Category: Music
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Sound of 2014 – Your New Favourite Bands
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Every Record Tells A Story Review of 2013
Christmas. We take time off work, only to be run ragged by excitable children. A time for reflection; to look back at the year just gone and…. “Mum! I’m hungry” “Dad! Can I have some more chocolate?” Ah, daily life might mean you might struggle to reflect on the year just gone, so why not…
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Christmas Gifts For The Music Lover In Your Life
By now, you have probably seen all those other Christmas Gift lists on other sites, telling you that there’s a nice set of headphones for a couple of grand, or an iPod dock for £800. (Who are these people who spend that much at Christmas? And why don’t I know any of them?) It’s enough…
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45 Years Ago Today – The Beatles White Album: But Is It Better As A Single LP?
Today is the 45th anniversary of the release of “The Beatles”, which was released on 22nd November 1968. Today’s news that a track listing has surfaced of The Beatles White Album as a single LP – drawn up collectively by the band in September 1968 – and found in a box of papers once belonging…
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A Quick Look At The 20th MTV EMA Awards
As if the US version wasn’t wonderful enough, Europe decided it wanted its own MTV Music Awards, and tonight was the 20th such occasion. Happily, it promised to feature much less Justin Timberlake than the US version – always a good thing – after he seemed to rather monopolise the VMAs, only to be upstaged…
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Welcome To Classic Rock Readers!
Welcome to Classic Rock Magazine readers! The exciting news this month (well, for me anyway. I don’t know about you. It’s probably not that exciting for you…) is that I was contacted by Classic Rock Magazine who wanted to run a piece I wrote recently – about sexism in rock. After some deep and heavy…
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Video Crimes: Mullets, Masks, Goblins, Silly Trousers and Heavy Rock Videos
Whatever Happened To My Rock n Roll Part 6. I’m putting heavy rock on trial! Have your say! Twenty five years on from the peak of heavy rock’s commercial popularity in 1988, this series asks why heavy rockers no longer dominate the charts and seeks to highlight the crimes that Heavy Rock is accused of,…
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The Beatles: “If Brian Hadn’t Come Along They Were About To Break Up”
Two major books on the story of pop music are released this month. They are like buses. Not because you wait for ages and then two come along at once. No, these two resemble buses in size alone. The books I am referring to are Bob Stanley‘s story of modern pop, “Yeah Yeah Yeah” and…
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Paul McCartney Plays Covent Garden. Best. Busker. Ever.
Friday lunchtimes don’t get much better than today’s. If it wasn’t enough stopping the traffic on Hollywood Boulevard and Times Square, Paul McCartney decided to add the woes of London’s traffic wardens by parking his great big lorry outside the Punch and Judy Tavern in Covent Garden today. “This is a change from the sixties…
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Ten Reasons To Be Glad About Anthrax
First things first, if you are a farmer and are looking for disease control tips, look elsewhere. Wrong site. Not your fault of course. Naming a band after something that is more harmful to dumb animals than the X-Factor audition process is always going to lead to confusion. Exciting news for Anthrax fans in the…
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Jerks, Quirks and Twerks: A Look At MTV’s Video Music Awards
The VMA Music Awards were broadcast on MTV last night, in a rare example of music appearing on MTV. Twenty years ago the artists who cleaned up at the 1993 MTV VMA awards were Pearl Jam, En Vogue, Madonna, Peter Gabriel, Aerosmith, Nirvana, Alice In Chains and R.E.M. That’s a pretty good line up. A…
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Everything You Need To Know About Cassette Store Day
“Music sounds great on cassette. I have a big collection of original albums on cassette from artists like Dylan , The Rolling Stones, The Byrds, MC5 & Suicide. I also have great compilation tapes I made to play on Primal Scream tours. Cassette is a cool medium to listen to music on. Warm and fat.…
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Retro Sounds Records, Newquay, Cornwall
On holiday in Cornwall this year? Let me recommend a second hand record store: Retro Sounds Records is a small but perfectly formed shop just off the high street in Newquay, a minute from the station and rammed with used vinyl of all kinds. I stumbled upon it a couple of weeks ago and thought…
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Ken Dodd’s Dad’s Dog’s Dead – Live Review
Since their appearance on Sounds of 2013, new British band Ken Dodd’s Dad’s Dog’s Dead (or KeDoDaDoDe as fans know them) have built themselves up an enviable live reputation as a new British band that plays live music in front of people. Last night, at Brixton’s legendary Custard Club KeDoDaDoDe impressed a curious crowd right…
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Can You Use Spotify And Still Be An Ethical Music Buyer?
Calls to control a growing internet menace has reached fever pitch this week. “Protect the vulnerable!” goes the cry. It’s a dirty, filthy business everyone is agreed. No, not the government’s crackdown on online pornography, but the far murkier issue of the music industry, and the question as to whether Spotify is its saviour, or…
Every record tells a story 