Giordan's podcast

My pick of the best tracks on the two albums by British band featuring former Jethro Tull bassist Glenn Cornick (yeah, the one who wore/wears the headband). Some excellent playing and a few good riffs.

My favourite three cuts from the 1974 album, the last, by Australia's Lobby Loyde and the Coloured Balls. Despite the title, Heavy Metal Kid, this is not a hard rock album. It's mostly a kind of thrash glam-boogie record that in some respects anticipates punk rock.

The first of a series of podcasts paying tribute to the achievements of Joey Molland, who is the sole surviving member of the classic line-up of Badfinger. A member of the British pop group from late 1969 to late 1974, Liverpool-born Molland contributed a large number of outstanding songs to the band. Although he did not write any of its major hits, his contributions were consistently high quality and often constituted the highlights of albums like Straight Up and Wish You Were Here. This series of podcasts is an attempt to shed more light on a figure who even today has not achieved the recognition he deserves as a British pop icon. This, the first podcast in the series, includes five songs, all of which are sung by Joey:
1. Thoughts Of An Old Man - written by Joey and Gary Walker, taken from the sole LP released by Gary Walker & The Rain, Joey's last band before joining Badfinger in November 1969.
2. Friends Are Hard To Find - a demo recorded shortly after joining Badfinger that remained unreleased until recently.
3. Better Days - the best Joey track from the first Badfinger album No Dice (1970)
4. Suitcase - a track from the second Badfinger album Straight Up (1971)
5. I'd Die Babe - another great Joey track from Straight Up.

After Graham Field left Rare Bird, he formed a short lived band called Fields. Their only album, released in 1971, was patchy, but contained at least four poppier numbers - kind of ELP meets Badfinger - that were a few years ahead of their time. If they had held off releasing an album until they had more material in this vein, I feel sure they would have achieved significant success. This is a compilation of the four tracks I'm talking about.

Christie had one of the biggest pop hits of 1970, Yellow River. The album that featured Yellow River also includes a bunch of other tracks worth listening to. This selection includes Yellow River, the follow-up single San Bernadino, and five other tracks, including my personal favourite, Country Boy, which has a neat riff and some nice production touches. The tracks on the LP fall into two categories, ones like Yellow River obviously inspired by the work of John Fogerty (author of Green River!) and ones that owe most to mid-Beatles period Lennon.

The band's official website is here:
http://www.yellowriver.0catch.com

Breach of Lease, Song for a Brother, A Certain Kind (Soft Machine cover).

Three more outstanding cuts from the first Bloodrock album: Timepiece, Fatback and the enigmatically-titled Melvin Laid An Egg.

A rather good homemade video for Timepiece can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_ls-rprTWc

This new podcast features some of my all-time favourite rock and pop tracks from the late '60s and very early '70's. While the emphasis will fall on tracks that are largely forgotten today or virtually impossible to find, there'll be quite a few minor classics as well. In particular, I'll be featuring tracks from two of the era's most neglected great bands, Badfinger and Bloodrock.

Today's inaugural podcast features Bloodrock's masterpiece, Fantastic Piece of Architecture, from their self-titled debut album of 1970.