Keeping alive the glorious spirit of 1976
A Magical Location For School Journeys – An Appreciation By Ken Noakes is not just a fascinating venture back to an age of innocence for those of us who as children were part of the experience. As a retrospective it serves also to remind us that that innocence was shared, in some degree, by the adults in our company back in those far off days and indeed by society itself.
Continue ReadingWritten in diary format, this story is unusual in that the narrative flits between two friends as the chapters alternate, charting a period of their lives and the relationship that they have with one another.
Continue ReadingOn Friday evening just gone I was lucky enough to have been given a ticket to see two men who, together but in their slightly different ways, played a major role in defining that decade of explosive creativity and unsurpassed musical innovation that was the 1970s.
Continue ReadingThis isn’t the type of book that I would read ordinarily, but once I had got going I found myself impatient to learn what was going to happen next, and I was somewhat reluctant to put it down. Which, I guess, is the measure of a good story which is well written and presented.
Continue ReadingI was very pleasantly surprised when my old mate Tim Pyle turned up unannounced on my doorstep this evening, considering that he lives these days in some remote Arthurian backwater out Wales way.
Continue ReadingSeeing your favourite artist or band on film is these days simply a matter of logging into YouTube or something similar and typing your choice into the search bar, but it wasn’t always so. Time was, one was compelled to wait patiently in eager anticipation of their next appearance on Top Of The Pops. Unless, […]
Continue ReadingI was always going to enjoy this read. Whilst it is undoubtedly the case that David Bowie enjoyed the services of some of the most talented musicians alive throughout his long and distinguished career, the Spiders period was the closest he ever came (Tin Machine excepted) to being thought of as the leader of a band as opposed to a strictly solo artist supported by a sometimes ephemeral backing cast.
Continue ReadingThree months on from the publication of The Best Year Of Our Lives, I thought this might be a good opportunity to address some of those queries which have been raised by various people along the way.
Continue ReadingFinding a publisher who is willing to take a punt and offer an advance has long been the Holy Grail of aspirant authors as they contemplate their uncertain futures whilst putting together their maiden works. However the arrival on the scene of self-publishing has changed the game beyond all recognition.
Continue ReadingWhen submitting an old manuscript to a traditional book publisher some years back I was told that I ought to make my work “less autobiographical”. She didn’t want to hurt my feelings and so she was tactful, but what her advice amounted to was that no-one much wants to read the autobiography of somebody who is not a household name. The Glam Rock Files flies defiantly in the face of this advice,
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