Look. We don’t really have a problem with Craig Nicholls, never did, so there’s really nothing here to apologise for. It was just that there were some bands who came along who were better than The Vines, quite simply. It was good while it lasted. We were both consenting adults and we chose to move on. Who knows, if The Strokes or The Libertines or the Kings Of Leon hadn’t come along we may still be together. We don’t need Continue Reading
Does anyone remember Monty Python leaving out the bit about Jesus Christ in the comedy team’s benchmark movie ‘The Life Of Brian’? No, thought not. Then what possesses legendary studio maverick , Brian Eno to leave out ‘Qur’an’ after complaints from certain quarters of the Muslim far-right that it features soundbites from the Koran? The last time I heard a Muslim taking the moral high ground he was scoffing a bacon butty and looking forward to expressing his joy and Continue Reading
Following up on 2004’s psychedelic ‘Fur’ release, the West Country trio, the Archie Bronson Outfit surface from weeks spent jamming in the damp, sweaty basement of a farmhouse in Wiltshire with fulsome beards, a tireless, pounding 12-bar rhythm section, grit in their teeth, a few scars on their soul and a taste for the dirty, lurid, seedy things in life; the bruised, shredded blues of ‘Cherry Lips’, ‘Kink’ and ‘Dart For My Sweetheart’ marching like an army of dog soldiers Continue Reading
A Bluffer’s Guide to the New Romantics would probably have Japan down as the thinking person’s Duran Duran. For a dizzyingly short spell in the eighties their dark disco, 21st century cheekbones and bemusing song titles (‘Taking Islands in Africa’ anyone?) helped make them, simultaneously, darlings of both the electronic art-house scene and the readers of Smash Hits. A band who always felt uncomfortable with the pop-svengali tactics of manager Simon Napier-Bell (who tried to promote singer David Sylvian as Continue Reading
Sometimes you get something through and not even the outrageous claims of the press-release are likely to lift the oppressive mediocrity of the record that eventually rolls across your ear-drum, so you’ll excuse me if I confess I was in no way phased by the A4 plus-sized plaudits bestowed upon The Trews by their bright and eager press department. I mean, you should have seen what they said about The Delays. And imagine what it was like preparing for take-off Continue Reading
What were you doing at sixteen? Me, I was still trashing the local youth club with an arsenal of ping-pong balls, marker-pens and silly string and bashing out the occasional rhyme on my Les Paul re-production on the rare occasion I wasn’t busy bashing around at something else. Concerns infrequently drifted to serious matters. Spots, mood-swings and making sure I looked good in my ¾-length snow washed stretch jeans, espadrilles and pink t-shirt (always an uphill struggle) was about as Continue Reading
The DFA and their press-folks continue to impress upon us the significance of the DFA. You all should know the name by now. Tim Goldsworthy. James Murphy. Britney. Janet Jackson. Self-contained dance, remix unit based in Manhattan and almost single-handedly responsible for providing the cutting-edge for anything remotely post-punk or Rapture oriented. Well here they are again, this time drawing a big, fat juicy pen mark around their work for leftfield luminaries like Le Tigre, Blues Explosion, Chemical Brothers, Fischerspooner, Continue Reading
Johnny Cash is dead. Long live Johnny Cash. The man’s popularity is as high now as at any point in the past 20 years – yup, it really is still the best career move going. Bit of a fucker that he’s not around to soak it up, but what is his loss is undoubtedly the gain of bands like The Beauty Shop, a gruff Mid-West alt-country trio, who slide snugly into the imprint pressed by this renewed interest and strangely Continue Reading
The last few weeks have seen a good reimagining of what mixtapes are all about. First there was that peerless box of misshapes whittled by Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackey. Next there was Joey Negro’s smooth little trickbag of soul, again for that very same ‘Trip’ series of anthologies. This time around it’s James Holden ‘At The Controls’, a 2 CD collection that flagrantly contradicts his natural pop aesthetic and draws a big, fat stonking highlighter pen around his love Continue Reading
Flaming Lips records always begin with a puff of fairy-dust and a bang. Take the gradual psychedelic bell-ringing delight ‘Abandoned Hospital Ship’ from ‘Clouds Taste Metallic’, the bouncy-rubber robotics of ‘Flight Test’ from ‘Yoshimi…’ and of course the unrivalled ‘Race For The Prize’ from their definitive ‘Soft Bulletin’. But even by those proven standards it feels like they’ve glued their goggles on and taken a calf-crunching run up this time. The ecstatic ‘The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song’ is a teetering Continue Reading