It’s largely been down to the shuffling lo-fi imaginations of the US that have provided us with the more alternative and diverse guitar bands of the last 10 years or so: Pavement, the Pixies, Nirvana, the Flaming Lips – the list goes on. We in the UK had the passing phenomenon that was ‘Brit Pop’, of course – but contrary to expectations, it didn’t ‘Live Forever’. And what do we have to show for it? The Albarn ego-mobile that is Continue Reading
Irfan Shah competed with whippet and pidgeon for a bird’s eye view of the firmly Yorkshire Carling Weekend festival in Leeds! Prepare to be ‘spooked’ and ‘twanged’.03/09/2003 Part of the thrill of festivals is knowing that somewhere along the line you’re going to miss good bands – it’s like trying to hit all those pop-up moles with a hammer at the fair – it’s too much, dizzying even, and occasionally you get lost and out of sheer luck stumble into Continue Reading
With a wailing ‘Ba ba ba ba ba bah bah fiiighhurrYEAH’ and a flailng ‘ooo-ooo-ooo-oo-o’ James Berry mops up the dregs spilled by this years’ Reading Festival. Prepare for disappointment. Friday There is a popular phrase, ‘save the best for last’. There’s another, ‘start as you mean to go on’. And then, the slightly lesser known ‘water your audience with PASSIVITY and DISAPPOINTMENT and SHITE from the moment they walk through the gate and siphon off all their enthusiasm before Continue Reading
You have to admit, it’s a fair old pedigree, even if it does lack something in the way of continuity: Andy Chase – member of the band Ivy, co-founder of Stratosphere Sound recording studio, score provider and arranger for movies like Shallow Hal (featuring Jack Black) and There’s Something About Mary, producer to the likes of the Smashing Pumpkins, Divine Comedy and Juliana Hatfield. Unusual? You betcha. And you’ll be pleased to know Mr Chase continues to wrong foot us Continue Reading
There are a couple of things about Stiff Little Fingers that I didn’t know I didn’t know. I didn’t know that their debut album, ‘Inflammable Material’ was the first release on Jeff Travis’s Rough Trade label (and now home to The Strokes, British Sea Power and a host of other new inspirables). I didn’t know that ‘Inflammable Material’ was the very first Independent album ever – ever – to enter the national UK music charts. That’s pretty lax isn’t it? Continue Reading
Whether you like it because it’s swatched in big glittery clouds of kitsch nostalgia and post-modernized up to the nines by actually being on Norman Cook’s increasingly vital Southern Fried Records – or whether you like it simply becasue it’s simply a very good song, Elton’s Johns 1977 ‘Are You Ready For Love?’ looks set to be a stunning hit for the old git regardless. Originally recorded with Thom Bell at the legendary Philadelphia International Studios (famous for the OJs Continue Reading
With a punchy puppet-driven video directed by Alex Moulton of EyeballNYC and Thomas Sontag, Skint release Tiga’s ‘Hot In Herre’ – already having done the rounds as a fairly successful limited edition 12“ Studio !K7 release. So who the hell is he? Montreal’s Tiga sold over 200,000 copies of his remake of Corey Hart’s ’80s cornball classic, “Sunglasses At Night,“ is owner of Turbo Records and has remixed everyone from Bran Van 3000 to Cabaret Voltaire and Felix Da Housecat Continue Reading
Things always seem to ring so very true with Elbow, like their life story’s already worn down the nib of the pen from bolding and underlining every word. You talk of struggles for recognition, that decade-long slog against adversity leading to the overdue release of their sterling debut ‘Asleep In The Back’ has already been well documented. You regularly talk of Second Album Syndrome, having your whole life to collect your thoughts for your first and then being surreptitiously dumped Continue Reading
“This album is a beginning, says Third Eye Blind’s Stephan Jenkins, of Out Of The Vein, the San Francisco quartet’s first new album in over three years. There’s been enough of a break that it isn’t a continuation. We’ve spent some time soul-searching, getting back to the nitty gritty.“ And when he says the ‘nitty gritty’, he really means the ‘nitty gritty’. According to Third Eye Blind writer and producer Stephan Jenkins, ‘Out Of The Vein’ album sessions mark the Continue Reading
Phil Kieran. He Aint Heavy. He’s Ginger. Collaborations with Belfast based Product Deluxe, Slide and BASIC and Kieran’s own club night Sector One (now gone) have seen the mighty ginger swinger played regularly alongside such notables as Richie Hawtin, Umek and Justin Roberston. Still only 25 and he’s released records on everything from Electrix, Mob and Eukabreaks, PIAS, Bugged Out, Turtle Trax and now Skint. So what’s the Irish ‘beat freak’ up to now? Well he’s just released ‘The Bomb’ – Continue Reading