Reissue: Rush – All the World’s a Stage
For all Rush’s reputation as dazzling progressive rockers on their studio albums, they have an enviable parallell reputation as a thunderously hard rocking live act. While their 70s studio albums are heavy on meticulously played brainiac sci-fi / fantasy concepts, their first live offering, All the World’s a Stage, confirmed that when it came to …
Reissue: Rush – 2112
Over the last four decades Rush’s fusion of heavy metal and prog has seen them solidify their position as one of the most consistently popular rock bands on the planet. Their self-titled album had been a collection of straight ahead Led Zeppelin influenced rockers, however the departure of drummer John Rutsey and the recruitment of …
Live Review: Bang Bang Romeo at The Plug, 21 March 2015
It’s been almost a year since I last saw Bang Bang Romeo live. That’s not to say they haven’t been playing the gigs, indeed their multiple appearances at the Tramlines last year made them one of the most talked about acts of the festival, it’s just that the vagaries of my day job and life …
Not Forgotten: David Byrne – Feelings
In retrospect Feelings is probably the last time that David Byrne made a conscious effort to make an album that might sell to an audience beyond his most obsessed fans. Where his previous self titled album had been a mature mix of material with a very definite adult feel about it, Feelings was partly a …
Not Forgotten – The Cult – Electric
The Cult, bless their ridiculous hairstyles, couldn’t have found it easy to follow-up their unexpectedly successful album Love, particularly as it had included one of the key rock songs of the decade, “She Sells Sanctuary”. Although they apparently attempted to make a bigger and better version of their previous album, The Cult got bogged down …
Not Forgotten: Thea Gilmore – Avalanche
It can’t be easy being Thea Gilmore. Widely hailed as one of the best songwriters of her generation, yet receiving almost no radio play and little media coverage. She’s been releasing high quality music now for the last eight years or so, but registers negligible sales. She displays traditional singer-songwriter strengths, but she doesn’t fall …
Not Forgotten: Warren Zevon – Life’ll Kill Ya
It’s tempting to retrospectively view Warren Zevon’s final three albums as a loose trilogy based around the theme of mortality. While the post cancer-diagnosis musings of My Ride’s Here and the acceptance of The Wind can certainly be seen as being directly influenced by the fact that Zevon knew that he was reaching the end …
Album Review: Taylor Locke – Time Stands Still
A few notes of electric piano and semi-distant slide guitar stamps Time Stands Still with the hallmarks of a West Coast album with a whole heap of promise. The opening track of Time Stands Still, “Burbank Woman”, was my first experience of the music of Taylor Locke and by the end of the song, I …
A Beginners Guide to Neil Young
From Beatles and Byrds indebted folk rock with Buffalo Springfield, to guitar-slinging misfit, to singer-songwriter intimacy, to professional misery-guts, to increasingly unpredictable rocker, to still moving elder statesman, Neil Young has done it all and for the newcomer his output has been little more than bewildering. When it comes to picking your way through Young’s …
Not Forgotten – The Music Career of Leonard Nimoy
The sad passing of Leonard Simon Nimoy will inevitably result in many obituaries re-analysing his film career both in front and behind the career. Quite how many of those same obituaries will go into any depth about his five album music career which stretched from 1967 to 1970 remains to be seen. Much like his …