Coffee-Table Notes

Michael Nesmith – Musician, songwriter Born December 30 1942; died December 10, 2021    Michael Nesmith, who has died aged 78, was a guitarist and songwriter who will forever be remembered for The Monkees (1966-1968), the surreal sitcom that featured Nesmith as part of a manufactured band that became a genuine pop sensation. Post Monkees, Nesmith released several albums of under-the-radar country rock as Michael Nesmith & The First National Band. He was a key player too in the development of the music video, and, in 1982, received the first Grammy given to video for his hour-long show, Elephant Parts (1981).    It was The Monkees, however, that first showcased Nesmith’s musical talent for a mass audience. Inspired by the success of The Beatles’ film, A Hard Day’s Night. The Monkees put Nesmith together with Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones and Peter Tork for a series of madcap adventures punctuated by songs penned by some of the Brill Building song factory’s greatest pop hit makers. Hits

Margo Guryan – Singer, songwriter, composer Born September 20,1937; died November 8, 2021    Margo Guryan, who has died aged 84, was a singer and songwriter whose debut album, Take a Picture (1968), disappeared almost immediately after it was released. By rights, the record’s collection of smart, playful and sometimes fragile self-penned songs should have made her a star. Her creations were by turns jauntily soulful and delicately romantic, with occasional psychedelic trappings evoking a sunkissed wooziness that sounded like off-kilter showtunes for the Aquarian age. Her refusal to tour or promote her material, however, saw both Guryan and Take a Picture fade from view.   Only when she started receiving royalty cheques from a Japanese bootleg release of Take a Picture did Guryan become aware of the influence her Beach Boys inspired confections were having among sixties obsessed baroque-pop cognoscenti. Duglas T. Stewart of BMX Bandits was a fan; he tweeted late last week that part of h

Gerald Sinstadt – Sports commentator Born February 19, 1930; died November 10, 2021    Gerald Sinstadt, who has died aged 91, was a sports commentator who rose to prominence in what now looks like a golden age, both of British football and regional independent television. As lead football voice for Granada TV in north west England during the 1970s, Sinstadt saw out many a Saturday afternoon either in Liverpool or Manchester, helming the matches by each of the city’s big teams. He also covered some of the smaller domestic fixtures, as well as international matches, and commentated at four World Cups.   In an era predating the wall- to-wall TV coverage football receives today, Sinstadt stood out, both for his impeccable reporting and for his distinctive and distinguished appearance. As seen in his on camera post match reports, his spectacles, moustache and decidedly non-northern accent gave him the unflappably old school air of a football-obsessed wing commander. He laced his commentarie

Stephen Sondheim – Composer, songwriter Born March 22, 1930; died November 26, 2021   When news broke about Stephen Sondheim’s death aged 91 late last Friday night, my immediate response was to play Tom Waits’ version of Somewhere. A key number from West Side Story (1957), Sondheim’s breakout Broadway show as a lyricist, Somewhere is an emotive hymn to outsiderdom. The song’s teenage protagonists Tony and Maria are determined to rise above the hand-me-down prejudices of their blue-collar backgrounds to build something better.    Somewhere was penned by 26-year-old Sondheim with composer Leonard Bernstein for a book by Arthur Laurents. Two decades after West Side Story premiered, Waits invested Sondheim’s words with an after hours stumblebum melancholy, transcending its source to become a sliver of hope to hold on to in a world of broken dreams.   West Side Story first filtered into my consciousness by way of Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ multiple Oscar winning1961 film version starri

When visitors to the Heart of Hawick arts centre in the Scottish Borders view the fourteen-foot wide Victorian waterwheel spin into life below the glass floor in the former mill’s café, local history will be brought to life several times over.   Waterwheel (2021) is a new permanent installation by filmmaker Andy Mackinnon, which projects archive film footage of Hawick’s annual week-long Common Riding festival onto the wheel. More archive footage of Hawick’s recent past is beamed by three projector onto a series of nine panels on the café floor.   The wheel based part of the installation will see images from the late 1960s depicting the festival’s lead rider, or Cornet, animated in the gold and blue of Hawick’s Common Riding flag. The event and flag were introduced to commemorate the victory of the town’s unmarried men over English raiders in 1514, when the English flag was captured after most of the men of the town had been killed in the Battle of Flodden the previous year.   It was He

Mick Rock – P hotographer Born November 22, 1948; died November 18, 2021   Mick Rock, who has died aged 72, was a photographer who held court at the centre of 1970s rock music culture. His pictures of David Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy  Pop immortalised what Rock called his ‘unholy trinity’, who defined their era of post hippy, pre punk glam.    Rock photographed Bowie through his Ziggy Stardust phase, with his famous shot of Bowie simulating fellatio on Mick Ronson’s guitar attracting attention for both parties. Rock also took the cover image of Reed’s album, Transformer (1972), and Raw Power (1973) by Pop and The Stooges. The pictures were taken when Reed and Pop played London on consecutive nights. As Bowie’s official photographer, Rock took the cover image for Pin Ups (1973), and also directed promo films for The Jean Genie (1972), Space Oddity (1972), and Life on Mars (1973).    Rock had already photographed Syd Barrett for the cover of the former Pink Floyd founder’s debut solo album

Astro – Toaster and MC Born June 24, 1957; died November 6, 2021    Terence Wilson, better known as Astro, who has died aged 64 after a short illness, was a founder member of UB40, the multi-racial group at the forefront of taking British reggae music into the global mainstream. As toaster and MC with the band, Astro was central to the band’s attitude as much as its sound on hits that included Red Red Wine (1983) and I Got You Babe (1985).    On record, Astro gave UB40 its political consciousness, as he rhymed about the everyday racism experienced by his generation. In the live arena, he came to the fore even more, with his charismatic stage presence and garrulous personality holding court over huge audiences as he encouraged them to party.       UB40 formed in 1978, with the group named after the era’s unemployment benefit card, which all eight original members of the band and several million others besides had experienced first hand. Fronted by Ali Campbell, with brother Robin on gui