Recently published photos of Steve McQueen reveal the “King of Cool” to be a vicious vinyl-abusing fan of shag carpeting. Leaving aside the issue of the carpeting, for which he perhaps cannot be blamed, let us dive headlong into the horror. In one particularly gruesome shot (above) McQueen straddles a graveyard of records strewn on the carpet while he looms over his next victim. The experienced music fan will recognize this as a virulent strain of the vinyl-abuser’s sickness; the massacre of innocent vinyl in search of the perfect song (or “side”) to match the mood. Is it so hard…

The Sound Of The City: The Rise Of Rock And Roll Charlie Gillett’s master work. As this post goes to press you could get it used from $4.76 Highly recommended.

We don’t post too many RIPs here, but on trawling the net the other day we came across this oddity from 1996. Alex Chilton, Ben Vaughan and Alan Vega get together for some true spookiness. Hadn’t really occurred to us to post it, but the news of Alex Chilton’s death prompted me to go back to it, It’s a very different sound for him, far removed from the sweet harmonies and jangle we usually associate with him.