album review
NOT FORGOTTEN – DREAD ZEPPELIN – UN-LED-ED
On paper it sounds like a terrible idea, a bunch of stoners playing reggae versions of Led Zeppelin tunes, fronted by an Elvis Presley impersonator. Leaping from your speakers it’s a different matter. The thing is, Dread Zeppelin could really play. They weren’t just playing for laughs either, they were accomplished musicians with a deep …
NOT FORGOTTEN – CUD – ASQUARIUS
Love at first sound, that’s what it was. The riff that literally tumbled out of the speakers and then that voice. I knew I’d accidentally discovered one of music’s great lost groups and they spoke to me in a way that very few bands did. This wasn’t a passing phase or a temporary thing either, …
Not Forgotten – The Bonzo Dog Band – The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse
One of my favourite anecdotes from the history of rock music recalls the Bonzo Dog Band touring the USA in the late 60s and their minibus being stopped by a local Sheriff. The law officer asked if they were carrying any firearms or drugs. When they denied possession of either (preferring alcohol to drugs at …
NOT FORGOTTEN – TORI AMOS – STRANGE LITTLE GIRLS
I must have stood here, staring at my CD collection for half an hour or so. I had known I’d wanted to do an ongoing series of articles for Backseat Mafia that would build up to be an A to Z of unfairly overlooked and forgotten albums through the decades, but I just didn’t have …
NOT FORGOTTEN – PULP – WE LOVE LIFE
Of the Brit-pop bands Pulp were something of an anomaly because they had been around in one form or another since 1978 and had gained acceptance the hard way over fifteen years, rather than being the overnight sensations that so many other big bands of the era were. Jarvis Cocker was a perfect anti-star, a …
NOT FORGOTTEN – JOE COCKER – I CAN STAND A LITTLE RAIN
Throughout my childhood I grew up hearing Joe Cocker due to the fact that my dad is a huge fan of his. Cocker is Sheffield born and while he was attempting to establish a name for himself through the 60s, he lived barely a stones throw away from where my dad was growing up in …
NOT FORGOTTEN – HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT – THIS LEADEN PALL
With references to long distance haulage companies, pear drops and heavy metal groups of the 80s, it’s no surprise that lyrical diversity is a strength of This Leaden Pall. What is perhaps a little more surprising is all these references are squeezed into the opening number… Welcome to the obscure, unique, and yes, occasionally downright …
ALBUM REVIEW – NEKO CASE – THE WORSE THINGS GET, THE HARDER I FIGHT, THE HARDER I FIGHT, THE MORE I LOVE YOU
Its her voice that strikes you at first. It’s a clear voice, an honest voice, a strong voice. A voice that’s compelling whether you like alternative country music or not. The first song I heard her sing was “Margaret Vs. Pauline”, the stunning opener to her gorgeous Fox Confessor Brings the Flood album and since …
Album Review: Justin Currie – Lower Reaches
It’s an inevitable result of the relentless passage of time that our social circles change as we grow older. As jobs evolve into careers and relationships develop into families, your life shuffles into a new shape and you inevitably lose touch with some of the people that, in your younger days, you felt would always …
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 …