Elvis Costello

Those of you familiar with the pally, 'let’s all sit around and have a jam' presentation style of Jools Holland’s Later may have assumed that this would be more of the same – not that Later is a duff concept, when it works it works very well indeed – but this is a far more weighty affair (not least because Elvis Costello can actual conduct interviews). Featuring a truly open minded mix of guests including Bill Clinton, Tony Bennett, Lou Reed, the Police, Smokey Robinson, Rufus Wainwright, Jakob Dylan, Jenny Lewis, Diana Krall, Herbie Hancock, and James Taylor, Costello consistently keeps the discussions rolling in the right direction, whilst never feeling the need to interrupt an interesting anecdote, and the musical interludes are a great mix of Costello originals, the guests hits, and some inspired covers – so for example on the episode with the Police we get a medley of ‘Walking on the Moon’, ‘Watching the Detectives’ and Cream's ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ - and with a backing band that often includes jazz greats like James Burton and Allen Toussaint the musicianship levels never drop below red hot. Over ten hours of footage and a slew of material which didn't make the telly-box make this a very desirable boxset indeed.
The Oracle

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The Black Crowes
Cabin Fever
(Silver Arrow)

Some background information is probably required if you are not currently au fait with The Black Crowes output, specifically their last, rather magnificent actually, double album Before The Frost… Until The Freeze which was recorded over five nights in Levon Helm’s 'Studio Barn' in Woodstock in front of an invited audience of fans. Of course that’s all well and food for the lucky buggers that made it along to the sessions but that still left a fair few BC fans sobbing into their kaftans, but you need sob no more young hippie types as someone was on hand to film the sessions and document the song-writing and recording scenes complete with plenty of back and forth between and betwixt band and audience and some great cover versions which only the invited audience got to hear (up until now that is) including the Velvet Underground’s ‘Oh Sweet Nuthin’’ and Fred Neil’s ‘Dolphins’. The Black Crowes may have begun their lives in many eyes as a retro Faces/Stones tribute act but this DVD and their recent albums prove the lads are now far more than the sum of their parts and nobody now does this shambolic rock racket lark better.
Ray Harper

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It's All Over Town
(Optimum Home Entertainment)

Looking for a film that sums up the UK entertainment industry’s approach to new fangled ‘pop’ music in the early ‘60s? Then look no further as director Douglas Hickox takes us on a journey around London (or a shaky indoor wooden facsimile thereof) in the comic company of the rotund William Rushton and his beanpole buddy Lance Percival (see, there’s a joke right there), the narrative thrust being… Well, they’re All Over Town. Along the way they encounter Frankie Vaughen, looking uncannily like Mr Bean, The Springfields (featuring a young Dusty), The Hollies, who pole up in leathers on motorbikes sing ‘Now's The Time’ and then scoot off again, The Bachelors crooning their way through ‘Stars Will Remember’ and the clarinet toting Acker Bilk, which let’s be honest has to be the weirdest line-up since Englebert Humperdink toured with Jimi Hendrix. There’s even a blink and you’ll miss it appearance by Ivor Cutler and a full cast of ‘disappeared into the mists of time’ performers like Jan & Kelly, Ingrid Anthofer and Alan Davison. Within a few years the entertainment world would split into very distinct areas, but in 1963 all you needed was a few agents numbers and a twenty pound budget.
Josh Marks

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Various Artists
A Concert By The Lake - Blu Ray
(Eagle Rock)

One of those charity supergroup efforts where the likes of Eric Clapton, Katie Melua, Ringo Starr, The Drifters and Queen drum boy Roger Taylor wander on and off in front of a shunt band made up of Gary Brooker, Andy Fairweather Low, Mike Rutherford, Paul Carrack old uncle Tom Cobbly and all. The pluses to such a stellar line up is access to an unparalleled greatest hits collection – Clapton wheels out ‘Cocaine’ and ‘Lay Down Sally’, Ringo does ‘Photograph’ and ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’, Gary Brooker exhumes ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’, The Drifters deliver ‘Under The Boardwalk’ and ‘Stand By Me’, you get the picture - the down side is things never really ‘ignite’ as such, indeed things slow to an almost funereal pace when Roger ‘not really a front man’ Taylor tries everybody’s patience by murdering several Queen songs, but the suited and booted champers swilling audience are clearly enraptured by having so much superstar flesh paraded in front of them, the charity in question (Heart And Stroke Trust Endeavour HASTE) would undoubtedly have swelled it’s coffers. Originally released on DVD as Band Du Lac this is the first time the concert has made an appearance on Blu-Ray.
Ray Harper

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Mr. Lonely
(ICA Films)

How can you not be intrigued by a film that promises the story of a Michael Jackson impersonator, meeting a Marilyn Monroe look alike and then following her to a commune in the Highlands, to join her lookie-likey Charlie Chaplin husband, daughter Shirley Temple and a commune of doppleganger residents including The Queen of England, Madonna, James Dean, Abraham Lincoln and,. Erm, Little Red Riding Hood (!) plus numerous other impersonators who build a stage in the hope that people will visit and watch them perform. Along the way Nuns fall out of aeroplanes, sheep contact foot and mouth (and have to be slaughtered by the Three Stooges), eggs are painted and the Pope is accused of smelling bad. There are some genuinely laugh out loud moments including Jacksons show in an old persons home (including high pitched entreaties that his audience ‘don’t die’), Werner Herzog’s barmy turn as Father Umbrillo and I’d defy anyone to guess who is playing the Queen without first checking the cast list, whether or not you enjoy this however will depend entirely on whether you like your films to follow a linear plotline or enjoy the more avant-garde approach of stitching a series of seemingly unrelated acts together.
Josh Marks

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Rick Wakeman
The Six Wives of Henry VIII - Live at Hampton Court Palace (Eagle Vision)

Did you know that aside from being in the classic line-up of Yes Rick Wakeman has recorded almost 100 solo albums and performed as a guest or session musician for artists as varied as Alice Cooper, Elton John, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Cat Stevens, T. Rex, Black Sabbath and , erm, Brotherhood of Man? If you can answer yes to these questions you are clearly an obsessive fan and will already own this, but for the rest of us who may only be acquainted with a few of his solo albums – The Six Wives… probably being one of them – this performance documents the first time the whole album was ever performed in concert and finally includes the track ‘Defender Of The Faith’, which had to be cut from the original album for space reasons plus new opening and closing pieces. On the minus side Brian Blessed seems to have had only a few seconds to learn his narration, and is woefully under-rehearsed (although, being the trooper he is, perseveres manfully) but all in all this is a very entertaining show, complete with some great wobbly scenery and an absolute must have for fans of the album, it is also available on Blu-Ray and CD (shorn of the Brian Blessed sections).
Ray Harper

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Afghan Star
(Dogwoof Pictures)

Just so we’re all on the same page here Pop Idol and X Factor, soul-less, conveyor belt drivel right? Without doubt the lowest common denominator approach to making music right? Not, in any way, a major leap forward for democracy and personal liberties right? Actually no, wrong. Of course we’re not talking about the hideous, never ending tide of wannabe dunces we watch parading across our screens in the US/UK, what we have here are people that are still in the midst of a war zone, people desperate for change and an end to the constant round of death that surrounds them, people (in particular female people), who could very easily find themselves in mortal danger. Welcome to Pop Idol Afghanistan style, a truly frightening, and enthralling documentary about the brave individuals who choose to sing in a world where singing has only recently been once again allowed, a world where a female contestant breaking into a spontaneous dance on television prompts immediate violent condemnations from religious leaders (and we’re not talking hip grinding sex dancing here, just an innocent single rotation and gentle hand wave), a world where mutant wrong-brained funda-mentalists interviewed in the street call for said dancers death. Intrigued? You should be, because this is truly astonishing stuff.
Josh Marks

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Yes
The lost Broadcasts
(Voiceprint)

Featuring the original line-up (who thankfully had decided not to stick with their first choice of name, Mabel Greer's Toyshop) with Chris Squire on bass, Tony Kaye on keyboards, Peter Banks on guitar, an impossibly young Bill Bruford on drums and, on the first songs at least, some less than confident between song rambles from singer Jon Anderson, this DVD features performances from Germany’s Beat Club TV show. The first four tracks are lifted from the first two albums - the first three recorded in 1969 in black and white - ‘Looking Around’ and ‘Survival’ from their debut Yes and the third a cover of Richie Havens ‘No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed’ from Time And A Word, the title track of which turns up on track four (recorded in 1970, and now in colour) and finally we have four tracks from The Yes Album filmed in 1971 featuring a very enjoyable clatter though ‘Yours Is No Disgrace’ and three slightly different takes of ‘All Good People’ with Steve Howe replacing Peter Banks. Given the material on offer this is probably only really for dedicated fans, but long time Yes watchers will certainly be delighted with these blasts from the past.
Ray Harper

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Björk
Voltaïc
(One Little Indian)

Always way ahead of the pack when it comes to multimedia, you always know that the release of an album will almost certainly be supported by mad videos, live extravaganzas and some delightfully left-field remixes, and Björk once again triumphs with this four disc package – in support of her sixth album Volta - which collects together a live DVD of performances from Paris (full blown live show) and Reykjavik (lower key acoustic), a DVD of properly stupendous videos and ‘making of…’ films, a live CD of the Paris show (needless to say the DVD and CD boast a different track listing) and a disc of remixes. Everything here is worth investigating but it’s the live show in Paris which is the real blast and finds Björk reinventing herself once again marrying electronics with an awesome all female Icelandic 10-piece brass section and is worth seeing for the show stopping industrial thunder through ‘Declare Independence’ alone. She still looks like she chooses what to wear by jumping into a box of assorted material and then taping the results together, but in this world of Heat obsessed fashion fascism this is to be applauded and Voltaïc is further proof that she remains one of the most adventurous commercially viable artists in the world.
Drew Bass

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Steve Hillage Band
Live at the Gong Unconvention
(G-Wave/Voiceprint)

Whilst it’s fair to say that there are a more than a few admirers of Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy’s post-techno outfit System 7 here there are also those that recall the post Gong solo material with equal admiration (and at least two who fall into both camps), and it’s the latter camp who will be delighted with this live reading of early Steve Hillage material recorded live at the Gong Unconvention in Amsterdam in 2006. Teaming up with old SHB members Mike Howlett on bass and Basil Brooks on additional synths (Chris Taylor on drums completes the line-up) for a blistering, if all too brief, set which includes the George Harrison cover ‘It’s All Too Much’ from the bands most successful album L alongside early classics like ‘Aftaglid’, ‘Solar Musick Suite’ and ‘The Salmon Song’ – all of which send old SHB heads in the audience into raptures, with Hillage’s guitar playing as fluid and head-spinning as ever. Steve and Miquette can’t resist a nod towards what was to come by winding up with the (previously un-played live) trance like ‘These Uncharted Lands’ from his transitional synth driven mid ‘80s For To Next album, and the whole shebang is then rounded out with a career spanning interview.
Ray Harper

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