Music
Album Review: British Sea Power – Machineries of Joy track by track
Have British Sea Power really been around a decade? It doesn’t seem that since, shortly after the release of their second album, Open Season I saw them in London, as support for the much missed (in my house anyway) Electric Soft Parade. They wore odd costumes, paraded around the stage on each-others shoulders, made a …
Album Review: Johnny Hates Jazz – Magnetized
You heard right: Johnny Hates Jazz have a new album out. Radio 2 are playing their new single. It’s technically their third studio album, although only the second with the original singer, Clark Datchler. This time round they’re a two-piece, just Clark and bassist/producer Mike Nocito, returning without drummer Calvin Hayes. The story of JHJ is …
Meet: A Hawk and a Hacksaw, and You have already gone to the Other World
There’s something unique, and beautiful about A Hawk and a Hacksaw. In these days of X-Factor and formulaic unit-obsessed drivel, the Albuquerque, New Mexico duo have furrowed if not a lonely path, then a reasonably empty one. After playing drums in the much missed Natural Milk Hotel, Jeremy Barnes passed through several bands, before travelling …
EP: Blood Sport reveal new EP ø, and download it for free
One of the things about music is it can create mood. You hear a piece of music and at once it can take you back to a moment in your life, or a mood you felt. I’m sure that when I was younger I had break-up songs and stuff like that, but I can’t remember …
Meet: Leeroy Powell a.k.a. Sir Vinyl Instinct, a.k.a. Itchy Pig
I went on a scout camp once, and we had this (how could he be anything other?) slightly crazy scout leader, that wore shorts all the time, and usually a hat, not a scout beret, but instead a sort of Mick ‘Crocodile’ Dundee sort of affair. I prided myself on being one of the least …
Past Lives: April 1st 1983, and the death of Marvin Gaye
In some ways, it was almost seems inevitable. On one hand, one of the best and most successful singers, not only in his illustrious record company, Motowns history, but also in the whole of popular music history. He had been having hits since the 1960’s, his breakthrough chart hit being I heard it through the …
Album Review: The Laurels – Plains
I seem to have been to Australia on a few occasions. Its lovely, and my favourite place has always been Sydney. The capital city always seems to have more things going on, feels more bohemian, seems so much prettier. I walked up to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge one (a difficult task since …
News: Garden Festival and Electric Elephant, Croatia – July 2013
I’ll be flying to the channel Islands this summer. More specifically Alderney, I tend to go there every summer. Let me tell you its a beautiful Island, quaint but with a lot going on, beautiful and remote. But I hate flying, with a passion. The first time I went, in order to avoid these little …
Live: Kodaline – The Leadmill, Sheffield 25.3.2013
I had a hard day, and a cold day, and consequently I was grumpy. Number one, there was over a foot of Snow outside our house and temperatures were below freezing most, if not all, of the day. It was the sort of day when I drove to work and had the heaters blasting out …
Meet: We chat with Mazes ahead of their new album and European tour dates
My mate once won tickets to a band on Manchester’s GLR. That band was Suicidal Tendancies, they of legendary hardcore metal infamy (they were promoting the track ‘Feel like shit, de ja vu, at the time) I sort of knew this, but when I raised this with said mate, he said they were like the …