Live Review: They Might Be Giants – Leeds Brudenell Social Club, 21 September 2018
Leeds is roughly 3,555 miles away from The Two John’s home district of Brooklyn, but in Leeds Brudenell Social Club this evening, They Might Be Giants are treat as returning heroes from the very moment thy hit the stage. This is TMBG’s second consecutive sold out night at this semi-legendary and utterly no nonsense venue, …
Not Forgotten: Eels – Electro-Shock Blues
Electro-Shock Blues might very well be one of the bravest albums ever released. Although Mark Oliver Everett (a.k.a E) had released a couple of solo albums prior to Eels’ debut, 1996’s Beautiful Freak had the tastemakers throwing about wildly optimistic missives about Eels being the great hope for the future of American rock music. After …
Album Review: Steven Page – Discipline: Heal Thyself, Pt. II
Sometimes the most unexpected thing can catch your attention and send you down an avenue and into a field of knowledge that you ever thought you’d end up in. A few weeks ago I heard the recent Steven Page single “White Noise” for the first time, and I really enjoyed it. Minimal research revealed that …
Not Forgotten: Bruce Springsteen – The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle
Even after four and a half decades, there’s still something oddly lovable about The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. I guess it’s the fact that it really tries to be something we all want it to be. Ultimately though, like anything that tries too hard, it fails to reach the goals it …
Not Forgotten: Mansun – Six
Twenty years later and the shock of hearing Six for the first time still stays with me. I’d already heard the single “Legacy”, which was one of the best things I’d heard in years, and I’d also stumbled across “Television” on a front-of-music-magazine CD and that was a bit weird. Regardless of this, and as …
Album Review: B.C. Camplight – Deportation Blues
Quite why B.C. Camplight’s How to Die in the North didn’t capture the attention of the music buying public is something of a puzzle. Luxuriant in its arrangements, with a firm grasp of arrangements that recalled the classic pop of the past yet sounded utterly contemporary, and with distinct whiff of someone who understood and …
Classic Album: Blondie – Parallel Lines
Having previously transitioned from first-wave punks to the cutting edge of the new wave, their third album, Parallel Lines, found Blondie as an unashamed pop band, a fact underlined by a production job by former glam-rock hit-producer Mike Chapman. It opens with a trio of deserved hit singles, putting on a show of surprising versatility, …
News: Mott the Hoople to release Mental Train (The Island Years 1969-71) six CD box set
The Mental Train’s a rollin’… It’s probably fair to say that Mott the Hoople had a career of two halves. While it took the Bowie-penned to catapult them to commercial success, it is notable that despite the meagre sales of their previous four albums Mott the Hoople had recorded for Island Records, they had earned …
Not Forgotten: XTC – Mummer
1982s English Settlement had achieved a lot for XTC. Their first top ten album was also home to their first top ten single, and they seemed poised to be one of the key acts for the rest of the 80s. Then, with the worst possible timing, Andy Partridge’s long latent fear of live performance came …
Not Forgotten: Neil Young – Tonight’s the Night
The opening title track starts with the saddest piano notes you’ve ever heard, droplets of sorrow falling onto a lake of melancholy, and you quickly start to realise that this isn’t the same Neil Young that sent endless numbers of music fans to sleep with the bland Harvest, this is a Neil Young dealing with …