2019 was a great year in music, perhaps the greatest since 2018, which, if we all remember was probably up there with 2017. Here’s a round up: First some sad news: Spandau Ballet split up in 2019, which will come… Read More ›
While mixtapes generally went out of fashion with Blind Date, the launch of Channel 4 and, well, the cassette, (does this mean mixtapes will come back into fashion soon? A lot of the albums below were released on cassette), the… Read More ›
It’s a great story. The Woolton Village church fete, on 6th July 1957 is where John’s band The Quarry Men are playing on the back of a truck. Ivan Vaughan introduces his schoolfriend Paul McCartney to his friend and band… Read More ›
Ah, the swinging sixties. If you can remember them, you weren’t there. If you can’t remember them, you may not have been born yet, and thus weren’t there either. So no-one was there. And yet, there they are, the swinging… Read More ›
One of the juiciest new sounds of 2019 comes from quite an unexpected source… Drummer John Stanier used to be in a nineties metal band called Helmet. Remarkably, the name was a blessing, given one alternative band name given serious… Read More ›
How Cher found success despite a disastrous performance in front of Princess Margaret, going to school with rubber bands on her shoes and working for Phil Spector…
Modern life may not be, as Blur would have us believe, rubbish, but it can be confusing. A hundred years ago, if you wanted to blend in to the general throb of your friends at Downton Abbey, you would just… Read More ›
Paul Dickinson was expelled from Oundle boarding school for the amusing yet nauseating reason that he relieved himself into a meal he had prepared for his teachers. The Evil That Men Do may or may not live on and on,… Read More ›
With a thousand music and performing arts festivals reportedly taking place in the U.K. every year you would be forgiven if the annual bash at Chalkwell Park, within touching distance of Southend-on-Sea, had passed you by. But this omission would… Read More ›
The Festival season. While Spanish music fans fret about how to stay hydrated in Barcelona and Portuguese music fans research online reviews of sun hat stores in Lisbon, British music fans research which pop up tents are least likely to… Read More ›
London may have its downsides: traffic jams, crowds, the £10 gin and tonic, but it also has sixty-odd places to buy records. Sixty-odd reasons to put up with the stresses and strains of life in the capital. Even with a… Read More ›
“Goldilox is the song that people just missed out on… one of the greatest songs that I had ever heard”
Pete Paphides never stopped dreaming of owning Ian Broudie’s 2004 solo album on vinyl. His new label, Needle Mythology is re-releasing the “Tales Told” album to address fifteen years of hurt…
Whether we prefer to use Social Media as a way to keep in touch with old friends, to post videos of the funny things our pets do when confronted with green vegetables, or simply for 3am rants about the FBI… Read More ›
We all have our Christmas traditions, whether it’s belting out a heavenly chorus of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” at Midnight Mass or collapsing face-down in shortbread and lager while nurturing simmering resentments about the family on Boxing Day. Not… Read More ›
