Where Were You? Independent Music from Leeds 1978-1989 – Cherry Red Records Name a famous band from Leeds? Half a point for Sisters of Mercy (too obvious) one point if you said The Wedding Present or Cud. It gets really tricky after that – I could manage four or five, but then, I am from […]
The Banana Splits were born, predictably, in 1967, perhaps the most important year in the 60s for music, with game-changing releases by The Doors, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Beatles, Small Faces, The Monkees and thousands of others. Neon colours, a logo you could copy onto your pencil case, psychedelia and catchy melodies were rife, […]
The Melvins – At the Stake – The Atlantic Recordings, 1993-1995 Led Zeppelin; Aretha Franklin; The Bee Gees; Foreigner; The Melvins. Of course, this is simply mischief – for every Hall & Oates there was an MC5, but make no mistake, the signing of The Melvins by Atlantic Records did raise eyebrows. In 1993, the […]
In 1984, The New York Times reported on the release of a set of recordings which by any standards were historic. Away from MTV, stadium rock tours, 12″ remixes and Band Aid, seventeen tracks made their way into the public realm, having previously existed scattered across classical collections of choral music, stamped on brittle shellac […]
When choosing a musical instrument to learn to play when the opportunity comes around at school, there are several factors which may influence a child. Primarily, this will be, “What are my mates choosing?” – leading to gaggles of violinists, much to the chagrin of their families. Others may be swayed by the flashy gleam […]
I recently watched ‘Evil Dead Rise‘, a film so bad that I believe I may be the only person outside of cartoons to have had random punctuation spill out of their mouth. Amongst the inexplicable awfulness was a particularly bad score by Stephen McKeon, one so lazy and bereft of invention that I’m amazed anyone […]
The Mad, Sad World of the Boutique Blu-Ray There’s a recently released study which suggests 50% of US vinyl buyers don’t have a turntable to play them on. This study is wheeled out every year, but it’s a fun one that causes much teeth-grinding from many record-playing purists, and a nervous defence from those practising […]
It has been just under 25 years since the band Tad split up. Their final single, ‘Oppenheimer’s Pretty Nightmare‘, was released in 1999, and a collection of latter-day recordings and errant stray tracks, ‘Quick and Dirty‘ appeared in 2018. Since then, Tad (the man) formed the band Hog Molly, releasing one album, ‘Kung-Fu Cocktail Grip‘ […]
By any standards, the last band that you would expect to be still releasing new material in 2023 is Pere Ubu, yet here is their nineteenth long-player, ‘Trouble on Big Beat Street’. Angular, difficult, and not just apathetic to the mainstream but appalled by it, David Thomas and the six musicians accompanying him on these […]
For some time now, my phone’s ringtone has been “Be a Clown” performed by Verne Langdon. There has never been an occasion when my phone has rung and the tune it plays has been appropriate. Not at the doctor’s, at work, at funerals, whilst shopping… it’s guaranteed to provoke weird looks and, for some reason, […]
