Bonjour a tous :
It would be easy, after three decades or so immersed into the infinite music oceans, to believe that I have more or less heard or heard of virtually every genres and every major artists that made them.
It would be easy, yes, and I must admit that somedays, I do actually feel that I have heard it all (or enough, depending…), but it would, undoubtedly, be not only rather pretentious, it would be as wrong as voting for the tories.
And believe me, I only had to take a glance at the records that will fill our new in rack this Saturday, to take a good humble uppercut in the chin of my so called music knowledge.
Let me just name drop a few : Richard “groove” Holmes, Brother Jack Mc Duff, Nicky Thomas, The Cimarons, Stickers, The Dramatics, Brent Dowe, Vernon Burch, The Nite Liters, Leslie Uggams, Barbara Acklin, The Moments, Charlie Palmiery, Valerie Simpson….
Now I have no doubts some of you might know some of these artists, and I hope that the prospect of finding mint sealed copies for under a tenner might inspire you to give us a visit Saturday morning.
Personally, I feel as if i have cheated my way intothis position… who the hell are these people?
You’ll also find some rather tasty rare records from artists who somewhat managed to make it into the mainstream collective memory : bootlegs from PIL and The Specials, absolute classics from the likes of the MC5, James Brown, Junior Murvin, Prince far I, King Tubby, Otis Redding, Velvet Underground,Pearls before swine… and two of my all time favourites : the fantastic Arthur lee and Love “Forever Changes” and The Beach Boys Pet Sounds, which are still to this day sounding like the gods of mount Olympus formed a pop band after retirement.
Right, before to leave you to your sunny weekender (ohhh yes, finally, it is has arrived!), I’d like to give a little nod of approval for one of my predecessors here, who is making a remarkable appearance on Jools holland’s TV show tomorrow! Bloody well done to him. He’s really talented and a great lad. Check him out : http://www.anthonyjoseph.co.uk/spasmband.php
All the best to you all.
Philippe-Rat Records.
Ps : nobody won the Tshirts slogan competition. I the end, we went for ripping off classic sleeves and adding little rat snouts all over them, and it looks great!… but thank you very much for trying.