MP3 and text submitted by Martin Skidmore
Joe Tex and Mable John – “The Same Things It Took To Get Me”
I like duets in general, but this is my favourite ever. You expect good strong singing from the stand-up preacher of soul and fro[…]

It’s indescribable. But the guy who was interviewing him does his very best. And you know, Bizzy’s enthusiasm is incredibly infectious. When he starts essentially freestyling over the background music, it’s even better. (It also[…]

The Rolling Stones – “Wake Up In The Morning (Rice Krispies)”
One of the most enjoyable presentations at EMP was Douglas Wolk’s piece on the secret history of bespoke jingles recorded by seriously credible rock bands and soul […]

If you want to know how I feel about the Hi house band, backing for Al Green and other soul greats in the ’70s, I revere them at length in this article. I was disappointed at the absence of Howard Grimes, the nest best thing to Al Jackson on dr[…]

Just as we long ago nicked the idea for the Focus Group from ‘legendary’ US zine Radio On, so the Focus Group itself has now been borrowed by Stylus magazine for a weekly feature in which a panel of the great and good – now includin[…]

Akwid – “No Hay Manera”
The EMP pop conference mixes journalists and academics to good effect. They form a continuum whose parameters are argued and sketchily defined over three super-stimulating days. At one end of the continuum ar[…]

You will notice:
– a new logo.
– the staff Top 10 is back.
– we are going to be an MP3 blog from now on, except for those entries when we’re not. We’re going to try and think of interesting ways to present and discuss MP[…]

We will be injecting illegal monkey glands into this old blogging warhorse over the weekend, ready for a relaunch next week.
(Until then all contributors please post using ‘draft’ mode only, thanks.)[…]

1. Clothes. I’m a middle aged man who pays less attention to clothes than just about anyone: but I have never seen so many unappealing looking old people at any gig. The audience was 100% white, as far as I can tell, maybe 80% male, with lots o[…]

I was reading Revolution in the Head, and the writer told me that the song You?ve Got to Hide your Love Away had no queer content at all?and I always thot it was the most queer song in pop before the rainbow broke ca 1970, reading the lyrics again an[…]