 The Cavern: The Most Famous Club In The World: Ahead of the Mathew Street Festival in Liverpool - and where the legendary Cavern Club resides - comes this from EMI/Universal on August 20th - a bizarre but nonetheless please pleasing collection of artists who have at one time or another graced the rickety, wooden boards of arguably the most famous beat club in musical history. We know about the Beatles, of course, 10 Matthew Street was the address the band played on their return from the Kaiserkeller in Hamburg at lunchtime on February 21, 1961 - a residency that was immortalised in all those grainy, Cuban-heeled shots of the boys shaking their ass to The Big Three's 'Some Other Guy' in their curiously dapper wes'kits and ties - but were you aware that this once Jazz Club that loaned it's heart to the skiffle of the late sixties and the Mersey sounds of the early sixties was - against the better wishes of British Prime Minister Harold Wilson - demolished in the 1970s and re-built brick-for-brick in 1984? And I bet you didn't know that those who added their own inaugural screams to this 'cellarful of noise' included the Arctic Monkeys, The Coral, Chuck Berry, Ben E King, Stevie Wonder, Thin Lizzy, Rod Stewart, Queen, Travis and KT Tunstall - all of who are represented here within the perfectly sweaty confines of a 3 disc collection that tracks the development of the 'Most Famous Club' in the world from skiffle-mecca to loadstone of musical 'arrival'. And naturally you have loads of Merseybeat: Johnny Kids and the Pirates, The Easybeats, The Searches, The Big Three, Gordon Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, The Merseybeats, Swinging Blue Jeans et al.
Justified Re-release? Yes. Fairly solid anthology of tunes bonded together by time, place, history and a rascally disregard for authority. For scallies everywhere. Young and old - but could have done with a few more live sessions and a few more rarities. No Rory Storm and the Hurricanes? Derek and the Seniors? Scandalous.
 Monday 30th July sees the release of the Bluetones, The Early/Garage Years, (Cooking Vinyl) a collection of 10 songs recorded before the band signed their first record deal. Featuring homemade and studio demos and a must of you yearn for those relatively sanitised days of simple Brit-Pub heaven.
"These are the very first recordings we made", says drummer Eds Chesters. "Some were recorded in the through-lounge of a semi on the Brabazon Road estate in Heston Middlesex. The others were recorded in various teeny studios around London paid for by record company big wigs ready to nurture (and exploit) the band. And here they are warmed up and served using up to date studio jiggery-pokery from some of the old cassettes Adam found in a box. Includes studio demos for 'Are You Blind Or Are You Blind', 'Slight Return', 'The Fountainhead' and home-recordings of 'Cut Some Rug' and 'Talking To Clarry'.
Justified Re-release? Hmm. Perhaps. It depends squarely on how much of a fan you are, in the same way getting a nice pair of leather driving gloves for Xmas depends on how much of a car you have. Rarely essential, but perfectly usable on other occasions. Explains little about their development as a band though. Would benefit from liner-notes and rare-shots of the band In Utero.  David Bowie: Buddha of Suburbia: This one takes me back a bit. There was a time when David Bowie found himself inadequately suspended between all that was cool and all that was super uncool. To the greater part of the record-buying (or record baying) public he was the sleazy blue-eyed soul boy responsible for that godawful 'Let's Dance' record and for popping up in a largely forgettable string of poorly cast eighties flicks that included Labyrinth, Absolute Beginners and The Hunger in addition to some very ill-advised cameo roles (The Last Temptation of Christ? Anyone?). It was also the time before queer-angle 'reality' tv serials like This Life and Teachers and boundary shredding garbage like Queer As Folk. So what better time to push forward than with Roger Mitchell's 1993 miniseries, Buddha Of Suburbia - a tale of sexual awakening, repression and scenes that were frankly a little bit awkward to watch with your grandmother. Based on the 1990 novel by author/screenwriter Kureishi (My Beautiful Launderette), thisBBC mini series set in the 1970s followed the story of Karim - a teenager of Pakistani descent in London. And David Bowie did the soundtrack. And here it is. Again. Sort of. Bowie has not yet released the REAL soundtrack he wrote to the series, instead he offered up an album based on some of the 'motifs' used. And that's principally what we have: a series of ambient instrumentals not unlike his work with maestro Brian Eno. Re-released on September 17th by EMI featuring liner notes by the 'chameleon of pop' himself and a slightly different picture on the front.
Justified Re-release? Not really. Extending this edition with excerpts from the 'unreleased' soundtrack would have been a substantial bonus - a 2-disc 'before' and 'after' edition. As it is, the only possible reason to re-release it is because you gave away your original copy for the price of a beer and a few ciggies down the student union. Contrary to what Captain and Tenille think, once really is enough sometimes.
Alan Sargeant for Crud Magazine 2007©
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