Bytes From the Secure Big Apple
They’ve gone, they’ve skedaddled. So huzzah! Let the joybells ring, because those indeterminate world-leaders, tub-thumpers and Foreign Office types who’ve been in New York for the United Nations’...
View ArticleSchool Bytes from the Big Apple
“Forty years on, when afar and asunder, parted are those who are singing today. When you look back and forgetfully wonder, what you were like in your work and your play”. Those words still ring true as...
View ArticleBites (At Home and Away) From the Big Apple
It won’t come as a surprise to be prompted that the Collective Review is all about assessments, analysis and appraisal. In fact, that’s the main reason why we are here. So I thought we might do the...
View ArticleBytes From the Big Apple: The Ripe Mr. Rupe
January is, by tradition, a time when the award shows start to kick in: A time when you turn on the TV and scratch your head as to who the individual being honoured actually is. Outside of the Grammys,...
View ArticleBytes From the Big Apple”: Bill Haley & the Comets
The chorus of Bill Haley’s ‘R-O-C-K’ says it all. “Strauss discovered waltzes, the ‘Handy Man’ found the blues. Well Haley came along with a rockin’ song, ‘Crazy, Man Crazy’, crazy news”. Yes, the news...
View ArticleBytes From the Big Apple: A Script, a Cast, a time and a place.
In terms of originality and inventiveness, January 12th 1960 will forever stand as an indelicate date on the entertainment calendar. Not because Emile Ford and the Checkmates were topping the charts...
View ArticleBYTES FROM THE BIG CONVENTION
Even after five decades of rock & roll, observers of the form can’t make up their minds as to whether or not the classic ‘rock’ guitar is a phallic or a female symbol. This is an intriguing issue,...
View ArticleBytes from the Niggling Insomnia
Right now, amongst other things, I am preparing for a new recording session. And already one of the long-established occupational hazards that goes with the gig has begun to kick in. I’m talking about...
View ArticleHUMAN’S RIGHTS FROM THE BIG APPLE
Once upon a time there was a lawyer, a school master, a mariner, an accountant, a bookmaker, a salesman and a chiropodist. Together they ventured forth into the waters of the North Sea that lapped...
View ArticleBYTES FROM THE INGLORIOUS SUMMER
Autumn in the Big Apple is a true delight, and, quite frankly, the season couldn’t have made its presence any sooner. Summer 2011 dispensed weather extremes of the highest order, to the point where New...
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