Monday, April 29, 2024

In Conversation with Allan Crockford

A little while ago I reviewed the new Galileo 7 album, ‘You, Me and Reality’, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was very happy to get a message from Allan Crockford from the band thanking me, though he was intrigued I found it such a positive album considering the subject matter of several of the songs. […]

Aghori – The Cannibal Holy Men of India

On the banks of the Ganges in Northern India, centred around the ancient city of Varanasi, live a sect of Hindus who practice some of the most extreme rituals of any existing religion. The Aghori are devotees of Shiva, sadhu in the extreme, shunning not only conventional ways of life but those well beyond other […]

Hoyt Curtin and his Cartoon Songbook

There’s every chance that if you’re of a certain age, you spent as much time listening to Hoyt Curtin songs as you did by The Beatles. Such were the memorable qualities of Curtin’s works that in any other field he’d doubtless be crushed under a pile of Grammys and hailed as a rival to Lennon, […]

The Galileo 7 – ” You, Me and Reality”

As is required by any band operating out of Kent, England, The Galileo 7 have released a preposterous number of albums and singles. They’re not fiends in the Billy Childish category you understand, but nevertheless, ‘You Me and Reality’ is their eighth (it might be their ninth – they’re that kind of band) long-player in […]

The Lost Glory of Ghost Trains

There are those who gawp open-mouthed at rollercoasters and those who fall to their knees at ghost trains. There is something profoundly alluring and strangely shocking about gazing upon the elaborately decorated exterior of a ghost train, an experience which promises not only the (admittedly restrained) thrill of a rollercoaster but also elements which have […]

Glossolalia – A History of Speaking in Tongues

Glossolalia – derived from two New Testament Greek words: γλῶσσα ‘glossa’ meaning “tongue” or “language” and λαλέω ‘lalien’, “talking”, is the most neglected of all languages, not least as, to all intents and purposes, it’s completely unique every time it rears its head. Most usually associated with ecstatic outbursts from fevered Christians speaking the language […]

God Awful – The Appalling Musical Output of L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard was many things – none of them good, though his musical output is understandably overlooked. Over the course of a handful of albums, Hubbard attempted to combine the ideology and in many cases the direct text from his Scientology teachings, entrancing his devout followers but, thankfully, ignored by pretty much everyone else. […]