Have just come across the original context for Damon Albarn's remark about Alan Klein's influence - a 1995 article in Q magazine ab...

And so to the the holy grail of this series about David Bowie's influences: Well At Least Its British , Alan Klein's 1964 solo al...

We are perhaps wandering away from Bowie and the Kinks in this entry, but thinking about Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to ...

This is more of a postscript to the previous two entries than a new undertaking, but worth placing separately as the ideas haven't come...

I must have been eight years old when I first heard Waterloo Sunset, in the year of its release, and - like just about everyone else in...

I've belatedly realised this series about early influences on David Bowie can't end without mention of Ray Davies and the Kinks. ...

This series of vaguely Bowied-related musings may be coming to a natural end. Or not. But this entry has the feeling of tying  u...

Have just found details of the 1975 Stratford East revival of What a Crazy World in which Ray Winstone (not playing the lead) made his debu...

Have just refreshed my memory of What a Crazy World. Very enjoyable and - unlike Three Hats for Lisa, much as I love it - ...

Joe Brown went on to star in another film of which I am very fond, called Three Hats for Lisa. It's also set in London, but with no...

More thoughts and connections suggested themselves after I finished the previous entry .  My own fault, I suppose, for picking up Spencer...

 Now here's a real oddity (no pun intended). This 1983 songbook, recently obtained for work purposes, has several previously unp...

Please note the question mark in the title as a) the set below is issued by Proper Records, whose quality control is not always of the best...

Several related things. Have just seen that James Paul McCartney, Macca's 1973 TV special for Lew Grade's ATV, is on youtube. This...

I was about to post this entry, all excited, when I realised that I was taking the information from a copy of Record Collector dated ... Oc...

Mentioning Alan Warner in the previous post prompted me to look for an image of the doo wop compilation LP he masterminded which included Y...

The day of the anniversary of my friend's death - or possibly the day before or after, as that's the kind of person I am - I saw a ...

I wrote in an earlier entry, here , about seeing the superb acapella group 14 Karat Soul at the Edinburgh fringe in an early production of...

As so often when I've alighted on an idea for this blog, it's difficult to let go. I have been looking around the net for Sooty-rel...

The investigation is over and the mystery solved, thanks to the kindness of strangers on the BBC Radio 7 comedy messageboard, here , and so...

Received a delightful message from Phil Pope (see previous post ), claiming to be "honoured" (as who should not) by his mention i...

Had what can only be termed a Russell Davies moment a few minutes ago. Which made me realise I may have been unnecessarily harsh in my dis...

One of my all-time faves from the Dells' doo wop years. One of the sides on the double album of Vee-Jay material licensed by Dick James...

Linked posts here , here , here and here .

Remember Clifford T. Ward? Gaye: "You're the tray of bright rings I upset yesterday" - or some such. Look it up somewh...

If anyone reading this is interested in buying or enquiring about Cheapo Cheapo's vinyl stock, here* is an updated link. (If you're...

Some days or weeks after my visit to Cheapo's old premises on January 19th   I went back - and this time actually crossed the road and p...

There is an episode of the UK sitcom Hardware (sadly, the clip above has been removed) in which Peter Davison, playing himself, gazes upo...

Found this on flickr, dated February 2008, credited to Federella . Think you can glimpse some CDs bottom left, but it's mostly DVDs, whi...

I stayed on for an hour at work to add more to the previous blog entry. Getting home, I googled "Cheapo Cheapo closed" and found t...

Hmm ... not quite as I would have wished in every particular, but those who have read the earlier posts lamenting the loss of Soho's Che...

Just spotted an ad on the Gumtree site offering Cheapo's vinyl stock for sale: 13,000 records are available at the price of £1 each, ...

Question: Does the world need yet another review of Nowhere Boy? Answer: Almost certainly not, but I am impelled to record my comments...

Only caught the last twenty minutes of this so will refrain from detailed comment but am posting this to alert people to this play, The Jub...

A few years too late to appease my father (see entry  here ) but I can't resist including this story by Dave Itzkoff from the New York ...

Davieslisten, really: the continuation of my quest to work out how ace broadcaster Russell Davies manufactures, on a regular basis, that the...

Caught up in a madness I cannot fully explain, I have become a Friend of Donovan's - in the limited, online meaning of the term - and wa...

Granted, it doesn't look too good now, and may in fact have disappeared altogether since this photograph was taken, but Reader, please ...

Chimes by the Pelicans is one of my favourite doo wop recordings. Think I first heard it in the late nineties - certainly in time for me to ...

Mention of Hubert Gregg in the previous post reminds me that I have now read and thoroughly enjoyed his autobiography. It is available ex...

There are a few more broadcasters I'd like to salute before bringing this occasional series to a conclusion. Gearing up to do my own po...

Talking of music biopics, here's one which is resolutely non-doo wop but of particular interest to me, as it dramatises the last days o...