Rocks In The Attic #150: The Jimi Hendrix Experience - ‘Axis: Bold As Love’ (1967)

Ten reasons why I love this album:

1. The Songs

Of the three studio albums released by Hendrix before his death, this comes across as the most personal. Are You Experienced is hook-driven and full of perfect three-minute pop songs, Electric Ladyland finds Hendrix immersed in the New York scene of barflies and hangers-on, but Axis catches him in full songwriter mode.

Hendrix’s lyrics are often overlooked, but he can really paint a picture with words. Axis showcases his love of science-fiction and his vivid imagination on tracks such as Spanish Castle Magic and Little Wing. Other songwriters can sound banal when they tell a story with lyrics - Paul McCartney commonly makes this mistake - but Hendrix seems to effortlessly get you on his side. His lyrics for Wait Until Tomorrow and Castles Made Of Sand are heartbreaking, and far from the sort of expectations set by the simplistic tone of Fire and Foxy Lady only a matter of months prior.

2. The Guitar Sound

I love the fuzz on Hendrix’s guitar throughout Are You Experienced.  The fade-in to Foxy Lady has to be one of the best sounds captured on a rock album - but Hendrix playing a clean tone on his guitar is even better. Thankfully this album is full of it.

The introduction to Little Wing is stunningly beautiful, and wouldn’t be quite the same if there was any overdrive involved. There’s a big difference between playing a guitar to chug away on some barre chords, and using it as a virtuoso instrument. It’s a really delicate piece, complimented perfectly by the addition of a glockenspiel - something that would usually be very much out of place on a rock album.

When I started learning to play the guitar, the first music book I bought was Electric Ladyland - there’s nothing like throwing yourself into the deep end. I didn’t last long with the book - I think I sold it to a friend as it was far too advanced for my skill level at the time. It always rankled me though, and eventually learning to play Little Wing gave me the confidence to go back and learn some of his other songs. I can play Hendrix’s stuff on the guitar reasonably well, but there are always a million subtleties that I overlook.

3. The Cover

If there’s one thing I hate about the late-‘60s, it’s the look associated with psychedelia. When The Beatles jumped on the bandwagon with Sgt. Pepper’s, they brought that look to a worldwide commercial level. People rave on about how timeless the Sgt. Pepper’s sleeve is, but I can’t stand it. It’s garish and like most record sleeves of that time, it dates it to a period when designers could get away with murder - as long as they painted their criminal efforts with as many colours as they had available to them.

The Sgt. Peppers sleeve is probably to blame for opening the doors of possibility for a number of visual crimes - The Rolling Stones’ terrible Their Satanic Majesties Request and Cream’s vomit-inducing Disraeli Gears immediately spring to mind. One other album sleeve to be thrown into that mix is Axis: Bold As Love. Quite simply though, I love it.

Rumour has it that the record company found out about Hendrix’s Cherokee ancestry. This got lost somewhere in translation, and the subsequent cover featured Hendrix amidst the wrong kind of Indians.

I’m sure most people would argue that the cover is just as offensive, wild and garish as anything produced around those times, but I truly see it as a piece of art - one of the nicest gafefold sleeves in my collection.

4. The Drum Intro To Little Miss Lover

Mitch Mitchell is oft-overlooked for his contribution to rock music. John Bonham and Keith Moon are always seen as the best drummers from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, but Mitchell is a master player. He just suffers from having his parts overshadowed by Hendrix - and what a problem to have.

One of his standout moments across all three Hendrix studio albums is this funk-driven introduction to Little Miss Lover. Unfortunately, it’s so good that somewhere along the way it caught the ears of the Master of Mediocrity, Noel Gallagher - who used the sample as the basis for Fuckin’ In The Bushes from their Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants album.

This meant that for a distinct period of time, Oasis fans claimed themselves a bit of credibility because of the Hendrix connection. I already despised Oasis and their legion of numbskull fans; I loathed them even more now.

5. Walking Down The Aisle

When I got married in 2011, my wife walked down the aisle to Little Wing.

In the weeks running up the wedding, she couldn’t decide between that and Led Zeppelin’s Over The Hills And Far Away. She wanted both played at the wedding - one to walk down the aisle to, and the other to walk back up the aisle to, as a married couple.

I convinced her that Little Wing worked much better as a down-the-aisle song, as the section in Over The Hills And Far Away where the bass and drums kick in, a minute and a half into the song, seemed more apt to mark a joyous occasion.

The beautiful Little Wing was used to soundtrack a beautiful moment.


6. Fulfilling The Record Contract

Hendrix was tied to a really bad record contract from day one, and never really made any money before he died. His estate now makes millions off his name, and it’s sad that his business affairs were always in such dire straits during his short tenure as a rock star.

The initial contract Hendrix signed with Track Records tied the Experience to release two LPs during 1967. Are You Experienced had already landed in May of that year, so surely another release would be of an inferior quality. Most bands would knock something out quickly, but Hendrix turns around and delivers a masterpiece.

7. Three Copies And Counting

Of all the albums in my vinyl collection, this is the one I own the most copies of. I bought two second hand copies while I was still living in Manchester - neither of which had a gatefold sleeve. About a year ago I bought brand new copy of the 2010 reissue from Real Groovy in Auckland. This is a heavyweight vinyl release, and also features the full gatefold sleeve, together with a booklet containing photos and an essay on the album.

You can say what you want about the Experience Hendrix releases - yes, they may be cashing in on Hendrix - but they’re supremely well packaged, and give his music the justice it deserves. If you don’t like the endless re-releasing of his albums, don’t buy them. It’s that simple.

8. The Production.

Electric Ladyland, would perfect the direction that Hendrix wanted to go but his first soundscapes came along on the title song of Are You Experienced, and were cemented here on Axis.

The wall of rolling feedback that symbolises the sound of a UFO taking off, on the album’s comedic opener EXP, leads the way into a set of songs where production really is as important as the songwriting. Axis would be the second and final album that Hendrix would record with Chas Chandler on production duties, and you definitely get a feeling that these sessions were fun. Electric Ladyland, on the other hand, can sound very serious at times and just a bit too heavy. Man.

9. The Font.

Hendrix’s handwriting is easily identifiable- his handwritten lyrics happily pop up all over the liner notes of the Experience Hendrix releases.

This font of his handwriting style cleverly takes the name of the album - Axis Bold.

10. Spanish Castle Magic.

Purple Haze, Foxy Lady and Fire always get their dues when it comes to their place in the rock riff canon. For some reason, Spanish Castle Magic gets lost in the dust.

It has a wealth of riffs - the stuttering overdrive of the intro, the main arpeggiated riff, and the descending, syncopated power-chords of the verses all combine to provide a really heavy guitar assault.

Hit: Little Wing

Hidden Gem: Bold As Love

Rocks In The Attic #128: The Kinks - ‘Golden Hour Of The Kinks’ (1971)

Another compilation that exists solely in my record collection because it was handy to have in my record bag when DJing.

You have to love The Kinks though - they’re unfairly put to the side when ‘60s beat groups are mentioned. Usually, there’s The Beatles and The Stones, and nothing else. For me, The Kinks fit nicely in the middle between those two bands - they match the songwriting peaks of The Beatles (not as consistently as Lennon & McCartney, but certain songs are the arguably the equal of The Beatles’ singles), but they retain the rough edge (and murky production values) of The Stones.

This particular compilation is pretty poor, however. Their cover of Louie Louie is listed on the sleeve as ‘Lovie Lovie’, which makes you wonder what sort of moron put the sleeve together, when they can misspell one of rock and roll’s universal staples. Secondly, Lola is missing from the collection - even though this was put together a year after that single’s release. It is a budget release though, so Pye Records presumably only allowed the release of their older ‘60s output.

I think more than any other ‘60s band - The Beatles and The Stones included - the template for riff-driven guitar-based rock can be traced back to The Kinks. Dave Davies is a fantastic guitarist in this respect - coming up with short guitar hooks for his brother to write songs around.

During the formation of Led Zeppelin in 1968, Jimmy Page was undecided whether he should form a full-on heavy rock band, or a lighter folk rock band akin to Pentangle. Page played as a session musician on The Kinks’ debut album, and I don’t see it as a coincidence that he then went on to be the flag-bearer throughout the ‘70s for Dave Davies’ brand of riff-based heavy rock.

Hit: You Really Got Me

Hidden Gem: Victoria

Rocks In The Attic #127: Paul & Linda McCartney - ‘Ram’ (1971)

I’m with Moo on this one - mono is pretty pointless. It makes sense if the artist originally mixed it in mono, and intended its release in mono, but most of the time it’s a marketing ploy aimed at audiophiles.

Take this release for example - the limited edition release of McCartney’s second solo album in mono, complete with the most minimal sleeve I’ve ever seen (aside from the scrawl on the top left of the sleeve, the only mention of the album name and artist is on a small slip of paper inside the inner sleeve - it makes the packaging of The White Album look like Sgt. Pepper’s). There’s no reason for it to exist. Mono had been left behind by this point, and all releases were universally in stereo. It exists merely as a curiosity.

However, it’s by a Beatle, it’s a limited collection, and therefore it’s collectable - hence why I bought it. I have the stereo version, with its garish sleeve (possibly the reason this mono release is so minimalist?) and it’s always been a firm favourite. In fact, I swapped my CD copy of the album for the vinyl version back in the late 90s. My Huddersfield friend Dom Beresford had it on vinyl and wanted it on CD. I felt the opposite, so we did a fair trade. The record is forever marked by this transaction - a sticker on the label around the centre of the disc proudly declares it is the property of Kirklees Libraries & Arts.

There’s been a hell of a lot of love for this album of late. It is very good - about a million times better than his hotchpotch debut album; but as much as I love it, and regard it as my favourite McCartney album, it’s not as good as Band On The Run.  I don’t subscribe to the theory that his Wings material is more of a group offering - to me, they’re McCartney albums with a couple of hired hands to play some of the instruments so he didn’t have to play everything.

In terms of the quality of the songwriting here, he matches the strength of his output on Abbey Road. The melodies are strong enough to support an orchestral version of the album - something I’ve been listening to a lot recently. To me, Ram is as strong an album as Imagine - in fact they’d make a killer double album - but it’ll never be as loved by the public as Lennon’s album. There are no big hits, and definitely nothing close to the universality of Imagine’s titular track.

Hit: Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey

Hidden Gem: Ram On

Rocks In The Attic #122: The Beatles - ‘Please Please Me’ (1963)

When I first listened to this, the debut album by The Beatles, I used to think it would have sounded pretty revolutionary at the time. In hindsight, you can hear that it’s still got one foot firmly planted in the 1950s. Dylan followed Please Please Me two months later with The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, and that’s like a futuristic text compared to the childlike nature of this album.

This album is notable for a few things. Firstly, the original compositions are attributed to ‘McCartney-Lennon’, not long before the decision was made to reverse the surnames. I heard a few years ago that McCartney was lobbying Yoko Ono to get the rest of their back catalogue changed back to this original song-writing credit. Thankfully it didn’t happen, and anyway, you never know if things like that are even true. I wouldn’t put it past McCartney to try something like this - he obviously waited until George Harrison died to release Let It Be...Naked - but you’d get the impression that after 40 or so years, he’d be content that his name comes last in 99% of their song-writing credits.

Secondly, the album was famously recorded in one day. I don’t really see that as being anything special though. This happens for a lot of bands - especially on their debut albums - and perhaps this should be a rite of passage for bands recording their first batch of songs.

In terms of their song choices though, I do think that there are a few mistakes. Their original songs really sound very good alongside some very odd covers, but maybe that was the intention. There were better covers recorded during the New Years Day 1962 Decca audition (available on Anthology 1), that would have fit better than some of the covers here, and are closer to the standard of covers they recorded on their second album.

Thirdly, Ringo Starr isn’t the only drummer on the album. He’d later be replaced by McCartney on the occasional track later in their career, but here he is replaced by session man Andy White on their prior single, Love Me Do / P.S. I Love You - both sides of which open the second side of the album. George Martin had expected them to turn up to the session with Pete Best (who had played on their first Parlophone session), had told Brian Epstein that he wouldn’t allow Best to play on another session and that he would supply the drummer next time. When The Beatles then arrived with their newly appointed drummer in tow, Ringo was relegated to tambourine. If nothing else, this story confirms that the band was right to fire Pete Best.

All in all, a very simple album that’s very hard not to like. Sometimes that simplicity turns me off, but I also think that’s where most of its charm comes from. The Beatles would produce works of much greater value and innovation, and it wouldn’t take them long.

Hit: Twist And Shout

Hidden Gem: Baby It’s You

Rocks In The Attic #121: John Lennon - ‘John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band’ (1970)

Although this album is starkly minimalist and deals with pain, anger and isolation, I find it to be a really chilled-out album. Of the four debut solo albums by the recently split Beatles in 1970, this is probably my favourite, closely followed by Ringo’s Sentimental Journey. McCartney’s debut is too childlike and home-made; and Harrison’s All Things Must Pass is too self-indulgent, warranting a lengthy amount of time to sit down and listen to it in full.

I can definitely imagine relaxing to this, with a joint, on its release - but like most people I would probably have been a little let down with its unBeatleness. All of the four albums are as removed from The Beatles as possible, with each member trying to escape from that shadow, but Lennon’s album sounds to me to be the furthest away.

Although McCartney’s album sounds like a hastily assembled bunch of demo recordings, Lennon’s album sounds more mature - and even though there is a very minimal arrangement and production, it doesn’t come off as sounding infantile like his former writing partner’s debut offering.

Hit: Working Class Hero

Hidden Gem: Look At Me

Rocks In The Attic #117: Peter Gabriel - ‘So’ (1986)

I really should listen to more Peter Gabriel. His voice is awesome, but for some reason even though I have a fair bit of early Genesis on vinyl - plus their entire back catalogue on my iPod - their brand of Englishness doesn’t connect with me as much as, say, Pink Floyd.

I saw a foreign pressing of this record the other week in the sales racks at Real Groovy. A Russian version, with all writing - bizarrely even Peter Gabriel’s name I think - in Russian. There wasn’t anything on the record in English, and nothing that would lead a non-Russian speaker that it was a record by Peter Gabriel - unless you recognised his photo on the cover (designed by Factory Records’ Peter Saville). I should have bought it simply for its curiosity value, but left it there. I’ll have to manage with my normal English version.

Sledgehammer is a song that reminds me of my youth, and of family holidays. My Dad loves the track, and I think most people loved it at the time because of its groundbreaking video. I haven’t seen that in a few years, but the song is a classic - a little bit funky, a little bit menacing, and a choice of arrangement and orchestration that on paper doesn’t sound too great, but completely fits when it blasts out of the speakers.

The album is co-produced (alongside Gabriel) by Daniel Lanois - better known for his work with Brian Eno amongst a whole raft of other notable production credits. It’s probably because of this that the album doesn’t sound as dated as it should. It’s slightly more experimental and cutting edge than most ‘rock’ albums of the mid-80s, and even though the record is peppered with synthesisers it doesn’t make the same kind of mistakes that cheeseballs like Paul McCartney were making with synths around the same time.

There’s a whole list of guest appearances on So - the most famous being the duet with Kate Bush, but also showing up are The Police’s Stewart Copeland, PP Arnold, Wayne Jackson from Stax Records’ Memphis Horns, Youssou N’dour, Simple Minds frontman Jim Kerr, and Larry Klein (better known as the producer and former husband of Joni Mitchell).

Hit: Sledgehammer

Hidden Gem: Big Time

Rocks In The Attic #109: Mamas And Papas - ’20 Golden Hits’ (1973)

It’s funny that there’s a Lennon & McCartney song on this album - a very good cover of I Call Your Name (in addition to a cover of Twist And Shout) - as Denny Doherty has a real resemblance of John Lennon, as the cover of this album shows. And I guess John Phillips doesn’t look too far away from George Harrison circa 1968.

I can’t remember why I bought this album. I guess with a lot of 60s artists, as it was a time before the LP had really become the in-thing, it makes a bit more sense to go for compilations over (usually) hastily assembled studio albums (which in most cases are simple compilations of singles and B-sides anyway).

I used to work with a guy in Oldham who was obsessed with The Mamas & The Papas. I never really saw the attraction really - although there are some very nice harmonies on here. I guess they’re a bit like a prototype Abba really, five or so years before that group hit the big time. Although if you were to go the whole way and change the name of the band to the band members’ initials, they actually sound more like a hip-hop group: DJMC.

Hit: California Dreamin’

Hidden Gem: Creeque Alley

Rocks In The Attic #65: Paul McCartney - ‘Wingspan: Hits & History’ (2001)

I remember buying Wings Greatest on CD when I was at University, from Our Price (Our Price!) in Huddersfield town centre. Then, a few years later when I was building my vinyl collection, McCartney released this - a retrospective of (mainly) his work with Wings, even though the collection is credited to McCartney in name, as though it is purely a solo compilation.

This was an album I bought on vinyl and immediately transferred onto tape so I could play it in my crappy Nissan Sunny on drives over to Ireland. I’ve spent many a reggae-inspired middle-eight of Live And Let Die racing through the Welsh valleys on my way to the ferry port at Fishguard.

The Wings stuff across this double-LP set is essentially their greatest hits (their singles complimented by their better album tracks), and these are bookended by McCartney’s solo stuff both pre- and post-Wings. Thankfully, there’s not a great deal of McCartney’s solo cheese on here - the only real example is No More Lonely Nights, which gets two versions for some reason. The rest of his solo cheese - especially the likes of Ebony & Ivory and Wonderful Christmastime - is thankfully overlooked.

I’d have stuck Say Say Say on this if I had the opportunity, but given that none of his big duets appear on the album, it’s probably a simpler affair to keep it strictly a McCartney / Wings affair.

Hit: Band On The Run

Hidden Gem: Too Many People

Rocks In The Attic #49: The Beatles - ‘Beatles For Sale’ (1964)

The fourth Beatles album - also known as the ‘haphazardly-put-together-between-tours-to-get-it-out-in-time-for-Christmas’ album - and for me, just as good as the albums on either side of it.

I read somewhere that Eight Days A Week is notable as the first ever pop song with a faded-in intro. Now, I don’t know if that’s true - I’m sure whoever came up with that fact hadn’t listened to every pop song that came before this, but it does seem a little unlikely. Especially since the way recording had progressed from single takes into multitracking. With single takes, it’s far more likely that a song would be faded in at the start. Anyway, who knows? Or cares?

I sometime have great difficulty picking the ‘Hidden Gem’ on albums to detail at the foot of these blogs, but with Beatles For Sale it was too easy. The McCartney song What You’re Doing is so underrated - essentially unknown - that it’s almost criminal.

It’s also worth mentioning I Feel Fine (b/w She’s A Woman) which was released a week before this album - a great single, with a lead-guitar riff setting the template for rock music, and proof again that they were starting to get better and better at capturing the excitement of their live performances in the studio.

Hit: Eight Days A Week

Hidden Gem: What You’re Doing

Rocks In The Attic #38: Ringo Starr - ‘Sentimental Journey’ (1970)

I bought this recently, really as research for a piece of writing I’m working on, thinking it would be terrible, but it’s actually pretty good. This is Ringo’s first solo album - the first Beatles solo album in fact, not including live or avant-guarde releases - and is comprised of old standards arranged by the likes of Paul McCartney, George Martin, Maurice Gibb and Elmer Bernstein. Mostly it’s big band arrangements, with Ringo doing his best to croon over the top of them.

This might give me a bit of confidence to listen to his second album - Beaucoups Of Blues - again, although I’m not sure my initial opinion of that will change much. Maybe it will.

You have to wonder what teenybopper Beatles fans would have made of this, and its country follow-up. ‘Disappointed’ is a word that I’m sure would have been bandied about. Three weeks after this came McCartney and that’s so home-made it almost sounds like a demo recording. It wouldn’t be until much later in the year, when Harrison released All Things Must Pass that one of them released something that sounded vaguely Beatle-ly.

Hit: Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?

Hidden Gem: Dream

Rocks In The Attic #30: The Beatles - ‘Yellow Submarine Songtrack’ (1999)

It’s odd that they released this, as though admitting that the original Yellow Submarine soundtrack released in 1968 was a bit of a mistake. That album has four previously unreleased songs of varying quality on one side, bookended by the title song and All You Need Is Love; with the flipside covering George Martin’s orchestral score for the film. Of the studio albums in their official cannon, this has to be the weakest as half of it isn’t them playing, and the rest is half-hearted, at best.

Released in 1999 to promote the re-release of the animated film, the Yellow Submarine Songtrack tries to wrong those rights by removing the George Martin tracks and filling the album out with the other Beatles songs that appear in the movie.

Hey Bulldog takes pride of place as the first song on the album (after the title song), and this was released as the only single from the album. Of those 4 previously unreleased songs that appeared on the original soundtrack, it’s clearly the best one - a nice little riff-driven rocker by Lennon that wouldn’t have been out of place as a B-side around the time of The White Album when it was recorded.

This is a nice addition to my Beatles collection - the tracks are fully remixed from the original multitrack tapes (something that they didn’t even do for the 2009 remasters), making it a pretty unique release. And of course it’s on yellow vinyl, and who doesn’t like coloured vinyl?

Hit: Yellow Submarine

Hidden Gem: Hey Bulldog

Rocks In The Attic #14: Stevie Wonder - ‘Hotter Than July’ (1980)

The 1980s weren’t very kind to Stevie Wonder. Commercially, he did great - The Woman In Red soundtrack, Ebony and Ivory, Part Time Lover - but his critical successes were largely left behind in the 1970s. I love his classic period, starting with 1972’s Music Of My Mind, and I’d put this album, Hotter Than July, in there as the final album of that run.

It’s a very happy album, and other than Happy Birthday which sounds very ‘80s, the rest of the album stands up to the best of his work on Talking Book or Songs In The Key Of Life. In terms of songwriting, you could put any of these songs on those albums, and the only thing that gives the album away as coming from a slightly different time is that the synthesiser sounds are starting to sound a bit 1980s. They’re not as ‘jolly’ as the synth sounds from songs like Ebony And Ivory, but you can sort of hear them going in that direction.

Looking at the album credits, Michael Jackson pops up as one of several backing vocalists on All I Do, although you can’t hear it’s him. As usual Stevie plays most instruments on most of the songs - all keyboards, drums, and of course vocals. You get the idea that if Stevie Wonder walked up to your house and rang the doorbell, it would be the funkiest sounding time you’d ever hear it ring.

Hit: Happy Birthday

Hidden Gem: Master Blaster (Jammin’)

Rocks In The Attic #13: George Harrison - ‘All Things Must Pass’ (1970)

This is probably the most extravagant record in my collection - being the 2001 digitally remastered box-set. It’s a great album, and definitely the most 70’s rock-sounding of the debut albums by the three songwriting Beatles.

The first time I came across this album was when I was staying at my good friend Linsay’s house in Northern Ireland, and my other good friend, Kaj, and I were sleeping outside in the family caravan parked on the driveway. The only music we could find was the cassette album of All Things Must Pass, which we played all weekend, especially the jokey It’s Johnny’s Birthday­  - intended for John Lennon, but relevant to me also.

I don’t know what I like best - this, McCartney or John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band - but it probably depends on what mood I’m in. This album sounds the biggest of the three, no doubt due to Phil Spector’s heavy involvement (although he also co-produced John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, he wasn’t around for a lot of those sessions, whereas you can hear his input all over this).

The ‘informal jams’ that make up the third disc of this triple album are largely pointless - and self-indulgent tossery - given that it feels more like a chance for George to show off his best-friend Eric, rather than to provide anything of substance.

It’s a shame that My Sweet Lord got a lot of undue attention because of its “similarity” to The Chiffons’ He’s So Fine. A shame because it’s practically the same song. Different instruments and different lyrics, but melodically identical.

Hit: My Sweet Lord

Hidden Gem: Wah-Wah

Rocks In The Attic #10: Super Furry Animals - ‘Rings Around The World’ (2001)

I must admit I didn’t really love the Super Furrys until this album. I definitely liked them - my housemates at University in my third year used to play them to death, especially the Outspaced album which had just come out that year. In fact, I think I bought Outspaced first, on vinyl, and then I started buying all the others.


They were a handy band to have when DJing too - they’re probably the band I was asked “Hey mate, who’s this?” most when playing them.


By the time Rings Around The World came out, I had been buying their albums as they came out - Guerilla after Outspaced, and then Mwng - partly becase they’re an awesome band, but also because they always did something nice with their vinyl releases.


On Rings Around The World, side C, the side with Juxtapozed With U on it, plays ‘backwards’ - that is, you drop the needle in the centre, where the run-out groove usually is, and it plays from centre out to the edge. Sure, it’s gimmicky, but at least it’s something that sets the record apart from others. You just need to be bloody fast, when side C finishes, to save your needle before it does a suicide leap off the record.


I used to listen to this a lot when I drove over to Ireland to see my long-distance girlfriend in Wexford. As the band are Welsh, it’s quite nice that the album became my soundtrack for driving through that country to get to the ferry port in Fishguard.


Paul McCartney appears on this album too, on Receptacle For The Respectable, channelling his earlier role on one of the Beach Boys’ albums by crunching on some celery and carrots. Nice!


Hit: Juxtapozed With U


Hidden Gem: Receptacle For The Respectable

Rocks In The Attic #7: The Beatles - ‘The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl’ (1977)

I love everything about this album, from the hasty introduction by Ed Sullivan to the constant scream from the fans which never lets up.

It’s a shame this album has never been released on CD - there seems to have been enough pressure for Parlophone to release the LP back in 1977, but this must have been regarded as a mis-step somewhere along the way as it now seems to fit strangely outside the official cannon of Beatles recording.

To my ears, this LP is just as important as any of their studio albums - if only as a historical document of the shows during the height of Beatlemania. The 2009 studio remasters would have been a great opportunity to clean the recording up a little bit more and place it alongside the other albums.

It’s incredibly short at only 33 minutes, but this is in line with the running time of their albums at the time. I love how they start Twist And Shout on the middle-8, and instead of playing the whole song with that section as the starting point, they quickly end it after a minute and twenty seconds, as though they had simply come into the song halfway through.

The liner notes by George Martin add a nice touch, writing a short history of how he was approached to revisit the recordings and produce the record. The only sour point is mention of the current teen heart-throbs of the late 1970s, The Bay City Rollers, courtesy of a comment from Martin’s daughter.

Hit: Twist And Shout

Hidden Gem: Help