New music
Paul Weller, RoundhouseMonday, 19 March 2012
I had a terrible fright last week. While listening to BBC London DJ Robert Elms introduce a track from the new Paul Weller album, Sonik Kicks. What I heard sounded remarkably like Oasis. It seemed that the man who once influenced Noel Gallagher was... Read more... |
CD: John Foxx and the Maths – The Shape of ThingsMonday, 19 March 2012
I decided to listen to the new album by former Ultravox frontman John Foxx on a trip to buy some louvre doors at a branch of Homebase. I thought the journey to the city's edge industrial estate via flyovers and concrete spur roads would provide the... Read more... |
The Outsiders: The Return of Brit-Punk’s First Do-It-Yourself AlbumMonday, 19 March 2012
Manchester’s Buzzcocks were first to hit the seven-inch racks with their Spiral Scratch EP, but south London’s Outsiders were the first punk-era band to make a do-it-yourself album. The Wimbledon trio’s Calling on Youth, released in May 1977, was... Read more... |
50 years of the Rolling StonesSunday, 18 March 2012Activities surrounding the Golden Jubilee of the Rolling Stones will include an officially sanctioned new book of "photographs and ephemera", The Rolling Stones: 50, to be published by Thames & Hudson on 12 July 2012. That date is the 50th... Read more... |
CD: Grimes - VisionsSunday, 18 March 2012
The word “grimes” conjures up images of a Dickensian London underworld, or of tough modern urban music, but Grimes is far, far from these reference points. For starters, she’s from Canada. She also makes music that defies easy categorisation.... Read more... |
theASHtray: Douglas Adams, the petty tyranny of Saul Zaentz Co., and KONY 1987Saturday, 17 March 2012
I spent a fair chunk of last Sunday evening at Douglas Adams' 60th birthday party. This was a bit of a curve ball, not only because I'd never met the author of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - but also because he's been dead for nearly 11... Read more... |
CD: The Shins - Port of MorrowSaturday, 17 March 2012
It’s two songs into Port of Morrow, the Shins’ first album since 2007’s Wincing the Night Away (and the band’s first to be distributed by a major label, Columbia) and it hits me that what I’m hearing isn’t something I’ve heard before. Sure, the... Read more... |
The Searchers: Box Set AnnouncedFriday, 16 March 2012Influential Merseybeat band The Searchers are being given the box set treatment for the first time. Their jangly guitar and folk harmonies were a major component of The Byrds’s sound. Sweets, Spice, Sugar, Pins and Needles: A Compendium of Harmony... Read more... |
BluesFest 2012 announces stellar line-upFriday, 16 March 2012After last year's inaugural Festival, BluesFest 2011 returns to the UK this summer for a 10 day celebration of incredible music. The 2012 festival will increase in size and scale with BluesFest Manchester introduced to complement its southern... Read more... |
Celtic Connections goes (even further) WestFriday, 16 March 2012Celtic Connections – Glasgow’s internationally renowned folk, roots and world music festival – are holding a new two day event in Broadford, Isle of Skye, on March 23 and 24. The headlining artists include The Mavericks’ Raul Malo, Rosanne Cash,... Read more... |
Duke Slammer album announcedFriday, 16 March 2012After a steady flow of tracks on various formats, an album has finally been announced by the London based experimental electronic "chunky wonked funk" project Duke Slammer. The currently untitled album will be released at the beginning of May on the... Read more... |
Tony Benn & Roy Bailey, The Komedia, BrightonThursday, 15 March 2012
In the age of Mumford & Sons we should recall that half a century ago, folk music wasn’t so much acoustic pop as agitprop, staunch leftwing propaganda. Singers such as Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger toured songs rife with witty, angry social... Read more... |
