! Where do you think you're going? I only thought that was it. After the mourners have gone, the brother appears and makes a few comments before going to the house, picks up a spade and, looking at the bodies, says, "Well you could have buried them for me."

Da dum! I didn't see that one coming and I had to rethink the whole movie. So he killed the first... And he did have... And he was...

Neat little twist. Better movie than I expected. Reasonably okay print unlike Beast which was fucking terrible. That's all folks.

MUSIC: ROCK: SINGLE ARTIST ANTHOLOGIES

WHY BEING MIDDLE-AGED IN THE NEW MILLENIUM IS A GREAT TIME TO BE A ROCK FAN.

I’m 62 and in the last 10 years I’ve probably bought more Rock CDs than ever in my life and in real terms, as a proportion of my income, it’s probably cost me much less than it would in my youth when I bought vinyl. Many people in their 50’s and 60’s will be finding the same thing. Their kids, if they had any, have left home; they’ll be receiving legacies from relatives (usually, sadly, their deceased parents); they’ll have paid off most, if not all, of their debts such as the mortgage; their incomes, if they’re still working, will be at their maximum; and, if they have any sense, they’ll be the beneficiaries of a private or works pension.

But that is only part of it. Let me tell you a short story. 

Just about a week ago I came across a mention of J J Cale. I can’t remember exactly what it was –I may have seen it as an Amazon recommendation- but I had heard of him before and did a little digging to find out more about him. The obvious place was All Music Guide -http://www.allmusic.com/   which is probably the best one-stop music resource on the Web and I use it a lot. From their I went back to Amazon and listened to samples from a collection of his. Before I’d heard  more than ten I put the CD in my basket and ordered it. Anyway The Wind Blows is a massive 50-track anthology, first released 1997, covering 11 albums from 1970-1993, includes a decent booklet (always a plus) about the man and his music, and it’s fucking amazing. Now I’ve got all his albums since then, plus a collaboration with Eric Clapton, to look forward to hearing. You could describe Cale as Americana in the same way Johnny Cash is. Cale is Rock for sure, with a little Blues, and a little Country, and a little bit of this and that, all played in a deliciously laid-back rolling style though, as the introduction points out, “A fast song could be laid back as easily as a slow one.” 

I imagine when this anthology first came out it would have retailed for around £15.00 plus. I got it for £3.99. Yes, that’s right, one penny less than four quid which works out at 8p per track. While this is outstanding value in both quantity and qualitative terms, it isn’t all that unusual. It’s very easy to pick up excellent single artist anthologies for a very small outlay and that’s what I’ve been doing a lot of during the last ten years. I’ve had the opportunity to pick up music by artists whom I’ve liked but financial constraints in the past have prevented me from picking up.  In many cases, as Best Of (or Ultimate, or Essential) is all I want to hear of that artist. I’ve got the really good stuff and, to quote Donna Summer on one of my all-time favourite tracks, “enough is enough is enough is enough.”

What follows is a sort of companion piece to my 100 Favourite Tracks that I posted in June this year. (That itself was an early draft and the full revised piece can be found in my fanzine Siddhartha 8 on efanzines.com). This is a selective list and I’ve omitted almost all Blues single artist compilations and numerous others (or the list would be twice the length at least) for reasons which seemed good at the time but it is a pretty comprehensive list and does cover most of the Rock, with a few others thrown in for variety. I’ve included a few albums covers to break up the text plus some explanatory notes or comments. Now while most of this list I obtained relatively cheaply (say, under £7.50), a number are in the £10-£20 range and a handful over £30.00.

It’s arranged alphabetically from my ITunes list which means Bob Marley and Blondie are both under B. I could have done it by surname but that would have been too much like hard work .

A

The Animals: The Complete Animals. 2 CDs. It’s the 1960’s, it’s white-boy Blues, of course I liked it, it just took me 45 years before I bought it.

Aretha Franklin: Respect, The Very Best Of Aretha Franklin. 2 CDs.

B

The B-52s: Time Capsule. 1 CD. Weird, wonderful, funny, I love it.

The Beach Boys Platinum Collection. 3 CDs. Comprehensive and cheap too.

Big Country: Through A Big Country. 1 CD. See my Top 100 Tracks.

Blondie: Atomic.  CDs, one of which is a collection of remixes.

Bob Marley: Legend. 1 CD.

BB King: Vintage Years. 4 CD.

BB King: King of the Blues. 4 CD. Both massive and expensive compilations, each with a lavish booklet, and surprisingly little overlap.

Bob Dylan: Essential. 3 CDs. Dylan, like Bruce Springsteen, is one of those artists I buy an anthology to supplement my existing collection of his albums. In neither case I’m a completist but enough of fan to want a good selection of their material.

Bonnie Rait: Best Of. 1 CD.

Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band: Cornology. 3 CDs. A rather tatty copy, though the discs are fine, I found about to be chucked out in our charity shop. This is the sort of diamond, or example, of the reason why people scour charity shops in search of the overlooked treasure.

Booker T & The MGs: Best Of. 1 CD.

Bruce Springsteen: Essential. 3 CDs, one of which contains  previously unreleased material.

Buddy Holly Memorial Collection. 3 CDs. An excellent anthology for a fiver but misses out my favourite song of his –Bo Diddley- which I had to buy & download separately.

The Byrds: Essential. 2 CDs. The Essential series (from UA, I think as they’re in the loft, and not to be confused with any other Essential titles on different labels) is a generally excellent series and this is no exception.

C

Canned Heat: Uncanned. 2 CDs. Great booklet, massive collection, wonderful stuff. Boogie on!

Chuck Berry: Have Mercy, the complete Chess recordings 1969-74. 3CDs, sadly including 3 versions of My Dingaling, but otherwise excellent.

Chuck Berry: The Ultimate Collection. 3 CDs. Like the above this also displays just how versatile Berry was and that there’s so much more than just the hits.

The Clash: Essential. 2 CDs.

Credence Clearwater Revival: Chronicle. 2 CDs.

D

Dick Dale: King of the Surf Guitar. 1 CD. Any explanatory comment seems somehow superfluous.

Donna Summer: The Journey. 2 CDs. See my Top 100 Tracks.

The Doors: The Very Best Of. 2 CDs.

E

Echo & the Bunnymen: Crystal Days. 4 CDs. Truthfully, I borrowed this from the record library and copied it. A few years later I then bought a selection of the remastered and extended originals, many tracks, but not all, are on this lavish box set.

F

Fairport Convention: Meet On The Ledge. 2CDs. Live at the BBC. 4 CDs.

Fela Kuti: The Best Best. 2 CDs. "FEH-LA! FEH-LA! FEH-LA!" as I used to drunkenly shout out at a friend's house in the early 70's in order to get him to play a Fela album. One of the greatest African musicians ever. A short track is one under 10mins. Some of his double-backed albums on one CD contain only two tracks. But they’re great.

Fleetwood Mac: The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions. 6 CDs packed with false starts, alternate takes, studio chat.

Frank Zappa: Strictly Commercial. 1 CD. The lighter side of FZ. I’ve stopped listening to Bobby Brown when I’m out of the house because people stare at me when I burst out laughing; every time.

G

Gary Moore: Best of the Blues. 2 CD.

George Thorogood: The Baddest of George Thorogood and the Destroyers. 1CD.

The Grateful Dead: The Golden Road 1965-73. 12 CDs. Beyond Description 1973-89. 12 CDs. All the original major label albums remastered with extra tracks which sometimes doubles their length, plus extensive booklets, and both in a box which really is a solid box not a thin piece of card. The most expensive box sets I’ve ever bought with both costing over £80.00, but worth it.

H

Heart: Essential. 2 CDs.

The Hollies: Greatest Hits. 2 CDs. Back to the 60’s with one of the greatest British pop bands. Slick and professional with a string of great songs and great singing.

Howlin’ Wolf: The Genuine Article. 1CD. See my Top 100 Tracks.

The Human League: Very Best Of. 2 CDs.

I.

Intermission: What makes a good single artist anthology and how do I find it?

With popular and even not so popular artists there are probably more anthologies than you can count. Just look at Jimi Hendrix for example who has many more compilations available than he had original albums issued during his life.

The easiest way is to go to All Music Guide and type in the artist you’re interested in and then select Compilations. I don’t always agree with their reviews of individual albums (Trans, anyone?) but there’s more of a consensus on compilations and I’ll often take their recommendations. However, their highest rated compilations might be an expensive multi-disc set when I just want a mid-price 2-disc set at most. Also there may be different editions of the same compilation. The Cale set below is available in a single disc fillet (with a different title) at an Amazon price more than twice the 2-CD set. Also AMG, being an American site, it may not list or review good compilations available only overseas like the UK.

The next step is to check out what’s available on Amazon and read the buyer reviews which can be a good guide and sometimes they can’t. Rabid fans can either be hypercritical or sickeningly fawning. It goes without saying that you can trust my reviews implicitly. There’s also the advantage of often being able to listen to samples.

As for what makes a good anthology, that’s also subjective. Mostly a 2-CD set and sometimes a single CD is enough for me as long as it covers all the best known/popular tracks. Unreleased tracks are aimed at squeezing money out of the die-hard fan and aren’t necessarily a plus for the casual buyer as, with honourable exceptions (e.g. Dylan & Springsteen), they almost certainly aren’t the artist’s best work. I also like a good booklet about the artist and his work. In this respect the Cale anthology, which finally got me round to writing this piece, is exemplary. It’s cheap (though it wasn’t when it was first issued), it has a lot of tracks which end at 1993 leaving plenty of his later work to explore, there’s a good booklet, and it has 6 unreleased tracks. All of which makes it a great introduction to Cale’s work.

J

J J Cale: Anyway The Wind Blows. 2 CDs. See the introduction and above.

Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child, The Best Of. 2 CDs. There are umpteen Hendrix collections available. I’ve checked and this is probably the best 2 CD around and the price is good.

Johnny Clegg and Savuka: In My African Dreams. 1 CD.

Jonathan Richman: Roadrunner, Roadrunner The Berserkley Collection. 2CDs.

K

Kirsty MacColl: From Croydon To Cuba. 3 CDs.

L

The Levellers: One Way of Life. 1 CD. I have phases when I play this a lot. One of the best single disc compilations around.

Link Wray: King of the Wild Guitar. 1 CD. Some artists are best listened to in small doses otherwise they get a but repetitive. Wray is one of them.

Lou Reed: NYC Man. 2 CDs.

M

Marvin Gaye: Very Best Of. 2 CDs. No Marvin Gaye, no soul.

Mike Oldfield: Boxed. 3 CDs. Oldfield, the Ralph Vaughan Williams of Rock?

Muddy Waters: Hoochie Coochie Man, The Complete Chess Masters 1952-58. 2 CDs. There are so many Muddy compilations available, but for the price and the quality, this is one of the very best. It also comes in lovely thick card covers with a good booklet containing a short but good essay by Mary Kathrine Alden and some vintage photos on grainy stock paper. Lovely package.

N

Neil Young: Archives vol 1 1963-72. 6 CDs. Despite the great music, this comes as a disappointment. Check out my Amazon UK review for why. I got my copy from the States at a price much cheaper than over here and later sold it on Amazon Marketplace for a small profit. After copying it to my Ipod of course.

Nils Lofgren and Grin: Best of the A&M Years. I CD. A guy who was decorating our house last week heard me playing Trans and recognised it. He told me he was a fan of Lofgren, who has played with Young, and seen him live several times. I thought: why not? The only track I actually remembered from the 70’s was the excellent Keith Don’t Go. After playing the CD once, it still is.

O

Osisbisa: Best Of. 1 CD.

P

Pat Benatar: Greatest Hits. 1 CD.

Paul Butterfield: The Elektra Years. 2 CD set. Amazon UK  charge a ludicrous price for this but I got it at a reasonable price on Ebay.

Pentangle: Last Flight. 2 CDs.

Pet Shop Boys: Discography. 1 CD.

Peter Gabriel: Hit/Miss. 2 CDs.

Phil Collins: Hits. 1 CD. Okay, tell me you don’t have a Collins track or ten somewhere in your collection. Oh, you don’t, okay then.

Prefab Sprout: A Life Of Surprises. 1 CD.

R

The Ramones: Hey Ho Let’s Go. 2 CDs.

The Rolling Stones: Singles Collection, The London Years. 3 CDs. Check out my recent review in this blog. 40 Licks. 2 CDs.

S

Sandy Denny: Boxful Of Treasures.  5 CDs. See my 100 Favourite Tracks.

Santana: Ultimate Collection. 2 CDs. I like it but a true definitive Best Of has yet to appear.

The Searchers: 40^th Anniversary Collection. 2 CDs. More great 60’s pop music and beyond. Takes me back to my teenage schooldays and heated arguments about Del Shannon and Dionne Warwick. Hated the former, loved the latter.

Sheryl Crow: Very Best Of. 1 CD.

Simple Minds: Best Of. 2 CDs.

Steeleye Span: Spanning The Years. 2 CDs.

Steely Dan: Showbiz Kids. 2 CDs.

Stephen Stills: Turnin’ Back The Pages. 1 CD. A very good filleting of his 70’s solo albums, plus good booklet. I used to own a couple of the vinyl albums.

T

Talking Heads: The Name Of This Band Is. 2 CDs.

Z

ZZ Top: Rancho Texicano.  2 CDs.

 

If you've found this interesting, why not do something similar and let me see it. 

Very special thanks go to  Greg Pickersgill and Mark Plummer for their unexpected but very welcome responses to my revised fanzine version of 100 Favourite Tracks.