I’ve been travelling quite a lot in recent months. I’m very relieved to be home for a while and taking the time to spin a turntable again at critical times in the day. One of the most dispiriting aspects of modern cities across the world is the absence of record shops. They are there, but you really, really have to look hard and do a bit of map chasing to find them. Interestingly there are more music shops than record stores and that perhaps is the little chink of light at the end of the tunnel.
Last week I found myself taking an old turntable in for a bit of love and care. Finding myself only a few hundred yards from a good record retailer I took the chance to pop in and have a browse and (inevitably) a large haul. I bought everything from Bill Evans to The National and even picked up the current Waxathachee album on vinyl. If this is putting you in the mood for a little browsing and digging then you should look out for Record Store Day which come round on April 20th this year and you may even find a a vinyl exclusive from yours truly and chums.
The real joy of records is the fact that they have to be put on and taken off and (realistically) you’re not going to jump and down to skip tracks. So letting them play becomes a thing of joy. This week has been a good week for music and country music particularly. When an album like Cowboy Carter (has there ever been such an album?) comes along it creates such a stir in the water that people can’t help but notice that there is something new out there. We’ve already made oursleves clear on how excited we are about Beyonce´s new album and we will play another great track from it on this week’s show. I’ll probably talk more about this on the show but it’s been quite amusing to hear media people getting themselves in a tiz under which genre the album should be filed? They are probably still disorientated from Kacey Musgraves release a couple of weeks back. But I should say this: if anyone thinks it’s worth complaining that either album ‘isn’t country enough’ then have a listen to what passes as real country on the chart or on country radio first.
On this week’s show we’ll also bring you more from our C2C conversations when we hear from Brian Kelley what he really thinks about his ex Florida Georgia Line partner. We will play out more from the fascinating conversation we recorded with TJ and John Osborne regarding their eponomously titled new album and we’ll spin some vinyl from Hurray For The Riff Raff as well as play new songs from Tenille Townes and Megan Moroney. It all starts at five past eight this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.
