Grant McPhee

Harry Robinson - Pop Music’s Hidden Hero There can’t be many music people with such a richly diverse, highly successful career who remain as little known as Elgin’s Harry Robinson.

Harry Robinson - Pop Music's Hidden Hero (and semi-connect connected diversions)

grantmcphee.substack.com/p/harry-robi...

Transatlantic - Britain's Coolest Forgotten 60s Independent Label Independents and their impresarios like Factory and Tony Wilson, and earlier antecedent cultural visionaries such as Immediate, are rightly revered.

Britain's coolest forgotten 60s independent label - Transatlantic

grantmcphee.substack.com/p/transatlan...

Thanks Allan Glenn for this Record Collector review of Caledonia Screaming. Pick up your copy of Record Collector is got a great best records from Edinburgh list from Allan too.

Caledonian Screaming – Scottish Punk 1976-77 (Pre-order) Published by: Into Books Format: Paperback Pages: 512 Publication: May 2026 ISBN: 9781919424576 Scotland appeared to embrace punk early. The Ramones’ debut album reached Glasgow within days of its US ...

💥 @grantmcphee.bsky.social's new book, Caledonia Screaming, is now available to pre-order. 📚
www.intocreative.co.uk/shop/intoboo...

The Velvet Underground Myth An archive of The Velvet Underground through the press

There were quite a few before this. I've put together an archive from 1965-1993
thevelvetundergroundmyth.com

Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music in the Press Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music in the Press

Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music : The Myth and Contemporary Newspaper Story.

grantmcphee.substack.com/p/lou-reeds-...

The Fake Sex Pistols Poster Why the Yellow Caird Hall 1st December Sex Pistols Poster is a Fake

The Fake Sex Pistols Poster
grantmcphee.substack.com/p/the-fake-s...

Here's a little taster from the Leicester Chronicle, reviewing their first album in 1966.

Haha. All the AI's have my cards marked now!

Thanks Auld Bairn. Love are in the queue and I've been looking at this for a while. They were pretty popular in the UK with Forever Changes charting. I've a few things together - it's just very time consuming trying to sort Love the band from Love the emotion!

Nobody Had SEEN Anything Like Them! The Velvet Underground Myth Nobody Had SEEN Anything Like Them!

The Velvet Underground Myth: Nobody Had SEEN Anything that looked like them before...

grantmcphee.substack.com/p/nobody-had...

Songs They Never Play on the (UK) Radio: Velvet Underground and Nico Songs They Never Play on the (UK) Radio: The Velvet Underground and Nico

Songs They Did Play on the Radio.
The Velvet Underground and Nico on UK radio during 1967. Another investigation.
grantmcphee.substack.com/p/songs-they...

Some wonderment from the good folk at AV-8 Records. Sunstack Jones, Dead Goat and the always fabulous; Edgar Jones. Reviews soon...

It's the only way I can imagine they'd all have got it. It was featured very heavily in the press at the time. Bit weird for the preppy school kid band though

It's very bizarre to read about the alternate reality VU's. There was an Australian band, that high-school band, another US one - a college band who also did 'art happenings', the real VU and the Doug Yule led band with no original members

Sadly it is not THE Velvet Underground. Amazingly there were four Velvet Undergrounds, five if you count the post Lou Reed version. This was a preppy high-school band. Would be interested to know how they chose the name!

School's Out! Big Party with the Velvet Underground - Be Ready For Hours of Fun!

Thanks and hope you enjoy the music!

"Lou Reed - One of the greatest health advocates in rock music".
I'm assuming this was a journalist's joke. It was in an article about fitness and syndicated to about 50 newspapers in 1970. Or that Lou was having a joke with the journalist.
He did become obsessed with keeping fit in the 80s though

That's an excellent fact, Eddie!

Revolutionary Folk From Scotland. Revolutionary Folk from Scotland.

Some Revolutionary Folk From Scotland

grantmcphee.substack.com/p/revolution...

Great band!

Haha. Brilliant!

Thanks Keith Cameron for reviewing Caledonia Screaming. I'd forgotten that story about the Falkirk branch of Boots refusing to develop somebody's photos because they were dressed in punk clothing. crazy! Go out and get a copy of the mag- it's got a big 50th anniversary of punk

The Velvet Underground Popularity Myth Pt.58 - December 1970 The Velvet Underground Popularity Myth Pt.58 - December 1970

The Velvet Underground - Dec 70/Jan 71 and Loaded is released to almost universally strong reviews - plus the addition of their first compilation. The beginning of the VU myth begins here by looking back on itself.

grantmcphee.substack.com/p/the-velvet...
grantmcphee.substack.com/p/the-velvet...

🙏❤️

The Disc Jockey has started to follow Grant McPhee on substack.
Boy, can he write.
I enjoyed his short essay on the genius of Marc Bolan. *
So this is Jeepster on the MB Record Show.
For Grant. And Howlin' Wolf, too.
buff.ly/rb95lKC

* it's here somewhere
buff.ly/s4IXpnz

Aw shucks, thanks for the shout-out, Mickey! Will be something on your wonderful book soon!

Yep, agree on name change. The first post-Morrison Doors album is interesting as, from my understanding anyway, the backing tracks were mostly complete before he popped off. I really think Squeeze would stand well with some of Lou and Cale's minor solo work. It's not brilliant but decent enough

They were named after this album to be fair!