Quarry St. kids in leather take Hamburg

Creole was sharp but his guitar was acoustic, go Johnny go, use your electric

A proper fairy tale

Although Elvis did meet The Beatles (in August 1965, many years after John was in Hamburg), this photograph is a fake. But it makes you smile doesn't it? Talking about fake photographs, a friend of mine is currently researching the Cotttingley Fairies: now that's an enchanting story. But not content with just turning it into a three minute folk song, PP Woodlands has plans to to take a full blown musical production of 'Away with the Fairies' to the West End later this year. I'm there.

Well starred and signed

PP Woodlands is one of Leeds' finest exports. His songs combine a turn of phrase rooted in West Yorkshire with tunes that get under your skin and stay there. His recorded output, however, was limited to a debut platter from 1971 that should have kept him in hookers and gin without ever picking up a guitar again (Sugarman, anybody?) and a cassette only live album made three years later: Live at The Catweazle caught Woodlands at the peak of his powers. Recorded in front of no more than 100 people, you can hear the effect his songs had on a crowd who knew they were in the presence of a legend. Unfortunately I can no longer play the recording on my trusty Teac tape deck - the ferrous oxide has practically disintegrated.

Instead, I've paid homage to the great man and recorded a lo-fi version of the third track on the album. It's called Love Will and is obviously written about somebody very special in his life.

Sky Ground

A lot of column inches been given over to the highly influential San Francisco music scene of the late 60s and early 70s. Bands like The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane rode a psychedelic wave that would transport them seamlessly from one decade into the next. Others struggled: Fifty Foot Hose and The Chocolate Watch Band might have been tearing up trees in the Fillmore district at the same time as Jerry Garcia, but ran out of gas before they could show their full potential. Likewise the rather aptly named Sky Ground (left) could regularly be seen on the bill at The Bear's Lair, Cinnamon A-Go-Go, Mandrake's and Sugar Hill. Fronted by Phil 'Parsley' Woodlands (originally from Leeds by all accounts) and Berkeley resident Dill Dilbert they never found an audience outside of the Bay Area and sadly folded in 1973. Woodlands and Dilbert did, however, record an EP in the back of a Cantonese restaurant on the corner of Mission & Third a mere two weeks before they disbanded: One Tree was pressed on blue vinyl in a limited run of only 250 - one of the reasons why copies often exchange hands for hundreds of dollars. That and the fact that Carlos Santana plays on it.