Sunday, October 6, 2024

Come to the Sabbat – Black Widow, knockers and organs

Black Widow – Sabbat Days, The Complete Anthology 1969-1972 It’s perhaps appropriate that the typeface on the cover of this exhaustive boxset covering the career of the notorious Leicester band makes the title look at first glance like it says, “Sabbat Dads”. Predicting both the impossible-to-decipher Satan-obsessed death metal band logos of decades hence, as […]

The Full Frank Sidebottom Musical Experience…It Really Is

Frank Sidebottom – Little Box of Bobbins – Frank’s Fantastic Anthology 1985-1993 It’s a testament to the uniqueness of Chris Sievey‘s glorious creation, that despite his own TV show, guest appearances on countless other programmes, regular attempts at cracking the hit parade, relentless touring, books and a film semi-based on his life starring Hollywood A-listers, […]

The Residents – Demons Dance Alone

The Residents – Demons Dance Alone (pREServed re-issue) I’ve long since lost track of whether these releases are in any sort of order, but let’s at least rejoice that so much time and care has been given to a band’s legacy which could so easily have disappeared into complete obscurity. Of course, we’re still on […]

Ken Nordine – The Voice of God & The Devil

Whilst no one would ever describe him as a singer or actor, Ken Nordine undoubtedly had one of the most incredible voices of the 20th Century. It was a voice of such depth, sonority and gravitas that it kept him in gainful employment over the course of eight decades and allowed him the anonymity many […]

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. […]

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 […]

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. […]