Music
Discover – Vuvuvultures – Stay Still
I was in hospital this one time, I suppose I would have been about eight at the time, when I was told to stay still. Being in hospital was nothing new – me and my brother had bad asthma and we spent at least a couple of weeks incarcerated every winter. In some ways I …
Meet: Elephant interview
I took my children to Chester Zoo once, and we spent the day looking at the animals. Some we didn’t spend long with – Camels, Zebra’s, even Seals. But Elephants, now there was something different. We watched those incredible beasts for ages, in fact I had to drag them away. There’s something mesmerizing about these …
Preview: Detestival (curated by The Wet Nuns)
For me it wasThe Elephants. It was somewhere in Denmark, and they were Danish. They were (outrageously) below the bill than the band I was in, and so I wandered out to watch them, and was instantly blown away. On my return, the first things I did was buy their album, bang onto everyone I …
Feature: Acid House, 25 (or so) years on, plus playlist
It’s difficult to imagine now. Not since Punk exploded a decade before had there been such an outcry, such a controversy in popular music. Like Punk, it was vilified in the press, accused of dragging ordinary teens into drug culture, and the inevitable casualties of the scene were accentuated for shock effect on front pages …
Past lives: John Lennon assassinated – December 8th, 1980
Its December 8th today, and exactly 32 years ago to the day Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon in the back four times, on the steps of his apartment building, The Dakota in New York. Doctors said no-one could have lived for more than a few minutes with the scale of injuries Lennon sustained, and …
Feature: Label Focus – Blackest Rainbow
It’s funny that one of the best labels distributing Folk, experimental, drone, Japanese alternative, avant garde and general ‘noise’ stuff is Blackest Rainbow records, here in Sheffield. not only that but they are specialists in physical media such as Lp and caught on very early to the resurgence in Cassettes. Of course, you can still download this …
Not Forgotten: Ruthless Rap Assassins – And it wasn’t a dream (+ uk hip-hop doc.)
Formed by future Black Grape MC Kermit (then known as MC Kermit la Freak) in the late 1980’s with brothers Dangerous Hinds and Dangerous C, Manchester’s Ruthless Rap Assassins made two great albums to critical acclaim and mystifying commercial indifference, but had split by the beginning of 1992 The first album produced this killer track …