Music
Remembering: Archie Shepp interview, 40 Years on from Attica Blues
Let’s get the background out of the way first. Archie Shepp is a jazz legend. Maybe not one of the big names of jazz, but a browse of the mans discography shows this guy could, and did, mix it with the very best. Born in 1937, his early collaborations included work with Don Cherry, legendary …
Track: Son of Dave – new single and kickstarter campaign
Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable, so said Janis Joplin, before she went ahead and gave her audiences the blues by administering a reportedly strong batch of heroin into her own veins and promptly passing away. But Blues audiences have never really seen anything like Benjamin Darvill, a.k.a. Son of Dave. Although he’s …
Meet: Ranking Roger interview and The Beat’s ‘Wha’ppen reissue’
Following on from the critically acclaimed ‘I Just Can’t Stop It’ released via Demon Records in April earlier this year, Demon Records have released The Beat’s ‘Wha’ppen?’. Recorded from the original cassette tapes, it will be strictly limited to 500 copies and comes with the download card that includes bonus tracks. The Beat’s second album …
News: The Temperance Movement announce European Tour, plus New Album
I used to love the Harlem Globetrotters. I remember growing up they used to occasionally be on World of Sport or Grandstand, one of them anyway. They were cool and funny and had these outrageous skills that (it seemed to me) no other team had, and certainly no-one would attempt in a ‘proper’ game. Along …
New Music: Seawaves – Born To Fly
I’ve just come back off holiday. I went to the little Channel Island of Alderney. It’s this small bit of rock, where everything happens, well, whenever. I sort of love the Island and its charms, but one of the thing i don’t like, even a little bit, is getting there. Firstly, I had to fly …
ALBUM REVIEW: THE POLYPHONIC SPREE – YES, IT’S TRUE
Ten years ago I got hugely into what was being referred to as the ‘Cosmic Americana’ scene, a loose sub-category of American alt-rock that had given us such instant classics as Deserter’s Songs, The Soft Bulletin and The Sophtware Slump. An act I had initially lumped in with the likes of Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips …
Album Review: Medicine – To The Happy Few
When you hear a song like “Long As The Sun” -the opener on Medicine’s excellent new album To The Happy Few– you don’t think that this is a band that has essentially been stored in moth balls for 18 years. You think you’re hearing The Beach Boys ran through the Jesus and Mary Chain warpulator. …
Track: Years & Years – Traps
I reckon pretty much everyone tries a diet at sometime in their life. Whether that’s because they want to get smaller, or more muscle-bound, or fit into a particular dress or something, we all try it. I had a friend, this huge Tuba player we called Tiny, who went on a diet. Cut out all …
See: Walla release new Video for ‘Nature’
So I’m accident prone, what of it? The whole reason I started this….whatever its grown into, is (and you’ll know this story backwards by now if you read Backseat Mafia at all regularly) I fell over, and broke a whole range of things in my left hand. Several months, and several loads of inserted metal …
Album Review: Whirr-Around
Whirr are lumped into that genre we Generation X oldsters affectionately call “shoegaze”. And while some of my favorite music is lumped into this category, I have to say it’s getting used way too much. It’s become this generic term used to describe anyone that looks at the floor more than ten seconds in order …