New Music Reviews
KT Tunstall, Shepherd's Bush EmpireThursday, 21 October 2010
First up, a confession. I’m one of those who’ve never considered KT Tunstall to be quite the real deal. She’s sometimes described as indie, but I’ve always found her more background music for filling out a tax form to than someone to help you through a lost weekend. On a recent single she sings about being “still a weirdo”, but it comes over to me about as convincingly as Guy Ritchie’s accent. Weirdo? That cutesy Sino-Scottish face and Jimmy Krankie accent are only a curio when stacked up... Read more...
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Brandon Flowers, HMV ForumSunday, 17 October 2010
There was a rumour floating around the packed Forum last night that David Cameron was in the audience. I did not spot him on my way in, but he did choose The Killers' “All These Things That I've Done” as a desert island disc in 2006 and I imagine that, being a man of firm convictions, Brandon Flowers still floats his prime-ministerial boat. Clean living, passionate, nothing too controversial – just like the PM before he pulled the knife out and started plotting to slash away at the country's... Read more... |
Guns N' Roses, O2 ArenaFriday, 15 October 2010
"The Legend of Axl Rose" sounds like the title for a long and fanciful western movie, about a bandit who defies the law and even time itself. In person, wayward vocalist Rose does indeed resemble some kind of picaresque outlaw who rules his own eccentric kingdom, and he lent much-needed gaiety to this sprawling performance by constantly ringing the changes on a huge wardrobe of hats, jackets and multi-coloured T-shirts. Read more... |
a-ha, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Albert HallSaturday, 09 October 2010
Twenty-five years ago, a-ha achieved something unprecedented for a Norwegian band: they entered the British charts. The week of 5 October, 1985 saw “Take On Me” enter the Top 40. Three weeks later it peaked at number two. To mark the anniversary, a-ha have chosen to do two things: embark on a worldwide farewell tour and play a special show at the Royal Albert Hall, running through their debut album, Hunting High and Low, with a full orchestra. Read more... |
Jonathan Richman, Amersham ArmsFriday, 08 October 2010
In 1985 I travelled to Madrid to interview Jonathan Richman. Two questions into our perfectly amicable chat, proceedings assumed pear-shaped proportions. The eccentric musician behind the proto-punk hit "Roadrunner" announced that he did not want to speak any more so that he could preserve his voice for the gig that night. The rest of the interview was conducted by pen on a piece of scrap cardboard. Read more... |
The Jim Jones Revue, The Komedia, BrightonThursday, 07 October 2010
The great music writer Nick Tosches put me onto James Luther Dickinson. In Where Dead Voices Gather, his self-indulgent but fascinating book about the obscure early-20th-century minstrel performer Emmett Miller, Tosches kept touching on Dickinson, a Memphis musician and occasional Rolling Stones sidesman (he played piano on "Wild Horses"). Read more... |
Electronica: BBC Concert Orchestra, Will Gregory Moog Ensemble, Hazlewood, QEHThursday, 07 October 2010
I would call them burglars: musicians from the experimental rock, electronica and sound-art traditions who cross the genre divide, sneak into the world of classical music, pillage its more easily pillaged valuables, thieve its respectability, filch its original ideas, and sprint back breathlessly to their wide-eyed fans to show off this brilliantly clever "new" classical music (much of which is made up of techniques that George Benjamin would have grown out of by the age of six) in double... Read more... |
Tony Allen, BarbicanWednesday, 06 October 2010
Happy Birthday, Tony! Last night the great Nigerian musician celebrated the fact that he has spent 70 years on the planet, with 52 of those years exploring – as no other drummer has explored – the humble kit drum (or drum kit if you prefer). This standard arrangement of bass drum, snare drum, toms, cymbals and percussion has been the engine behind most popular music for only a couple of decades longer than Tony himself has been bashing away at the things for. Read more... |
Ninja Tune XX, Ewer Street CarparkTuesday, 05 October 2010
Its authenticity was helped no end by a torrential downpour leaking through the brickwork and creating puddles in various parts of the uneven floor – and by the rousing mix of hyperkinetic Nineties jungle beats cut up with seemingly humanly impossible dexterity over a dazzlingly crisp soundsystem by Japanese man-machine DJ Kentaro (pictured below) who was playing as we entered. Read more... |
Grinderman, CoronetSaturday, 02 October 2010
A few years ago a friend told me that Brighton resident Nick Cave had been spotted singing "The Wheels on the Bus" at a local nursery. This might have been an apocryphal incident, but it still highlights a predicament of the older rock star. How do you deal with life's quotidian issues – the daily grind – while still rocking out? Cave’s fiendishly simple solution? Ignore the problem and do both, combining school runs by day with explosive gigs like this one last night. Read more... |
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