indie features
Playlist: Paul Nash, aka North Sea Navigator shares with us his top ten influential tracks
On the cusp of his new album ‘The Memory Clears the Space for What’s Needed’ via Blurred Recordings on 13th April 2018, former Gravenhurst sideman Paul Nash, aka North Sea Navigator recently released the beautiful and brilliant ‘Pure modulations in space and time’ track which peeked our interest, and having heard the album, it’s one …
Soundtrack of our lives: The Fall – Album Definitive Quagmire. In memory of Mark E Smith
I don’t really know why I’m a fan of Mark E Smith and The Fall. Is it the uanabashed Northernness? Is it the mastery of prose? or maybe the fact that he never forgot his roots? I don’t know, but what I do know is that for whatever reason once I’d entered the Wonderful and Frightening …
A buyers’ guide to Flight of the Conchords
I can’t remember the first I became aware of Flight of the Conchords. I had certainly heard of them prior to my friend Mark recommending their TV series to me. Although Mark has always had a good idea of what music and television I would enjoy, it would be a few years until I fully …
Playlist: The Sherlocks pick a tour bus playlist for Backseat Mafia
Sheffield favourites The Sherlocks are heading out on their biggest UK headline tour to date, before heading over to Europe as main support for Liam Gallagher. It follows the recent success of their debut album, ‘Live For The Moment’, which was fawned over in equal measure by press and fans alike. Ahead of the tour …
A buyers’ guide to Kirsty MacColl
Has any songwriter ever been more perfectly human than Kirsty MacColl? Intelligent, witty, wilful, vulnerable, contrary, mind-bogglingly talented, possessing a steely resolve and yet still coming across as approachable and utterly vulnerable, was there any wonder that I was besotted with her back when I was a teenager? Hell, I guess I still am. However, …
Playlist: John Peel Show 26.6.88 tracks
Whatever John Peel show you use, compiling a complete playlist, or even an accurate one, given the breadth of the music chosen, much of it remaining in obscurity, is nigh on impossible. One of the enjoyable things though, it’s – apart from the cross genre breadth that Peel utilised meaning the music jumps from one …
Feature: Kevin Barnes : Of Montreal’s Svengali
I’m sitting in my living room after a couple beers and maybe a shot or two of Johnnie Walker Red and I’m on my second spin of the new Of Montreal long player Innocence Reaches. I’m once again in awe of the mighty and ADD-afflicted Kevin Barnes. This album seems to encapsulate all that is Kevin …
Features: Two Views, Radiohead & Super Furry Animals
3 May 2016 was a day that started out like many others. Then suddenly Radiohead released a new song after years of silence and then it wasn’t. Social Media lost it’s shit, heavy-weight broad sheet newspapers started work on articles about how the return of Radiohead was the return of ‘real’ music and how the …
Soundtrack Of Our Lives: Rowetta from The Happy Mondays
Whether its “twistin’ yer melon” with The Happy Mondays or paying homage to Ian Curtis alongside Peter Hook and the Light, Rowetta is the undisputed Queen of Madchester. A very influential artist in her own right, we wanted to know what songs she loved, the ones that she would say made the Soundtrack of Her …
Feature: Best of 2015: Backseat Mafia staffers pick their favourite gig photos from 2015
Before we start looking forward to 2016 and all that they may bring, Backseat Mafia’s live photographers have been taking a look back at the gigs we covered in 2015 and choosing their own personal favourite photos… STEVE BARNES – DESPERATE JOURNALIST One of our bands of the year, caught them at Crystal Bar during …