#phil mcmullen

[bestreasonstowriterecordreviews]

“...all these sad writers are realising that, whilst the current scene [in 1995] can only reinvent itself, it’s always worth keeping an eye on the originals! And Chapman’s most certainly that.”

(slightly blurry in spots, sorry!) MICHAEL CHAPMAN overview by NIGEL CROSS

PTOLEMAIC TERRASCOPE #19 pages 10 & 11 September 1995 PHIL MCMULLEN, Editor

My Pink Half Of The Drain Pipe was an excellent series by NIGEL CROSS that ran in Ptolemaic Terrascope throughout the 1990s 

Nigel Cross still operates Shagrat Records, which “...was started in 1990 by Nigel..., founding editor of Bucketfull of Brains magazine, for many of the usual reasons that people start their own record labels.”

NEWS from Shagrat Records that folks like  @aquariumdrunkard would be interested in: “December 2018...a New Year - a New Label, and a Martin Stone CD”!

MICHAEL CHAPMAN still walks and performs among us mortals and has an excellent stand alone web site that tells it all

Chapman’s album on VDSQ was one of our Best Reasons To Write Fuckin’ Record Reviews in 2016

The Terrascope online…“Following a brief sojurn overseas, the Ptolemaic Terrascope Magazine ceased publication altogether in 2005.”

Phil McMullen currently operates The Ptolemaic Press, “…a letterpress print establishment, producing works from vintage equipment and metal type…Our primary business is creating the Terrascopædia, a magazine dedicated to underground rock, folk and psychedelic music.  It’s a direct descendant of a commercially printed magazine called the Ptolemaic Terrascope which was published between 1989 and 2004, but it’s also very much a standalone publication. As far as we know it’s the only magazine of its kind in the world.”

DAVID GARDNER Guitar Lessons!

[bestreasonstowriterecordreviews]

“It’s gorgeous stuff, soused in unadulterated 6T’s pop bliss, wayward surf harmonies and dollops of positively uplifting jangle - all wedded together in best bargain basement fashion.”

BIRD NEST ROYS review uncredited, but probably either PHIL MCMULLEN or JON STOREY

BUCKETFULL OF BRAINS Issue 27 page 22 October 1988 JON STOREY, Editor

BUCKETFULL OF BRAINS!

BIRD NEST ROYS’ 1st Album and Whack It All Down 12″ received the deluxe reissue treatment by Captured Tracks in 2013, which included some delicious extras: Me Want Me Get Me Need Me Have Me Love. 

Interested in some 21st century Kiwi Invasion? Check out Melted Ice Cream why doncha? 

[bestreasonstowriterecordreviews]

“...I’m pinning my hopes to this band, I have to admit it.”

WALKING SEEDS review by PHIL MCMULLEN

BUCKETFULL OF BRAINS  Issue 31 1990  (page 26)  JON STOREY, Editor

BUCKETFULL OF BRAINS

Of course, we all know Mr. McMullen from his amazing tenure at PTOLEMAIC TERRASCOPE throughout the 90s and beyond...

WALKING SEEDS were a personal fave of FRR between 1988 and 1992, but it does not seem the adulation McMullen thought they deserved ever came to be... 

[bestreasonstowriterecordreviews]

“Without the techno dabbling it still wouldn’t have been a great record, but it would have been ten times better.” - JOHN PLATT re: the DINOSAURS

BUCKETFULL OF BRAINS Issue #18 February 1989 (page 20) JON STOREY, Editor

BUCKETFULL OF BRAINS

The Dinosaurs are the very same dinosaurs who forced Dinosaur to change their name to Dinosaur, Jr in 1987.

PHILO CALHOUN was a pseudonym for JOHN PLATT. According to Ptolemaic Terrascope’s PHIL MCMULLEN when interviewed in Foxy Digitalis by Nuno Robles, “…of course we must never forget the late John Platt – aka Philo Calhoun in Bucketfull of Brains magazine (most of the time; actually I acted as a ghost-writer on a couple of occasions when he was unable to contribute): John’s ‘Comstock Lode’ magazine was just phenomenal. We all looked up to John. Funnily enough I was talking about this just the other evening with Nigel Cross and Colin Hill. The three of us enjoyed a rare “get-together” at a gig in London recently, and I suggested that someone somewhere really ought to be writing a book about the whole scene before it’s too late. We’ve already lost John Platt – who knows who else will be next? People like Pete Frame and John Platt and John Tobler and Nick Ralph and Brian Hogg (whose ‘Hot Wacks’ fanzine I remember fondly, though I never much rated ‘Strange Things’ magazine that he was associated with briefly later on) – plus of course Nigel and Colin themselves – and I suppose me too now, though I never really like to think of myself as being in the same league as those guys; we’ve produced an incredible body of work between us which has largely never been properly catalogued or documented, and even though many of them are almost household names amongst underground rock fans, nobody really knows who they are or what makes them tick. I think that’s such a shame, y’know?”

John Platt was, according to his discogs entry, a  “…music librarian, archivist and aficionado of the psychedelic music era. Platt became an active librarian in 1970. Between 1977-1982 he published the San Francisco psychedelic scene magazine Comstock Lode. He also wrote and published Yardbirds (1983), London’s Rock Routes (1985) and Disraeli Gears(1998). He married in 1992 and moved to NYC in 1993, where he created the Lincoln Center Cinerock Festival.  Following Platt’s death in 2001 his wife, Marylou Capes, donated The John Platt Collection to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, Inc. on 6th November 2007. The Foundation transferred the collection to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. on March 31, 2011.”

[bestreasonstowriterecordreviews]

“...it’s a good, solid 12-song album with all the guitar effects, harmony parts and mellotron frills you could wish for, but it’s a little short in the songwriting department...one can’t help but think their best is yet to come.”

MARBLE ORCHARD review by PHIL MCMULLEN, Editor

PTOLEMAIC TERRASCOPE VOLUME 3, NUMBER 2 page 38 April 1992

http://www.terrascope.co.uk

[bestreasonstowriterecordreviews]

“The Chills Mk...oh forget it! Andrew Todd, Martin Phillipps, new boy James Stephenson & Justin Harwood.”

New Zealand 1988 ‘roundup’ uncredited, but probably either PHIL MCMULLEN or JON STOREY

BUCKETFULL OF BRAINS Issue 27 page 22 October 1988 JON STOREY, Editor

Invasion Of The Kiwis: BIRD NEST ROYS review: “It’s gorgeous stuff, soused in unadulterated 6T’s pop bliss, wayward surf harmonies and dollops of positively uplifting jangle - all wedded together in best bargain basement fashion.” 

BUCKETFULL OF BRAINS!

[bestreasonstowriterecordreviews]

“The somewhat misleading album title is of course there to help convince some of our more slow-witted Colonial cousins to part with their dollars…The main reason that this album’s worth of (’72) basement recordings is mis-titled, however, is that if Steve can be considered a ‘missing link’ to anyone, that band would have to be the Pink Fairies.”  

STEVE PEREGRINE TOOK review by PHIL MCMULLEN, Editor

PTOLEMAIC TERRASCOPE #19 page 43 September 1995

FRR’s fave band evuh (pretty much): The PINK FAIRIES

SHAGRAT review by either Jimmy Johnson or Byron Coley from page 12 of FORCED EXPOSURE #17 1990:  “Astounding 1970 home demo & acetate recordings…both are incredibly drugged/drunk/smudgy psych.”

The ultimate in Steve Peregrine Took. Seriously: http://www.stevetook.mercurymoon.co.uk/welcome.htmlE

PT #19 donated by Egon Schiele III

[bestreasonstowriterecordreviews]

“These bastards can’t put a foot wrong in my eyes...This band are special, believe me, and this album only serves to confirm their place at the very top of their avant-garden tree.”

PTOLEMAIC TERRASCOPE #19  September 1995 (page 38)

CUL DE SAC review by PHIL MCMULLEN, Editor

CUL DE SAC/GLENN JONES interview from March 1998 (Perfect Sound Forever) 

PT #19 donated by Egon Schiele III