Alan Giles

In Eat to Live Forever with Giles Coren, the food critic takes up three extreme diet regimes in a bid to push the very limits of life expectancy. Giles's search to find a diet which might extend his life comes after his great-grandfather lived to the grand old age of 93. His grandfather passed away aged 76 and his father Alan died aged 69. The Coren men are bucking the global trend of living longer so Giles, now in his mid-forties, wants to find out what he can do to avoid a premature death. In this witty, entertaining and informative documentary, Giles investigates how not to die young with the help of some extreme regimes.

In Eat to Live Forever with Giles Coren, the food critic takes up three extreme diet regimes in a bid to push the very limits of life expectancy. Giles's search to find a diet which might extend his life comes after his great-grandfather lived to the grand old age of 93. His grandfather passed away aged 76 and his father Alan died aged 69. The Coren men are bucking the global trend of living longer so Giles, now in his mid-forties, wants to find out what he can do to avoid a premature death. In this witty, entertaining and informative documentary, Giles investigates how not to die young with the help of some extreme regimes.

Whether you call it a Mississippi saxophone, a tin sandwich, or a harp, the harmonica is an essential blues instrument. This double album features a number of artists who took this simple folk instrument and reinvented it as a wailing instrument, playing the blues-harp sounds we know and love.

Sometimes perfection is a real bore. In an age where karaoke puppets and corporate niche marketing have rubbed any rough edges from our aural diet, it comes as quite a shock to hear stuff like this. For, while most of this material stems from a timeframe and genre that prided itself on its musical ability, it's by no means a smooth and unchallenging ride. Even Richard Madeley's favourite band, the Moody Blues (who provide the title track to this anthology) sound edgy and mysterious to modern ears. And yet it all fell under the banner of the mighty Decca label.

Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the next release in their series of compilations celebrating the so-called “underground” rock music – “Taking Some Time On – Underground Sounds of 1970”, is a 4 CD clamshell boxed set which gathers together over five hours of music from 1970, the first year of a new decade that would see Progressive music in all its forms become a dominating force with the album-buying public. The innocence of psychedelia and the optimism expressed by such vast expressions of the Hippy ideal as the Woodstock Festival in New York State and the Hyde Park Free Festivals of 1969 in London were shattered by the violence of the Altamont Festival in California at the end of the year. As 1970 dawned, a more cynical tone began to appear in the counter-culture which was also reflected in some of the music by “Progressive” artists as some music got heavier or more anarchic. Jazz, blues, hard rock, folk and classical music influences melded together to form a diversity of music among so-called Underground artists, championed by “underground” figures of the day such as John Peel on his BBC Radio One show Top Gear.

Most casual onlookers don't remember it today, but there was a time when Island Records was well known as the home of numerous varieties of music beyond classic reggae and the 1980s work of U2. In fact, from 1967 until the early/mid-'70s, Island was one of the major outlets for progressive and art rock bands in England. The label didn't have much of a presence in the United States until the second half of the 1970s, and many of the groups that it had under contract only released their work through Island in England, with major acts such as Jethro Tull, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer having separate contractual relationships with Warner/Reprise and Atlantic in the United States.