I was a young teenager during the 1960’s and one of the first questions posed in the school playground was; “Do you like the Beatles or Rolling Stones?” Being independent minded I always replied “Neither, I like the Kinks”.
In 1968 I bought my first album and it was Pink Floyd’s ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’. [...]

The 1970 breakup of the Beatles was a traumatic time for John, George, Paul and Ringo. Each dealt with it in their own way. Paul lived the life of a recluse on the Mull of Kintyre, whereas John resorted to psychoanalysis to get rid of his demons. His first, brilliantly stark album, is the direct result. 
John [...]

Nowhere Boy is a great new film dealing with something rarely covered in books, and never portrayed in film – John Lennon’s childhood. It brilliantly manages to evoke the atmosphere of suburban life, circa 1960.
The Director Sam Taylor-Wood manages to avoid the obvious cliche of telling Lennon’s story through his and the Beatles songs, instead there is [...]

The last album written by Roger Waters for Pink Floyd was ‘The Final Cut’. The title had a number of meanings, including the fact that Waters would leave the band after this album.
I have all Pink Floyd’s albums on vinyl, but unfortunately I no longer play vinyl records, which meant I had to replace them with [...]

Leamington Spa is a beautiful town with a lot of night life, however for too long it didn’t have a large capacity, live music venue. Groups were confined to local pubs that had the space and the enthusiasm to host a live band.
This has thankfully changed! For the past 12 months Leamington Spa has a brand [...]

Leamington Spa has a brand new live music venue called the Assembly. It’s a beautiful Art Deco building, and I try to go to as many concerts as possible. Recently I bought tickets for ‘Gong’. I had never heard of them before, but I liked their description as “Music for Pothead Pixies”.

Gong were great. The [...]

John Lennon was always trying to capture the moment of artistic creation. His idea was to go into a studio with a song, rehearse it and record a final version, all within 24 hours.
This appealed to the lazy part of his nature, but it was also a reaction against the laborious studio work that the Beatles [...]

Finally, 40 years after first having the idea, I have completed a painting of John Lennon based on the psychedelic poster issued in 1967.
It’s only thanks to Google Images that I have been able to fulfil this ambition, as  the posters sold out on the day of issue, and I didn’t have anything for reference.  However I was able to download [...]

The Beatles evolved and changed with every album they issued. I prefer the second half of their career starting from the Revolver album. However there are some lovely tracks on Help, despite the heavy workload that the Beatles were operating under. Help was issued on 8th June 1965, and was both the soundtrack to the film [...]

1967 was the ’summer of love’, the Beatles had released Sgt. Pepper and had a number one hit that encapsulated the spirit of the times, with “all you need is love”.
I was a 13 year old teenager completely immersed in the music and psychedelia of the time, so when I heard that the Beatles were [...]